Incredible: Christian vs Atheist Debate (White & Durbin vs Clark & Ellis)

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You've seen the oracles. Show me. Show me. Show me. What you got, dude? What you got? See him except you are a sinner.

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You are a sinner. You could see him otherwise. What more proof could you have that the

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Triune God exists except for the fact that James White says that's bull?

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Want 30 seconds? No. No. Okay. There is no interaction from the other side with anything that we have said in regards to the coherence of worldviews.

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You got proof otherwise, bro? You got empirical evidence? This has been a lot of fun so far,

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I've got to say. I wasn't expecting quite so many fireworks.

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Show me. Show me. Show me. Don't worry about it.

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Don't worry about it. Thank you, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to humbly thank you all so much for coming and giving your time and attention to this vitally important subject this evening.

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And given the fact that the Triune God of Scripture exists and the nature of the uniformity

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He imposes upon this creation in which we find ourselves, and due to the restraints of time that this creates,

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I need to get right to it. So let's do this. I'll start by immediately noting the obvious and make a concession right now to our dignified opponents by admitting defeat.

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If this were a competition over the most glorious beard, Dan, you win. Thank you.

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You're welcome. Yes. Our claim this evening is that the Triune God of Scripture exists.

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We will not be defending a general form of theism, and it is clear from the stipulated position that we are not arguing from a position of neutrality.

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Given the nature of our opponents' public claims about their professed atheistic worldview, and given the fact that they have chosen to publicly engage this topic as the opposition, neither are they.

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From a biblical and philosophical perspective, neutrality is a myth. Biblically, no one is neutral towards the

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Triune God because outside of a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, we are all fallen and in a hostile relationship with our

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Creator, and thus the problem is not evidence for this God or a lack of light. The problem is sin and suppression or holding down the truth, which is obvious to all of us.

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Philosophically speaking, we all have pre -commitments through which we attempt to make our experience intelligible.

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The question is not whether we do this. The question is whether our ultimate commitments are coherent, meaningful, intelligible, and can make sense of what we're all doing here tonight.

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We're defending historic, confessional Christianity and the biblical worldview, and our opponents are claiming to deny that the

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Triune God of Scripture exists. They are maintaining trust in an atheistic perspective of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic, history, humans, and more.

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We're contending that because God exists, this debate is possible. Given our opponents' view of the world and commitments, this debate would be incoherent, meaningless, irrelevant, and wasteful.

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Why the descendants of highly evolved societies of bacteria would be exercising energy, arguing for anything at all, in this ultimately purposeless universe, should be perplexing to all of us.

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According to them, we're stardust in an environment with no ultimate purpose, no ultimate meaning, no ultimate good or evil, and we're the random results of evolutionary processes that didn't have us in mind.

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Their atheism in a public debate, then, is a form of philosophical absurdity and intellectual adolescence.

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The claim of the Triune God of Scripture is that He has revealed Himself to us in the created order and that His creation is constantly testifying to His existence, presence, and power.

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He has revealed Himself to each and every one of us to the degree that we're left without a defense or an apologetic for our turning away from Him and our denials of His existence.

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He has revealed Himself to us in history through special revelation, in giving His self a testing word, in conscience, and ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, who is

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God incarnate. The claim of Scripture is that we all know this God, and that it's the fool who says in his heart that there is no

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God. This is not a jab. It's a spiritual and intellectual assessment of a person who refuses to face the truth, reason properly, and accept what is obvious to everyone, that the

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Triune God of Scripture exists. According to Christian confession, God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

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Scripture teaches us that God upholds the world and carries the universe along to its intended destination. Therefore, we have a justification that satisfies the preconditions necessary for the intelligibility of the uniformity in nature.

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All human experience—let me say it again—all human experience depends upon the uniformity in nature, or the inductive principle, and that the future will be like the past.

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Whether we're talking about the scientific method, the laws of logic, the laws of mathematics, or walking our dogs, all human experience is dependent upon the principle of induction.

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Our opponents will assume this all night. They're doing it right now. They'll not, however, be able to justify their appeals to it, given their atheistic presuppositions, and will demonstrate their dependence upon the

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Triune God. The Triune God of Scripture is completely sovereign over all events in history, declares the end from the beginning, and causes all things to work together for good for those who love

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God and are called according to His purpose. Therefore, all of history has meaning and purpose.

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Human beings were uniquely created by God and therefore have meaning, value, purpose, and dignity.

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We reject the claim that fish became philosophers, and that human beings are not ultimately different than snails, dogs, rocks, or dirt, as is the logical result of our opponents' worldview.

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Everything we see and can't see reflects the glory, presence, power, and creative purpose of God.

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The Christian worldview denies what atheists like Dr. Clark and Mr. Ellis claim about reality, that it is simply matter in motion, or that all that exists is the material universe.

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The Christian worldview maintains that there are material and immaterial aspects to reality and our existence.

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Because the Triune God exists, it can make sense for us to assume a immaterial, universal, and invariant, that's unchanging, laws of logic and arithmetic.

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The Christian worldview can make a coherent appeal to universal and immaterial laws that reflect the thinking of God.

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We can make sense of immaterial class concepts, laws, and unity. With the

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Triune God, we can have the one and the many. Our opponents cannot justify their appeals to laws of logic.

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Because the Triune God exists and they're made in His image, they will appeal to them. However, given their atheism, they shouldn't be.

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Human value and dignity. Because God exists and we have His revelation, we have a basis to uphold human value and dignity.

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We have a basis to believe in absolute moral oughts and responsibilities. Our opponents this evening do not.

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God is good and is a standard of good. His laws are a reflection of His own character and justice. This is important.

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Emotional appeals to suffering, pain, and evil in the world make sense if the

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Triune God of Scripture exists. Emotional appeals to evil in the world and pain and suffering have absolutely no coherent place in our opponents' worldview.

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Every time they appeal to human value and dignity, they're stealing from our worldview.

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Uniformity in nature. Because God exists, we have a philosophical basis and coherent justification for our appeal to the uniformity in nature.

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Nature is not chaos, time, and chance acting on random matter and mutations. God is the sovereign.

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And because He lives, we have a basis for our appeals to the inductive principle. And we have a basis to see miracles as peculiar events.

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Miracles aren't strange in our opponents' worldview. Let's all commit to remembering that these dudes believe that our ancestors were fish and that non -living matter became matter, or living matter.

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It's magic. We're arguing for the existence of the Triune God from the impossibility of the contrary.

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Without Him, all human experience is unintelligible. Deny Him and make all of your appeals to logic, science, and mathematics, human value, ethics, meaningless.

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I want to humbly encourage us all to be on the lookouts. For every moment, our opponents abandon their professed view of the world by complaining about logical inconsistencies, moral failings, pain and evil, and suffering in the world.

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Watch for the moments when they assume human value and dignity and demonstrate complete dependence upon the

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Triune God to make sense of their experience here tonight. For if they really are stardust, if the world is as they say that it is, and we're in this ultimately purposeless universe with no ultimate values, then let us all commit to responding to every argument they make with, so what?

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Watch for the image of God to pour out of these gentlemen in every appeal that they make to what is a denial of their worldview and can only make sense in ours.

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When it happens, I encourage you to point it out. There it is, and there it is again.

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Thank you. Now I would like to put some feet on what was just said and to give you some examples, three specific examples to illustrate what my brother

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Jeff just presented to us. One is a historical example, and it is the reality of an empty tomb outside of Jerusalem, an empty tomb after a crucifixion that took place historically.

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Now people will debate whether that happened or not. I just want to show you something. I have here just an image

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I would rather put up on the screen, but this is the Isaiah scroll from Qumran. This contains writings that were written, this one probably 200 years before Christ, but it originally was written.

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Isaiah prophesied 700 years before Christ about what took place in Jerusalem.

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Now how do we understand this? How do we understand that something could be prophesied if there is not the triune

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God who is in control of the flow of history itself? How can we understand that?

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From you it's accepted. From him it's not. Is there a problem? Yes, there is. What's the problem? I'll address it in my talk.

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Okay. Could you let me know where we were on time, please?

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9 .56. Alright, 10 minutes. Alright. 10 minutes left, so I've got 5 minutes left.

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Alright. Thank you very much. Alright, we'll pick up from there. The second issue that I'd like to present to you is a scientific issue.

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Right now, in every cell in your body, something called cellular respiration is taking place.

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And the mechanism by which it takes place, I can show you what it looks like, but it is an incredibly designed mechanism that can basically reconstitute the denisene triphosphate from denisene diphosphate.

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It uses a proton gradient and it spins around. It is an amazing and designed reality that is right there in front of us that anyone studying biology at this university is quite well aware of.

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It is a scientific reality. And then the third issue. There are a couple hundred people in this room right now.

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Why did you come here? You came here expecting to hear reason. You came expecting that language was going to be utilized and it was going to make sense, that we wouldn't all be speaking different languages.

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You came here expecting that the laws of logic would be followed, that we would reason with one another.

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That's why you came here this evening. You were expecting that kind of regularity in this conversation.

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Now, those three things, in an atheistic worldview, are just random realities.

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You don't have any explanation for how you can have prophecy of an event seven centuries before it takes place.

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That's just weird and there must be an explanation, but you don't really know what it is. And, you know, there's tremendous biological complexity, but it's just random chance.

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It just happened over time and you don't have to have any type of intelligence behind that.

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And you all are here and you're expecting one particular thing, but you might be disappointed and there's really no reason for you to actually believe that we would use the laws of logic or follow the laws of logic in our argument.

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But from a Christian worldview, those three issues are all related to one another. The triune

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God who exists is able to prophesy future events as He did in Scripture because He's sovereign over events in time.

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And it was His intention to bring about that empty tomb and to change the entire history of mankind.

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That is the central point of human history is that empty tomb. And the reality of how we are created, the beauty and complexity of our physical life makes perfect sense in the light of the fact that the triune

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God is intelligent and is in control of all things and all things in Him hold together as we are told in Scripture.

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He has the capacity to make that kind of nanotechnology. And this evening, each one of us in this room is made in the image of God.

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And because we're made in the image of God, then we expect that reason and logic is going to be utilized when our fellow image bearers seek to interact with us.

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And so there is coherence and there is consistency in looking at any aspect of human life, history, science, whatever it might be.

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There is a basis for making it all understandable within the Christian worldview.

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Whereas within the atheistic worldview, it's simply, well, some of you might be

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Trekkies here. Don't admit it publicly. It's a dangerous thing. But one of the descriptions

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Jeff has used were simply startups. Others have talked about how we are just simply chemicals fizzing.

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But one of the descriptions that was used of an alien species of us is that we are simply ugly bags of mostly water.

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Why are ugly bags of mostly water sitting here quietly listening to me speak?

