Apologetics Q&A with Rich Suplita

Q &A with Rich he is giving his last bit of time to us now, and I'm sad. I've spent the last two days Enjoying fellowship, so I know he's gonna be going home tomorrow. So we're gonna pray at the end for a safe journey for him to drive back to to the home of the Bulldogs.

No. It was funny last night one of the guys who was here brother Jack. Afterwards he came to me because we had Q &A last night, and he said he said well I was gonna ask him to say go Gators.

But I won't ask you to have a lot of good friends there, too, okay.

How I Came to Faith from Atheism

Well I know that tonight was Hopefully you guys noticed how much overlap there was and what we did in the last seven weeks. There was a lot of things that Rich has has Demonstrated that you know what we've been talking about is is not unique to our class, but it's Apologetics.

This is part of what apologetics is understanding the failure and the absurdity of Atheism and unbelief. So I want to give you guys an opportunity. We have about 15 -20 minutes of questions. So who wants to get who wants to begin?

Janice is gonna go first, okay.

So This is actually Not related to we were in the hallway talking and discussing how to actually ask you this question from a Calvinistic point of view. How did you come to faith. Oh God. Well yeah, yeah.

Cued back and forth. I was dead in my trespasses and sins and.

What was the actual scenario, and how it happened, I'm very curious, too. I mean, I think I've met atheists that were. You know prior to yeah, but I mean I just it intrigues me so and I know I wasn't here last night.

I know you did that last night. Yeah, you could give like a brief super succinct version right yeah. So you know I did grow up with Christian faith believing in the Bible. It's kind of an overview of what I talked about last night synopsis.

I somewhere through my college trek Decided I wanted to live my own way in sin. You know which I didn't think this at the time. That's what was happening. Was learning these alternate theories evolution and humanism.

Modern psychology. Those types of things latched on to those as kind of being wow this is what this makes more sense to me now. This helps me understand my life better. This is liberating to me. When I got to grad school, I would say that's where over the course of that five years where I became like enthusiastically secular and then Was During the period of my divorce in 2008 that I think my anger and disappointment kind of spearheaded me going into the radical atheism.

You raise a good question because You all talked about this in class like is there such a thing as a true atheist a Person is there such a thing as an intellectually honest atheist, and I would say no.

You know I could say that both based upon Romans 1 first and foremost. But I can also say that based upon my own lived experiences. Because I knew that I had not written off God. Entirely in my heart there was still a nagging Presence a sense of God that was there that I wanted to go away.

I really wanted to be an atheist. I tried my hardest but talk about failures. I failed at atheism. Maybe that should be the title of my talk why I flunked atheism. You know because it just didn't add up.

I started seeing these problems a big part of my testimony is my oldest daughter who was only Seven or eight years old at the time. Professing faith in Christ being baptized. This is like at the pinnacle of my atheism.

In what I realized is that I didn't want to fight against that faith or disprove it to her. I actually like in my in my heart was rejoicing That she had done that You know but but that didn't make any sense that caused a huge amount of dissonance to me.

And I think that was probably one of the main things. That at least put me back in a position where I could be more neutral where I could reel things back in okay I'm done with the militant atheism. This is not freeing anymore.

This is not feel liberating. This is not feel special. This is not feel empowering. It has some problems that seem pretty glaringly obvious to me maybe I should go back to the drawing board and Re-evaluate went through a very brief period of I believe in a higher power.

Kind of like the God of na and a a for a lot of people at least I saw that didn't work and That's kind of when God intercepted me with a Christian who who's actually a pastor. Who met me on campus and we started meeting at Starbucks talking about Jesus.

You know and I knew there was something special about Jesus. I knew All throughout my atheism, you know. You could write that off to the psychology of my youth that the emotions of my youth had such an impact on me.

But still the person of Christ always Had an impact on me more than any other figure of history far more. I knew there was something real there undeniable there tried to suppress that but when I came back around to reading through the gospel of John That's when the Holy Spirit really flipped the light switch in my particular case.

It was John 11. It was Jesus words this before he raises Lazarus, you know, I shared that last night where he said I'm the resurrection in the life. I don't know why the Holy Spirit chose that. But in that claim what I saw saw in that moment the epiphany I had Was that Jesus is not making a claim about power.

He's not making a claim about what he can do. Of course, he had the power to raise the dead. He's making a claim about his identity who he is and I was familiar that passage I'd never seen it in that light and I knew in the moment when he turns to Martha and says do you believe this?

I knew he was asking me and I knew that I did I believe in my heart that he was who he claimed to be.

That's the short version Amen, and I encourage everybody to go back and listen to last night and hear the whole version. It was wonderful. To hear everything that went into that.

