Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at carn.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers, taking your calls, and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, annualist of Matt Slick Live. Today's date is let's see, September 30th, 2025. Tomorrow's October. Hey, and I was out of the studio Thursday, Friday, and Monday.

And um Went down to my high school reunion, my fifty year high school reunion. It was very interesting. Uh enjoyed it. Got to meet some old friends, some old buds and stuff like that. A lot of good times.

And uh It was great. But uh I only talk about it a little bit because uh It was kind of um It was great, you know, it's seen people.

However, this one thing stood out. One thing. And won't mention any names or anything, except that the couple that was there the day I got saved, very dramatically. Uh I met them. This was back in high school and they've been married ever since.

And we got talking and um I said, hey, you've had a huge impact in my life. And uh And uh they're like, Uh-huh. And you know, weren't very open. I wasn't quite sure about that. Maybe just because they're talking to people, they don't really care.

And said, Yeah, you know, I've been a pastor and do stuff. And they go, Yeah, we know.

Okay, and then okay, all right. And so later on I went over and talked to him again. And uh I said, you know, after a minute or two, I said, so what church are you going to? Catholic Church. And, um, It's so Oh my goodness.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into too many details, but when I said Then I said know what I do. Yeah. And they go, we know what you do. Because I could tell by a facial expression earlier, you know, something else was up. And I won't say much more than that.

It was disappointing. But Um people give up the faith. for various reasons. And they go to false religions for various reasons. And I'm reminded of what Jesus said.

He said uh You know, he came to set a mother against the son and a father against the son. The point was you choose him. over everybody. And I won't get into, like I said, the details, but Uh it was a shock uh to my system. that someone would give up the Christian faith.

and for the reason that was stated, which wasn't a good reason. And um It was it was disturbing. It was disturbing. But I did say Well, you can always get a hold of me because they get a hold of me. I had to give them a card.

I said, I'd like to return a favor sometime. Maybe we can help you out. And uh The reason I'm saying that is because Roman Catholicism is not Christian. It is a false religion. It teaches a false gospel.

It promotes idolatry, has a false priesthood. It is simply not a Christian religion. It's not true Christianity. It is false. And all who die within its doctrines, who affirm those doctrines, believe those doctrines that it teaches, are damned.

This is not me saying something in arrogance and foolishness, and who am I? And people say, What authority have you got? The authority says simply, just read the Word of God. And believe the Word of God. You don't need authority to milinterpret it.

That's one of the things that Catholics, Eastern Orthodox actors, do they say, where's your authority? This is I don't grant that I need authority. Who says I need authority? Where'd you get the authority to say I need authority? And um It's really sad.

It's really bad that for varying reasons. It was not a good reason, they said. That uh I chose to go to a Catholic Church and go to RCIA, which means they went through all the classes and adopted it so they can go to the church.

So, uh, You know, let me just say this. Jesus is our Savior, not a church, not the Eastern Orthodox, not the Roman Catholic. There's no such thing as this dumb priesthood thing that they have. Both those churches have their priesthoods as an altar in their church. They offer the sacrifice of Christ repeatedly.

They represent it, they say. It's just not in the Bible, and it's just not there, except in the Old Testament Levitical law. It's really shameful. That those false churches have gained as much power as they have and influence, but that's because, my firm opinion, is because people don't believe the word of God. They don't study God's word, and so they believe lies.

They believe false shepherds, false people. False teachers. And that's what the Roman Catholic Church is, along with the East Orthodox Church. Having said that, if you want to give me a call, you want to argue with me, that's fine. 877-207-2276.

You can also email me. Info at carm.org. Info at CARM.org. and put a subject line, radio comment or radio question, something like that, and we can get to it. Get to it.

Let's get on the phone with Jermaine from California. Jermaine, welcome, brother. You're on the air. Hey Matt, welcome back. Yeah, I'll Glad to be back.

Mm-hmm. Driving in Southern California is. It's an adventure. It's it's good thing. Nice euphemism, yes.

Yeah. Yeah, people don't understand what it's like. You know, 85 miles an hour with lanes that have been narrowed and five and six lanes that and it's packed, and there's cars fifty feet in front and fifty feet behind you. That's what it's like, and people just don't get that. But yeah, it was, you know, you know, it was okay.

Now I come back to Idaho and his people are like What's that? It's a green light. What do I do?

