The Barker v. Wilson Debate Examined

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I began a series today reviewing portions of Doug Wilson’s debate with Dan Barker from 1997. I know I risk many barbs, slings, and arrows for saying Doug Wilson did a masterful and excellent job in this debate, but facts are facts, and he did. But I am not reviewing Doug’s presentations, as good as they were. I wanted to focus upon Barker’s incredible arguments, and upon the cross-examination periods. That’s what we did today, and may be able to finish upon Thursday.

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence
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Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed
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Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with dr.
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White call now at 602 973 4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is
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James White Hey good morning, welcome to the dividing line not much of a voice this morning.
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I'm afraid I'm gonna have to keep it On the low end if I'm gonna make it through the entire hour, but that's okay.
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We're not feeling too badly Just gotta gotta make the the voice last for the entire hour got that Got that really dry
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Tickling type cough. It seems to come up every spring. I'm not sure what it is It's blooming out there, but I know some of you just got a bunch of snow and everything else
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That's unfortunately is not what we have out here. It's I don't even know what's supposed to be like today It's supposed to be upper 80s 90 somewhere around there
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It's it's pretty warm here in the Valley of the Sun much warmer than it's supposed to be this time of the year so everything's already blooming and I was doing a ride a couple days ago, and I literally had to put my head down and Breathe like I was breathing through a straw while riding because there were so many white flies
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That if I rode normally I would have gotten a huge Amount of protein extra protein.
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Why is it that that bird attacks that camera only during the dividing line? It's it's like it's trying to get in it's sort of like an episode of the birds
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Maybe it's a Mormon bird or something like that. That's trying to get to us. I don't know anyway. I want to start a
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Series I Listened for the first time. I don't know how I missed this
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Maybe just everybody assumed. I knew about it. Maybe everybody else had already listened to it. I don't know but I want to start a series on a debate that I listened to over the past few days while I was riding and It is a debate took place in late 1990s between Dan Barker the
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Head of the freedom from religion foundation a man that I encountered My first encounter with Dan Barker was live in the studio with Tom like us on KFYI radio in Phoenix I might have been 22 maybe 23 some around that age and this is one of the first atheists
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I ever took on was was Dan Barker and So that that in and of itself is gonna be fairly challenging
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But anyway, I could tell you more stories about that but this is a debate between Dan Barker who himself is claims to be a former
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Christian and Was involved in quote -unquote ministry and he wrote musicals and he's an accomplished pianist
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In fact, he he informed me that he had helped to design the computer software that ran the trains for the entire northeastern
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United States and he's he's quite impressed his own intellect, there's no question about that and His opponent was
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Doug Wilson now, I've debated Doug Wilson on a theological issue I listened to this the entirety of this debate and I know there's a lot of folks who would like to have me throw
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Doug Wilson under the bus and Kick him out of the kingdom and assign him to the flames of hell and so on and so forth but the fact the matter is this was a really really well done debate and When you have someone like Dan who is a little bit
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Pleased themself. He's more than happy to blaspheme just for the sake of blaspheming Then it's good to have someone like Doug respond to him who has a real sense of humor and Can come back with with some real zingers that are that really communicate something?
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And so that that was what was I think very useful in that from that perspective but I just thought the debate was very very well done and There are a couple times.
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I was going who Barker's gonna score a point here and then and Doug would come back with an excellent excellent response, and I honestly don't think
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That there's almost anything that Doug Wilson said in this debate that I would not have said In fact,
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I said there are a lot of things I would like to have said if I was smart enough to have thought to said them to say them in a debate like this so but of course in a debate you don't get the opportunity of responding to everything and You in fact you you really have to pick and choose tremendously what you want to respond to and so By playing portions of Barker's material.
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I'm not criticizing Doug Wilson's responses. In fact, I'll be playing Some of the cross -examination. I just thought there was an excellent cross -ex points
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But I just want to bring out some extra things some things beyond that It is interesting to me that I'm listening to Dan Barker saying many the same same things that Bart Ehrman is saying today
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His his book Jesus interrupted arrived yesterday. I was just reading some more Anti -christian blather from there and So it's stuff that we need to be familiar with and so I thought
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I would play some sections of it It's available for download and mp3 format and free from Covenant Media Foundation right now if you go over there and search on it, you can grab the the mp3s of that and so let's go ahead
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I wanted I want to just sort of go through the opening statement and Already Doug has given his
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I'm not gonna be replaying the whole thing He gave a very good opening statement from a presuppositional perspective and now we'll be listening to to Dan Barker This is from the late 90s.
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Actually, I think it was around 97 ish somewhere around that area. I think it's on the website exactly where he was asked to come
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It might have been 96. I think about because they mentioned in the introduction that Dr.
