Lennox HITCHSLAPPED In Most POPULAR Debate Ever?! | Debate Teacher Reacts

This kind of bad behavior is innate in religion, is part of religion itself, it's not an abuse of it or something undertaken in the name of, it's a direct consequence of the willingness to believe in the supernatural and the willingness to believe in a supernatural dictatorship in particular.

It's bronze age peasant Palestinian superstition.

This kind of evil behavior is not endemic to Christianity, it's endemic in caricatures and perversions of Christianity.

Much of Hitchens' issue is rooted in a thorough misunderstanding of Christianity and the Bible. I have a high view of the man, I just don't think he's debating at all. And I think he knows it. I think he went into these kinds of situations because it was great marketing for his books.

This is one of the most popular debates on YouTube of all time and it's between two powerhouses. On the one side, John Lennox, mathematician, philosopher, and Christian. And on the other side, Christopher Hitchens, author, speaker, and atheist.

Debate Setup and Why This Exchange Matters

But what's really going on in this debate? Why is this really popular? Who really wins in the exchange that we're about to watch? It might not be who you think. We're about to jump in right now. But first, welcome back to Wise Disciple.

My name is Nate, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be. Before I jumped into this ministry full time, I was a debate teacher. And so I look at theology and apologetics debates in order to analyze balls and strikes as I see it.

All right.

Make sure to like, sub, and share this one around, but only if you find it useful.

Amen.

All right.

The Debate Topic and the Opening Q&A on Original Sin

We've got a debate here and it goes back to, I believe, 2009. The topic for the debate was, Is God Great? I hate that title. I just think it's too vague, but nevertheless, here we are. So we're going to immediately jump over to a time of Q &A where the two interlocutors engage each other.

That's about as close to cross-exam as we can get for something like this. So here we go.

One of our guests tonight wants to know if your beef really isn't more with, say, the concept of original sin and universal depravity than it really is with religion in general, that you have a very specific view of what religion is and that's what you have a problem.

With.

Well, yes.

I mean, I think all religions are equally untrue because I don't think there is a supernatural dimension to be appealed to or to be used as an explainer of what we don't currently know about our species or about the cosmos.

You get along much better if you exclude that assumption. And that means you don't empower, if you can exclude it, if you can limit it, if you can limit it to a private belief, a belief people keep in their homes and so forth, which are, of course, more than entitled to do, it means you don't find that you're dealing with a class of witch doctors, mullahs, priests, rabbis, and others who make a living in politics by saying that they have special rights because they're doing God's will, which has been a curse to humanity throughout its entire existence.

And currently, I think, in the form of theocracy and its various bullying threats represents a very direct, immediate threat to the survival of our species. So yes, we'd be better off without it.

If this were a segment of Cross, then Lennox would probably ask the question again, because Hitchens isn't being very clear. The original question was, isn't it true that your real beef is with the doctrine of original sin and total depravity?

You know, this is probably a way of asking whether or not Hitchens is merely railing against Calvinism, which is one interpretation of the Bible. But others exist, such that if Calvinism were not true, then Hitchens would perhaps not have a problem with Christianity.

That's actually a great question, because from my perspective, much of Hitchens' issue is rooted in a thorough misunderstanding of Christianity and the Bible. But it's unclear what he's answering. So at first he said yes, which was to suggest that his problem was with original sin and total depravity.

But then he fell back to his talking points about how he doesn't believe in the supernatural realm and the world's better off without religion, which is not what the questioner was asking. Unless Hitchens meant to say something like, well, no, my problem is not with original sin and total depravity, and the vitriol that I have against the God of the Bible is simply explained by the fact that I don't buy any of it in the first place.

But that's not exactly what he said. Let's see how Lennox responds.

Would you like to respond to that, John?

Sorry, I missed the thing exactly that I need to respond to.

Okay, that's all right. I guess the—.

You mean we'd be better off without the doctrine of original sin?

Perhaps—.

No, the question, John, was to say, obviously, that wasn't my main objection. My main objection was to religion itself. And by the way, now you prompt me, I meant to say I never said or meant to say that I attacked bad behavior that was undertaken or embarked upon in the name of, as you put it, religion.

I think you were trying to be generous to me. I do insist that this kind of bad behavior is innate in religion, is part of religion.

Itself.

It's not an abuse of it or something undertaken in the name of. It's a direct consequence of the willingness to believe in the supernatural and the willingness to believe in a supernatural dictatorship in particular.

So I've looked at Hitchens' debates in the past. So if you want to, you can go back and see more of this. I actually was a fan of Hitchens, his writing. Actually, I still have some of his books in my library, you know.

