Defending Presup: A Response to an Atheist Critique #presup #apologetics #atheism

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

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I have two friends of mine here joining me, no strangers to the show. First I'd like to introduce

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Jeremiah Nortier. He is the host of the Apologetic Dog YouTube channel, and in the comments

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I put a link to his channel. I highly recommend you go over to his channel and subscribe. He's got a lot of good stuff on his channel.

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Maybe he can take a few moments in just a bit to share a little bit about the sorts of topics that he covers.

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If that's something that scratches your itch, then I highly recommend that you go over there and support him by subscribing and sharing his content if it's relevant to what you're looking for.

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My next guest also is Saiten Bruggenkate. He really doesn't need any introduction.

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He is very well known in the YouTube world, and of course that documentary

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How to Answer a Fool, which is available for free online. It's definitely a great documentary highlighting the practical use of a presuppositional approach within the context of evangelism and interactions and things like that.

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There are many people that have reached out to me expressing how much they've learned from Sai. I'm sure that Sai has experienced that himself, and so we very much appreciate all of the things that he's done in the past and the things that he continues to do, like coming on to the show and sharing from his experience.

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We're really happy to have you, Sai. Now before I let Sai give folks a quick update on what he's been up to,

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Jeremiah, why don't you take a few moments and tell people a little bit more about your channel and what you do, and then we'll go over to Sai, and then we'll jump right into the topic for today.

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Jeremiah Bruggenkate Absolutely. Thanks again, Eli, for having me back on. The Heart of the Apologetic Dog is basically an exhortation to Christians saying, hey, we're supposed to be guarding the deposit that's been entrusted to us.

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You can kind of see in the logo of The Apologetic Dog, 1 Timothy 6, verse 20, where Paul says, oh,

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Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you and avoid pagan philosophy, irreverent babble, and contradictions that have called themselves knowledge.

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We're saying, no, no, no, knowledge comes from God, the God of truth, and we stand on his word every point and turn.

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I love that verse because I read a lot of Van Til, Blondson, have always looked up to your ministry,

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Sai's ministry, and that's very presuppositional, meaning that truth only can come from God.

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I just love that verse just because it encourages Christians, guard the gospel.

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The dog is a guard dog mentality, but as we know, apologetics is both defensive and offensive.

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We contend for the faith that's been once delivered. That's my heart. I also serve as a pastor at Twelve Five Church.

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I'm one of the elders here, and so my platform just has its hands in all different kinds of ministries, pastoral ministry.

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I'm thinking about the church that I serve at, Twelve Five Church, which comes from Romans 12, verse 5, that says, we are individually one of another, but we're one together in the body of Christ.

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I want the apologetics ministry to be tethered in and through the local church.

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That's just a little bit about me. I'd love for people to go over to The Apologetic Dog. I have a website,

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Eli, these days, and The Apologetic Dog is about to be totally revamped soon, and I'm about to be on more social media platforms, just trying to sow that gospel seed.

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Thank you again. That's awesome, and just to point out for folks who are interested, Jeremiah has done a few debates, and so if you want to see a presuppositional approach used, correct me if I'm wrong, you've done a debate against a

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Mormon before, right? The first one. First one, and you applied a presuppositional approach to this question all the time,

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Jeremiah. How do you apply a presuppositional approach to fill in the blank with some religious perspective? Some people tend to think it's only kind of effective when you're talking to atheists, but I think you did an excellent job exhibiting a presuppositional approach within the context of Mormonism, so folks can definitely check that out.

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They would greatly benefit from giving that a listen. All right, Cy, well, you've been on before, and there is one video entitled that you are on here a while back called

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Why Doubt Requires God, and in that video at the beginning, you kind of gave an update on your situation, which we don't have to go into detail, but if folks are interested in kind of like where issues are with kind of your personal things that you've expressed in the public, people can check out that video, and I think the first like 25 minutes, you just go into detail and kind of unpack what you've been up to, so no reason to retread that trail, but that video is available for people if they want to check it out,

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Why Doubt Requires God, Cy unpacks that, but for now, what have you been up to currently, and then maybe you can share what are some of your plans for the future?

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Are there any specific plans in terms of continuing your website or anything like that? Just a quick aside, you mentioned the film that we did a number of years ago.

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It's How to Answer the Fool, in case people are searching for it, and that's on my Answer Anyone channel on YouTube.

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I also have a Proof that God Exists channel on YouTube, and that's more of my open air stuff, and yeah, so I'm a teacher of presuppositional apologetics.

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I teach people how to defend their faith biblically, and I try to do that out in the public. Now, circumstances have been such that I have not been doing much of that lately.

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I did a conference a few months back, and of course, I've been on your show, but lately I have a cousin whose nephew bought a house from the 1800s, and it needed some renovation, and people don't realize what people like us do on the side, but I'm...

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Wait, you don't sit behind a monitor, like, trolling atheists on Facebook comments?

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No. So I'm adept at electrical and plumbing and stuff like that, and I've been helping him renovate his 1800s home, and that's just about done, and I have another personal issue that is before me right now, which should clear up soon, and that will really indicate how my future is looking.

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I hope to go pretty soon up to Moscow, Idaho, to visit my friends up there, hang out with them. And last year,

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I spent three months in Panama for the winter, and the older I get, the more I dislike being cold, so if it's possible,

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I might end up there again this winter as well. All right. Very good. Well, thank you so much for that. Panama. Gee whiz.

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I've never been there. I just recently came back from Kansas, the flattest place on earth. I was speaking over there on apologetics, covering

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Roman Catholicism and atheism, and one of the things I recognized that was really cool is that I can see

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North Carolina, which is where I live now, from Kansas. That's how flat it was. It was very, very nice.

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But nevertheless, let's jump right into the topic for today. We're going to be reviewing a video entitled

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Why Presuppositionalism Cannot Justify Our Properly Basic Beliefs, okay?

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Why Presuppositionalism Cannot Justify Our Properly Basic Beliefs, and this is kind of it almost seems like an after show from either a discussion they had with you or maybe they were reviewing something with you in it, so your name is mentioned.

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So you haven't seen this video, Sai, at least I don't think you have, but if you have, if you haven't,

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I'm sure you're going to be familiar with the sorts of things that folks like this are going to bring up anyway, so I thought it'd be a great idea to have you on to comment and of course

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Jeremiah as well, and myself, I'll throw in my two cents every now and then as well. So let's take a look here.

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We're going to put it up on the screen, and before I press play, though, for the philosophically uninitiated, okay, you know, those people who are like, oh man, here come the big words.

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I want to define properly basic beliefs if you're not familiar with that terminology, okay?

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So properly basic beliefs are foundational beliefs that are not justified by or derived from other beliefs, but some people would say that they consider them justified in and of themselves, so the concept is very much associated with the

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Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who is a former professor at Notre Dame, and when we talk about properly basic beliefs, it is a topic that is within the purview of epistemology, and again, that's just a $20 word which refers to one's theory of knowledge.

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Epistemology asks the basic question, how do you know what you know? So that's sort of what that's all about.

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So that's what properly basic beliefs are, and so this video is entitled Why Presuppositionalism Cannot Justify Our Properly Basic Beliefs.

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So without further ado, I'm going to press play, gentlemen, and at any moment, if you want me to stop,

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I will stop, and then we can comment on various aspects of the video. Let me see if this works a little better.

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Hold up. Let me try this here. Nope. That removes all of you guys from the screen. Nope. That makes me too big.

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We'll keep it right here. Boom. Okay. All right. You guys ready? Let's do it. All right.

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Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Why Presuppositionalism Cannot Justify Our Properly Basic Beliefs.

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You got to have the epic intro. All right. Let's get started. Just because we're rationalists and we're skeptics and we believe in empirical principles and we trust in scientific values doesn't mean that we have to be naive empiricists and believe that all of our beliefs and the basis of our beliefs can itself be rationally warranted and grounded.

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It's perfectly acceptable to say, hey, you know what? As it turns out, the very basis of rationality is composed of certain assumptions, and those assumptions are not rational themselves.

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How about that? It would seem to be true. Right? We don't have to shy away. All right. I want to stop here.

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So let's give some context. This gentleman here apparently has interacted with some presuppositionalist and has been invited to give an account or provide a justification for his own views.

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And of course, the presuppositionalist is going to point out the unbeliever's inability to do that because they don't have an adequate foundation.

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And so what it seems, Ozzy, we'll call him Ozzy for short, it seems what he's pointing out is, well, hey, there's nothing wrong with the fact that, yeah,

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I have a starting point, can't justify it. And it's even based to some degree on irrationality.

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What do you guys think of that? So you go first. Age before beauty.

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By the way, Ozzy, of course, that's not his real name. Nice fellow. I haven't really been following other people on YouTube for quite a while, so I don't know where he's at now.

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But I actually did the talk with him. I think even offline, we communicated and I think he even invited me, if I'm ever in his area, whatever it was.

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I don't even think we discussed it, that we would meet. But I always find it interesting, like a nice guy, brilliant guy.

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But he says that it's perfectly acceptable to not to have irrational or probably basically or whatever.

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I can't exactly what he said, but the idea of something being perfectly acceptable says who? It's perfectly acceptable if you're an atheist, because then you could say, well, it's perfectly acceptable because it supports that I don't have to justify anything.

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I can just start from this non -starting point. I can just make it up.

