The Noetic Effect of Sin

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Well, welcome back to our study of the subject of apologetics.
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Hopefully you all were given a handout when you came in.
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If you weren't, we have them for you.
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And this is week three.
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And the subject of tonight is the noetic effect of sin.
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And in our last lesson, I left you with the question, I said, what is the noetic effect of sin? And I'd like to ask the question, how many of you went and looked for an answer? A few of you, okay.
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How many of you would like to provide a short definition of what the noetic effect of sin is? And this is not a test or seeking to embarrass anyone.
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I hopefully, you know the right answer.
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And this lesson will help correct if there is any error.
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But anyone want to give it a shot? Ms.
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Dottie? Is it like the effect of sin, the way we think, the way we reason? Like, we can see, I mean, the evidence of God is all around us.
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But with our mind, if we're not saved, we don't necessarily see it.
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It's confused.
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Yes, actually, what you said in the very beginning is exactly right.
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The noetic effect of sin is the effect of the fall on our mind, our intellect, our ability to rightly reason.
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So yes, that was correct.
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And that's what we're going to be studying in tonight's lesson.
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And as I wrote, I put out a post earlier inviting people to come tonight or to listen in via the live stream.
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And I made a point.
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This is one of the parts of apologetics that is often left out.
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In fact, I've been in many apologetics courses.
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I've listened to several apologetics courses over the years.
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And this part is often not even mentioned.
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But it is an important part of apologetics.
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And I hope that by the end of tonight's lesson, you will understand the reason why.
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So far, we have looked at the basic three apologetic methodologies, just to give you a reminder of what we've talked about so far.
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There are three basic apologetic methodologies.
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The first is classical.
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The second is what? Do you remember? Evidential.
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The third is presuppositional.
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And as I said last week, I tend to take a presuppositional approach to apologetics.
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But that does not mean that I do not use rational arguments, which is the classical approach.
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And that does not mean that I leave out evidences, that is the evidential approach.
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But the difference between classical, evidential, and presuppositional, as I've tried to make the point, is where we begin.
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In the presuppositional approach, we begin presupposing the truth of scripture, and we demonstrate that the person that we're talking to has their own presuppositions about the world, and we seek to demonstrate the fallacies of their presuppositions.
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And so that's why I would say that I would consider myself presuppositional, not to the exclusion of evidence, and not to the exclusion of rationality, but understanding that I presuppose the existence of God, which is why I believe evidence matters, and why I believe rationality matters.
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So that's an important thing, because a lot of people think, well if you're a presuppositionalist, you don't talk about evidence, it's not true.
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Or if you're a presuppositionalist, you don't use rational arguments, it's not true.
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It's just where do we begin.
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The title of last week was The Myth of Neutrality.
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And in that lesson, I sought to point out that no man comes to the subject of God in a neutral way.
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Some may argue that they do.
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Some may say, I don't have any presuppositions, I'm absolutely neutral.
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In fact, I listened this week to a man, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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He is a scientist that has received some notoriety because of being on several television shows and programs, and he's sort of the Carl Sagan of our generation.
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He's meant to kind of go out and give a scientific reason for the origins of the world and the origins of the universe.
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And I heard him argue the fact that he simply doesn't believe in God, or at least hasn't been convinced, but he's neutral that he doesn't have any predisposition either way.
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I disagree with Mr.
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Tyson, but at least that's what he thinks.
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And, you know, we at least can concede that that's where he thinks he's coming from.
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He thinks he's coming from a neutral position.
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But then he made the argument, because the very next thing he said was, I have a hard time believing in a good God who is all-powerful because there's tornadoes and there's floods and there's death by tsunamis and 100,000 people died in India and he starts going off on all these things, and I have a hard time believing that God is both good and powerful if all these bad things happen.
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And so we say, wait a minute, there's a presupposition.
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What is it? You're presupposing that life has value and that that matters.
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Why does it matter if 100,000 people die if we're all stardust? Why does it matter if 100,000 people die if life has no intrinsic dignity? I want to quote an evolutionary biologist.