I met Hitchens briefly at a casino in Las Vegas. It was actually a silly story. But the point is, I have a high view of the man. I just don't think he's debating at all. And I think he knows it. I think he went into these kinds of situations because it was great marketing for his books.

It actually gave him a platform to polemicize against religion. And that's pretty much it. That's why I think he got up and, quote unquote, debated Christians, but he didn't really debate on substance.

What he did, and this right here is a great example of this, you know, what he just said a second ago, is he essentially reframes the discussion around whatever he wants to say in that moment, you know.

And then he just keeps doing that over and over again in clever British ways, you know. The problem with that is, it's not debating. But also, actually, it ends up reducing the content of Hitchens' speeches down to a series of claims, primarily.

Maybe every now and then he throws in some data, but primarily he just makes a bunch of claims up there. And the claims fit his narrative. And guess what? The narrative is very compelling, because he's an intelligent and erudite individual, and that affords him the authority to speak to people.

But if you remember that, on the debate stage, there are three components to an argument, and I've talked about this in previous videos, right? We follow the Tolman model of argumentation. Then you see that, wait a second, Hitchens isn't making full arguments.

Not really. And I think he knows that.

Christian Nonviolence and Jesus’ Teaching on the Sword

I think that is the case in some situations, and it is the case with some people who've named the name of Christ. But what I notice here is this, that Christ forbade that kind of behavior. He told his followers not to take up the sword.

Why?

Because his kingdom was not of this world. So people who behave like that in the name of Christ aren't followers of Christ, they're disobeying him. And I would want to argue that as we look at his character and his attitude, this kind of evil behavior is not endemic to Christianity.

It's endemic in caricatures and perversions of Christianity.

See this is what I mean. The original question had nothing to do with this. And like I said, I mean, if this were a formal cross, it would be appropriate to bring your opponent back to the original question and either ask it again or move on to another question.

Now, they're talking about whether or not Christianity leads to violence, which is a really stupid argument to make. No offense to atheists, but I mean, you have two ways to make this case. One is through the consistent teaching and example of Jesus Christ, as well as the consistent teaching and example of Christ's church.

But both categories undermine the point that Hitchens is trying to make. So in other words, both Jesus' explicit teaching and his example by going to death, walking, picking up his own cross and going to die.

It proves that Christians are taught not to be violent. That's why the history of the church displays scores of Christians who decided that they would rather be thrown to the lions in the Colosseum instead of putting up arms in defense.

And that's why I think Hitchens should have abandoned his polemic against religion broadly and just focus more on Islam. He would have had better footing to further his position.

Okay.

That's too easy. I mean, where, for example, where is it not written that I come not to bring a peace but a sword? Surely it is. Is it not written that those who won't follow me must depart and be cast into everlasting.

Fire?

Not a very gentle or pacific remark. Is it not said that if you don't give up your family, if you don't give up thrift, if you don't give up everyone who loves you and everything you love to sacrifice yourself for me, you're not worthy.

These are strongly coercive and implicitly authoritarian or even totalitarian statements. And as C .S. Lewis rightly says, it's one of the very rare occasions where I agree with.

Him.

He said, you may not say that the preachments of Jesus of Nazareth are all right, even if you don't accept the religious basis of them. Lewis quite correctly says, if you don't accept that this man was the son of God, you'll have to notice that many of his statements and sermons are either wicked or insane or both.

It's only on the belief that the world is very soon coming to an end and that he himself has the right to claim a messianic role in this conclusion that any of it can make any sort of sense at all. And everyone here knows at least some of the examples of what would be counted as wicked or insane if the messianic claims were found to be questionable, which they have been.

Using the Bible Against a Christian Opponent

So let's talk about what Hitchens did there, which was advantageous for him. Hitchens knows the Bible well enough to quote Jesus in ways that favor his position. So set aside for a moment the fact that there's huge problems with his interpretation of scripture.

Hitchens cited an authoritative text against his opponent who holds to the same authoritative text. That's a good thing. Are you someone who wants to get into debate yourself? Pay attention to what Hitchens just did.

So in other words, what he did not do was merely relegate his position to subjectivity or to even sources of authority that don't apply to his opponent. He's using the Bible against a Christian. That's what a secular debate opponent should do with a debate along these lines.

By the way, Christians should do the same thing with atheists. If they can, they should find sources of authority that an atheist would accept and use those against them. So William Lane Craig does this well.

Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy does this well. You should too. OK, now here's the problem. Hitchens is a horrible exegete. So hopefully Lennox knows this, knows his Bible better than the average Christian bear, and he can challenge Hitchens here.