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Do we really expect there to be a transcendent truth that can actually be appealed to and recognized amongst us?

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Why? If we all are just ugly bags of mostly water, there is no reason whatsoever for us to be here this evening.

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But you and I know that it's right for us to be here. You and I know that it is a proper thing for us to consider these things and to hear out the other side.

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Why? What worldview makes sense? We are arguing from the impossibility of the contrary.

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As soon as our opponents utilize the laws of logic and reason, they're making our point for us.

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That is the issue this evening. Thank you very much for being here. We are talking about the most fundamental issues, the things that are closest to our hearts.

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And so I understand that it's very easy to get swept up in the emotions. But if we're not careful, we're going to have this devolve into having a lot more heat than light.

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Please refrain from any applause or disagreement until we get to the end.

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All the speakers here this evening are being gracious enough to come.

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I don't want to show disrespect to any of them. There was an issue. I apologize.

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Apparently there was some miscommunication. I was specifically asked whether we were going to be having any visual aids.

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And I sent out an email saying either everyone has them or no one has them.

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Are there any other visual aids? I apologize that that was not more carefully communicated.

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But at any rate, there won't be any further. But please show respect to everyone.

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Hold your applause to the end. We now have Dr.

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Clark taking the negative position. Right. So when

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Jason sends out the word, Dr. Oakley's response is, so what?

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So in the beginning was the word. And the word was not presuppositionalism.

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Presuppositionalism is pigeon chess. I thought it was an exaggeration, but it turns out it's all too accurate.

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Or as William Craig Lane liked to say, it is a logical howler that begs the question.

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The question is the question of tonight's debate, which is what?

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Does the triune God of the Bible exist?

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Right. Not just any God, but that very specific

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God of that very specific text, which is also inerrant and infallible.

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They complain that just by showing up, we've lost the debate. They haven't even bothered to show up.

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They didn't address whether this God is necessarily triune. They made no attempt to show that the

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Bible is inerrant and infallible, and that's the charge of the debate. Instead, they went right back to their howler, their pigeon chess of presuppositionalism.

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So let's just use a concrete example, because this isn't a PowerPoint. This is a book. And if we agree that this is a book, and it's got three distinct personages, who among you jumps to the conclusion that this is actually really one person?

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Anybody? Bueller? Bueller? Anybody? This is a book. Do we know that these three people ever existed, or could it be pen names?

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Mark Twain is a pen name. Dr. Oakley, whoops, my bad,

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I'm so sorry, I am partially blind, is the pen name he uses to hide behind.

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Mark, Luke, John, do you really think that there were names like that running around in the

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Middle East 2 ,000 years ago? No. No. People wrote this book.

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There's a lot of lines in this book. Does this mean that this book is inerrant? Does it mean that it's infallible?

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What does it take to show that a book is inerrant and infallible?

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So, by strange divine design, once again we meet on a

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Thursday, which, as you know, is Thor's Day, right? Named after another god.

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Well, what I didn't know until recently, and you may not know, so it's kind of an interesting factoid, is

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Thor's Day is a renamed day. It's renamed. It used to be named

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Jupiter Day. But the Germanic Nordic peoples thought that was pretty silly, right?

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Jupiter, this Roman god. So they took it over and named it after a real god, the god of thunder.

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Thor, right? Thor, the god of thunder.

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And so if I read to you an ancient Nordic text that said, Thor thundered in the heavens.

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He sent out lightning flashes in abundance and routed them, his enemies.

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You would rightly say, you know what? That is the superstitious explanation of a primitive people who didn't understand the forces of nature.

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That's what you're all saying about Thor. Well, guess what? That is exactly the wording used in Psalms.

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This inerrant book. This inerrant book. It says the Lord thundered in the heavens. He sent out lightning flashes in abundance and routed them.

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And if you're having trouble telling the difference between one set of nonsense and the other because you can't see much difference, you are right.

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You are right. And that is what they build their salary on is preaching that stuff.

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That is what is the money they're taking from you. No different from Thor.

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Actually, there is a little difference. You may remember Thor had a mighty hammer. You may remember that Jesus was nailed to the cross.

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Thor for the win. You may also know that Thor was also capable of resurrection.

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He resurrected the dead. So for all we know, maybe it was Thor that raised up Jesus before he went flying into heaven.

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You can't prove that. It's impossible. That's what we're dealing with.

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Right? So what's interesting about that is not the silliness of Thor. What's interesting about that is that the very methods that theists use to reject other supernatural claims are the ones that they so often rely on.

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Right? In Christianity, faith is a virtue. Right? It's a virtue.

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But here's the thing. Faith is actually a preaching that you do not have a reason for anybody to believe what you have to say.

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And you all reject all those other faiths. There are over 1 ,000 Christian denominations in the

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United States alone today. There are over 4 ,000 religions in the world today. There are hundreds of thousands of gods throughout history, and they reject every single one of them, of course, but one, their special god, who's actually three.

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No, he's one. He's three. He's three, my lord. Two. One. Three. What nonsense. What nonsense.

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They didn't even try to address that. They didn't even try to address that. They just made an argument by assertion that Godzilla is real, and therefore he's real.

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Whoops, I'm sorry. God is real. God is real, and therefore he's real. That is the level we're dealing with.

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So what about another one? Right? Another claim. Revelation tells you so much.

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The voices in my head said something. It must be true. Joseph Smith had a revelation.

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Is that true? Anybody here? Joseph Smith's revelation, is that true? No, that's bogus, but my revelations, my god's revelations, those are real.

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Special pleading. Right? What about self -referential stuff? The Bible says it's true, so it must be true.

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The Bible is the word of God. God exists, therefore the Bible is infallible and inerrant. Well, let's take a look.

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The Book of Mormon says it's another testament of Jesus Christ. Must be true, right? What you all say is no.

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The Koran, it says right here, right in the opening first page, there's no doubt about this book.

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And you all Christians go, nope. Revelation, forget it. Self -affirmation, forget it.

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So let's go to the Bible used by Jason Wallace's church, which he has personally assured me is infallible.

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He has personally assured me it is perfect. There are no mistakes in it.

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And we open his Bible, which he told me was no different from other Bibles that these guys use.

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And I turn to the Bible, and it says the most important claim or the most direct claim for this triune

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God. For there are three that best record in heaven, the

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Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. What more proof could you have that the triune

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God exists, except for the fact that James White says that's bull.

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He wants you to buy bull. Divine coincidence? Who knows? But that actually is not inerrant.

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It's false. It's made -up man stuff. But his Bible, his

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Bible, that's perfect. Every single line, every single word.

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There are 31 ,164 verses in that perfect Bible.

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And he has gone through, and he has said every single one of them is perfect and infallible.

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No error is inerrant. So let's think about that. Let's say 50 % chance the first verse of Genesis has six claims.

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What's the chance of one tale in a row? 50%. What's the chance of six tales in a row?

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One in a hundred. One in a hundred. What's the chance of 30 claims in a row?

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About the first 10 verses of Genesis 1 alone. 30 tales in a row?

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About one in a billion. And he's going to claim that every single line in there is inerrant.

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Because if one line is not inerrant, the book is not inerrant. If you went to just the first four books of Genesis, the number of people that would have to flip coins in order to come up would be more than the number of atoms in the universe.

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If every line in here were 99 .99 % correct, the odds that all of them would be correct are less than one in 10 ,000.

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So that's his job, to prove to you that every single one of these lines is more than 99 .99%.

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So let's take a look, shall we? In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

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Oops. The earth didn't come until almost 10 billion years later. You got proof otherwise, bro?

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You got empirical evidence that the earth was created 14 billion years ago when the sun was created or the universe was created?

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You got empirical proof? No, he does not. He's got argument by assertion. That's what he's got.

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That's all he's got, okay? That's nonsense, right?

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Let's think about that, right? How do you begin to tell truth? Well, Lucy Harris had a good way. It's not perfect.

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I'll acknowledge that empirical science is not perfect. There's humans that they claim are not inerrant, so humans can make errors, right?

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So Lucy Harris actually believed in Joseph Smith's golden plates, and she said, show me. And he couldn't show her.

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What a surprise. So then, right, the real truth of how he translated it was not with the golden plates.

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It was a magic rock in a hat. He put his head in the hat and read off the words of God one by one.

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That's how Joseph Smith did it. And so Lucy Harris, by some accounts, took the first 100 pages of his translation and said, do it again.

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Show me. What a surprise. He couldn't. Now, of course, he said what

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Baptist preachers always say. It's not God's will. That's what I can say about Godzilla there in the corner.

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You all can see him. He's omnipotent. You have no right to question his existence. That's the argument these guys use.

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You have no right to even question his existence. And you would see him except you are a sinner.

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You are a sinner. You could see him otherwise. And you all recognize that's nonsense.

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But you all pay him to preach that stuff. That's the reality. So let's open this book in the first day, right?

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There's no sun yet. You all know. You do know, right? You do know what causes day and night, right?

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It's the rotation of the earth with respect to the sun. But your God didn't know that. It's the day and the first night.

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Day two, day three, fruit trees are growing on earth. Fruit trees are growing on earth. There's no sun and stars yet.

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No sun and stars. Where do the atoms even come from for these fruit trees on earth? When I was in first grade,

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I knew that flowering pants didn't come before the dinosaurs. I was a bit of a dinosaur fanatic.

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Right? Your God didn't know that. Your God didn't know anything about the bacteria. Look in the Bible. There's not one line in the

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Bible that couldn't have been seen by the ignorant goat herders a century ago without divine intervention. And it has occurred to you that the reason that there is no line in the

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Bible that couldn't have been said without its being known by the ignorant goat herders of years ago, it's because you're right.

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They knew nothing that the ignorant goat herders didn't know. And then you move on and on.

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You move to Genesis 2. And guess what? In Genesis 2, it has a completely different order from Genesis 1.

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There's no plants. And then Adam exists. And this is one of my favorite parts of the Bible. God, this omniscient being, looks around and he goes, oh,

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Adam must be lonely. I know what I'll do. I'll make a U just for you. A beach to the field.

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Hey, Adam, what do you think of this? She's white and delights him. No way,

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Yahweh. Wrong denomination. I'm a Baptist, not a Mormon. How about that cow? Look at that rack.

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She's really horny. No, I'm not in the mood. Dad jokes, right? Proof that God doesn't exist.

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So these are the absurdities that they are going to prove with 99 .99

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% certainty for every single line of the Bible. Because otherwise, like the King James Bible, that they say is not inerrant.

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And Jason Wallace says is. Who is right? They can't both be right.

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They have trashed every other religious book as wrong. And they've made no attempt whatsoever to match their ridiculous claims onto an empirical reality, except once.

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They'll always do it. When it comes to their lives being on the line, they will dump their religious claims to save their unholy butts time and time again.

