Conference on Answering Abortion Arguments with Scott Klusendorf Relativism Session 4

Kootenai Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Alright, I'm going to ask you about, first of all, if you are a teenager and you have been through the

00:06

Life is Best TV series that we did with our student ministries, we've done it twice now. My kids have done it,

00:13

I think, at least twice because we did it privately as a family and then also in youth group.

00:18

If you've been through that series, will you please raise your hand and lift it high up? Okay, so this whole table of youth back here.

00:25

Alright, and we have a couple of kids, like Malachi, you're going to go through it before you're all done.

00:32

Alright, what is the difference, and that, by the way, is this series of DVDs. This is 13 30 -minute television episodes that Scott did in connection with Todd Friel and Wretched Television, Wretched TV, and Wretched Radio, and Todd is not on there, but it's all

00:47

Scott and some folks from Scott's ministry, what's her name,

00:53

Megan. Megan Allman. Megan Allman and Jay Watts, and then also on here, they don't have all the names on the front, but it's

00:59

Votie Balcombe and Paul Washer, they all contribute to this as well. This is professionally edited, well done, where Scott takes not everything we're covering in this seminar, but mostly just the abortion issue and the sled, and he just walks through it, handles the objections in the cases and walks you through the arguments there.

01:16

This is fantastic. It's 13 30 -minute episodes on this. You can give this to a pro -choice friend, ask them to watch it over.

01:23

Scott, what is the difference between this book and the one that they got for free? Stand for Life, the book you did not get, is geared more toward students.

01:33

I would say its target -rich environment would be high school seniors and college freshmen.

01:38

That would be the target -rich. Now I think it can work for younger high schoolers who are well -read, no problem at all, and as well as older collegians.

01:49

But primarily, this book is going to go a little deeper into the practical theology surrounding the pro -life issue.

01:58

My friend John Inzer, who co -wrote the book with me, develops that. My side of it is a little less academic and a little more tactical, more on how do you practically engage, how do you deal with stuff at the street level.

02:12

So if you think of The Case for Life as kind of being your foundational apologetic text, this one's going to feel like an easier read, and there will be some material in this that is not in The Case for Life, and there will be material in The Case for Life that is not in this.

02:31

So it's not just a rewrite of that book. I don't know if that answers the question. Yes, so this book is kind of a combination of The Case for Life and Tactics in Defending the

02:40

Faith. Yeah, it's a nice combo that way. All right, excellent. And I think that was it.

02:45

That's it? Okay. By the way, coffee is proof that God has not utterly forsaken us.

02:57

That and bacon. All right,

03:03

I want you to, before we get started, let me just revisit something I brought up last session and didn't finish, so I'll finish it now.

03:11

What about cases where the life of the mother is at stake? And let me give you an example where there is such a case.

03:19

It's known as ectopic pregnancy. This is where the embryo, the human embryo, the tiny human being implants on the inner wall of the fallopian tube instead of the uterine wall where it belongs.

03:33

As that embryo grows in that narrow tube, it is in a pathological situation where it cannot survive, but it stands a real chance of killing the mother, because as that embryo grows in that narrow tube, the risk to the mother is obvious.

03:49

The tube bursts, the mother hemorrhages to death. You're a pro -life doctor. A woman presents herself with an ectopic pregnancy.

04:00

Do you do nothing and lose two lives? Or do you act in such a way you save one life, even though the unintended but foreseen result is the death of the embryo?

04:17

And my answer is, I'm going to act to save the mother. Now my critics are going to say, that's abortion.

04:23

You just justified abortion. No I didn't. Let's go back to our syllogism. It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.

04:33

In this case, we do not intend the death of the unborn. We foresee it, but we do not intend it.

04:41

In other words, a general in a just war can foresee the deaths of innocent human beings, but he doesn't intend them.

04:47

Same thing here. We're not intending the death of the innocent human being. We foresee it.

04:53

We can't save the innocent human being at that point. He's going to die in that pathological condition.

04:59

The question is, is he going to take the mother with him? You're a doctor. The greatest moral good you can do at that point is act in such a way that you save one life rather than lose two.

05:10

Now I've had people say to me, well, that's just relativism. No it's not. Relativism is you do whatever you want to do, who cares?

05:19

This is doing the greatest good you can given the hand you've been dealt. And I've talked to Christian women who've had pregnancies terminated that were ectopic who felt they had committed the sin of abortion, and no they have not.

05:35

No they have not. Because we're not intentionally killing an innocent human being. Now I could even make the argument that by removing the child from his pathological situation,

05:48

I have not made him worse off. He's going to die in the tube, and he's going to die if he's been removed. What I have done is remove him.

