Did Van Til say “One Person & Three Persons? -Yes!

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics, I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today

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I'm going to be covering Cornelius Van Till and his view on the Trinity.

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So we're going to be talking about the Trinity today, a little bit about how it relates to apologetics, we'll even talk a little bit about the nature of covenant and why that's important in understanding how we relate to God, how the world relates to God, and how that's related to apologetics as well.

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And so this is kind of an episode that will be primarily for the

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Christian who wants to kind of understand the ins and outs of Van Till's view of the Trinity and why he described the

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Trinity in the way that he did in some of his works that has been a cause for some confusion, okay?

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So that's what we're going to be doing tonight. There's a lot of things going on here from the politics in this country to the fall of Pastor Stephen Lawson, I just read about that on social media, and a debate between William Lane Craig and Muhammad Hijab on the

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Trinity. That was interesting, I just watched that full debate today on my way home from work.

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So there's a lot of things going on. Some interesting things, some unfortunate things of course,

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I'm not going to be commenting too much on those things now, but just to put them on your radar if you're not aware.

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So there's a lot to be talking about in the world today, but tonight

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I'm going to be focusing on theology and the Trinity and Cornelius Van Till's views and things like that.

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So I just wanted to throw that out there, some interesting stuff going on. If you are interested in debates on the

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Trinity, I did think that the interaction between Dr. William Lane Craig and Muhammad Hijab was actually interesting.

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I want to reserve my thoughts of what I thought about the debate, and hopefully maybe

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I can get an expert on the show and maybe do a review of the debate, because I do really think that it was very fascinating.

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Muhammad Hijab is a very interesting individual. I actually met Muhammad Hijab years back when he came to New York and debated

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David Wood. So I was able to briefly meet David Wood, so quick, not even shaking hands, nice to meet you, that was it.

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And then I was sitting, it was a big auditorium, I was sitting on the wrong side, apparently the

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Christians were sitting on the left and the Muslims were sitting on the right, and I was sitting with the Muslims.

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And I think Muhammad Hijab and some others approached me and were greeting me, hey brother, how's it going?

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I'm like, hey, I'm actually a Christian. He's like, oh, it's okay. I was sitting on the wrong side, I thought that was hilarious. But I got to talk to some really nice Muslims, had some great conversations, and then afterwards

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I met Muhammad Hijab in the parking lot where we talked a little bit about Christianity and Islam and some theology, maybe like five or ten minutes, and I think

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Ali Dawa was there as well, there was kind of his crew there. That was the first time

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I kind of interacted with him and heard of him, really. But then to hear him debate

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William Lane Craig on the Trinity, I was like, yeah, I got to listen to this. So, check it out, I think it was over at Capturing Christianity, I'm sure there'll be reviews and responses and things like that.

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So, nevertheless, the topic tonight is the Trinity, okay? I don't think, although, you know, feel free, if you have any questions,

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I'll try to address them. My voice is kind of, I feel my voice kind of going a little bit.

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As you guys know, I'm a teacher during the day, so I'm always talking, so we'll see how well

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I do tonight. If you do have a question, I will try my best to answer it. The topic today is a little difficult, but if you stick with me,

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I promise, I will try to simplify things. After laying out the details, I will simplify things for folks who are like, well, what is all this about?

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What is he talking about? So, I'll try my best to do that, and please forgive me beforehand, I'll be reaching over for my water multiple times because my throat feels a little dry, so bear with me with that as well.

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So, hello, Michelle, God bless you, thank you for coming in and listening in.

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Matt Bell, thank you, thank you very much, thank you for being here, and we have some people trickling in here in the live, so welcome as well.

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So, I hope this topic is of interest to you. So now, what's the big deal with all of this?

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If you guys saw the thumbnail, it's kind of making the assertion that Van Til defined the

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Trinity as one person and three persons. One person and three persons.

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Now, of course, this is important because that wording, at first glance, has the impression of a blatant logical contradiction.

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As a matter of fact, oftentimes when Christian theologians speak of the doctrine of the Trinity or Christian apologists are defending the doctrine of the

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Trinity, we will often highlight the importance of properly defining the

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Trinity. When I teach my students, I teach them that the best way, one of the best ways to defend the

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Trinity, whether it's against Muslims or Unitarians or things like that, it really boils down to properly defining the

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Trinity. So oftentimes, critiques of the Trinity are based upon misunderstandings of the

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Trinity, and not always. Sometimes someone will properly understand the Trinity but disagree with it and offer their reasons, and so you have those sorts of discussions.

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But we want to make sure that we know what the Trinity is, okay? We are not saying, in essence, that God is one person and three persons.

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Now, is Van Til saying that? Yes, but he doesn't mean what you think it means at face value.

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And of course, maybe this is the fault of Van Til, and the way he communicated often wasn't the best, but I don't think that he was blatantly affirming a contradiction, okay?

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And so that's what I want to talk about tonight, okay? So Cornelius Van Til, just to get this out at the beginning, just looking at the thumbnail, he did not believe that God was one person and three persons—ready ?—in

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the same sense. That's important, okay? That would be a contradiction, because remember, the second law of logic, the law of non -contradiction states that a statement cannot be both true and false—here's the key part—it can't be true and false at the same time and in the same sense, okay?

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So there are different senses in which one can use a term, and understanding those senses will alleviate any contradiction, any apparent contradiction, okay?

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Now, Van Til's way of speaking about the Trinity, because he used this language, which

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I'm going to get into now, led to misunderstandings, and I think appropriately so. But if you read

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Van Til, and you kind of read what he means, it becomes evident very quickly that he doesn't mean what it seems to be what he means—namely, that God is one person and three persons in that blatant way that sounds contradictory, okay?

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But again, if you take his statement here in the introduction to Systematic Theology, page 229, he says, quote,

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Van Til says, he says, "...we do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person," okay?

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Now that appears contradictory, but I think it requires a deeper understanding of Van Til's theological intent, especially within his presuppositional framework and things like this.

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Just to give folks a heads -up, this episode is live, it is not pre -recorded, okay? The previous one was pre -recorded, but this one is live, so just throw that out there, folks are asking.

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All right? So, if you search Van Til's works, you will read in Van Til where he says

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God is one person and three persons, but again, this statement needs to be understood in its proper theological context.

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Van Til is not suggesting that God is one person in the same way he is three persons, okay?

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He's emphasizing, rather, the different aspects of God's unity and plurality within the mystery of the

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Trinity, and this is really important. So let's kind of explore what he actually meant, and then why it's actually important to understand those distinctions.

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Now again, I would not define, okay? I would not define the Trinity in the way that Van Til defined it.

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Not because I don't think it's, I don't think it's a contradiction. I just think it can be easily confusing, okay?

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So there you go. So I think the Trinity is the belief that there is one God who exists as three persons.

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So God is one in being, one in nature and essence, three in person. So you know how you read a systematic theology,

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God is one what and three who's, right? There is one God, we affirm monotheism, but this one

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God is a triunity of persons, okay? Van Til is saying God is one person and three persons, but he's not saying

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God is one person and three persons in the same sense, okay? There are different senses in which we could understand this, okay?

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So again, so this is not a contradiction. Easily confused, you know, it can be confusing, but it's not a contradiction if you kind of take a look at what he actually was saying.