I want to question that very seriously because, as I said, Christ forbade the use of the literal sword. So when he said, I came not to bring peace in a sword, we can see exactly what that means. By the fact that he has, his message results in a division in society.

That is, I have got to, I've got the choice to decide for him or against him, and he will honor that choice whichever way it goes. The one sword he didn't come to bring was the physical sword, because when one of his disciples used it to cut the ear off somebody, Christ put the ear back on.

So they say.

OK, well.

Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. See, Lennox, you can see the gears turning, right? So you can tell he wanted to end that statement with, and Christ put the ear back on, right? So Lennox is seeking to be memorable while at the same time providing a sufficient rejoinder.

I mean, if Hitchens is going to be memorable, then Lennox should be as well. Which by the way, it's difficult to call here because this isn't a formal cross. But if you asked me, like, who's doing a better job, like right now on the stage at this moment, I would say it's Lennox.

Because while Hitchens is the master of framing things advantageously and being incredibly rhetorically persuasive, I don't think anybody would argue with that. He's trying to make points that cannot be justified on an objective reading of Jesus, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that he just tried to use Jesus against his Christian opponent.

And I think that he would do better to take a different approach, and he probably will, but let's see how this plays out.

Evidence for God and the Question of Jehovah

The so they say comment may segue into the next question. This one's for Professor Lennox. One of our audience members wants to know, if you're correct about there being a deity, he wants to know, or she wants to know, why Jehovah?

Why not Osiris? Why not Buddha? Why, in the words of one of our guests here, why is one myth or folktale more true than another?

Well, first of all, I don't think they're all myths. I think there are many myths around in the world, and certainly the question is an important question because it makes the distinction between the kind of deism or even theism that responds to the design in the universe and so on and says, why this one God?

My answer to that, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple. I have to decide that like I decide everything else on the basis of the evidence, and the evidence in the case of the life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ has convinced me that he is God incarnate.

So I base my faith on that evidence, and, of course, each one of us must make up our own mind. Now, if we had time, I could explain that evidence in detail, but the point of the question is how could we decide?

We have to decide on the basis of evidence, just as people who take the atheist view, they think the evidence points that way, and, mercifully, we're still a free enough society that we can make these decisions, but we must make them personally, okay?

Solid answer, right? Why in Jehovah, okay? Because of the evidence. Pitches the ball back to Hitchens for his own response. This is pretty good. Hitchens most likely will hit back on the idea that there is such a thing as evidence for the Christian God.

I mean, that's, well, who knows? Let's see what he does.

Christopher, would you like to respond to that?

Well, you'll have noticed that there are many moments in the New Testament Gospels. One of them I'll take for the simple reason that it's easy to remember, that the Messiah will come to Jerusalem riding an ass or a donkey.

There are many others, including what town he'll be born in and so forth, where it says in the text, and this was done so that the prophecy should be fulfilled, that it should be done, because they knew what the prophecies were.

A virgin will conceive, for example, is another one, though the word in Hebrew, Alma, actually just means marriageable young woman, doesn't mean unpenetrated young female at all. But it's all reverse engineering.

It says right there in the text, we're telling you this happened because that would mean that the prophecies had come true. So I think you might suspect a little, mightn't you? Someone who's telling you literally, as they're going along, why they're telling you this so that the conditions of prophecy fulfillment can be met.

But there's a much graver problem even than that naivete.

Don't know what the point of that type of response is. It certainly does not rise to meet the challenge that Lennox has offered. Lennox mentioned evidence, okay, presumably he means the evidence for the existence of God as well as the historicity of the scripture, right?

What he likely is not referring to is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. And yet that's precisely what Hitchens wants to talk about. You see what I mean? Hitchens is a master of reframing the discussion around whatever it is that he wants to talk about in that moment.

If you go up against someone like this on the debate stage, don't let your opponent do that. And for Hitchens, you know, it's all good because it's all essentially a polemic against Christianity anyway, right?

Which in a way is advantageous for Hitchens.

Why?

Well, because if you're not prepared for this kind of a thing, it throws you off as an opponent. Has that ever happened to you before? You say one thing as a Christian and you expect a response about that one thing, but the person that you're engaging isn't about that one thing.

They're way over here talking about whatever they want. And so not only is your original point left unresolved, but now all these new issues, they get brought up that also potentially will get left unresolved, right?

This provides an advantage to someone like Hitchens, as well as a disadvantage to someone like you, if you don't understand what's really happening. So, so let's, let's go back over it because I think it's helpful.

Here's what really happened, okay? Hitchens was asked about the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. Then he started talking about how religion is bad for the world. And then he brought up how Jesus makes you violent, essentially.