05:56

I don't have a rescue plan for him because technologically we don't have one available yet. If we ever get a way to save those children, of course we should.

06:04

But now the question is, am I doing the same as abortion when I act to save the mother's life in the case of ectopic pregnancy?

06:11

And the answer is no. And the reason we know that is we go back to our syllogism. It's wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.

06:18

Abortion does that, therefore it's wrong. This is not intentional killing. We foresee the death of the unborn as we act to save the mother, but we don't intend it.

06:28

Do you see the distinction we're making here between foreseeing something and intending it? That's the distinction we need to keep in mind in light of our syllogism.

06:37

If you have more questions about that during the Q &A, you can bring it up. But for now I want to shift gears and talk about what

06:43

I believe is the single biggest threat to your pro -life case and to your

06:49

Christianity, by the way. Not just pro -life, Christianity. And that is the topic of relativism.

06:56

So allow me to throw out a couple of statements to you, and you tell me the difference between these two statements. Statement number one, chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla.

07:08

Some of you are going, them are fighting words. That's gospel truth. Preach it, brother. All right? Chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla.

07:15

Statement number two, it is wrong to torture toddlers for fun.

07:23

Is there a difference between those two claims? What's the difference? Give me some nominations. What's the difference between those two claims?

07:31

What was claim number one about ice cream? What kind of claim is that? Opinion?

07:36

I heard somebody say fact. What is it though? What kind of claim is it?

07:43

I heard opinion. Anybody else? Personal? It's about preferences?

07:50

We could say it's a subjective claim, right? It's true for me, the subject, but not necessarily true for you.

07:57

How about the second claim though? How is the second claim about torturing toddlers for fun different from the one about ice cream?

08:06

What's the difference between those two? Give me some nominations. How are they different? One is a moral claim.

08:15

When I say it's wrong to torture toddlers for fun, I'm no longer talking about what I like or prefer, I'm talking about what?

08:22

What's right and wrong regardless of preferences, right? In other words, we're out of the realm of personal tastes at that point.

08:33

Our problem is our culture does not know the difference between claims about ice cream and claims about truth.

08:43

Our culture hears whenever we make a truth claim, oh, you don't like that.

08:51

When, in fact, what we're arguing has nothing to do with likes and dislikes.

08:57

Is it possible to like something and still say it's wrong? Of course.

09:02

Isn't most sin fun? Yeah. We like it because it's fun, but that doesn't mean we say it isn't.

09:08

We don't say or we don't pretend it's okay just because it's fun. Liking it isn't the same as saying it's right or wrong.

09:16

Our culture doesn't know the difference. Maybe you've seen this bumper sticker, don't like abortion, finish the sentence for me.

09:24

Don't have one. What does that do to the pro -lifers truth claim?

09:29

We argue our syllogism, it's wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings.

09:34

Abortion does that, therefore it's wrong. What kind of claim are we making at that point? What kind of claim is that? Subjective or objective?

09:42

Objective. We're claiming it's true regardless of one's preferences. What does that bumper sticker do to our objective truth claim?

09:52

It changes it from an objective claim to what? A subjective one our culture likes better.

10:01

It is entirely possible to like something and say it's wrong. Last summer,

10:07

Stephanie and I went out to California to visit her dad. He was recovering from a motorcycle accident.

10:14

Her dad is 85. He drives two Harleys, not one.

10:20

He surfs, he skis, and oh, he had a pretty new Corvette sitting in his garage that was really nice to look at.

10:29

And he was kind of recovering in the other room and I told him, you know, hey, I'll back that thing out of the garage and I'll detail it for you.

10:37

And I did. I could have just as easily jumped in that car after detailing it, charged up PCH, opened that thing up as I'm blowing by Pepperdine all the way up to Santa Barbara and had the ride of my life and come back.

10:51

He probably would have never known I did it. I would have liked to have done that, but I didn't do it.

10:57

Why? Because it would be wrong. In other words, my liking something tells me nothing about right or wrong, and yet our culture has reduced all moral claims to mere preferences.

11:11

And the worldview idling behind that, men and women, is relativism. Let me define that for you.

11:18

Relativism is the belief that right and wrong are either up to you, the individual, or your society.

11:28

Right and wrong are either up to you, the individual, or your society.

11:34

But there's no objective standards that we're supposed to get in line with. It's all subjective.

11:41

Right and wrong are totally up to you or your society, but that's it.

11:47

There's nothing more we can ground right or wrong in. That's relativism. So let me give you some examples of this that we see all around us today.