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So when Van Til said that God is one person, he's not denying the classical distinction between one essence and the three persons, the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. Instead, Van Til is emphasizing that the God of Scripture is ultimately personal rather than an abstract force or an impersonal force, and his use of one person in this sense is meant to stress that God's unity is not a bare or abstract oneness, but a personal unity.

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And this is critical, I think, in Van Til's theology, which holds that God is not simply a metaphysical essence, but a personal being who relates to his creation, okay?

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And so when Van Til affirmed that God is also three persons, he's affirming the classical doctrine of the

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Trinity, that the one God exists as three distinct persons, the Father, the

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Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these persons are not separate gods, but share one undivided essence, fully co -equal, fully co -eternal, okay?

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So that's a really important thing to keep in mind with respect to how Van Til understood the Trinity. So Van Til is not affirming a logical contradiction,

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I know people claim that. If someone... Now, I'm not... Let me say this, Van Til was not a perfect theologian, but it is very interesting to read some of the criticisms of his positions, okay?

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You can see that a lot of the criticisms don't take the time to hear him in his own context.

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For example, you know, Alvin Plantinga, who's a brilliant Christian philosopher, once said that Van Til thinks that unbelievers don't have knowledge, that Van Til's view is that the unbeliever doesn't know anything.

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Well, that's clearly false, that's not what Van Til taught. As a matter of fact, he taught the complete opposite. So it's often the case when people are criticizing

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Van Til, it's interesting to see how often people take him out of context. Now I'm saying this, obviously

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I'm a Van Tilian, but I wouldn't say that Van Til was perfect, or he expressed himself perfectly.

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I'm sure there are aspects of his theology that, you know, when you take a closer look, like, I'm not sure what he's trying to do there.

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I get that. But in these specific areas, I think he warrants a closer look and a fair hearing so that we can appreciate some of the more sophisticated nuances that he made when explaining his views, okay?

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So no, so Van Til is not affirming a logical contradiction, okay? A contradiction would occur if someone claimed that God is one person and three persons, pardon, in the same sense, or that God is one in essence and three in essence.

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But Van Til carefully maintained the distinction between God's one essence and his three persons.

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And so when he used the term person in two different senses, it was to make a distinctive point, all right?

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So, one person refers to the fact that God is a personal being, not an impersonal substance, okay?

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So God is, when Van Til calls God one person, he's talking about his nature as being ultimately, foundationally personal.

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That's why Van Til would refer to God as absolute personality. There is nothing within God that has an impersonal aspect to him, okay?

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The three persons refers to the distinct persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so Van Til's language, and I agree with this, it appears contradictory, but it's actually not, okay?

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When you actually understand why he's saying what he's saying. And so he wanted to emphasize the personal nature of God's unity while also maintaining the proper distinction of persons within the

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Trinity, okay? And so those distinctions, I think, are important to keep in mind if you're going to understand where he's coming from in terms of his understanding of the

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Trinity and why he uses the language that he does. Is the language confusing? Yeah, I think it is.

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But when you read him in context, I think you could make sense out of what he's trying to say. And so while we can disagree with how he phrases things,

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I think if you are Trinitarian, you could agree with basically what he's saying in terms of how he understands the

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Trinity, okay? And so despite the whole controversy that was surrounding the phraseology that he used,

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Van Til, I think, remained well within the bounds of Orthodox Trinitarian theology. He upheld the classical

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Christian creeds, right? The Nicene Creed, the Athanasius Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and so forth, okay?

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Which affirm that God is one in essence and three in persons. Van Til would affirm that. And so Van Til's formulation can be understood as his way of safeguarding the mystery of the

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Trinity. He emphasizes that God's unity and plurality are not comparable to anything in creation and should not be understood through human categories alone.

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That's key. And so for Van Til, divine mystery, in a sense, must be affirmed and accepted rather than domesticated by human reasoning.

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And so Van Til's presuppositional method, again, his apologetic flowed from his theology, was deeply rooted in the creator -creature distinction, okay?

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Now when we talk about metaphysics of a worldview, for Van Til, this is key, okay? One of the most fundamental, the most fundamental aspect of the

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Christian worldview in terms of metaphysics is the creator -creature distinction, okay? So the creator -creature distinction teaches that God's being is unique and wholly distinct from that of the created order, and this is what drove his insistence that God's unity and plurality transcend human categories, and where his unusual phrasing really comes into play here, okay?

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And so in summary here, Van Til's not affirming a logical contradiction, but he's using distinctive language to highlight various theological truths that he wants to get across, and his intention was to really underscore and highlight that God is both personal, he's a personal being, and he exists as three distinct persons.

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And so his phrasing can be confusing, I agree, but Van Til's view, I think, is firmly rooted in an orthodox

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Trinitarian perspective, okay? Now why is this important, okay?

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The distinction that he makes is crucial, I think, to apologetics in a bunch of different ways, especially within the presuppositional approach, right?

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Because Van Til's insistence on God being absolute personality forms the foundation of the

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Christian worldview, right? In presuppositional apologetics, from our perspective, the core argument is that only the

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Christian worldview, rooted in the triune God, provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility.

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We've talked about this countless times on this channel. And Van Til's emphasis here is on God's personal nature, okay?

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His emphasis on God's personal nature reinforces that all knowledge, logic, morality, and existence are contingent upon a personal

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God, who is relational and sovereign over all things. And this is very key to understanding

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Van Til's perspective. And so presuppositional, the presuppositional perspective begins with the recognition that all reasoning and knowledge are grounded in one's ultimate authority or starting point.

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And so for Van Til, the triune God is that ultimate starting point. And his nature, right, the triune

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God and his nature as a personal being is foundational to that, okay?

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And again, when you link, for example, the metaphysical assumption of the triune

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God and the epistemological reality of Revelation, you see that there is a very important link there for Van Til, okay?

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And so for Van Til, the triune God is the ultimate authority and his nature as a personal being, again, is key to his perspective.

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Now, God is not an abstract. This is why Van Til called God one person and three persons, okay, and he meant them in different senses, okay?

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There is, in God, there is no abstract principle or impersonal force within God.

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God is at base, at the foundation, a personal being who actively sustains and governs the universe, and this means that all human reasoning, morality, and experience are possible because they are grounded in a

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God who is himself, at the most fundamental level, personal, relational, and communicative.

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This is an essential feature of who God is, all right? So in contrast, you take a look at the non -Christian worldviews, which often rest on impersonal or abstract foundations, right, such as something like materialism or pantheism or deism.

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These systems, I think, really fail to account for the personal aspects of reality, such as, you know, things like human personality, morality, rationality, because they cannot ground the concept of a relational, rational, and moral universe in something impersonal.

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It just doesn't make sense. For example, an impersonal force or principle cannot account for the existence of moral laws or the meaningfulness of human relationships or anything along those lines.

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But Van Til's Trinitarian theology, with its emphasis on God as absolute personality,

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I think provides a coherent foundation for those aspects of reality, and, of course, other aspects.

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That's why we argue that he is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, knowledge, and things like that, okay?

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All right, so I see some activity in the chat. Let me see if—I don't know if there's any questions or there's just stuff going on.

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Let's take a look here. Let me take my little water break real quick. If you enjoyed this content and you really appreciate it, please subscribe, if you haven't subscribed, and smash the notification bell, as they say.