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Bonson had died and The dr. Stein had died and they died within six months of each other late 95 and I think early 96
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So 96 97 somewhere around there. It's been a little while. I hadn't heard it before. I think it's really useful to listen to The You know this type of debate and to take it apart consider some things may provide some extra information
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You wouldn't normally be able to get And these issues remain very relevant today, so let's let's listen
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During my rebuttal time. I will address all of these points that Doug raised, but I can't help remarking that Doug just spent 15 minutes proving what we atheists have known all along that God is a presupposition
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You just Beautifully described the presupposition this position Doug has
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Now let me just mention something I'm gonna be cutting in and out Obviously Doug did not present
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God as a presupposition What he said was that the issue of God's existence will be decided based upon our presuppositions
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There's a major difference between the two There's a major difference between saying God is a presupposition. I'm just simply going to put
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God in there and He is my starting presupposition and saying that apart from God You cannot make sense of anything that you have to have the
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Christian God for anything else to make sense those are not the same Statements, and I did not get the feeling even though I cannot imagine
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Dan Barker would not have listened to the Bonson Stein Debate which would would have been what 12 years old at that point in time somewhere around there, but it's possible.
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You know Maybe didn't I don't know, but he didn't really seem to know exactly what to do with Doug's presentation
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He didn't abandon them is not important once again the the Presuppositionalist Recognizes there is evidence for God.
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He's later gonna misrepresent Doug and say well You don't think there's any evidence for God, and he's gonna say of course There's lots of evidence for God, but what you do with that evidence depends upon the presuppositions you bring to the discussion what your ultimate authorities are and so Dan just did not seem to really have a
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Grasp on this certainly the form of Christianity that he claims to been a part of Would not have given him any type of reformed background whatsoever that leads to I think some of the myths
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Misconceptions on his part Logical arguments and so on He apparently also has abandoned evidence.
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He hasn't given us any evidence for a deity all he has given us is a Presupposition, but I will address that during the rebuttal time the reason
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I don't believe in a god is because there's no evidence But a kiss has traditionally taken now.
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Did you catch that? He's given us no evidence But the reason I believe in God's there is no evidence and of course
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Doug's whole point was as soon as you start talking about evidence. You're going to have start borrowing from my worldview
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Otherwise you're just a bunch of atoms bouncing around and knocking into each other and and there is there's no
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Transcendent meaning there's no purpose words don't have any meaning. There's there's no way of defining anything etc. Etc and He just just runs
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He does a face plant directly into that argumentation right from the beginning as I would imagine
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Doug expected Three approaches we can't do all three tonight The the basic approach of every atheist is to say not that God has been disproved
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But that God has been unproved therefore. I am without theism. I am a theistic
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To be atheistic is like to be a political or amoral doesn't mean you're opposed to those things
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It just means you are simply without a belief in those things Let me ask the question How many people in this room tonight believe in the existence of the
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Norse god Thor anybody out there Now I Don't know if this was being done much before this, but this is really common now
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And you need to be aware of it is very very common for the atheist to argue along these lines and that is well
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We're all atheists. You may have heard the infidel guy using similar type of argumentation
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Right at the beginning of his program. We played his encounter with Bart Ehrman But they want to sort of bring you along as able.
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We're all atheists. The only difference between you and me is that you Reject 99 out of 100 gods.
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I just reject 100 out of 100 gods as if that is the only Worldview difference as if that is that is somehow sufficient to really
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Summarize the massive difference between viewing ourselves as created
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The world is created Positing a a clear and obvious source of the design of the world the design of our lives the complexity of life everything else is the difference between Rejecting 99 out of 100 and rejecting 100 out of 100 that that doesn't even begin to accurately reflect
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The reality the reality is that if you believe that there is one true and eternal God you're going to reject any type of pretension
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To that God ship by something that is less than true deity
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But to say that the atheist is just one step farther than that is to completely misrepresent the point
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There's one in every class How many people here believe in the existence of the
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Egyptian God Osiris millions of people for years believe in that God Any takers on Osiris? No, what about?
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What about Diana? Oh, there's a taker on Osiris. Okay good. What about Diana the Greek goddess
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Diana and you bet any takers? There might be a few goddess. No We could go through a long list of God's Including Allah the
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Islamic God including the God that's in the Christian and Judeo -christian scriptures that Jehovah How many people in this audience believe in the existence of Jehovah are there a few?
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Yeah, okay, I would guess there would be some here in predominantly Christian country the only difference between You and me is that I believe in one less
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God than you do You're all atheists when it comes to somebody else's God you reject the mythological gods of other religions that were held so dearly
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And held so strongly by generations and generations of true devoted believers who had never heard of the
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Hebrew God or Jehovah You know, I the more I think about it the more almost offensive it is that you are all atheists about somebody else's
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God That's not what atheism is now. He's already defined as all pretty much all modern atheists do his soft atheism
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Where I don't deny the existence of God I just don't think the case has been proved a sort of a weak a stronger form of agnosticism trying to get away from having to do what the atheist has to do and that is to bear any kind of Burden for presenting a coherent atheistic worldview.