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This man's name is Dr.
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Will Provine.
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He is a dysthetic evolutionist and biological determinist.
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I'm not quite sure he didn't make up those titles, but those are the titles he has.
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And he is the Andrew H.
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and James S.
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Tisch Distinguished University Professor at Cornell University.
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So this man is in the Ivy League and this is what he says, quote, Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biologist tells us loud and clear, and I must say that these are basically Darwin's views.
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There are no gods, no purposeful forces of any kind, no life after death.
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When I die, I'm absolutely certain that I'm going to be completely dead.
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That's just all.
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That's going to be the end of me.
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There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, no free will for humans either.
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Why did he throw that last part in? Well, if we are simply biological machines, there's no such thing as a will.
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And free will is an imagination because free will is simply the exercise of the chemical exchange in your brain.
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That's not a will, that's just a chemical reaction.
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You're not willing, you're reacting chemically.
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So, at least he's honest.
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I say, he's just a sack of stardust.
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But I mean, he's at least honest because there is no dignity, there is no value, there is no intrinsic worth.
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We came from nothing and we're going nowhere and not anything really matters.
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It is depressing.
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It is depressing, but that's the full birth to outgrowth of the evolutionary theory.
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So, anyhow, tonight we are going to continue basically last week, because last week we started the subject of the myth of neutrality.
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Romans 1 tells us that no one is neutral.
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It says, all men know God exists, they suppress that truth in unrighteousness and they exchange the truth for a lie.
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So, they're actively suppressing and actively exchanging the truth.
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They're suppressing it and exchanging it at the same time.
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Yes, sir? You mentioned Neil deGrasse Tyson and what he said about God there, but he's actually also postulated a theory that we're in a parallel universe kind of like characters acting out in a play.
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Yeah, the hologram theory.
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Essentially, that we do not exist except in the mind of someone else.
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On one hand, he crushes God, but then he is blinded to this other...
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Yeah, we're not real.
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We talked about that a little bit last week about the brain and the vat theory that we don't actually exist.
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We simply exist as a somewhat of a...
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just a thought.
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Sort of like the old philosopher who said, what if you were all just the dream of a greater being and all it would take for you to cease to exist is for that being to wake up.
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So all of this comes down to the issue how do we know anything? Well, the noetic effect of the fall deals with that because we're going to discuss self-deception and where it began.
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Because that's what noetic effect is.
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The noetic effect is simply, as we stated, the effect of the fall of man and what it had on the mind.
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The nous in Greek is the mind.
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And so the noetic effect is the ability or the effect, rather, that sin has on our faculty of understanding, reasoning, thinking, and deciding.
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And we've already answered this question, but I'll ask it again.
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Has man's ability to reason been affected by the fall? Yes or no? Yes.
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Biblically, this is true.
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But I'm not just going to say that.
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I'm going to show you.
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If you'll turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 2.14, it is on your sheet.
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But if you want to see it in its context, the verse of the evening is 1 Corinthians 2.14.
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In Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, he speaks to this issue directly and he says this, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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Notice it says there, not able.
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That is an important biblical idea because the Bible does limit our abilities morally and emotionally and willingly on certain things.
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I'm going to talk about this in a little while, but Jesus talks about the ability to come to Him.
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And he says, What about that? He says, No one can come to me unless the Father in Heaven draws him.
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And so Jesus talks about a moral inability, an inability to do something, an act towards God, an act of faith, an act of receiving Christ that must be preceded by an act of God.
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And so that one verse, even though there are many others, that one verse tells us something about man and the corruption that has happened as a result of the fall.
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And this verse in 1 Corinthians 2 says essentially the same thing.
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The natural person, that is the person who has not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God.
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Remember this, when Paul talks about people, he talks in two categories.
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He talks in the category of the natural man and the spiritual man.
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The man who is flesh and the man who is spirit.
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The man who is flesh has been born once.
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The man who is spirit has been born twice.
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He's been born of his mother and he's been born of God.
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And that's the distinction that Paul makes between men.
