Arguments We SHOULD NOT Use in Apologetics

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Go ahead and take out your Bibles and turn to the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John and find your way to verse 31.
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Yep, John chapter 8 and verse 31.
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Just so everybody on the recording knows that was a joke.
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John chapter 8 is in the New Testament.
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And John 8, 31 and 32 are going to be our opening passage tonight to lead us into what we're going to talk about.
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It says in verse 31, So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
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And we ask that God would bless the reading of His word and our time of study together.
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As most of you know who have been here over the last several weeks we have been discussing the subject of apologetics.
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Specifically in the last, since the beginning of the second series we have been discussing the subject of origins and the concept of Darwinian evolution.
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We've already made some important notes that I think is important to remember.
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We've defined some terms.
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Darwinism is the belief that life came about independent of a supernatural creator rising from a single-celled organism through a process of natural selection to all of the variety of life that now exists on earth.
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That is the Darwinistic view of the origin of life.
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Intelligent design is the second one that we looked at.
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This is the belief that life came about not necessarily in any specific way but through the product of a superior and divine intelligence.
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Intelligent design doesn't automatically mean they don't believe in evolution.
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It just means that they believe that whatever has created was an intelligent source.
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So intelligent design isn't necessarily a belief in God.
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It's a belief in some form of intelligent design.
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Now most intelligent design advocates would believe in God but they're not advocating necessarily God.
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They're saying an intelligent creator.
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And the third is creationism.
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Creationism is the belief that life came about by a direct action of a personal and knowable God.
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This is the view of the Bible that God created the heavens and the earth and God is personal, God is knowable, and it's not just some ethereal possible intelligent designer but he is the God of the universe who has made himself known in the pages of Holy Scripture.
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That's creationism separated from intelligent design and Darwinism.
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Within creationism there is the old earth creationists.
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They believe that the time frames listed in Genesis and other places in Scripture are symbolic and metaphoric.
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They would believe the earth is about four and a half billion years old, give or take.
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And then there is the young earth view and that believes the earth is anywhere from six to ten thousand years, not in any way millions or billions of years old.
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And both of those positions would still fall under the rubric of creationism.
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There are old earth creationists like Hugh Ross and there are young earth creationists like Ken Ham.
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So that's just to name men from either camp.
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But they would still fall under the category of creationist, not intelligent design and certainly not Darwinist.
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We've also discussed some arguments that we need to keep in mind when discussing the subject of evolution in an apologetic situation.
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Three things I mentioned in our last lesson that we should keep in mind when having a conversation with someone who is not a believer if the subject of evolution comes up.
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Number one, evolution is about change in an already existing system.
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It's not an explanation of origins.
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Remember we talked about this last week.
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If a person says, I believe the life on earth came about through evolution, you have to stop and say, wait a minute, that's not an explanation of origins because evolution deals with change in an already existing system.
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Not where that system came from.
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So evolution doesn't deal with origins, it deals with change in an already existing system.
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That's an important point to make.
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Second, the word evolution has to be defined and it does have different definitions.
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Evolution can refer to changes within a species such as how the same species of canine can become a breed like a Doberman or a breed like a Shih Tzu or a Dash Hound or something like that.
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That is all change within a species.
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That's change within the canine kind and so we believe that and if somebody says, well you deny evolution, you deny what we can see.
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No, we believe that.
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Darwinian evolution believes that the single cell organism in the beginning had all the information necessary to produce all the variation of life and changes of kind that we see in the world.
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That is what we deny.
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Not that there could be changes within a kind, we know that there are, but that those changes are so radical to produce different kinds.
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Particle to people, evolution is what we would deny.
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Thirdly, a belief in evolution is not required for advancements in science.
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This is last week's lesson, I'm just reminding you.
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If you remember what we said, people would say, well if you deny evolution then you deny, you can't do science if you don't believe in evolution.
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Well again, depends on how you define evolution.
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I would say that some of the best scientists in the world and some of the best scientists in history didn't agree with Darwin.