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And when I go to talk to people about the Christian faith, I said, you have two options today. You have

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Jesus Christ or absurdity. Now we can justify our starting point with Jesus Christ in the

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Christian world. The unbeliever can't. So they'll just say, well, it's perfectly justifiable to be unable to justify our starting point.

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And then they'll go on. And a lot of Christians allow them that point and will argue with them at that point.

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And of course, you know that I don't. I get a lot of criticism for that. I'm thankful that there are philosophers who can engage with that.

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But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. I'm not granting that to somebody who makes such a ridiculous claim to go on from there.

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And we were talking before the show, how would I respond to something like this? And it's the line that I got from Dustin Seegers, and many people hate it as well.

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I'd say, OK, pizza sleeps fast under the West, therefore the much. And they go, well, that's crazy.

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Well, how about it's my proper, properly basic belief that that's not crazy. That's my starting point. And then, you know.

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So it seems that what he's expressed there is he's granting himself permission to be arbitrary.

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Right. And he thinks it's fine because I would assume he thinks, well, that's where everyone has to start.

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Right. Everyone has to start with the foundational assumption of, say, I don't know, rely.

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He'll mention it later. Reliability of memory, logic and these sorts of things. But again, he's canceling out the other option, starting with the triune

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God. And of course, you'll never see the truth of that unless God changes his heart and opens his eyes.

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But he's admitting to arbitrariness. What I appreciate about his comments is that he acknowledges and he will acknowledge later on in the video the necessity of having a starting point and that the nature of that starting point is at base, in a sense, circular.

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And as we'll point out later, not all circles are fallacious. But I want to read something real quick and then Jeremiah, you can comment on your thoughts on the video so far.

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And so I'm quoting from a book entitled The Justification of Knowledge by Robert L.

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Raymond. And he's actually quoting Greg Bonson and Greg Bonson's book or syllabus entitled

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A Biblical Introduction to Apologetics, page thirty three, thirty four, for those who are interested. And here's what

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Dr. Bonson says. He says, all argumentation about ultimate issues eventually comes to rest at the level of the disputants presuppositions.

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If a man has come to the conclusion and is committed to the truth of a certain view, P, when he is challenged as to P, he will offer supporting argumentation for it for it.

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Q and R. But of course, as his opponent will be quick to point out, this simply shifts the argument to Q and R.

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Why accept them? The proponent of P is now called upon to offer S, T, U and V as arguments for Q and R.

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But all argument chains must come to an end somewhere. One's conclusions could never be demonstrated if they were dependent upon an infinite regress of argumentative justifications.

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For under those circumstances, the demonstration could never be completed and an incomplete demonstration demonstrates nothing at all.

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Just real quick and we'll wrap it up here with this quote. Eventually, all argumentation terminates in some logically primitive starting point, a view or premise held as unquestionable.

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Apologetics traces back to such ultimate starting points or presuppositions. And in the nature of the case, these presuppositions are held to be, and he'll mention this as well, self -evidencing.

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They are the ultimate authority in one's viewpoint and authority for which no greater authorization can be given.

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I think that beautifully summarizes the nature of the foundations. Ozzie here is saying, yeah, we have foundations, but yeah, maybe they're even based on irrationality.

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But yeah, we have them. Big deal, right? So what are your thoughts there, Jeremiah? Yeah, it is an issue of authority.

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And Ozzie is taking it upon himself to declare that he is the authority, right? He's just granting himself, you know, an arbitrary starting point because he says the very basis of rationality is composed of certain assumptions.

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There's the arbitrary nature. He started with certain assumptions, but it gets worse. And those assumptions are not rational themselves.

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So not only does he start arbitrarily, but he starts on a flat contradiction, a basis that is both rational and irrational, right?

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That's literally an antithesis. And so the Christian worldview, we understand continuity and discontinuity as God reveals to us truth.

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We understand that we're made in His image so we can understand things truly, but it's of a different kind.

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We understand this in light of God's light and how He's revealed Himself to us. So that is a self -vindicating starting point.

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And as we're going to get into, I think a big difference between kind of our viewpoint and these certain atheists is we actually believe that presuppositions can be demonstrated to be true, that they can have a proof.

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Right. I think it's important to point out, too, when you say with God we can justify these things, I want to make it clear that we are not simply saying, oh, the atheist can't justify his foundation, but the

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Christian can. God does it for us. That's not a mere authority claim. People get this confused.

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You know, we're not making we are making an authority claim, to be sure, but it's not a mere authority claim.

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So we use the philosophical language, the authority claim we will seek to demonstrate its validity, its truthfulness through transcendental argumentation.

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But we won't get into that just now, but just to let that hang out there and let people know it's not a mere authority claim, which oftentimes is, you know, we're given that accusation when we make argumentation.

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All right. Thank you. We're going to continue on here. Away from that and run away from it. And that's not a license to believe any old damn thing, which is what other people are trying to do.

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They're saying, oh, if you hold certain beliefs, certain fundamental beliefs that are absolutely integral and ingredient in rationality, which we all share and which we cannot dispose of.

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Right. We can't we simply can't discard these. Right. Would be able to reason without them. There are people out there who will say, well, if there are these fundamental assumptions that we cannot justify and warrant that really are articles of faith at bottom, then that's a license for me to be to believe any old damn thing with whatever degree of confidence

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I want. That's the mistake that people are making. And that's not true. OK, so I want to maybe you guys can share your thoughts on this.

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So if you cannot justify your foundation, it's often it often is said in informal conversations, well, then we have no reason to believe anything, you know, for all we know, fill in the blank.

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Now, he's saying that just because we can't provide a justification, it doesn't mean that anything goes.

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And what I see in there, I kind of sniff it out. Why not?

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What in other words, it seems to be the case that when you say it doesn't give us a license to believe any in his words, any damn thing.

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OK, why not? It seems what's baked into that comment is some standards that he is certain of and that he would at least need to have a foundation for unless he's going to hold to those found those standards arbitrarily.

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What do you think of that? Anybody could. I think when when he makes a statement like that and I'm not really faulting presupposition, but they engage the statement.

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I engage his ability to make the statement because he's making that statement.

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People engage on the basis of what he is saying. I'm saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm not going to grant you that you're standing on my foundation to even have a rational argument for your position.

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So let's back that up a bit. You know, if what you say is true, how can you make sense of the very thing that you're claiming?

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You know, and that's that's the type of and I know people don't like that. And I think it's great that people have philosophical arguments.

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First of all, I'm not smart enough for that. And secondly, I don't want to grant him that. Now, when you say, you know, well, how do you know what's your justification?

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Why is it not the case, Cy, that because people think like there goes Cy with his script.

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Now, I never got I never understood this. I remember listening to a presuppositionalist argue with some other people on like discord or something.

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And and people are like, oh, there he goes. He's he's running the script. And I'm thinking to myself, I wasn't engaged.

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I was kind of just silently listening. You know, I wasn't like raising my hand and get like, what's wrong with having a script? Do we have to go off the top of our head every single time?

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Like, yeah, there is a there's a script. Yeah, there's a script. There's nothing wrong with a script.

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When you say, how do you know? How do you know? Are you doing that, Cy, to be annoying? Are you doing it to just play the ultimate skeptic card?

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What is the reason for you to continually ask the question, well, how do you know that and what's your justification for that?

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My reason is to be faithful. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And these people are saying that they can have knowledge without the fear of the

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Lord. So in a gospel proclamation, we have to preach the gospel to people.

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And what is the gospel? The gospel is that Christ died for sinners. He lived a perfect life.

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He lived a life that we cannot live. He gave the sacrifice that we cannot give for people like you and me.

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What is the starting point of that? He died for sinners. And one of the sins is not acknowledging

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God when you make knowledge claims. So people are going out making all these knowledge claims in their argumentation.

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And we're just saying, yeah, go ahead. You say, no, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. I'm not letting you do that.

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If other people want to do that, that's fine. I say there's lots of Christians out there that can do that. They're probably a lot nicer than I am. But I love you enough to not grant you the tools of Jesus Christ to argue against him.

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All right. Thank you for that. Jeremiah, any thoughts? Yeah, because, you know, as Christians, we are committed to, like I said, faithfully following Jesus.

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And so I'm reminded of the words of our Lord. He says, Father, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.

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Alathia. And so when you understand what Jesus is saying, he is talking about an entire world view that exists that God created and that he came into that world to save sinners, right, to call not the righteous, not the self -righteous, but sinners to repentance.

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And so that's at the forefront of our mind is sanctifying the Lord in our hearts. And so I like to expand the conversation, you know, because we're dealing with the image bearers of God.

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They're going to say good principles and the things that they say. And in trying to show them love and grace,

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I may even affirm like, man, you're right. It does seem like there's so many things that we intuitively know.

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But what how would you evaluate what something is true or false or what what particularly is your theory of truth?

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What I'm getting at is I want to think of creative ways to ask them how they know what they know or by what standard, because that's kind of where we get faulted is the script is how, you know, you know, how do you know that?

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How do you know that? How do you know that? Jeremiah, by what standard is it's almost like a cuss word now when you're like, by what?

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So, oh, here we go. You know, yeah, yeah, real quick. I know, Cy, you know, Eric Hernandez, right?

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Eric Hernandez. There was a debate where he was debating an atheist and he was talking to the atheist about morality and it just slipped out of his mouth.