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And I am going to give them the opportunity to show that they're wrong. And so that will be my rejoinder to so what?

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It will be. Show me, dude. Don't just flap the lips. Show me.

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Let me clarify immediately in regards to the visual aids, my understanding in the emails that was referred to PowerPoint or keynote presentations.

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So for the very few of you in the first three rows that you can see what I was looking at, take a point off from us.

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We'll we'll call that we'll call that even. We have nothing to rebut. The diatribe you just heard was nothing but pure anger and hatred toward God.

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There was not a scintilla of rationality in it. And I feel very sorry, because we have an opportunity of actually engaging in meaningful intellectual discussion on important issues.

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And that's not what we got. We got anger. And we got a tremendous amount of ignorance about this subject.

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Tremendous amount of ignorance about this subject. Let me just give you one example, since it was brought up to try to create a distinction between myself and Jason was a subject of what's called the

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Kamiohonium. I can guarantee you that the good doctor has never looked at a Greek manuscript, cannot read

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Greek, has never studied the issue. I spent the last program

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I did on the subject of the Kamiohonium giving a rather in -depth historical discussion of 1

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John 5, 7, these issues. But what's the problem? The problem is when you talk about the

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Bible, the New Testament was written in Greek. We're not talking about English translations that you can throw into a trash can someplace.

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We're talking about the Bible in the original languages, which was written long before there was such thing as an

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English language. And the assertion of inerrancy has to do with the original languages of Scripture, not with textual variants or historical issues in regards to the transmission of the text.

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Now, I'm very glad to discover, I'm glad you all came here this evening, and we now recognize that Thor does not exist.

34:40

That is a great advance. I sort of thought his storyline in the movies was going right down anyways.

34:47

I mean, that last one? I mean, really? Come on. Fat Thor? That just did not work at all. So I'm glad we don't know about Thor.

34:55

But here's the problem. If there was a scintilla of seriousness in the interaction from the other side, there would be a recognition of the fact that the

35:03

God we are presenting is so different than the anthropomorphic God of Thor, that that never would have been brought up.

35:11

Not once. But it wasn't even recognized. There is no interaction from the other side with anything that we have said in regards to the coherence of worldviews.

35:25

We had a lot of bluster. We had someone yelling at us rather than looking at you.

35:31

We're here for, he and I, we're here for you. Okay? That's why we're here. We're not here to express our anger and hatred about people.

35:40

We're here because this is a vitally important issue. And let me tell you something. I took the time to listen to a, multiple times, to a lengthy presentation that Dr.

35:49

Clark gave at an atheist meeting. When he was talking about God, he used profanity, he was speaking as quickly as he was this evening, and then he started talking about his own work, and a different person showed up.

36:02

A completely different person that I respect. The work he's doing is fantastic.

36:09

But he was completely different when talking about that. Why? Well, I think we just saw it. But let me point something out.

36:16

As I listened to Dr. Clark talking about the complexity of the work that he does, and how much intelligent design has gone into creating even the things that he holds patents for,

36:28

I could not help but sit back and go, do you not see? Do you not see the life around you?

36:37

Do you not see the reality of the blood clotting mechanism and the eye and ATP synthase that I was just talking to you about?

36:46

And all these things, do you not see that that far, it goes way beyond any of the design and the studying that you have done to create your work?

36:57

How can you not see this? If it takes intelligent design on your part to create what you're creating, it took intelligent design to make the original that got lost in an accident.

37:11

We live in God's world. And what you just heard didn't have a whole lot of,

37:18

I was expecting some borrowing from our worldview. There wasn't almost anything, because it was just simply angry bluster.

37:27

But generally, when you get arguments from atheism, they are going to take from our worldview regularity, induction, the laws of logic, and try to turn them against the source that they are then borrowing those elements from.

37:44

Now, I'm hoping that maybe after this point, we can actually get into some serious interaction as to how the other side has a meaningful epistemology, knows what it knows, can assert that something is true without just simply yelling about it.

38:07

But let's stop with the misrepresentation. Let's stop with the saying, well, faith is just simply believing without having a reason for believing.

38:15

Any Christian in the room knows that anybody who says that knows they don't understand what the Christian doctrine of faith is, because that's not what

38:22

Christian faith is at all. Let's have a meaningful discussion from this point on.

38:29

Let's holster the anger and let's focus upon what really has been said for the benefit of all of you who've come here this evening.

38:40

All right. That was exciting. Boy, this is fun, Dr. Clark. All right.

38:45

So listen, the debate tonight is not about whether our opponents like the Christian God, and that's about all we got just now.

38:51

Dr. Clark does not like the Christian God. It's also not about whether we like atheism. Our opponents' disdain for their creator and my personal disdain for the folly of atheism is not a tough -minded and philosophically strong foundation for either position.

39:06

We're arguing here tonight about ultimate worldviews. You see, he was concerned we didn't start off with a defense of the triune

39:14

God. But if you were all listening, you heard me talk about it. I gave a description of the triune

39:19

God. I anchored it in the historic Christian confession. I even quoted, because I love you, the

39:25

Westminster Confession of Faith. I've written a book on it. That's right. That's right.

39:31

We did talk about the triune God. How many of you guys heard me call Jesus God incarnate?

39:37

Now, if Dr. Clark knew a little bit about historic Christian confession, he would probably understand that.

39:42

But he's not in the debate yet this evening. He's just angry. And his anger is not a basis for a philosophically rigorous defense of his position.

39:52

Dr. Clark wants empirical evidence. I want to see it. I want to know it's true. I want to feel it, touch it, taste it, all the rest.

39:59

He's matter in motion. He's a bag of fizzing atoms in a universe that doesn't care about him. He has no basis for the laws of logic.

40:07

Consistency, Dr. Clark, you're going to have to justify and appeal to immaterial, that is not made of matter, unchanging, universal laws that are true tonight in Salt Lake City, Utah and in Iceland.

40:22

How do you do that in atheism? Is it by convention? We just merely stipulate that laws of logic today should be like this, and you're all supposed to hold to them?

40:30

Which kinds of laws of logic do we hold to? Dr. Clark's laws of logic, are they going to be the same 100 years from now?

40:37

Are these laws justified within a materialist view of the world? I say absolutely not.

40:43

He isn't in the debate yet tonight. He proved nothing, nothing.

40:49

He talked about goat herders, Joseph Smith, chocolate rocks, and all the rest. Dr. Clark, you should have known before you came tonight that we're not

40:56

Mormons. What is necessary for this debate this evening?

41:03

What? Listen closely. Very important, and I respect you enough to speak to you with humility at this point.

41:10

Induction, that nature is uniform. You see, this isn't a problem. Dr. Clark doesn't like this. He doesn't like Christians doing this to him.

41:17

This isn't a problem presented to Dr. Clark by presuppositional apologists. I want to know what his answer is to the

41:24

Scottish skeptic, David Hume, or to the famous atheist, Bertrand Russell, in his book,

41:30

Problems of Philosophy, chapter 6. He presents this problem to atheists like Dr.

41:35

Clark, and he says, I want a basis. Don't tell me that nature is uniform because it always has been.

41:41

I want to know how we know the future will be uniform because everything depends upon it.

41:46

And don't tell me, well, it always has been. That position is a position of sheer, ignorant, blind faith.

41:56

And the Christian position rejects that kind of faith commitment. Dr. Clark has no coherent appeal to the laws of logic, and he needs to start getting into this discussion tonight.

42:09

What is his justification for the laws of logic? How do you justify them? Dr. Clark was very, very concerned that human beings are being abused by religion.

42:19

He's very, very concerned. And I, by the way, I agree with Dr. White. Incredible what this man is doing in terms of taking care of other image bearers of God, making sure they have what they can have in a broken world, to touch things, grab things.

42:32

It is incredible. But that displays the image of God in him. He knows that that is an image bearer of God.

42:39

It's not a snail, rock, horse, or dog, or dirt. It's worthy of our value, dignity, and respect.

42:48

And that's what we plan to give them this evening. Thanks, Jason.

43:22

Thank you all very much for coming out. It's good to see you all here. This is a big turnout. I wasn't expecting quite this many people.

43:28

So thank you all very much for coming out on a school night. We won't try to keep you too late. This has been a lot of fun so far,

43:37

I've got to say. I wasn't expecting quite so many fireworks.

43:45

But it's fun. It should be good. This is my first formal debate. Had I known that it was going to be a debate with presuppositionalists,

43:54

I probably would have turned it down. Because it's almost like we're speaking two different languages.

44:00

Dr. White clearly speaks more than one, so maybe that's why. It kills me when

44:09

I hear them say things like, intelligent design is what gave us the arms that Dr.

44:16

Clark is now working on to heal the amputees that apparently

44:22

God can't or won't. In the history of the world, does anybody know of any, even one, a single amputee who has ever been healed by God, by the power of God, by the power of prayer?

44:36

Name me one. Show me one example of this in the history of mankind. Apparently God is too lazy, stupid, or unwilling to help those whose arms, legs, eyes, fingers, toes have been removed through one unlucky circumstance or another.

44:56

He has to rely on people like Dr. Clark doing the great work that he's doing.

45:04

Jeff said it's obvious to everyone that his God exists. For the record, how many atheists are in the audience?

45:11

If you are an atheist, you don't have to raise your hand. I know that in some spots that's a little dangerous for people.

45:19

So clearly we don't all know that his God exists. Fish don't become philosophers.

45:27

That's true. Humans do. It's not my fault that Jeff doesn't seem to understand how evolution works, but it is a fact nonetheless.

45:36

He thinks it's magic, and in some sense I agree with him. It's amazing, but is he then implying that his

45:43

God doesn't use magic? What would he call it, I wonder? Special secret powers?

45:52

The primary argument that James and Jeff are using to prop up a belief in their God is what is referred to as the transcendental argument for God.

46:00

This argument attempts to prove the existence of their God by arguing that logic, morals, science, love, everything, ultimately presuppose a supreme being, and that their

46:14

God must therefore be the source of said logic, morals, science, love, and everything else.

46:24

James used a bit of science in his opening remarks. It's curious to me that he borrows from my worldview in order to do so, that science is the best method we have for explaining and exploring the world in which we find ourselves.

46:41

The problem is his religion forces him to cast aside scientific reasoning and logic whenever it doesn't fit the narrative that the

46:50

Bible, he believes is inerrant, tells him. Jeff seems to like using a line that we're all just stardust.

47:03

I don't think I'm just stardust. Do any of you think you're just stardust?

47:09

Something to be swept up off the floor, discarded? Something that you can easily just get rid of?

47:16

Something that doesn't think, doesn't love, doesn't use rational thought to come to conclusions?

47:25

He may think we're stardust. I think we're a lot more than that. We don't need an invisible sky fairy to tell us to be good to each other.