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Darwinian evolution is not necessary to make advancement in science and we talked about that last week and there's several quotes and if you have questions I would recommend listening to that if you haven't heard it.
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I always like to give an overview to remind where we've been.
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Tonight we're going to move into an area that I think is often overlooked, but it is equally important even though it's often not discussed and that is the issue of arguments that we should not use.
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Arguments that we should not use and this applies specifically tonight to the subject of evolution, but this can be broadly used.
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All of the rules we're going to talk about tonight for arguments can go across the board.
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It doesn't just have to relate to evolution, it can relate to anything.
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So tonight we're going to talk about arguments we should not use.
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Everybody has their sheet? Okay.
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As Christians we have a preeminent allegiance to one thing.
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Well, we can say we have a preeminent allegiance to Christ, but we also have an allegiance to the truth.
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Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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So when I'm talking to believers and I'm talking about apologetics, one of the things that I stress is that no matter what the situation, no matter what the conversation, no matter what the subject, we have a preeminent allegiance to truth.
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Jesus tells us in John 8, we just read it, that we will know the truth and the truth will set us free.
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Ephesians 4.15 tells us that we are to speak the truth in love.
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Philippians 4 and verse 8 says to think on the things that are true, that we meditate on those things.
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John 4 and 24 says that we are to worship in spirit and in truth.
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Jesus said in John 18.37, He came to bear witness to the truth.
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And as I said a moment ago, He tells us that He is, in fact, the way, the truth, and the life.
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Listen to this closely.
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If we play fast and loose with the truth, we do disservice to the Lord and we do violence to the kingdom.
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I'll say it again.
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If we play fast and loose with the truth, we do disservice to the Lord and violence to the kingdom.
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As Christians, we must take care to engage in arguments which are true.
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Now, you say, why is he harping on this? Because I watch Christians make false arguments all the time.
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The Internet has opened the floodgate of ignorance and demonstrated a willingness among people who call themselves Christians to absolutely abandon the truth for what they think is a good story or a good argument.
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Yeah, you get it.
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I'm gonna say this and this is absolutely true.
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Much of what is passed around on social media today is nothing short of bald-faced lies.
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Some sites even exploit this reality by producing false information and posting it with the hopes that people will share it.
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Now, some sites do that on purpose, like the Babylon Bee is a Christian satire site.
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They produce articles that are intended to be funny and satirical, but not intended to be seen as truthful.
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And they say it's not truthful.
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It says it very clearly.
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The Onion is a secular version of that.
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They put out articles that are not true and they intentionally point out that this is not true.
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But there are other blogs that put together things that are not true and they are shared as absolute truth without any research, without any seeking to know whether or not it's true.
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It's for my side, so I'm gonna share it, whether it's true or not.
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I cannot tell you how many times I've had people repeat to me things that they read online that are absolutely false.
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And I have to say, don't say that.
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It's not true.
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We have enough truth.
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We don't need to manufacture it.
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It used to be that the only thing we had to worry about was a corrupt media spreading false information.
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But now anybody who can produce a website can join in.
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The media has been displaced by social media and now anybody with a computer can become a journalist, not necessarily a reputable one.
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I'm gonna say this and hear this and I don't, if I sound like I'm getting on, I'm not getting on anybody here.
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I'm just saying this is the truth.
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This is for all of us.
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If the only way we can discuss something is by misrepresenting it, we either don't care about the issue or we don't care about the people or both.
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If the only way you can discuss something is by misrepresenting it, you don't care about the people, you don't care about the issue or both.
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It is our responsibility to only argue or distribute information or material which is consistent with the truth.
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And here's the question, you want to know, this is really easy.
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If you have something that you want to share, if you have something that you want to say, ask yourself, use a moment's opportunity to say, do I know this is true? Do I know this is accurate? You should avoid ever accepting something as true just because it agrees with you or it goes with something you already believe.
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I see this in regard, I'm gonna say this, do not chop my head off because I'm gonna tell you, I see this in regard to Islam a lot.
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Any and all information about Islam that is necessary, everybody says, well that's up for grabs because hey, they're the devil and it doesn't matter if you lie about the devil.
