3 Challenges to Christianity... And Why They Fail

Revealed Apologetics

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Hey, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today we're gonna be diving into some common objections to the

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Christian faith. In particular, I want to focus on an objection that often is put forth in terms of attacking the

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Christian conception of the atonement. Specifically, we're going to be dealing with penal substitutionary atonement.

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If you are theologically trained and you're familiar with these categories, I won't have to define it for you, but assuming that there are people who might not know what penal substitutionary atonement is,

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I will define that for you. And then I'm going to address the objection that often comes up, that this idea of the atonement, this penal substitutionary atonement, is a form of cosmic child abuse.

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We'll kind of unpack that in just a bit, but the goal here is to equip you with thoughtful biblical responses to objections that you might come across, okay?

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And so you might hear versions of this or the specific one that I'm going to bring up here, and then

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I'll be covering some other objections as well. So that's not all that we're going to be focused upon.

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Now before we kind of jump in, this issue of penal substitutionary atonement, it brings to focus the importance of theology, okay?

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Part of the task of the Christian in general, and the Christian apologists in particular, is to be acquainted with Christian theology, the teaching of Scripture, okay?

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And so we want to understand—this is why systematic theology is so important, okay? It's not just knowing biblical doctrine, but it is also knowing how a doctrine over here is connected to doctrines over here.

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So our theology, our beliefs that we hold, are connected. So for example, if you deny the

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Trinity, that might have some bearing on your view of the atonement, or the role of Christ, and things like this.

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So our theological beliefs are interconnected, and this is why I keep repeating this, and I keep quoting

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Cornelius Van Til here because it's so relevant, is that apologetics is what? It is the vindication of the

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Christian fully. So it's so important to know what the facts are, and we understand when someone is attacking a particular doctrine, we understand what that doctrine is, how it's supported in Scripture, and why it's important in terms of being connected to other doctrines that are vitally important—a vitally important part of the

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Christian system or Christian worldview, okay? So this is a very, very important topic, especially when folks are—if you are a

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Christian in doing online ministry, or just talking to people out in the streets, it is often the case that the attacks upon the

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Christian faith come in the attack— it comes in the form, pardon, of attacking

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Christian doctrines. So understanding doctrine is going to be a vital tool in being an effective defender of the faith.

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So let's jump right into this. Let's kind of define our terms. What is penal substitutionary atonement?

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Well, simply, it's the doctrine that Jesus, in his death on the cross, bore the penalty for sin on behalf of sinners.

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He acted as a substitute for his people, and the term penal refers to the legal penalty for sin, and substitution, of course, emphasizes the idea that he takes the place of sinners on the cross.

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And this is—this idea is rooted in the notion of God's justice. The broken law of God requires satisfaction.

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Jesus, the sinless, perfect Savior, fulfills this requirement as our sacrifice, and so that is what penal substitutionary atonement is all about.

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Now, there are other aspects of the atonement that need to be taken in consideration. I don't remember where this is from, but some have described the doctrine of the atonement as kind of a multifaceted diamond.

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There are different aspects of the atonement and emphases of the atonement that we don't want to ignore, but specifically, we are focusing on penal substitution and the attack upon the penal substitutionary atonement view, all right?

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So, it's very important that when we talk about the justice of God and the fact that men have sinned and we deserve

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God's judgment, it's very important that we understand sin from a biblical perspective. You see, sin in Scripture is understood in legal terms.

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I mean, you see the language of legality and debt in the Bible itself, and you take a look at the

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Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, even as we forgive our debtors.

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And in Colossians, the Apostle Paul speaks about nailing the certificate of debt on the cross, and so sin is equated with debt, all right?

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This is very important when you're understanding the atonement and what is going on in the death of Christ and what's happening to the sinner in terms of the death of Christ and what that's accomplishing, okay?

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Now, when we assert the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the critic often argues that this view, this idea that the

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Father punishes the Son who is being substituted in place of the sinner, this view distorts the character of God, pretty much portraying

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God as a, you know, a wrathful, angry deity who punishes his innocent Son to satisfy his anger, right?

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Filled with emotional language, which a lot of people, unfortunately, resonate with that.

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But this is often how it is presented, and they claim that this undermines

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God's love, it creates a division within the Trinity, it raises theological questions. You know, we often hear, you know, well, if Jesus is

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God and Jesus died on the cross, how can God die, right? How does this align with the nature of the

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Trinity? These are serious objections that require us to understand biblical theology and what the

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Bible has to say about these topics. Now, it's important to understand that when we explain theological doctrine, it's often filled with theological and philosophical terminology.

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For example, when we talk about the doctrine of the Trinity, we talk about the distinction between, you know, the essence of God, the being of God, the person of God, and things like this.

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And of course, the Bible doesn't use that terminology per se, but the philosophical and theological language that we use to describe these doctrines were terms that were used to explain what

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I take to be biblical categories. So don't be turned off by some of the theological terms and philosophical categories that need to be spoken of when we talk about these issues, okay?