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He said you have the regenerate man and you have the unregenerate man.
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You have the born man and you have the born again man.
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And he says here in this passage that the born man who has not been born again will not accept the things of the Spirit because they're spiritually discerned and he's dead in that capacity.
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Spiritually dead, not willing or able to accept the things of God and because of that the things of God, the things of the Spirit will be to him folly.
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Foolishness, some of your translations will say to him.
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It will be foolishness.
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Have you ever talked to someone and they say I can't believe you would, I can't understand why you would believe all that foolishness.
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I mean really if you spend some time with somebody who doesn't believe and share about God parting the waters so that the Hebrew people could walk through.
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Talk to them about the burning bush.
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Talk to them about Jesus raising the dead and himself being raised.
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Talk to them about all of the miracles of scripture and what will they say.
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Talk to them about Jonah and that first submarine ride.
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And they'll say foolishness.
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Okay.
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That is what the scripture says.
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In fact the Bible says God uses the things that would be considered foolish to smite the wise to demonstrate their foolishness.
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But I want to share an illustration with you that I've been, this came to me a few weeks ago and I mentioned it in my Sunday school class but it just keeps rolling over my mind because I used to be somewhat of a an artist.
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I was never super talented but I did like to draw.
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I still enjoy making artistic things but I used to sit for hours at my dinner table this was before there was such a thing as an internet so I would sit for hours at my dinner table with half sheets of paper and pens and I would just draw.
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And I remember one time I received a charcoal set of pencils.
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It was a professional artist's set of charcoal pencils and I'd never had that before but I'd always understood charcoal was a very powerful medium for demonstrating things like light because you can draw a line with charcoal and then you can take your finger and you can use that finger to sort of smear the line and create a depth that you can't create with ink or even with a pencil.
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You can use charcoal to really draw out depth in a picture and I remember just drawing but the thing that would always be really rough was I'm right-handed and right-handed people when they tend to write with their hand on the page you know left-handed people do this sort of overhand my mom does this thing where you sort of overhand it because they learn not to let their hand drag along because it smears the ink but right-handed people don't have to worry about that because when we write we don't write over where we just were so our hand rests on the page so I would be drawing something and I would have this very intricate drawing and I would lift up my hand and it would be black from the tip of my finger down to about halfway to my elbow and the whole bottom half of the picture would just be completely smeared you know what I'm talking about you could still see it but it was all a blur and the reason why I'm mentioning this is because I think this illustration is good regarding the fall of man because mankind was created in the image of God mankind was created as a masterpiece of God's creation we are the only ones who it is said possess the imago dei which is the image of God the image of God is demonstrated in our intellect our emotion and our will which is so much different than the animals I remember one time growing up somebody said well we're just like the animals no we're not somebody says well the monkey is using a rock that's demonstrating the use of tools I said yeah as soon as he builds a rocket ship well you know because they say well there's only 3% difference and there's always a different argument 7% 3% 2% whatever the difference is in DNA it took us to the moon I mean it was a big difference whatever the DNA difference is it created a symphony whatever it is it created manufacturing there is no there is no real comparison between between us and the animal kingdom in regard to intellect emotion and will and so when somebody says what's the image of God I say well it's God's stamp of himself on us and that stamp has given us an ability to intellectually emotionally and willingly have a relationship with him animals don't do that you don't see cows out in the field you know praying we're the only animal if you want to call us an animal we're the only animal that prays yes dear yeah they don't express that type of emotion and will they work on instinct so I only say this to say that when we were created we were created in the image of God as a masterpiece of God and yet when sin entered the picture it was like taking a hand on that charcoal drawing and smearing it the image is still there but that image has been affected by sin the image of God is corrupted by sin and this is the first blank on your sheet the marring of the image of God affected every area of man's existence I realize that in Genesis 3 there are specific things that the Bible says now you will work hard now there will be thorns and there