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He goes, well, by what standard? He goes, and then he has to apologize. He says, I'm not trying to be a presuppositionalist.

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I debated Eric Hernandez, by the way, so people can go. I think it's on his channel and I think it's on the right apologetic methodology.

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It's on the Sin Boldly podcast as well. That's where it was, Ethan McPherson, I think. Ethan, a gentleman, you know, a decent guy.

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It's on his, he hosted it, but Eric also put it on his website, Surprising, on his

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YouTube channel. Yeah, definitely check that out. Jeremiah, I interrupted you, so I do apologize. You want to finish your thought there? I just think since we, you know, love the

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Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength by virtue of the spirit, we want to be creative.

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With loving the Lord with our mind and how we engage with other image bearers of God. I believe it's the Proverbs that says that the righteous ponders how they give an answer.

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And so I think figuring out ways to ask them about truth, right? This was the question that Pontius Pilate just said, yeah, what is truth?

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Like, as though it can be known, because that's what's at the crux of being able to justify knowledge.

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And we know at the end of this that you can, we can only know truth if the God of truth has revealed himself and created us in such a way that he can be known.

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So I just want to look for creative ways to get that kind of conversation going. Sure. Thank you. Just an interesting, a quick aside, my debate with Eric Hernandez, William Lane Craig took two of his podcasts to review my debate with Eric Hernandez, and then

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Dr. James White took a couple of his shows to review William Lane Craig's review of my debate with Eric Hernandez, and then

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Leighton Flowers critiqued Dr. White's review of William Lane Craig's review of my debate with Eric Hernandez.

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So you need to make a playlist with all of those. Yeah, I should. And then I should critique Leighton Flowers to make a full circle.

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The circularity, the virtuous circularity. That's right. That's right. Okay. I'm going to put it a couple of seconds back here so we can get a little more context here.

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So let's go. Assumptions that we cannot justify and warrant that really are articles of faith at bottom. Then that's a license for me to be, to believe any old damn thing with whatever degree of confidence

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I want. That's the mistake that people are making. And that's not true. Some beliefs are properly basic beliefs.

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We cannot revise them. We have no basis on which to revise. We cannot abandon these assumptions because there's nothing that warrants or even suggests that we ought to.

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We can't establish that they're true and inerrant, but we have no reason for doubting them.

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There's no principled reason to doubt them. Right? And this is why I'm saying you have to have a good reason to doubt something.

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There's no reason to be. Well, what is the basis upon which to doubt something without a foundation that's sure and rock solid?

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Right? Again, I won't apologize for this, but by what standard does someone have a basis to doubt anything at all?

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You're going to, it seems like he is assuming some kind of bedrock to provide a justification as to why he doesn't have to answer certain philosophical questions.

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Any thoughts on that, guys? I'll let Jeremiah get in there and tell us how he would say, well, how do you know that?

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Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, when the claim is made that, you know, precepts are about to run a script,

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I want to point out, no, there's a rich history of philosophy that says, how do we know that we're doubting?

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Right? I think, therefore, I am. Like this has been something posited in secular history. So we're allowed to question these things.

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And in the video, you know, when he said, what do you say? He made the comment about some beliefs are properly basic beliefs.

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And so I would very lovingly and charitably say, tell me more about these properly basic beliefs.

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Where do they come from? Because that's going to move the conversation to what he's been addressing. Some things are just intuitive that we have to start there.

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Jeremiah, I think he would say they're self -evident. They're self -evident. And this is where I would want to lovingly say, man, it really does seem like they are self -evident.

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But this is something that's been already explored. And so I would try to just point back to many great minds that have come before us that have been made in the image of God.

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And I want to say there's kind of three options that we can go down with. These properly basic beliefs are kind of axioms.

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And when you say that they're self -evident, I would just say, you know, like we've been saying says who, you know, is did they pop out of thin air?

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Is that just merely the case? Or we talk about, you know, things, you know, having a circularity or an infinite regress like you are talking about.

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And so what I want to would want to posit is say, OK, if we're kind of just saying things that are that are self -evident, then maybe we can point to things that are self -evident on a bigger degree.

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So I would ask, you know, is is it possible since we're starting kind of on a whim and things being and I don't know if I would say arbitrary, but is it possible in their mind that an entire worldview could be self -evident?

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And I know that the answer to be no, that's why we're having the whole conversation. But I'd want to try to stretch the circle right without because I know

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I've seen before just tell someone or ask them, why do you hate God? And they're just like, that's that's definitely one way to short circuit the conversation.

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But we know that that is the truth, that they they hate the creator, they hate God, and they're suppressing that truth in their love for sin.

28:40

And so I would want to expand that circle, right, the things that they are taking for granted and say, look, there's a lot more going on at stake than just just merely saying things are self -evident.

28:52

Right. I would want to say that is true, but it's so much broader and bigger.

28:58

And so I try to start the conversation with something like that. Yeah. Interesting, too. I think a quote from Cornelius Vantill would be helpful here.

29:05

When someone says a fact is just self -evident, they're kind of appealing to kind of brute factuality. And of course, anyone familiar with Vantill, he always had a kind of a witty way of expressing himself.

29:15

He said that a a brute fact is a mute fact. Facts do not speak when we say something self -evident that still involves interpretation, worldview, context.

29:26

Right. Someone is working within a paradigm. And as as apologists and as thinkers, and I would even argue as philosophers,

29:34

I think God made us all philosophers to ask questions and to do analysis on various levels.

29:40

We need to challenge the paradigm. You think something self -evident, you think there is a brute factuality or there are these neutral facts that already is presuppositionally in opposition to what we are asserting as Christians.

29:53

And so, again, the presuppositional commitment against the Christian worldview from the start is evident in how he phrases himself in describing these these things and issues of proper basicality and so forth.

30:07

Let's continue on. Yeah, I just want to say, oh, sorry, go on. Nope, go for it. I just want to briefly expand on Descartes' dubito ergo sum,

30:16

I doubt, therefore I am, or Coggedore ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. And people want to have that as a starting point.

30:22

And that fails when you break down the syllogism, I think, therefore

30:27

I am. What is the conclusion? The conclusion is I am. And what is the first premise?

30:33

I think. You're already granting the I in the first premise. It's a viciously circular argument. What you should be saying is there is thinking going on and you can't get from there is thinking going on to I am.

30:44

And that's the that's the problem with Descartes, by the way. I just want to add that for people who have never heard that refutation. And when

30:50

Descartes tries to do his project of doubting everything until he comes to the conclusion that he can't doubt his own existence, he's not actually doubting everything in the process in that in order to rationally reflect upon what he is doubting.

31:04

He is also presupposing categories of logic, continuity of personal identity throughout time, so on and so forth.

31:11

So, again, it is impossible to literally doubt everything. So his entire project was faulty from the beginning.

31:18

But that doesn't mean he's not helpful in in pursuing the project. I think he highlights important things philosophically.

31:23

But nevertheless, let's continue on. Oh, yep. Go for it. Because I believe a while back, Eli, you interviewed

31:29

I believe you interviewed Dr. Anderson to where he talked about that is a type of transcendental, right, that you're having to yourself presuppose these many categories.

31:43

And that's where we can get the conversation going of saying, well, so Descartes is saying that something is is almost necessary for human discourse in his thinking.

31:53

And so, like I said, we're us as Christians. We're trying to expand that to the virtuous level, right, a self -vindicating worldview, which that is truth.

32:02

Truth is going to reflect ontology, epistemology and value theory.

32:07

But what's baked in epistemology is justified true belief. And so truth is right there in the core of that.

32:13

So truth represents an entire worldview. And when we start asking the bigger questions of what must exist for something else to exist, then we want to open that door of saying, revelational epistemology, right?

32:25

God truly has spoken in these ways and they're inescapable. And so as the video continues,

32:33

I want to bring up how we the things that are inescapable is how we think in these beautiful one in many categories that are complex and yet simple.

32:42

And this reflects the mind of the triumvirate. Well, I think you're correct, too, in saying that I think therefore

32:48

I am is a transcendental kind of argument. Right. I would want to make an important distinction for people.

32:55

They're not familiar. I would identify Rene Descartes kind of argument of sorts as a localized transcendental argument.

33:02

But what Van Til is doing is is a more all encompassing transcendental argument.

33:08

We're not just accounting for the self. We're accounting for logic. We're accounting for spatial temporal relations.

33:14

We're accounting for the whole enchilada, the whole enchiladas, as Dr. Bonson said. Yeah. So it's a more robust and fully encompassed or, as Dr.

33:24

White would say, fully orbed. One of his favorite little phrases, worldview consideration.

33:30

But let's continue on. Ashes of of the rely of the general reliability of your senses.

33:36

No one thinks that their senses are perfectly reliable. We have evidence that our senses sometimes fail us, that our memories sometimes fail us, that our reasoning capacity sometimes fail us.

33:44

But there's no reason to suspect the systematic deception or unreliability of your cognitive and inferential practices and systems.

33:54

There's no reason to think that. Why does he think that?

34:01

He's going to appeal to evolution later as giving an account for all of these things, giving an account for why these things are.

34:10

And as people know, evolution, the process of evolution is geared towards survival.

34:16

It's not geared towards truth. How do you know if evolution is producing these mechanisms or these assumptions that are ingrained in us, if they're getting us anywhere towards truth?