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They don't want to have to do that They that they recognize that there's that's a dead -end path for them
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And so they try to go around the other direction is in essence what they're doing The Indian tribe that I come from that goes back at least 12 ,000 years worships
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Not Jesus not not Jehovah, but they had a certain nature God religion, which now
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I reject We're all atheists in this room. And I think I think all of us will have to admit in your heart of hearts
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You have to admit this when you're honest with yourself, you know in your heart of hearts that we all live in a completely godless
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Universe it is 100 % natural. There are no artificial additives We live in a universe that is governed strictly by natural laws
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And you know that when you pretend to believe in the God when you presuppose that these scriptures are true and they're not
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You know, you're playing games now now catch catch this kind of pure rhetoric.
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This isn't this isn't debate argumentation upon what basis
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Can he possibly a pretend to know what
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I believe in the sense of well You're pretending, you know in your heart of hearts. There is no God blah blah.
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He's gonna do this all through the debate putting on an air of Certainty and air of knowledge
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And I just wonder how how can he know what's going on in my heart? you know when
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I talk about the fact that he knows God exists and he's suppressing that I at least have a a Foundation upon which to say that I'm saying he's created an image of God God has revealed
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This is the case and therefore I'm saying this but if I'm just you know Random matter and with no transcendent meaning and he has a different nervous system than I do
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Then how can he pretend to know what's in my heart? I don't get that whatsoever. It's pure rhetoric has no meaning as far as a debate meaningful debate is concerned
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You know that in your heart of heart it is we atheists who have the honesty and the courage to admit that the
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Emperor has No clothes We know it and we say it and we're not afraid of it a belief in a
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God turns out to be a huge failure of nerve You can't imagine living in a universe that is random just Adams banging around together.
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But what if that's true? Does that scare you? You can't imagine living in a universe from which there's no external purpose
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You have to find within yourself and you don't trust yourself The minister has spent years telling you that you're rotten that you're damn that you deserving of hell
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The Bible tells you that no one has ever done any one good thing. And so we have this negative self -image
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If there's one thing it is obvious that this the existence of God is not obvious I'm not going to take the approach tonight of showing that there's no evidence.
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Doug has conceded that No, Doug did not concede anything of the kind It reminds me a little bit of debating gerrymatics where you you constantly have to correct
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Just these cheap debating tricks Doug Doug had not conceded anything of that kind His assertion had been that obviously you interpret evidence
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Within a particular presuppositional framework and when you bring certain presuppositions to the table
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Then that allows you to continue to suppress that knowledge, which is right there in front of you to begin with So again
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Either Barker doesn't understand or much more probably And I get a lot of trouble to say this but atheists don't have any reason not to twist the truth.
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I Mean, let's let's face it Well, there's no transcendent ethical Demand upon them that they accurately represent what their opponent is saying
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And so if you if your goal is to attack belief in God Then why should you worry about being accurate in representing what
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Doug Wilson or anybody else is saying so there's there's no the Christian has a
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External reason to himself to be truthful in his representations of others But that's not the case for an atheist also going to avoid showing that all of the traditional arguments have failed.
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They have failed miserably I'm going to take a third approach which gives us atheists something positive to say rather than just spending our lives rebutting
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I'm going to take a positive approach that I expect to Doug to rebut tonight and that is It's an old argument basically, but that is to show that the very concept of God Himself or itself is logically incoherent when
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Doug talks about the training of God of Scripture He's using words but we don't know what it means and we can't know what it means and in fact
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Makes no sense to argue whether or not a God does exist if such a God cannot exist
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God is supposed to be a spirit But what is a spirit the spirit is the thing with no body or brain how can a person not have a physical component?
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We have no experience of any person Without some physical brain or component to it yet Douglas notice.
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This is going to be very very common throughout Dan's comments in his presentation
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Is this idea that if God isn't like us if he does not conform to human categories?
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They just must not exist the very fact that we Say that our personal existence is based upon a much higher existence
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He is the creator We are the created and that while we bear the image of God that does not mean that we somehow are little gods ourselves
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But that we are creatures God is eternal. He's outside the realm of time He's gonna most of his arguments are all going to based on time paradoxes
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That simply don't work for the Christian view of God in the first place and by the way, I should I should mention The thesis of the debate was that the triune
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Christian God of Scripture lives Stopped the triune
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Christian God of Scripture lives and so it wasn't there is a God there is a deity
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Doug Wilson following in the footsteps of Greg Bonson very plainly stated and very clearly presented the idea that he's only going to defend the
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Christian God and not something lesser than that and I appreciated that as well. So this argumentation that he's going to be presenting is very much based upon trying to turn the
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Eternal Christian God into Basically just a large man
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He's going to try to squish him into physical categories and then create paradoxes off off of that And it's a if you're familiar with meaningful theology.