will be difficulty in work and I know that there were certain things that God said in the statement of the curse but we understand that that was not limited that that curse extended out further and the curse affected every aspect of our reality and none so more than our morality because as soon as man fell he was now a sinner who was estranged from his creator and it did not take long for that sinful nature to demonstrate itself in a fully realized corruption you don't have to turn there but if you want to write a little note Genesis chapter six and verse five says this this is right after the fall the fall happens in chapter three we have the story the narrative of Cain and Abel and then you get to chapter six and in chapter six verse five it says this the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually isn't that just an amazing thought that the corruption that only was a few generations before had now affected man so much that the only way that it could be described was only evil continually and so what did God do God destroyed the world with the flood saving only Noah and his family and in a few weeks when we talk about the creation apologetics that's a part of this course we're going to talk about creation and we're going to look at the story of the narrative I hate calling it a story because it's not a story you think of as being a fiction it's not a fiction it's a narrative and we're going to look at the narrative of the flood we're going to watch a video on that too in probably a month or two we'll watch that but it's going to be looking at that subject and the reality of it but the point being in all this is that as a result of the flood there was a moral corruption that overtook man and people say well then God sent the flood and everybody was better slow down because if you go over to Genesis chapter 8 in verse 21 this is after the flood this is after they've come off the ark they have they have kindled a fire and they've offered a sacrifice to the Lord and this is what he says and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma the Lord said in his heart I will never curse the ground again because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth it doesn't say it used to be it doesn't say it was evil but now we've gotten rid of all those bad people and now we're going to have the line of no and everybody is going to be great now it uses the present tense and it says simply the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth one of the things my wife and I sometimes I hate to say we get a chuckle out of this but it is sometimes rather humorous just how obvious the sinful nature of our children is even at a young age I've said it before they're small and cute and God made them that way he made them small so they wouldn't kill us and cute so we wouldn't kill them but that's Bodie said that but it was it's a it's a truth they are little fallen creatures you take away something from my daughter and that she doesn't want you to take away and she will demonstrate her fallen nature in absolute corruption and like I said I hate to say I get a chuckle out of it but it's just a reminder that yeah she is a fallen daughter of Adam and that's a reality evil from youth it's only God who saves the soul we are not born neutral and we are not born innocent we are born as fallen sons and daughters of Adam that's an important reality the noetic effect of sin addresses the moral brokenness in man which has not only effected his ability to behave properly but also effected his ability to think properly and where do we see the noetic effect of sin demonstrated in scripture well we've already talked about this some we've said in John 6 and if you want to write these John 6 44 no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him that's Jesus talking about the noetic effect of sin because that's an act of the will an act of the mind no one can come unless he's drawn and then in verse 65 he reiterates by saying no one can come unless it is granted to him but there's another passage in Romans 8 that talks about a limitation and this this is one I often point out to my Arminian friends in Romans chapter 8 verse 7 Paul again making a distinction between the flesh and the spirit he says in Romans 8 verse 7 for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God it does not submit to God's law indeed it cannot again there's that statement of ability those who are in the flesh cannot please God you say pastor why do you bring this up with Arminians well Arminians talk about unbelievers having faith I say they don't have faith unless God gives them that ability because if they could have faith without the ability given to them by God they would be able to please God in their flesh and this text tells me that they can't do that that in the flesh they cannot please God so ultimately there is a limitation on man because of the fall the above verses that we just mentioned address this issue of the will to obey and believe which are moral choices because of the fall man no longer possesses in himself the ability to make those choices without the grace of God people think grace is just an aid grace is not an aid grace is an enablement it enables it's not as if you've got a person who's trying to swim and grace is like a life ring no you've got a person dead at the bottom of the sea and grace brings them back to life that's the difference between Arminian grace and amazing by the way John Newton wrote amazing grace he was a Calvinist in case you didn't know and he wrote amazing grace that saved a what a wretch like me a man knows God exists by nature but his sinfulness binds him to the point that he intellectually will reject the gospel as Al Mohler has said the problem is not that it's not what we do not know it's what we will not know because we know God exists but we will not accept it it's not that we don't know it it's that we will not know it yes sir well we'll know yeah eventually all will know when every knee shall bow the second blank on your sheet because of the noetic effect of the fall man does not have a completely free will now this is why this would not be a popular lesson in some churches because free will is it is the it's the idol of the modern church it really is the it's held up as the absolute necessity but I want to give