34:25

So why can't someone question these things? So there's no reason. How do you know there's no reason on evolution?

34:31

I mean, it's all sound and fury signifying nothing unless you're going to cancel out some explanations because you think the nature of reality is a certain way.

34:39

And it has to function in these ways. And again, there you go. By what standard do you know those categories? So it's all going to go back to the by what standard.

34:49

But all right, let's get there's no reason to go on to warrant that kind of doubt.

34:57

And we don't have to shy away from our cognitive or epistemological limitations. We can admit to them freely.

35:03

And as rational people and skeptics, we should be the first ones to admit what our epistemological limitations on our knowledge are.

35:10

And we shouldn't pretend to be able to ground our beliefs absolutely in self -evident truths and other nonsense like that.

35:17

We can't. So self -evident truths and other nonsense.

35:23

So it reminds me of what Peter said when he refers to Paul's writing as the other scriptures.

35:30

So so Peter is acknowledging Paul's writing as scripture. He says self -evident truths and other nonsense like that.

35:39

So it seems to suggest that self -evident truths are part of the category of nonsense.

35:45

But is it not the case, gentlemen, that the self -evident truths are right in the category of proper basicality?

35:51

So is he admitting that the proper base, properly basic beliefs he was affirming before that we have no reason to doubt?

35:57

It seems like he's affirming that it's nonsense in that category. Have I got it right or am I taking his word for it?

36:03

No, you're right. As we're going to continue to see, it's especially made clear when you try to justify that.

36:11

So he's really taking a lot and running with it by saying we have to start somewhere and we've started somewhere and we're running.

36:17

Let's not go back to that initial starting point, because if we do, you have to bend the ruler. Right. And then the circularity comes about.

36:24

The interesting thing about that, this is a brilliant man. I think he even teaches philosophy, but we're all supposed to be able to be prepared to give a defense of even someone like that.

36:34

And that's the beauty of the apologetic, because anybody could see the nonsense of that point. You know, that's why Bonson used the example of Sophie, the housewife.

36:42

The washwoman. Sophie the washwoman. Washwoman, right. You know what? You're discarding your own foundation there, buddy.

36:50

That's right. All right, let's go. With what you said earlier, Ozzie, would you say that you know how the precept tries to get you into this circular reasoning regarding your reasoning?

37:07

Do you find that is the precept tries to get you into this thing where you have to presuppose your reason to?

37:18

No, that's not what the precept tries to do. It's a fact that you need to use your reasoning to justify your reasoning.

37:27

And hence, it's circular. The precept is not doing anything specific. There is just to point out that foundations are circular.

37:35

We're not trying to get you there. It's just trying to point out, yes, our foundations are circular. Everyone has a circle whose circle can hold up the rest of the foundation.

37:45

Any thoughts on that? It just reminds me of a debate that I had a while back. And the guy looked like he was on something, he was smoking.

37:52

And he was just saying, he said to me, you're just trying to back me into a corner with this argumentation. He was upset with that.

37:57

And I said, that's how debates work. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's just true.

38:03

How dare you? Who's that? Something else

38:08

I think is helpful for the precept arsenal here. By the way, Jason Lyle's website, is it the

38:15

Christian Science Institute, something like that? He has so many articles that talk about knowledge, justified true belief and articles on truth itself, from the

38:26

Christian worldview, how we can better articulate it. And he has an article on Munchausen's trilemma. And this is kind of the fruit of works like David Hume, who wrote on the problem of induction, and Bertrand Russell, who wrote on the problems of philosophy.

38:42

The fruit of the secular worldview kind of boils down to knowledge can't be known. And this professor guy, he's aware of that.

38:49

That's why he's not trying to justify the starting point, because he knows the the futility of trying to do so as he sees it.

38:55

Because number one, Munchausen's trilemma says you can choose a circularity, a circular argument where the premise eventually is going to try to justify itself.

39:05

We know this as the logical fallacy of begging the question. Number two, you could have an infinite regressive of premises right forever.

39:13

So this is kind of arbitrariness. Or you can have foundational assumptions where the premises are just assumed without an argument.

39:21

And I would argue that that is both arbitrary and begs the question.

39:27

And so this is where we as Christians would see this as a false trilemma.

39:33

We would say, no, actually, transcendental reasoning, revelation of epistemology gets at the meta level.

39:40

Because you need to have a worldview that can ground and justify truth. And so anyway,

39:46

I was going to say that might be helpful, looking up some of those key terms about how to define truth using the correspondence theory.

39:54

But we would, as I've heard Si in the past, talk about that which corresponds to reality as perceived by who.

40:02

And so that's where we're saying you have to go to the God who has revealed himself, who has that universal perspective.

40:10

Universal purpose in all things and who has spoken infallibly so on the matter.

40:16

And so defining truth, defining epistemology and trying to get to that worldview paradigm, that three legged stool.

40:22

And I'm also thinking Ozzy, who was just talking before this lady was sharing her thoughts.

40:29

He said something really important. He says that we need to not be ashamed of our own cognitive limitations.

40:37

It's the limitation of a worldview that rejects God. Right? So it's not a limitation that that the

40:46

Christian worldview necessarily has. Yes, we acknowledge limitation on our when considering our own mental capacities, but we do not exist in an impersonal void.

40:55

We exist within the context of the God who we are ever before his face.

41:01

Right. We live and exist within the context of revelation. And so while our knowledge is not perfect, there is a

41:08

God who is and he is a God who reveals. So I think that's an important distinction between, say,

41:15

Ozzy's perception of the limitations of one's cognitive abilities without a God versus the

41:21

Christian's cognitive limitations of his own ability to reason.

41:27

But we exist within the context of a God who reveals. And for people that are interested in this topic, I'd encourage them to find

41:33

Greg Bonson's talk on certainty. I don't even I don't know what it's called, but just look Greg Bonson on certainty, and he goes through all or most of the other justification that people give for certainty, and he breaks them all down.

41:45

Then he goes to the Christian justification. It's a fantastic lecture. Excellent. Thank you for that. Valid when they do that, that what they're saying is valid?

41:54

Because, I mean, I don't know if it is, but if it were, it would still pose a problem to me as far as their circular reasoning up against mine regarding rationality.

42:18

That's a great question. Okay. Circular reasoning. What I just described with respect to properly basic beliefs, that is, what

42:27

I was arguing is that one's trust in one's inferential practices, one's trust in the reliability of one's senses, one's trust in the reliability of one's memory.

42:34

These are properly basic beliefs. We all take these for granted. These are all pre -theoretical assumptions.

42:40

We didn't have to learn these things. We weren't taught these things. No one ever taught you to trust your senses or to trust your memory, okay?

42:48

Your dog trusts its memory. Your dog trusts its senses, right? This is part of our animal nature.

42:54

We just do this, okay? It's not a reason to trust it. It's just that we do trust it, okay?

43:00

These are assumptions. These are presuppositions that we have. We didn't theorize our way to trusting our memory and trusting our senses and trusting our inferential practices and trusting an induction.

43:10

My dog uses induction, okay? Not consciously, but he applies induction. He learns from experience this way.

43:17

Right. Now, these things are not rationally justifiable or groundable except on pain of circular argument.

43:26

So the trick is don't try to justify them because you're going to argue in a circle every single time.

43:33

Right. Hang on. So what the presuppositionalist is saying is, oh, you're arguing in a circle.

43:40

No. Only if I'm so foolish as to think that these are not presuppositions. I know they're presuppositions.

43:45

I know they don't have a rational basis. These are the assumptions that together constitute rationality, but these assumptions are not themselves rationally justifiable, and I don't try to rationally justify them.

43:58

If I tried, I'd be arguing in a circle. If I tried to do what the presuppositionalist insists one should do,

44:03

I would be arguing in a circle. I'm not that big a fool. I don't argue in a circle. I don't try to justify them.

44:10

I understand that these are articles of faith. I don't try to argue in a circle.

44:15

I just don't argue. I will just say these are my starting points.

44:23

Well, how do you justify them? I don't have to. So let's turn around and say the triune God of Scripture lives.

44:29

Well, what's your justification for that? Well, I don't have to justify. Right. How do you like your argument now?

44:35

So by what standard? Now you have a double standard here, right? You're asking me to justify my foundation.

44:41

Again, he's just flat out wrong. You can justify presuppositions. And the way you justify presuppositions is not by appealing to something more fundamental than they, but by appealing to its transcendental necessity.

44:56

And there's an argument baked in there. It's not simply just an authoritative assertion. Jeremiah, why don't you share your thoughts there?

45:02

He sounds like a man of faith, right? You have to trust these foundational articles.

45:08

Fideistically, not just the man of faith in general. There's fideism. He's just asserting a foundation, and that's it.

45:16

Right. I was going to say the kind of faith that he's arguing for is categorically different than the faith of a

45:21

Christian who trusts in the God who cannot lie, whose promises are certain.

45:27

And that's going to say, just because people say the same word faith or trust, they're not the same thing.

45:33

He's trusting, like you said, fideistically, like something that's a huge leap into the illogical abyss, the sea of arbitrariness.

45:42

We're putting our trust in the God who cannot lie. And so that's where Hebrews 11,

45:49

I think it's around verse 3, that just says, By faith we understand that by the word of God he formed the heavens.