47:39

And the fact that he phrases the question the way that he does, that if we're all just stardust or protoplasm bumping into each other, leaves me to wonder how it is that he believes anything works at all.

47:55

But does that offer any explanatory knowledge? In other words, does it provide any reason to believe their claims?

48:03

They're simply asserting that their God exists and not offering any evidence for it.

48:09

As Dr. Clark pointed out, it would be like saying, oh no, it's actually Godzilla, the invisible incorporeal being in the corner who created everything and rules our universe.

48:25

Ooh, it's a pretty sunset tonight. God must have made that. Are you trying to tell me that trees and birds and puppies and kittens all just happened through some random series of events?

48:37

Yeah, pretty much. The time to believe that a claim is absolutely true is only after it has been demonstrated to be true, not before.

48:47

James and Jeff have contended that logic itself is impossible without their God and that without their

48:55

God and the laws of logic their God creates, the world would be an absurd place. But logic itself cannot be used as a justification for belief in their

49:05

God, so they are compelled to employ the slimy tactic of putting themselves above everybody else and claiming that they and people like them have the truth.

49:16

They argue that their God has revealed himself to them through Scripture and some other hocus -pocus notion of their

49:21

God's existence being written on our hearts and minds. But if, as I'm sure they would agree, humans are fallible, then they must also surely acknowledge that any message received by their

49:32

God would have to be processed by the fallible minds of the fallible people to whom their

49:37

God has revealed itself. I have yet to see where modal logic is described in the

49:43

Bible, but apparently James and Jeff thinks this represents the mind of their God. They smuggle in a lot of non -Christian reasoning and conflate their own understanding of things with the mind of their

49:54

God. That's not only arrogant, but if their God exists, it's also blasphemous.

49:59

Even if naturalism or materialism cannot provide a firm foundation for knowledge, and I don't know that it does,

50:08

I'll freely make that concession, it does not follow that belief in a

50:14

God can. Simply asserting without evidence that it can is a lapse in moral judgment itself and exposes their arguments as the hollow, my

50:26

God is better than your God, ignorant and childish stance that it is. James and Jeff believe that their

50:34

God is perfection itself. That is, they do not believe that their God is a thing that can be described as perfect, but that their

50:41

God is perfection manifest. But if a being can be described not as simply something which is perfect, but that the being in and of itself is perfect, why would such a being create anything at all?

50:56

Would a perfect being have any wants? Would a perfect being be jealous?

51:04

Would a perfect being be angered by anything? Of course not.

51:13

But all of those are attributes of James and Jeff's God as described in the Bible. If miracles happen, if they exist, and I'm reasonably sure that James and Jeff would both agree that they do or would say that they do, the laws of logic are thrown out the window.

51:31

They argue that inductive reasoning cannot happen without their God because the world then becomes an absurd place.

51:38

But they also hold what seems to be a contradictory notion that their

51:45

God can suspend the laws of logic wherever and whenever it chooses to do so.

51:51

I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty easy to see that such a contradictory view is itself absurd.

51:59

How would we account for God's intervention when conducting clinical trials of a new drug? Would we have to limit studies only to beings for whom

52:06

James and Jeff's God hasn't revealed himself? What if we were testing the efficacy of a new cancer treatment?

52:13

Would we have to wonder if among the test subjects who respond to treatments that they are actually responding to the treatment?

52:19

Would we have to wonder if the treatment itself wasn't doing anything at all, but that God intervened and performed some kind of miracle to heal them?

52:29

How would we account for that? Do we have to drop all Calvinists out of scientific studies?

52:38

Does their God reveal himself to animals? Would we only be allowed to know for certain that animals are the only viable test subjects upon which we can rationally conduct any scientific testing because God wouldn't be mucking up the results?

52:56

I don't think James and Jeff take their own conclusions about presuppositionalism seriously. As I heard from the crew of one of my all -time favorite podcasts,

53:05

Reasonable Doubts, thanks for the reminder, Lars, quote, if this is how a presuppositionalist thinks, shouldn't

53:14

Calvin College be full of departments that are busily working on revising modern probability theory to account for all of this?

53:24

Isn't there a potential contradiction, then again, with the laws of logic? Because something like Bayes' theorem can be proved, right?

53:30

It's based in logic, and yet it tells us how we should go about thinking about probability, but Bayes' theorem couldn't possibly apply in a universe where God is constantly intervening.

53:40

Its measurements would be useless. Thank you. What is your response to Bertrand Russell in Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 6?

53:59

He says, it's been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past because what the future has constantly become the past and has always been found to resemble the past, so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times which were formerly future, which we may call past futures.

54:16

But such an argument really begs the very question at issue. We have experience of past futures, but not of future futures.

54:22

And the question is, will future futures resemble past futures? This question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from past futures alone.

54:31

We have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past.

54:38

What is your response to Bertrand Russell, atheist in Problems of Philosophy? My first response is to you, and I remind the audience that the topic of this debate was not presuppositionalism.

54:50

The topic of this debate was not for us to prove logic exists. The topic is, does the triune

54:58

God of inerrant Bible exist? And you'll notice the shell game that he's playing, even though I pointed out to this as the very first point.

55:07

He's still going back to, my God is responsible for everything and therefore if you even show up at this debate,

55:18

I won. Please, right, as Dan has pointed out, as I have pointed out, as you all laughed at Thor, you're not

55:25

Mormons, I get that, that's the point, is you reject all of that stuff. And there's all these gods out here, so the question is not, does inductive logic work?

55:33

The question is, does the triune God exist of the Bible?

55:39

Dr. Clark, do you have an answer? That said, I just want to remind everybody what the debate actually is supposed to be, and so far they've continually avoided it.

55:49

Dr. Clark, do you have an answer, sir? Inductive logic is imperfect, and it does not provide 100 % certainty.

55:56

So you have no answer to Bertrand Russell's problem of induction? My answer is inductive logic is not imperfect.

56:02

I didn't say inductive logic, sir. I said the problem of induction, the uniformity in nature, not merely inductive logic.

56:09

God provides no explanation whatsoever that's not already in its assumption and one could just as well say

56:16

Godzilla did it, and if you want to explain why Godzilla didn't do it, then go right ahead.

56:23

But that answer is self -referential and empty. Dr. Clark, our question is about your methodology, your criticisms, and your worldview and the consistency thereof.

56:34

I understand your questions want to be about a change in the debate topic. It has nothing to do with changing the debate topic, sir.

56:41

Excuse me, it very much is. For example, Godzilla. I'll give an answer, and you can show me that it's about it.

56:49

Godzilla is all -powerful. You're not allowed to question his existence because he is your creator.

56:55

This is their argument. And therefore, the fact that logic exists, that inductive logic exists, is proof that Godzilla exists.

57:05

So, Dr. Clark, you've now abandoned atheism and you're a Godzilla -ite? I'm saying that those are equally useless.

57:11

And you provide now a justification with Godzilla -ism for a principle of induction? You haven't solved the problem,

57:17

Dr. Clark. I am providing an equivalence between what your audience laughed at with respect to Thor, with respect to Godzilla, and somehow wants to pay you to keep preaching.

57:28

Did you want to know my answer? I would, Dan. Thank you. I would just say that I have no idea.

57:33

I don't know. Bertrand Russell himself didn't know. He's a hell of a lot smarter than I am. So, Dan, you live by faith?

57:40

No, I don't. Would you say that you have confidence in the principle of induction? Sure. So you are with faith?

57:47

No, I am not with faith. Confide? Confide with faith. Confidence means with faith.

57:53

Well, it depends. I mean, that's a loaded term, right? Give me your definition of faith. Well, you have trust, but there are different types of trust.

57:59

There's trust with evidence, with justification, and then there's blind, ignorant trust.

58:05

You have no basis to believe that the laws of logic are uniform. You have no basis to believe that the next five seconds you won't float away to the ceiling because you just depend on faith.

58:16

Or that God could maybe do that. I mean, if he breaks these laws of logic all the time through miracles, you're right.

58:21

I have no basis to say that. You're confusing categories. When you talk about breaking laws of logic with miracles, what we're really talking about with miracles is the uniformity in nature.

58:32

And now you're borrowing again from our worldview, so I ask again. You depend on the uniformity in nature for miracles to be odd events.

58:39

What we say is God is sovereign, and he imposes uniformity upon creation. Therefore, miracles are strange with the triune

58:45

God of Scripture. We're supposed to see dead men rising and go, that's weird. In your worldview, weird things happen all the time.

58:54

Fish become philosophers. There's all kinds of strange occurrences. No, they don't. Humans become philosophers. I can't explain to you why you can't seem to grasp that or why you don't understand evolution, but that's not my problem.

59:05

That's your problem. Fish became philosophers through a long result of random mutations. No, fish do not become philosophers.

59:11

I'll say it again. Fish do not become philosophers. Humans do. Do you believe you were descended from fish somewhere in the chain?

59:20

I don't know that I came from fish. In a long causal chain of evolution, yes, early ancestors were not land -roving people.

59:30

Were they fish? Were my ancestors fish? Yes, so were yours. So you do believe your ancestors were fish?

59:36

Yes. So we finally have that down now. Good. Thank you, Dan. You're very welcome. Dan, do you eat fish?

59:42

I have a lot of people who actually study evolution really, really carefully that I'd be happy to point you to some of their work.

59:49

Happy to read them. Now, Dan, do you eat fish? Yes, I do. Dan, if you have ancestors who are fish and you eat fish today, let me ask you a question.

59:59

What's the distinction between you and other random results of evolutionary processes? Why do you uphold human value and dignity above, say, snails, horses, dogs, and rocks?

01:00:11

Well, I have yet to see a horse that could reason as well as I can. So if it reasons better, it is more valuable and has more dignity?

01:00:18

Not necessarily, no, but I think it holds more weight, right? I think you would also say that a rock isn't as important as a human being or anything else.

01:00:28

Because it's not the image of God. It's a rock. Oh, a rock is—I'm sorry, say that again?

01:00:34

We would say a rock is not the image of God. Human beings are the image of God. So on what basis do—well, let me ask it this way.

01:00:41

You say if it reasons better, it has more value. What if a segment of humanity grows large and draws a smaller circle around themselves and say, we reason better than your group, therefore we'll exterminate you.

01:00:54

Are they right for doing that? I think we would need to be able to have a way to test those claims, and they would have to be able to demonstrate that their claims are more correct.

01:01:03

That's how we do that. So it's possible—it is possible for a segment of humanity to draw a smaller circle around their group and exterminate other groups.

01:01:11

Not only is it possible, we see it happen way too often. Right. Is it wrong? Yeah, I believe it is.

01:01:16

Is it absolutely morally wrong? Tell me what you mean by absolutely morally wrong.

01:01:22

Is it something that exists outside of my own preferences and my own likes and dislikes? Is it something that's true whether I like it or not?