you a definition of free will actually I'm going to give you a definition of freedom from the dictionary freedom is this the power or right to act speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint the ability or the power or right to speak or think or act as one wants without hindrance or restraint the problem is this nobody is without hindrance or restraint because all men are fallen sons and daughters of Adam and have the restraint of sin you know the Bible never says we're free it always says we're what slaves that's right in fact if you want to write the verse down John 8 34 Jesus answered them truly truly I say to you everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin and then in Romans 6 Paul reiterates this he says for when we were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness but now verse 22 that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life so we were slaves of sin and now we're slaves of righteousness yes sir yes and that is where the apostle tells us that sin entered the world or death entered the world through sin and death spread to all men because all men sin and that's the reality this is in Romans 5 from 12 on explains this in a greater context because it talks about the fact that in Adam we're dead but in Christ we're alive Adam is the federal representative of all men because all men come from him and he represented us in sin Christ is the representative of all who believe in him and he represents us in new life in redemption but as I said all men are under the influence of sin and this affects all men's intellect as we noted earlier there's a difference between the unregenerate mind the unregenerate mind will refuse the things of God as foolishness and the regenerate mind will believe obey and trust the truths of scripture third on your sheet the sinful nature we inherit from Adam has a profound effect on our epistemology now I'm not just trying to throw out a big word but this is an important word epistemology episteme is the greek for knowledge logos is you know the ending we get logical discourse so epistemology is how we understand knowledge how we understand how we know anything how do you know anything what does it mean to know something this is an entire field of philosophy by the way epistemology is an entire field of philosophy asking the question how is knowledge required and what is it and can it be certain there are people who believe you can't know anything these are called hyper skepticism it's called hyper skepticism they say we can't know anything epistemology is indivisibly connected to your world view that's maybe the easier word epistemology is the big fancy philosophical word but really it equals your world view how do you know you know anything and how do you know what you know the way we understand the world will be affected by how and why we believe we can know what is true and what is not true I want to quote I'm going to give you a quote from a text on this subject science and deductive reason by which means one may acquire knowledge presupposes that the universe be logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws consistent over time and space even though conditions in different regions of space may be radically diverse there nonetheless exists an underlining uniformity the christian who believes in a transcendental causal reality expects there to be order in the universe since the bible teaches that god upholds all things by his power the christian expects the universe to behave in an orderly and rational fashion since god is omnipresent and consistent with himself the christian expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws even though the physical conditions of different regions of the universe may be different alright that's a long quote simply saying this christians make pretty good scientists because we believe in the uniformity of the cosmos because we believe in a uniform creator who is himself rational and reasonable often times we hear the scientists say i have no reason to believe in god i only believe in science what makes you believe in science why do you believe in the uniformity why do you presuppose the universe is logical exactly where did the logic come from because men suppress the knowledge of god their understanding of how they know things often seeks to divorce itself from any reliance upon divine guidance and as a result what they know becomes subject to their own experience they abandon objective knowledge and they rely almost entirely on subjective experience last week when i asked about what is the noetic effect mike you looked it up real quick and you said it's relativism in reality that's where it gets that's the result of the noetic effect because it becomes an issue of knowledge and the hyper relativist says we don't know anything that's the hyper skepticist it's the person who says well i can't really know and the only certain thing that many will admit is that we don't know anything in fact one scientist said yeah one scientist said it this way he said the difference between a smart aleck and a scientist is that a smart aleck thinks he knows everything and a scientist knows he knows nothing that's from a scientist so epistemology is the question of how do we know anything and what i'm pointing out to you as far as apologetics is epistemology or worldview is affected by the fall because someone suppresses the knowledge of god they have to come up with another reason why they know things they have to come up with another foundation for their knowledge and yeah and they say the only thing we know for certain is that we don't know anything how do you know that for certain or the only certainty is uncertainty are you certain yeah so the fourth answer on your sheet when we speak to an unbeliever the things of god we are not speaking to a rational and objective observer of facts we are speaking to a rebellious enemy of almighty god this is the really the heart of tonight's lesson because all of the noetic effect all of this lesson is to remind you that when you go out to do apologetics when you engage with an unbeliever you are not engaging in a rational discourse with a person who is neutral as we said last week neutrality is a myth and not only are they not neutral but they are absolutely committed to the contrary and