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It doesn't really work very well A being if God is a being must have an identity
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But if God is infinite then he's not a being at all To have an identity means you can be defined but to define something is to limit it, right?
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No, it is not to define something is not to limit it that would be like they'd be like saying well
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God can't exist because If he's light then we can't define darkness or something like that,
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I guess It's difficult for me to understand how someone as intelligent as mr.
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Barker can make this kind of argumentation when it's so obviously fallacious We are not limiting
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God By speaking the truth about God that would require the idea of Unlimited or infinite to meet and to mean incapable of being lied about Which of course does not follow so The the entire assertion is is based upon utter irrationality
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The girl from New Jersey with the red hair who weighs this much, you know, the old guy from New York We limit by defining somebody we limit who you are
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But an infinite being has no limits To have limits to have no limits then is to have no identity at all equivocation obviously taking the idea of Infinite not being limited not by not that doesn't mean no definition
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No identity, but not limited by time or space or you have to define what kind of infinitude we're talking about and then
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Equivocating that over to the idea that oh, well a definition is a limitation therefore it's no longer infinite which is just using one word in multiple ways and it's
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It's really bad argumentation. It Amazes me that someone would get up in public and utilize this at least someone
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With the obvious intelligence that the Dan Barker possesses and you have no identity is not to exist at all
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If God is infinite he has no way of being Described or or defined Think about this.
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My son told me that this argument impressed him. He's in high school if God is eternal
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If God is an infinite being Then there must have been an infinite number of previous thoughts in his mind, right?
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But we know mathematically you can never arrive at infinity so now this is the this is
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One of the theistic proofs turned backwards on itself, but it is of course
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Improperly done and that is what is the component that has been added to this? You see normally what you hear is you hear the theist saying there cannot be an unlimited number of events
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Leading to the events of today. The universe cannot be self -caused. You cannot have infinite regression
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And what's missing here is both the idea of cause and effect which is part and part of the the argumentation provided by theists and The major issue here is no one's going to argue that the created universe exists outside of time
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But the Christian God is the creator of time for Dan Barker The Christian God is always subject to time and therefore he brings that's like I said before he tries to create these paradoxes
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Based upon limiting God to the realm of time But if God actually exists outside the realm of time is the creator of time itself
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Then these types of arguments simply don't work as this argument does not work either If God is an infinite being he must have been thinking fast for an infinite period of time
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Therefore he could never have got to this current thought in his mind He could never have got here could he therefore
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God must have had a beginning This is the Kalam argument turned on his head I know you know that one a lot of theists like to use it to show that the universe had a beginning
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But if so, then so did God you shoot yourself in the foot a being who is eternal Cannot possibly exist cannot possibly have existed for eternity
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Think about this it again all based upon asserting temporality as being
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Not only in essence part of God's being but necessary for God's being is temporality
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Bring him down to the level of creature and then say well It's impossible for a God who is limited like we are to actually be the
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God you're describing which of course is A tautology because we're not saying that he is that and we would agree that if he is just merely an exalted creature subject to Time in that way that he would not exist as we claim that he exists, but we claim that he is eternal
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He's the creator of all things and so the argumentation I'm not sure who he's trying to impress, but it's certainly not the
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Christians in the audience. God is all -knowing Okay, that means he knows everything about the past the present and the future that means he also knows everything about himself
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And to know means what does it mean to know it means to have an internal? Imaging in your mind God supposedly has a mind the
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Bible talks about the mind of God To know means to have an image in your mind. What is the bluebird? I have an image so God knows himself so God must have an image of himself in his mind
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You know or else he wouldn't be God He wouldn't know what he's going to think next right But that image of himself that he has in his mind to be complete must contain the image of himself within his mind also
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On an infinite an infinite God in an all -knowing God cannot exist logically infinity does not exist
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Therefore how in the world can an infinite God keep track of himself keeping track of himself keeping track of himself?
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He would spend all this time remembering all of these things that he did for an eternity He would have no time to do anything as a functional being
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Such a being is not a mind such a being is not a person and if your
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God requires personality your God does not exist Um that just is almost so absurd that it's it's hard to even respond to it evidently the idea is that If you're an infinite being
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Then it's almost like the speed of light idea the closer you get to the speed of light then your mass begins
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Increasing at an exponential rate, that's why most people feel Star Trek could never happen because you know
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You'd not be able to get past warp 1 etc. Etc Evidently the idea is that again trying to limit
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God to just a big creature like men as if somehow our
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Paradigm of knowledge determines God's rather than ours being reflective of a greater creator Again, not dealing with Christian God and not really dealing with Doug's presentation, but just doing what atheists do
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The idea is that the more knowledge you have Then the more you have to know about what you're doing and if you have to have this image in your mind of what you're doing then you have to be constantly keep a track yourself
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And and evidently even though God's infinite his processor can only go so fast I guess is the argument or something like that I don't know about you
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But I just it would have been difficult for me not to have chuckled just a little bit in listening to this kind of Argumentation But I'm calling it the the free will argument for the non -existence of God Yeah, right for this the free will argument for the non -existence of God now
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Doug did an excellent job in taking this apart But I Just have a feeling there are a bunch of Calvinists in the audience.