Okay, something like that. All right. What do you got, buddy?

Well, um you know, I was uh just looking online the last week and I saw a guy I used to follow when I was really heavy into football. His name is Sean Alexander. He he's uh former running back for the Seattle Seahawks and Had a nice career. But I I saw something I thought was a typo It said Sean Alexander welcoming his fourteenth child. Yeah, I I said, whoa, whoa.

And then what really got my attention was. It was for his forward meeting with his Is one He's children are with his wife, where'd she go? You broke up there for a sec. His what? His it was with his spouse, his wife.

Yes. Wow. Yeah, just Apparently a lot of people had thought that was controversial, that he would dare have 14 kids. And when I saw it, I said, you know, I would bet he's probably a believer of some type because I think it would take a lot of faith. for a couple to do that.

And still, you know, it's very Very uh, you know, welcoming.

So a new addition. number fourteen and thanking the Lord for it. Do does the Bible speak on limits of having children? No. Nope, it does not.

It does not.

Now, it does talk indirectly about stuff like being wise with your resources and what you can and can't do. But no, there's no limit to how many children you can have.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, yeah, that's why I I thought it was uh more to each their own. I mean, him he and his wife seem to be very happy and obviously they to have a blessing to be able to do that. And then and being a former athlete they can accommodate. But I just I found it interesting how some people who are believers actually at what seemed to be negative comments. And just like I heard one guy say, you know, sometimes it gets a little ridiculous.

And I was like, well, Maybe for him, it's not ridiculous. But me personally, I would probably lose my mind, but. Fourteen children i is a lot, but they seem very happy. Good for you. Yeah, and and they're all taken care of.

They look good and And I know he tours around campuses and and proclaims the name of Christ, so I I can't say anything negative. I was just curious what the Bible actually had to say about it, 'cause I couldn't find anything. No limits. No limit doesn't say, you know, thou shalt not have more than seven, or whatever. Nothing like that in Scripture.

So it's a they're blessing from the Lord and I wanted more kids. My wife's health didn't permit that. Literally didn't permit it. But, you know, that's just the way it goes. And so, praise God for someone like him, having that many.

Good for him. Raising them for the Lord. That's what Christians need to be doing all over the place. Can you imagine if Christians started having. Kids, lots of kids for the glory of God.

everywhere. Oh man. Oh, it'd be good. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Amen. I agree with you. Yeah, so good for him. Good for him.

Praise God. There's no limit. And if people don't like it, when people say, oh, that's ridiculous, all that is, is a. an empty comment. It's ridiculous.

Well, what does that mean, ridiculous? Your opinion? What? What is it? Is there a logical things?

You know, if a squared plus b squared equals c squared equals ridiculous, what? Where where's it get off? It's ridiculous.

So they don't, you know. You want to have twenty, have twenty if she can. Poor woman. I mean, you know. When I said to my wife, Can we have more kids?

She goes, Go ahead. She goes, Go ahead. That's right.

So right. Yeah, I'm in the same boat where I I wanted more, but my uh wife's body was not going to allow that.

So we're We're thankful for the blessings we do have though. Amen. Amen. And then birth is a serious thing, and women do all kinds of work. And I remember I remember this little bit of funny notes.

There was a satirist, I forgot his name, Dave Berry, I think his name was. Back a long, long, long time ago. And he wrote this article. He was a s he wrote comedy, you know, wrote funny stories. And Childbirth is Yucky was the title, if I remember correctly.

And he wrote this article about. About childbirth. His wife was going through childbirth, and it was all about him. He made it all about him, how inconvenient it was for him, how he had to go to these Limaj classes with her. He had to teach, you know, come on, you can breathe, you can do it on your own, you don't need me.

It was all selfish and me, me, me, all this stuff. And it was, you know, stupid, funny. And then while she's in there giving birth, he goes, I don't understand. Birth is supposed to be some great thing. You know, all this wonderful stuff.

And she's mad at me. You know, I didn't complain when I did my part. It was funny. But at any rate, I haven't thought of that for a long time. But children are a blessing.

Children are a blessing. Yeah. Alright. All right. Well, thank you, Matt.

I appreciate that. And I think we all know that. It's just some people's minds can't contemplate past one or two in our our society these days. And that's that's a kind of sad. You know, you let the world dictate what you should and shouldn't do instead of trusting God.