Leftist, Naturalist, and Atheist: Clarifying the Distinction

Awesome stuff first of all, just a great presentation. I Have a two-part question, I'll make it quick. The first part is when did The term leftist become synonymous with with naturalist and atheist. Second part of the question.

Second part of the question is I Noticed you you you are in some sense a street apologist. I'm I'm led to write my paper on urban apologetics. Okay, that being the case. The illustration that you show if if for some reason I might I would have found myself with that sign in my yard and You had knocked on my door.

My response to you would probably have been I can biblically support most of these most of these statements. So that was the one thing that I just wanted a little clarification where those two things It left us being synonymous with you know naturalist and atheist or non-believer.

Yeah, and and. What. Well, how could those statements lead you to that conclusion, yeah, okay.

So yeah, thank you for giving me an opportunity to clarify because I wasn't super clear on that. They're not synonymous there is I didn't mean to suggest that Atheists or leftists and leftists all all leftists are atheists.

That wasn't what I was shooting for there. What I was to be more precise in my experiences the people that espouse a more militant variety of atheism also tend to Align with what I would consider to be the radical left on things like say critical race theory say the LGBTQ Moral revolution and those sorts of things obviously there are some exceptions obviously, you're 100 right when I'm trying to remember what was on the sign when it says, okay, just like black lives matter.

We would affirm that biblically clearly. Yeah, a hundred percent. What most people that I had these conversations with mean by that statement is something different than I what whenever I see the term Black lives matter.

I think well black lives matter black people are like white people like Asian people creating the image of God. They have inherent worth value dignity worthy of respect. I want to affirm that as resoundingly as I can as a Christian and I think for good biblical reasons what the socio-political left means by that is a whole platform of ideas that are aimed at like undermining the nuclear family unit to aimed at promoting the LGBTQ revolution aimed at promoting Just a whole lot of bad ideas that I think are destructive to the the nation.

So you have to ask the clarifying questions. You know when a person says any of those things when they say science is real when they say that Women's rights are human rights. You have to ask the follow-up question.

So Here's the statement you made. Can you help me? What does that mean to you? Can you explain to me what that looks like in your life whenever you make that statement? What does that mean to you? And you're right?

You can't just automatically make Assumptions. What I was trying to illustrate is in the instances where the person who Has a sign like that. They're trying to make a moral statement. The Christian can respond biblically they can respond with objective truth.

To those types they can ground those claims in objective truth. And what I was trying to demonstrate Was that the atheistic naturalist can't do that the at the the very deepest they could go is A statement of I feel very strongly about this.

This is my Strong opinion that this is the case, but is it objectively true? No because What is ultimately real is that we're all stardust, right? We're all stardust. That's what we came from. That's what we're going back to none of us survives death.

We are the net sum of our experiences here on this earth. Those are transient. Those are subjective this is what they believe and if that's your that's your pool or that's your foundation of Assumptions then you cannot get to objective truth that way.

There's no hope in that. Yeah. Okay, I know.

You had it Okay. As an apologist, how would you debate with someone who has an atheistic naturalist? Worldview and they kind of bounce back between like irrationalism and rationalism.

Okay. So how would I debate the person who? Yeah. So, I mean you don't have to like be when you say they bounce back and can't me understand a little bit better.

I bounce back and forth like they try to rationalize but it's kind of irrational.

What kind of can you give me an example statement.

Like they say they don't they they'll say they don't believe in like God. But they will have they have moral standards or something like that or logic and reasoning when that.

Yeah, yeah, so so I would say yeah, thank you. I would say the questions are really good, you know, kind of like, okay, so you believe. They have a standard they have a moral standard. So you identify that and say well what led you to that conclusion what led you to the conclusion that.

You know There's no such thing as illegal immigrants or whatever their moral position is. Well, what led you to the conclusion that? Sexual assault is wrong. I agree with you. Sometimes I'll say that I agree with the statement like that you're making.

I believe that because people are create an image of God I believe the Word of God and so of course, I believe that people should be respected. But ask them say I'm really interested in a person who doesn't agree with me about the existence of God.

Doesn't agree with me about the Bible being the Word of God. How do you back up that belief right that humans are? Their bodies should be respected or whatever issue you're talking about and just listen.

I think that's really good. You know, I'm bad at that. By the way, I'm learning. I think one of the risks with apologetics is I don't know if you see this in martial arts when people start learning a little bit.

They can be the most dangerous. Characters sometimes right like your yellow belts.

Yes. We tell them you can't do that as a yellow belt. Yeah.

And I think maybe that's just what you see. There's I think the human ego gets invested in something you learn something. You kind of want to go in and prove a point to a person. I'm not going to say that's never turned out well for me, but it almost never turns out.

Well, I I almost always do better if the situation allows for it to Follow the advice of James let every man be quick to hear and slow to speak slow to anger. Do I follow that advice not as much as I should but when I do in an apologetics context I do that by asking questions.

