Rampage of a Roman Catholic | Apologetics Live 0032
2 views
It starts off with Anthony talking about the Ohio Fire and evangelizing in the Gay Pride parade and then a long discussion with Traditional Catholic, James who never ceases to talk. Even to the point that we were just too tired to talk with him any longer. Sorry that it gets cut off at the end.
Apologetics Live 0032
This podcast is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and all our resources strivingforeternity.org
Listen to other podcasts on the Christian Podcast Community: ChristianPodcastCommunity.org
Support Striving for Eternity at http://StrivingForEternity.org/donate
Support Matt Slick at https://www.patreon.com/mattslick
Check out all of the great apologetic resources at CARM.org
Please review us on iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rapp-report/id1353293537
Give us your feedback, email us [email protected]
Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/StrivingForEternity
Join the conversation on our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/326999827369497
Watch subscribe to us on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/StrivingForEternity
Get the book What Do They Believe at http://WhatDoTheyBelieve.com
Get the book What Do We Believe at http://WhatDoWeBelieveBook.com
Get Matt Slick’s books
- 00:02
- All right, everybody welcome It's apologetics live. It is
- 00:07
- May 23rd 2019 I don't think we have anybody waiting.
- 00:14
- I don't know of anybody Right now that might be in a room. I'll check what just now releasing this
- 00:20
- Andrew is in the Philippines, so I'll be Doing it solo tonight.
- 00:26
- No big deal And let me see I'm just moving stuff around the screen here filling in the blanks while I'm talking getting things going so that We can see okay, so I'm the only one watching.
- 00:40
- I'm the only one in I'm gonna give it a little while I'm gonna get a 10 -15 minutes if nobody shows up Then I'll just bail and go do some other things.
- 00:48
- I got plenty to do always all the time So it's six o 'clock straight up and that's the time is supposed to be.
- 00:55
- Oh, we've got six people watching right now so that's good and maybe they'll type in something and they can talk or they can come in to the
- 01:05
- Participation room if they want to to get to the information. Hey, Andrew Graham James Bush if you want to To participate just go to karma org slash apologetics hyphen live and You can see the links and stuff
- 01:23
- Like I can get into should be able to you can test it out. If you want you'll be able to get in here and Let's see, yeah, there we go should be able to get in maybe we could talk anybody wants to come in and talk
- 01:34
- We might have some Catholics in and might have some atheists in I have been absolutely busy Very just very busy a lot of stuff
- 01:43
- Has been happening lately So as you guys know, I've been out of Commission for a few weeks
- 01:51
- Not personally, it's just not not anything physical. I mean We had new carpet in the house and we were gonna move to Arizona But we planned our plans got sidetracked a little bit.
- 02:05
- We're still gonna go just gonna be later this year discovered that the insurance medical insurance when we get down there will start over the deductibles start over and It's just too expensive for us to Watch and I could see that that's good
- 02:22
- Too expensive, you know to have another six eight thousand dollars in deductible to have to go through And we just found out that my wife has her a sixth
- 02:31
- Broken vertebra. So that's something she's gonna have to have fixed in about four weeks.
- 02:37
- They do what's called a kyphoplasty so That And I was exhausted last week and just had tech problems and I just I just couldn't do it.
- 02:47
- I was just I was spent there's a lot going on and so that was that you know, and So now
- 02:56
- I feel a lot better had a rest today And maybe even after this I have to go shopping tonight, you know because my wife's condition
- 03:04
- I said do you pick up the slack and And Do do various things that she can't do anymore.
- 03:11
- That's just what it is So there you go. If you want to participate or if you're in the chat room
- 03:18
- Just the you're watching it and you want to you can you can
- 03:25
- We can type a question and I'm just seeing my shirt says we're truth, but it's backwards so I'm going to do
- 03:31
- I Think there's a way to reverse it Let's see
- 03:40
- So How about Where is it?
- 03:47
- Cameraman, no, that's not it share screen. No, it's in it's around or someplace
- 03:54
- Let's see Toolbox, I'm just killing time right now and I think what we do.
- 04:05
- Oh Come on, come on Oh You slimeball I Talked to my computers will now do what
- 04:13
- I want to do All right. Let's try this. There's a way to do it and I can't figure it out yet So I'll just keep talking and stalling until I get it done
- 04:25
- Not a link for you. Can you pop it in here? It's the link to joins not working.
- 04:31
- Okay. Well that case what I will do is take this link
- 04:38
- I'll go to that page and I will put it in that page.
- 04:43
- It should it should work. I don't know why it's not And I'm just putting a link the big link so Come on Refresh and you give it a shot.
- 04:58
- All right So there you go I'm gonna keep working on this thing mirror your video that was right there in front of me.
- 05:06
- There we go. There we go that's what's supposed to be look like so now you can see my
- 05:14
- Shirt and that's what the room really looks like. Hope you guys like the plants and stuff like that So as we're waiting for people to get in here, maybe we have a discussion.
- 05:23
- Maybe not. We'll see and Okay Well, I've got some messages.
- 05:33
- Let me check this out So We're on let's see
- 05:50
- Come on you guys this is going pretty slowly right now. I'm gonna do
- 06:02
- Let's try this Okay, here we go.
- 06:11
- Let's see we get a friend of mine to come in and maybe we can talk Let's see. Sorry still not a link for you.
- 06:16
- Come on. Come on. You have to refresh your screen refresh that page I'm gonna put it in here.
- 06:28
- There's there's the whole well, I put it in. Hopefully it'll work And try that as well
- 06:35
- God loves the sinner but hates a sin The fallacy Helen. Yeah. Well in one sense, he loves a sinner and another sense.
- 06:42
- He doesn't love the sinner he loves all people per Matthew 5 43 to 48 in that he
- 06:49
- Graciously allows them to enjoy the Sun and the rain and things like that but he also hates the sinner who does iniquity that Psalm 5 5
- 07:00
- Psalm 11 5 and to hate sin is an interesting thing because it's a it's a
- 07:06
- You know, it's it's a concept need a concept Well, it's the rebellion against God and certainly
- 07:12
- God abhors that and there's enmity between God and us through the law
- 07:17
- Ephesians 2 15 talks about that That link isn't working.
- 07:25
- Yeah, I did You know, I'm gonna do I'm gonna try something here because we've had this problem before where I'll put this link and it's exactly
- 07:36
- I'm copying it. It's exactly the link and it's not working. So I'm gonna do is a mini minify
- 07:43
- URL I'm gonna go and Get that. I'm gonna put a short URL in For minification and Let's see.
- 07:54
- We can find out a good place to do that and what I'll do is
- 07:59
- I'll put it in get that put it in here in the room and this is part of what it is to There we go
- 08:09
- To work through some of the problems Okay, let's see No, that's not it minify
- 08:16
- URL. Come on not JavaScript Let's see
- 08:22
- We're working it slowly And then I gotta find the right place to do it at.
- 08:27
- Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So gotta find a place that will do it oh man
- 08:43
- Okay You guys know of a good place to do it at My thoughts on the
- 08:52
- Pope saying that only through Mary people will go to heaven He's uh, he's obviously deceived and is in the servants of the evil one by saying that Without Mary can't go to heaven.
- 09:03
- If you've got the documentation for that. I want it. I want to see it
- 09:13
- Okay, let's see All right
- 09:22
- Okay Well minify web page, let me try that Web page address, let's see if we can come up with a minify
- 09:36
- Come on maybe somebody you guys can find out where to go. This is really strange.
- 09:41
- I found it last week pretty easy easily that is Um Look at this.
- 09:47
- This is everything's giving me the wrong thing. This is ridiculous Wow Okay Nothing does the
- 10:06
- URLs Everything's about code and JavaScript minify web page address
- 10:17
- That's what I want right there But it's images. We're stalling wasting time
- 10:30
- Okay, we're getting to it Well, this is telling me though next week.
- 10:35
- What I'll do is I'll have it all set up. I'll I'll figure out.
- 10:43
- Oh, wow. How can they not have a minify? That is really interesting Okay There I found it different different Okay Got it.
- 11:07
- All right. Let's try this Try that and see if it works.
- 11:13
- I'm going to put that into apologetics live and See if we can get that to work
- 11:20
- Strange that things aren't working, right? There we got somebody and hey Andrew, how you doing, buddy?
- 11:27
- Good. I'm just it's gonna be a little bit loud here. So I just pop in see if you're there. Yeah, we're on.
- 11:32
- Where are you? I'm in the Philippines. So it's only 8 in the morning here and We're having
- 11:40
- There's breakfast. That's why it's so crowded and noisy Okay, well show us around a little bit get the camera going there
- 11:51
- In the Philippines. Yeah, let's see. So the pan the camera around. Let's see what where you're at. You're in the Philippines So we're just breakfast there's oh, you know this guy
- 12:08
- Hey, man, hey Justin, how you doing, buddy He's trying to say hi to you, but he can't see you man.
- 12:14
- So here I flip it around this way You can't okay. There you go. Now. I see you. Hey, Justin Doing all right, buddy.
- 12:22
- You having a good time there Yeah. Yeah, we are. Everything's going really well and Yeah, by God's grace
- 12:29
- Good trip thus far tomorrow's the big day. I guess okay big day.
- 12:35
- Huh? You get so you start speaking. Is that it? Spoke once yesterday and we did a
- 12:41
- Q &A session together, but tomorrow's the big conference where we're expecting I guess
- 12:48
- No, no, well the register Somewhere right this is the past this is
- 12:56
- Me I'm beating you So, yeah, so we there's like I think about 1 ,200 registered for this thing tomorrow and then we do it again in Cebu Yesterday we did a pastor's conference for a couple like like over a hundred pastors
- 13:17
- I taught three sessions on church discipline and they liked it. So Wow And then today
- 13:27
- Justin will be doing a radio interview and I'll be doing some open -air preaching training and then we'll both get together and take some teams out to go do some evangelism
- 13:35
- Good, man. Good Praise God that he's using you. How was your trip over there pretty good? How was the trip over Justin?
- 13:48
- yeah, Justin wasn't feeling so well and we had a lot of rain and sat on the plane for a while because if we we actually flew into Manila during a lightning storm and So we just got in before they shut everything down.
- 14:03
- So then we had to sit on the plane for two hours Really? Yeah, and Justin wasn't feeling good.
- 14:08
- So I only made it worse and you know Because he's he ends up being the last one out of the plane. So he's just sitting there.
- 14:14
- It wasn't wasn't so good But he's doing better now. Oh, man. Sorry to hear that Yeah, so but pastor
- 14:22
- Arman's been keeping us busy Good ready as soon as we touched down we got to sleep and woke up early for a radio interview and We're at church that night
- 14:35
- Did he had a pastor's conference now an evangelism conference and He's got a he's got a pretty busy schedule
- 14:43
- But I know that you know, we're gonna get video of Justin having some balut.
- 14:49
- I know you love that. Oh, no. No, no balut is wrong You and Justin agree on that no balut is wrong.