Amen. You got that right. All right. Good for you, brother. All right.

Well, thank you, Matt. Appreciate you. No ring all.

Alright, God bless.

Alright. That was good. your main Now, let's see, we got, yeah, we do. A little bit of time. Chuck from North Carolina.

Chuck, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt. It's been a while. Uh I don't know if you remember me.

I had a stroke and that kind of slowed me down.

Okay, well it's all right. You did a great job refueling. Roman Catholicism. Good. Friends of mine down here in North Carolina.

Islam, Muslims, at seventeen and the other eleven. I would have had more effect on it. I quit understand.

Sorry. Go ahead, Matt. No, I thought I misunderstood a word. Go ahead and say it again. I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Yeah, one friend had Seventeen kids his mom did. Yeah. Good. And one friend's mom has eleven.

It was nearby and he was a you know, work fixing picking uh tobacco. Oh. Hey, hold on, we got a we got a uh we got a break, so hold on, brother, okay, Chuck? Hold on. Be right back.

Hey folks, we have one open line. If you're going to give me a call, 87720-72276. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Alrighty, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number is easy: 877-207-2276. Let's get up back on with Chuck. Hey, Chuck, are you still there?

Yeah, I am, brother. Good to hear you. Oh. They're still doing this. Same thing.

and you're telling the truth. I don't trust him for it, you know? even though Israel is Fighting backwards. of the night Um The world seems to be Is it true that the world's turning against them, I wonder? It seems Me.

Push forward there at the time. I think that's the only thing that I'm trying to do. I guess they vibrate through very So, yeah, it's okay. It's okay.

So, yeah, it does seem that a lot of people are moving against Israel. I don't know exactly why that would be the case. But it does seem to be the case. Um and it's unfortunate. But yeah.

Okay. Yeah, one of the more of a separate score higher It's a beat of rhyme. Goodness gracious. Yeah. Something out.

Well well. No, I'm not trying to push my form that much. I'm just Talking about the office, you know what I mean? Yeah. We built bewail we don't like Okay, Brianna.

Good to good to hear from you and God bless you. We love you. All right. Well, thank you. God bless.

It's alright. All right, now let's see.

Next long is waiting is Oscar from New York. Oscar, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, sir. Thanks.

I have a question. What would have happened? If Adam and Eve had taken on the tree of life first, Before They would have probably lived in that condition forever. Yeah. Can't say for sure.

Yeah. Okay, okay, okay, thank you. That's what I think. Um but they didn't.

So they weren't tempted. It's Timeline. If they had taken on the Tree of Life first and then What would happen to be tree of the knowledge of good and evil? That means a knowledge the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I guess, couldn't wouldn't affect him. Uh Dad, I can't tell you.

Right? I can't answer that one. Too many variables in that. Yeah. And um but you know No, but it's a good question.

Alright. Yeah, the reason I asked this because I was talking to a passer. But he told me something about betrayal of life is Jesus. And he swarming that. the tree of life you have to keep taking it, you have to keep eating it to stay alive.

And I couldn't understand what you meant by that. I I was confused. No, he's wrong. You don't have to continually eat of the tree of life to be saved. No, we are saved by Jesus and what Jesus did and our faith and trust in him.

And uh unless he's Yeah, I don't know what pastor that was or what was going on, but that was That was not that's not correct. From from what you have re recited, that that it is not correct.

Okay. Yeah. Because I put salvation once We have to keep Just like believing.

Some people would say you have to keep believing, but I don't quite understand why you have to keep if you're a believer, is a believer. Right. I I'm with you. I'm with you. If you believe, you believe.

That's because God grants that you have faith. Absolutely. Right. Yeah, you don't have to keep believing, keep to you know to be saved. That's right.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, bye-bye.

Alright, God bless.

All right, now let's get with Steve, and then we'll get to Janet. Let's get to Steve from South Carolina. Steve was coming into the yard. Hello. I was calling to find out the simple question.

and your new website that's coming out, will you have a way to to sort the content by date. Move. No, not I'm aware of. doing some search on Mormonism on your current carm site and it Brings up a bunch of stuff, but it's like Some it'll be like a 2018, a 2009. and 2022 is just kind of out of order.

Didn't know if there was a way to filter it by date. Not that I'm aware of, that's a good question, and I can just ask our programmer guy if that's doable, if it's easy to easily doable. I don't know. There are issues.