I do it by asking follow-up questions. I do that by saying, okay I really want this person even if I totally disagree with them. I want them to feel heard up front when I'm Responsible enough to do that then, you know, maybe not surprisingly I end up having like way better interactions with that person.

They don't typically drop to their knee and receive Christ, you know, but but what they do I think that's that that is. The context in which I was talking about the pebbles in the shoe. Right where you can plant something in their mind that they're going to go and they're really going to think about that.

Maybe they've never thought about before. You know who Jesus is or why did he change history more than any other person or something like that? Whereas if you just walked in and I just you know, like argue with them.

They're probably gonna think that guy's kind of a jerk. I don't care what he had to say. But again, I'm saying that I that's. I need to follow my own advice. But that's what I try to do with a person like that.

I want to listen to them. I want to say hey, you know what? Let's let's go. I'll buy you a coffee. I want to hear what you believe and how you came to those conclusions and why you think why you're convinced that.

That makes the most sense out of reality and most sense out of life and maybe during that first period of interaction with the person. That's really all I do with them you know works really well if you're going to see the person again if it's like a co-worker or Family member or someone, you know, you're going to see again in the future because then you could kind of pace it, right?

You're not in a rush. You can just listen you can build rapport. You can kind of get an idea of their perspective and then continue the the dialogue in the future.

Influential Apologists and Christian Thinkers

All right. I know Janice has another question. Does anybody else have a question? I'm just trying to judge time.

All right, Miss Janice. Kind of a two-part question and one is more of just kind of your experience, but I'll do the easiest one first. So who was an apologist that had a huge effect on. On you like with what you're doing now.

Is there someone you like the most or? Uh, yeah.

That's a good question. I haven't sat around and thought about that a whole lot. Top three then, you know. See that the right answer is Bonson and Vantill. Right. That's not true. I like Francis Schaeffer a lot, which he's.

Good theologian you ever heard of Schaeffer? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so his that little volume of his. Sorry. Go ahead, bro.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, he is there. Schaeffer. Oh Francis Schaeffer, okay.

Yeah. Yeah, and he just it's a little thin volume I mean it's Heady, it's not an easy read but it's a thin volume which helps, you know, it's not frame. Yeah, it's it's it's like this it's like this, you know.

And so you feel like I can get through this but he lays out I think a very compelling case for the necessity of God he talks about the The existential some of the same stuff existential necessity the moral necessity and the epistemological necessity of God.

Each chapter is probably only about eight page eight or ten pages long. But I think it's he does a really good job with that. I've probably read that four or five times. I really like I know I'm not supposed to say this here, but I like CS Lewis even though I don't really consider him.

He's a writer. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he didn't and well, I obviously I don't agree with his views on certain things. But I do find a lot of value in some of the things he had to say in terms of like a modern person who's kind of like a Has sort of a mass appeal.

I like Frank Turek. I think he does a good job with his presentations, you know, he's sort of a ratio Christy guy. We're hoping to host him this fall at UGA. I was able to hear him live his I don't have enough faith to be an atheist talk at Ohio State a few years ago and then was able to ask him some questions at the end.

And I think he does a really good job with that. Okay, there's a lot of great people, you know.

So my other question is well, it's more Kind of a question so I I want to know when you you were Professor while you were an atheist obviously because you have a PhD or doctor now, so I'm assuming it was for a long time.

But um, did you ever have? students in your class that had a very strong biblical worldview and. Because I go through that I'm in college, you know, I attend secular college. It's a struggle for me a lot because uh, and I just went through it this past semester.

I had a professor that was an evolutionist and a paper we had to write was. It was really ridiculous, but you know, I did it anyway, but I kind of came at it from a biblical worldview. But did you have any students that would ever? kind of combat how you taught.

Did your atheism like leak into your teaching?

Yeah, that's that's I'm glad you raised that point. I don't know if I mentioned it last night or not. But you guys are familiar with like the God's not dead movie, right? And we were talking about this earlier today that you almost never see that that's Virtually impossible.

I'm not saying it's impossible. But the idea of you get this mean angry Atheist professor who walks in on the first day and he's like how many of you believe in God and the hands go up. Well within the next six weeks, you're all going to be denying God's existence.

You know, I you don't see that I think for me it was more of like sort of a Condescending attitude. But it was I had a lot of devout Christian students who I think especially in my honors class every semester I taught an honors intro to psychology class.

So my options were to teach either a 330 person class which was the main section. I did that one semester and I'm like never again am I doing that and So what I could do instead was teach two very small sections.