- 14:57
- Are you gonna have some oh Yeah, I'll try it. Oh Yeah, yeah different levels different and you know, people don't know what balut is
- 15:05
- But it's an an egg a bird egg that's grown and it's getting ready to hatch
- 15:11
- There's different levels and they kill it and you eat it in that condition different levels of development.
- 15:17
- No No, Justin, trust me don't do it.
- 15:27
- Oh, I haven't I haven't had it when I was in the Philippines, you know They offer to go.
- 15:32
- Nope, not happening. Just Not happening. So I Don't know how you could do it.
- 15:39
- Yes, absolutely, correct Hey, well, I've eaten uni which is a mound of sea urchin eggs.
- 15:45
- So that was interesting but balut. I'm sorry I can't do it Not happening So what city are you in?
- 15:54
- What city are you in? Right now we're in Manila and then we'll go to We leave for Shibu on Monday Monday we leave for Shibu and we'll do the same conference.
- 16:06
- They're doing Saturday. We'll do that on Tuesday. All right Oh, it sounds great.
- 16:12
- Like what fun. Is it noisy where you are? Yeah, it's A big area for breakfast thing.
- 16:19
- I'm music playing. That's why I know I mean the Philippines is noisy Well, there's definitely traffic and I Listen as much as you hate the
- 16:32
- Idaho drivers, you must hate the drivers down Yeah, they're different and they have those what are they called those little carts they people who hop on and hop off They call them
- 16:45
- Jeeps Jeeps. That's right Leftover Yeah, jeepney is a jeepney leftover from the
- 16:56
- World War two Yeah We wrote a few of these those when we were there and a lot of them have Catholic stuff on the side of them and some have
- 17:03
- Christian stuff on size Yeah, so everything's in English, right
- 17:11
- So, I just want to make sure that the link was working Yeah, go ahead
- 17:19
- I already texted him but I haven't heard anything back so no big deal All right, so how'd you get in did you come in through The short one or the big one
- 17:35
- The people are saying they can't get into the big one so I minified it and put that up there
- 17:43
- Yeah, I think that's a good one. Yeah, I think that's a good one I had no problem Okay. All right All right, man, god bless have a good one
- 17:53
- I Just hit the mini link that says go here and it brought me right in.
- 17:59
- All right. Well good Well, if people want to get in and we got some discussions if not, you know, if no one comes in it's just you and I Then we'll just bail.
- 18:10
- But you know, I'm hoping people do come in and we can have a nice talk Let's see going back to the window
- 18:16
- Did he get sick? I don't know. I didn't really say get sick wasn't feeling well, but he managed to be okay Remember to think about having people the same name
- 18:23
- I'll take plants that are lumpia Lumpia is good, but no balut. Absolutely cheap knees.
- 18:29
- They look great. Link is not working for many So this is the link Okay, it should be working.
- 18:37
- That's just a direct page. I'm going to paste this in as text and Try I don't know to tell you that's it
- 18:46
- And that's supposed to be to participate so hopefully hopefully it'll work
- 18:55
- And what I'm going to do is put that shortening thing for URLs right here
- 19:07
- Okay, okay, there we go so All right,
- 19:17
- I don't know what the problem is says too many redirects says too many redirects take the
- 19:34
- URL and paste it into notepad clean that and then paste it into a
- 19:41
- Chrome browser go direct because if you're clicking on the link from inside Apologetics live and you get a redirect issue that tells me something there might be something wrong with the website because we had a crash
- 19:53
- Last week and so it could be that there's a problem Drupal our
- 19:58
- Drupal build is pretty broken So it could be that that's the case. So I'm going to do is break the
- 20:05
- URL break Break the actual link so if you want to copy them and paste them in all right, and Hopefully that'll work.
- 20:18
- I'm going to put the link to watch Come on, there we go.
- 20:24
- I'll put that There and get rid of the hyperlink on karm
- 20:32
- So that's not active. You have to copy it and paste it into there the minify
- 20:44
- What I would do You guys should be able to just click it on this link
- 20:50
- If you're in Chrome, she'll to click it. It should just open up the page And I'm seriously.
- 20:57
- I don't I do not understand what the problem is Because everybody should be able to get in here. Like what
- 21:02
- I'm gonna do is go to Microsoft Edge and I'll put the Same link in there.
- 21:09
- You got to sign in with your Google account. I already got one in so we'll worry about that It seems to require it seems to be okay
- 21:18
- So I don't tell you should be working Says it isn't redirecting properly, but that's inside of Firefox so I'm going to tell people use
- 21:32
- Chrome. Okay. Okay.
- 21:43
- All right Okay So I'm telling you'll use
- 21:53
- Chrome guys got any comments or questions you can put them in the text here in the chat part of the the watch aspect of the video thing and We can go with that.
- 22:03
- If not, we can just bail In a while, you know take a time to work on things
- 22:08
- Sometimes people get in later and then we have some good discussions. So I don't know what'll happen here We'll figure it out the tuning redirects.
- 22:17
- Does that help? Yeah, it actually does help redirects and that it's a common Thing did
- 22:24
- AR get him sick. Let's see Andrew reports Okay, I don't see a thing man.
- 22:30
- Hope the gift did you well Which one if you could text me privately because people sent me some stuff on The karma wish list and man, is it really been helpful?
- 22:42
- Very very helpful so You know, all right.
- 22:50
- I don't what I don't know what's different with my browser but it was good while you while the site was said to be wonky by everybody else last week and My Firefox just worked to get into hangouts, too.
- 23:02
- So I don't know. I don't understand. Are you in Windows 10? Yeah, you gave it to me.
- 23:11
- It's one of your cast -off computers that you'd built for me You're in Windows 10
- 23:20
- I'm trying to think this doesn't make any sense You know say to people clear the cookies as it is and you recommend or I do recommend that as well go into Chrome Clear all your cookies and then put the
- 23:33
- URL in and give it a shot But I don't understand the problem is hey Matt if you can see this Please tell me which heresy would be would be where there is only a father and Jesus as a family
- 23:45
- Binitarianism, I think it's what literally I think it's what's called by Bitarianism I think is what the error is
- 23:52
- That's it's let's see if I can find it. I think that's what it is, though Let's see
- 23:59
- Go over here Bitarianism Yeah, two persons in the
- 24:10
- Godhead, yeah bitarianism
- 24:17
- Okay How's your research on word of faith movements? I still haven't jumped back into it.
- 24:22
- I need to a cultish podcast of Bethel step
- 24:28
- Stephanie what I'd recommend is I don't know if you're in My Facebook page exposing the lies of word of faith and they are
- 24:37
- The heresies of you could post links in there because when I get to the point where I'm going to start doing that research
- 24:45
- Again, pretty soon. Then I'm going to be you know, just diving in doing all the links do my thing when
- 24:50
- I study a lot It's just my life has been so difficult lately With taking care of my wife getting into a new groove learning how to do things all the time
- 24:59
- And stuff like that I'm finally getting around to being adjusted and a lot of projects are going to get going and finish
- 25:08
- So it's just there's just an awful lot of my plate to do something like that is a huge undertaking It's a huge project when
- 25:14
- I'm able to do it. It's just gonna take a bit of time for me to be able to work it out But yeah, it's gonna be huge It is something
- 25:24
- I want to do too Man, I wish we'd get a lower third on the videos working.
- 25:31
- It used to work on The videos in the Google Hangouts and then they did something and then it fails to work
- 25:38
- I wish was some way or some hack or something, but I don't know how to do it. So Yeah, let's say add you into the hangout,
- 25:51
- I don't know how to add you atomic apologetics Don't know how to add you into the hangout Let's see, let's see, this is interesting
- 26:09
- Atomic you go call call back pop out more Let's see.
- 26:15
- I'm learning. I don't know how to do all this stuff. This is a Kind of ridiculous actually This is all should be taken care of it.
- 26:22
- It should all have worked already But it's not So if noon if you know atomic apologetics,
- 26:29
- I'm looking at the pop out Hey poet and Google Hangouts, if you know, there's a step to get you invited then type it out
- 26:50
- Okay, I don't see anything. Let's see All right Okay Now I'm gonna do something else
- 27:11
- Let's try this Yeah Okay.
- 27:22
- Hold on a sec. Well, we've been having a lot of technical problems
- 27:36
- Lately, okay So let's try that Okay, all right and Refresh the page and you should see a new link hyperlinked.
- 27:57
- It's in bold Okay, go to the icon of the person the plus sign plus sign
- 28:12
- The person with a plus sign then find my name apologetics Enter the name.
- 28:18
- Let's see. Okay. I did it
- 28:29
- You know, this is really frustrating come on why are we having so many problems we shouldn't have this many problems This is doesn't make any sense
- 28:44
- Charlie gets in no problem Last week. I couldn't open the room Now I can open the room and nobody else can get in Elias is in good
- 28:53
- Amen Does not make any sense No, we got to Charlie in and And I don't know how
- 29:03
- I got in. Yeah, we're not doesn't make sense This does not make sense. So I've been trying for a half hour just to make things work.
- 29:12
- So That's what it is Yes, I have a gmail account Andrew and yes
- 29:19
- I everything I'll be doing. So I'll be going right and it doesn't work so Go to the iPod icon with the person with the plus sign
- 29:32
- Go to the icon with a person with a plus sign. Don't know what that means even So now well
- 29:42
- You have to put a page you put a graphic in there or something like that You have gmail account, yeah,
- 29:48
- I don't know don't really tell you hey Eli, how's it going buddy? It's going.
- 29:55
- All right, man How about yourself? Oh, well, we're having some tech problems as usual and that seems to be part and parcel what's going on with karm we're always having problems and we've been having problems now for far too long and Let's just say things aren't being taken care of So Yeah, yeah what it is and we're having all kinds of problems and issues and you guys did you guys talk about Talk about what did you guys talk about anything yet?
- 30:28
- Are you just the whole time has been setting up whole time to try to figure it out? Yeah, you're just it's all set up just set up so far.
- 30:35
- We had one question. I answered in 10 seconds But okay, that's it. What's going on with you? Anything do with you and study and I just listened to a debate and critiqued
- 30:48
- Can you hear me when I yeah, I hear you Here Now you're just Breaking up Breaking up Let me try.
- 31:05
- Let me try some How about now? Can you hear me? Now I can hear you. Yep. You hear me at a friend's house.
- 31:16
- You're watching a debate and critiquing it as Yes, I could hear you Okay, which debate can you hear me?
- 31:24
- Yes, I hear you. Um, it's with Okay, it's with Tom jump the guy that I'll be speaking with on okay on June in June Yeah You're breaking up again
- 31:41
- Yeah, Tom jump and who And so I'm presuppositional guy.
- 31:51
- I don't know his name All right. Yeah, I need to listen to that guy too and Some stuff
- 32:01
- Anyway Yeah, it's a little discouraging. We've been having so many problems the boards the car forums were down I try to do an upgrade and broke everything and it was just bad and then upgrades on there before and I've never had any problems and all of a sudden bang.