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We're almost at 10 ,000 subscribers. I'm super excited about that, and I really appreciate folks who have shown their support through subscribing and other ways that they've supported as well, so thank you very much for that.

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All right, let's see here. Yeah, Michelle.

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Yeah, so Michelle says, I always say the one being of God consisting of three divine persons. Yeah, that's true.

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So, from our perspective, God is one in being, three in persons. The three persons share in the divine being, the divine essence.

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So yeah, I would agree. That's good. All right. All right.

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Frank Odom says, Do you think Van Til was perhaps too smart for his own good, unable to coherently communicate what he's thinking?

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I don't think that's the reason why. I mean, he was a brilliant thinker, and that's true even if you disagree with Van Til.

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You can say, I don't like what Van Til was arguing with his old presuppositional stuff. You can still acknowledge that he was a creative and innovative thinker, and how he put things together and made certain connections.

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He was a very intelligent person. I think part of it is,

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I think what makes Van Til, in my opinion, a little difficult to grasp is, number one, English wasn't his first language, so just his writing can be very clunky.

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He's very philosophically detailed, so he can be very wordy, okay? And I think what is difficult for a lot of people is that Van Til, if you read philosophers today, a lot of the philosophers today come from what we call the analytic philosophical tradition.

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And analytic philosophy is very specific in terms of laying out specific premises and points of argumentation, defining certain key terms in very detailed ways.

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When you take someone like Van Til, he comes from a more continental philosophical tradition, in terms of which continental philosophy tended to focus on kind of the big picture, the broad picture, these worldview systems and things like that.

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And so there is a broadness to his philosophy and the continental tradition in general, where someone who is more analytically minded would kind of find it frustrating because he doesn't go into some of the details that we wish that someone would go into, okay?

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Now that's interesting, because when you kind of take Van Til's thought, which comes from a more continental outlook, where you have these broad strokes, you have someone who comes along like Greg Bonson, who is in the analytic tradition, okay?

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And you have someone like Bonson bring more specificity to the broad brush strokes of Van Til.

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So I think they are a perfect grouping in terms of taking the big ideas of Van Til, and you have someone like that's more analytically minded in Bonson, and bringing those down with more specificity, adding some more flesh to what

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Van Til has laid out. So I think that's why a lot of people find him confusing, is the things

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I mentioned, and plus, he comes from a philosophical tradition that most people today aren't used to.

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So I think that's one of the reasons why. I don't think it's simply because he was such a smart guy. I think he was a smart guy,

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I think he was brilliant, but I don't think that's the reason why. All right? Great question.

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Yeah, so these things, those are interesting. So Breakfast Fast Tacos, nice name. Look at all these people rejecting the self -evident truth of our shared naturalistic atheistic reality that has been revealed to all sound mind through both natural and special revelation in an undeniable way.

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Right, so this is a perfect example of someone completely missing the boat, right?

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So if I was not a presuppositionalist, I wasn't a presuppositionalist, but I understood presuppositionalism,

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I would never say something like this. Now this is, this would be at the level of, you know, I would make the distinction between more scholarly and careful criticisms of presuppositionalism, and then you kind of have like the, you know, the traditional kind of like online atheist interactions with presuppositionalists, not very sophisticated.

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This one here is not very sophisticated. It's actually based upon the faulty assumption that A, the claim that the presuppositionalist is making is a bare authority claim.

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Christianity's true, God's revealed himself, you all know it, you're all deceived for denying it, yada, yada, yada, that's it.

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And so there's no argument there, we're just making the assertion, of course, that's not what we're saying. There's an argument baked into what we, how we demonstrate that.

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He also thinks that because it's a bare authority claim, that the claim is equally reversible, right?

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So when someone says, well, the Christian says, all men know that God exists. Well, I'm going to turn around and say, well, all men know that atheism, atheism, everyone knows that atheism is true or something along those lines.

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And then look at the incoherence, the incoherency of this statement. He says, look at all the people rejecting the self -evident truth of our shared naturalistic atheistic reality that has been revealed.

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Revelation is a function of personality, not impersonality of naturalistic and atheistic reality.

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A reality that is at base naturalistic and atheistic is by definition impersonal.

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And so impersonal things do not participate in revelation. Revelation is a feature of personality.

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So not only is this a surface level comment here, it literally is self -contradictory.

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But there you go. I mean, these are the sorts of things that, you know, folks would get into. There's more careful ways to critique presuppositionalism.

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There are good critiques. Not the one, I don't think they go through, but I think they're well thought out. And the presuppositionalist has to grapple with those, and that's fair.

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This isn't one of them. So I just wanted to highlight that. Let's see here. Yeah, so atheist presuppositionalism.

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By the way, with the mention of atheist presuppositionalism here, so I think it's so silly.

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When an atheist tries to use presuppositionalism and they think they're using like a tactic, you don't realize, if you understand what presuppositionalists argue, we argue that everyone is at heart a presuppositionalist.

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Everyone has presuppositions. Everyone has their ultimate authority. And the presuppositionalist wants to himself be epistemologically self -conscious.

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We want to be aware that we have presuppositions, that we have metaphysical assumptions, epistemological foundations and so forth.

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And we want the unbeliever to be aware of those things too, so that they can reason in a way that makes them aware of not just what they're saying, but the foundation from which they are saying it, so that we can critique the foundation and show the worldview to be problematic.

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So when an atheist presuppositionalist says, well, I'm going to try to be an atheist presuppositionalist and use it again, you're actually doing what we want you to do.

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We want you to acknowledge that you have a presuppositional position and that we want you to argue it.

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But this is not the way you do it. This is very surface -level interaction with these ideas, but this isn't like, you know, atheist presuppositionalism isn't something slick or intelligent.

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That's literally what we try. This is actually one of the reasons why it's frustrating talking to some atheists, not all of them, some of them, is because we're trying to get them to see that they are presuppositional at their foundation.

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When an atheist admits, well, I'm going to be an atheist presuppositionalist, then you do the very thing we've been trying to get you to recognize to begin with, that you are a presuppositionalist.

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So apply a presuppositional atheistic apologetic, do that, and we would be happy to interact with that, because that's what we've been wanting the atheists to do all along, is to think consistently as a presuppositionalist, because they are presuppositionalists at heart, and then interact with the worldview.

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So this isn't something slick and smart. This is just what we want you to do, because we think the issue is the presuppositions and the worldviews.

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So there you go. We want to interact with them. That's kind of very surface -level. We've addressed that stuff a boogajillion times.

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So let's see here, it has a lot of the, yeah, it's a troll.

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All right, that's fine. Okay. All right, let's see here.

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Okay, I don't see any other questions. Let's see, no questions, that's fine.

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Some people interacting with, I guess, the troll in the comments.

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I don't think there are any questions there. Okay, so I will continue where I left off.

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All right. Okay. So, the Trinity, getting back to the Trinity, as Van Til articulated, is central to the coherence of the

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Christian worldview, right? This is important, too, because when we argue from a presuppositional perspective, we do so in a very specifically

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Christian way. In the debate between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein, Bonson made this clear, he says,

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I'm not arguing for generic theism, okay, I'm arguing for Christian theism.