They had like 15 to 20 students and I loved it if it came quickly, even though it wasn't my main background. I was a neuroscientist but teaching basically psych 101. To honor students around a big table where you can actually interact with people you get to know their names you get you know, I love that because that's real teaching and I I'm glad you raised that or asked the question because so many of those students who were my very best students hands-down my most memorable students the ones who turned in the highest quality work the ones who were very Had great thoughts were able to articulate them were very thoughtful.

Happen to be the ones who also tended to speak a lot about their faith and most of that was Christian faith. So that you know that impacted me on the other side, too. Because I guess I always knew that the caricature of the dumb Christian who just reads the Bible and nothing else.

And there's no I knew it was false but it helped to see here at the University of Georgia some of the most excellent students are ones that have a Very strong faith in Christ and don't mind talking about it.

I didn't just I didn't agree with them at the time. I didn't argue with them about it. In fact, I encouraged them. I and you know, I actively encourage people to disagree with me. I told him I wanted them to disagree with me about some stuff.

I was warning in them about this culture. I remember this as an atheist this culture of. Like I'm coming to college and I shouldn't be exposed to anything here that steps on my toes. And I told them if you come to a public university.

You do four years here and you don't come up against some ideas that make you uncomfortable that you don't agree with. Then the university system has done you a tremendous injustice. Because that is supposed to be part no matter what you come in believing you're supposed to have some of your views challenged.

And if all you do is, you know, go to your safe space anytime. There's a difficult idea being expressed that you don't agree with then you're shortchanging yourself. I believe that just as much back then as I do now that that that is a huge problem.

Obviously, it's increased in the last 10 or 15 years. But I encourage them and I said that you know, feel free to disagree with me if you get Sort of an air of my beliefs or views on something. Please do not feel compelled in your writing assignments to agree with me.

Tell me what you think and why. I'm not evaluating you on whether you agree with me or not. I'm evaluating you on how well you make your arguments even if I disagree with them a hundred percent and I wish you know, that'd be great if there were more professors like that.

The Illusion of Free Will and Brain Science

Yeah. Oh Okay.

So I have a question as far as neuroscience. Do you or have you heard of a study about like the illusion of free will that you're unconscious or. Your brain makes an unconscious decision before you're aware of it like a couple seconds before.

Like some a few so many milliseconds with a little clock and then people is that the one you're thinking of? Yeah, I think so where when did you make the decision to press the button? Versus when did the brain waves that caused that actually happen?

Yeah, I'm familiar with that and I wrote a couple years ago Thank you for raising the question. I actually I wish I had to give you a better answer. I remember Rebutting it and I had good reasons for that.

I just can't think of what they were right now. But basically the idea is It's I think it's a wrong assumption to say that You're not a person's not really making a decision because They only became aware of making that decision 250 milliseconds after their brainwaves Indicated that they were going to make that decision.

I think there's a unwarranted assumption in there and so it's not a disproof of choice or Volition, right? It's just it takes a while to Process that in your cerebrum. So, for example, we know that our our quote-unquote real-time experience of reality even we're not making decisions just us talking right now is actually delayed a couple hundred milliseconds from when the actual physical events are transpiring But we wouldn't conclude therefore they're artificial somehow, right?

It's just there's that lag time with that binding process in the brain that leads us to a To recognize our conscious awareness of something.

If that makes sense. Okay. That was a fun question. Yeah, that's a good I'd like to dig into that a little more. Well guys, we're getting close to the 830 mark and I know for many of you you have a drive home.

So we want to close up unless someone else has something pressing then. Let's give rich a hand for coming. And We're gonna we're gonna pray for him to have a safe journey home. He is gonna leave tomorrow morning drive back to Georgia, so we want to pray that he has a safe drive and Pray that everyone makes it home safe.

And again, remember that the Academy will come back in August. We're taking summer term or summer break rather and our next term will be Introduction to Christian life and ministry and this is going to be.

I know some of you have only been in the Academy for a few Classes, but this is actually the end of a two-year. Two years of study and what this course is is to try to help you to see what all of the things you've learned.

If you've been here for the last two years are really building up to what does God have for you in the church? What does God have to lead you to whether. You know, is it is it to go into the ministry?

Is it to go into being a deacon or a Sunday school teacher or is it to Have a ministry within the body of some form its introduction to how we live as Christians in the church. We are not called to be Lone wolf Christians.

We are called to be connected to the local church. And so that whole eight weeks is going to be how we are to live as believers as part of a local church. So let's pray for rich father. We thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight.

We pray Oh God that you would bless rich on his drive home. Lord. Please keep him safe. It's such a long drive to drive by himself. We thank you that his family has given him to us for these few days.

We pray that it has been a blessing to him as we know it has been to us. I thank you for everybody that's here tonight pray that you would get them home safely as well and Lord that you would glorify yourself in The continued preaching of your word in this place in Christ's name.

Amen.