here's the thing they don't all seem that way Neil Degrasse Tyson I mentioned him earlier he seemed like a pretty good guy I mean from the out focus of simply being a nice guy he was on Sesame Street they don't let mean people on Sesame Street I'm just kidding I'm just kidding but what I mean is they are in rebellion and as a result of their rebellion their thinking will be bound in error but that is not to say and I want to be clear on this especially if anybody is listening and is going to send me an email this is not to say that the unbeliever is incapable of reason the unbeliever can reason and all of us have at some point learned from unbelievers especially if you've been in school or higher education you've all learned something from someone who didn't even know Christ it doesn't take faith in Christ necessarily to understand the rules of mathematics the laws of physics the foundations of logic much of what we learn in science but the unregenerate person has no reason to understand why these things are true and continue in uniformity and why it is they can rely on these laws they're borrowing from our world view when they say this must be because the answer is well according to your world view it doesn't have to be because there is no underlying determiner their rebellion will cause them to have a wrong foundation in their thinking regarding areas like science and I want to bring up a few illustrations maybe this will help from a purely scientific standpoint let's pretend we're neutral we've already said that doesn't exist but we're going to pretend we're neutral from a purely scientific standpoint abortion should be illegal you say well how can you say that because a lot of people disagree with you well it is clearly and scientifically the murder of a human life and this is so well understood that if a woman were intentionally struck while pregnant to the point where she loses the baby the person who strikes her will be charged with homicide no I'm saying if only the baby dies yeah if she dies it's double homicide but a man can wear a doctor's coat use sterile tools kill a child and he's considered a hero not a murderer by those who support abortion what's the difference world view epistemology is the difference because the world view of the one who supports abortion on demand is demanding one thing absolute autonomy from the consequence of murder see the bible says thou shall not commit murder the person who commits abortion is committing murder but they want freedom and autonomy from the result of that moral failure and so they make it not wrong and they deny that it is wrong but the problem is that the choice is in rebellion to the creator who deems it wrong to murder and the abortion issue is a good place to recognize how argumentation works with folks who will not be convinced away from their position in fact on your sheet it says this if you overcome an argument with an unbeliever often they will simply do what retreat to another argument this is nowhere more true than if you talk about abortion with someone because as soon as you begin to overcome an argument they will retreat to a new argument which demonstrates that they are not seeking truth they are seeking an avenue of escape because they know that what they have done is an offense to God they know that what they have done is against all morality and to disconnect themselves from that they seek every avenue of escape that is possible every time new information has become available on the subject of abortion those supporting it have simply changed their argument in fact at the very foundation it was not called it was the abortion issue but it very quickly became what choice why because no one wants to be opposed to choice so they adopt a word that has universal appeal at first they said that the baby in the womb is just a clump of cells then the sonogram was invented demonstrated that not only is it not just a clump of cells but from the first weeks of the baby coming to conception it's beginning to be a baby in every sense of having a spinal cord of having a heart that's beating of having a mind that's functioning and all these things are happening so rapidly and so quickly to say it's not a human being is a lie so what do they do they argue yes it's a human but it's not a person so they change the argument the argument changes and I ask the question how do you differentiate between a human and a person and that becomes a philosophical question becomes an issue yeah they say well it has to pass through the birth canal what about a c section yeah but the argument there is not a person you know that's how slavery was kept alive for so long in America black people were considered to be not persons it's philosophical right it's the argument it's the philosophy so they're not persons but a new argument has even arisen and this one is very recent and I've only recently heard it through what I would say entertainment media you realize there's different kinds of media right there's social media there's the news media and then there's entertainment media and those things tend to blend now used to you turn on the news and you would expect to get at least some type of objective person just giving you the facts of what happened you know sort of like Joe Friday just the facts ma'am but now news is entertainment because it's got to go through a 24 hour cycle so they have people that entertain in a news way and it becomes news media entertainment media shows like the daily show are intended to look like a news show but they're intended to entertain not as much informed I only say this to say this the latest thing we have seen is the subject of abortion has come up in the entertainment media as a punch line one very famous comedian who I will not name recently opened his act this is a man who has sold out shows all around the United States he opened his act by talking about abortion and he admitted on stage without any hint of apology abortion is killing a baby it is 100% killing a baby but he was saying it in support of it he was joking about abortion clinics they think it's killing a baby but it is killing a baby I did go to make sure I was quoting it correctly yes it's killing a baby but it's killing a I did go make sure that's been created that's absolutely unique for the mother and the father.