- 32:16
- We just have problems and The carm site is I think is hanging on by a thread and there's some other stuff going on Which I'm not gonna talk publicly about but Let's just say karm.
- 32:30
- I Would suggest people pray for karm. I really would We need to switch to Skype Yeah, but then we can't get it on YouTube and we can't you know record if we do it on Skype atomic apologetics
- 32:43
- I got a friend, you know, I'm gonna be gonna see about getting a new system here This is I don't know if anything is when
- 32:50
- Andrew does it He doesn't have any problems when I do it. There's all kinds of problems so He's on a different system and it could be that Just it could be just a simple
- 33:04
- You know what? I don't know. I've done so many times before it's all worked and now things are just This is the kind of stuff you start wondering if someone's hacked a system someplace which is having fun making things difficult
- 33:17
- Wouldn't be surprised Yeah Anyway anything want to talk about Eli Sure.
- 33:27
- Well, I was prepping for that discussion and I noticed a very interesting tact that this particular atheist uses he says that For any supernatural explanation you can give for something
- 33:43
- There is also an equal an equal Possibility that that same event what we claim is caused supernaturally can be explained by some unknown natural
- 33:55
- It would have an unknown natural cause And that's interesting because if he holds to that that's lame as I was
- 34:04
- Well, I I think it is lame as well because on the one hand a person asked him What kind of evidence would you would would take you would give you a justification for believing in God?
- 34:14
- and he actually gave a criteria something like if you know if he prayed and and God actually like Gave him a gold brick in his hand.
- 34:23
- It would appear in his hand and he would say look, you know God answered my prayer or whatever But based on the criteria that he uses
- 34:29
- That any supernatural reason I give for something can equally be explained by an unknown natural cause actually makes it impossible for one to Recognize something from God.
- 34:41
- So according to that standard nothing would convince them Of God because any attempt of a miracle on God's part can be explained by some unknown natural cause
- 34:54
- You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that makes the idea of God's existence unknowable Yeah in prayer and So, how can you say
- 35:05
- I there's no reason for me to believe in God since you've already constructed a system in which there can there Could never be right and the interesting thing is that system
- 35:13
- Makes it impossible for God to Communicate with his creatures yet. The same person also says in another place that it's impossible for us to make metaphysical claims
- 35:22
- But that very system that he's constructed Actually makes a claim a metaphysical claim namely that if God exists there cannot be a
- 35:32
- God that can Communicate with creatures such that we could actually know what he's saying and that it's from him
- 35:38
- It reminds me of a guy who's got a hammer and nails screw gun screws bolts dead bolts and he
- 35:46
- He bolds boards himself up inside of a room and I mean just all over the place
- 35:52
- Nobody can get in and he goes go ahead now get in I've constructed something that you can't get into now get in that's what he's doing right when when you ask him to account for induction or The laws of logic he would say perhaps there is a super law unknown to us that grounds induction that doesn't need a
- 36:18
- God and Or it's a super law of that's natural that can grounds objective morality
- 36:25
- So you don't need a God and that is just so many problems Problems with that. I don't even know what he means by super law
- 36:32
- And laws are grounded in something. So is this super law the fundamental element of reality?
- 36:38
- What is it? What is it grounded in? You know if he says it's grounded in you know as he would as he would put it naturalistic pantheism.
- 36:46
- What does that even mean? Right. What is what is not naturalistic pantheism and how what is it about the nature of naturalistic pantheism that it can ground?
- 36:57
- transcendent laws of thought and in Inductive principles, it doesn't doesn't make any sense.
- 37:04
- It's an ad hoc explanation And he says that as long as it's possible
- 37:09
- Then my answer is from a Christian perspective is not necessary, but I don't even think it's possible
- 37:15
- I think he's just putting these categories together thinking that it's possible. I don't even think it's coherent Well, there's some issues there
- 37:25
- First of all, I'd ask how do you know it's possible? If he's gonna say there's some unknown natural cause that's that it's possible.
- 37:31
- Let's say how do you know it's possible That that's one of the things I would ask He has to establish that it is possible.
- 37:38
- If you can't establish that it's possible then He's got no argument whatsoever well, if he if he he'll say it's
- 37:47
- Possible because the idea that he's putting forth is not logically incoherent Just because something's not logically incoherent doesn't mean it's possible
- 37:59
- Why don't you tease that out a little bit just because something is logically a coherent Doesn't mean that it's going to occur or that how it ports into actuality means that it is an actuality you know
- 38:15
- It's possible that there's multi universes in different dimensions, but does it really exist?
- 38:21
- We don't know Just because it's theoretically possible. It's possible But that's the point he makes we're all we don't know but as much as it's possible any evidence that I give for God as an explanation of those things isn't necessary since Since since it may be possible that naturalistic pantheism can account for those and that's a self -refuting position naturalistic pantheism
- 38:46
- Yeah, I see there's problems with it also I know pantheism is a form of Mona's and Monism posits that the fundamental aspect of reality is that all is one in some sense and that worldview
- 39:00
- Cannot provide an explanation of the one in the many problem, which is a very well known
- 39:06
- Problem within philosophy. So your philosophy has to account for the one and the many you need to have an overarching universal principle that can unify and give meaning to the particulars of Reality and that's why as a
- 39:21
- Christian we have the benefit of the nature of God being both Fundamentally one and many
- 39:27
- God being one being who exists as three persons You actually have the answer to the philosophical problem of the one in the many in the doctrine of the
- 39:35
- Trinity, right that that that provides a foundation for us but any Pantheistic view runs into the inability of accounting for that and any view that denies unity
- 39:48
- Runs into problems as well Well, here's something I you know, I would still work through the issue of how to know it's possible because You know just it's possible
- 39:59
- Therefore that's what we're gonna hide behind. It doesn't mean that that is an actuality we argue from actuality facts logic and a whole bit and so what he's doing is is arguing from actuality and The laws of logic in order to say that there might be something we don't know about and can't detect
- 40:14
- I mean, it sounds like he and Matt Delahunty get together and think these things out together, but here's something
- 40:20
- I would I unique response It is possible that there's an unknown force making him
- 40:26
- Say the things that really aren't true in order to deceive people Isn't that possible, right?
- 40:33
- He If you yeah, I think he would say that's possible, but we have no reason to believe yes
- 40:39
- We do because you're being out you're working against Christianity and Christianity would predict that such a thing as possible
- 40:47
- By demonic forces. There's an unknown force.
- 40:53
- We would call it demonic, but you don't believe in it So you say it's unknown and you're being deceived. So You know, therefore we can't trust anything you're saying in arguing
- 41:05
- Yeah, he would say he would say that perhaps we are being deceived by an evil demon.
- 41:10
- No, no, no, not us Him only him only Well, yes, it would have to be him since since we don't run that we don't have that skeptical worldview
- 41:20
- Well, you know How's he gonna tell me that he's not being? Deceptive or how does he gonna tell me that the case is not the case that there's an unseen unknown force that's possibly
- 41:30
- Speaking through him to deceive others and that he himself is deceived now
- 41:35
- So therefore we can't trust anything we say he says to us in this argument. Okay, so there we go the only thing he
- 41:43
- The only thing he could do to escape a complete and utter skepticism is to appeal to his own existence which he has he says that I can be certain at least of my own existence since my
- 41:56
- He could be certain of his own existence You could be sir How does he know they could be certain?
- 42:03
- Because if this thing is deceiving him it could be deceiving him to think that he has his own existence
- 42:16
- And we're losing you Okay, can you hear me now now
- 42:23
- I hear you Can you hear me now? Yes, I hear you if he
- 42:29
- I hear you in this We're losing you okay,
- 42:38
- I don't know what to do Okay now now talk I'm hearing you no,
- 42:48
- I'm not hearing you I I Have an idea call me on my cell phone
- 42:56
- So you want me to you want me to to get out of this and call you on your phone? Yeah, let's put you on a speakerphone
- 43:03
- Okay, let's put you right here and people can hear us talk. Okay, I'll make it work. Okay.
- 43:08
- All right Okay, he's gonna call me in a cell phone here a little bit. Hopefully it's an interesting discussion for you guys
- 43:20
- Let's see, there we go Okay, you there?
- 43:30
- Yeah, I can hear you everybody else I hope in here Okay What I was saying is that He may be deceived by a demon
- 43:42
- But it is still he that is being deceived So he must exist in order to even be deceived.
- 43:48
- And so this is the whole this is how Descartes had an axiom Which held to it, you know, there was one thing that was completely indubitable and that is his own existence
- 44:00
- So even if he's being deceived He can't be deceived by his own existence since he must exist in order to be to see okay
- 44:06
- I think that much that much is true however, I Would argue that even if you start with your own existence
- 44:14
- You don't just start with your own existence because you have to have logically prior really the law of non -contradiction
- 44:20
- Which is necessary to even make coherent the statement I think therefore I am so he starts with existence and logic but the problem is what could you deduce from that starting point that can give you a
- 44:33
- Sufficient and fully robust worldview that can provide the foundation for knowledge, you know, it's the fact that I exist you cannot logically deduce a physical world
- 44:45
- I Exist doesn't necessitate that. I also live in a physical world and so you can't move from conceptual to Empirical logical deduction and I think he that's why we need to start our worldview with a system
- 45:00
- Not just a proposition or two. Namely I exist and logic is true. You see what
- 45:05
- I'm saying? Oh, yeah Yeah, because if you can establish that he exists, that's fine, which
- 45:11
- I don't have a problem with But how is he going to move from existence to rationality because he has to have some way of determining or obtaining the laws of logic
- 45:25
- But then I suppose he could say that he finds himself within existence
- 45:31
- Necessarily employing the laws of logic. However, the laws of logic by themselves
- 45:38
- They don't do anything you need information to process through logic you need information to actually process through logical rules and rationality and that requires an epistemology and Metaphysic and you know, you need to logically deduce that from your starting principles
- 45:59
- Yeah That's why from my from my starting principle Which would be the Word of God say for example, if my starting principle was the
- 46:05
- Bible is the Word of God And and it's it's in a sense axiomatic for me. I don't validate it by appealing to something more fundamental than it at Least within the one proposition.
- 46:16
- The Bible is the Word of God. There are enough propositions within the scripture that I can build a theory of reality and the theory of knowledge and a theory of ethics and a theory of Induction and all that other stuff so I can build that by logically deducing it from my starting point
- 46:34
- You can't do that. If you merely start with existence and logic, right? So that position would not lead to anything
- 46:42
- He'd have to borrow from our worldview in order to make any sense of his own Right at that point.
- 46:47
- He couldn't do anything with John I mean again for all I know he could see he could expand on this on his starting point and perhaps there's more
- 46:54
- Elements what I haven't I haven't heard But yeah, you'd have to be able to logically deduce
- 47:01
- From your first principles every everything else in which case, you know in a debate on worldviews
- 47:06
- I wouldn't grant him anything even even your existence I wouldn't even say your existence is an ultimate starting point in your world
- 47:14
- I would say that existence is approximate starting point where God is the ultimate starting point since God as The metaphysical ultimate gives coherence and meaning to my own existence.