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We need to talk. It's been a rough ride, from a culture bent on burning itself down to attacks from within.

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The gospel of the kingdom. This April, let's sit down. Let's talk about what matters. And together, we'll build something that lasts.

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ReformCon 2025. Tickets are limited. Lord willing, we'll see you in Tucson. Now, before we kind of dive into that, though, another point that I think is important to keep in mind is that they're a scripture that is often brought up in discussions of the

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Atonement. When we explain, for example, that God the Father sent His Son, the Son stands in our place,

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He pays the penalty for our sin, okay? People even look at that not just as a form of cosmic child abuse, the

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Father abusing the Son, who's innocent, okay? They'll also see this as something that is inconsistent with the teaching of scripture itself.

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Muslims often bring this up, right? This very idea of substitutionary Atonement and Islam. Many Muslims will say, well, wait a minute, the

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Bible does not teach that it is possible for someone to be punished in the place of another, to suffer in the place of another, okay?

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And the common scripture that is often brought up is Ezekiel 18, verse 20, which says, the soul whose sins shall die, the

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Son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the Father, nor the Father suffer for the iniquity of the Son.

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And so, critics argue that this verse pretty much invalidates the idea of substitutionary

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Atonement, pretty much claiming that the Bible itself rejects this notion of one person bearing another person's penalty.

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Now, this is super important, because what is being said here? There is an attempt to do an internal critique of the

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Christian position by setting up our theological position, which we believe is grounded in scripture, setting that up against other parts of scripture.

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So there's an attempt to show an internal conflict with the position that we're holding and the, you know, the scriptures that we affirm to be, in fact, the inspired

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Word of God, okay? So we want to understand the nature of these objections. So we don't want to just brush them off, we want to be able to address them head -on.

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But of course, this objection that often comes from that passage in Ezekiel, I think, overlooks some key biblical distinctions, right?

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Ezekiel's context concerns human sin with covenantal categories, where sinful men cannot bear the penalty for others because they too are guilty of sin, right?

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Sin is, again, described as a debt, okay? No sinful person can pay off another person's debt because they're indebted themselves.

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Isn't that right? Why is it not possible for another man to pay the penalty and suffer in place of another man?

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Well, according to scripture, Romans 3 .23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And if sin is equated to debt, we are all in debt.

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So I can't pay for your debt, I can't pay for the debt of my wife, my wife can't pay the debt for myself, even the most righteous person that you can think of in terms of the, in the eyes of others, or even within the church, someone who is, you know, expresses a holy and righteous life, even they are unable to pay the penalty for someone else's sin.

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Why? Well, because they're sinners. And so that is true. A man cannot pay the penalty of sin for another man because both are sinful.

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But this, of course, is fundamentally different when we're talking about the person and work of Jesus Christ. According to 1

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Peter 2 .22, Jesus is without sin. And because of his perfection,

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Jesus Christ is uniquely qualified to bear the sins of another. 1 Peter 2 .24,

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he bore our sins in his body on the cross. Why? 1 Peter 2 .22, he was without sin.

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In the book of Ezekiel, it's speaking in terms of man who are covenant, who are in covenant, but have broken covenant.

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All have broken covenant to some degree because all have sinned. Okay? We break, we are not faithful to the covenant all the time, but praise be to God for his grace.

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He is always faithful. Okay? So unlike fallen humanity, all right, Jesus Christ is not under the covenant as a sinner, but he fulfills the covenant perfectly on behalf of sinners.

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And of course, we access the benefits of his faithfulness by grace through faith.

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Okay? And so it's important to recognize that misunderstandings of this doctrine is important.

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We need to be able to respond to it biblically and bring the whole counsel of God to bear upon this issue.

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And of course, it's, you know, you're going to run into many misconceptions and misconstruals of Christian doctrine.

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The Bible anticipates that, right? 2 Peter 3 .16, the Apostle Peter warns that some parts of Scripture are difficult to understand and people twist, they twist the

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Scriptures, you know, to their own ends. And this is precisely what happens with doctrines like, you know, the deity of Christ, the

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Trinity, of course, the Atonement, these sorts of things. But when we consider the full scope of biblical teaching on Christ's sinlessness, humanity's guilt, the justice and love of God, you know, these sorts of objections really don't hold up very well.

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Because to answer them requires a more robust and biblically grounded understanding of these issues, and the objector typically doesn't have that.

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When a Muslim brings objections to the Christian faith, it is very easy to spot blatant misconceptions and misrepresentations of what

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Christians actually believe. Now, that being said, you know, you can say that, you can reverse that as well, right?

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When Christians critique atheists or Muslims or whatever, oftentimes there will be misconceptions and misunderstandings as well.