01:01:28

Well, as I've said, I believe that the laws of logic exist. We're talking about ethics. Okay.

01:01:34

Not laws of logic. Okay, are you saying that is there an absolute ethical standard in—

01:01:41

Let me ask you— Like some ultimate absolute ethical standard, right? Can I quote you? You specifically said, we don't need an invisible sky fairy to tell us we are to be good to each other.

01:01:52

So given that Stalin and Mao were both atheists and were responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths, why didn't they need a sky fairy to tell them what to do in light of what you're saying?

01:02:07

Is there an absolute moral standard that says Auschwitz was wrong?

01:02:14

That Mao was wrong? I do not know if there's an absolute moral standard that says Auschwitz was wrong.

01:02:19

So how can you condemn them? But you've not offered us any evidence for that claim. You've simply asserted that your

01:02:25

God exists. If there was an empty— What is the evidence of the existence of your God? Okay, you can ask us those questions when it's your turn.

01:02:31

Sure. But when you say what you said right now, do you not see a difference between our saying that there is an empty tomb that was prophesied beforehand and the one who came out of that tomb gave us his law and your argument for Godzillism?

01:02:52

That's not my argument. Oh, okay, so there's a division on the other side. Okay, all right.

01:02:58

If you didn't strum my position or tell me what my position is. Dr. Clark's position. You're welcome to ask me what it is.

01:03:03

That would be great. Okay. May I ask a question? Go ahead. Okay, so another question. Off the issue of the uniformity of nature and the principle of induction, what are the laws of logic and how are they justified?

01:03:17

There's the law. Let me look them up here just so that I don't mess it up. You don't have to go through the different distinctions and laws and categories, but what are they in an atheistic perspective?

01:03:28

We argued in the opening statement that the laws of logic reflect the thinking of God. God is unchanging.

01:03:34

God cannot lie. Therefore, God cannot engage in logical contradiction. We have a principian, a reference point, a standard outside of ourselves for universal, abstract, unchanging laws of thought that God imposes upon creation and expects us to think about what is your justification,

01:03:50

Dan? I'm saying that you don't have justification for that, or at least you haven't demonstrated it. You've made an assertion, but you've not demonstrated it.

01:03:58

You've not provided any evidence for that. Well, Dan, respectfully, you can ask that question, but what is your justification? I'm not asking a question.

01:04:03

I'm making a statement. You're asserting that this is the case. You have yet to offer any evidence for that.

01:04:08

The question being asked of you in cross -examination right now is what are the laws of logic from an atheistic perspective, and how are they justified in your worldview?

01:04:16

They're justified under my worldview because they comport with the reality in which I find myself. Are they material in nature?

01:04:22

No, I don't believe so. So, laws of logic are not material in nature. No, numbers are not either.

01:04:27

So, very good. But they exist. Okay, so you do believe there are immaterial aspects to reality.

01:04:33

There are abstract concepts with which we can think about how the world works through using those abstract concepts.

01:04:40

Are these abstract concepts conventional in nature? Tell me what you mean by conventional in nature.

01:04:46

Do we determine and stipulate as humans what these laws of logic are? Are they conventional? We determine what they are.

01:04:53

I don't understand your question still. Laws of logic, do they exist? Are they real?

01:05:00

I just told you, I think they're abstract concepts. Okay, are these abstract concepts things that humans by convention have merely stipulated?

01:05:07

Or are they things that exist as... Would they be true without human beings? There you go. I believe that they would be.

01:05:14

Yeah, I believe that they would be here whether human beings were here or not. But, I mean, if they were here and no human was around to observe them, then it's...

01:05:24

I mean, it's a fun thing to think about. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate that very much. So, what would be your justification for appealing to immaterial abstract universals given your materialism?

01:05:36

Can you ask me that again? Sure. As an atheist, I assume you're a materialist? Yes. Okay, so you believe all that exists is matter?

01:05:45

That's all that I've been able to have any demonstration for. Okay, so on what basis are you holding to immaterial laws?

01:05:51

Because you just said you believe the laws of logic are immaterial. So where do they come from? Yeah, I believe numbers are immaterial also, but I also believe that they are useful and exist.

01:06:00

We agree. Then where do they come from? Yeah, so where do they come from? From human thought. So they are merely conventional?

01:06:07

What do you mean by merely conventional? Human beings convene and stipulate what a law of logic or a law of arithmetic is.

01:06:15

No, I just told you that I believe the laws of logic would be around whether humans created them or thought of them or were around to recognize them.

01:06:25

I appreciate that. If I could ask Dr. Clark a quick question. There was criticism made of, you said they didn't even try to address the

01:06:39

Trinity. Dr. Clark, did you read my book on the Trinity? I did not read your book.

01:06:46

Okay, all right. How much do you sell it for? I'm surprised. Well, you know, if someone had a copy. I'll accept a free copy.

01:06:52

If someone had a copy out there, we'll be happy to get you a free copy. That's not an issue. You know how many books

01:06:57

I had to, how many versions of the Bible I had to plow through? Like I thought that was a sacrifice enough, but whatever.

01:07:04

So when we say the triune God of Scripture is important in this debate, you stood somewhere in the walking around up here, you stood there and talked about, well, it's three, it's one, it's three, it's one.

01:07:20

Do you not understand even what we're saying when we say the triune God of Scripture? I actually would appreciate clarification of what that means.

01:07:29

As you may know, Thomas Jefferson thought, not that I'm quoting authority, but it's a good point and I'm giving credit, was that actually it's hard to make sense of it.

01:07:38

And I tried actually to have this discussion. As you know, you probably know because Jason actually forwarded my emails to you trying to get a handle of what the triune

01:07:47

God, and I will freely admit, I started off thinking that I would be able to get a better handle on it than I did, and I failed.

01:07:56

Could I ask if most of your interaction with religious people has been here in Utah?

01:08:03

Of course not. No. So you're from someplace else. I am. Okay. So you recognize that, for example,

01:08:10

Mormonism is not Trinitarian. Well, actually, if you want to have a reasonable discussion on this, what

01:08:17

I actually found going into the debate, which was that there were several topics proposed, by the way, and several of them were rejected, and the ones they're focusing on are the ones that were rejected, so just as a reminder.

01:08:30

And one of the issues was, what is the nature of this triune God in Mormonism versus classical or conventional

01:08:37

Trinitarianism, like in Catholicism, and so forth. And I thought I actually understood the

01:08:42

Mormon position better than I, or the distinction better than I do, okay, because I always thought, well, okay, great, because in Mormonism, actually, it's

01:08:51

Jesus who formed the creation, and it's Jesus who demanded that if you have relationships with animals, which was

01:09:01

God's plan, that you should be killed and all the rest. It was Jesus of the Old Testament. So that is a distinction.

01:09:07

But actually, when I tried to grapple with it and understand what three personages meant, and I looked at the material that Jason was kind enough to send to me and read up on the

01:09:21

Trinitarian view, the honest truth is, I can't wrap my head around what it means to have three distinct persons who's actually just one person.

01:09:31

I'd love to have someone clarify it. It's probably too long for this debate, but I don't get it.

01:09:40

Yeah, so Jason's invited me to lunch. As time permits, we'll get together sometime.

01:09:51

To the positive? Oh, from us to them.

01:09:58

Okay, thank you for the question. Oh, man. Well, you know, God can change my mind, right?

01:10:04

He changed the pharaoh's mind. He hardened their hearts so that the pharaoh would not let his people go, his

01:10:11

God's people go, so that God could slaughter the firstborns and show what a wonderful God he is rather than just letting his people go.

01:10:20

Is that a question? Changing his mind. Was that a question? No, I'm... I'd be happy to address it if you find that objectionable.

01:10:27

No, it's not a question. Oh, okay. Well, I was going to get to that. Since God can read minds and since God can plant thoughts in my mind,

01:10:35

I have a trinity of numbers here. What are they?

01:10:41

Is that supposed to be a question either? Yes, that is a question. I'm not Johnny Carson. That is a question. Your all -powerful

01:10:47

God can do this. He changed the pharaoh's heart. Jason is spending time praying for my mind to change, so God...

01:10:53

He clearly believes... So does everybody, so does all the Christians in the room. Do you think God can change my mind? Yes. You'd have to change your heart first.

01:11:00

Well, you know, we think actually with our minds... That may be, but your heart, it gives you the desires.

01:11:06

If you don't know, if you take an artificial heart and put it in a person, they still think... I know that. Good. And you know where the sun goes at night, right?

01:11:13

Yeah, I... Good. Can I respond to anything you're saying, or are you just going to rail on?

01:11:19

That's absurd. Okay, that's an absurd question, but I would like to respond... Miracles are absurd.

01:11:25

Of course, I didn't say that. Miracles are absurd. Could I answer the question? Speaking... No, I asked you a question, and here's the question.

01:11:32

We've got miracles ready to happen, right? Ready to happen, but they didn't happen.

01:11:38

Why is it that miracles never occur except when they're things that would happen anyway? Let's go to one of God's tests.

01:11:46

That is a claim, and I asked the question... Okay, can I... Okay, let's address... Let me address miracles.

01:11:52

First of all, miracles... No, no, no. That's not my question. My questions are... Show me. Okay? It looks like you want another 15 minutes to talk.

01:12:00

You're not asking questions. So here's my question. The Baal test, you're familiar with it, right? You're an expert on the

01:12:06

Bible. Tell us the story of Baal. Which... And Elijah... There are many Baals, sir.

01:12:11

And Ahab. There are many Baals, sir. Which one do you have specific reference to? So the story of Ahab and Elijah and their test of a true

01:12:20

God. Yes. You're familiar with that story? Quite. Okay, and so...

01:12:26

I was just in Israel and I didn't know where it happened, actually. And so the Baal test was that if you are a believer that a fake

01:12:34

God would not set something on fire and a real God would... So you've read the text? Yeah, I have read the text.

01:12:40

Okay, so can I answer now? Can I answer now? Can you do that? Will you allow an answer, sir?

01:12:46

Will you sit down and allow an answer? My question is this. Can you do that? Yes or no? No, he cannot do that.

01:12:53

Okay, I'm going to try... I'm going to try to give an answer here. Miracle number two doesn't happen. Okay. Miracle number three.

01:12:59

Show me, show me, show me. Sir, sir, this is absurd. Of course it's absurd. This is your book that's absurd. Let me answer the question. Lighting stuff on fire...

01:13:06

How many of you would like to hear an answer to the question? Sit down. Sit down.

01:13:12

I need to stand up because I need to see you. I need to hear. Well, you need to at least pause and allow an answer to your question.

01:13:18

Okay, here's my answer. If you need to see me to hear the answer, let me give you the answer. I was just in Israel at the point where this happened.