11:58

What is the most popular bumper sticker in America right now? Anybody want to guess?

12:04

Coexist. Coexist. You've seen this, right? You see the word coexist, and then intertwined are all the religious symbols of the major world religions.

12:14

You see Christianity, Islam, Eastern religions. They're all represented in that.

12:19

Now let me ask a question. Do we need a coexist bumper sticker in America? Not really.

12:25

Here's why. You don't get killed for believing the wrong thing here. Where do you need a coexist bumper sticker that pushes religious tolerance?

12:35

How about Saudi Arabia? How about Iran, right? So why is this sticker such the rage here?

12:41

Here's why. Our culture has redefined the term tolerance from tolerance of people to tolerance of all ideas being equal.

12:55

You know what that sticker is really telling you? It's not telling you to be kind to people who disagree with you.

13:01

It's not telling you not to kill them. You know what that sticker is really saying? It's saying don't you dare claim that your religious truth claims are exclusive.

13:12

Don't you dare claim that your religious view is true and someone else's is false because they're all equally valid.

13:21

Now I can be a complete atheist and refute that argument. When you die, you're either going to go to heaven, go to hell, get reincarnated, rot in the grave, but you're not going to do them all at the same time, are you?

13:39

Jesus either was the Messiah or he wasn't. If he was the Messiah, Christians are right,

13:44

Jews are wrong. If the opposite is true, we're wrong, they're right. There's no middle ground there. All religions can't be equally true and valid.

13:53

And yet that's exactly what that bumper sticker is trying to tell us. Why? Because as theologian

13:59

D .A. Carson points out, we have bought into a new definition of tolerance.

14:04

Here's the old definition of tolerance. I think your idea is wrong.

14:10

In fact, it's nuts. But you know what? You're a citizen of this republic.

14:16

You're a fellow image bearer. You have a right to bring your ideas to the table and argue for them just like everybody else and we will tolerate you making your case even if we think it's nuts.

14:29

Now by the way, doesn't the concept of tolerance presuppose I think you're wrong?

14:36

Otherwise I'm not tolerating you, what am I doing? Agreeing with you. The mere definition of tolerance assumes

14:43

I think you're wrong. But our culture has flipped the narrative. And as D .A.

14:49

Carson points out, now what we have is the intolerance of tolerance. What it means now is don't you dare claim your idea on religion or ethics is true with a capital

15:00

T or we won't tolerate you. It's now tolerance of ideas rather than tolerance of persons.

15:07

This is a complete reversal of where we were at a previous time. Here's another example.

15:14

A number of years ago, I'm going to say now it's been almost 20 years, Kathy Ireland, the former supermodel, was on a television show called

15:24

Politically Incorrect. Those of you that are under 30 have no idea what this show was.

15:29

But Politically Incorrect was hosted by a guy named Bill Maher. Any of you heard of Bill Maher? Is he even relevant anymore?

15:35

Is he still around? Okay. Bill Maher hosted a show called Politically Incorrect that was anything but politically incorrect.

15:43

It usually involved three liberals ganging up on one conservative, which made it about even.

15:48

And this one particular night, this one particular night, the token conservative was

15:54

Kathy Ireland, the former supermodel. She had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the late 80s, early 90s,

16:00

I'm not sure which. But Kathy Ireland came on the set and Bill Maher went right for it, right for the juggler.

16:08

He says, Kathy, why aren't you pro -choice? Kathy said,

16:13

I'll tell you, Bill, I used to be pro -choice. I used to support abortion, but then my husband went to medical school.

16:23

And when he was in medical school, I decided I wanted to stay involved in his intellectual life.

16:29

I didn't want him reading all this stuff and just outpacing me at the intellectual level. I wanted to be able to converse with him about his vocation.

16:36

And so I began reading many of the books he was reading for his medical school work. And one of the courses of study he had to take was a class in embryology.

16:47

And the embryology textbooks I read indicated that there's a principle in biology known as biogenesis, living things reproduce after their own kind.

16:59

Dogs produce dogs, humans produce humans. I reasoned from that, that if the unborn come from human parents, they too are members of the human family.

17:12

And if the unborn are members of the human family, Bill, we should not intentionally harm them.

17:18

Abortion is the intentional harming of a member of the human family. And that's why

17:23

I am no longer pro -choice. Good answer? Grand slam.

17:29

Absolute grand slam. Get ready for Bill Maher's reply. Well, gee,

17:35

Kathy, that's just your view. What did he just do?

17:42

What kind of claim did Kathy Ireland make? Subjective preference claim or moral claim? Which was it?

17:48

Moral claim. What did Bill Maher change it to? Preference claim that he liked better.