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And that's why we need to be able to communicate clearly. We need to express, here's my view, this is how we understand it.

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And we want to ask questions and draw out what the other person's position is, so that whenever we're engaging in the internal critique of a person's perspective, whether it's an atheist, a

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Muslim, a Christian, whatever, that we want to be able to say that we are accurately representing the other side.

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Okay? The goal in apologetics, obviously, is to be obedient to Christ, to proclaim the gospel, defend the gospel, but it is also to do so in a way that does not engage in intentional misrepresentation.

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We do not honor God when we purposefully misrepresent another person's view. We do honor

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God when we lovingly and gently correct misunderstandings of the Christian faith.

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And so oftentimes, we'll have to, when we're doing apologetics, we have to teach. We have to, and this is why it's so hard to respond to certain comments in the

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YouTube section of my videos, is that certain objections, they come across, well, they come across super cocky, like this is very arrogant, and I have to pick and choose which comments

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I'm gonna interact with because I can't, you know, interact with everyone. Because I don't have a lot of time to sit and type.

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But sometimes a person's objection is based upon such wide and deep misunderstanding, that in order to respond to the person, you have to teach them the actual position, and then from there respond.

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It takes a lot of work, which I don't mind doing, I just don't have the time to sit and do it. But again, the point is, a lot of these points are, or objections, are based on misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the

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Christian faith. And of course, you have people who are genuinely willing to say, hey, I misunderstood what you guys believe, thank you for sharing and correcting me there.

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Okay, in light of that correction, here, I still have some issues, and they go, and you're in the discussion. Then you have people who don't care, okay?

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You know, you'll correct them, say, hey, that's actually not my position. Oh, no, no, that's your position, you know, and then they'll just run with that.

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And of course, you know, you have to choose your battles wisely, okay? I've literally said, that's not my position.

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Or, when someone misrepresents, like, presuppositional apologetics, or, you know, the transcendental argument,

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I'll say, actually, that's not what I'm saying, here's what I'm saying. And then the person won't take what I'm saying, and they'll just keep going with what they think

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I'm saying. And unfortunately, that's, you know, that's just the nature of the beast, all right?

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So, how do we properly understand the Atonement? I mean, it's not cosmic child abuse. I think, understanding the nature of the

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Atonement, the fact that the Father sends the Son to die on behalf of sinners, right? We get the

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Trinitarian relationship in the Atonement, right? The Father predestines a people, you know, predestines a people for the foundation of the world, the

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Son purchases a people with His blood, so on and so forth, right?

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We have the Triune God participating in the salvation process, okay? It is important, when explaining the

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Atonement, that we understand the concept of Biblical love, isn't that right?

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The Biblical definition of love is so important. 1 John 4, 8, 1 John 4, 8 says that God is love.

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And so, love, biblically speaking, is it is self -sacrificial, it is other -centeredness, right?

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John 15, 13 says that greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends, okay?

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Notice that love, biblically, it says God is love, love is other -centeredness, it is self -sacrificial.

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And so, if you think about it, the Biblical conception of the Atonement is the ultimate act of self -sacrificial love.

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It's not divine child abuse, but the Triune God's unified plan to save sinners.

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The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit work in perfect unity. The Father plans redemption, the

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Son accomplishes it, and the Spirit applies it to the elect. And here's the key point here, in the

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Biblical conception of the Atonement, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, is not a passive victim in the situation, right?

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He's not reluctantly going because the Father sends him, okay, you're gonna go down, no, that's not how it goes.

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Jesus is not a passive victim, He is a willing sacrifice, right? This is the beautiful picture of God's love, self -sacrificial love.

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In the cross, in the cross of Christ, we see the perfect union of God's justice and God's mercy.

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His justice is satisfied in Christ bearing the penalty for sin, and His mercy is displayed in offering salvation to sinners through grace, right?

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While we were yet sinners, Christ died, okay? His mercy is displayed in His self -sacrificial act, okay?

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And so the accusation of cosmic child abuse really doesn't hold water, it ignores that balance and falsely separates the

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Father and the Son, right? The Son is not reluctant in this whole process, He is willing as a sacrifice.

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And so it fails to account for the shared divine will within the Trinity, and the

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Son's voluntary role in the plan of redemption. I think it's a very important point to keep in mind, and that's why

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I very much appreciate Dr. James White, when he talks about the Trinity, he always talks about the importance of the role of the

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Trinity in the Atonement, the role of the Trinity in salvation. The Father has a plan, the

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Son executes the plan in purchasing a people with His blood, the

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Holy Spirit seals the elect for the day of redemption. There is what the

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Father desires to accomplish, the Son also functions in that accomplishment, and the

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Spirit. They are in perfect unity, and they are in perfect harmony, and they all contribute to the accomplishing of God's plans and purposes.