Lennox pushed back on this notion of Jesus being violent and teaching violence. Then they move on to how Lennox knows that Jehovah is the true God. Lennox says it's the evidence, guys. Hitchens is now calling into question the fulfillment of prophecy about Jesus Christ.

You see what I mean? A lot of people find Hitchens to be compelling, but the point is it's not because of substance. It's because of rhetoric. He's one of the best rhetoricians that I've ever seen. He's definitely a walking advertisement for leveling up your skills of rhetoric, you know?

By the way, is this interesting to you at all? I'm just breaking down the debate, right? It's hard because this is not formal cross, so I'm just riffing, but I don't know. Let's see what happens next.

Prophecy, Jewish Authority, and the Charge of Bronze Age Superstition

Which is that these prophecies are of a Jewish Messiah to come. And the Jewish religious authorities of the time considered, and who were the nearest, much closer to being eyewitnesses if the story is true at all, much closer than the authors of any of the gospels.

They were the people who were the religious authority in the area. He was a member, if he existed, of their congregation. They thought he was the sorcerer and a fraud and an imposter and convicted him of blasphemy because though he in fact never said that he was God, I don't think, I mean, there are some Christians I know who do say that Jesus is God.

There are some who say he only claimed to be the son of. The critical question is, he's asked, art thou the Christ, are you the Messiah? And he gives a slightly evasive answer at this point, but it's enough to make the Sanhedrin rend its garments.

So all you're seeing in this tale, if it be true at all, if it have any truth to it, is the origin of Jewish-Christian fratricide. Of the Jews who have nurtured the idea of prophecy and the Messiah through their prophets for generations who believe the Messiah has not yet even considered deigning showing up and those who tell the Jews, why are you wasting your time?

The good news has already happened. Why don't you just get with the program? I submit that neither of these propositions is worthy of the consideration of an intelligent or educated human being. It's bronze age peasant Palestinian superstition and the competition over it and interpretations over it have made humanity's life even more miserable than it was going to be otherwise.

So now you have a choice as the Christian opponent to Christopher Hitchens. You either go down this rabbit trail that he has carefully crafted, which is about whether or not Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, or you stay with the original question, which was about how to know whether Jehovah is the true God.

You see what I mean? If you go after Hitchens, then you drop the thread of the original question. If you stay on the original question, well, then you leave this new thread that Hitchens has introduced and it remains unresolved.

This gives Hitchens rhetorical advantage either way, but really it provides no substantive response to Lennox. That's why Hitchens loses every debate, just about every debate that he enters into with a Christian.

While at the same time, many people in the audience think that he wins, which by the way, don't get the wrong idea. If you're a first time watcher to this particular series, Christians lose too guys. Okay.

And I've called them when I see it, but I'm talking about Hitchens and his particular methodology, his style. And this debate is really no different. You know, I've got a few, a few more minutes here and then we're going to close.

Dr. Lennox has a response.

And in the third form of plagiarism that it takes, which is the plagiarism of Islam from both Judaism and Christianity, the competition between monotheism has become really outright menacing. And the real responsibility of citizens is to, is to hold it down, is to resist theocratic bullying and the superstitions that underlie it.

I want to move on to another question, but I'll just give you just a few seconds to respond very briefly to that.

Well, if you're going to call it Bronze Age superstition, you'd be better to get it right because one of your statements there is just false. Jesus claimed to be God and they stoned him. Why did they stone him?

Because you being a man, make yourself God. The notion that he never claimed to be God is simply false. And you say prophecy is irrelevant and superstition and all of that. One of the things that I find very interesting about the Christian faith is it's not a mere philosophy.

It's geared into history. And when Jesus came, there were various things that were predicted. He fulfilled them. But the biggest of all was the fact that he fulfilled ideas that had been current in Israel for centuries, that someday there would become a person who would die for his people's sins.

Now, that is a huge thing, of course. And it seems to me...

Isaiah 53, right? Zechariah 12, you know, he was crushed for our iniquities. They looked on him whom they have pierced and they mourned. And by his wounds, we are healed, right? Christians argue that Jesus is the biblical fulfillment of Isaiah 53, you know, of these kinds of passages.

Now, a lot of people don't understand Bible prophecy, but that's not the point. Lennox is reframing the issue to his advantage, right? If Hitchens can do it, then Lennox can do it too, right? And that is Jesus is not only the fulfillment of prophecy, but much of the Bible itself is written as an historical account that can be verified evidentially.

Those prophecies, when they are fulfilled, provide part of the evidence that this thing is much bigger than some little local thing happening in Palestine, although it happened there, but is geared into a whole revelation through history itself.