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So let me see, all right,

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I'll get to some of the other questions. I'll try to, I'm trying not to, if there are trolls in the comments, I mean, you're free to say whatever you want, that's fine, but I'm trying my best not to be so derailed because sometimes

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I feel inclined to respond to everything in the chat, and of course, I'm going to try to choose my things to respond to with care, so I don't want to derail from what

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I'm trying to say here. But nevertheless, the doctrine of the Trinity is central to a

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Christian worldview, and so by maintaining that God is one personal being with three distinct persons, okay, that's highlighting the fact that there is nothing to God that is impersonal.

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So Van Til affirmed that God is one personal being with three distinct persons, and in doing so,

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I think he was trying to avoid the pitfall of depersonalizing God, and hence depersonalizing the

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Christian worldview. So at a metaphysically foundational perspective, there is nothing impersonal within God.

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He is absolute personality, okay? And the triune nature of God provides the metaphysical basis for unity and diversity, which are fundamental aspects of reality, and so the unity of God's essence corresponds to the order and regularity of creation, while the diversity of persons corresponds to the relational and multifaceted nature of human experience.

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This gets into the issue of, you know, the one and the many, things like that, okay?

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Let me see here. Oh gosh.

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You ever just hear, you ever just read cringy comments, you're just tempted to go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna resist the temptation.

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It's hard to do this. You're trying to, you know, that's hard. Anyway, okay, so without a personal triune

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God, other worldviews, I would argue, are forced into incoherent positions because they lack the capacity to account for unity and diversity in the world, okay?

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So for example, if reality is at base material, okay, materiality, you cannot account for universal abstract logical principles, right?

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How do you make sense out of, how does a worldview make sense out of both unity and plurality? You know, the ancient

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Greeks, the pre -Socratics tried to do this. This was a big question in the history of Western philosophy. And there are problems,

32:04

I can't get into it now, but there are problems when you posit an ultimate unity to the exclusion of plurality, and if you posit an ultimate plurality to the exclusion of unity.

32:16

And so the Greek philosophers tried, they were grappling between ultimate unity and ultimate plurality. And the

32:21

Christian worldview, which has the triune God as its foundation, really doesn't suffer from the deficiencies of those other perspectives because, as we know, within the

32:29

Trinity, God is equally one and equally many, okay? The oneness of God is not more fundamental than the manyness of God, and the manyness of God is not more fundamental than the oneness.

32:43

The oneness and the manyness are equally ultimate. Now within the presuppositional project, and we're doing apologetics, the goal is to show that only the

32:52

Christian worldview provides those preconditions for intelligibility. And so Van Til's emphasis on God's personal nature is key to that approach.

33:01

And so when engaging with, say, like an atheist or agnostic perspectives, presuppositionalists argue that denying the existence of the triune

33:09

God leads to epistemological and ethical collapse. So without a personal, sovereign

33:15

God, there is no coherent foundation for knowledge, there is no coherent foundation for logic, there is no coherent foundation for morality.

33:23

And if you're just visiting this channel, know we're not simply asserting that, we argue for that.

33:29

And if you look in past videos and you study the literature, there's an argument there. Maybe you disagree with the argument, but you need to interact with what we're actually arguing, okay?

33:36

The transcendental argument is an actual argument, okay? There's actually non -presuppositional forms of it as well, right?

33:43

This isn't something that, like, Christians invented, okay? And so if God were merely an impersonal force or an abstract principle, then concepts like truth, morality, personal identity would be left without a foundation.

33:59

For instance, an impersonal universe can't provide a reason why abstract, universal laws of logic should exist in the first place, nor can it account for why human beings as personal agents are able to think rationally or engage in moral discourse.

34:13

And so, Vantil's insistence that God is absolute personality means that these necessary aspects of human life—reason, morality, relationality, things like this—are grounded in the personal and relational nature of God himself, okay?

34:31

And so, another important point in Vantil's outlook is that human beings—and this is a

34:37

Christian outlook—human beings are made in the image of God, and we're made in the image of the personal and relational

34:44

God. And so Vantil's emphasis on the personal nature of God is not merely kind of a philosophical concept, it speaks directly to the nature of human beings.

34:53

And so humans, as image -bearers of God, are personal, relational, and rational beings because they reflect the personal and triune nature of God himself.

35:03

And so this provides the foundation for Christian ethics and morality, as well as the meaningfulness of human relationships and communication, logic, knowledge, and so forth.

35:11

And so when a worldview that rejects a personal God, okay, when you reject the personal

35:16

God, that worldview will struggle to explain why human beings should be viewed as anything more than complex biological machines or random accidents of nature, if you're coming from a materialistic worldview, okay?

35:27

And so out of the window goes things like human dignity, moral obligation, personal identity.

35:33

These things are problematic on worldviews that are not grounded in the personal God that we've been describing here, okay?

35:41

So again, how do we demonstrate that? Well, we've discussed that ad nauseum on this channel. That's not the topic here.

35:47

I'm not trying to demonstrate the existence of God or providing a justification for the transcendental argument.

35:56

We've done that in other parts as well. Let me see here.

36:08

Yeah, I don't know what the problem of the one and the many is. Yeah, sure. I'm not biting that. I'm not biting that one.

36:16

Here we go. All right.

36:24

So we got it. We've got an official troll in the chat. There we go. Now, if you have a question, preface your question with a question so that I could differentiate it between trolling and actual questions.

36:40

So that would be helpful to me, okay? All right. And I have no moderators too.

36:47

I do all this stuff myself. It's okay. It's all good. So yes, if you have a question, please preface your question with a question or I won't be able to answer it.

36:54

So okay.

37:10

Okay. Let me see if I can go up, up, up. So if I don't see the question,

37:17

I'm only going to respond if there's a question in front of, in front of, let me see.

37:27

Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Okay. If someone's trolling in the comments, it's okay. It's all right. Some of the stuff he's saying is pretty lame anyway.

37:33

I don't want to spend too much time on it. But if you have a question, I will be happy if you let me know that you have a specific question.

37:43

So let me see here. All right.

37:50

So let's take a question here. Scott Terry says, the Transcendental Thomists say being is the most primitive concept, but as good

37:59

Vantillians, shouldn't we say Triune personal being is the most primitive of all concepts?

38:05

Well, again, everything has to be understood and defined, right? When we say being, I mean, is that an abstract concept?

38:12

This is wrapped up in Vantill's concept of the abstract universal as opposed to a concrete universal. So we start with something as abstract as being.

38:19

I mean, what does that mean, right? We're starting not with some abstraction, but we are starting with the personal

38:27

Triune God. And so Vantill would say, we are starting with a concrete universal as opposed to an abstract universal.

38:36

We're not theorizing out here in the ether about the nature of being. We're starting with the specific being of God, the metaphysically ultimate

38:43

Triune God who grounds, creates, and gives meaning to everything else that is created.

38:49

And that's where that fundamental metaphysical aspect of the creator -creature distinction comes in. So yeah, again, sure,

38:57

I would say that the Triune God is metaphysically ultimate. He is metaphysically primitive, if what you mean by that is that he's fundamental, sure.

39:05

And so the being of the Triune God, yes, I would say that we could say that as long as we define our terms correctly.

39:13

All right, let's see here, let's see here, a little off topic, but Frank Odom says, this may be a stretch for tonight.

39:35

It is a little stretch, but it's okay. I listened to and read Ravi Zacharias for decades. I was shocked when the truth about him came out.