- 47:26
- Amen to that and And if But if it's possible that there could be an unknown force
- 47:34
- Making him say things that are not true in order to see people then it's also possible that he could be applying what he thinks are logical premises and Arriving at what he thinks are logical conclusions when ultimately they're really not
- 47:48
- And so how then can we trust his argumentation at all? Because if he's going to say it's possible that an unknown something we can't identify it might be out there
- 47:58
- That's how I'm going to refute you. Well, then it's also must be possible that he is self -deceived by an external force that is causing him to not understand anything about what he's saying and he is misunderstanding actuality and reality and therefore since It's possible and how can we trust anything he has to say?
- 48:28
- Because the way you're interpreting the agreement of others may be the very deception that the evil demon is making you believe
- 48:34
- That's right. So you can't even appeal to consensus Yeah, I don't see how
- 48:43
- Even when you say in my worldview, I try not I don't try to get certainty, but we can have a reasonable
- 48:49
- You know a reasonable foundation. It's reasonable to believe this and I even think that's problematic because reasonableness and Probability or something being more probable
- 48:59
- He seems to presuppose a notion of certainty in the first place Certain things must be certain in order for probability and reasonableness to make sense, right?
- 49:09
- and so you smell when you talk about not being certain so that you can be kind of a humble not being presumptuous and Making absolute claims.
- 49:17
- You actually have to presuppose absolute claims perhaps you don't make them explicit, but you have to in order for those concepts of probability and Plausibility to even make sense.
- 49:27
- Yep So whether you're making an epistemological statement, you are presupposing unspoken metaphysical realities that you take for granted and have not yet Justified so he's having to borrow from the
- 49:40
- Christian worldview in order to argue against a Christian worldview. That's ultimately self -refuting Right, but he would say, you know, you know our starting points just made up Morality what we say is object morality.
- 49:54
- It's just something man has made up. He'd say ours being the Christian one I would just keep saying
- 50:07
- I just keep saying it will that unknown of deceptive force and you made you say that Well, how's he gonna get out of something like that because it would be if He's you know, we played by his rules so to speak by the boundaries that he sets up It's possible some unknown natural force this that and therefore he can give an account.
- 50:30
- He's not really saying anything He's just postulating something out of as I said before out of the ethereal
- 50:36
- Mist of ignorance and he's just making something up and saying see I refuted you That's not a reputation to say it might be that maybe could possibly we don't know see
- 50:45
- I refuted you. That's not a reputation I wonder if he's being inconsistent when he gives
- 50:57
- Reasons why or I'm sorry What kind of evidence would provide a justification for the existence of God the very fact that he gives an example of what would count as?
- 51:07
- a justification Would refute or contradict his principle that any miraculous cause of an event right and be equally explained by a not an unknown natural
- 51:18
- If that's true Everything will have an equally, you know, it would be just as valid to posit an unknown natural cause for that You can posit just about anything the splitting of the sea in response to saying it the name of Jesus In the name of Jesus, I walk on water, you know
- 51:38
- And then I begin to walk on water that that in principle could not be valid evidence since on his view there can be an equally unknown
- 51:46
- Natural reason why I'm able to do that, which is ridiculous Yeah, an unknown natural reason.
- 51:52
- Let's work with that a little bit an unknown natural reason, which means it has to be a natural reason Well, what does natural mean?
- 52:00
- Because if I'm gonna ask a question, well then we I Christianity teaches God created a physical universe
- 52:07
- Now he's gonna have to say there's an unknown natural cause of the physical universe, which means it's not a personal cause but a natural cause
- 52:17
- Was a problem with that because we get into the issue of an impersonal cause of Something has to have the necessary sufficient conditions from all eternity by which it would then bring the universe into existence
- 52:28
- But that would have happened in Italy a long time ago, which means the universe would be infinitely old, but it's not if Lee old
- 52:33
- Therefore that positions refuted so there could not be a natural cause Timeless changelessness into a state of creation
- 52:52
- Now again, it's unknown if that's even remotely possible Then for all we know that you know, you the argument you just made is not a good art.
- 53:01
- I agree It is a good argument, but but that's something along the lines what he might say Let's see,
- 53:08
- I got an idea He doesn't believe in naturalistic panties, this is a model he constructs to try and present a
- 53:18
- System that empties theistic arguments of their force. It doesn't it doesn't it's absurdity
- 53:32
- Conversation really avoids the real issue, which is not what a hypothetical worldview might entail but what is worldviews?
- 53:39
- and what if you don't have a solid worldview and you're using an hypothetical that you don't even believe and How do you justify the rationality of even discussing the hypothetical what worldview perspective?
- 53:50
- Are you even operating from and is it coherent? Wonder you know
- 53:56
- You know, perhaps there's an unknown Fart from some naturalistic ethereal presence that's giving us all the illusions of coherence
- 54:05
- Is that possible? Yeah, someone suggested that perhaps a giant anus brought the universe into existence.
- 54:12
- Yeah, we know I think someone said this to dr Craig and he and dr. Craig pointed out that that's ridiculous since an anus is physical and the cause of the universe is beyond Is beyond the physical universe?
- 54:25
- So the cause is not transcendent. And if you say well this anus is transcendent
- 54:31
- Then you're then you're just calling God In anus as you're giving the anus all the properties all the properties of what
- 54:38
- God would have transcendence and all that ridiculous, you know This is what the conversations are relegated to Also that people can deny
- 54:49
- God's existence or deny the evidence for it, you know yeah, so What he's doing is jumping to a rationality
- 54:58
- Well, I think his position really boils down to an affirmation of both Irrationality and rationale the irrationality of the perspective as I see it is that at the fundamental level
- 55:10
- Reality is impersonal but at the same time this impersonal foundation is that which also grounds
- 55:18
- Logic and logic is rational. So you have Rationality and you have irrationality linked together which makes which for me is
- 55:27
- Seems to be contradictory. You can't have an Impersonal irrational basis and foundation for the rational laws of logic, right?
- 55:35
- I would agree But then some of the times that they'll say is that they're the laws of logic or somehow properties of the physical universe which
- 55:42
- I Don't understand how that's possible. No one's ever posited that but this idea It's possible of an unknown natural cause
- 55:51
- Again I would just say how do you know it's possible just saying it doesn't make it So show me and if you know, he says he's logically coherent and say show me as logically coherent to say that that is the case
- 56:08
- Say Any event that you attribute a Supernatural cause to I could attribute to naturalistic pantheism.
- 56:18
- So naturalistic pantheism can do anything that a supernatural explanation can do yeah,
- 56:24
- I disagree with that because a Supernatural within a supernatural worldview.
- 56:30
- You have a supernatural being acting supernatural But naturalistic pantheism can't act supernatural, right?
- 56:38
- So in essence it can't do precisely what a supernatural world you can do by definition It can't because of the correctly.
- 56:45
- Yeah, but yeah, people don't with naturalistic pantheism is pantheism folks is the idea That God in the universe are one in the same thing
- 56:52
- And so therefore God would be physically limited to the essence the nature of the physical universe
- 56:58
- Naturalism is the idea that the physical universe is all there is so it would be the idea that God is a naturalistic principle the universe
- 57:05
- But that doesn't make any sense Because if he's a naturalistic principle the universe and he's no different from the universe and he's restricted to the laws of logic
- 57:11
- Therefore you really don't have any idea that God exists. I mean laws of logic He'd be restricted to the laws of physics and chemistry in the universe
- 57:19
- You'd have no way then of being able to determine it exists. So the idea of Pantheistic naturalism is self -refuting.
- 57:26
- It's a contradictory statement. It's a coupling of things that don't go together So if he's gonna hold to something like that He's holding to an incoherence from the beginning and I'd like to know how an unknown
- 57:37
- Natural cause can account for the transcendental nature of the laws of logic by which we could even discuss this issue
- 57:43
- Because if it's naturalistic, how do you have transcendentals in a purely naturalistic world view? It doesn't make any sense
- 57:53
- But it can be hard to talk about and so it can be tricky in navigating a conversation with something like that But um, yeah and interesting too is
- 58:02
- When you get specific with him and I have not interact with it. I interacted with him at all
- 58:08
- This is based on my watching his baits Discussions and stuff like that, but she's a very very, you know, very gentleman nice guy, you know is he actually
- 58:17
- I actually really like his format, but When you start talking about Christianity what he says
- 58:24
- He he has reason to believe that the Christian worldview is false because If the
- 58:32
- God of the Bible catch this, I think I thought this was actually interesting when he said this if Christianity is true
- 58:40
- Then God who is perfectly good Would have created the best of possible world of all possible worlds okay, and The best of all possible world is a world in which human beings are autonomous
- 58:56
- Completely autonomous, that's ridiculous and and able, you know They should never be forced to do anything and he goes into all the details of that now
- 59:06
- That's interesting to me because that's another attempt to define Christianity as false from beginning not only is his his standard of what constitutes good evidence
- 59:17
- Makes it impossible for God to communicate But in order for him to think Christianity is true the
- 59:23
- God of Christianity has to succumb to his view of what is considered the best of possible world of all possible worlds which is
- 59:30
- Refuting in other words unless unless God of God of the Bible agrees to what I believe the best of all possible worlds is
- 59:36
- Right, and it's logically inconsistent for him to exist, which is which is ridiculous, right? The second premise is the problem that all people must be autonomous why is that a requirement in this best of all possible worlds and Autonomy does that not mean that they are independent of God?
- 59:53
- How is that possible in the Christian worldview is Christian the Christian worldview is that God is good?
- 01:00:00
- He would make the case then that he wouldn't be involved in the lives of people so that they would not be arbitrarily struck
- 01:00:07
- Down or moved about by whims of the physical universe that God is intervening
- 01:00:13
- If he's not intervening and letting bad things happen just for some arbitrary His hand or tied kind of reason then how is that a good world?
- 01:00:21
- What does it mean to be autonomous from God this you know from what you're telling me this guy? He sounds like he's he's smart, but he's not he does not know how to think these things through very well
- 01:00:30
- I think that people need to call him on the carpet on these These assertions that he's making
- 01:00:36
- Well, I think I think the very idea of God creating completely autonomous creatures is incoherent
- 01:00:45
- Incoherent concept I would totally agree to incoherent. It's like saying he's a seatee
- 01:00:51
- Christianity can't be true unless God is able to do the logically incoherent namely right things that are completely
- 01:00:59
- Independent from God, right? That's that's an incoherent concept, right?
- 01:01:06
- Yep You're prepping for Yeah, well a lot of people don't know that you and I will have conversations on the phone for one to two hours talking about stuff like this
- 01:01:31
- Things like that, so I'm audio learner visual I need to see and I Actually have to do in order to learn so I do read and I do study, but those are the primary ways
- 01:01:43
- I it really sticks in my mind Well, my primary way is I'm a pain learner when
- 01:01:50
- I go through pain. I learn real fast Yeah, only you do it once I Am another in other news my my
- 01:02:03
- Facebook Account I do a lot of interviews on my youtube account.