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It matters if you lie.
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Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't say anything about Islam.
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I've said things in the pulpit about Islam.
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But you should know whether or not it's true.
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You should never make an argument that's untrue or that you don't know is true.
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It's dangerous and it doesn't do service to the kingdom.
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It only does violence to the kingdom.
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When challenged about disseminating false information, I've heard people say, well, they're wrong, so it doesn't matter.
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When you distribute something false, you become wrong, even if you're on the side of right.
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The Bible says, do not overcome evil with evil, but overcome evil with good.
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An argument can be wrong even if what it's arguing for is right.
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Let me say that again.
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An argument can be wrong even if what it's arguing for is right.
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Let me give you an example.
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What if I walked up to you and you were smoking a cigarette and I said, listen, you shouldn't smoke cigarettes because if you do, you'll grow feathers out of your ears.
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I read online, there's a doctor who's been really working on this feather theory, and if you smoke that cigarette, you're going to be an eagle in less than a year.
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Now you think that's dumb, but you get what I'm saying.
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It's a good argument.
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I mean, telling somebody smoking is bad for them is the truth, but using a bad argument a false argument to tell them the truth ain't the way you tell them the truth.
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You see, you get where I'm coming from.
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This is a silly analogy.
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I want to quote to you.
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This is from Tommy Mitchell.
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He's a professor with Answers in Genesis.
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Listen to this quote.
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He says, no matter how attractive a favored argument may be, no matter how perfectly it may seem to explain something in the Bible, if it does not hold up to scrutiny, it should be avoided.
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No matter how attractive the argument, no matter how good it sounds on paper, if it ain't true, it is false.
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You guys understand that I'm a little passionate about this? I am because I see it.
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I see social media.
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I'm obviously on Facebook.
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Most of you have had interactions, and I've seen your interactions, and we've all kind of liked each other's photographs and stuff, so we all know we're out there.
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Some of you aren't, and that's cool.
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But I know a lot of people who call themselves Christians who play fast and loose with the truth, and Facebook has become the place where it just seems like everything's up for grabs.
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It doesn't matter.
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I'm not responsible, but we are.
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We are responsible for what we post.
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We are responsible for what we say.
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We are responsible to the truth because here's where the rubber meets the road.
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When you sit down with somebody who knows, and you make that argument, you are gonna get murdered in the argument.
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That's a hyperbole, obviously.
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You're not gonna get murdered, but you understand what I'm saying.
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You're gonna lose because you're wrong.
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And I want to give you a story.
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I love to tell stories because I have a history in my own life that clearly demonstrates the danger of this error.
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When I was a youth leader here, I was studying in seminary, and I would take what I was studying in seminary, and I would apply it to the youth lessons.
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That's how you kill two birds with one stone when you're in college.
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You gotta teach, so you take what you're learning, and you teach it, and it allows you to save a little bit of time.
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Well, I had a couple of students in the group who were exceptionally bright students.
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They were students who made good grades, were in advanced placement classes, and I had an argument that I had read in a book about science in the Bible.
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I thought it was a good argument.
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Twenty-two years old, I didn't understand it.
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I didn't have a degree in science, but I thought it was a good argument.
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It sounded reasonable to me.
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So I made the argument in front of the students, and I made it with great confidence, too.
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You know me, I can rip it out if I got to, you know, get out there and really let them have it.
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So I made this argument in front of the students.
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Here I am, 22 years old, very confident in what I'm saying is true.
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But I didn't really understand it, but I said it.
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About a week later, those two students, intelligent young people, well, they went and read a little, talked to some of their teachers about what I said.
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Come to find out, I didn't know what I was talking about.
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Now, that was 15 years ago.
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I can say it with a little bit of humility now.
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At the time, I was quite embarrassed.
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Rightfully so, because I was wrong.
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In fact, the argument that I made is now on the list.
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If you go to Answers in Genesis or some of these other sites that talk about creation, they have a list of arguments you shouldn't use, and right near the top of the list was the argument that I made.