39:42

He lost respect, but do think what he did.

39:48

I don't know what you're asking. I don't know what the question is. I'm sorry. He lost respect, but do think what he did.

39:55

I'm not sure what you're asking. I do apologize. If you rephrase it, maybe I can give an answer. Sorry.

40:02

Let's see here. Give me a second.

40:39

I don't see any question questions. I just see a lot of activity, which again is fine.

40:59

Interesting. So Jonathan Myron says, okay, so Jonathan Myron says, how do you use precept to refute

41:09

Molinism? That's a great question. So Molinism, for folks who don't know what Molinism is,

41:16

I did not, Frank, I did not see that. If you can rewrite your question in its entirety, because then

41:22

I'd have to scroll all the way back for the first part. So my comments are moving up and down there.

41:27

So I do apologize. So if you could ask it again, I'll try my best to address it. Now, how do you use precept to refute

41:35

Molinism? Okay. So Molinism, if you're a Molinist, you know, you're a

41:40

Christian, you believe that God, you believe something about God's, the nature of God's omniscience.

41:46

So Molinism is the view that understands God's omniscience to be understood in three categories.

41:53

God has what we call natural knowledge, His knowledge of everything that could happen. His middle knowledge,

42:00

God's knowledge of what would happen, counterfactuals that exist logically prior to the divine decree.

42:06

And then you have God's free knowledge, His knowledge of what actually will in fact occur.

42:12

And so Molinists believe that God has this middle knowledge, this knowledge of counterfactuals that exists prior to His decree.

42:22

And then, of course, another feature of Molinism is the belief that man has libertarian free will. So there are two ways that you could precept

42:31

Molinism. Because the Molinist is going to affirm the Bible, you could argue biblically against Molinism.

42:38

Okay, now I can't lay that out all here. That would take too much time, but you get the point. Take Molinism's claims and see if you can use

42:46

Scripture to counter, to respond to the points that the Molinist is making. Okay?

42:52

And you could also, you could also attack libertarian freedom.

42:59

So if Molinism is predicated upon two main pillars of middle knowledge and libertarian freedom, you could precept

43:06

Molinism or critique Molinism by attacking one of the pillars. So, for example, you can try and show that libertarian conceptions of freedom are incoherent.

43:17

Okay? How do you do that? Well, again, this is a very deep topic, but, I mean, just a small suggestion.

43:23

When you take something like libertarian freedom, you want to know what version of libertarianism that someone is holding.

43:30

You can critique libertarianism by attacking, you know, I don't know what this is,

43:35

I'm going to lose people here, but you could attack the principle of alternative possibilities, which is the idea that a person is morally responsible if and only if they have the ability to choose other than what they are, what they in fact choose.

43:49

Okay, that possibility has to be open. So you could attack that position. There's ways to do that. Now, I don't have time to go into that now, but one of the ways is you either can attack the coherency of libertarian freedom, or you could attack the idea of middle knowledge.

44:03

How can you attack them? You could attack them philosophically. You could attack them biblically. There are different ways that one might go about doing that.

44:09

Now, it's not as easy as I'm saying it, right? There's a lot more involved than that, but that's how

44:15

I would approach Molinism. Okay? All right, thank you. Let's see here.

44:24

Yeah, so Joel Hardinger, sorry if I got that wrong, says,

44:31

How would you explain the impossibility of the contrary? A pre -sub argument to, let's say, your five - or seven -year -old daughter.

44:39

Well, that's going to be a very subjective thing, because I don't know the level of understanding of your five - or seven -year -old daughter.

44:46

However, there are very easy ways to explain this, and I think one of the ways that we can do it is simply biblically.

44:53

Okay? For example, the Book of Psalms says that in His light we see light. In His light we see light.

44:59

And I could explain that only in the light of what God has revealed can we understand everything else around us.

45:07

That's it. It's a very basic way, right? Only within the light of God's revelation, what

45:12

He's told us in His word, only in light of what He's told us can we truly understand the world around us.

45:18

That's a very basic way to explain it, right? Or you can tell your daughter the story of the wise man and the foolish man, right?

45:28

The foolish man built his house on the sand. And the storm comes, the wind blows, and the house collapses.

45:34

That's a great way to highlight that when we build our thoughts and our thinking on things that are contrary to God, they're going to fall.

45:42

That's a very simplistic way of saying that if you have a non -Christian philosophical outlook, you're going to fall philosophically, okay?

45:51

Rather, if we build our house like the wise man, we build our house on the rock. We have a firm foundation, right?

45:59

Listen, little Susie, don't you know that when you have a strong foundation, the house is most likely going to stand and withstand the storm and the rain?

46:08

Kids can understand that. And so that's some ways that you could explain kind of presuppositionalism.

46:15

You know, in His light we see light. It's impossible to see and understand things rightly unless we see it in the light of God's revelation, okay?

46:22

That's a very simplistic way of saying the impossibility of the contrary. We can't understand anything unless we see it in light of how

46:27

God has revealed it, right? So there are different ways you can go about that. But again, it's going to depend. There we go.

46:34

Let's see here. So Frank Odom says, Does Ravi Zacharias' sin invalidate his ministry? Truth is truth no matter where it comes from.

46:41

Well, listen, you're right. Truth is truth no matter where it comes from.

46:47

So even though Ravi Zacharias was demonstrated to be, it appears to be, a charlatan, that doesn't mean that the things that he said that were true are no longer true.

47:02

It doesn't mean that the lives that were transformed by the truth that he spoke, you know, that that's all wasted.

47:09

You see, even someone who is sinfully wielding the truth, God will deal with that individual.

47:15

But God will still accomplish His purposes, okay? The Apostle Paul speaks of those who preach the gospel out of conceit and gain.

47:25

They desire to gain out of preaching the gospel. But the gospel was proclaimed.

47:32

And so even though people sinfully wield the sword of truth, okay, they will be judged for doing that.

47:39

But it still is the sword of truth. And even a sinner and rebellious deceiver who wields truth, okay, for their own personal gain, the blade is still going to cut.

47:51

No matter who is wielding the words of God, it's the word of God. And so it will accomplish the purpose for which

47:58

God has given it to us, okay? So if I were a charlatan, okay, and if I were intentionally trying to deceive people, but I was truthfully—because people will call me charlatan, right?

48:11

So we've had some, you know, our good atheist friends in the chats have called me, you know, I'm in this for the money because I'm so rich, okay?

48:19

People have said that. Suppose that were true, you know, and I was doing this for the money. By the way, I make almost nothing from this except, you know, a few super chats here and there or some speaking engagements here and there.

48:30

It's not like I'm rolling in the dough. But suppose it were true and I was doing this for the money. That would not mean that if—when

48:38

I speak the truth in these videos, the truth is still the truth even though I am speaking the truth with a deceptive heart behind it.

48:47

And so in that sense, I would say, you know, Ravi Zacharias doesn't have a ministry.

48:52

I don't have a ministry. I am part of God's kingdom. It's not my ministry.

48:58

It's Christ's ministry, right? So Christ is going to accomplish what he's going to accomplish regardless of my sinful intentions.

49:08

You see what I'm saying? Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. I'm losing my voice here.