- 01:02:09
- I do some interviews and I may I may be doing hopefully things Go through well,
- 01:02:14
- I may be interviewing. Dr. Mike like Kona. Okay good Want to see if I can do kind of a spitfire answering common objections to the
- 01:02:22
- Bible, you know Like so that the average person can kind of know how to navigate some of the basic questions that come up In regards to the
- 01:02:30
- Bible things like that. So good looking forward to that if that happens if it happens good. Hope it does
- 01:02:38
- We actually have another person that showed up in the video room Mikhail, I don't know if he wants to ask anything or say anything, but you know, he got opportunity right now
- 01:02:50
- So I'm kind of giving him a Moment to say something No, I didn't really mean to ask anything just to sit back and listen
- 01:02:59
- Oh, okay. Are you able to hear our conversation fine over the phone with the speaker and stuff? Oh, yeah.
- 01:03:04
- Oh, yeah Yeah, you can okay. Who is that person? He said he's going to interview Michael Kona. Where's Eli?
- 01:03:11
- Eli no, he's I don't know if Eli there's asking where they can contact you or find out about this. Yes What do you want to find out
- 01:03:21
- Mikhail About him interviewing Michael the Kona where can we listen to that? He wants to know where he can listen to it.
- 01:03:29
- Oh It's gonna be on YouTube. So it's on June 6. It'll be on on the guy's page
- 01:03:35
- So once that's done, I'll shock and share it Facebook and things like that, but it'll be on June 6
- 01:03:41
- I don't know. I don't know if we established a time of the day. I will be touching base and establish a specific time good
- 01:03:49
- And if he's interested, I mean you can look me up on Facebook too, I always post stuff on Facebook page
- 01:03:54
- I work for the historical Bible Society. So a lot of my videos go up there as well and I have a ministry
- 01:04:01
- Called reveals apologetics, which I focus on a presuppositional method and that's still in its starting stages
- 01:04:07
- I have a Facebook page revealed apologetics. I'm gonna start putting content there in the next couple of months
- 01:04:15
- Good all right. It's not good plug If anybody's interested
- 01:04:24
- Hold on one second Mikhail's talking about Mikhail's gonna say something. Go ahead Mikhail Yeah, if anybody's interested,
- 01:04:32
- I've turned all of Michael the Kona's debates into a podcast audio podcast All of the
- 01:04:41
- Kona's debates into a podcast Yeah, I think this
- 01:04:47
- I think Mikhail's a fanboy, I think he's a fanboy Yeah, a lot of good, you know good apologists have strengths in different areas than others and you know
- 01:05:05
- That's what it is. My strength, of course is being obnoxious and irritating. So that's good enough for me
- 01:05:15
- I know you personally some people might just know you from your podcast or when you rant, you know about something, you know, yeah, that's true
- 01:05:22
- So what else we're gonna say? Okay, just kind of different different tactics and I remember reading a really good article that you wrote
- 01:05:37
- About has God has your God done the greatest act of love, right?
- 01:05:44
- And I kind of use Similar thing with Catholic when I I was invited to a church and right outside the church
- 01:05:52
- There was a Catholic holding a huge billboard across his chest and he said that the Roman this is the whole billboard
- 01:05:58
- This is the whole billboard said The Roman Catholic Church is the only true church that has been guided by the
- 01:06:03
- Holy Spirit for the past 2 ,000 years That's what he to the it was the entire thing said and I had a choice
- 01:06:08
- Am I gonna go into the service where my friends invited here? I ended up of course, you know talking to the guy for a good hour and a half and We finally got to the point where I asked him.
- 01:06:19
- I was like You know, so so can you be sure that that you're saying that you're right standing with God and he honestly he told me
- 01:06:27
- I Would not be so presumptuous to think I could know that and And I asked
- 01:06:33
- I asked him I was like well Why should I give up the confidence and the finished work of Christ and the peace that I have with God?
- 01:06:41
- why should I give that up in exchange for a life in which I never know I'm in right standing with God and He shook my hand and he said
- 01:06:51
- I never met a Christian like you He gave me a lot to think about and I gave him your website
- 01:06:56
- I said, I promise I'll check out your Roman Catholic stuff if you check out this website So hopefully he went and uh and checked it out
- 01:07:04
- But in regards to the job as witness I kind of gave kind of the same thing that why should
- 01:07:09
- I give up my God Who has actually gave his life? He gave his life for me in the person of Jesus for a
- 01:07:17
- God who has not even performed that on my behalf Job was witness. Jesus is a created being and he sends this created being to die for sinners whereas within Orthodox Christianity the second person of the
- 01:07:30
- Trinity becomes Becomes a man dwells among us lives a perfect life dies on the cross and was raised and it tones
- 01:07:37
- For my sins and I can be in right standing. Why should I exchange? Exchange that that's not a knockdown reputation of Jehovah's Witness, but I like the existential aspect to it
- 01:07:47
- It gives someone something to think about If that makes sense. Oh, yeah yeah,
- 01:07:53
- I agree with it and Once you go, you know, why don't you explain?
- 01:07:59
- The idea of the the argument that Jesus performed the greatest act of love
- 01:08:16
- What versus that Technology if someone asks me
- 01:08:32
- I just type it up And get it on the phone, but but no greater love is there for a minute to lay down his life for his friends and in Jehovah's Witness theology
- 01:08:44
- God is They believe in Unitarianism which
- 01:08:49
- God is one being and one person and so God on the
- 01:08:55
- Jehovah's Witness perspective creates Jesus. He's the firstborn of all creation and Jesus, you know does all the things that the gospel says he does
- 01:09:05
- So when Jesus lays his life down It is not God performing the greatest act of love since God has not laid his life down But on our perspective since we believe that God is
- 01:09:16
- Trinitarian God is one being who exists as three co -eternal simultaneous persons father son the
- 01:09:21
- Holy Spirit the second person of the Trinity becomes Becomes flesh right the beginning was the word the word is with God and the word was
- 01:09:28
- Was God and John 1 14 the word became flesh and dwelt among us So we have the second person of the
- 01:09:34
- Trinity Jesus Christ who is God in flesh who lays down his life If Jesus is
- 01:09:40
- God and he lays down his life by you know The incarnation and then the death on the cross what you have within Christianity is the idea that God himself lays down his life for his friends and that is the greatest act of love that Orthodox Christianity teaches
- 01:09:57
- God has performed the Jehovah's Witness theology can't affirm that and so I don't think the
- 01:10:02
- Jehovah's Witness perspective Has a God who is loving enough since he commands us to lay down our lives for others, but he cannot do it himself
- 01:10:12
- The way I will start the argument is to ask them Can a created thing?
- 01:10:19
- Do anything greater in goodness than God himself? Yes, and they'll say no it cannot and say
- 01:10:29
- I agree with you and I'll reiterate it No created thing can do any greater good than God, right?
- 01:10:37
- And I'll say that's correct Well, Jesus said and then you go into the arguments, you know, John 15 13
- 01:10:44
- Yeah that way well then so I asked him I've done this with others they'll say so then how is it then from your perspective
- 01:10:52
- You said no creature could do this. But from your perspective, that's exactly the case
- 01:10:58
- So what are you gonna do with that? And then it's so, you know, just let it's a it's a splinter in their theology and hopefully it'll get infected and Again that doesn't disprove
- 01:11:15
- The Jehovah's Witness nor does it demonstrate the truth of Christianity, but it definitely is something that makes someone think yeah
- 01:11:26
- Especially the way you asked it you asked it in a way kind of a trap where once they're committed like of course
- 01:11:32
- You know, no created being can do Can do that, you know, then they're committed then you just open up the whole
- 01:11:38
- You know that verse no greater love and it's like wow, that's right And now if they either backpedal or they won't backpedal and admit that's a very interesting issue and problem that I have with my perspective
- 01:11:49
- Yeah, it is. Well, here's another one. I like to use with them. That's on the existential side is
- 01:11:56
- I'll say I say look, let's just say that that I go over your house and we're just having a good discussion on all kinds of stuff and I get excited and In my excitement of whatever
- 01:12:09
- I'm doing. I knock over one of your favorite lamps It's just an awesome lamp.
- 01:12:14
- I break it now. I said, this is just an illustration. I said no in real life I would apologize and and offer to pay for the replacement of the lamp, but this is an illustration
- 01:12:24
- So I'm gonna ask you some questions. You're with me and I'll go. Okay. I say, okay, so Who is my offense against and you'll say well you you know him because it was his lamp.
- 01:12:35
- I said, okay Well, the lamp needs to be replaced. So what you do is you say Matt you broke my lamp
- 01:12:41
- I forgive you for doing it, but I want you to pay For the replacement of the lamp now here.
- 01:12:47
- I say here's my question. Is that true forgiveness? To require a payment from someone you've forgiven and they'll say no it's not it's okay
- 01:12:56
- My wife happened to have been with me the whole time and she's done nothing at all She just watched me be a an oof or an oaf
- 01:13:03
- I should say and you say to her mrs. Slick Matt broke my lamp and I forgive him for breaking the lamp, but I want you mrs.
- 01:13:14
- Slick to pay for the the replacement of the lamp Is that true forgiveness and they'll say well, of course not
- 01:13:23
- I'll say okay good. So in true forgiveness Who's left to pay for the replacement of the lamp then and they usually get it but 80 % go
- 01:13:32
- Oh, yeah, I'd be the one I go you're right And so who's my offense against you know you who forgives you who pays you if you transfer the debt to somebody else
- 01:13:42
- Is that true forgiveness and I go no in Christianity our sins are against who
- 01:13:47
- God now if you're Jehovah's Witness Who bears the sins?
- 01:13:54
- It's a created thing Who's not the one offended? So how is it that in Jehovah's Witness theology?
- 01:14:02
- That God who is the one who's offended and he's one who's forgiving But he's making somebody else pay you yourself said that's not true forgiveness.
- 01:14:10
- Can you can you explain it to me? I think we need to learn to do that more in apologetics, too
- 01:14:22
- I think we tend to be as apologists I don't say overly logical, but we and we tend to focus on the logical aspect
- 01:14:30
- To the neglect of the existential aspect right and I think it's important to keep them both in balance because we're not talking to you know
- 01:14:39
- Walking brains. We're talking to the whole people who have issues Struggles and stuff like that.
- 01:14:47
- I think there is there is a role for talking about God's love and Things like that and I think apologists should learn to have a good balance in that area
- 01:14:57
- You know The j -dubs in particular are trained in their brainwashing ceremonies in their kingdom halls
- 01:15:08
- And they're trained to react and to think in certain patterns for certain arguments, but these kinds of arguments
- 01:15:16
- You know, they don't they're just not they're logical but they're also Experiential because they understand what the thing is
- 01:15:24
- I really think the idea of Jesus performing the greatest act of love and God in their view can't do it is an admission
- 01:15:32
- That their God is being outdone by a creature right
- 01:15:38
- And how then can he be God if a creature could do something greater in love?