01:13:25

If you've read the text, these were covenant people, and they were going after another god, a god who had already said that they would be punished if they did this thing, and they are the ones who then...

01:13:38

Yes, it was. If you can ignore the context of that particular passage... The question is, can you do that? Can I do what?

01:13:44

Call fire down out of heaven? Yeah. Not in this context. No, sir. Okay, can you do any...

01:13:49

May I ask you another question? Simple question. Did you hear my answer? Yeah. There are times when God uses miracles, and there are times when

01:13:56

God does not to specifically establish his word in scripture.

01:14:02

That time has passed. Now we have the church, sir, and we have the fact that God changes hearts, as he has many people in this room.

01:14:10

Oh, isn't that sweet? Isn't that sweet? So, you know, as Mr. Wallace pointed out to me, there's a funny thing, and I wonder if you can figure it out.

01:14:20

Is this a question for us? Yes, it is. In just a second. Okay, but I'm going to give you the context, right?

01:14:27

Just like you spent all this time saying no in a minute, right? And the context was this.

01:14:33

George Bernard Shaw, and I credit Wallace for pointing this out to me, said, you know the miracles that happen at Lourdes?

01:14:39

Like, people get out of wheelchairs, and they drop crutches, but they never drop an artificial leg, because God doesn't heal amputees, as was pointed out.

01:14:49

They also don't grow hair. So the question is, can you grow hair on Dr. White right now?

01:14:57

He uses a Bic razor. Can you do it? Can you do it, Jeff? What's that? Can you do it,

01:15:03

Jeff? Can I do what? All he's got to do is steal my razor, and it'll grow back naturally. So Dr.

01:15:09

White claims that biblical miracles are still happening. Dr. Clark, this is devolving. If you could allow me to answer the question.

01:15:16

It's a simple question. Can you grow hair on his head right now, just like Jesus at once performed his miracles?

01:15:23

Because Dr. White claims that miracles are still happening. Scripture, no. Actually, Dr. White has not claimed it in that way at all.

01:15:31

I did not. You are misrepresenting him. It's not going to help us if you put words in our mouths. What our position is, is that the triune

01:15:38

God of Scripture exists, and that he imposes uniformity upon creation. He upholds it by the word of his power, and carries it along to his intended

01:15:46

I am telling you right now. He carries it along to its intended destination.

01:15:52

Therefore, we have a philosophical basis, something that satisfies the preconditions of intelligibility to appeal to uniformity, to make miracles look odd.

01:16:01

Further, our God is the triune, holy, holy, holy God. We are sinners, rebels, and a fallen creation.

01:16:09

And sir, we have no right to look up to God and tell him, you do as I say. And I am very, very glad, certainly glad for your sake tonight, sir, that God doesn't allow us to call down fire upon you.

01:16:22

That's right. I'm worried about that in the same sense I'm worried about Dracula coming. And what would that say about your moral convictions?

01:16:30

Well, I would say, let me answer that question. You talk about morals. I think that's still my question.

01:16:36

He asked a question. You've had a few, sir, just to show respect to Dan. I appreciate it, Dan. Thank you, I appreciate it.

01:16:42

So when you ask that question, Dan, it's interesting because just a few moments ago we asked a question about absolute moral values and moral odds.

01:16:53

And you had no argument against Auschwitz. That's not at all the case.

01:16:58

You have no ultimate argument against Auschwitz. Okay, I have no ultimate argument against it because I don't even know what the hell that means.

01:17:04

You don't know what it means for Nazis to exterminate Jews? What do you mean an ultimate? Something that's true outside of your own likes and dislikes, your own experience.

01:17:14

Something that's true outside of your own community. It's true whether you like it or not. It's ultimate, it's objective. You haven't demonstrated that you have that either.

01:17:21

You've simply made assertions. Well, I told you that apart from the Christian God, you can't make sense of human experience, ethics, morality, epistemology.

01:17:28

That's yet again a simple assertion. You've offered no evidence for that. And I'm demonstrating to you right now that we have a basis to uphold your human value and dignity.

01:17:35

You say you have a basis for it and yet you've not. I'm going to finish the thought. I'm going to finish the thought and answer it.

01:17:41

We've demonstrated that we have a basis, a philosophically consistent basis. You've asserted it. Dan, if I could finish the thought, and then you could come right back and ask the question.

01:17:48

Hey, absolutely. You just keep saying the same thing, so I have to make sure that people know that that's not the case.

01:17:54

We have a basis to complain about Auschwitz. You don't. Bullshit.

01:18:02

That's another question. No, I don't think it was.

01:18:10

You've admitted that your perspective is that our ancestors were fish and that there are no ultimate values and oughts outside of our own experience or mere convention.

01:18:18

You've essentially stipulated that position. And so with your position, you have no complaint about anything ethically at all.

01:18:27

You can't tell me that I have no complaint because I absolutely do. No, I know you do because you're an image -bearer of God. You're saying that I need to have an image -bearer of God.

01:18:33

You're saying that I need to have an ultimate authority for it. Dan, you're in the image of God, and you do. I don't need an ultimate authority for that. I admit this, and I'm going to say this with a lot of respect to you.

01:18:40

You're in the image of God, and you do complain about things that are immoral. God needs to lose some weight. But that's because you're in his image.

01:18:46

I will ask questions of the audience.

01:18:56

Yeah, actually, I… Can I ask a very quick question? Yes, sir. Very quick. If you can answer it yes or no, that would be great.

01:19:02

Otherwise, we may… The audience is moaning, Dr. Clark. Do you hallucinate often? Do I hallucinate often?

01:19:08

Yes. Just yes or no. No, not often. I did before, 20 years ago. James White, do you hallucinate?

01:19:14

There was a lot of ecstasy and marijuana involved, and that was about it. So, James White, do you hallucinate often?

01:19:20

Okay. I say I hallucinate often, and I say they hallucinate often. Everybody close one eye.

01:19:26

Okay? Look at me. You don't see anything weird. I'll project into what I think you see. And yet, you all knew since first grade that you had a blind spot in your eye because you have no photoreceptors there because the intelligently designed eye has a hole in it where you can't see.

01:19:43

But you don't see that you can't see, and what they're seeing is hallucinations, and they claim they don't even know it.

01:19:49

Dr. Clark, this is a time for questions. You can cover all of that in your post -it note. I am telling you that they have just given an answer that you can all verify at home tonight.

01:19:59

Everyone in the room tonight knows the difference between the term hallucination and the fact that there is a blind spot that we all have recognized and seen due to physical science.

01:20:09

It's not the same thing. It is our sight system filling in and allowing us to function in a meaningful fashion in this world.

01:20:18

That's not the same thing as a hallucination. We're playing on words here. Could we get to some serious questions, please?

01:20:24

I've got... That actually is a very serious question. None of you can tell very easily which part of that is made up by your brain versus actually a stimulus out there in the real world.

01:20:34

And when you see stuff that's not in the real world, that's a hallucination. Dr. Clark, you're commenting. We need to have questions.

01:20:40

We only have four minutes of change left. I've got a question for you.

01:20:46

Could you lean forward so they can hear you? Oh, sorry. Thank you, Dan. I try to project enough that you can hear me anyway, but...

01:20:51

With that beard, you need to work real... It muffles. It kind of muffles the sound a little bit sometimes. So I'm curious about the totality of God's message in revealing himself to you.

01:21:03

I know that you have said that he writes the knowledge of his existence on our hearts and or minds and reveals himself further through Scripture.

01:21:15

But you've said that people have... Everybody has knowledge of God enough to...

01:21:22

That they have no excuse for not believing in him, right? No defense. Is that basically... Okay. That's Romans 1, yes.

01:21:29

Okay, thank you. So when God revealed himself to you in your heart or mind, what was the totality of that message?

01:21:40

Was it simply, I exist? Or, hi, this is God, I just wanted to let you know

01:21:46

I love you and I'm here for you. You're former LDS, right? Yes, I am. Okay, so this is an area of major difference between Reformed Christians and the

01:21:57

LDS faith because we believe that we were dead in our sin, that we are in rebellion against God, and in fact, the term that Paul uses, katakanton in the original language, we are suppressing the knowledge of him.

01:22:08

That is not really a part of LDS theology that does not have any deep concept of man's depravity at all.

01:22:15

We believe, because that's what Romans 1 is talking about. So we believe there has to be a miraculous changing of our heart, and we do not mean our physical heart.

01:22:24

We mean the seat of our emotion and our desires. There has to be something called resurrection.

01:22:30

God has to be the one who changes us and brings us to spiritual life. It's a spiritual resurrection.

01:22:38

It's radical, and it's not something that we bring about by our own actions. All right, but that wasn't my question. My question was, was there anything, like, what was the totality of his message to you when he revealed it?

01:22:49

Does that make sense? No, very much. Dan, that's a great question. Thank you very much. I think it goes to what you asked the audience, too, and I appreciated that moment where you asked our atheist friends in the audience, you know, are you an atheist?

01:22:59

And they raised their hands in Salt Lake. They're like, yes! Like, you know, scared. We love you.

01:23:06

So, I know, just, you know, the context of where we're at today. So it's interesting.

01:23:12

Our claim, when we say that atheists know God, is not that they are going, I'm only pretending.

01:23:18

I really know God exists, and I'm just going to suppress this and hold it down. What we're saying is that it is a knowledge that is inescapable, and the problem is self -deception.

01:23:28

And that goes to your question we asked, what does God reveal to a person when he opens their eyes and heart to see the truth?

01:23:33

He reveals that he's holy. But that's not really my question. You said that it's written on everybody's hearts and mind initially.

01:23:40

We all have this knowledge. So what is that knowledge specifically? That God is, that he's the one and only true

01:23:47

God. The scriptural answer is that we are to glorify him and give thanks to him.

01:23:54

It's not the Trinity and all the rest of that stuff that is in the natural realm. It is that he exists and we are his creature.

01:24:03

So, let's be clear. This vague speak is not addressing the issue. God revealed to people...

01:24:12

Is that a question, Dr. Clark? Yes. This is your question time. Okay. How did

01:24:18

Moses write down the books? Was that just this feeling or did he actually get this specific information that fruit trees grew on earth before the sun and stars existed?

01:24:29

Was that a revelation? Yes, it's a revelation. And when you... Most meaningful responses require more than three seconds to express.

01:24:40

Okay? If you would actually read that with any concern about historical context or anything else, you would discover that your objections are to a surface -level fundamentalism and not to the text in its original language and context at all.

01:25:00

We'll now move to closing statements. Five minutes is obviously a very brief period of time and some of you are going, yay.

01:25:25

Thank you for coming this evening. Thanks to Jason Wallace for putting the time and the effort into arranging this.

01:25:31

Thanks to all of our crew who've come all this way and are making it available to...