49:14

Blah. Let me see. Let me get here. Imran says, how would you explain the

49:34

Trinity and creation in terms of substance, essence, attribute, and mode? I do apologize,

49:39

Imran. I do not understand what you are asking specifically. I explain the

49:44

Trinity using biblical categories. I will use theological terms to make distinctions between the being of God and the personhood of God.

49:54

Those terms are different. They need to be kept distinct. But at the same time, there is a unity to the tri -personality of God.

50:02

God is one in nature, one in essence, three in persons. And God, as the triune

50:08

God, has various attributes that are revealed to us in Scripture. So I'm not sure exactly what you're asking there.

50:16

So I do apologize if I misunderstand what you're getting at. Thank you for your question. All right.

50:33

Smack Dab says, will God ever step in and render apologists such as yourself obsolete? On Judgment Day, maybe.

50:40

And if so, is punishment in store for those who wait for that time when there's no more room for doubt?

50:49

Yes, there is going to come a time where apologetics is going to be obsolete when Christ comes and judges.

50:55

I'm not going to be, you know, giving no transcendental argument. God is going to judge righteously all mankind who know that He exists and suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

51:09

So, yes. I would say that all men have a knowledge of God and they're responsible to Him, and they will answer to God on Judgment Day.

51:18

So, yes, there will come a time when apologists like myself will become obsolete. Absolutely.

51:31

Okay. Jonathan Myron says, how do you refute postmodernism?

51:38

Well, postmodernism is very suspicious of metanarratives, but I think it illogically puts forth a metanarrative while rejecting or being suspicious of them.

51:53

Postmodernism reduces to, you know, really reduces to subjectivity and is really a self -refuting position.

51:59

How would I biblically refute it? Well, first, you can logically refute it by showing its incoherence, and you could biblically refute it in the sense that the

52:08

Bible teaches that there is a right way of viewing the world, that we can know what that right way is, we have a knowledge of what that right way is, at least to the degree that we know a

52:18

God such that we are without excuse. So from a biblical perspective, there is truth, we can know it, and there's a proper framework for knowing that truth.

52:26

What is that truth? Well, that truth is God and His revelation, right? God is, from the Christian worldview, from a biblical perspective,

52:32

God exists, God has revealed Himself, all men have a knowledge of Him, they are without excuse for the knowledge that they have, yet they suppress.

52:40

Okay? Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. All men who come to Me, you know, all—what is he, oh my goodness, it's a popular verse, that was embarrassing, the apologist guy forgot the—hold up for a second!

52:57

I'm having like a—I'm getting old, okay? I am the way, the truth, and the life.

53:02

No man comes to the Father but by Me. There we go! Oh man, I had a moment there. Yes, so yes, the

53:09

Bible affirms that there is truth, that we can know it, that in some degree we do know it with respect to the truth about God, with respect to the knowledge of God that the

53:20

Bible says that all men have, all men have, and there's a proper framework to understanding reality. So there, yes,

53:25

I think the Bible implicitly and explicitly affirm a worldview.

53:31

So yes, we affirm a metanarrative, we affirm a worldview, and that metanarrative is grounded in the ultimately personal, covenantal

53:40

God who has revealed Himself, who is one in being, three in persons, or as Van Til would say it, in the sense that he desired to get that across,

53:50

God is one person and three persons. Not in the contradictory sense, but in the specific context that Van Til was getting at, as I explained at the beginning of this video.

53:59

All right. Let's see here. All right.

54:06

Okay, let me get back to my... Frank Odom says,

54:17

Clearly you're a charlatan, Eli. You are stained with TBN makeup and hairspray.

54:24

That is the funniest thing I've ever read in any of my comments. Congratulations, Frank Odom.

54:29

That is hilarious. Hairspray. That's awesome.

54:36

Very good. I know what you're talking about too. Yeah. All right. Let's see here.

54:44

Okay. All right. I wanted to talk a little bit about covenant, but I got kind of thrown off at the questions.

54:51

These are good questions though, so I do appreciate it. All right. Now, where I left off,

54:58

I wanted to talk about Van Til's view of covenant. Okay? Because for Van Til, there are only two kinds of people in the world.

55:07

And I think this concept that Van Til puts out is also a biblical concept. And those two categories are that there are...

55:20

All right. Jackie Griffith, I see your question. Let me just... Okay.

55:26

Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll get to it. I promise. All right. I wanted to talk about covenant. Fine. I will try to get the questions first.

55:34

I apologize. You guys are so good listening in this long. Let me get to some questions. I'll try to share my thoughts.

55:40

Jackie Griffith says... Let me take my water break real quick. Hope you don't mind this off topic.

55:47

I'm curious your thoughts for the Christian with past history of trauma that keeps resurfacing from a precept perspective.

55:55

Okay. Okay. So you need to explain a little bit, from a precept standpoint, what do

56:03

I believe about people with past trauma? I mean, people have past trauma.

56:10

Yes. I'm not sure what you're asking in terms of a precept standpoint. I suppose if the

56:17

Bible is our foundation, if you're asking how do we deal with past trauma, if the

56:22

Bible is our ultimate authority, okay, then the truth of Scripture and what it teaches should inform us as to how we ought to deal with past trauma.

56:34

Does that make sense? So you can give me maybe a thumbs up or a thumbs down if you don't agree.

56:40

But if the Bible is the Word of God, it's our ultimate authority, and we have a life that is filled with past trauma, how do we deal with that past trauma?

56:50

Well, we interpret and understand that past trauma in light of what Scripture says, right? That God allows us to go through various difficulties.

56:58

That is part of forming us in sanctification, and so we should not feel hopelessness when we are struggling with past trauma because we know that even the difficulties that God has permitted us to go through, even those things are for a purpose.

57:16

And so even our past trauma is redeemable and can be used to glorify

57:23

God, okay? So I hope that makes sense. From a precept perspective, I would just apply the authority of the

57:31

Bible's teaching to how I interpret, understand, and deal with my past trauma, whatever that is.

57:38

Now again, it's easier said than done. I would imagine that's very difficult because people go through different things and stuff like that, but you get the point of what

57:45

I would, you know, that's what I would say. Someone's like, I'm struggling with this thing in my past, you know, what should I do? I would encourage them to stand firm on the promises of God, the truth of Scripture, and apply those realities to their situation so that they can be renewed, strengthened, and encouraged to move forward in life, knowing that the things, the baggage that they hold,

58:04

Christ says, give them to me, right? Lightening our burden, allowing us to move forward in our lives.

58:10

So a precept application here is just to apply, right, the truth of Scripture to our situation.

58:16

And if we say the Bible is our ultimate authority, then we should trust what the

58:21

Word of God says regardless. So yeah, it's a great question. I see you have thumbs up, so I guess

58:26

I did get it. I appreciate it. Let's see here.

58:34

Okay, so I'm going to get back to the points that I wanted to get to, and then

58:39

I will try to get to more questions. Okay, so, Van Til brings in this idea, okay, of covenant keepers and covenant breakers.

58:52

Those are the two categories of people from a biblical perspective, and of course this is emphasized in Van Til, okay?

58:57

And so from this perspective, every single person is in covenant relationship with God, whether they acknowledge it or not, okay?

59:05

You're either living in obedience to that covenant, meaning you're trusting God, living according to His ways and so forth, and acknowledging

59:11

His authority, or you are a covenant breaker, namely someone who has rejected

59:16

God's rightful authority, and you're living in rebellion against Him, okay? And so Van Til was clear that there is no neutral ground here, right?