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I didn't know, and I demonstrated my ignorance with great confidence, and there's nothing worse than being confident in your ignorance.
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So based on that little highlight into my illustrious history of mistakes, I want to share three things with you that I consider rules, and that did, it changed my life.
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That moment changed my whole way of teaching, and I have three rules that I hope to help you tonight to understand.
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Anytime I'm making an argument for anything, but specifically in apologetics since that is our subject, I want to give you three rules we should always observe when making our apologetics arguments.
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Number one, we should never use an argument that is untrue.
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Now, I've been saying that for the last 20 minutes, but write it down because that's the key.
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We should never make an argument that's untrue.
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That may seem obvious, but it's a rule that's subtly easy to break, because you may be making an argument you don't know is untrue, like I did.
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I want you to remember always that when it comes to apologetics, truth is your most precious possession, and we do not want to taint the truth with false information, and we also do not want to mingle the truth with ignorance.
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I want to explain to you some untrue arguments that have been made that we need to avoid.
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Here's a couple.
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Number one, Darwin became a Christian before he died.
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He recanted.
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He recanted his teachings and became a Christian.
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I've heard people make that argument.
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I've heard people make that argument on the street talking to unbelievers.
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Guess what? Not true.
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Darwin did not recant his belief in evolution.
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He did not recant his scientific views.
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In fact, I want to read to you a quote from his daughter, written in 1922.
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Henrietta, the daughter of Charles Darwin, wrote, quote, I was present at his deathbed.
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He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier.
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Now, I don't know about you, but I'm going to take the daughter's word for it.
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But you see why people want to use that argument, right? Because it sounds good for our side.
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If the guy we like, or the guy we are arguing against gave up his position, that sounds good.
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You want to say something? Well, if you look at it, if you go further, his nephew, Lyle, is his nephew, developed eugenics afterwards, based on Darwin's theories that he established.
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Yeah, there's no proof that Darwin recanted anything.
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Now, whether or not he professed faith is a debate, because some people, as we watched in the video a few weeks ago, Darwin never necessarily claimed to be an atheist, either.
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So that's key.
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Darwin believed in natural selection, he believed in the evolution of those things, but that didn't necessarily mean he didn't believe in any divine power at all.
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But the point is, to say that he recanted his scientific views is just false.
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Second one, this may sound weird, but I've heard somebody make this argument.
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Somebody one time made an argument, women have more ribs than man, and that's proof that Adam and Eve lived.
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Women have more ribs than men, and that's proof that Adam and Eve, because God took Adam's rib, and women have one more rib, and that's proof.
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Anybody got a reason as to why we shouldn't use that argument? What is it? Because women don't got one more rib than men, that's just straight wrong.
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It's false.
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And here's the other side of the coin.
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There's no reason why if God takes a rib from Adam, that his child would be born with one less rib.
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It'd be like somebody having their hand cut off in an accident, and the next child would be born with two hands.
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There's no genetic defect or something that's going to cause there being no rib.
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It doesn't make sense, and it ain't true.
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But people say it.
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Here's a good one.
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That last one was kind of silly.
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Listen closely, because this is key.
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Scientists have never observed evolution in action.
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That is not an argument you should use, because you are not defining what evolution means.
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Because if they talk about the changes in bacteria, being able to adapt to new strains of antibiotics, they can argue that's a form of evolution.
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Or like the stickleback fish, and the changing of the fish, and the things that happen with that.
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They will say those things have been observed, and those are examples of evolution which have been observed.
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So if you say evolution's never been observed, and they respond, well what about this, this, then you're gonna have to say, well what I meant was Darwinian evolution, where there's a change of kinds from one kind of animal to another kind of animal, because you know the bacteria that change are still bacteria, the fish that change are still fish.
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All of Darwin's finches were still birds.
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They were still finches.
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So when you talk about this, it would be better to say Darwinism in its fullness has not been observed.
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They have to agree, because in their view Darwinism takes billions or millions of years to observe.
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So they would have to say no one's ever observed that.
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But if you simply say evolution's never been observed, then they are going to respond and say that is not true, because they're using a different definition of the word.