So let's say I wrote an article in 2010, and then yesterday I went in and modified it and I updated it with new documentation or whatever it is.

So what date do we put now? That's a qu one of the questions we're discussing.

So we put the later date, the edited last date, instead of the original date. That's what we came up with.

So that would skew, in a sense, the original order. But uh The articles, they're documented from Mormon sources, for example, and. Are accurate.

Now, there's a new thing going on in Mormonism, which I'm going to talk to a friend of mine, Bill McKeever about. We'll see him this weekend. But I may write some more stuff on that. But anyway, that's that. That's it.

Don't think we have that.

Okay. All right, is there a way like if I were to do it? search on Carm right now and I just put in the word more Yeah. Um Would that be the best way? way to search for everything that you've written on that?

Or is there a better search term to use? If you want to know everything about Mormonism on the site right now, and we're going to have it repeated on the new site. is you go to uh let's see going to the site right now. You just go there on the left-hand side, it says World Religions, and you click on Mormonism. And it'll list all the articles.

that are there. And so you can see what they are. You know, there's and there's a lot. I dunno, hundreds or so. Oh bad.

Alright. All right, thank you, appreciate it.

Alright man. God bless. Okay. Alright, God bless.

All right. All right. Now, let's see.

Next longest waiting is Janet from. North Carolina. Janet, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, how's it going?

is gone. It's gone. Good, good, good. I'm glad you glad you had a good um reunion and all of that, that's great.

So I was glad to hear about that. Um, I do have a question for you, and it just kind of dawned on me. It's like, um There are no women authors in the world. in the Bible, is that correct? Uh ye correct, from what I understand.

Yes. Okay, so Matt, my question is What does that mean? I mean, what is the impact of that? I'm just thinking about women, and I'm just Monday with that. Mean.

Um well You know, some people want to say, well, it's a patriarchal system and women were suppressed, blah, blah, blah. But it's the male who represents the descendants, not the female.

So uh There are Quotes from women in the Bible, and you know, in Judges, Song of Deborah, and stuff like that.

So, you know, there's things that Mary said that other women have said that are in the Bible.

So Not on the top of my head, I can't remember. At any rate, they're referenced a lot. But why is it that women weren't is most probably because the The way God ordained it was through the men who were the representatives and the heads of families and heads of nations, and so they were the ones in that position that God ordained. It doesn't mean women are inferior. It doesn't mean they can't do anything that men can do except be federal heads.

They can't do that biblically. But other than that, you know, that's about it. Hmm.

Okay, okay, I get to stay just I don't know. I just thought about it and I was like, Wow. like yeah Where do we fit in? You know, you just want to kind of figure out where you fit in. It's kind of like, okay.

Well, we can talk about that after the break, okay? Hold on, alright.

Okay. Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages, please. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody welcome back to the sh Wow. to the show. I almost said shirts, and I have no idea why. Because I'm always reading something while I'm talking sometimes.

Maybe we've got my words mixed up. Let's get back on with Janet from North Carolina. Janet, welcome. You're on the air. You still there?

Yeah, I'm still here. All right. So during a break, I took some time and researched some stuff.

Okay. So the women in the Bible were the means by which the Messiah was to come through the genealogical line. They were absolutely necessary to God's covenant. There was Je uh Deborah and Miriam. Prophets and judges in the Old Testament.

Then there's Esther. she, in her wisdom, saved the Jewish people from genocide. Hold up was a prophetess. Jesus even welcomed women. As disciples, which is unusual.

at that time. And women were the first witnesses and messengers of Jesus' resurrection. And I have to say, I've told my wife this many times. is uh that women often figured out who Jesus was before the men did. And that's just how it is.

They did. Priscilla was an evangelist, and she said in Acts 18. And a lot of women, like Lydia and Nympha, they led house churches, or hosted, I should say, house churches and things like that.

So they were in the Bible, they were used.

So they were in the messianic line. helped facilitate church uh meetings. They were prophetesses and judges.

So I don't have any problem biblically with the woman prophesying or. You know, teaching their women and stuff is not a problem, they can't be elders in the church, but there's a lot that they can do, and what they have done in the Old Testament has already been. written about a great deal and shown a great deal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, that yeah. And I Kind of knew some of the things that you had mentioned before, but I don't know, I just always kind of struggle with it a little bit. I'm like, I just You wonder. Kind of the the importance of what I am.