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Just chuckling going. Yo, dude, we're over on this hill Well over here
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Yeah, I could just I can associate whatever free will means that God has free will I assume that that's part of his he can make choices
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He can change his mind, but to have free will you have to have at least five conditions and maybe more you have to have a
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Desire you have to need or want something You have to have more than one options available to you
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You have to have the ability to choose those options, which means you have the strength you have the skill the know -how you have
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You also have to have reasons you don't just choose willy -nilly you have to have a rational choice for what your free will is exercising
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You also have to have the freedom which means there's a lack of restraints You must you must not be incarcerated or not have some other physical restraint and this is very important in order to have free will
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You can't know the future Okay to have free will you cannot know the future
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Again all of this just projecting from human categories on to God as if somehow
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This kind of self -limitation is is relevant We'll hear how this all works out after we take our break and continue listening to Dan Barker's opening statement from the 1997 debate
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With Doug Wilson, I I got the feeling this debate took place back east somewhere
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Because some comment was made along those lines. I'm not sure exactly what the location was but Doug Wilson Stepped in in essence
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Originally the idea had been to have Greg Bonson involved But of course Greg Bonson passed away and so this is an excellent example of a presuppositional approach
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Doug Wilson versus Dan Barker. We'll be right back BibleWorks 8 is here full of innovative and essential tools.
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Thank you And welcome back to the
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Dividing Line We are listening to the 1997 debate between Dan Barker and Doug Wilson Listening only to portions of it
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Mainly Dan Barker's portions Also going to listen to the Crossex because I thought that went very, very well Indeed But we are listening to Dan Barker's opening statement
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Warning I should have said this before But warning, warning Blasphemy alert Dan Barker does not mind sticking his finger in the eye of any
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Christian in the audience So if you are squeamish about such things You might want to listen to some nice quiet music or something like that To have free will you have to have an uncertainty about the future
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If there is a God who is all -knowing, he knows the future He knows what he is going to do tomorrow at 12 o 'clock He knows if he is going to destroy
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Sodom and Gomorrah Now you have already seen the problem here, right? I mean by definition you have said
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By my definition You cannot have free will if you know the future I know that you believe God knows the future
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Therefore this is my argument against your God You haven't explained why that is You haven't explained anything about the
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Christian perspective of God's timelessness His existence outside the realm of time
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Or how his eternal decree interfaces with time Anything, you have not addressed any of that stuff
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You are just simply making up an argument saying Okay, I am going to define in such a way that God can exist
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That is really all there is to it And the theist is left going I see, okay, well that is deep
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But that is not exactly a meaningful argument He knows how many people it will take before he changes his mind
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So when tomorrow at 12 noon comes Can God change his mind? If he knows in advance what he is going to do tomorrow at 12 noon
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Then he is stuck When 12 noon comes tomorrow he can't change his mind He is determined Basically God is a deterministic being
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If God goes ahead and changes his mind because he is all -powerful Then he didn't know, did he?
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So he can't have a God who is both all -powerful and all -knowing And limited to time as he is attempting to present him
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Which is, of course, the problem Two concepts are mutually exclusive A being like that cannot exist
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If God comes up to 12 noon and he says Well, I have got to choose coffee over tea Because I knew yesterday
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I was going to choose coffee over tea That puts severe limits on his power, doesn't it? He is stuck
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He is more deterministic than any of us might think we are But God also falls on the desire
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To desire is to lack something To desire is to want or to need something To desire is to lack something?
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Why? Why? If we desire to see God glorified
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Does that mean we are somehow lacking something? Again, you just throw it out there As if, well, it is because I say it is
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And that really is what is going to come down to During the cross -acts coming up here When Doug Wilson starts nailing him
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On why he says the things he says It does eventually devolve down to The only thing it can devolve down to for an atheist
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And that is, well, because I say so I am my final ultimate authority And he at least is shown to be consistent at that point
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A perfect being can have no wants, can't it? Can have no lacks To lack something and to admit it
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Is to be vulnerable to not being fulfilled If God has a desire, then He is vulnerable to losing
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And how can a perfect being be vulnerable to losing? So God fails on at least two
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And if we had time, I could show you the other three points Where God probably fails Unless you can salvage those three
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With a better definition of what His spirit is I am going to ask you to define the word spirit by the way
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God cannot have free will Not in the way we understand it If God doesn't have free will,
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He is not a person As we understand the word person to be Therefore, if God has to be a person
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And He has to have free will Then He does not exist He cannot exist That kind of a being fails
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It must be very boring to be a God I mean, think about it You know everything you are going to do, right?
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Now again, you hear that And you go Why even throw that in there?