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A new human being is formed.
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It's not a clump of cells.
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It's an absolutely new genetically individualized human being.
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We know that.
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Doesn't matter.
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Doesn't matter.
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Because the presupposition is choice trumps all.
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Excuse the expression.
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As I said, and I have a few other things to say and we're running out of time, but if you overcome an argument with an unbeliever, often they will retreat to a new argument.
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Think about, I'll give you another example.
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We'll move away from abortion for a minute.
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How about the issue of transgenderism? I won't go into what all that is.
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But what we hear from the unbelievers is this.
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You have to accept it because there are genetic disorders.
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There's a genetic disorder called gender dysphoria, which can create confusion in the mind regarding confusion over gender.
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So the question then becomes, okay, if we can isolate who does and does not have this gender dysphoria and limit transgenderism to only those who have this genetic abnormality, would you then be okay with us denying the right of those who do not have the gender abnormality from being able to practice this? They say, no, no, because it's about choice.
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Then why did you bring up the science then? Why did you bring it up? Because it is a canard.
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A canard, it's taking another road.
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It's trying to get you off the subject.
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It's sort of like the same thing with abortion.
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They'll say, well, what about the women who are raped and what about the women whose children have abnormalities? First of all, I would say this, that murder is murder.
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But if, just for the sake of argument, I said this, what if we could limit all abortions to just women who are raped or women who are having abnormalities in their pregnancy? If we could limit all abortions to that, would you be okay with that? No, because it's not about that.
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That is a canard.
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That is a red herring is another way of using that term.
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You see how, because they have an underlying presupposition and they're arguing from the presupposition and they're throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks.
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It's not about the evidence.
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It's about the presupposition.
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That's what this whole lesson is simply to show.
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They have a predisposition of rebellion.
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So now I want to give you two questions.
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This is the last thing on your sheet tonight.
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I say two great questions.
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I probably should be a little more humble than that.
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I actually just copied it from my notes.
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I probably should have taken out the word great because I don't know that they're that great.
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But there are two questions that I think are important that demonstrate the reality of the noetic effect of sin when talking to an unbeliever.
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These are two things you can ask if you're talking to somebody who says, I don't believe in God or I don't believe in Jesus.
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Two questions that you can ask them that will demonstrate the noetic effect of sin.
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Number one, what evidence would you accept to prove the existence of God? What evidence would you accept to prove the existence of God? You might not think that's an important question, but the answer to that question will tell you so much about the heart of the person.
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Nothing.
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That's right.
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And that almost always is the real answer is they're not going to accept any evidence because they will tell you it doesn't exist.
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What's that? It's a presupposition that there can't be evidence for the existence of God.
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They'll say there is no evidence because it doesn't exist.
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That's a presupposition.
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You're mad at me for presupposing the Bible, but you're presupposing there's no evidence for God.
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You have your own presuppositions.
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Again, the point of presuppositional apologetics is to point out the presupposition of the person you're talking to.
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You have made an overriding presupposition that nothing I could give you, no evidence I could present to you would prove that God exists because you have already determined that He does not.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Because they're asking for evidence, but they won't accept it.