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And that is the beautiful picture we have in the Atonement. It's not just talking about the sacrifice of the

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Son, but it is wrapped up in deep Trinitarian theology, okay? Very, very important to keep in mind.

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All right, so that is the cosmic child abuse objection that comes up in various circles.

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I hope that this response here is somewhat useful to you if you've ever encountered that particular objection, all right?

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What do we run into? I mean, I suppose this video can be, you know, we could do a marathon and go through every single objection that one could hear.

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But there are a lot of things that we hear, and so I'm gonna be focusing on the things that I often hear, and of course, you know, you can leave in the comments and maybe provide a list of objections that you hear, and maybe

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I can take a look at those, and I'll try my best to maybe perhaps create a video response or something like that.

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Again, I want this content to be useful to you and relevant to the sorts of things that you're running into.

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But another common objection that we often hear often arises in what is known in philosophy as the problem of evil, okay?

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Now, the problem of evil, I think in terms of ice cream, it comes in various flavors, okay?

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And it's important to kind of make a distinguish—to distinguish, pardon—between the different kinds.

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So, for example, we have what's called the logical problem of evil, which argues that the existence of an all -good, all -powerful

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God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. Okay, that's the logical problem.

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Then you have what's called the probabilistic problem of evil, which pretty much says that while it's not logically impossible for God and evil to coexist, it's highly improbable that so much evil would exist if a good and omnipotent, all -powerful

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God existed. And then we have, again, this is probably the version of the problem of evil that hit most of us, and that is what one might call the emotional problem of evil, which pretty much focuses on the deep emotional struggle that all of us face when grappling with the reality of evil in the world.

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Again, this is—the emotional problem of evil is challenging because all of us feel it.

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Isn't that right? We can step back and look at the problem of evil as something independent of kind of a philosophical debate, and just kind of think about the reality, the fact of evil.

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I believe that there is, like, objective evil. I don't think that, you know, what we call evil is just a linguistic construct to describe things that we don't like.

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I think that there are things that are objectively evil. I think that, you know, you know,

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Nazi Germany—that was objectively evil. I believe that, you know, rape is evil.

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Like, these things are objectively evil. I don't think that they're—that it's my opinion that those things are evil.

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They're objectively evil, and this can be difficult emotionally because we do know that, from a

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Christian perspective, God is all -powerful. God is good, perfect, holy, and righteous, and so he has the power to remove these things.

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He definitely has the desire to remove them, as we see in Scripture. Like, why doesn't he? Right? And then maybe it's not a logical issue, a logical problem, but emotionally, we can very much resonate and grapple with that.

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Now, when we're talking about evil that happens out there overseas or somewhere away from us, you know, it's very easy to kind of sit in our armchair and talk about it.

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But what happens when it hits us, you know, when a family member dies of cancer, when a child dies of some disease?

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These things really grip us emotionally, and so the emotional problem of evil, you know, logically there's an easy answer to it, but emotionally, you know, it can be very—it can be very challenging.

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Now, what is the most, I guess, the strongest version of— out of the categories

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I just mentioned, which one threatens Christianity in terms of being an objection that challenges the truth of the

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Christian worldview, I would say that you want to be very careful with what we call the logical problems of evil, and this is important because logical problems of evil try to show that the idea of an all -powerful and all -good

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God is logically incompatible with there being evil, okay?

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So, you know, the argument comes in various forms. I'll kind of give you a traditional way that the arguments presented if you took like a philosophy 101 class at a secular, you know, college or something like that.

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Maybe you've heard the argument in this form, but here's the argument. Premise one, if God is omnipotent, that is to say he is all -powerful, he is able to remove all evil.

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Premise two, if God is omnibenevolent, he's all -good. He's willing to remove all evil.

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Premise three, evil exists. Four, therefore, God is either unwilling or unable to remove evil, which means he is not both omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

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Five, or conclusion, therefore, such a God does not exist. Now, at first glance, that seems very compelling, okay?

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If God cannot be, if God is unwilling to remove evil, the argument says he's not omnibenevolent.

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If he is unable to remove evil, he's not omnipotent, he's not all -powerful. And so if that's the case, then obviously such a

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God as the Christian God can't exist, because what do we assert from a Christian perspective that God is both all -good and all -powerful, okay?

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And so this kind of seems like a very persuasive argument when you first hear it, if you're sitting in a college class or something along those lines, you're kind of, well, how do we answer that, okay?

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And there is, even though it's a logical presentation of a logical argument, it does have an emotional thrust to it, right?

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Because you kind of think, well, yeah, I mean, there's lots of evil that happens in the world. Why doesn't God remove these things, okay?

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But what's the problem with this argument? Let's go over the premises again. I'm gonna read it real quick this time, okay? And then show you what the problem is and why these logical problems and different variations of the illogical problems really don't work, okay?

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So premise one, if God is omnipotent, he's all -powerful, he's able to remove all evil. Premise two, if God is omnibenevolent, he's all -good, he is willing to remove all evil.