Oh no, women are important, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of women had done a lot of great things for the Lord. Henrietta Mears was a great teacher for the Lord, a great workhorse for the Lord God. She was 1900s.

And there's just a lot of great women who've done great things. But a lot of time women are they're they're raising kids. And that's an incredible ju responsibility. And so that's why they would do that. They'd set their husbands free a lot of times to go work in ministry.

And so they share in that. Yeah. Um so you know there's um I don't know if the scripture talks about it very much, but what about in the early church when they were getting established? Did the women do. things in the church Back then Yes, they helped it grow yes, they'd hosted and led early churches in their homes.

Oh, that's right. It's a big deal, it is. Priscilla was in Acts 18. She would explain the way of of God. See, women, you know, You know, when I say on the radio, women are not to be pastors and elders, it's because they're not to be pastors and elders.

It doesn't mean they can't do other things and can't facilitate or be teachers in seminary. I have no problem with that either. Or, uh, Bible instructors, as long as they're not in a church ecclesiastical structure, but they can do incredible things.

So they should be. They should go to prison women's prison ministries. They should be doing that. They should be going into hospitals and talking to the the new moms and things like that. There's things that women can do that men just aren't suited for it quite as well.

And they need to think about that and see what ways they can do that. And I've mentioned this so many times over the years. One of my favorite things I ever heard a group of women do for the Lord. Was to knit little baby hats, caps, or whatever you call with, you know, really soft cotton stuff. And then.

take them to hospitals and give them to the new moms. go to the visit and then and and use it as an opportunity to witness. That's awesome. Could you imagine me going in there? Yeah, I got this uh I got this baby cap for your kid.

You know? know they'd be like nurse, nurse you know, get these guys.

So you know, if a a woman goes in there, you know, and they do that woman thing because they're good at that. They can just connect. And so there's a lot of opportunities. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. Thanks, man. I feel I feel better now. I just feel I'm better. I'm like, I just I think I just need to kind of hear that, you know?

Like, you know, I want to know kinda how we contribute and how we can contribute.

So Oh yeah, you can contribute greatly. But here, I got a challenge for you. Uh what I would challenge you to do is ask God to use you.

Now it's a challenge because if you do, and he goes, okay. You might say, oh, yeah, I can be using a lot of ways. And man, this is tough because he often does that to us. All right. Yes, sounds good, Matt.

Thank you so much. All right. You're welcome.

Well, God bless you. All right. You too. Bye-bye.

Okay, bye. All right, now let's get to Anthony from Arizona. Anthony, welcome. You're on the air. Oh, welcome, Matt.

Uh nice to talk to you. Sure, I mean, I suck at you.

So what do you got?

So I was looking over your article entitled The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God after I saw your discussion with Alex Malpass on that argument a while ago. Are you an atheist? Um You may consider me agnostic. You're agnostic. Yeah, it's a subdivision of atheism.

Okay, go ahead. It's all right. And you were talking about a particular statement of the argument, it sounded like. P and the not P and whatever. That was some kind of formal way of stating it.

Is that somewhere on another article? I said it deals with what's called a disjunctive syllogism. If you have P or not P? Not P. P, therefore P.

and motor tollens.

So our opponents, excuse me.

So that's all. And then a disjunctive syllogism is you have two things to account for something, God and not God. You negate the not God thing, then God is the explanation. And what he was trying to do was say it was trivial. It's true.

It's valid, but it's trivial. As if triviality means it's not true or doesn't carry any weight, but it does.

Okay. Yes, my question was on this article you have here. It doesn't state the argument in that format though, formally. It doesn't say something like premise one, Either God accounts for logical absolutes or God does not. Um Instead, it's structured differently.

So was he reading from a different article of yours? Do you have a different article where you state the argument in that format? No, it was just a discussion we had once.

So what's your just curious, what's your interest in it? What's the point? Mm-hmm. Oh, well, I was just curious if this is the article he was referencing or not. I didn't want to misunderstand your statement of it at all.

Um so one premise. Oh yes, of course. Sure.

So you know transcendentals are universals? Oh, yes, I'm familiar with the argument. At one premise, you state that which exists Has attributes and a nature. I was wondering if you believe God is absolutely simple, if He has virtual distinctions, or if you think there's real distinctions between God's attributes and his essence. Oh, you sound like a uh an Eastern Orthodox.