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You have to be clear with what you're saying.
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So that's three examples that I would say are untrue.
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There are many, many others.
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Again, I recommend going to creation.com or AIG, which is Answers in Genesis.
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Look at their list of arguments you shouldn't use.
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There's a ton, and a lot of them are just because they're untrue.
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Number two, we should never use an argument which we do not understand.
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True or not, if you don't get it, don't use it.
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And that's an extension of the first rule, because if you don't understand it, you don't know if it's true.
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I mean really, if you don't understand it, you don't know whether or not it's true.
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You can't be confident in a truth if you're ignorant of what it's saying.
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This is especially true with scientific claims.
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Most of us, I think, understand science on a rudimentary level, meaning most of us here understand the concept of the scientific method, the hypothesis, and the making of experimentation and variables and those types of things.
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But in our church, I only know of a couple people that I would say, I only know of one directly that I would say is a scientist, and that's Jim Dutton.
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He has a degree in chemistry, and he worked for the city for the last thirty years, retired as a chemist.
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So if I were going to have a conversation that involved a chemistry or a scientific question, I would say, okay, alright, he's a scientist, he's a chemist, he can speak to that issue.
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But most of us aren't.
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That doesn't mean we can't ever make a claim regarding science, but what we have to understand is this.
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When we make a scientific claim, almost always we are making a claim based on the data and interpretation that has been found and used by experts.
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And what that can do is it can cause us to misunderstand the data or misunderstand the expert, because we're not an expert.
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I'll give you, here's an example.
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The second law of thermodynamics.
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First of all, what's the second law of thermodynamics? Go ahead.
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That's right, very good.
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Now how many of you knew that? How many, and that is excellent homeschool education right there, because that's exactly right.
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That is exactly what my notes say, that the second law of thermodynamics, thermodynamics say that energy changes from one form to another form or matter moves freely, entropy or disorder in a closed system increases.
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That's essentially what he said in a little bit fancier way.
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Basically, entropy means that over time energy in a system breaks down.
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This is why we get things like rust.
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Because of entropy occurring.
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This is why things slow down over time, they don't speed up in general, because energy is being used and dissipated and it is becoming disorderly rather than more orderly.
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Okay, now some people argue that because disorder or entropy happens naturally that it denies the possibility of evolution.
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Let me say it like this, evolution says things get better over time.
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Entropy, the law of thermodynamics, second law, says things break down over time.
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The law, I've even seen this on a bumper sticker, the law disproves the theory.
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Sounds good, right? Second law of thermodynamics says that things break down over time.
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The law disproves the theory.
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Sounds good.
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Sounds very good.
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But I want to make this question to you.
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Other than Minoa and maybe a few of you, how many of you think you know enough about that argument to make it stick with somebody who does? Let me read to you from a website this is explaining why the law of entropy doesn't negate the theory of evolution.
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Quote, the law has plenty of everyday examples.
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Buildings break down over time.
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Food spoils if not eaten soon enough.
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In both cases, the amount of disorder increases over time.
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But the opposite is never true.
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Buildings don't strengthen themselves.
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No amount of waiting can cause rotten food to become edible again.
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But because evolution results in an increase in the order and complexity of species, which is a decrease in entropy, some critics claim that the second law of thermodynamics denies evolution.
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But to claim that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics is also grounded in a misunderstanding of where the law applies.
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Nobody has ever figured out how to apply the second law to living creatures.
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There's no meaning to the entropy of a frog.
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The kinds of systems that can be analyzed with the second law are much simpler.
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A living organism is so much a unified whole, is not so much a unified whole as it is a collection of subsystems.
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In the development of life, for example, a major leap occurred when cells mutated in such a way, these people believe in evolution obviously, mutated in such a way that they clumped together in a multicellular life that was possible.
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A simple mutation allowing one cell to stick to another cell enabled a larger, more complex life to form.
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However, such a transformation does not violate the second law of thermodynamics any more than superglue violates the law when it sticks your fingers to the kitchen counter.
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End quote.