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And again, it's because Dan likes to tweet Christians He's an apostate And apostates
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He has dedicated his entire life To the justification of his apostasy To his hatred of his quote unquote former faith
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And I don't know what the reasons for all that were It doesn't matter, obviously you and I know He's never been regenerated But that's just the way he is
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And of course the Christian goes You have no concept Of what
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I believe about God If you can say that God is so far beyond What you are shooting at That it's sort of like You know, you're attacking
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His little toe As if somehow you are Cutting down the entirety
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Of the Christian view of God Now sadly, of course We, I guess, have to admit
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On one level That there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians Who are so self -absorbed
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I mean, let's face it Much of what passes for Christianity today Is so focused
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Upon this little God That is up there to do nothing more Than to make your life happy And to give you things
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Then, you know, I suppose It's pretty easy to refute that God And maybe if that's all
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Dan Barker ever had Then he figures that's enough But the God that we can
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Contemplate and ponder about And meditate upon Who is so far beyond these
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Little human categories that he insists upon using This kind of argumentation To someone who holds a meaningful
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Biblical definition of God Really is rather pathetic If God is all powerful and all good
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That being cannot exist This is the traditional argument from evil Just walk into any children's hospital
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Okay, here comes the argument From emotion Here comes the argument from not really
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Being able to define Any of these things, but let's just get the emotions Going and maybe folks won't recognize
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That the arguments I've come up with so far Have been really pitiful And tell me that there's a good God Parents who are praying for these sick children
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Parents who are desperately Hoping that these kids will live With these illnesses Walk in and look around And then say
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That there is a good God in the universe There is not a good God in the universe Everyone knows that Everyone knows that?
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Everyone knows that? Again, this mind reading Debate argumentation
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Is somewhat befuddling Yet we play games Pretending that we know Suppose Suppose you were there
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When the bomber blew up the building In Oklahoma City Now this is an argument
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I remember addressing this And I did a lot with atheism When I was in my early 20's Before I was fully reformed
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That's one of the reasons That people listen to Sometimes will track something down Hey, you weren't really consistent
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Hadn't read Schaeffer or Vantill yet I had to do that At some point in my life
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And yet Even I could see through this Before being fully reformed
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I remember it was Jim Lippard Was this atheist here locally We were doing a radio program
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What station was that? There was one south of Camelback Was KHB?
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Are they still around? I don't think they are Anyway Things have changed a little bit
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We've been doing this program since the 80's You cover a lot of ground Anyhow He was presenting this argument
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And it was about If you pass by a house And the house is You see it's on fire
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And you see through a window A little baby in a crib And you can get to that window And get that baby Would you call someone who doesn't do that morally good?
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And here he's going to use the Oklahoma City thing But Jim Lippard had also made the argument earlier
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That if God was really good And God knows the future And God knew that Hitler was going to do what
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Hitler did Why didn't he just cause Hitler to have a heart attack And die Before Hitler could do the evil that he did
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And I remember looking at Jim Lippard When he made the baby in the house argument
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And saying how do you know that wasn't Hitler How do you know that That was not exactly how
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God was doing that You don't know Making that kind of judgment And trying to second guess the eternal
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God Really doesn't get anywhere Of course it also ignores God's purposes In doing what he does
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But the point is it doesn't accomplish anything So here comes the Oklahoma City bomber Version of the baby
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Seen through the window argument How did you know that this person Maybe it was Timothy McVay or whoever it was
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Suppose you knew You saw the truckload with explosives You saw it
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You knew what was in his mind You watched him assemble the bomb You saw him make the detonator
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Suppose you were standing there beside him And you knew he was about to Detonate that bomb
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And suppose you had the ability to reach out And stop him from doing that Would you
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Without any harm to yourself Would you have stopped it There were children in that daycare Whose parents prayed with them that morning
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There were children in there Little kids, innocent kids Who committed no horrible crimes And didn't deserve to die
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There were children there Whose mom and dad were entrusting them Into the care of God And notice how often
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And of course Doug is going to point this out But notice how often Dan has to borrow our world view
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To argue against it Innocent little children don't deserve to die He has to use
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These moral categories But as Doug is about to demonstrate In the cross -examination He has no basis for this
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It's just what I've decided This is what I feel He has no way of actually establishing this
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In the way that he's using it God protects my child And yet this supposedly all -knowing
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All -caring God that you pretend to love Knew this was going to happen Could have stopped it
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And did it Whatever his reasons are Maybe he has to respect the free will of the bomber
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Which means he respects the free will of the bomber More than he cares about human suffering Or maybe he has some higher purposes
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That we just don't understand Which all that means is that he cares about his own higher agenda Than he does about human suffering
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If he doesn't care about human suffering He's not a good God You or I would have stopped the guy from doing it
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Wouldn't you have? You would have reached out and stopped it to save lives You would have done a good moral thing
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If you were standing there and you could have stopped it You knew it was going to happen And you didn't Then aren't you some kind of an accomplice?