- 01:15:44
- than God That's another way, you know Say you see it's greater in goodness because love is good or a greatest act greater a greater love
- 01:15:52
- You know a greater thing of okay. Can a creature be more loving than God? Of course not.
- 01:15:58
- Okay, then, you know, it's over We're now just gonna lay the trap out and put their foot in it to help them put their own foot in it
- 01:16:04
- And you know sure Yeah Good Anybody got any comments or questions we got people in the video room just there if anybody does
- 01:16:20
- Just curious Staying on the same topic. How would we explain to a
- 01:16:27
- Muslim? why Jesus had to die if a Muslim normally says that why
- 01:16:34
- Allah can't just forgive and that's the end of it Why can't Allah just forgive but let me talk about that I talk about the radar today and I have another argument that I use
- 01:16:44
- For that. Why is it that God must be the one? Why do we need a
- 01:16:49
- Savior why can't God just forgive the reason because if God does that then he's unrighteous and Let me explain why
- 01:16:58
- So I do this with an illustration. I've done this Mickey Mikhail I've done it with Muslims before and it works.
- 01:17:06
- I've said to Muslims. I said, okay. Look I catch you some questions Yeah, sure. I got I want to you know, I have some tough stuff.
- 01:17:12
- I want to ask you. Okay, good. Go ahead you know and Say so let's pretend that there is a very wicked man who's been filmed eyewitnesses
- 01:17:22
- He's been doing Okay from who's
- 01:17:29
- Jerry Walsh anyway anyway been filmed doing very evil things and you know murder and rape and theft and bombings and just torturing people and He confessed to all of it.
- 01:17:41
- A lot of people are at the trial He's finally found guilty, you know, it's obvious.
- 01:17:46
- He's guilty and He must be punished and the judge Says to him
- 01:17:53
- Yeah, you're free. Go. I'll see you later. Bye forget about it. You're forgiven All right, and I would say and I ask him make a kill.
- 01:18:00
- I'll say so is that a righteous judge? Is that a just judge or is he is he a good judge or a bad judge and the
- 01:18:07
- Muslims will all they say the Same thing. He's a bad judge. I say why Because he didn't do what was right he ignored the law
- 01:18:16
- And I say that is your God your God is the unrighteous judge
- 01:18:21
- Because your God has his law don't do this you do it
- 01:18:26
- You're gonna be punished and yet what what Allah does and Allah if Allah wills he's arbitrary that he just You're forgiven, but his own law is ignored.
- 01:18:37
- I didn't I asked Muslims. Tell me how That your God is a righteous
- 01:18:42
- God if he ignores his own righteousness in order to forgive people They can't answer it
- 01:18:51
- Yeah, and it sounds Because the
- 01:19:00
- Christian God will send people to eternal torment as Just deserts for man's sins.
- 01:19:07
- Well God, you know, the God of Islam is more loving and you can just forget and that's it Sounds more about but when you use an analogy like you just use
- 01:19:15
- I think that perfectly reflects really the unrighteous nature of such a God That's right
- 01:19:20
- Because it would require and just to reiterate for the listeners He would require that the God of Islam ignore his own law
- 01:19:28
- And when I've shown this problem to Muslims they backtrack left and right Well, it's not unrighteous of God just Allah just decides to do it.
- 01:19:36
- Wait a minute. You just said You know you just said it's like a trap people get him to commit before the argument comes out
- 01:19:44
- Can it can a creature do the greatest act can a creature outdo God in goodness or in love?
- 01:19:51
- No, he can't Okay, they're done. So is that judge righteous or unrighteous? He's unrighteous
- 01:19:57
- In fact, there's another one. I'll use with with his with Muslims and It's about you know
- 01:20:04
- Is the God of Islam holy I'm gonna tell you guys the context of me to coming up the greatest act of love is
- 01:20:10
- God Righteous and is God holy the God of? Islam I was out of Georgia a few years ago and was speaking
- 01:20:19
- Doing some debates and teaching and stuff on Islam and there's some guys there who know Far more about Islam than I do far far far more and I was told
- 01:20:28
- I needed to teach them Give us a you know, everybody's gonna get up and say something to do a class
- 01:20:34
- So now we want you to a class on how to witness to Muslims I'm sinner. Are you kidding?
- 01:20:41
- These guys have forgotten in the past five minutes more than I've learned my whole life on Islam How am
- 01:20:46
- I gonna forget, you know teach them? I can't teach them anything and so good, you know this Sura and that Hadith and this argument and that point and the
- 01:20:55
- Tafir all this stuff and so I came up with these things and They were different it's a different approach and so, you know the guy the
- 01:21:05
- God of Islam for example, is he holy? Well Muslims are gonna say yes, he's holy
- 01:21:12
- And I'll say okay. So he's holy. He's perfect. He's pure right and he can not accept
- 01:21:19
- Impurity. Otherwise, that's that's not holy, right? Yes, that's true Are you holy?
- 01:21:25
- No, so when you repent of your sins Is your repentance perfect and holy?
- 01:21:33
- No Muslim will say yes. No, they can't as you know but yet God your God accepts your
- 01:21:41
- Repentance, which is touched by your own sinfulness Said your
- 01:21:46
- God can't be holy Because he accepts the unholy offerings from his people as being acceptable
- 01:21:54
- But in Christianity in Christianity the holiness of God is met in the person and work of Christ Who his blood in his blood makes our works and our repentance holy?
- 01:22:08
- So it's washed pure. So why should you know? Say to them why should
- 01:22:13
- I give up what I got for what you got? With perfect holiness
- 01:22:26
- Then they can say ah, but but here you see a lot is loved See, he even accepts my imperfect attempts because he knows my heart then you still don't escape the issue of his unrighteousness, but now he has to sacrifice his his righteousness for the sake of his love because in loving and forgiving and not
- 01:22:45
- Meeting the requirements of his own law You go right back to the end to the story of the judge that you brought at the beginning
- 01:22:52
- So you can't just say well, he's loving and that's how he can accept my Worship because then you'll learn his lovingness, but you'll also have to sacrifice his righteousness because Yeah, and the implication of that inside of Islam would be that Allah has parts and There's not a divine simplicity a divine unity of essence in which like the
- 01:23:16
- Christian being the Christian God The divine simplicity divine simplistic nature of God is one essence and all of his attributes love patience mercy justice
- 01:23:25
- Wrath all are equally Part of what he is and one is not above the other and so in Islam the idea, you know what you were saying
- 01:23:34
- Some Muslims would hold to that and then you could bring up the point that well what you're doing ultimately is saying that Your God has parts.
- 01:23:42
- He's denying one thing in order to match another but in Christianity that can't be done
- 01:23:47
- All must be satisfied because they're all part and parcel the nature of God And They believe in divine simplicity,
- 01:23:57
- I believe That is a unit is a unity. He's one even the doctrine of top weed is is emphasizes the oneness of God right and have a division of how these attributes are expressed because You know, it affects that that very important doctrines is central to their position, right?
- 01:24:17
- there's problems there and Okay, so Yeah, well, you know the oneness of God the simplicity of God in that sense but they don't but practically if you're already were to be followed by by some
- 01:24:31
- Muslims and that would be a Contradiction against the simplicity of God the divine simplicity of his essence of nature.
- 01:24:38
- Yeah Yep Islam sucks Overly offensive
- 01:25:01
- Well, I wouldn't say that to a Muslim I mean but it does it's bad it it it's not logical it's not moral
- 01:25:08
- Teaches a false of God a false Christ a false gospel all of it You know Islam is just a false religious system and you know it is so Yeah But that's what it is.
- 01:25:21
- Yeah, I did An hour and a half on a BN satellite TV yesterday we talked about Those issues on the righteousness and holiness of Allah Is he evil or not and I'll tell you this guy brought
- 01:25:39
- Eddie Yusuf, he brought out a lot of points. I took notes
- 01:25:46
- Because he speaks Arabic region rights it is raised in Iraq And so he knows the
- 01:25:52
- Quran in ways that I will never be able to and he was showing some stuff. It was really good he was saying that I Think about this when you die you get 72 virgins and this is the holiness of God to say that Hey guys, you're gonna have sex with 72 women 72
- 01:26:13
- You'd have sex forever with 72 women and each time you have sex with them. Their virginity is lost over again
- 01:26:19
- They remain perpetual virgins after you have sex with them. They become virgins again
- 01:26:25
- You know, which is incoherent But you know, that's it and Allah takes shares of the booty of destruction
- 01:26:34
- You know a lot takes takes a share in the booty So when the
- 01:26:39
- Muslims go in and conquer and they get spoils a lot takes shares of the spoils
- 01:26:47
- Yeah, and Let's see and you know, there's different punishments and things like that that we're talking about to the cruelty of Allah and There's some stuff about Satan commanding
- 01:27:02
- Muhammad. He was saying I could have researched those I noticed a couple times when he was saying things that the surahs weren't exactly the same so you know,
- 01:27:11
- I need to verify a few things, but it was I don't know because I've not seen how much
- 01:27:37
- James knows but Dave and I have talked and know that Dave Does just basically
- 01:27:42
- Islam all the time. It's all he does. I don't know who's gonna know more But I have them packed.
- 01:27:48
- I might be able to find them again hopefully soon, but I Have a set of books
- 01:27:56
- That were written by some just incredible experts who go through hundreds of issues that And then
- 01:28:06
- I was told that these guys Well, I won't say that That you know that this is where you can get all the information.
- 01:28:14
- I forgot the name of the stuff it's just page after page after page of problems in the
- 01:28:19
- Quran and the Hadith and the soft fear the commentaries and Some other issues
- 01:28:25
- I read through stuff. There's just tremendous stuff but It's packed
- 01:28:31
- Answering islam .org. I think yeah answering islam .org is great
- 01:28:41
- Sam yeah, Sam Shimon. He's great Yeah, Sam He moderated a debate
- 01:28:48
- I did with a Muslim in Seattle a few years ago and I remember thinking thinking, you know,
- 01:28:54
- Sam you should be debating him and because you know, Sam knows far more than I do and That's not being humble this is true and but you know, we had a debate and and stuff but nevertheless
- 01:29:08
- Yeah, there's a lot of some great guys Well, here's something that is not on the debate but occurred during the debate and What that was is
- 01:29:26
- I have a friend Nathan and he went with me and Nathan's very protective of Me because of what
- 01:29:35
- I do and Nathan's one of those kind of guys, but he watches my back, you know And so Nathan was okay.
- 01:29:42
- So imagine this I'm in a church is a center aisle There's pews left and right a center aisle and it's an older style church and to the up my upper left
- 01:29:52
- Are some stained -glass well not stained -glass windows but some windows that fold open or that have that crank they kind of come open or the handle whatever it is and You go straight back in this rectangular church straight back and there's the foyer in the back and then behind that are the doors that to outside and so when anybody would open the door to come in a window
- 01:30:17
- That my friend could see would just slightly vibrate because the air pressure change And it became a system alarm system for him not alarm, but you know
- 01:30:27
- Hey, someone just walked in and he would just turn around and watch, you know, and he was in a strategic position
- 01:30:33
- All right. Anyway, you know and I'm aware of this while I'm debating and Sure enough the window, you know jerks a little bit.