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Now that's a long quote from a website.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Do you know enough to argue it? Then why make the argument? That's my point.
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That's the whole point of this second part of this is why make an argument you don't understand? Do you know enough to look a scientist in the face and say, nah, nah, you're wrong.
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I ain't saying that we have to be experts in everything that we talk about, but what I am saying is that we need to understand the arguments that we make, otherwise we'd be better served to make a different argument.
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Even if the argument is correct, if we don't understand it, it ain't the argument we should be making.
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Does that make sense? Am I being clear? I'll give you an example of where I think this really plays out and this kind of goes away from the evolution thing.
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This happens a ton in theology.
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People come to me and they want to talk about theological systems.
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And they'll say, yeah man, the Roman Catholics, I don't see why they worship the Pope.
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Roman Catholics don't worship the Pope.
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And to say that they do is a misunderstanding.
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It's not even understanding your argument.
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You say, nobody would ever say that.
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People say that.
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I don't understand why Roman Catholics believe this or that.
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Well, they don't.
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Understanding the argument is just as important as the argument being true.
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Number three, I know we're running out of time.
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Number three, we should never use an argument which is ultimately irrelevant.
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Ultimately irrelevant.
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Let's go back to the Darwin argument.
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The one we talked about beginning.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Would it make a difference if Darwin recounted or recanted? If you want to argue that Darwin recounted, recounted.
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Why do I keep saying recounted? If Darwin recounted, I said it again.
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I'm thinking about the election.
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Recount.
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No.
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If Darwin recanted what he taught, does that make what he taught true or false? It doesn't do either.
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Because if somebody, let's just say, how old is Billy Graham? Ninety some odd number? Ninety-seven? He's pushing, he's close to being a centurion, right? A hundred-year-old person.
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If Billy Graham recants Christianity, does that make it untrue? Now you might say, oh, Billy would never recant.
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I can point you to 15 ministers that recanted right off the top of my head.
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Does the recanting of the gospel by a minister of the gospel make it any less true? So isn't the argument ultimately irrelevant? It might be an interesting point of trivia, but it does not make something true or untrue.
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Whether or not Billy Graham believes in a positive or negative Christian truth claim is ultimately irrelevant.
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Likewise, Darwin recanting or not recanting is ultimately irrelevant.
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Now a conversation about someone recanting can be relevant if you understand why they did.
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So I want to introduce you to someone other than Darwin who did recant.
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His name is Anthony Flew.
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How many of you have ever heard of Anthony Flew? Anthony Flew was one of the most influential atheistic thinkers of the 20th century.
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He wrote, he taught, he lectured, he debated on the subject of the non-existence of God.
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He was a scientist and a scholar.
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In 2004, he did recant and said that he now believes in the existence of a God.
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Not the God of the Bible, he did not become a Christian, but he became what is known as a deist, a person who believes in the existence of a supreme being.
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Now at that point, it's no more relevant than the claim about Darwin.
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Anthony Flew becoming a deist is no more proof of God's existence than anything else, so thus it's not an argument.
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However, we can look at his reason for becoming a deist and make that relevant.
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I want to quote what he said.
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Why did he become a deist? This is his quote.
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What I think about, well rather let me start again.
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Quote, what I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life that intelligence must have been involved in getting those extraordinarily diverse elements to work together.
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It's the enormous complexity of the number of elements in the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together.
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The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute.
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It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved which look to me like the work of intelligence.
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End quote.
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So Anthony Flew went from being one of the most profound speakers, writers, and atheistic voices of the 20th century to being now one who says no, the complexity is too much of an evidence I believe in an intelligent creator.
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So can we use that argument? I think so.
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But we don't use that, we don't just say well Anthony Flew converted, that makes it true.
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No, but his argument is relevant.
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His argument is relevant.
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Sometimes seeing whether an argument is relevant is difficult but we should think about the argument and ask ourselves even if this is true does it matter? That's how you know.
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You think about an argument, ask yourself if this is true does it matter? Because we don't want to say it if it's not true.
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We don't want to say it if we don't understand it.
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And then we don't want to say it if it doesn't matter.