17:54

He totally ignored her argument and changed the kind of claim she is making. That's relativism.

18:03

Nick Cannon, the rapper, about 15 years ago wrote a song, Can I Live? It's a rap tune.

18:10

He's a guy that was married to Mariah Carey, I think it was, for a while.

18:16

It's about his own mother when she was 17 and pregnant with Nick, was on the table in the abortion clinic ready to abort him, and she changed her mind at the last minute.

18:26

That's how we got Nick. So Nick writes a song as if he's speaking to his mother from the womb. And the lyric of the song had a sentence that set people off.

18:38

In fact, the left got so angry that Nick called a lawyer friend of mine who conferenced me into a call with Nick and this lawyer, and Nick was explaining to us that he is literally taking physical threats for this song.

18:52

Well, what was the line that set people off? Here's the line. Again, he's writing as if he's the unborn child speaking to his mother in that clinic that day.

19:02

Mom, I hope you'll make the right decision and not go through with the knife incision.

19:10

Whoa. When people heard right decision, they got angry and said, who are you to say what the right decision is?

19:18

Hey, Mr. Cannon, have you walked in her shoes? Do you know what her situation is? How dare you claim your view is right?

19:26

More recently, Ridhum had an interesting moment on Fox News.

19:34

I went home from church one Sunday to swap out a T -shirt that was giving me trouble.

19:41

My wife will tell you I'm a little bit strange. I cannot stand new clothes. They feel weird on me.

19:46

I have to wash them, and she'll laugh at me for this, but the most comfortable shirts

19:51

I have are threadbare. I wear nice shirts over them, but boy, if you saw what was underneath, no.

19:58

I like these threadbare shirts, and when they're new, I don't know why, they just bug me.

20:05

We were in Sunday school class, and I drove home, and I said, I'll come back for service. I went home between Sunday school and church, and I was going to just quickly swap out this shirt and come back later.

20:17

Well, I got home, and I thought, you know, the Lord won't mind if I check a quick football score. We're under grace, not law, and Luther said love

20:25

God and sin boldly, so I thought I'll just take a quick look at the screen, and I didn't get football.

20:32

I got Fox News, and they were talking about Tiger Woods' marital problems. You know Tiger Woods. He's had marital issues, and they had a panel there, four people.

20:41

The first panelist said, well, he's got to get in touch with his core values. I'm thinking, what a stupid answer.

20:47

His core values are twisted. That's why he's in the condition he's in right now. The next guy said he needs couch time, counseling.

20:54

Yeah, I'll agree with that. Then they came to Brit Hume, and Brit Hume said this, veteran, former

21:01

ABC News journalist. He says, Brit Hume, or Brit Hume said,

21:07

Tiger Woods will probably win another Masters, which by the way happened last spring.

21:13

But he's not going to recover in his personal life if he doesn't reject Buddhism, which can't save him, and turn to the

21:20

God of Christianity, who alone offers forgiveness and redemption. Outside of that, I don't see how he recovers.

21:27

What happened on Twitter within two seconds? Brit Hume blew

21:33

Twitter up, and the rage that ensued, nobody said to Brit Hume, you're wrong about Jesus being the only way to salvation.

21:43

He didn't rise from the dead. There's no historical evidence for that. Your Christian view lacks substance.

21:49

No, they were mad that he claimed to be right in the first place. That's relativism.

21:57

Let me give you the three types of relativism that you're going to encounter. These will be in your notes. The first kind of relativism is what we call society does relativism, and this comes out of a book by Greg Koukl and Frank Beckwith called

22:11

Relativism, Feet Firmly Planted in Midair. I love that title. Society does relativism says this, hey

22:19

Christian, cultures disagree on what's right and wrong. Why this culture over here says you can only have one wife.

22:27

This culture over here says you can have 12. That one over there says three.

22:33

Cultures disagree on what's right and wrong. Who are you to say what the right way is? When so many other people disagree on what truth is when it comes to morals.

22:46

Question, how does it follow that because people disagree, nobody's right?

22:55

Did people once disagree on slavery? Did it follow there was no right answer? Did they once disagree on women having the right to vote?

23:05

Did it follow there was no right answer? The fact that people disagree means, wait for it, they disagree.

23:14

It does not mean there's no right answer. Hadley Arcus puts it well, the absence of consensus does not mean an absence of truth.

23:23

Merely pointing out differences tells us nothing. All it does is describe the situation.

23:29

It doesn't say how we ought to behave. C .S. Lewis makes a good point that sometimes the disagreements aren't as wide as we think they are.