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Yeah.
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A lot of people will say.
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Exactly.
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And that's, and that's the key.
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That's often my answer.
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If somebody says, well, I would, I would, uh, if I saw a miracle, well, what about the people who saw miracles in Jesus day and didn't believe? You know that? And that's the reality.
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And that's the truth.
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But the second question follows the first question.
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And it's almost exactly the same where you would ask it because you would say, the first question is what evidence would you accept to prove God's existence? And they might say, well, you know, maybe if I saw Jesus in the clouds or maybe if he appeared to me in my toast or something, I don't know, whatever they say to you, here's the second question.
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And this is really the heart of the question.
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Cause the first question just sets up the second question.
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The second question is this.
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If the existence of God could be proved beyond doubt to your satisfaction, would you worship him? If the existence of God could be proved to you beyond doubt to your satisfaction, would you worship him? And the answer to that demonstrates the heart of the problem because they know God exists and they won't worship him.
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You guys have heard of Richard Dawkins.
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Richard Dawkins was in a debate and he said this in 2012.
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He said, I used to think that if somehow a great big giant, 900 foot Jesus with a voice like Paul Robeson suddenly strode in and said, I am here, I exist, that I would believe.
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But even that, I actually sometimes wonder whether or not I would.
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Even if I saw a 900 foot Jesus with a voice, he says, somebody I've never heard of will say James Earl Jones.
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And he comes in and he says, I'm here, I exist.
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I don't know if I'd believe it.
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And I didn't believe it.
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All right, let me end with a quote.
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I have so much, I love these lessons.
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Let me just finish with this because I do want to, going back to the two questions.
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In the debate in the 80s, I told you about last week, the great debate, Gordon Stein, Greg Bonson debated.
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In that debate, Gordon Stein was asked the question, what evidence would it take for you to believe God exists? Now this is an atheist.
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This is a guy who's presenting atheism on a college campus in a debate with a renowned Christian theist apologist.
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They're debating together.
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And Stein is asked, what evidence would it take for you to believe God exists? This is his answer.
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And I'm going to have to, there's a lot, so I'm going to have to condense what he said, but I'll quote exactly the line that's important.
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He says, well, it's very simple.
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If that podium suddenly rose into the air five feet, stayed there for a minute, and then dropped right down again, I would say that is evidence of a supernatural because it would violate everything we know about the laws of physics and chemistry.
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Assuming that there wasn't an engine under there or a wire attached to it, we can make those obvious exclusions.
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That would be evidence for a supernatural violation of the laws.
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We could call it a miracle right before your eyes.
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Now he goes on to say a few other things, but then Bonson gets to respond.
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And Bonson says this, Dr.
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Stein, I think, is really not reflecting on the true nature of atheism and human nature when he says all it would take is a miracle and my presence to believe in God because history is replete with, first of all, things which would apparently be miracles to people.
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Now from an atheistic or naturalistic standpoint, I will grant in terms of the hypothesis that that is because they were all ignorant of all calls of factors and so it appeared to be miracles, but you see that didn't make everybody into a theist.
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In fact, the scriptures tell us that there were instances of people who witnessed miracles who were more hardened in their heart and eventually crucified the Lord of glory.
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They saw his miracles.
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That didn't change their mind.
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People are not made theists by miracles.
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People must change their worldview.
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Their hearts must be changed.
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They need to be converted.
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That's what it takes and that's what it would take for Dr.
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Stein to finally believe it.
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If this podium rose up five feet off the ground and stayed there, Dr.
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Stein would eventually have in the future some naturalistic explanation because they believe things on faith, by which I mean they believe things as which they have not proven by their senses.
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So essentially what he's saying, if that thing did raise up five feet, he would come up with a natural explanation for it because he has an overriding presupposition that God is not.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for tonight.
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I pray that this has been helpful, Father, to these lovely people who come and I pray that this will be encouraging to them and I pray that as we move into the future and more lessons and more study that it will all be to your glory and to our better understanding of your word.
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In Jesus' name, amen.