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Premise three, evil exists. Conclusion, therefore, God is either unwilling or unable to remove evil, which means he is not both omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

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Conclusion, therefore, such a God does not exist. Where is the problem here? Students of logic, what is the problem with that argument, okay?

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The problem, of course, lies in the fact that the conclusion is a non sequitur. It does not follow that God does not exist, okay?

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The argument assumes really, there are no other options, right? But if you think about it, there is another possibility, right?

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Namely, that God is both able, right? We believe God is able to remove evil, and he's willing to remove evil, but he's not yet done so because he's accomplishing a greater purpose, okay?

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Some of these purposes are revealed in Scripture, right? We're told in Scripture that God is working things out, right, and things like this, and other aspects are not revealed to us, right?

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Deuteronomy 29, Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to the Lord, but those revealed belong to you and your children's children, and so on and so forth, okay?

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Now, if that's even remotely possible, then it follows that the conclusion to this argument doesn't follow, okay?

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And so this problem, as a logical problem, just really isn't—it doesn't accomplish the thing that, you know, that it seeks to do.

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As a matter of fact, even non -Christian philosophers have said that, you know, logical problem of evil arguments are a dying breed.

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That's why people tend to move towards kind of the probabilistic forms of the argument.

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Now, what's the knee -jerk reaction if you've watched, you know, apologetic videos, and you've heard kind of generic responses here?

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I want to warn you, okay? Some Christians might respond to the problem of evil as it's presented by pointing out that without God, there's no basis for calling anything evil in the first place.

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Now, I want to focus this—that is a valid point. I agree, okay?

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But I don't think it's most appropriate—it's a most appropriate response when people typically present the problem of evil as an internal critique of the

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Christian worldview. So if someone is trying to internally critique the Christian worldview, and they offer this problem and say, there's a problem of evil, you

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Christians have a problem of evil, let's hypothetically grant the truth of the Christian worldview, and then they present this argument, you know, if God is omnipotent, he's able to remove evil.

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If he's omnibenevolent, he's willing to remove evil. You know, evil exists, therefore, he's either this, and they draw the conclusion, okay?

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To say that the objector, the unbeliever, has no basis to call anything evil is true, but is not relevant to the internal critique, if that makes sense, okay?

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So in this argument, depending on the context, the skeptic assumes—he could assume the truth of Christianity, right, for the sake of argument, and then try to attempt to show a contradiction within the

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Christian system. And so the atheist is not necessarily asserting their own worldview at this point.

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They're asking, if Christianity is true, why does evil exist? And so while the claim that atheists can't ground objective moral values and duties and things like this is worth addressing in various contexts, in many contexts,

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I think here you might not want to throw that one out there, because someone says, yeah, maybe I can't account for evil, but how do you account for evil in your world?

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And then they might bring up this argument, okay? I just want to be careful. It's a kind of a minor distinction, but an important one,

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I think. And so the key point is that the logical problem of evil fails because it rests on a faulty assumption, right?

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Namely, that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for allowing the evil that he does, right?

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Think about it. Even if one reason is possible, if one reason exists, the argument itself collapses, and this is why the logical problem of evil is not really as forceful as many used to think that it is.

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It just isn't an issue, logically speaking. Emotionally, right, it's difficult, but we need to point out that while something that can be emotionally difficult, the emotional difficulty has no bearing as to whether a position is true, right?

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The truth of a position is irrelevant as to how someone feels emotionally about a concept or an idea or something along those lines, all right?

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So again, I hope that that makes sense there. But again, the discussion of the problem of evil is a broad and wide discussion.

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There have been, you know, large tomes written on this topic. I'm just bringing up something that you will hear in common discussion with unbelievers and things like that.

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So I hope that that's helpful. And I don't want to minimize the idea that the unbeliever does not have a basis to identify or call something objectively evil.

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I believe that that's true. They have no basis. But sometimes that's not always the best answer. When the person's doing an internal critique, you have to answer it from within the

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Christian worldview. And that shouldn't be a problem, because within the Christian worldview, we do have an answer to the problem of evil.

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God has the power to remove evil, He has the desire to remove evil, and one day in His perfect timing,

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He will remove all evil, right? The fact that we think that God should remove it now doesn't have any bearing, and that doesn't hurt the

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Christian worldview, because we think God should do it now, or that we think there are no good, sufficient reasons that God might possibly have for permitting the evil.

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We're not in a position to say that God does or doesn't have that, right? From the Christian worldview,

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God has the power to remove it, He has the desire to remove it, and we're told that He will remove it, right?

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And to show evidence that He will remove it, He has sent Jesus Christ, the expansion of the kingdom,

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Jesus conquered death, which is a foretaste of what He'll eventually do. God is working things out, and we're told to trust

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Him, and we do, right? We do not blindly trust, because God has given evidence of His goodness,

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He's given evidence of His holiness, His righteousness, He's given evidence of the fact that He has plans, and that He's accomplishing those plans.