23:38

There's two reasons for this. Often the disagreement is factual, not moral.

23:44

How many of you have ever been to the PragerU website and seen the videos that Dennis Prager puts up or you've listened to him on the radio?

23:52

Can I see your hands? Okay, word here, Dennis Prager is probably the smartest guy on nationally syndicated radio you'll ever listen to.

24:03

And if you want to learn how to just get in the habit of learning to think clearly, he's a good guy to listen to.

24:09

He's not a Christian. You will not agree with him on everything. This is not about whether I agree with Dennis on everything.

24:14

It's about watching how his mind works. I love the guy. I really do. Dennis and I once had a discussion about abortion.

24:24

And Dennis and I agreed on this principle, all humans have value because they bear the image of God.

24:34

We agreed on that. However, he felt the early embryo was not a human being and therefore early abortion, though perhaps regrettable, was not immoral.

24:46

He since changed his view, but that's where he was at the time. Was our difference moral or factual at that point?

24:55

What do you think? Anybody say factual? Raise your hand if you say factual.

25:03

You're right. What was the moral principle we agreed on? That all humans have value because they bear the image of God.

25:09

He just disagreed with me on the factual question, is the unborn human? Our moral difference didn't exist.

25:16

We were agreed morally. Our difference was on the evidence. Now he was wrong, but it's not a moral difference.

25:24

And Lewis is right. Sometimes the differences are not moral, they're factual.

25:30

And by the way, cultures don't disagree as much as we think they do. Yeah, that culture over there says three wives.

25:35

This one says 12. This one over there says one. But no culture says you can make any woman you want your wife forcibly.

25:42

There's more agreement than we might like to admit. The second kind of relativism you're gonna run into is what's called society says relativism, and it goes like this.

25:53

There's no objective moral standard, no God that we're beholden to, no moral law in scripture or anywhere else.

26:02

Rather, the highest authority is what we approve of at a societal level.

26:08

We form a contract, a social contract that determines right and wrong. And there's nothing above that that we appeal to.

26:16

Social contract theory comes right out of the French Revolution. And this idea says that not the church, not the state, rather every culture master of its own fate.

26:27

We make up the rules. That's society says relativism. But society says relativism has some problems.

26:34

First of all, let me throw out some names, and you tell me if you consider these people good guys or bad guys.

26:42

Jesus of Nazareth, good guy, bad guy. Winston Churchill, good guy, bad guy, good guy.

26:50

By the way, I don't mean good in the theological sense that they are right with God, I mean good in a moral sense that our culture looks at them as moral heroes, all right?

26:59

So Winston Churchill, good guy, bad guy, good guy. Martin Luther King Jr., good guy, bad guy, good guy.

27:07

There's something common to all three of those. Every one of them went against their culture, every one of them.

27:16

Jesus went against the temple culture. He overturned the tables, reestablished what it meant to turn

27:23

God's house into a house of worship. He challenged the existing morality. If society says relativism is true, if society is the highest moral order, and you go against it, what are you by definition?

27:38

Evil. That means Jesus was evil because he went against his culture's morality. It means

27:43

Martin Luther King was evil. It means Churchill was. By the way, did you see the movie

27:48

The Darkest Hour? Did any of you see that movie? Good movie had 20 minutes that was absolutely dreadful, but other than that, it was a good movie.

27:57

Churchill never wavered on whether to make a deal with the Nazis. He never once considered it. That was complete fantasy.

28:04

And by the way, he did not go down into the tube and consult people about whether we should fight Hitler or make a deal with him.

28:09

I mean, that just made my blood boil. But notice what Churchill did. He gets elected, or gets appointed more accurately, as prime minister in spring of 1940, early

28:21

May. On May 28th, he almost lost his prime ministership, not even a month after being prime minister.

28:30

And if he had, the course of our world would have been changed. Every single institution in Great Britain wanted to make a deal with Hitler.

28:39

Think about where the Brits were at this point. They were facing their expeditionary force getting wiped out at Dunkirk.

28:47

Hitler was poised to take all of Europe. Mussolini, the Russians were all allied with him at that time.

28:56

Britain stood alone. The London Times wanted to deal with Hitler. Churchill's own political conservative party wanted to deal with Hitler.

29:05

All the elite thinkers wanted to deal with Hitler. And Churchill said no.

29:12

And his own war cabinet was trying to remove him as prime minister. Churchill got wind of it.

29:19

And he called a meeting and said, hey, these are really weighty matters we need to talk about. Let's go ahead and talk about them after lunch, and we'll decide then what we should do.

29:29

Only Churchill didn't go to lunch, he went to the full government cabinet and gave that speech that changed the whole course of history.