The attributes are identical to his essence, so his omnipotence is identical to his nature. But there are distinctions of relational distinctions with with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the Trinity.

So divine simplicity simply says God is one thing. The one thing is triune in nature. Then there's a pericrutic relationship where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mutually indwell each other, because that's the nature of that. It's called divine it's called inseparable operations. And so they each share the complete divine nature.

And we c then we get into the is of predication, is of identity and things like that. But I don't know if you're familiar with those. But so d distinctions occur in our relationship with each other. That's all.

Okay. Yes. So would you say that you hold to a strong version of absolute divine simplicity like Aquinas would, that there really isn't a distinction between God's love and his justice, for example. These are virtual distinctions. I I wouldn't know if I would agree with him.

on that because A lot of times, when people ask me these questions and they ask about so-and-so's belief in something. I'm always reticent to say yes or no because I don't know the context or nuances that such an author may or may not have uh s expounded on.

So what I I instead I just say believe in the divine simplicity of God is one substance, one being, the divine essence that is triune in nature. Can't get s more simple than that, it can't be more complicated than that. but yet within the triune nature of those eternal distinctions of of relation. All right. Um so God's attributes are really distinct from one another, you would say.

Well, they are they can be distinct in the set that one is not the other. Love is not the same thing as mercy. Or omnipotence is not this, I should say this way. Love is not the same exact same thing as omnipresence. Love is an attitudinal thing, presence is a natural thing of his attributes.

But yet, they're all part of the divine nature.

So I would say there's distinction in them because we can describe them separately. And which would you know what you talked about, sortals, right? This we wanted to get into here or I'm curious.

Well, um Do you believe in Relative identity? Um, if if you that's what you mean by swordles, you know Well, you mean leave this law? That kind of relative identity. Hold on, we got a break. Hold on, buddy, okay?

Hold on, I'll be right back. Hey folks, we write back after these messages. Please stay tuned and... Oh look at Yeah. We'll get you this stuff.

We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All Robbie, welcome back to the show. Last segment of The Hour.

Let's get back on with Anthony from Arizona. You still there? Oh yes, I'm still here.

Okay. So, uh I forget where we were. Where were we?

So, um, we were talking about sortals and relative identity. I don't know if we want to go into all that. I don't think that's necessary.

Okay. Tag argument.

So you so you make the statement that which exists has attributes and nature. Um It seems to me like you're saying that God is identical with his attributes in a particular way that nothing else is.

So it seems like he would be an exception to this kind of general principle. No, I don't think so.

Okay, so the sortle of God is different than the sortle of humans.

So even though personhood may be. Um maybe across both of those categories, the uniqueness of God as a category uh is different and where there's only one instantiation, where in humans there's many instantiations, according to sort of so I think uh so I'm with you, but I'm not quite following you exactly. But Well, for me, for me, for example, my intelligence and my power are really distinct attributes. Mm-hmm. But it doesn't seem like you wish to say God's power and his wisdom are really distinct in the same way.

Well, that's interesting. That's a really interesting statement because in this does. Because let me see if I can say this right. In the same way with God does it apply the phrase in the same way to his nature and the same way as our nature. It's just a question of.

God's power is distinct from his justice. Do you mean the same thing when you say my power is distinct from my justice? Like William Lane Craig says that kind of thing, Richard Swinburne, but they don't believe in absolute divine simplicity. They don't believe in the kind of simplicity, it seems, like you affirm. And most Calvinists traditionally do, right?

Yeah, but when I talk about divine simplicity, you know, I'm talking about the tri-new nature, and I specifically get to that. But definitely, there's attributions of God that are one with his. The attributes of God are identical to His nature, but there's distinctions within them, just as we have distinctions of omniscience with omnipresence. Those are distinctions because of the categories that we're defining them as, yet they're all part of God's eternal nature. Yeah, it seems to me that you're describing virtual distinctions.

Um Uh So I guess that's fine if I has attributes and a nature, you admit also virtual distinctions into that definition.

So yeah, I guess it answers the question. Yeah, in that sense. But I think there's attributions because here's another question. is Attributes are related to the ontos.