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He doesn't leave us without a witness, right? God raised Jesus from the dead, okay?

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This is His down payment. When He does that, I say, you know what, God? You've given evidence that I can trust, that whatever you're allowing and permitting, you have perfectly sufficient reasons for doing so, and you will destroy and remove evil in your proper time.

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And so God, the all -knowing, all -omniscient God, knows better than me, knows better than you, when it is the appropriate time to do the things that we think

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He should do. All right, so again, there you go. All right, let me take a quick water break here.

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All right, moving on to another objection here. The next point that I want to talk about is very common.

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This objection has been brought, or this argument or objection has been brought up since ancient times.

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I mean, this is stuff that's been around for a long time, and this is typically the case with objections against the

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Christian faith, isn't it, right? When you hear an objection against the Christian faith, it is oftentimes, if not always, some rehash or reinvention of an old objection.

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All right, you know, Solomon was correct. There is nothing new under the sun, right?

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So a lot of the objections that we hear are often rehashes and reinventions of what people have said in the past, okay?

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Now, that doesn't make it bad. Like, yeah, ideas are there. We need to respond to them in every generation, so we need to be ready to respond to them in whatever form they come.

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But I think it's helpful to recognize that, you know, there is nothing new under the sun, all right? The objections that you hear, they're not being stated for the first time ever, and Christians have had responses to them, okay?

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So there you go. So this is the objection that I want to talk about now, and I often hear, is the claim that the

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God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament.

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So some argue that the Old Testament portrays God as a harsh and wrathful

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God, while the New Testament presents a picture of God who is loving and merciful and patient and so forth, and so we get this kind of dichotomy between the

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God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, right? In the Old Testament, God is mean,

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New Testament, God is nice. Why the inconsistency, okay? Now, of course, this is a false dichotomy, right?

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The reality is that there is no inconsistency between the God of the Old Testament and the

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God of the New Testament, okay? A lot of people don't think about this, but if you take a look at Psalm 136, what is the repeated refrain there?

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His loving kindness endures forever. That's the Old Testament. And then the New Testament tells us in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 31, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. Think about it. The same God of Hebrews 10 31 is the same God who flooded the earth in judgment.

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In Genesis 6 through 9, that's the God who gave, you know, that's the God who brought the flood and destroyed the world.

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And that is the same God that is expressed in John 3 16, for God so loved the world He gave His only begotten

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Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. They're the same God. You see, the problem here is not a dichotomy between how

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God is presented between the Old and the New Testament. The problem is with how people wrongfully focus in a disproportionate fashion on certain attributes of God.

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You see, when someone rejects a picture of God, they're often rejecting a picture that is a caricature of what the

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Bible says as to how God is. And you see this in churches as well. Many churches tend to focus, you know, when we hear sermons that highlight

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God's, you know, relentless love and kindness, and how He breaks down the doors to reach you, and you know,

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He's knocking on the door of your heart and these sorts of things, right? You know, the reckless love of God, and we hear songs like that and things.

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We tend to focus so much on those characteristics of God that make us feel comfortable, but we don't tend to focus on the full character of God as presented in all of Scripture.

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I tell my students this all the time, that God is the most loving and good being in all of existence.

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That's true, and I'll stand by that, okay? But God is the most dangerous being in all of existence.

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Isn't that right? The same God who extends His hand of grace and mercy is the same

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God that the Bible says will judge all of mankind. I mean, there is a lake of fire waiting for the wicked.

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There is judgment that is coming. It's the New Testament that says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God, right? So we need to be able to understand the full presentation of the

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God of the Bible. Okay? Very, very important. Now, while it's true that God judges, right?

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We believe that God judges, and that can be a scary thing when we're reading in Scripture, right? So you see the issue here is the problem is not with the

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Scripture. The Scripture is clear. You know, the problem is that we rarely hear about those other aspects of God that make us uncomfortable, right?

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And so—but I think it's important to note here that while acknowledging that God is judged and He brings that fearful judgment that's coming upon the wicked,

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His judgment isn't arbitrary. Isn't that right? If you read the Scriptures, God's judgments are preceded often by long periods of patience and calls to repentance.

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So, for instance, God warned Noah's generation for 120 years before the flood came, and He waited 400 years before bringing judgment on the

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Canaanites, allowing time for their sin to, as the Scripture says, reach its full measure—Genesis 15, 16.

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God is patient, right? We believe that. That's what the Bible teaches. But His patience does not negate—this is so key—His patience does not negate

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His justice, all right? You know, His hand is held out.

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His hand is not held out forever, okay? And so it's important that we have a full picture of how

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God is presented in the Bible so that we have a balanced, biblically accurate picture of the character of God, all right?