- 01:30:42
- So he I see him turning around and I'm I think I was talking when this happened.
- 01:30:49
- Nothing bad happened But this is what happened this Middle -eastern looking guy walks in through the foyer and Stands at the back where the church entrance is and stands there for a bit
- 01:31:04
- It doesn't sit doesn't stand. He's by himself and he looks you know, he might potentially could have been
- 01:31:10
- Muslim you know how the the Middle Eastern look and stuff so Don't know
- 01:31:15
- I have we know I have no idea if he really was or was not but any rate and Then so I'm debating if still we're going and then this guy walks down the aisle about halfway down the aisle and stands in the middle of the church and I look over my friend and my friend is watching him.
- 01:31:36
- I Mean my friend is ready, you know, and this guy is just standing there and he stands there for a good 30 seconds
- 01:31:43
- Doesn't do anything and I'm aimed at my debate trying to focus on what I'm saying But aware that this guy is standing there and I'm debating about Islam and he looks like he's from an
- 01:31:55
- Arabic country so I'm waiting for him to pull out a gun and Just start shooting.
- 01:32:01
- I mean, I don't know, you know Well, I was
- 01:32:07
- I was in the middle of debate When this happened, yeah, okay, you'd be polite Yeah, they get my point but statement and so I looked at my friend
- 01:32:16
- My friend had a it was just locked laser beam locked on this guy, right? and I was I knew if something happens, my friend would be on it fast and The guy just turns around and slowly walks out of the church goes back out the foyer and goes out and my friend gets up and follows him out and And and then later we talked to go where'd he go he goes he just left got in the car and took off I go that's suspicious.
- 01:32:45
- He goes. Yes, it was So that's not on the film on that debate obviously, but it happened
- 01:32:56
- Yeah, did you do a lot of debates I was sitting on the
- 01:33:09
- Muslim side Middle -eastern ish
- 01:33:16
- Well your name your name Elia ally was it Ayala? Yeah, I mean
- 01:33:25
- I could just I could just see you know you the back of someone's you know What's your name? Ayala? Ayala like that and then everybody just runs for cover, you know
- 01:33:34
- It sounds like Okay Every time a point is made.
- 01:33:59
- He was like, well, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Afterwards all the Christians of the Muslim met in the college cafeteria and they were
- 01:34:07
- Talking and it was actually a really awesome Experience where people just showed respect towards one another a really good conversation what
- 01:34:16
- I find is Muslims now perhaps I can make a differentiation between Muslims you find online and Muslims you find out in every every day, you know, right college and and they just seem to be very interested in Christianity Just interested in what we believe, you know, they don't believe it obviously like hey
- 01:34:37
- The tree with Jesus is like God like these quite the kinds of questions were genuine
- 01:34:43
- Hey, that's really interesting. I heard this about Christianity. Is it true? You know, and I had a good experience there
- 01:34:49
- So I understand where the fear comes from and I understand where the caution comes from and I think to a certain degree
- 01:34:56
- It is valid But we do want to also as I said before we have balance. We can't just people because You know, not everyone's the same and not every
- 01:35:06
- Muslim is the same as a YouTube Muslim or someone debates online Things like that.
- 01:35:12
- So well most Muslims, they don't want to be violent. Most Muslims are peaceful in fact
- 01:35:17
- Only 18 % of Muslims in the world can even read the Arabic and most of them don't really know what the
- 01:35:23
- Quran says in a lot Of areas a lot of them are just like Christians or Christians by culture Christians by birth and don't have a very deep understanding
- 01:35:31
- And that is the case it's the ones who are dedicated and those are the ones I Encounter on a regular basis, you know, because you know what
- 01:35:39
- I do and stuff like that. But yeah Right my interaction with in -person have been respectful
- 01:35:55
- That I've encountered online have been disrespectful Right in some context and respectful another so on the online scene definitely affects the interaction
- 01:36:05
- And of course because we're predominantly online culture that tends to be the lens through which we view other people, right?
- 01:36:12
- It's not always accurate That's true. That is true And well, you may have a comment or question, let's see
- 01:36:21
- I guess in the I'll look in the chat and also Mikhail. Did you have a question? Did you do a lot of debates with Muslims?
- 01:36:30
- Have I done a lot of debates with Muslims? I've done one two, three
- 01:36:37
- Four or five I can't remember debates with Muslims Maybe I should make a podcast out of your debates as well
- 01:36:47
- One of the very helpful things to know when you're debating a Muslim is not only
- 01:36:53
- Your theology need to master your own theology, but you also need to be acquainted with church history
- 01:37:01
- Because Muslims do very similar what Mormons do and what
- 01:37:06
- Jehovah's Witnesses do is that they will wield Church history in such a way that makes their position a little more plausible
- 01:37:15
- And that's not all that's obviously not the case so if you know a little bit of church history that actually goes a long way
- 01:37:22
- I've even heard dr. White saying this he says at the topics that he took in seminary that helped him the most was
- 01:37:28
- Greek, of course being able to go into the original language and church history because you can recognize the false ideas and the revision of What actually happens in the past you see this revision being used by many of the cults and other religions?
- 01:37:43
- When they're trying to make their point, so I think that's Very very important when we're doing apologetics a
- 01:37:50
- Christian apologetics books are super important But to be a good apologist you need not engulf yourself in Christian apologetic books
- 01:37:59
- Focusing on certain topics will equip you sometimes even better since apologetic books tend to focus on multiple topics without any depth
- 01:38:07
- Whereas if you focus on church history specifically or theology specifically you can go a little deeper and have a more firmer foundation
- 01:38:15
- Actually, I have a file of all the church fathers that if people want it
- 01:38:20
- You can email it to me, and I can send it to you, and it's searchable It is searchable, and I've got one that somebody went did some topical stuff.
- 01:38:29
- It's been extremely helpful Yeah Has such a rich literary history with some really awesome thinkers even though there was some
- 01:38:51
- Disagreements and inaccuracies these people were very deep thinkers. Oh, yeah They did not write with a dry logic
- 01:38:58
- But they incorporated logic and that existential importance of having that relationship with God and things like that So I find reading some of the church fathers in church history in general is not only apologetically valuable
- 01:39:12
- But it's also Existentially and spiritually valuable as you see how deeply devoted these these early
- 01:39:18
- Christians were It kind of convicts you in a lot of ways. Oh, yeah, I remember back in seminary our professor
- 01:39:24
- This is back in 1989. I believe it was and he read the church father
- 01:39:30
- Chrysostom, and he read two Two excerpts out of them, and I still remember what they were about Because Chrysostom means golden tongue the way he would speak was phenomenal
- 01:39:45
- Absolutely phenomenal he would weave imagery and doctrine together in such a way that you left remembering
- 01:39:54
- And he was he was phenomenal and this is I mean that was back in 89
- 01:40:00
- And I still remember what was basically being said In such a way that really hit home for fun.
- 01:40:12
- They're so quotable, too Yeah, but because their writings are so fast what is often the case is that they're often quoted out of context, right?
- 01:40:20
- Catholics sure do that Yeah, right. I think I think we can learn a lesson from how we study scripture when we study scripture
- 01:40:28
- We study scripture holistically not just reading small portions But reading enough that we get context and see what's going on and that rule
- 01:40:35
- Still applies when you're reading the church fathers or any other body of literature right You could inappropriately
- 01:40:46
- You can engage in bad exegesis of the Bible or good exegesis and you can engage in bad exegesis of the church fathers
- 01:40:53
- Right can't be piecemeal, you know, if you're gonna read someone, you know, read them so as to understand them
- 01:40:58
- Not just pick apart, you know Because that's ten things that they had so much so many good things to say, you know, oh, yeah
- 01:41:06
- In fact, I recommend people read Clement He was
- 01:41:11
- I loved reading Clement it was very enjoyable. Oh Yeah Except for the book of Acts, which is obviously very primitive, you know early early church
- 01:41:34
- Eusebius had If you love history you will drool reading
- 01:41:39
- Eusebius because he had access to information that no longer exists for us there's even a mention in Eusebius of a correspondence between Jesus and some and some person
- 01:41:50
- You know requesting to come to his home and heal a serpent or something like that And and if it's authentic we actually have the words of Jesus Writing and correspondence and responding to the person that he couldn't come but that he would send somebody yada yada yada
- 01:42:04
- Whether that's true or false It's interesting to see such a church history kind of 300 some odd years from the events have access to this material
- 01:42:14
- That gives us information that and there's no way for us to know more details, but there's some juicy stuff there
- 01:42:21
- You see this is really really informative on that level. There's a lot of good stuff in the church fathers
- 01:42:27
- But there it's it's if you if you had all the church fathers in volumes Say the
- 01:42:34
- Antinocene fathers It would probably take you I'd say nothing but reading eight hours a day probably take you a couple of months to get through it
- 01:42:41
- All there's just an incredible amount He does every single day he's done it
- 01:43:03
- I think he has a piece and consistent that doing that over a period of time He's finished much of the early church fathers
- 01:43:11
- He's done that for years and years and years So the key to cover ground is to be consistent and be an intentional in the way that you study
- 01:43:18
- But you know, he's a scholar and it does this for a living And so he has much more structure than the person who's just trying to survive work and where he's raising kids right all that other kind of stuff, so So, yeah, he believes in daytime study he says dr.
- 01:43:36
- Craig says Why fly with the owls at night when you can soar with the eagles of the day?
- 01:43:44
- I don't fully agree with it because I just learn better at night time But I get what he's saying get some sleep get some rest and then when you're awake and alert, you know
- 01:43:54
- Yeah Yeah, they are when I you know, I wake up in the morning my brains are going you go back to bed so Yeah doesn't work the same yeah, well anybody else got any comments or anything are you gonna take off Would you like to move to Calvinism from Islam?
- 01:44:15
- Anybody what'd you say Mikkel something about Calvinism and Islam what? Yeah, do you want to move to Calvinism from us?
- 01:44:22
- Oh we can talk about Calvinism if you got a question I was wondering about Not particularly your view, but Calvinistic view of the libertarian free will
- 01:44:34
- Well, that's an interesting topic both Both Eli and I've talked have talked about this a lot libertarian free will
- 01:44:44
- So Compatible is free will and libertarian free will basically libertarian free will is the idea that a person is free to make choices and within Within the
- 01:44:57
- Christian perspective the unbeliever is free to be able to choose God he just needs the right influences and information and so it denies a form of total depravity and libertarianism also says that God's Predestination is that if predestination is true and God's deterministic idea inside of predestination and election is true then
- 01:45:23
- It's we are not It's not human free will is not compatible With that in other words if we're predestined to be saved we're not
- 01:45:33
- It's not compatible with free will to be able to freely choose because you're not really choosing
- 01:45:39
- God's doing it for you Therefore you're not really responsible. So I call libertarians and are
- 01:45:45
- Non -compatibilists Compatibilism says that God's free God's election and predestination are perfectly compatible with man's free will
- 01:45:54
- Where libertarianism says no, they're not compatible. So that's why I call libertarianism Anti Compatibilism or a non -compatibilism.