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And there's a common argument which I believe breaks all three rules.
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So I'm going to give you this one as the last one of the night.
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This argument I've heard out of hundreds of mouths.
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I've seen it typed on copious amounts of websites and comment boards.
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This argument is so profound that even some of you may have used it so don't bite my head off when I tell you it's a bad argument.
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Just hang with me.
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Here it is and you can write it on your list.
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If Darwinists believe men came from apes then why are there still apes? I ain't saying you did.
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You've heard it.
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If you've ever read anything about the subject online you've seen it.
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I've seen this on Facebook so many times.
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I've seen memes created around this argument.
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Picture of a monkey or an ape.
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What's the difference kids? That's right.
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If you haven't got a tail you're an ape.
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Or if you've got a tail you're a monkey not an ape.
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As VeggieTales.
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Here's the argument.
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They'll say, well if apes became men why are there still apes? How many of you have ever heard that? You haven't? I can't believe it.
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Thank you.
44:01
Okay, I'm not alone.
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And you Kelly, you said you've heard it.
44:05
Okay.
44:05
Alright, well I've heard it.
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Here's three things to consider.
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One, it's not true.
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Darwinists do not believe that apes became men.
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Darwinists believe that apes and men share a common ancestor.
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That's different and that means we don't understand it, right? So we've hit the first two.
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One, it's not true that Darwinists believe that apes became men.
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And two, we've demonstrated ignorance because we didn't understand that they didn't know or they didn't believe.
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They believe that you have ape and you have man.
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They don't believe that ape became man.
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They believe that some common ancestor became both.
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So they believe we are cousins not descendant from the other.
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And you say, well that doesn't seem like much of a difference.
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It is when you're talking to somebody who knows.
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It's a very important difference.
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But here's why I think it also falls under the category of irrelevancy.
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When you're arguing against an argument that no one's making you are at the absolute precipice of irrelevance.
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Actually, you've fallen off.
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If you're arguing against something that no one is saying, then you're making the ultimate and irrelevant arguments.
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You know what a straw man is? The straw man fallacy.
45:33
Minoa, come on.
45:35
No? Okay.
45:35
I thought you might.
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But this is, you're going to do it because I know your logic classes.
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This is important.
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And I didn't mean to call you out.
45:44
I just thought it was real cute you knew it earlier.
45:46
That was cool, man.
45:47
I want to share this because this is important.
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The straw man argument means that you create an argument simply to set it on fire like a straw, like a man made of straw.
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I'll give you an example of a straw man argument.
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Roman Catholics, so we go back to Roman Catholics.
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Roman Catholics believe you're saved by works.
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The Bible says you're not saved by works.
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Boom! No way you can answer that.
46:32
Huh? Okay, but if you tell a Roman Catholic you believe in justification by works, they'll say, no we don't.
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Because they don't.
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Read the Council of Trent.
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Read Vatican I.
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Read Vatican II.
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They do not believe in justification by works.
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They believe in justification by the infusing of grace through the sacraments.
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But it is still salvation by grace that you work with the sacraments.
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Works are involved.
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But if you go and say they believe in justification by works, guess what you've done? You have built a straw man just to set it on fire.
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And that is a logical fallacy.
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If you don't understand it, don't make the argument.
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That's what I'm getting to.
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The straw man argument is used all the time.
47:29
Presidential debates, they build it up, light it on fire.
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Reformed theology is, they straw man all the time.
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You Calvinists believe that God is a monster.
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He's a moral monster.
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All they're doing is stuffing the straw in, light it on fire.
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You Calvinists believe in no moral accountability because God's predestined everything.
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That is a straw man argument.
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Doesn't hold any water with somebody who knows the subject.
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You understand why I'm so passionate about this? When we argue, when we debate, when we discuss, we must hold the truth in absolute preeminence or we have done disservice to our King and violence to his kingdom.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for the truth and thank you for our opportunity tonight to discuss it, to study it.
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I pray that this has been helpful for these people and will be used by you to help us become better at defending our faith.
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In Jesus' name, amen.