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And so this idea that God is just this, you know, lovey -dovey, you know, you know, you have kind of this very flowery picture, very incomplete picture of God, we need to remove ourselves from that imbalance and embrace what all of the

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Scriptures say. Now, critics sometimes claim that God is, you know—we hear this too—is merely a projection of human psychology, right?

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Invented to fulfill our need for a father figure. This is kind of a—I remember hearing this when

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I was in college class, but I remember R .C. Sproul responding to this kind of claim.

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He says, he says—this is so, this is so good—he says, Sproul says, if I were to invent a

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God to meet my psychological needs, it would not be the God of Christianity, okay?

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If you think about it, there are aspects of the God of Christianity, there are aspects of His character that even make

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Christians uncomfortable, right? God's holiness, His righteousness, and sovereignty, those doctrines challenge us.

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But these attributes reveal who God truly is, not what we want

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Him to be, all right? And so, is there a conflict between the God of the Old Testament and the

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God of the New Testament? Absolutely not, okay? In the Old Testament, we what? We see a God who is merciful, a

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God who is long -suffering, extending His hands to sinners, calling them to repentance, but we also see a God who judges sin righteously.

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And then, of course, the New Testament presents what? The same God. Jesus Christ perfectly embodies the grace and mercy of God, offering salvation to all who believe, yet at the same time,

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Jesus is also the righteous judge who will return to judge both the living and the dead.

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He will bring destruction upon the wicked. That is the God of the Old and the New Testament.

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The issue is not with the Bible, but with having an imbalanced understanding of God's character, okay?

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When we embrace the full teaching of Scripture, God's mercy alongside His justice,

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His love alongside His wrath, we don't see a contradiction at all between the God of the

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Old and the New Testament. As the Scriptures say, to quote Hebrews 13, 8, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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All right, so these are attempts to critique Christianity. I suppose we can say they are attempted internal critiques.

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They often involve external critiques baked in there as well, but you get the idea. How can we make, then, considering everything we've just discussed here, how can we make kind of a presuppositional application here?

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All right, so we discussed these objections, right? The cosmic child abuse accusation with respect to penal substitutionary atonement, the philosophical problem of evil, and the supposed contradictions between the

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God of the Old and the New Testament. I think it's important that we see how a presuppositional approach can inform the way we respond— pardon, the way we respond to these assertions.

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Presuppositional apologetics equips us to understand not only the objections themselves that are raised against us, but also it helps us to understand the framework behind them, okay?

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Pretty much enabling us to respond consistently and biblically, and that's the value of acknowledging worldview in apologetics.

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It allows us to provide consistent answers. The specific responses we give are consistent with the broader context out of which they come, okay?

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And then we can identify tensions within people's presuppositional framework and show the weaknesses in their worldview.

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And of course, we want to avoid having those presuppositional tensions in our own perspective as well, okay? So, how do we take this from a presuppositional perspective?

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Well, again, the problem of evil, we said, is one of the most common objections against Christianity, but it's important to recognize how it is being raised, okay?

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How is the objection being raised in the particular context you find yourself in? And sometimes skeptics present the problem of evil as an external critique.

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That's true. They assume their own worldview, whether it's an atheistic perspective, an agnostic perspective, or something else, they assume that to challenge

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Christianity. And in those cases, the presuppositionalist rightly points out that the critique is grounded on borrowed capital.

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You see, the concepts of good and evil, justice and injustice, we would argue, have no coherent foundation in an atheistic or materialistic worldview, if we're going to use that one as an example.

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Without God, there is no objective standard for morality, okay? The skeptic can't even define evil or good without presupposing the very

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Christian worldview that we are trying to, that they're trying to critique, okay? They're on borrowed capital.

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However, we want to keep in mind that distinction. Not every problem of evil objection is coming from an external perspective.

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When it is an attempt to show, you know, from an internal perspective that there's a problem, we need to be able to address that.

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Okay, so we want to know how to interact with these and identify faulty presuppositions and things like this.

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Now, if the unbeliever claims that the existence of suffering, for example, proves God does not exist, right?

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We're going to challenge that, right? We could ask, what do you mean by evil? How do you define suffering as bad? These are good questions, okay?

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And don't get bullied when someone says, oh, these are stupid questions, you guys bring these up. Don't get bullied by that. Those are perfectly good questions.

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If an unbeliever is going to raise an issue of evil, and they can't define evil from within their worldview, you don't let them get away with that, right?

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You're going to challenge those presuppositions. You're going to challenge those assumptions. There is no neutral ground. You're not going to let the unbeliever borrow those categories, okay?

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On what basis, we're going to ask, can you make moral judgments without God? And this, again, from a presuppositional perspective, exposes the inconsistency in their argument.

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They're using Christian concepts to argue against Christianity. However, as I mentioned before, you want to remember that subtle shift.

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Skeptics are not always going to frame the problem of evil as an internal, or as an external critique.