45:56

It's like we understand that faith is interwoven with our reason, but we can't escape having faith, and we can't escape trying to be reasonable, but it's because of the faith, the deposit that God has revealed himself to us.

46:14

And so I was trying to think of the quote. Was it Anselm? Reason because of faith.

46:20

What was the quote? Do you remember? I think it was Aristotle. And I think it was,

46:25

I don't seek to understand that I might believe. I believe that I might understand, if that's what you're thinking of.

46:33

Yeah, that sounds good. I also want to make a distinction, too, that I think is important. He said something that if you try to justify presuppositions, he's going to fall into what the presupper does, and then he said something like circular argument.

46:46

The presuppositional argument is not circular. It's not. Now, we engage in circular reasoning when we deal with our ultimate foundation.

46:58

I'm obviously assuming the only necessary precondition for intelligibility when

47:04

I'm trying to demonstrate it. But there is nothing in the argument we put forth in which the conclusion is stated in one of the premises.

47:15

And so for those who would watch my last video where I laid out the argument in kind of a formal structure, you can see that we need to make a distinction between the premise of an argument and the presupposition of an argument.

47:29

That's an important distinction. I presuppose the truth of the Christian world do. But that doesn't mean

47:34

I'm engaging in a circular argument in which the premise and the conclusion are both explicitly stated.

47:41

That's not what we're doing. So I just wanted to bring out that clarification. Any thoughts there,

47:46

Sai? No. Okay. I just want a quick thought on faith.

47:54

He has what we would call a blind faith, and that's what people accuse Christians of. And too many

48:00

Christians understand faith as faith takes over where reasoning leaves off. But that's not

48:05

Christian faith. Christian faith does not take over where reasoning leaves off. Christian faith is the foundation of all reasoning.

48:12

Sai, real quick before we keep going. Back when you said pizza sleeps fast under the west, therefore the much,

48:19

I was explaining that to my wife one day, and I said something to her that she thought was nonsense.

48:25

She says, pizza sleeps fast, and we've laughed about that ever since. I thought when Sai said that, he got all

48:30

Pentecostal. He was speaking in tongues. I was like, I thought he was a cessationist. Are you a cessationist there,

48:35

Sai? That's a different debate. My friend Dustin. It's his. It's his. He's brilliant at them, by the way.

48:42

He can come up with them in a second. Like, oh, it's just amazing. That's just the one that I chose to repeat, but he has all sorts of them.

48:49

That's awesome. Very cool. That's not a license to believe any old damn thing.

48:55

That's the argument. The reason I brought that up. Sorry. No, please go ahead.

49:03

I'm not sure I answered your question there anyway. Cool. Actually, I'd like to respond to Ozzy's point there as well, actually.

49:10

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to stop the point. The reason I brought that up was because Arkane and I actually had conversed on this very issue before, and I brought it up to his attention that he was using circular reasoning.

49:28

And so he wanted to throw it back on me and talk about how do

49:33

I justify my reasoning. Yeah, you can't question him unless you can justify yours.

49:40

It doesn't matter. That's burden shifting. You ask him a question. How do you justify this?

49:46

He says, well, how would you justify – it doesn't matter how I justify it or if I can't justify it. You're still left –

49:52

Right, and I probably didn't answer the correct – That is correct, by the way.

49:57

If someone asks you how do you justify your position and then you turn around and say how do you justify your position, that is actually a two -quo -quo fallacy.

50:05

So there's nothing wrong with – But that's a fallacy to Christians. Like I'd say what's wrong with burden shifting?

50:11

Right. If he doesn't have a standard, that's absolutely correct, yeah. But just to make the observation to encourage Christians that we do have a justification as presuppositionalists, and so when we are asked to give a justification, we should give a justification,

50:24

I think. But at the same token, I think there's nothing wrong with saying, well, what's your justification?

50:30

As long as we don't do that and avoid providing the justification that we are saying that we have.

50:36

Because I don't agree when presuppositionalists say the Christian worldview is the necessary preconditions for blah, blah, blah, blah.

50:42

Well, how do you know? It just is. That's not a good way to argue.

50:47

There are answers we can give and justifications we can give, and we should give them in the appropriate context.

50:56

But again, at the same time, there's nothing wrong with throwing it back at the unbeliever, because both, when we're talking about paradigmatic issues, ultimate issues, both sides do in fact have a burden that they need to engage with.

51:08

You could say, how do I know? The same way you do. Yeah, again, an appeal to revelation is part of our answer.

51:19

It's not the only part of our answer, because then you have... Yeah, I realize that. It depends on how tired you are too,

51:25

I think. A lot of people are like, why do you hate God? It's like, well, how do you know?

51:33

Same way you do. That why do you hate God, I remember specifically once I was in a park here in Canada, and this fellow was arguing with somebody presuppositionally for like half an hour, and I was listening to him, and it made me want to puke.

51:47

You know, precondition of intelligibility and stuff like that, and just not getting anywhere. And then I just went up to him and I said, because this guy wanted help with his argument.

51:54

And I come over, I just said, why do you hate God? I don't hate God. That's not what the Bible says. Completely different argument.

52:01

So I think that some people are so enamored by the presuppositional argument that they just want to use that to win the argument, to beat people over the head with it.

52:07

And I say, it's nice to have in your back pocket, but the more that I do it, yeah, I want to get to the status of their soul.

52:14

And sure, it's nice to have these arguments. It's nice to know these things, but sometimes, you know, that's why you see a lot of the stuff that I've done more recently.

52:20

It's because I hear people talking just like I did. It made me sick. So real quick, if I'm in this conversation and someone says, you know, tell me how you know.

52:31

It's like, okay, here's the worldview in which God has actually revealed himself from where the

52:37

Christian is speaking on the matter of the triune God created us in His image, in this world, spoke the world into existence.

52:44

And He's created us in such a way to think His thoughts after Him, that we can truly know Him. And He has created us, given us a mind to be able to trust our senses, our reasoning capabilities.

52:57

But it's because He made us in His image, and He's revealed that to us.

53:02

And so my question back would be, do you hear any logical contradictions within that reply?

53:10

Because that's the vindication, right? And they, you know, they may say there's no contradictions, but then they might ask how that just sounds like a story.

53:20

Now, this is where it's interesting because we're saying it's not just an epistemological story. It actually grounds ontology.

53:27

We're saying that it's a claim on reality, so it's not just a theory. And then asking, you know, that ground, like this has been revealed to say it's necessary, and all other grounds are sinking sand.

53:41

And so that's something else I try to get the conversation going of saying, I'm all for vindicating the

53:47

Christian worldview. Now, the critique does have to, in a sense, and you can speak to this,

53:52

Eli, shift the burden to say we are not neutral, right? We understand the laws of logic differently than each other, so we're going to have to engage in what you've rightly pointed out, internal critiques.

54:06

And so I just want to encourage, you know, any atheist listening, we do have a burden to point back to the revelation of how

54:13

God has revealed himself. But we have questions about the atheistic worldview that is altogether different in how we talk about these things.

54:22

Jeremiah, Jeremiah, man, watch it, bro. There is no atheist worldview. That's another one.

54:29

But we have the burden, and we're the only ones that can say we have a burden. Yeah. They can. All right, let's continue on.

54:36

Correct way, but I did concede that it was a circular, my reasoning, but that it's grounded in reality where his was not.

54:53

Yeah, there we go. Antennas went up. Go ahead. Why don't you share your thoughts there, Jeremiah? So saying it's grounded in reality begs a question, because that's the whole point is we're asking what reality is.

55:04

That's another way of asking what truth is. And I notice, you know, you had a really good interaction with Tom Jump a while back, but that's the whole thing is we're not.

55:14

It's funny because we get accused of conflating ontology with epistemology. We're saying we can distinguish between those two things, but they are inextricably linked to one another.

55:23

If you have a type of epistemology that's grounded in a kind of reality, and so like Cy has talked about many times, they're borrowing from our worldview because we are giving the truth of what that ontology is.

55:37

And so when someone just says, well, it's grounded in reality, well, what is that? Because that's the whole kit and caboodle of what we're trying to get to the bottom of truth and how we ground knowledge to begin with.

55:48

Cy, any thoughts? No, sorry. I was daydreaming. He's mesmerized by your beard.

55:56

With his reasoning, it's not with, well, I don't even want to get into all that because then

56:02

I would have to. I can kind of carry on with that thing.

56:08

What someone like Arcane would then say, Arcane will claim, oh,

56:14

I can justify my memory. I can justify my reasoning and senses and so forth.

56:23

My God created them. That's my justification for my senses, my reasoning and my memory and so forth.

56:31

And that's not the full picture. Again, he is confusing the nature of the argument.

56:39

He seems to think that the presuppositional argument is a mere authority claim.

56:45

Oh, my God justifies it. That's it. This reminds me of the critique that R .C. Sproul launches at presuppositionalism and calls it almost fideism.

56:54

We just make an authority, a bare authority claim. And that's just not the case. As I mentioned before, it is.

57:00

It includes the fact that God indeed created us that way. And it's part of the justification.

57:08

And when you assume the opposite, something happens. Namely, you become everyone on this screen.

57:16

Unable to justify the most simplest and basic assumptions that are necessary for meaningful discourse and intelligible experience.

57:25

So, any thoughts there, guys? No. Siles quoted the verse,

57:32

Proverbs 1 -7, about the fear of Yahweh. That's the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. And to deny that standard results in foolishness, absurdity.