59:24

You are either covenant keeper, covenant breaker. You're either honoring the covenant or breaking it, and if you're a covenant keeper, you're living under the

59:32

Lordship of Christ. You're recognizing God's authority over every area of your life, but if you're a covenant breaker, you're denying

59:39

God's rule. You're trying to live as though you are your own authority, even though you're still under His rule, whether you admit it or not.

59:47

And so God's covenant is personal in the very deepest sense.

59:53

He doesn't just lay down a bunch of rules and walk away. He's personally involved with His people.

01:00:01

And throughout Scripture, God personally speaks to, leads, and provides for His covenant people. And the ultimate expression of this covenant relationship is seen in the person of Jesus Christ, who not only fulfills

01:00:11

God's covenant, but also calls us to trust in Him as our covenant Lord.

01:00:17

And so when Van Til talks about God relating to us covenantally, he's saying that God engages with us personally as the sovereign

01:00:25

Lord of this covenant. And so we either are in right relationship with Him as covenant keepers, or we are in rebellion as covenant breakers.

01:00:34

But either way, we are all inescapably in covenant with God. And this personal, covenantal relationship is the only framework in which we can truly understand the world, ourselves, and our relationship with God.

01:00:49

And so when a worldview is grounded in something that's ultimately impersonal, you run into major problems, especially when it comes to knowledge.

01:00:58

When you deny the one you're in covenant with, you lose the foundation for everything else.

01:01:04

All right? So let me stop here, okay?

01:01:11

And then I will now try my best to address the questions, okay? So thank you so much for being patient with me, and thank you so much, everyone, for listening in so far.

01:01:19

I'll try my best to—let me see here.

01:01:26

And I apologize if I skip someone. I don't mean to, because the chat moves by itself.

01:01:39

Apologetic says, why do atheists think they can make objective moral charges to Christians when they have no objective moral basis for why it's even wrong to be a charlatan, a charlatan grifter, etc.?

01:01:51

Yeah, so atheists try to make objective moral charges because many atheists actually believe there are objective moral values and duties.

01:02:02

The interesting thing comes when they try to provide a justification for that. I don't think they can do it.

01:02:07

Now, why would an atheist charge Christians for violating some objective moral standard? It's because some atheists think there is a moral standard, they think they have a justification for that standard, and then, with those beliefs intact, they will say, hey, you violated, you know, these standards and your actions are immoral.

01:02:26

So there are people who think that they can justify them. I don't think they can do it. I don't think they even come close. But, you know,

01:02:32

I think people genuinely think they can, and of course they will then say things that are consistent with that belief and point out things that they see as morally reprehensible and things like that.

01:02:42

But yes, I would agree. If God does not exist and atheism is what's the case, right,

01:02:50

I don't see a basis for morality at all. And saying, what helps human flourishing, that's what's good, and what hurts human flourishing, that doesn't work either.

01:03:04

This is a very shallow ethical theory, and open to loads of criticism.

01:03:10

Doesn't give you an objective moral foundation. So, there we go.

01:03:16

Let me see here. Truth Defenders.

01:03:30

Long question, oh boy. What say you about William Lane Craig's reply on his use of the

01:03:37

Kerberos analogy? He said, I do not take Kerberos to be an analogy of the Trinity. On the contrary, is there another part?

01:03:45

I don't see the other part. On the contrary, about how three persons can be one being.

01:03:52

Yeah, I think William Lane Craig used the example of Kerberos. He said this,

01:03:57

I don't remember the exact wording. He says, as a springboard for discussing how something can be both one and three.

01:04:05

Now, what do I think about that analogy? I mean, I probably wouldn't use that analogy, but to be a little sympathetic to Dr.

01:04:13

Craig, I understand what he's trying to do. I don't think it's the best way to go about it.

01:04:20

When you start using examples to express the

01:04:26

Trinity, things can become very shaky. Even if Kerberos was a good analogy, even if it was, it's probably not the best analogy to use with a

01:04:37

Muslim. Because that idea of comparing God to something in pagan mythology comes off in a weird way, especially to Muslims.

01:04:47

If you remember, Muhammad Hijab says, oh, he did something to the effect, I wouldn't even compare God to some three -headed dog.

01:04:54

So I don't think it's the best, just rhetorically, I don't think it's the best use of trying to exemplify the

01:05:00

Trinity. But I understand what Dr. Craig was at least trying to do. Whether he should use that example, that's another story.

01:05:07

So, yeah, thank you for that. Let's see here.

01:05:34

Okay, so Smackdab says, pardon, let me grab some water real quick.

01:05:44

Smackdab says, what is an example of something which, if God did it, would be evil, sinful, or unholy?

01:05:51

Is God sinless and holy simply because the concepts do not apply to God, no matter what abhorrent thing he does?

01:05:59

So the question itself is question -begging and a loaded question. So, no,

01:06:05

God can't do something evil. God is unable to do something evil because for a perfectly holy, righteous, and good

01:06:13

God, to do something unholy and unrighteous is a logical contradiction. So it is not part of the

01:06:19

Christian concept of God that God does contradictions, right? I don't think that God can create a square circle.

01:06:25

Contradictions are meaningless. So, no, God does not violate his nature. So I couldn't give you a coherent example of a perfectly holy, righteous, and just God doing something logically incoherent like something evil or unholy.

01:06:40

Okay? Is God sinless? Yes. Is he sinless simply because the concepts do not apply to God?

01:06:47

Well, he's sinless because of his nature, okay? Something isn't good because there's a standard outside of God that God is trying to conform, okay?

01:06:57

And something is not good simply because God declares it to be good. Something is good because God is good.

01:07:04

It is his nature. And God does not violate his nature because to do so would be logically incoherent.

01:07:10

So that's kind of like a version of the euthyphro, it seems to me, which

01:07:15

I think has been answered a bajillion times. The euthyphro dilemma is dead. As was mentioned in a debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg, Dr.

01:07:25

Craig quoted from a non -Christian source that logical problems of evil and euthyphro, these sorts of things, they are a dying breed in philosophy.

01:07:34

Euthyphro dilemma is not a good dilemma. It's quite easy. I teach eighth -grade logic. I teach my kids, my students, on how to answer this.

01:07:42

It's not a very good objection. It's an interesting one and I think raises some interesting discussion and allows the

01:07:49

Christian to expand when it's using its Christians. They use it to expand on the idea of the nature of God being good.

01:07:54

But I don't think it's very good. When someone brings up the euthyphro, I'm not like, oh my goodness, it's the euthyphro. It doesn't worry me one bit because it's easily answerable.

01:08:04

But thank you though, SmackDab. I do appreciate your question. Let's see.

01:08:17

Justin Pastrana says, how do I simplify the issue of the one in the many to my mother -in -law?

01:08:25

Put her eyes going into a swivel. Okay, well, so the problem of the one in the many is a difficult problem in philosophy.

01:08:33

So you want to be very careful. The more you try to simplify something, you lose the necessary nuance to make sense out of it.

01:08:41

So the more you simplify it, you're going to lose something. The more I complicate it, I'm going to lose the people who

01:08:47

I want to understand it. So finding a middle ground can be difficult. I would say that we have particulars and universals.