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You could have stopped it You could have stopped the pain You could have stopped the agony But you didn't
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You let it continue on For whatever your holier higher purpose happens to be We know that that kind of a
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God doesn't exist This doesn't by the way rule out The existence of another kind of a God Now wait a minute, we know this?
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He just throws these things out And he does not substantiate them Most of this has been emotion at this point
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He knows that he needs to provide a foundation For why he's saying these things Wilson's going to get to it
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But it still amazes me At the fact that he knows these things But he's still willing to do it
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A God who does exist, who is all powerful And who is all knowing Who doesn't care Who's cruel
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In fact, the God of the Bible Appears to be quite the cruel character
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The God of the Bible Committed mass genocide Whenever a tribe of people
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Offended his vanity They didn't worship him So what does he do? Kill all the children? Kill all the women?
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Here's where, like I said Blasphemy warning Dan Barker hates
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God He knows, it must be rough He's been doing this for a lot of years now To be suppressing the knowledge of God It takes a lot of energy
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He's probably very angry by now It seeps out
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No matter how hard he tries It eventually comes out We know that These people are judged on the basis of their sin
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Not just simply their refusal to worship him But the fact that they Have chosen to worship the creation And they sacrifice their children to idols
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And they engage in all sorts of debauchery And so on and so forth But no, we're just going to, again
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Drag God down from his throne Put him in the human realm And say, well, because he didn't get his ego
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Stroked, and they didn't Worship him, but they chose somebody else To worship, that they then are going to be
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Wiped out He has to know That when he makes that kind of argumentation
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I guess he's just hoping There's just going to be such an emotional, visceral reaction That you won't go
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Hey, dude, I noticed that you are Having to misrepresent what I believe And yet you claim to know it real well
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So, hmm, seems to be an inconsistency there You really aren't trying to win this debate On a meaningful ground, are you?
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Not all the women, save the young virgin girls for yourself He said, you can keep them because they haven't Known a man by sleeping with him
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Save them for yourself, but the rest Kill them all off And you will be very happy This is what this
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God of the Bible says You'll be very happy to take the little babies And dash them against the stones Now this is going to come up a couple times
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And if you're not familiar With Psalm 137 You need to be
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Familiar with Psalm 137 And it's Appropriate context
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Psalm 137 is a very short psalm It says, by the waters of Babylon There we sat down and wept
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And we remembered Zion So these are the captives These are the people who have seen Jerusalem destroyed
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And they have been taken into Captivity And the psalm is a psalm of lament
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And also asking that God Would punish those nations Which assisted in the destruction of Jerusalem For example, verse 7 says
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Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem How they said, lay it bare, lay it bare Down to its foundations
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O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed Blessed shall he be Who repays you with what you have done to us
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Blessed shall he be Who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock Now this is an imprecatory psalm
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It is a psalm of the people Saying that These individuals, the Babylonians, not individuals
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The nation Have engaged in Debauched behavior They had dashed the
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Israelites' children against the rock And this is a prayer That they will receive what they
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Themselves have done It's one of the imprecatory psalms The imprecatory psalms can be a little bit difficult to deal with On various levels
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But it is not a command for someone to go do this It is a pronouncement of blessing Upon those who are used by God To bring judgment against an evil nation
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That's what it's about I guess one minor Problem I had
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With the whole debate is Its actual context never came out Doug's going to respond to it He's going to comment on it
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But it's helpful to actually know What's really going on In the psalm itself
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That's frequently lost Psalm 137 says that The mouth of this God is supposedly all -loving
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His trident and God of scripture One of the most cruel, abhorrent Examples of immorality
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That I can even imagine I wouldn't want a creature like that Living in the same neighborhood with me
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If he does exist, he's cruel But since you require, by definition That the trident and God of scripture is a good
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God Then that God Cannot and does not exist I'd like to divide my response up into two
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And ask some questions In this cross -examination About some of the material Okay, so here goes the cross -examination
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This moves along pretty quickly So you have to listen carefully And I think Doug, again
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Did a masterful job here I won't have to comment nearly as much And my voice is probably appreciative And I'll address some of the rest of it
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In my rebuttal I'd like to ask, I guess first If you have an objection
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To what God said in the psalms When he commanded the Israelites To take the enemies of God And take the babies and dash them against the rock
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Yes, I do, that was immoral That was wrong on objective moral principles So it's wrong to Take an infant's life for any reason
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Well, it's It is wrong to take
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A baby in your hands And pick it up and throw it against the rocks That is wrong, that's what happened there
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Suppose President Clinton approved it Well then that would be wrong, of course To pick up a child and throw it against the rocks
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Okay, now take the same baby, put the baby in the womb Is there an objective Moral Response Is there an objective moral
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Objection To taking the life of an infant Yes, it was born a viable infant
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Yes, there is Are we debating abortion tonight? Well, no, you were objecting to God being pro -choice You introduced
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You introduced the whole subject And you said God can't take the innocent human life But we can, is that the idea?