- 01:46:03
- I don't put it in libertarian view that often but one of the things I will say in response to that is
- 01:46:10
- Let me get back to this and I'll read you some verses that I think are really important about this topic because Ability it comes over the issue of free will and so I'm gonna go to John 5 19
- 01:46:24
- Jesus says I can do nothing the son could do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees a father doing
- 01:46:32
- Whatever the father does he said these things a son does in like manner And Let's see you go back up a little bit.
- 01:46:43
- There's also Where Jesus says been a while. So I've done this one. So let me get this
- 01:46:48
- Where Jesus has he can do nothing of his own initiative As John 530, that's right
- 01:46:55
- I can do nothing of my own initiative as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own
- 01:47:01
- Will but the will of him who sent me if Jesus we would say Jesus has free will and the libertarian would say yes
- 01:47:07
- Jesus has free will if he has free will then which which view
- 01:47:12
- Libertarianism or compatibilism remember compatibilism is that God's predestination determination is consistent with human free will
- 01:47:20
- Libertarian would say no, it's not That's the basic view. There's some caveats there, but that's the basic view.
- 01:47:26
- So I say what I Say which which scriptures fit which these scriptures pitch which view better where Jesus says
- 01:47:33
- I can do nothing of my own initiative Is that libertarianism or compatibilism? Now there's some discussions if you had in there, but the idea is that the words of Christ support the idea of compatibilism because God had obviously got a father predestined everything that Jesus would do and Say and even
- 01:47:50
- Jesus said I could do nothing of my own initiative, but he had free will at the same time. That's compatibilism Go ahead
- 01:48:19
- What I think is helpful is Not to think that libertarianism necessarily teaches that man is always free to make a choice in libertarian sense
- 01:48:27
- There are libertarians who affirm that man is sometimes free to make choices For example in the pocket dictionary of apologetics and philosophy of religion
- 01:48:35
- It's a little little handbook that has cool theological apologetic vocabulary. It finds libertarian free will
- 01:48:42
- In ethics and metaphysics as the view that human beings sometimes can will more than one possibility
- 01:48:48
- According to this view a person who freely made a particular choice could have chosen differently Even if nothing about the past prior to the moment of choice had been different.
- 01:48:56
- So the person could make different choices Regardless of the prior the prior influences man is influenced by conditions and situations of context
- 01:49:07
- But he is not determined by those things. He can self will In that sense there is a certain level and concept of autonomy within the concept of libertarian free will
- 01:49:18
- But it's a limited autonomy Right Well, some libertarian views are very very consistent with a very close to compatibilism
- 01:49:34
- Yeah Was any of that book again, it was a pocket dictionary.
- 01:49:41
- What? The pocket
- 01:49:51
- Pocket dictionary of apologetics and philosophy of religion Okay, published by InterVarsity Press 2002 says libertarian will defined as in ethics and metaphysics
- 01:50:03
- The view that human beings sometimes can will more than one possibility Possibility sometimes is very important because Libertarians don't think that you're never determined at all.
- 01:50:16
- They just believe that at sometimes you can make libertarian free choices right
- 01:50:22
- Yep Mikhail if you had your chat box open in the hangout
- 01:50:30
- I posted a few links that I think would be helpful in Synthesizing the topic a little bit right and I've written some some of it on on CARM But just like Eli was saying it is not an easy topic.
- 01:50:43
- There are variations of both view of compatibilism, but not so much as there are variations in libertarianism and Just like you said to the variations with the idea of determinism and decrees.
- 01:50:56
- So it's not just a simple topic So many people will accuse
- 01:51:05
- Calvinist of believing that God causes all things and the word cause is mistaken For the concept of an active cause as though God exerts energy and brings about my action and that doesn't make the proper the proper distinction between God bringing something about actively by By exerting power and bringing about and God bringing something about passively through permission
- 01:51:29
- Yep, and so in that in that case Yes God is the cause of all things but he doesn't cause all things in precisely the same way and I think people mix up that language and they attribute to Calvinism something that Calvinism doesn't teach
- 01:51:41
- Right, and what I'll do is for those on the radio, you know, I don't get too technical, but I'll say there's a
- 01:51:48
- Direct cause and an indirect cause or a direct cause and a permission that God knows things will happen and he lets it happen
- 01:51:56
- Actually, that's not the best way to put it folks, but that'll do for now and that's you know I'm the radio talk like that at level
- 01:52:02
- But yeah John Calvin speaks about permission being kind of like a joke
- 01:52:17
- Yeah, you know, you know God brings everything about you know, permission is really not a good term to use, you know, whatever
- 01:52:23
- But I don't even think Calvin was referring to a Permission in that sense that God never permits
- 01:52:29
- I think that Calvin really is is denying the kind of permission that is a fair permission a permission that God gives
- 01:52:38
- Complete autonomous free right of the person to do what they do without any, you know It's a creative purpose or anything like right.
- 01:52:45
- I don't think Calvin held to that but even if he did and I don't either Yeah Well, if God's going to permit something it's his will to permit it
- 01:52:58
- But anything that occurs can only occur because God has ordained that it occur and then we get into the issue of causative ordination and permissive
- 01:53:06
- Ordination where God says he knows these certain things will do and yet even the free will choices have to be permitted
- 01:53:11
- It gets very complicated very quickly And all this stuff it really does
- 01:53:17
- Right and the language can be emotionally charged Yeah, God decrees everything that comes to pass that includes and I'll be specific because I don't want to water down That includes
- 01:53:29
- God ordains me sharing my food with someone who's hungry and God ordains that a particular instance of rape occur
- 01:53:36
- The fact that God ordains evil to occur is not the same as God actually Performing people right it is an element of permission and The fact that God ordains me that even the evil things that he permits to occur
- 01:53:50
- He has ultimate good purposes that he's working out Right to deny a decree is to also say that there are events that occur
- 01:53:58
- For which there is no purpose for right and that I think is a scary position
- 01:54:05
- Because that means there are actions that are completely outside of God's control and that God is responding to those actions in Time as they occurred not as though he permitted them for a specific redemptive purpose
- 01:54:17
- And then you'd be supporting the idea of God being or the open theist Concept of God where God's reacting to things foreseen and reacting to things
- 01:54:26
- He could not foresee and he limits himself So some say to only knowing certain things in order for man's free will to stay inviolate
- 01:54:35
- Right, right. And I think to another difficult question, which is really at the heart of these kinds of discussions is how do we reconcile a meticulously sovereign
- 01:54:44
- God and the kind of freedom that warrants man's responsibility before God and Calvinism affirms both meticulous sovereignty and a human responsibility
- 01:54:55
- But we need to be careful that Calvinism does not necessitate a particular Metaphysical explanation as to how that works a lot of people will say for example
- 01:55:05
- They'll follow someone like Jonathan Edwards and have an understanding of the will that you know We act with accordance with our strongest inclination and they'll have some philosophical way of explaining how this all works together
- 01:55:15
- And we're free to do that and that's fine and they're defensible those different models But that's not necessitated by the
- 01:55:22
- Calvinist position, right? If you read the Creed the Reformed Creed, they affirm God's meticulous sovereignty their firm human responsibility
- 01:55:29
- And they are quite ambiguous as to how that works out You may employ a philosophical model that you think is based upon principles of Scripture But you do not want to equate those
- 01:55:38
- Philosophical models with what the Reformed creature teaching and what scripture teaches since scripture does not attempt to give
- 01:55:44
- Metaphysical explanation as to how these things work together. Amen That's why
- 01:55:50
- I said the radio God doesn't tell us so I can't tell you He doesn't tell us don't know.
- 01:55:57
- That's it He has a reason for not giving us certain answers about certain issues and that's okay
- 01:56:02
- That is perfectly fine with me as I learned in seminary one day the professor got up to the board and said
- 01:56:09
- I'm gonna teach you one of the most important things you'll ever learn and He wrote two sentences on the board. There is a
- 01:56:15
- God you are not him and It's true, and there's certain things
- 01:56:20
- God just does not reveal to us and that's just how it is Yeah Well, buddy, we're about time.
- 01:56:29
- Yeah, let's wrap it up. It's a top of the hour. So they appreciate you coming in and You know having a good conversation.
- 01:56:37
- Maybe we do it again next week. We'll see And I say just forget your family in church, you know do this it's more important obviously
- 01:56:54
- There's don't tell me I said that That's right, yeah those inside words became outside words oops
- 01:57:18
- Together Until she met me tell her to call my wife up and tell her my wife how great
- 01:57:45
- I am While we were together
- 01:58:03
- Yes, that's true
- 01:58:08
- I do have some quirks, you know, we've been watching I Do but I do it's true.
- 01:58:18
- I Do you know we've been watching the Longmire series and my wife every now and then
- 01:58:24
- You know, it's a fun series on Netflix and the sheriff is this guy, you know, someone punches him in the nose
- 01:58:31
- He's got a bloody nose. He goes to the office and someone says what happened? He goes my nose is bleeding and he just keeps going.
- 01:58:36
- He doesn't say anything My wife just slowly looks over at me, you know, cuz I know what she's doing.
- 01:58:42
- That's what I'll do She'll say how are you doing? Oh, I'm fine He asked me the question
- 01:58:48
- I gave you the answer no, I want more details. Well, then ask more questions, you know, it's you guys
- 01:58:53
- Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's me. It's like Yeah, and we watching somebody on TV and he'll do something stupid like that as she her head just slowly turns
- 01:59:04
- It looks at me. I just hide But all that Yeah Well, just praise
- 01:59:18
- God he can use a broken vessel so amen, that's right Okay, buddy.
- 01:59:25
- Well, God bless All right, man. Talk to you later Okay. All right
- 01:59:33
- All right. That was fun. It was Eli's great guy. We have lots of conversations all kinds of topics good
- 01:59:38
- It's really deep stuff a lot of fun I'm gonna close it up now. Is there gonna be an after show so you guys can put the link in?
- 01:59:45
- I don't know if that's gonna happen today And I don't you know, no big deal Let's see.
- 01:59:51
- Where is There it is. Okay. I don't know if anybody's in or what who what's going on?
- 01:59:58
- I don't know Okay, I don't see anybody saying anything
- 02:00:04
- Anybody know there's gonna be an after show. I hope you're not asking me because I stumbled into this being computer illiterate
- 02:00:15
- So I think if somebody were to act like they don't know what they're doing, maybe they'll successfully make it next time.
- 02:00:21
- Okay Sounds good. All right, then. I'm gonna just close it up Thanks, Matt, all right.