29:36

When he said to those 100 people, if this history of our Long Island is to end, let it only end when each of us lies choking in his own blood on the floor.

29:47

And the whole cabinet rose up and cheered him and overruled his own war cabinet that was trying to remove him from office.

29:53

Churchill went against everything his culture wanted to do at that point. But if society says relativism is true, he's evil.

30:02

Last relativism, I say relativism, and it goes like this. Who are you to judge me? Who are you?

30:08

How dare you force your morals on me? You've heard this all the time. Very common expression, something that we've heard anytime we bring up abortion, and you'll hear it many times.

30:18

So how do we deal with relativism? Let's shift gears now, talk about how we deal with this with people on the street that you encounter.

30:25

The first problem with relativism, it's self -refuting. So let me say a few statements and you see if you can spot the flaw in them, okay?

30:34

My brother is an only child. So you go, really,

30:40

I saw him on Oprah. I can't speak a word in English. Don't take anybody's advice on anything.

30:53

You're in rare form as usual. Question authority.

31:04

There is no truth. The Seahawks will win the

31:09

Super Bowl. No, what's wrong with all those, what's wrong with all those statements? Is this

31:14

Seahawk country, by the way, or sort of, unfortunately? I just heard somebody said, you're not preaching tomorrow.

31:29

What's wrong with each of those statements? We're self -refuting. My brother is an only child.

31:36

If you need help with that, there's caffeine back there. Don't take anybody's advice on anything, including that advice.

31:47

You're in rare form as usual. Again, hit the coffee pot. You get the idea.

31:52

These statements literally refute themselves. When somebody says, you shouldn't force your morals on me, what did they just do?

32:01

Forced a moral view on you. It's like they're saying there are no moral rules. But here's one. Don't you dare claim to be right.

32:09

We're about to put a quote up on the screen that's going to illustrate this, and here's what I'd like you to do.

32:14

We're going to put it up there. I'm going to have you discuss it around your tables when I tell you to.

32:20

Let me give you the context for this quote. There's a group called the Genocide Awareness Project that takes large abortion imagery posters.

32:30

Imagine a poster about twice the size of this screen here, and they take 30 of those with professionally airbrushed photographs of aborted fetuses.

32:39

They put up warning signs on the walkways approaching the display saying, if you don't want to see these images, walk the other way, which of course does what?

32:47

Causes everybody to come and look. And they see this display, and it is a testament to what abortion is on college campuses across the

32:56

US. You're about to read a quote from a Greg Dickinson at the

33:01

University of Maryland who saw this display, he was not happy, and he goes to his school newspaper to complain, and this is what he wrote.

33:11

What I'd like you to do in your tables, I'd like you to read this quote, but I want you to read it looking for only one thing, only one.

33:19

I don't want you to pick apart everything the guy says. You'll find lots to disagree with. That's not the point here.

33:26

I only want you to jot down phrases or words that he uses that are totally self -refuting to the point that he's making.

33:36

Everybody clear on what your assignment is? You're only looking for where his argument is self -refuting.

33:42

Where does it destroy itself? Where does it literally commit suicide? That's all

33:47

I want you to note. So can everybody see that? Can anybody not see that? All right, we'll scroll down it as we get near the end.

33:56

It's a short quote, but I want you just to look for that. So at your table, grab a paper and pen and get ready to write, where does his argument commit suicide?

34:05

I'll give you just a couple of minutes on this, then I'll pull you back together, and let's see if we can identify where it does.

34:10

All right, so ready, go ahead. One of you, if you wanna read it out loud, one of you at your table, read it out loud, the rest of you make notations, you can do that.

34:19

Ready, go. Some of you are having way too much fun with this.

35:46

Yeah, you can go ahead and scroll up a little more. Thank you, that's it.

36:27

All right, let's discuss this a little bit.

36:35

Where does his argument literally commit suicide? Give me some nominations of phrases he used.

36:41

Again, we're not gonna tear apart everything he says, just where his own argument self -destructs.

36:46

What were some things you pointed out? Give me some nominations, yes. Okay, that would be certainly a critique of his lifestyle, but where does his argument actually commit suicide?

37:05

Since the sound booth saved my bacon by getting this quote up here, we are gonna go to them for an answer.

37:11

Go ahead. Okay, very interesting point.

37:19

He decries judgment, but then what is he doing to everybody who disagrees with him?

37:26

Judging them is what? Not just wrong, what? Evil, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

37:33

What else, good, yes. Yeah, he kind of vacillates there.