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They will frame it within an internal critique, and you need to know that distinction. So they might say, you know, if God is all powerful and all good, why does he allow evil?

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And here, at this point, it's not always appropriate to respond in the way that I've just stated, right? You have no standard for evil.

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Maybe he doesn't, but he's asking about your worldview. How do you make sense out of that? Okay, and in that context, we want to know when the unbeliever is making an internal critique or an external critique.

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And so when the problem of evil is presented as an internal critique, we need to remain consistent with the

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Christian worldview, which holds that God is the ultimate standard of good and evil, right? Goodness is not something external to God that he must conform to, right?

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God's own character defines what is good. And so evil is anything that deviates from his moral standard.

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You see, a lot of times when unbelievers argue evil, or, you know, why would God do A, B, and C, they assume implicitly that there is this standard of good of which

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God is deviating. And of course, that is to place this abstract concept of goodness over God.

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And this is, of course, an external critique, even though someone might say, well, I'm trying to do an internal critique.

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No. An internal critique would never hypothetically grant that there is something above God by which he must conform to.

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That is not the Christian position. That is not the Christian worldview. Okay? And so that's very, very important.

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As presuppositionalists, as those who want to be faithful to the scripture, we're going to reject the idea that there is any such standard that stands above God.

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Okay? God is not judged by external criteria. He is the ultimate criterion.

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You don't like that, then reject the criterion. And in so doing, you remove any basis for calling anything evil.

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How does the Christian respond? Well, God is the standard. And so goodness is that which reflects his own character.

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And even though I might, as a human being, say, well, why would God do A, B, and C, that's irrelevant as to whether whether it's true or not, or whether it's in fact good.

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See, God is that standard, not me and not you. All right? So, very, very important to keep in mind.

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The presuppositional approach also reminds us to consider the larger question. I brought this up before, the larger question of worldview.

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Okay? Within the Christian worldview, good and evil are not these abstract concepts.

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Okay? They are rooted in the character and commands of God, and when God allows or ordains evil, we believe that God ordains everything that comes to pass, right?

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He's not acting inconsistently with his nature. His purposes are just, even when they are incomprehensible to us.

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People don't like that, but I don't have a problem with that at all, and that's not—doesn't vitiate against the Christian worldview at all.

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You see, and so this is why theology is so important, right?

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We understand these theological categories, we understand what the Bible teaches, and our answers to these objections are informed by the

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Christian worldview, because if it's an internal critique, they're pretty much asking us about our worldview. How do you make sense out of that in your worldview?

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And the Christian is able to do that. Okay? We would argue—we're not simply asserting—we would argue that the unbeliever cannot.

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Okay? So, I hope that makes sense. Okay? When you take a look at the cosmic child abuse perspective, okay, the objection we said fails to recognize that God, as the ultimate standard, defines what is just and unjust, okay?

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Christ's willingness to sacrifice was consistent with the justice, mercy, and love of the triune

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God as revealed in Scripture. There is no standard external to God by which he can be accused of injustice.

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So, if you grant—hypothetically grant—the truth of the Christian worldview, no, it was not unjust for the

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Father to send his son to die on behalf of sinners. Okay? It is only an injustice if you're holding

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God to a different standard than what the Scriptures teach. Okay?

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In which case, if you are holding God to a different standard, you're no longer engaging in an internal critique.

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At that point, you're engaging in an external critique, and the Christian at that point is simply going to reject the non -Christian presuppositions with which such a person is bringing to their critique.

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All right? All right. So, I hope that makes sense, okay? Now, it's important to keep in mind, okay, just kind of a presuppositional nugget, if you will, that the presuppositional method reminds us that all objections, whether external or internal or whatever, they ultimately rest on presuppositions.

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And by exposing the inconsistency of the non -Christian worldview and demonstrating the coherence of the Christian worldview, we provide robust answers to these challenges.

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But you need to be able to survive—I've said this in another context—to survive the internal critique from the unbeliever, we must be sufficiently familiar with the

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Christian worldview, our own worldview. All right? Very, very important. All right.

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Well, I would imagine that we can stay here forever, but I hope that what we've discussed here is useful to you, and that it is beneficial, gives you something to think about.

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Remember, you want to be familiar with the Christian worldview, be grounded in solid biblical theology, read your

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Bible, know your Bible, be so familiar with the truth that you're able to identify error, misrepresentations, and caricatures of the

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Christian position. In doing so, you will equip yourself to be a solid apologist who is always ready to give a reason for the hope that is within them.

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Guys, thank you so much for spending time with me. If you are new to the Revealed Apologetics YouTube channel, be sure to press that like button, subscribe, so that you can get all updates on new videos that'll be coming out, especially in light of my joint partnership with Apologia Studios.

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There's going to be a much more consistent content coming out there, and hopefully it will bless you and be useful to you guys.