01:25:36

I'm not even sure if we're live streaming or anything. If we are, that'd be great. Super. Thanks to everyone who has been involved with this.

01:25:44

Even thanks to our opponents for being here this evening. Thank you for listening if you will leave this room this evening considering what has been said.

01:25:55

When you look at the world around you, when you function in this world based upon the regularity of nature, based upon the fact that you can have true knowledge, have you thought through why that is?

01:26:11

Recognize the destructiveness of the modern secular worldview, the modern materialistic worldview.

01:26:19

Look what it's doing to our society. Look what it does to us. There was a time when we had true knowledge because we recognized that we have intrinsic value as the creatures of God.

01:26:31

If we are nothing but ugly bags of mostly water, there is no reason to be concerned about justice and everything else.

01:26:41

We need to recognize that our entire culture was once based upon a recognition that we were made in the image of God.

01:26:51

This is a vitally important subject. It's a vitally important thing for each one of us.

01:26:56

And I invite you, please, don't just walk out of here and go, well, that was entertaining. Think about what was said and recognize the centrality of the truths that we've presented to you.

01:27:08

Thank you very much. Thank you, Dan and Dr.

01:27:13

Clark. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you all so much for coming tonight. I'm going to just address this one point.

01:27:23

It was a really powerful part of the dialogue. I think, Dan, it was Dan, you said it.

01:27:29

You asked the question, why would God create this world if he's perfect? If he existed for all eternity, he's perfect and perfected himself, why would he create all this?

01:27:38

Why does he need us? And the answer is, he doesn't. And that was what you were arguing against this evening, gentlemen, was the triune

01:27:47

God of Scripture. The God who has existed from all eternity as Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

01:27:54

The beginning of the Gospel of John says, In the beginning was the

01:27:59

Word, and the Word was with God, toward the Father in face -to -face, intimate relationship with the

01:28:06

Father, and the Word was God, as to his nature, God. God has existed from all eternity in perfect fellowship, intimacy, harmony, in himself, and yet God created us.

01:28:19

Why would a perfect God create us? And the answer from Scripture is to glorify himself.

01:28:26

The answer from Scripture is, what's our purpose? What does the Bible teach about our purpose? Our purpose is to glorify

01:28:32

God and to enjoy him forever. He's existed from all eternity as the triune

01:28:38

God in intimate fellowship, in the triune God, and yet he creates image -bearers of God to know him and to experience him, to love him, to delight in him and to experience him.

01:28:49

The glory of God in the Gospel is that he displays in his creation of people like us, creatures that rebel against him and throw their fists up at him.

01:28:59

He creates us to display the glories of his grace and his justice.

01:29:05

And the glory of the Gospel is that God in the person of Christ condescended, entered into this rebellious creation to chase down hostile rebel sinners like me.

01:29:17

And if you know him, like you too. And if you're not in him, like you too. This God chases rebel sinners, lives the life they have failed to live, dies a death that they deserve to die, and rose again from the dead.

01:29:36

And the answer of the Gospel is the call of the Gospel. The good news is to turn away from sin to this

01:29:44

God and to trust in Jesus for salvation and for forgiveness. To experience life in him.

01:29:53

Eternal life. But I'm going to say one more thing. In coming to Christ, you don't experience merely the gift of eternal life, but you actually will have a justification and foundation for all that's happened tonight, all that's been assumed.

01:30:08

Uniformity, laws of logic, and ultimate ethics, which they appealed to, but never even attempted to really justify.

01:30:18

Repent and believe the Gospel. I remind you that Mr.

01:30:28

Wallace gave us choices of several topics in this debate, and presuppositionalism was not it.

01:30:34

The charge for this debate was the triune God of the Bible exists, and it's an inerrant, infallible

01:30:42

Bible. They never addressed, except by argument, by assertion, why an omnipotent being has to cut himself into three parts.

01:30:53

Not once did they try to explain that. I invited them to explain that. They obviated and ran away.

01:31:01

They tapped out. They didn't even get into the cage. Jeepers, creepers. All right?

01:31:07

And that's very typical. Science actually offers results. Religion offers excuses.

01:31:13

It never does anything in the real world, their God, never does anything observable in the real world, and they come up with all these excuses.

01:31:21

It's not his will. He used to do it. Well, you know, I didn't try to misquote you. You know, we're talking fast, but here was the question to you,

01:31:30

James White, or Dr. Oakley, whichever name you like to hide behind tonight. Tim Vance, let's say in a situation in which you would know everything biblically is correct, that the elders have been called in for healing.

01:31:43

Would you expect potentially any healing on a biblical scale? Dr. White, a .k

01:31:51

.a. Dr. Oakley. Well, since I've seen it happen, it can happen.

01:31:56

He's not appealing to the Bible. He's appealing to what he sees. I gave him plenty of opportunities to show us that miracles do exist, that in the real world, without hiding behind words, where's the evidence that fruit trees grew on Earth before the sun and stars existed?

01:32:14

Where's the evidence that whales with lungs and hip bones but no legs actually came before any insects on the world?

01:32:25

There's no geological or evolutionary evidence for that. And when it comes to the

01:32:30

Bible, another part of show me is actually depending on them to show you, not to say, not to preach, but to actually show you.

01:32:39

So you all know what Jesus' last words were on Earth, right? Because you're all Christians, right? What were his last words?

01:32:46

They weren't even the last, like famous last words before you die. These are famous last words after he died, right?

01:32:53

These are the signs of those who have believed, not just the apostles, those who have believed.

01:33:00

They will drink deadly poison and it will not harm them. It will not harm them.

01:33:08

I have a device here that contains a substance and it says it's extended life in it.

01:33:16

It's not eternal life, but it's extended. But I gotta warn you, I gotta warn you, it also says harmful or fatal if swallowed.

01:33:26

But Jesus has promised you in his own words, his very own words, in his inerrant infallible words that these are the signs of those who have believed.

01:33:43

This really is antifreeze. I do not recommend you drink it. I am not going to drink it.

01:33:48

I want to know, simple question which I would have asked, but I'll just ask it now.

01:33:54

Is there anybody in the audience who will stand up for Jesus? Because he says if you deny him before men, he will deny you before your gods.

01:34:05

That's what he says. Now they may want to say, oh that's not what he really means because religion depends on excuses, not results.

01:34:13

Right? Smallpox is gone. Why? Because science actually produces results, not excuses.

01:34:19

So I invite you, my brethren, my lovers of Christ, my sheep of your savior, don't just flap your words.

01:34:30

Don't just move your mouth. Come up here and it's a simple thing that you laughed at for Lucy Smith.

01:34:38

No, of course they're not Mormons. The point was that they laugh at that. And so here it is, folks.

01:34:44

Here it is. Show me. Anybody. Anybody. Bueller. Go ahead.

01:34:50

You laugh. You laugh. You're laughing at yourselves because there's not a single one of you who has the decency to admit that that's nonsense or the decency to actually show what you believe.

01:35:03

Every single one of you knows that it is nonsense that your Lord Jesus Christ has no more power than Godzilla.

01:35:13

And if you want to debate that, don't just flap your lips. Come up here in front of this entire audience and show your faith.

01:35:23

Show the signs of those who have believed because there's no reason to believe you if you just flap your lips and don't practice what you preach.

01:35:35

Show me. We'll now move to questions from the audience. Mark. So if you have any questions, please bring them forward now.

01:35:49

If there was ever a time when there was absolutely nothing, what would there be today? Who is that to?

01:35:56

That's to them. You have 30 seconds. If there was ever a time when there was absolutely nothing?

01:36:04

Yes. Well, we don't believe that there was. God's always existed. And of course, there was a...

01:36:11

Even when you say there was a time before creation, you're imposing created time upon the creator.

01:36:18

I believe God is timeless and the creator of time. So I don't know how to answer that question because it assumes that God could not exist, which is a presuppositional issue.

01:36:32

Are these on? Yeah, they were. So I'm not a physicist or cosmologist, but here's three interesting facts that two of which you already know.

01:36:46

Right? One is equals MC squared. Once again, you find nothing like that in the

01:36:51

Bible despite the omniscient God. What you find is, like fruit trees grow on Earth before the sun and stars exist.

01:36:56

And where did the atoms come from? They don't know about atoms. Okay, so equals MC squared, right? So energy and matter are interchangeable.

01:37:04

You all know that. You all know, even though you don't understand the equations, neither do I, but there's no

01:37:09

God particle in the equations other than what got named the God particle. You also all know that on quantum physics level, causality is not what we think about with our senses on a macroscopic scale.

01:37:21

Actually, things do happen without a cause. Now here's the kicker. The present energy and mass and positive and negative energy in the universe at the moment is zero.

01:37:33

Cool thought. Questions for the atheists. Is there anything you know with certainty and how so?

01:37:42

I just did one. Do you want to do it or I can? Go ahead. I am admittedly fallible.

01:37:50

I have my scientific papers with me. We don't claim certainty in science. We claim that we've done things that are improbable, like flipping a coin 30 times in a row is improbable, but it's not impossible.

01:38:01

We don't know with 100 % certainty. That's the nature of inductive logic. Yeah, Christians can...

01:38:12

I think one of the most fantastic things about the biblical worldview is you can make claims to certainty.

01:38:19

Our claims to certainty are rooted outside of our own likes and dislikes, our own human experience.

01:38:24

They're based upon the self -attesting word of God. Now, these atheists don't like this

01:38:30

God. They don't like that he's the reference point of all these questions, but they haven't provided an answer, an ultimate answer for knowledge at all.

01:38:38

Christians have a basis for knowledge and to make knowledge claims and to say something is absolutely true or we're certain about it.

01:38:44

I am certain the triune God of Scripture exists. A question for the affirmative.

01:38:50

With all the knowledge, why is the Christian God the only one? Well, obviously, if God exists and he has revealed himself and in his revelation, he says that men are suppressing the knowledge of him, the way they suppress that knowledge is in many different ways, different religions, apathy, worldliness, whatever it might be.

01:39:12

That is not relevant to the reality that if God exists, then he has the right and ability to reveal himself in one particular way.

01:39:23

The thing about it, if Jesus really was the God -man, the eternal son of God who took on flesh, imagine the condescension of the one who holds the universe together entering into his own creation and then imagine the arrogance on our part for us to turn around and say, appreciate it, but we'd like a different way.

01:39:45

No, if God exists, he has the right to determine what his truth is and how we relate to him.

01:39:50

What basis do you think that science is true?

01:40:10

Can science prove science or is that begging the question? Do you see that not as begging the question?

01:40:17

So epistemologically, we cannot prove with 100 % certainty and in fact, we have reason to believe that the sun is not going to rise every day in a row, right?

01:40:26

That's not our claim, right? But every one of you knows, even though we don't understand gravity, we don't know if it's one of the fundamental four forces or if it can be merged with those forces, but you walk out of a tall building, you take the stairs, right?