So how is it that, so to speak, omnipotence is related to love? in the one nature of God. And what does that mean? And that's just something I haven't gotten down to a bit. brass tacks are very often to think about, if you know what I mean.

Right. An idea that you might like to work with. Richard Swinburne in his Coherence of Theism, what he says is generally that God has really He really needs to only have two fundamental attributes, that he's necessarily existent. And then that he's omnipotent. And from those you can get all the others.

Because if he's omnipotent, it means he can perform any action logically possible. And that requires that he knows everything, right?

So from omnipotence, you can get omniscience. And then from that, if a being is omniscient and he's all-powerful. He's going to know what's good, and knowing that it's good is a reason to do that, it's good, and he has no irrational desires, so he'll be omnibenevolent too. And so on. EC you can get all the attributes from those two.

I don't know if I would agree with that, because then that would include Islam or Allah as a God. But in Christianity, one of the essences of God's nature is God is love, and it's identity as well as predication. We kind of get into the variability there. But not so in Allah.

So in Allah, if you can't say God is love, but that He loves, then that would mean it's not part of His entos, but that it's a decision, which then means it becomes arbitrary. Where in the Trinitarian view, the issue of love is necessary to God's existence, it's part and parcel of what He is, and so it's logically prior to His decisions of love, and what could not be arbitrary, if you see what I'm saying, there. I really like this conversation, okay? I really do. we could have an off-air discussion and get into this.

I'd love that. Oh, of course. Yeah, I've seen you on Discord. I guess I'll add you there and we can talk or I'll email you. But yeah, I think what you just said, you can incorporate that into this argument.

So as I was looking at your argument, um your transcendental argument. I was just thinking You could phrase it more defensibly as an argument for To the best explanation. Even though you think it's necessary that God accounts for transcendentalism, you could say it's the best explanation, right? Yeah. So you go abductor.

Yeah. I think a polysyllogism is worth looking into along with a disjunctive syllogism. I think it's necessary myself because I think oh. Because here's something else to throw out at you. I'm enjoying the conversation.

the problem with the one and the many. Because it w if the the issue of the problem of the one and the many is is such that all world views fall into one or many, then it would all worldviews other than the Christian Trinitarian one would lead to incoherence. Therefore the Christian Trinitarian one is necessary. That's another way of doing it, it would be deductively necessary. And there's a word for disjunctive syllogism.

As a formal term, noticed something, I forget what it was, but. It's there. Right. Right, I see that you think it's like an analytic. A truth, right?

It's just necessarily true that if there are logical absolutes, that the Trinitarian God exists. Um It just seems to me that's like it's open to more objections than if you did it as an abductive argument. Um Because if he did it as an abductive argument, right? Like he went over a lot of, like with Malpass, a lot of. discussion on like sentential logic and the eight valid inferences back and forth and how to make it valid really really precisely and deductive logic and how to defend that like and you have to defend that all these other Um All opposing hypotheses besides yours, like he mentioned at one point, you need a knockdown argument for all of them, right?

But if instead you made it as an abductive argument, right? You said this is just the best explanation. That avoids a lot of that, right? Um and then about um God being perfectly Uh, loving and that ruling out Unitarian views like Islam. I think that's compatible with Swinburne's view.

He's run that argument. as well the love argument, right? an omnipotent being necessarily it follows from that that um is a commonly benevolent being, and from that he'd be loving Then they have certain kinds of love like relational love. He needs to be multiple persons. And he argues that the fewest number of persons is just three.

Right. Yeah, I do. I argue that. I think it's necessary. I would like to if you would be interested in sending me links and where to go look for this stuff, I'd like to read his stuff.

Sure, of course. And I don't want to take up all your time, so I'll just Mention one final thing, because I don't know if there's other people waiting. You know, I know you have a radio show, I don't have. You know, ramble on natural theology the whole time. Um But um So with the logical absolutes um I've heard you say that they're conceptual in nature.

That's what you want to argue, right? They're conceptual in nature. And because they're necessary concepts, we want to say they're from a necessary mind. Right. an absolute there has to be a kind of necessary being that exists in all possible worlds.

You know, um Um I wonder about the terminology here when we say they're conceptual in nature. I mean, generally, when we have concepts that they don't have causal powers, right? Um, if I have a concept of a pink horse outside that doesn't make the pink horse exist outside just because I have a concept of it.