57:41

So I just want to say that's exactly the whole thing. God did it is a very simple claim.

57:47

And left dangling by itself, I think we shouldn't do that. But in a childlike way, yeah.

57:54

I mean, God did it. That's right. We trust that God has made the world in a certain way. And we don't want to stray from the way

58:02

God has told us we should be thinking. And what our foundations are and things like that. But again, it's not merely saying

58:08

God did it. That's the correction I wanted to make. Yeah, I just don't want to get in trouble here with my Vantillian brothers and sisters.

58:16

Because Clark was a fideist. And I think part of the problem was that there was such an animosity and argumentation between the camps that they didn't grant each other much in that realm.

58:27

But I heard Dr. Bonson once. He was at an evidentialist university. And they asked him, how do we know that the contrary is impossible?

58:35

And he said, because the Bible says so. And that sounds a little bit like fideism. And I know that you'll give an argumentation that it's not.

58:41

But I think that we have to give a little bit more grace in that fact. But I would say God makes us know things. And that gives us – it's not a faith claim.

58:48

It's a knowledge claim based on what God does for us. But I think that I think we should give our Clarkian brothers, who

58:55

I love. And most of them are jerks, by the way. But some of them I love dearly.

59:00

But I think that we have to give them a little grace in that area. Because in some ways, I think I know what they're saying.

59:07

Well, I think when Bonson is talking to other Christians, then the

59:13

Bible tells us is a justification. Because an evidential Christian and a presuppositional

59:18

Christian both at least affirm the same authority. But that's not exactly what we would say to an unbeliever per se.

59:27

Because we can say the Bible tells us. And then the other side of the coin is here's the evidence for it.

59:34

Assume the opposite. And you'll have to assume its principles even to make sense out of your rejection of the claim.

59:42

Something like Jesus Christ or absurdity. That's right. That's right. And that's why in the video that I had you on last time,

59:49

Cy. Well, not last time. A couple of last times ago. The video called Why Doubting Requires God.

59:56

You're going to rationally doubt something that requires God because God is the foundation for rationality.

01:00:01

Well, I don't believe he's the foundation for rationality. Oh, so you must think there's some other foundation other than God.

01:00:07

What is that foundation? Enter Ozzie. I don't need to justify that foundation. OK, thank you for talking.

01:00:14

I don't need to, you know, provide a justification for God. So I guess we're done, right? Thank you.

01:00:20

It just cuts short. Yeah, you maneuvered your way out of the presuppositional script.

01:00:26

But what have you left yourself with? The complete inability to be not arbitrary.

01:00:33

You've just thrown that out the window. People who know me know that I don't mind a conversation like that.

01:00:39

Yeah. Because I think that there's some people who are put on this earth to waste our time. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.

01:00:46

Yes. Thank you. For our sanctification. Because it definitely feels that way. All right, let's continue.

01:00:53

And to add on to this, that's what Eve was saying. He appeals to something outside of reality.

01:01:00

That's not outside of his reality. It's just outside of the way he's talking.

01:01:06

Yeah, but it's not demonstrable. But I get that, and that's fine that he gives himself some justification for those probably basic beliefs.

01:01:19

What I'm saying is that just on the idea of something being revealed to you, the personal revelation.

01:01:26

That's the issue that I was bringing up. It's not justification. It's an account. He's accounting for it.

01:01:34

He's saying, this is the story in which my memory senses and reasoning came about.

01:01:42

This is where they come from. Well, we can say the same thing. They come from evolution.

01:01:49

Sai, how would you interact with that? I mean, I'm sure you've spoken to so many different people. And I'm sure a lot of people, kind of these

01:01:55

YouTube types and people who kind of like do this. Not for a living, I guess. Well, some of them, I suppose, often will appeal to evolution.

01:02:03

How would you interact with someone who says, well, we can explain this evolutionarily. Can you walk someone through your reasoning?

01:02:10

I know we can kind of give a short roundabout answer in terms of like, well, that's not what the

01:02:15

Bible says. And I agree with that. But can you kind of walk us through your line of reasoning when you kind of respond to someone who just simply claims, well, evolution can explain all of these things?

01:02:27

Yeah, there's no cookie cutter approach because, like I say, some people just need a gospel proclamation. But I have done this in crowds before.

01:02:35

And I remember one time that I was preaching in a park near here. It wasn't the same time.

01:02:41

And there was a preacher. He was up on the stand. And some guy comes up and he was a fiery atheist.

01:02:46

And he was heckling. You guys are crazy. You believe in a man that was a fish for three days. You believe in a zombie and stuff.

01:02:53

And the preacher, he was sweating. He didn't know how to deal with the fellow. And one rule in open air preaching is you don't steal the person's heckler because then they'll gravitate towards you.

01:03:01

And the preacher's up there looking like an idiot. But he looked like he needed some help. So I put on the other mic. And I went and I stood beside him.

01:03:06

He goes, so I get up here. Most of me and I get up there. And I said, I know you think we're crazy. I said, I do believe in a book that says a donkey talked.

01:03:13

So I used to work in that building there. They saw me standing up here. They'd say I was crazy. I do believe in a book that says a man was in a fish for three days.

01:03:19

And guess what? Without God, that is nuts. We're not crazy. Without God, that is nuts.

01:03:26

But God could do that, right? The guy says, yeah. I said, your problem isn't with miracles.

01:03:32

Your problem is with the God of miracles. Yeah. I said, well, here's the problem. When you have a problem with the

01:03:38

God of miracles, you can't have a problem with miracles. What are you talking about, man? I said, well, you want to say that because of all these incredible things in my

01:03:45

Bible, therefore, it's not true. Yeah. Fine. Where do you get truth about God? Evolution.

01:03:51

And I used Doug Wilson's experiment. OK, well, according to evolution, your brain is a meat machine.

01:03:58

It's a meat computer. It's highly evolved, but it's a meat computer. And your thoughts are the off -gassing of the firing of the electrical chemical synapses in your brain.

01:04:06

And Doug Wilson says, if you get a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper and you shake them and you open and they start to fizz, which fizz would be true?

01:04:14

And I said that to this fellow. He says, none of it. It's just fizz. I said, well, you're fizzing atheistically, and I'm fizzing theistically.

01:04:20

And you want to tell me from that standpoint that my book's not true? I said, you don't get that from brain barf.

01:04:27

Sure. And then, of course, I tried to be a lot nicer about it than I was way back then. But the guy, he simmered right down.

01:04:34

He just sculled out of the crowd, tail between his legs. And hopefully the

01:04:39

Lord will use that in the signs. But I think the sad thing is that a lot of time is that few -minute clip is what will end up on YouTube and not somebody stopping the guy and sharing the gospel with him if he's interested.

01:04:49

But it's the confrontation. But that's a way to go. And I think that's more of a guy at work that you see every day who brings these things up.

01:04:57

And I think the person that you only see once, I think it's important to get the gospel to them. Right. Okay, thank you for that.

01:05:02

Yeah, I think that's, because I know you have different ways. I've watched you long enough, Cy. You have different ways of explaining things.

01:05:09

You can say, that's not what the Bible says, and then we're done. And then there are other ones where you give examples.

01:05:14

And I think the examples, you're right, there are some people that are here, they exist solely to waste our time.

01:05:21

But I do think that there's great value in when you kind of walk us through that, because you have such a great way of simplifying, it helps the

01:05:28

Christian connect the dots too. Like they know what the Bible says, they believe what they believe because God has said it.

01:05:34

But when you give those examples, it helps them connect those dots so that they can feel a little more confident in saying a little bit more to the person that maybe is not in their life simply to waste their time.

01:05:45

So I very much appreciate those examples, especially anecdotes from your own experience. And that's the problem with the evidentialist, because they're saying, well, there's a whale shark off the coast of Madagascar that has a big enough mouth that can possibly contain a man.

01:05:56

And the first stomach doesn't have much acid in it. And they're trying to explain away miracles. I mean, they're miraculous.

01:06:02

That's by the way, why David Hume denied miracles, because they were miraculous. I don't have to prove miracles to unbelievers.

01:06:08

Yeah, without God, they are nuts. Right. Okay, thank you for that. Yeah, it's actually, it's not a justification, it's an assertion.

01:06:20

And it's not demonstrable where you can actually demonstrate your reasoning.

01:06:27

You can demonstrate your senses and reasoning. How? Oh, yeah.

01:06:34

The way that we were told at the beginning, we shouldn't circularly. Right. That's the issue.

01:06:40

Yeah, we can demonstrate it. Well, yeah, you can. I agree. And you should, but you can't do it without being circular.

01:06:47

Unless you want to take the approach at the beginning. Well, we just don't argue for those things. Or at least the effects of it.

01:06:55

An account means this is where it comes from. Well, maybe, Ozzy, did you ask, did you, sorry, did you hear the question that I asked before you disconnected there?

01:07:04

No, sorry, I disconnected and I lost it. I have no idea what you asked. I have no sense of what you're talking about, but I don't know what your question was specifically.

01:07:10

Maybe I'll just rephrase it one more time. Is that I don't, I don't disagree with anything you say about the fact that me relying on, you know, my senses or my memory or anything like that is a properly basic belief that is circular by nature or whatever.

01:07:26

It's not circular. It's only circular if you try to justify it using those processes.