So I don't find it a product of bronze age superstition. They were not superstitious in any more sense. For example, when he mentioned the virginal conception of Christ, if I may just say a word about that, that when Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, he didn't suddenly believe in a miracle.

He wanted a divorce, or why? Because he knew exactly as we do where babies come from. He wasn't stupid, nor was he pre-scientific, and it took a lot of convincing for him to accept what I believe to be the true solution, that this was a unique miracle of God encoding himself into humanity.

Okay.

So...

Will you promise to do it quickly?

So if your wife is pregnant and you know it's not you, the only alternative is that it's the Holy Spirit.

That's a false...

David Hume deals... David Hume...

That's a good line, you know? It's memorable. Utterly ignorant and completely removed from a true characterization of the biblical account, but to Hitchens, that doesn't matter. I mean, it's memorable.

And people are going to... They're going to remember that as they walk out of there that evening, right? That's what I mean. This is what Hitchens is good at. I think they called these hitch slaps, you know, or something, right?

I mean, to me, these are Twinkies, or, you know, they're like rom-coms, you know? They look good. They seem solid, but when you get into them, they're filled with nothing of substance. You know what I mean?

So...

Hitchens is a rom-com, yep. That's a thing that I just said.

He deals with this quite well. He says, in the case of the laws of nature being suspended, you have to ask yourself, have they been suspended in my favor, or am I possibly under a misapprehension? I think it's Thomas Paine who asks, which is more likely, that the laws of nature are suspended, or that a Jewish girl should tell a fib?

We have to grow up out of this stuff, you know? Now, your problem, Dr. Lennox, John, if I may say so, is not with me. Your problem is with Monsignor Ronald Knox, one of the greatest Christian apologists, first an Anglican, then an Anglo-Catholic, then finally a Roman Catholic, who, in his book of apologetics, very directly says, Jesus of Nazareth never claimed to be God.

It's not my problem. He claimed sometimes to be the Son, or let people run away with that idea, and to Jews he was asked, when he was asked the direct question, are you the expected one, the awaited one, the one we want, the Messiah?

He gave a slightly evasive, but they thought profane answer. Now, my account of this is correct, I'm sorry to say.

That's good. That's probably the best response that I've seen Hitchens give in this entire exchange. The problem is, he's zoomed in to answer one ancillary thread that he created that had nothing to do with any of the original questions that were presented, and it's, you know, it's also certainly not free of controversy, because I can name you 10 biblical scholars off the top of my head who disagree with Knox, the one scholar that Hitchens reached for.

But these are good moments, rhetorically speaking for Hitchens. What is better to believe, that the laws of nature were suspended, or that a Jewish girl told a fib? You know, and like I said, those are the moments that people are going to remember, more so than the fact that Hitchens had no significant response to Lennox's original point about evidence.

More so than the fact that he was originally challenged about the fulfillment of prophecy, and then he simply resorted to incredulous and sarcastic statements to get some zingers in.

Right?

Closing Appeal for Christian Debate Training and Final Verdict

All right, look, I've seen enough. Do you want to be like John Lennox? Do you want to be maybe the best parts of Christopher Hitchens, but then also substantive as well? Listen to me. Listen to me. I've just completed filming for my brand new debate series.

It's currently being edited. It's going to come out very soon. I'll make that announcement. So I encourage you to, you know, when I announce that it's live, that you avail yourself of the training. Imagine what we can look like as a Christian community that not only strongly believes in our convictions, but can winsomely and effectively communicate those same convictions, whether on a debate stage or one-on-one in personal conversations.

Amen? So stay tuned. I'm going to make the announcement shortly and then go check it out. I encourage you to. All right, look, I think that John Lennox bested Christopher Hitchens in this exchange that we looked at.

But who knows what happened throughout the entire debate? I'm going to leave a link for the whole thing below. I encourage you to watch the whole thing. OK, some people get confused in the comments and they're like, why are you talking so much,.

Nate?

It's understood that you should actually go look at the entire thing yourself. What we're doing here is a different exercise altogether. This is so if you do a search, one of the most popular John Lennox debates on YouTube, and I think it's for good reason.

I think Lennox is just as rhetorically winsome as Hitchens is, and he's got the truth on his side as well. OK, but now it's your turn. Who do you think won this debate, Christopher Hitchens or John Lennox?

Let me know in the comments below. As always, if you made it this far, you got to come on down to the Patreon community like right now. It's continuing to grow. There's lots of great discussions, cool features.

I'm previewing the debate series currently with my top tier supporters. I do live streams, Q &As, all this kind of stuff. We're studying the Bible together. Go check it out. The link for the Patreon is below.

I will return soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.