37:42

He says abortion, I'm pro -choice, but abortion's a horrible act. By the way, when someone says to you they personally oppose abortion, what's the next word you're gonna hear?

37:55

But when they give you that line that they personally oppose abortion but think it should remain legal, here's the question you put to them.

38:03

Why are you personally opposed to abortion? Why? I mean, why be opposed at all?

38:10

Well, because it kills a baby. Can I repeat back what you just said to me? You personally oppose abortion because you say it kills a baby, but you want it to be legal to kill babies?

38:23

They don't think about this stuff, but that's what they're saying. Yeah, very good point. What else? Yes, sir.

38:34

Yes, I wanna keep my morals to myself, but I'm gonna go to the school newspaper and publicly state that everybody who disagrees with me is wrong, evil, immoral.

38:47

Personal morals must be kept personal, so let me state that publicly to anybody who disagrees.

38:54

Yeah, that's a bit of an issue. What else? What else did you see in this? What was the weasel word that clued you in that he can't live with his own worldview?

39:08

Did you see a word that popped up more than once in this passage? I'll give you a clue.

39:14

It starts with the letter M, must. How do we get must and ought in a relativistic world where morals are completely personal?

39:26

You can say you prefer, but must? How does he get that? Anybody else spot anything in this that relates to the self -refuting nature of what he was arguing?

39:38

Yeah, Diane. Yeah, what about that? He says, everything's personal, but these are rights

39:46

I consider universal, and I have an unwavering commitment to them.

39:52

Yeah, that doesn't go together. This is the problem with our culture. It is literally buying into a self -refuting premise, and it does it without even a hint of irony.

40:03

But we need to be aware of it and help people see what's really going on here. All right, second problem with relativism.

40:10

It's not only self -defeating, it's impossible to say anything is right or wrong, including intolerance.

40:18

If morals are up to me, who are you to demand that I be tolerant? I choose to be intolerant.

40:24

You gonna tolerate that? That's the problem. You got an even bigger issue, though. Mother Teresa?

40:30

Adolf Hitler? How could you say one's behavior was any different than another?

40:37

Mother Teresa liked to help starving kids. Hitler, well, he liked to kill them.

40:44

Who are we to judge? Really? Thirdly, C .S.

40:52

Lewis says, in mere Christianity, you've never met a true relativist. The very man who tells you there is no right and wrong will complain if you cut him off in line or steal his orange.

41:07

He will say, that's not, fill in the blank, fair.

41:14

He'll complain. And what his complaint is, is that somehow the person he's with is violating a standard outside of them.

41:26

And Lewis asks a great question. When the person says, well, that's not fair, Lewis's response is, says who?

41:34

By what standard? In other words, the whole objection they throw out at that point assumes an objective moral order.

41:43

They can't live with their own view. The next time somebody says to you, you shouldn't force your views on me,

41:52

I want you to very politely, and without snark, it'll be difficult, but without snark.

42:02

When they say to you, you shouldn't force your views on me, I want you to say, why not?

42:08

Or what's wrong with that? Any answer they give will be an example of them imposing a view on you.

42:16

Now, by the way, I need to tell you something. I don't think Christians are unfairly imposing their views when they contend for their points of view in the public square.

42:26

I think that law professor Mary Ann Glendon says it very well. She's a Harvard law professor.

42:33

Christians who bring their values to the public square, says Mary Ann Glendon, are not imposing their views on others.

42:41

They're proposing their views to others in hopes that their fellow citizens will vote them into law.

42:49

That's how a constitutional republic like ours works. You have every right to bring your values to the public square and argue for them like your secular neighbor does.

42:59

You are not disqualified because you happen to be religious. And that leads to a couple of things that will come up on relativism that I want to prep you for before we take our next break.

43:11

You'll get people who will say, well, your idea that morals are real, that's just a religious view.

43:17

Stop right there. Never, ever, ever tolerate someone trying to silence you by ridiculing your argument rather than refuting it.

43:31

Let me be real clear. Arguments are either true or false, valid or invalid.

43:37

Calling an argument a name does not refute it. It simply dismisses it.

43:43

Arguments are true or false, valid or invalid. Calling an argument religious is a category error, as Frank Beckwith points out.

43:50

Kind of like asking, how tall is the number five? It doesn't work to just call it a name.

43:55

You gotta actually refute the argument rather than name call it. And that's what a lot of our critics do.

44:01

They wanna just call it a name. That's your religious view. So what if my argument's religious? It's either true or false, valid or invalid.

44:09

You gotta deal with the evidence. You can't just dismiss it, and yet people want to do this all the time.

44:15

There's another objection that will come up, and that is, you'll get people who want to just pigeonhole you into being intolerant.