01:07:31

Right. Okay. Don't try to justify it in the circle ends. But they'll say, oh, yeah, but then it's unjustified. And the answer is, yeah, it's unjustified.

01:07:39

And then we could follow up. So then it's arbitrary because something that's arbitrary is something that lacks a justification. So I wonder if he would say, yes, that's correct.

01:07:47

It's arbitrary. And oh, so it's okay to be arbitrary. And if your foundation is arbitrary, then what does that do for everything else that's resting upon that foundation?

01:07:57

Right. The unbeliever just wants to live like that, though. He sure doesn't live that way. Yeah. And he doesn't argue that way if he's arguing with someone who's not a presupposition list.

01:08:06

Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I get that.

01:08:12

But even if I even if I did plead to the circularity of it, the when it comes down to the the idea of something being revealed, that it's been revealed to me in a way that I can know for certain, just that statement alone, that if – yeah, it's circular for me to rely on my senses.

01:08:30

Yeah, it's circular for me to rely on my memory. But I can internally kind of verify that to a certain extent to get to that circularity.

01:08:39

But do you even get to a point of circularity with personal revelation if you can't test the mechanism? You've given up rationality to questions.

01:08:46

Yeah, Jeremiah. Yeah, I just want to speak to the issue of circularity. And definitely help me think through this a little bit.

01:08:52

If somebody is trying to merely speak on epistemology, how we know what we know, and a theory that kind of paints a picture of that like we're hearing here, if an epistemology is not taking into account an ontology and is being circular, right, and that will not provide a justification because it's assuming a kind of ontology without actually telling us what that is.

01:09:20

And so that's what I hear a lot of times in these fallacious circles, is it's trying to make an epistemological case only, therefore having a built -in assumption of the ontology of what actually is the nature of being.

01:09:33

And that's where we're saying to escape the vicious circularity is that self -vindicating appeal to an entire paradigmatic worldview of where God has revealed to us what reality is, what truth is.

01:09:49

Like Psy was saying, where do you get truth without God? Because we're not just saying any old God will do, any old story will do.

01:09:54

We're saying the triune God who has revealed himself. And so that's necessarily baked in to the

01:10:02

Christian's understanding of who God is. He is triune, and he is all -knowing, and he is eternal, and he's personal, and he's absolute.

01:10:09

These are necessary attributes of God that he's revealed to us. So my point is the virtuous circle is an entire worldview paradigm, right?

01:10:18

We keep talking, or I keep bringing up the three -legged stool, the three pillars of a worldview—ontology, epistemology, and value theory.

01:10:25

And we're saying if that's the appeal, then it is circular, but not in a strict fallacious way, the way that the secular world is trying to just kind of posit epistemologies that take for granted and make assumptions about existence and being.

01:10:42

Right, yeah. Van Til pointed this out as well as Bonson. You have a theory of knowledge. Knowledge has to have an object.

01:10:49

It has to have a reference. So what are you knowing? So metaphysics, your theory of reality, is always in touch with your theory of knowledge and vice versa.

01:10:57

Psy, do you want to comment on that? I want to offer some encouragement to people who are watching this who might think, what are you guys talking about?

01:11:03

And it's a story—like, I don't claim miracles many times in my life, but I was preaching in England, and there were two preaching groups.

01:11:09

You know, we were out on the street, and I was having lunch, and I prayed, Lord, show me which group to go to. You know, not in a lightning flash or anything like that, but let me know which group.

01:11:19

And I ended that prayer, and I knew for certain, I had no doubt in my mind that I had to go to a particular group.

01:11:25

And I was walking towards that group, and my friend Robert Gray was there, and he said, Psy, I was praying you would come here. And I thought that was just so cool.

01:11:31

I mean, to this day, it's so cool. And he said that he was engaging two philosophy students, and he just was not getting anywhere with these guys.

01:11:38

So I talked to them maybe 15 minutes, and I deconstructed all of these points philosophically.

01:11:44

And then I handed them back to Robert, and Robert shared the gospel with them. Then after these people went home, Robert said, man,

01:11:49

I wish I could do what you do. And I said, Robert, when they put their head on their pillow tonight, are they going to be thinking about what

01:11:56

I told them or what you told them? And he said what I told him, what he, Robert, told him. And I said, you don't have to be able to do what

01:12:03

I do. It was a perfect, you know, it was a nice, like we were talking about last time, a tag team apologetic. It's nice to be able to deconstruct that.

01:12:09

It's nice to be able to do that, but you don't have to. Right. It depends. I think it depends, Psy, on the context.

01:12:15

Right. If you're doing a lot of street evangelism, yeah, we're not going to talk like this.

01:12:21

But for the most part on the YouTube quote unquote YouTube mission field, people who are philosophically aware of some of these issues and for a lot of people, they're sticking points and require clarification and things like that.

01:12:35

I think it's also appropriate to get into the details. But you're right. We definitely run the danger and we want to be very careful about this of over philosophizing, speaking philosophonese, like Chinese or something like that, like Christian.

01:12:50

We can talk philosophonese. I just made that word up right now, by the way. I like it. We can sound so technical that we are not really focusing on the key central issue.

01:13:00

Because what I appreciate what Psy said is he said he wanted to get to the condition of the person's soul. And that's true whether you're speaking to the man on the street or the

01:13:10

Ph .D. philosopher. It is always an issue of the soul. And so we always need to be in touch both with the arguments that I think are important to have and the gospel, which should be front and center.

01:13:21

So I very much appreciate that, Psy. How about philosophies? Yeah, that's worldly philosophy.

01:13:31

We should take it on the road, man. We've got a good comedy routine going on here. Go ahead, Jeremiah. A good question that R .C.

01:13:38

Sproul asked a long time ago in sharing the gospel with people is asking them, how do they deal with their guilt?

01:13:45

What do you do with the guilty conscience? Because we're appealing to that imago Dei. Because at the end of the day, they're image bearers of God.

01:13:52

They know that they've sinned against God, that they're suppressing the truth. So just asking a question like, what do you do with your guilt?

01:13:59

That's a good conversation starter or in the midst of the conversation. Because they have to suppress it.

01:14:07

They have to live with guilt and things that they know that they've done, that they're wrong. And maybe at some point in the conversation, like Psy's bringing up the gospel, just showing, okay, here's how

01:14:17

I deal with my guilt. By God's grace, look to King Jesus in faith, and he dealt with my sin at Calvary.

01:14:24

That's what gives me peace with God, which is what the scriptures tell us. By faith, we are justified and therefore have peace with God.

01:14:32

So just looking for those gospel entry points. And I think, too, just to clarify,

01:14:37

I think we should lead with that. We should lead with the gospel. I think Dr.

01:14:43

Walter Martin, who folks aren't familiar with him, you can check out his classic work, The Kingdom of the Cults.

01:14:49

He was a Christian apologist back in the day, big in the 70s and the 80s. He's the original

01:14:55

Bible Answer Man, brilliant guy. He said this, and I thought it was very useful. He said that apologetics is the handmaid to evangelism.

01:15:04

Apologetics is the handmaid to evangelism. So we don't start automatically with these in -depth arguments.

01:15:12

Lead with the gospel, and apologetics is meant to come alongside the gospel to clear away debris, to clarify certain issues so that the gospel can continue to be front and center.

01:15:24

And so we can be so enamored with the smart person stuff, right, that we allow ourselves to shine as opposed to the gospel.

01:15:32

And I don't think that honors God. Just real quick, we were talking about covering sin.

01:15:39

How do you deal with your sin? It reminded me of the quote, the most sane non -Christian is the drug addict because they don't have to mentally deal with it.

01:15:49

They just cover it. Anyhow, sorry. Ouch, man. Hey, unbeliever, the most.

01:15:57

What did you say? The most what? The most sane unbeliever is the drug addict. Sounds horrible. Because they don't have to come up with some gobbledygook reason for their knowledge and for covering guilt.

01:16:07

They don't have to come up with any of that. They just cover it. Because I was thinking when you said, well, how do you deal with your guilt?

01:16:13

The guys might just say, I drink it away. How do you deal with your guilt? I deal with my guilt with drugs.

01:16:20

All right. I'm going to play it one more time, and then we'll wrap things up. I have a date night with my wife every

01:16:26

Wednesday, so I have to wrap things up, spend some time with the wife.

01:16:31

We often do a little bit of a devotional, a little Bible study, and then we listen to some music, dance a little, and then just hang out.

01:16:40

So every Wednesday. These people just repeat themselves, so we probably covered it anyways. There you go.

01:16:46

All right. So let's play this one more time, and then we'll stop. Next point we stop will be our last point. One thing I want to make observation, the people who are video here, very congenial, respectful, and kind of nice discussion, and I appreciate that.

01:17:01

I know that us pre -suppers can get a bad rap online for coming across in a very not

01:17:07

Christian way. Yeah, right? So I really appreciate the nature of this discussion as they're kind of brainstorming their rebellion, but you get the point.

01:17:19

They're interacting respectfully, and I very much appreciate that. But let's continue on, and then we'll wrap things up.

01:17:25

Questioning at that point. No. If you agree to the circularity thing.

01:17:31

You're saying that my justification is irrational. No, I'm not. Okay. I'm not talking about the argument here.

01:17:38

I'm actually asking for – I'm not asking how to win an argument. I'm just asking about the idea of someone saying that it's a persuasion.