So it seems like you're saying these are really peculiar kinds of concepts. logical absolutes. If they have causal powers somehow, like intentions in some kind of way. and that God by thinking of them causes their truth in all possible worlds. Is that the kind of thing you're saying?

No. He not caused them, but they are authored part of his nature. He's a necessary being in all potentialities so that are logically possible, that are consistent with his nature. And by the way, destined if syllogism is modus telendo ponens. That's what it's called.

Just So yeah, the necessary being of God, which uh the the one and the many inherent within his nature would solve the problem of the one and the many. That's uh philosophically, in my opinion, it's pretty devastating to a lot of world views. Um That seems very mysterious to me, saying what these logical absolutes are. Are you saying that I've got Go ahead. Yeah.

Go ahead. Sorry. You there? Uh let's see. Uh you're breaking up for me.

I don't know if I'm breaking up for you. Oh, no, I was saying the logical laws, you know, law of identity, law of non-contradiction, law of excluding middle, proper inference, websites law, stuff like that. and more complicated ones. We don't find them we don't find they're not properties of the physical realm because they can't be measured. They're not properties of the physical universe.

What else are they? If someone wants to offer another, you know, to their entos, I'd be glad to see. You know, I mean, I'd I've asked atheists and agnostics, and it's not a challenge, like, hey, you're an idiot, show it to me. It's like, well, what are the other ones? Because I don't know all the philosophy and I don't know all the positions.

If it's an abstract entity, I want to know.

Well, let's talk about it. But I haven't really gotten very far with too many people on it. Right, yeah. Um Yeah, we could talk about that.

Now or on some other occasion if you want. Depends how much time you have or you know. But uh So Are you saying that God like um So God has a thought and the thought is the exclud the law of excluded middle and he has another thought, the law of non-contradiction. and he has another thought. You know, are you saying that sort of thing?

Are you saying that God just innately Uh has some set of attributes or something. Yes. Okay. So he doesn't think about it, and God doesn't have thoughts. Oh, he has thoughts, but uh I'd say LNC is just part of his nature.

And I can't answer all these questions because. I'm not trying to be dismissive. I'm just saying there are just some things we just can't answer. How is it that the universal being, part of his nature, is such that it's non-LNC, and yet it's reflected in our minds? How does that work?

I have no idea. You know, things like this, I don't know. But he seems to be the necessary precondition for all intelligibility because if you have a materialistic worldview, besides it being ultimately self-refuting, I don't see how, and I don't see, it doesn't mean it's not there, I don't see how any other worldview can account for the universality of the laws of logic, their absolute identity, excuse me, their absoluteness, their universality, their invariance, and they seem to be, you know, as abstract entities can go in different definitions, certainly seem to be of the mind.

So, you know, well, you got a better explanation f for the preconditions for them. I'd like to hear it. Right. That's the sort of thing that I was thinking of is that You have this sort of ontological ground, right? For the Logical absolutes, right?

And when we start getting into the details of it, there is necessarily some mystery about God and his nature and how these things work like you just described. Um but it seems rather parallel um to the mystery of the Platonists, for example, who believes that there are these necessary Platonic objects. We start asking questions of them specifically, like in the Parmenides, right, where it goes through all these options in Plato's Parmenides. you start asking, well, exactly what is Yeah. you know, entity that grounds a law of non-contradiction.

And you say, well, it's non-physical, it's universal, it's necessary, and so on. You start asking more detailed questions. And there's some mystery. And it seems kind of parallel to the mystery we have when we posit God to ground these things, right? It seems like the Platonist and you both have aspects of mystery here.

Absolutely. our ontological accounts for the logical absolutes, right? They they both agree they exist and they're real and they're necessary. and they have ontological weight. And then, what I would do is add in the issue of the cosmological and disjunctive syllogism of necessary preconditions and things like this.

I'd get into all kinds of stuff, have some discussions. I think the Trinitarian God is necessary when we look at all of it. But hey, There's a music. We gotta go. But that just, there it is, we're out of time.

Okay. Find me on the Discord. I'll talk to you later. Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation. I really did.

Thank you.

Okay. Sorry about that, folks. I love that stuff. I don't get to do that very often, and I could learn some things from him, I'm sure. May the Lord bless you by his grace.

We'll be back on there tomorrow.

Sorry, Tommy from South Carolina, Kenny from North Carolina. Call back tomorrow. God bless.