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Well, regardless of whether You think it's right or wrong Well, if you think it's wrong to commit abortion Then you also have to agree that it's wrong for God to do what he did
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No, I don't grant that You think it was right Well, you put that Go ahead
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Absolutely, I refer back I think it's a legitimate question God said in the scripture
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That the people of God When they were doing this Were blessed when they conquered
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The enemies of God And the one who took the Children of the enemies of God And dashed them on the rock was blessed by God That's in the bible
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And I have no apologies for it And you think that's good morality? You think that's not a cruel thing to do?
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You think that's a good thing to do? God is the definition of good And because God is the definition of good
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Since we begin our reasoning from this position We reason from what God says
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To our morality Now my question for you is If you object to God doing this
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And he is God Then you deny his existence Or deny any satisfactory proof for his existence
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On what possible grounds Can you object To this sort of behavior? Because Physical harm is undesirable
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It hurts The basis of morality is That which causes unnecessary harm
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Is something which we should avoid Inside the womb or out? Either way
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I'm not a woman I'm not going to make that choice But either way Even if I feel that abortion is wrong
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I don't feel it is right for me to impose it on a woman But the nervous system involved The baby who is being slaughtered
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Has a different nervous system than the woman And you've said that pain To innocent human beings is objectionable
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And I want to know why you think it's objectionable Because we are human beings And our nature is that we don't
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We flee from pain And pain is useful to us for survival So pain is by definition something That we want to avoid
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Now I don't know about you But at this point I'm just sitting here going That's all you've got? Is that pain is objectionable?
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That's the basis of morality? How many moral questions have nothing to do with pain at all? It's just what you feel
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Is the only basis for morality There's no transcendent meaning He's going to say that later on There's no transcendent meaning
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It is so absolutely subjective That I couldn't help but think
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This kind of world view Could never provide a foundation For example for the
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United States And the other ally countries For having destroyed Hitler And Nazi Germany They're really
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And I know As soon as you bring up Hitler You've lost the argument The point is it's a historical reality
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That there was a moral component To why there was a war
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And you see what happens In Europe right now Where the European nations
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Are afraid to stand for anything That's true or right Because they can't define anything That's true or right anymore
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They've lost the world view That allows them to do what is right And you see the results
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Morality is basically wrapped up In the avoidance of unnecessary harm Sometimes harm is necessary Sometimes there is a real moral decision
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That comes not from a simplistic list Of do this or don't do this Real moral dilemmas come When you have a conflict of positive values
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It's no big deal to say Should I stab you or shouldn't I? Now let me mention something there
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It bothered me when I heard this He tries to reduce biblical commands To simply a black and white list
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Of do's and don'ts But then he later on is going to say Christians can't agree with one another As to what the
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Bible says Well which one is it? If it's a simplistic list of do's or don'ts There shouldn't be any disagreement
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The fact of the matter is the Bible gives to us Entire principles and we do have to think
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Through how they apply in our modern situation He won't allow the Bible to be what it is But he will try to treat it in different ways
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Depending on which argument he is trying to use Against the existence of God But the big deal is What are the relative merits of the positive values involved?
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So sometimes a surgeon for example Suppose I were to walk up to you with a knife
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And start cutting into your body That would be immoral, unethical I'd probably go to jail for it, right? Unless I was a baby
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To catch that, unless I was a baby And he just skips over that If you had a tumor within you
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That needed to be excised Then this cutting into you would be deemed a good thing It would be causing harm
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But it would be a necessary harm for a greater good So morals are relative Morals are relative to the situation
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And there are situations where A woman may decide for herself That she knows this is not a child offender
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She knows Did you catch that? She knows this is not a child offender Talk about lying through your teeth
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Talk about lying through your teeth Talk about lying through your teeth He must have to repeat that to himself
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Over and over again Just to beat that conscience down into Into the nubbin that it is
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Because that is a lie Every woman knows it's a lie And every husband knows it's a lie
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That's just Talk about perversion Now excuse me
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How many abortions are involved If a woman has six kids? What percentage? I hope you see this
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I mean this is deceit It's dishonest, it's lying And again an atheist has no problem doing it
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Because who cares? Again the disadvantage That the
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Christian is at Because you can't use that kind of argumentation In honor codes Now we'll stop right there
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Did you catch that? Doug's right, I'm satisfied you have not answered this question Because he didn't But listen to the response
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I answered it perfectly The arrogance Is almost insufferable
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But it reflects The atheist who hates God And who is the little creature
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Shaking his fist Up at the mighty God It comes out over and over again So we will continue with the
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Dan Barker And Doug Wilson debate Next time on The Dividing Line Hopefully you're finding it interesting and useful
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And the commentary not too distracting We'll see you next time, God bless Join us again this