01:17:45

Okay, yeah. When someone says personal revelation, it's been revealed to me in a way

01:17:50

I can know for certain. Well, it wasn't revealed through your senses. I mean it wasn't through your memory.

01:17:57

I don't know how – what method it was revealed to you in any way that you could even get to a circular argument to justify it.

01:18:05

It just – it's so – I don't even know how to explain it. Let's stop there.

01:18:10

So, Cy, as Jeremiah got raptured and we got left behind, so we have time to talk about some more apologetics.

01:18:18

How does God reveal things to us? Is the revelation or the kind of the innate knowledge of God that we appeal to, is it known inferentially or is it known some other way?

01:18:29

As many atheists say, what is the mechanism? And, of course, they'll say, well, you're using your sense and reasoning to sense and reason about God.

01:18:40

And my rejoinder to that is no, God's using my sense and reasoning. That's the out for that because I think there is a – and I think that's more of an evidential approach.

01:18:50

I'm using my sense and reasoning. That's my foundation to reason about God. That's not what we're saying. God's using them. Can God use my sense and reasoning to make me know things?

01:18:59

Sure he can. How do you deny that? Now, what do you mean by that?

01:19:05

To play a Greg Koukl? What do you mean by that? God uses your – I actually was in a vehicle with Greg Koukl.

01:19:12

I drove him from New Jersey to the Philadelphia airport once. And we talked for about however long the trip was.

01:19:19

It was very interesting. He's a nice guy. I've had him on the show a while. Yeah, and then he talked about me on the show, I think, for the first 15 minutes.

01:19:25

He never mentioned me by name. And then I ended up writing an article about that conversation. Oh, cool.

01:19:30

Bam, if people want to see it. Okay. What do I mean by that? So, if I say, well,

01:19:36

I use my senses to sense about God. That's how I know about him. I'd say that would be problematic. But if I say

01:19:41

God uses my senses to reveal himself to me, there's no problem there. Because, you know, then we're into scripturalism again.

01:19:48

You know, that we can only know that which is contained in the Bible. And the problem with that is that we use our senses to read what's in the

01:19:53

Bible. You know, so we have to assume the validity of our senses. I first say, well, God uses our senses to let us see what's in the

01:20:00

Bible. He uses our reasoning to understand it. So I think that gets us out of the circularity. I'm not using it.

01:20:06

He is. Sure. Okay. Thank you for that. Jeremiah, I know you just dropped in.

01:20:12

We thought you got raptured. And then God said, whoops, my bad. Jeremiah is supposed to stay behind.

01:20:18

Y 'all changed your eschatologies really quickly. That's right. He went up to heaven.

01:20:24

He was like, what are you, premillennial? Wrong view. And then he dropped you back down. I know you didn't hear kind of the last bit, but we're going to wrap things up here.

01:20:32

Are there any final thoughts, things that you can give to the audience to take away and say, you know what, in light of listening to this discussion or these sorts of conversations, what's a helpful thing to take away as someone listening and saying,

01:20:48

I want to understand a biblical approach. I don't want to compromise my commitment to Christ.

01:20:54

Why don't you speak to that a little bit for the audience before we wrap things up? And then, Cy, maybe you can give one last final thought, and then

01:21:01

I'll give my little last second spiel, and then we'll wrap things up. I think one of the most helpful things is being faithful to Christ, like Cy pointed out earlier.

01:21:09

Look, sometimes our interacting with people, are we going to make certain assumptions and not say things perfectly?

01:21:16

That's going to happen. Now, we study to show ourselves approved. We speak with precision.

01:21:22

We love the Lord with our mind. All of those things, yes. And so I don't want to downplay that, but trust the

01:21:28

Lord. Lead with the gospel, right? And also come across very loving.

01:21:35

So I've been on those Discord servers, and my channel name a while back was

01:21:41

Faith Seeking Reason. So when I stepped into one of those Discord servers, I got lit up real fast. But the thing is, it's okay.

01:21:48

I loved what you said a second ago, Eli, about evangelism is kind of primary.

01:21:54

Apologetics is the handmaid, right? Being ready to give a defense. But we trust

01:21:59

God, right, with the proclamation of the gospel. And it's not just merely preaching. I mean, we're doing it with purpose, trusting that God's Word never returns void.

01:22:09

So we want to be faithful at the end of that. And so hopefully some of the things that we talked about, I think, you know,

01:22:16

I would say there's no such thing, right? But we want to be sensitive to who we're talking with.

01:22:24

We become all things to all people that we might win some. So getting a feel of the conversation itself.

01:22:30

Some atheists want to have that philosophical discussion. Praise God. Continue down that path. Show the absurdity, right, from the

01:22:36

God -denying worldview, right? But with some people, like this video we're critiquing, some people are like,

01:22:43

I don't have to give a justification. I don't have to give a justification. I mean, just try to be sensitive to who you're talking with because the goal is not merely winning an argument.

01:22:53

It's sharing the gospel, showing Christ -like love, and trusting God with sowing seeds, right?

01:22:59

Because at the end of the day, God gives the increase. Amen. Very good. Cy, any last thoughts?

01:23:05

Yeah, I would just say that from my take and from my experience as well is that apologetics, some people call apologetics pre -evangelism.

01:23:13

Or I evangelize, then I get into an apologetic. And I think it's more intertwined than that, that our apologetic is an evangelistic apologetic, and that's what presuppositionalism is.

01:23:24

Because when I expose that they can't know anything without God, I'm exposing their sin. So if somebody says to me, how do you get to the gospel from your apologetic?

01:23:32

Then I realize I'm doing it wrong. I mean, you didn't lead with it. Amen. All right.

01:23:39

Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. I really appreciate your friendship, and I appreciate you guys coming on. I mean,

01:23:45

I don't mind doing shows by myself. I love when I have other people of like mind, and I very much appreciate the things you guys have to say on various topics.

01:23:56

And so I want to personally thank you so much for coming on and doing this with me. And I'm sure it's been helpful to folks and will be helpful to those who listen in later.

01:24:06

So I'm looking forward to doing more things in the future. So thank you so much, guys. Well, you're a dear friend,

01:24:12

Eli, and I really enjoy your phone calls, and I want you to know that, and thank you. Well, it is my pleasure.

01:24:19

Now, a couple of things I just want to let people know. I have a couple of things scheduled.

01:24:26

The StreamYard is weird. It doesn't let me upload kind of scheduled things like past a certain time, so I have to wait as the time gets closer.

01:24:34

It's like a week in advance or whatever. But I have a bunch of episodes coming up. There is one episode that will be coming up. I'm just getting confirmation from one more person.

01:24:41

It's called the Facebook Presuppers Unite. They've got a bunch of presuppositionalists from Facebook, good friends who know their stuff, and we're going to have a really fun discussion covering the specific sorts of objections to presuppositionalism.

01:24:59

So I'll just leave it at that. But as that comes closer, I'll let you guys know.

01:25:04

Also, oh, Jeremiah, did you want to say something? I'm sorry. Yes, I was going to say I have one kind of announcement that your audience might be interested in.

01:25:13

I'm speaking at a conference in February in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and this is a part of the conference that Dr.

01:25:19

White will be speaking at and debating at. So the conference is Why Calvinism.

01:25:25

Dr. White is debating again? Has that man ever sleep? I wonder if he'll go much over the 200 mark.

01:25:30

I have no idea, but he's getting closer to 200 debates. So he'll be debating on the atonement with someone that denies

01:25:37

Calvinism. And me and Dr. Sam Frost, we will be speaking in the pre -conference on the dangers of full preterism.

01:25:47

And so I've been preparing for that, and so it's all going to be a part of the conference. And so people may look forward to that coming up in February.

01:25:55

Great. Excellent. Thank you for sharing that, man. I forgot what I was saying, but that's completely fine.

01:26:01

Don't worry about it. You're talking about StreamYard, brother. You're talking about StreamYard. Yeah, whatever.

01:26:07

I forgot. Folks, if you are interested in supporting Revealed Apologetics, you can do so by leaving a review, preferably a positive one on iTunes.

01:26:19

That actually does help a lot. You can like this video and others and share them. And if you're really feeling generous,

01:26:25

I do sell a five -week apologetics course that I teach. It has five lectures.

01:26:33

When you purchase the course, it comes with all of the PowerPoints, all of the outlines. And on January 15th,

01:26:38

I will be offering my premium course in which I will be meeting with the people who sign up once a week for five weeks where we go deeper into the topics covered in the video.

01:26:49

What I've loved about doing this in the past is I've been able to see people from all over the world, people from Norway and other parts where when we meet, it's like nighttime for them, maybe like 3 in the morning or 2 in the morning.

01:27:02

And it's really cool to see people so interested in learning apologetics in a more formal and structured way that they're willing to lose sleep over it.

01:27:10

So if you're interested in doing that, supporting Revealed Apologetics, but also purchasing some good quality apologetic material in a more formal setting, you can do that by going to revealedapologetics .com.

01:27:21

You click on the drop -down menu, pre -sub you, and you could RSVP for the premium course.

01:27:27

It might make a good Christmas present. So just throwing that out there. That's one way to support Revealed Apologetics.

01:27:32

And other than that, your prayers are appreciated, and I just appreciate everyone listening in and commenting and whatnot.

01:27:38

So thank you so much, guys. Until next time, take care and God bless. Bye -bye.