01:40:44

So we do not claim complete certainty and I can show you my paper. That's not what we do, right?

01:40:51

We say that this is very likely or very unlikely. We don't go to P equals one.

01:40:57

We don't go to P equals zero except within rounding error, okay? And science works, right?

01:41:04

Religion doesn't. As Victor Stegner says, science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.

01:41:12

And the real problem were not that Stalin was an atheist, right? The real problem was that he demanded complete power like his

01:41:20

God. He was also a man. He also wore a mustache. That's not what he caused him to be mean -spirited.

01:41:28

Your God watched six million Jews. He could have intervened and every single one of you who's a

01:41:34

Christian says, that was the right thing for my God to do is to let those Jews die.

01:41:42

Yeah, and in your worldview, all that happened then was the scattering of protoplasm.

01:41:48

It has no meaning. You're borrowing again from our worldview. Notice what this gentleman says here this evening before you.

01:41:54

He complained at the beginning that we merely claim the Christian God is the foundation of all these things and we're starting from that reference point.

01:42:01

When he was asked to justify his appeals to science, scientific method, induction, all of that, he says, it just works.

01:42:09

That's it. No justification, just cause. Now that wasn't the nature of our claim tonight.

01:42:15

Our claim tonight wasn't just cause. We provided foundation, justification, the principium.

01:42:21

These gentlemen did not. We live by faith in the triune God of Scripture and we say that without Him, you can't prove anything.

01:42:27

He demonstrated when he says, we cannot prove everything with certainty and we think maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.

01:42:33

We really don't know. He lives by blind faith. But here's the key thing.

01:42:38

When he gets into airplanes, he doesn't live like that. Just consider it.

01:42:44

Question for the affirmative statement. The very same evidence that I just produced by pressing start on my cell phone.

01:43:04

You see, the power button on this thing is on the outside, not the inside. Why? Because the intelligent person designed it knew

01:43:13

I couldn't press it if it's on the inside. When you look at what ATP synthase does, its specificity, it is plainly and clearly designed and you should be very thankful right now that it works very, very well.

01:43:29

But it is on such a micro level that it's far more advanced than this is.

01:43:34

We haven't gotten to that level yet and if we ever do, all it proves is it's going to take a tremendous amount of intellect and trying and planning and studying and knowledge to get there.

01:43:48

How did that happen before we had any of that information? The one who designed it made all that information.

01:43:54

He's the creator. So intelligent design tried its hand and was debunked.

01:44:00

This is an old argument. And just as a reminder, William Behew, who was the proponent of it, was asked whether he had positive evidence for God because of intelligent design and he said yes, just like these fellows, until he got under oath and then he said no,

01:44:19

I have only negative evidence. It's God of the gaps. I can't figure out who did it, therefore God did it.

01:44:25

That tells you nothing that wasn't already in that assumption. And here's the thing. Every time science finds something out, your

01:44:32

God knew nothing about cells. It knew nothing about subcellular organelles. There's nothing like that in the Bible because the primitive people who wrote the

01:44:38

Bible knew nothing about it. But every time we find something out about science, we find an intermediate species, the creationists go, oh, now you have two gaps because we used to have one to two and now we've got one in between so now there's another gap.

01:44:53

And that's the game they keep playing and they keep playing it until they have to go to the doctor and then they go, oh, give me science because faith healing is quackery, whether it's done by Baptist preachers, whether it's done by the

01:45:05

Pope, or whether it's done by Presbyterians. Show some respect to the audience, please, sir. Let me move on to the next question. Second slide.

01:45:14

What comfort is your expectation?

01:45:27

Ooh, can I take this one? Sure. So the comfort that I have in this life, can you repeat the question for me again?

01:45:38

What comfort do you have in this life since we all died? Well, it's phrased a little strange for me, but this is something that I wanted to talk about a little bit during the rebuttal, but I ran out of time, that there is no inherent meaning for life.

01:45:57

You don't have to follow anybody. That's one of the taglines in the opening for the podcast that I co -host.

01:46:06

You don't have to follow anybody. Life has the meaning that you give it. What's great about being an atheist is that we realize that this is the one and only life that we will ever have.

01:46:17

It's what makes life so precious. It's what makes us, it's what drives us to do good in the world.

01:46:23

It's what drives us to be good to each other. It's what drives us to be kind, to be loving, to care about our fellow human beings, because we know that this is all we will ever have, and it seems silly to me and a pointless waste of time to spend any bit of it in worship of a monster.

01:46:46

I am so thankful for that response. I'll answer just by quoting the late atheist,

01:46:53

Dr. Will Provine, in his debate with Phil Johnson at Stanford University. He said, quote, Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear, and these are basically

01:47:04

Darwin's views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal -directed forces of any kind.

01:47:10

There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I'm going to be dead.

01:47:17

That's the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans either.

01:47:25

That is atheism. Well, that proved that textual criticism matters, and I'm thankful for that.

01:47:50

Now, if the good doctor would do just a little bit of research, a little bit of study, show some respect for the other side, he could have accessed a critical edition of the

01:48:00

Greek New Testament and would have understood that there is a textual variant of that passage. He seems to think that inerrancy has something to do with exactly which text you choose rather than the original autographs.

01:48:13

He's very confused as to what inerrancy is. He's confused as to what manuscripts, but the man has no access to that, did not ask for any access to that, but brought a visual aid, which he complained about me holding up an iPad, but he brought

01:48:27

Prestone antifreeze. Hmm. I guess we can have different standards, but obviously the entire argument missed the importance of the fact that miracles happen at a particular point in God's history.

01:48:43

Follow -up? Again, James White says they happen today. Pastor Wallace says they happen today.

01:48:53

They say they have seen them, okay? It's simple, folks. Show me it's not about the antifreeze.

01:48:59

It's about any one of the miracles that doesn't happen anyway. I'm not very impressed when you say,

01:49:05

I prayed for rain, and somewhere in the next hundred days it rained. Sorry, folks.

01:49:11

The only miracles you produce are things that would happen anyway, and then you look backwards and go, oh, yeah, that's due to prayer, okay?

01:49:18

So I invite you right now to show, or next week, or next month,

01:49:25

I do work with people who need neuroprostheses to have these changes happen.

01:49:31

We can, in fact, cause people who are blind otherwise to see. We can, in fact, cause people who are deaf otherwise to hear.

01:49:38

We stimulate their auditory nerves with modern technology, and they can understand speech, and I might have to get one of those suckers.

01:49:46

And I can have people actually feel, right? But you all, with your prayer, do nothing, and then you praise

01:49:54

God for nothingness, and then you take money for that. It doesn't have to be routinely.

01:50:11

Dan has made that point, right? It doesn't have to be routinely. How many amputees do you need to heal, right?

01:50:21

Jesus did it all at once. Miracles can happen. If you say that, it's easy.

01:50:26

Show me. It doesn't have to be every time, but show me a real miracle that would not happen.

01:50:33

And any excuse that you use, it has to be better than my excuse, for Godzilla was able to do it, but didn't want to at this particular point in time.

01:50:43

If you can't do any better than that Godzilla in the corner, you can't do anything, and that's what you believe.

01:50:52

And if you don't, show me. Don't just sat there going, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. Show me. Show me, show me, show me.

01:50:58

Anybody, show us. Show us. Hundreds of people in this room. One miracle among you. It doesn't have to be frequently.

01:51:05

Just one. Show some respect. May I respond to the question?

01:51:11

The Bible nowhere tells us to expect miracles as a run -of -the -mill situation.

01:51:17

It nowhere gives us any reason to believe that we in our arrogance and in our anger could dare

01:51:24

God to engage in miraculous behavior. There is nothing in the

01:51:30

Bible that even suggests anything like this. Miracles were primarily done to establish the authority of people within the community of God, to establish, for example, the apostles in their authority.

01:51:44

There were purposes for them. They are not intended to be some kind of show to show rebel sinners who hate

01:51:54

God and already are suppressing the knowledge of God that they should believe in Him.

01:52:00

That is not why they exist. You want 30 seconds? No. Show me.

01:52:33

Just show me. God bless you. Show me. You've seen miracles. Show me.

01:52:38

Show me. Show me. What you got, dude? What you got? You are the most angry man I've ever met.

01:52:44

I feel for you. I really feel sorry for you. The work you do is great, but there's such a part of hatred and anger in you.

01:52:53

Show some respect to this man. Back up. Show me. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

01:52:58

Don't worry about it. Could I suggest something? Show me. You are so ignorant of the

01:53:03

Bible. It is astonishing. Show me. As a man of knowledge. Show me. If that's all you can do, you are proving my point for me right now.

01:53:11

You are proving the point for me right now. You really are. Fruit trees before sun? Everyone in this place.

01:53:16

Fruit trees before sun? You know nothing about Genesis. You don't know a word of Hebrew. You are so ignorant.

01:53:23

So teach me. Show me. Show us the evidence. I absolutely would love to see some evidence for you.

01:53:29

I pray that God will do something for you, sir, because your heart is maybe the hardest ever to see. Well, it's really easy to change.

01:53:35

But you've done something for us this evening. Thank you very much for that. You're very welcome. Because so many people are going to see that and realize the truth.

01:53:42

So thank you. Thank you. What you got, Drew? What you got? Can you show me anything? Anything? Dr. Clark.

01:53:49

Show me. Can you show me anything? All I would ask you to do at this moment is to exhibit some respect and dignity.

01:53:56

We had a public debate. Okay. How about this? How about this? If you would like to come on my radio program, we can continue the discussion again.

01:54:03

But we had a public debate. It'll be seen by the public. That's right. If you believe your claims are true, then you should trust that the public will see what you've said and respond to it.

01:54:14

Yeah. So answer me this. You want respect. Tell me about Malachy 2 .3. No, no, sir. My worldview grants me to actually give you respect and that you should give me respect.

01:54:23

Fair enough. So Malachy 2 .3, words of God. What did God say? Hold on. What did He say?

01:54:29

Dr. Clark, can I finish the thought? What did God say? You're trying to— Would you like me to say something? Yeah, I'd like you to say what God said.

01:54:34

What did He say? It's Malachy. Malachy. What did He say? And here's the question. When you say

01:54:39

Malachy, what did He say? Yeah. Malachy is a book in the Old Testament. Right.

01:54:44

And God said— Several chapters long. Yeah. And one of the amazing— 2 .3. Let me explain. Would you like me to answer?

01:54:50

I will tell you what He said. One of the amazing things about Malachy. Behold, I will rub your face in shit, even the shit of your solid feet.

01:54:57

You don't want a conversation. Get your hands off me. God bless you. God bless you. Get your hands off me. God bless you. You don't want a conversation. God bless you.