01:08:56

So the example is often used with ducks in a pond. So we have individual ducks. You have duck one, duck two, duck three in a pond.

01:09:04

But what unifies these many ducks? Well, you have the concept of duckness.

01:09:09

The nature of the duck would be the universal, the one unifier of the particular individual ducks.

01:09:17

So I usually use this as an example with my students when we talk a little bit. Not that I'm talking about the one in the many with my students all the time.

01:09:24

They're only in eighth grade. But we do talk about it a little bit. And so I use kind of like examples like that.

01:09:30

Like you have individual humans. There's particulars. You have humanity. That is a universal.

01:09:36

So it's a philosophical discussion dealing with universals and particulars. So that can be kind of like requires some laying of the groundwork.

01:09:44

But I suppose you can explain it using kind of the examples I use. It just depends. I mean, people are in different levels of understanding.

01:09:51

So I don't know how much experience your mother -in -law has in philosophy or not. That knowledge will impact how

01:09:58

I explain it to others. So sorry. Let's see here.

01:10:11

Toto Baramundo. I know there's a toothpaste argument for God, but what is the breakfast for tacos argument for the existence of the biblical

01:10:22

God? I don't even understand that. I do apologize. Yeah, so Smackdab says, so killing the firstborn of Egypt, for example, an abhorrent act if anyone but God does it.

01:10:35

So when God takes life, when you say abhorrent, if you are imbuing abhorrent with negative, moral, pejorative aspects to it, then that begs the question, right?

01:10:47

When God does something, if God is perfect, just, good, holy, and righteous, then by definition, he never does things that are abhorrent if what you mean by abhorrent, evil or immoral.

01:11:04

If God is perfectly good, righteous, and holy, then everything he does is good, righteous, and holy, whether you like it or not, or whether you think it's righteous or not, or whether you can't conceive in your mind what reason

01:11:16

God could possibly have for the things that he does. That's irrelevant. If God is who he is, then his actions will be consistent with who he is.

01:11:24

For example, God wiping out humanity in a flood is not immoral of God.

01:11:30

God is the giver of life. He is perfectly well within his right to take life. God does not take life arbitrarily.

01:11:36

God does not take life without any reason. Sometimes he tells us the reason. Sometimes we're not given the details of all this.

01:11:42

But if God is who he is, then yes, he's not following a standard outside of himself that if he violates it, he's evil.

01:11:50

He is the standard. He's not arbitrary, but he is the standard. And what he does is going to be consistent with who he is.

01:11:58

And again, we talk about God being loving, but the Bible doesn't say God is only loving. It also says that he's holy, he's just, he's righteous, and he executes justice, okay?

01:12:08

And if you don't understand why he executes justice in the way that he does, that's irrelevant to the fact that when he does execute justice, it is still justice, and it flows from his good and righteous character, even though it is true, on the one hand, his love endures forever, yet on the other hand, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

01:12:27

God. All right? All right, so thank you for that, though. I do appreciate it. Let's see here.

01:12:53

All right. I don't see anyone else that's prefaced with a question.

01:13:05

If I missed it, I apologize. Right, so here we go.

01:13:16

So Adriano Optimistic Bear says, I think a good way to frame this question is, is God good because God has to be good, or is

01:13:23

God good because he determines what is good? God is good because that's his nature.

01:13:31

That's like asking, why is God God? Is God God because that's what he is, or is

01:13:36

God God because he determines himself to be God? No, God is God because that's who he is.

01:13:42

God is good because good is what God is. That's part of his nature. He's not adhering to an external standard, and he's not deciding to be good.

01:13:50

Good is who he is. He's not only good. He is also righteous. He is also just. He is also holy.

01:13:56

He is also the judge of all the earth, and when he judges, it will flow out of a consistent understanding of those attributes that are laid out in Scripture.

01:14:06

All right. Let's see here.

01:14:22

Right, so Smack Dab says, that doesn't mean that the question was begging or loaded. I just was taking the position that killing the firstborn of Egypt is abhorrent.

01:14:30

So if, again, so if you mean by abhorrent, if you mean like immoral or evil, then again, we're going to have to ask, you know, this is a traditional question, by what standard do you appeal to when judging

01:14:44

God's actions? All right. Now, I don't know if you're an atheist or some proponent of some other philosophy or whatever, but the standard is going to be required, you know, and we don't get it, and I wouldn't say that you're doing this

01:14:56

Smack Dab, but you don't get away with saying, well, I don't need to answer that question. You know, putting the firstborn of Egypt, you know, to death is just wrong, and then you appeal to emotion by like, you know, because everyone knows, you know, that's a terrible thing.

01:15:10

Well, no, that's not an argument, and Smack Dab is not making that argument, but many people do, and they do that hand -waving response so that they don't actually have to give a foundation for the standards that they're applying to God.

01:15:22

If you don't have an objective standard, then how could you say something is abhorrent or evil unless you are stating that it's simply your opinion, in which case you're free to your opinion, but it really doesn't tell us anything with respect to the nature of the action that's being addressed.

01:15:37

But thank you, Smack Dab. I'm not saying that that's what you're doing, but I'm just sharing my thoughts based on what you said.

01:15:44

All right, let's see here. Right, that's all

01:15:56

I see. I do apologize if I missed some questions. I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to, okay.

01:16:06

All right, I think I'm going to end the stream now. I don't know if you guys noticed, my voice is getting a little deeper.

01:16:15

I don't want to lose my voice because I have to wake up early tomorrow and teach all day, so I do apologize.

01:16:21

So there you go. Did Vantill, getting back to the thumbnail, did

01:16:26

Vantill say that God is one person and three persons? Yes. Was Vantill affirming a contradiction?

01:16:33

No, because, pardon, I need more water. Because the way in which he uses one person is understood in one sense, and the way he affirms three persons is understood in another sense.

01:16:50

So when you take a look at what he is saying there, then he's not saying such a simplistic thing as God is one person, three persons, in any contradictory way.

01:17:00

He kind of clarified what he meant by that. All right, so that's basically what I was talking about at the beginning, and hopefully

01:17:06

I addressed that sufficiently, and it was interesting and informative for folks. And then, of course,

01:17:12

I tried my best to answer as many questions as I could. I do apologize if I missed anyone's questions.

01:17:18

It's definitely not on purpose. My voice is straining at the moment, so I try to do the best that I can.

01:17:27

So that's it for this episode, guys. I really appreciate everyone in the chat listening in, and again, if you haven't subscribed to Revealed Apologetics, please do so.

01:17:36

That would be greatly appreciated. And if you're looking to support Revealed Apologetics, you can do so. The information for that is in the description to this video when you click down there.

01:17:46

So I really do appreciate it, and really would appreciate the support. There have been folks who have been asking me to go to the

01:17:53

Southeastern, I think it's the SES Conference, where there's going to be a lot of Reformtomists speaking.

01:18:02

They're not big fans of Presup, but folks have been asking me if I am going, and I am going.

01:18:10

So the SES Conference, I will be there. And so I'm super excited because I never go to these things.

01:18:17

Either I don't have the money, or it's too far, and I don't have the time. So I'm happy this one's not that far from where I am.

01:18:26

And so I will be there, and I'm looking forward to hearing some interesting talks and meeting people as well.

01:18:32

So there you go. But until next time, guys, I appreciate all of you. Take care. God bless.