44:24

Let me give you a tactic that Greg Kokel has come up with that I think is really, really helpful here. Let's pretend that you are a student at, let's say you're going to Boise State.

44:35

I'm just making up names here. And you're in a sociology course. And the professor knows you're a believer.

44:42

He knows you're a Christian. And he doesn't like it. And he knows that he could probably make a pretty good example of you.

44:51

And so he tries one day. And he says to you, I'm gonna make up a name here. Ann, what's your view on gay marriage?

45:00

Now you know he's not asking because he cares for an intellectually honest discussion.

45:06

He's asking to make you look bad. And Ann is smart, we'll say you're

45:12

Ann. You're smart. And before you answer, you say the following. Professor Davis, I'm gonna answer your question.

45:22

But before I do, I have one of my own. Do you consider yourself a tolerant person?

45:30

Or are you going to judge me for my answer? What just happened to the dynamic in that classroom?

45:42

Talk about a major U -turn. If he jumps down her throat at that point, he exemplifies the very behavior he's decrying.

45:53

Are you tolerant or are you gonna judge me for my answer? In other words, is it safe to give my view here?

46:05

That's called being wise. And that's how you handle this.

46:10

One other objection you'll get. And I am certain this will raise a few questions in the

46:17

Q &A. You're going to get people who say, you think morals are real, do you?

46:24

You think there's a right and wrong, really? You're an absolutist. Do you believe morality is absolute?

46:31

Well, how about this? There's a knock at the door in 1944. You're living in Poland.

46:40

You're hiding Jews. The knock at the door is the SS. They wanna know if you're hiding

46:47

Jews. And they ask you point blank, are you hiding Jews?

46:53

If you say yes, the Jews are butchered. If you say no, you've not told the truth, which violates your own absolute morality.

47:09

So what are you gonna do? You will be asked this. So let me help you unpack this.

47:17

First of all, did I argue today that morality is always absolute or did

47:22

I argue it's objective? Which did I do? Objective, meaning it's true, real, and knowable.

47:31

What do you do when two objective moral principles collide?

47:38

How are you gonna get out of that? Now by the way, these are exceedingly rare situations. The only reason

47:43

I bring them up is your critics are gonna bring them up. This is preemptive here. Students, if you think any of this is going to give you a license to not tell the truth when you haven't done your homework, forget it, okay?

47:56

These are rare cases. What do you do when two moral principles collide?

48:02

So let's look at these two moral principles. Save the lives of innocent human beings.

48:08

Tell the truth to evil men who will misuse it to kill innocent human beings.

48:15

Which moral truth carries the greater moral weight in that situation? I'm gonna save the

48:24

Jews. Somebody says that's relativism. No, it's not. Relativism says do whatever you want.

48:31

I'm giving greater moral weight to the greater moral principle. Now, can you think of a case in Scripture where this happened?

48:43

Rahab, where else? Hebrew midwives. Pharaoh tells them, hey, kill all the firstborn boys in Goshen.

48:52

Couple years later, Pharaoh's out there sitting on his deck, you know, chilling in the afternoon sun.

48:58

He hears all these kids squawking in Goshen. He calls the midwives over. Hey, what happened? You're supposed to snuff those guys.

49:05

What happened? And you remember their answer? Well, you know the Hebrew midwives, sir, they give birth so quick because they're so stout -hearted we couldn't get to the kids in time.

49:14

Was that the truth? I don't think so. Now, again,

49:19

I want to make something very clear. This is not a license for lying. We are talking about exceedingly rare cases.

49:27

And again, the only reason we bring this up is because your critics are gonna bring it up. When two objective moral principles collide, you give greater weight to the greater moral principle.

49:39

The fancy term for this, some call it graded absolutism. I just think the best way to do it is say, if there is a rare case where they collide, give greater weight to the greater moral principle at that moment.

49:51

Not as a license to do evil, but as a license, or rather as a way of navigating the collision of two objective standards.

49:58

Everybody clear on what I'm arguing here? We haven't argued that morality is always absolute.

50:04

Some things are absolute, like rape is wrong, murder is wrong. There are absolutes, but there are other things, again, that are objectively true.

50:13

And if they collide, we're gonna give greater weight to the greater moral principle, all right? You can raise questions about this during the

50:19

Q &A if you want. Is it break time? Okay, let's take a break. And it is objectively true that it's time for a break.

50:27

And it is your subjective choice what you will eat during the break. And we'll see you in, is it 15 minutes?

50:36

15 minutes, we'll see you back here, and we will resume at that time. So, see you in a few.