Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick Show. If you're watching, we're doing hand signals with one of the guys there because one of the settings wasn't right on my end and got it fixed. Hey, if you want to watch the show, you can.

All you got to do is go to karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, on the right-hand side of any page. You will find the links for the video stuff you can watch. It's not the big deal. We've got 17 people in it right now and it usually gets up to 50, 60, 70, 80, 100. We've had hundreds in before. We hope that people will do, I think it's called a watch party.

Now we're at 21. We have people coming quickly at the beginning of the show. It's really exciting. Oh, yeah, it's exciting. I'm sitting here and you can watch. The nice thing is you've got people in a chat room you can text to.

People have made friends, actually, in stuff like this. Anyway, there you go. Hey, if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276.

The last four digits spell C-A-R-M on your phone. Let's see what else. Okay, we've got the schools. Oh, I remember something here. If you use Amazon, what you can do is go to smile.amazon.com. You can set up a charity. Every time you use Amazon, you have to type in smile.amazon.com. That's what you've got to do. You can shop normally.

Everything's fine. It's the same. Or when you're ready to check out, just put smile.

in front of it, in front of the whole URL, and smile.amazon.com. When you check out, a percentage goes to the charity of your choice. So we hope that people will want to do that for CARM. We're going to check every few months from that.

Not a whole bunch, but I'm going to tell you, every bit adds up. If we get enough people doing that, hey, that's what we want. Speaking of that kind of thing, if you want to support us, all you have to do is go to carm.org forward slash donate.

We ask $5 a month, $10 a month, $15 a month, if that's not too much, because it really does help us a great deal. We do need to get the lights on and pay the missionaries, speaking of which. I had to go to the store I normally go to in order to do the missionaries' payments. We have a missionary, and CARM supports one in Malawi, Africa, Brazil, Colombia, and Turkey.

They're good Christian men. Well, today, it's been about an hour standing there. I just spent time on Facebook, on my phone, challenging people, answering questions, things like that. The payment wouldn't go through, and we had all kinds of problems. It just happens. This ministry, this kind of stuff happens a lot, and so the people are, we're sorry, sorry, sorry, we're apologizing. I said, nah, it happens. I said, this is part of ministry work. I said, things just go bad sometimes, and that's what it is. I'm used to it.

Not that big a deal, but you can always pray for us and stuff like that. Now, look, we have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Gabriel from Georgia. Hey, Gabriel.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, man. How you doing? I'm doing okay. Hanging in there.

So what do you got, buddy? Good, good. I just want to say I appreciate your ministry. I just recently discovered you, and I'm learning a lot from you. The question I had was I have a friend who we used to go to the same church and come to find out that there were some errors and things of that nature. So by God's grace, he led me to a Reformed Baptist church. However, my friend, on the other hand, he's been caught up in Church of Christ doctrine. And so, you know, I've seen your debate and I know about them. But my question to you is how would you go about refuting their Roman 1616 claim where they say, you know, the churches of Christ salute you, that, you know, they are the one true church?

Okay. Well, when they say they're the one church, oh, let me try again in English. When somebody says or some church member says that their church is the only true church, I say, oh, another only true church. And, you know, when you go to, you know, Roman 1616, all churches of Christ greet you. So are they saying then that because their name matches that that that's why they're true? Because we could say that I could say, well, we're going to have a church named Churches of Christ greet.

And it's right there. So we're obviously true because we call ourselves that. It just doesn't make any sense.

It's a useless statement on their part. Anybody can say they are like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. Well, they had the word Jesus Christ in their title, but it doesn't make them Christian. Just because you put the title in a church like that doesn't mean that's the right one.

Okay. So that's what that is. The issue is what does the Church of Christ teach? And it's a cult. People need to abandon it because it teaches baptism is required for salvation, usually in their specific church. And it has to be for the purpose of being saved and that you can't get saved unless you're baptized by their church, your church members, your denomination, while you're understanding that it's for the purpose of having your sins forgiven, et cetera, et cetera. And if there's any Church of Christ people out there who want to have a formal public debate on this with me, let's set it up. Okay.

Is baptism by immersion, is water baptism by immersion necessary for salvation? It's a common title, and I've debated that particular title many times. I'd be glad to. I already debated one Church of Christ guy a few weeks ago.

He didn't do well. So if anybody else is out there trying to do it, that's fine. If you want to do it, I'll debate you. Okay. Let's get it televised. Let's get it on the radio, whatever it is. I don't have any problem doing that.

We can debate the issues. So it's a bad group. They're legalistic. Teach you can lose your salvation. You maintain your salvation by what you've got to do, being good. Have you baptized in their church?

You can get re-baptized if you lose your salvation over and over again. It's a cult group. Okay.

There might be Christians in there, but it's basically a cult group. Amen. Amen. Well, just thank you for that, and keep listening, and keep following your ministry. Well, praise God, and just check whatever I say against Scripture because, look, you listen to a guy named Slick on the radio.

You've got to be really careful. So just check what I say against the word of God. Always check what I say against the word of God.

And if you don't agree with me on something, call me up and say, hey, I don't agree with you about this verse and stuff. And we'll talk. Okay? Amen. All right. Thank you. Thanks for your time. All right. You're welcome. God bless, buddy. God bless.

Okay. Hey, folks, we have five open lines. It's a Friday, slow first half of the show on Fridays a lot of times. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. You may have just tuned in.

You're curious. This is Matt Slick live at Christian Apologetics Show. I answer questions on the Christian faith and other religious systems and even secular systems and do debates, teach, and try and tell people what they ought to believe when it comes to Jesus Christ and the word of God. And I stand against the Roman Catholic Church, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, Baha'i, Hinduism, Confucianism. Only Jesus Christ, God in flesh, is the one who can save you from your sins. If you do not trust in Jesus, you do not receive Christ. If you don't put your faith in what he did on the cross and only what he did on the cross, not in your works, not in your baptism, not in your sacraments, not in your whatever it is you might do to keep yourself right with God, only by faith in the work and person of Jesus Christ.

If you don't do that, you're going to be going to hell for eternity. This is what I teach. It's what I believe. I have no qualms about saying it, no apologies necessary.

That's what I stand on. If you want to discuss something with me, give me a call. We have five open lines, 877-207-2276.

Maybe somebody in the chat room can type in a question. We can get those, too. Usually we don't have much problem with callers.

In particular on Fridays, though, it's a little slow. And that's what I stand for. And the reason I do that, the reason I stand for all of that stuff is because when I was 17 years old, Jesus Christ saved me in a very dramatic way, a very dramatic way. It wasn't just like, ooh, I feel something.

Oh, no, no, no. Tears, just my face to the ground, the presence of God's holiness overpowering. And I'll tell you, I'll never forget it. And then later, a few years later, God gave me an unction to read and study his word. And I would read it four to six hours every day.

And it went on for months and months and months and months. And I would read and read and read the word of God and fell in love with it. And it is the standard of truth, not your feelings, not your church, not your tradition, not any commentary, certainly not me, not Carm. You have got to study and trust in the word of God. And if you do that, you'll be less likely to be deceived by the charlatans on TV.

So many abound on TV, you know, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, just the basic people who like to teach and make you feel good, tickle your ears, and then they slip into false doctrines all the time. All right, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Chuck from Burlington, North Carolina. Chuck, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Matt. And this is a difficult question. I'm not trying to mess with it. But I'm wondering, do you have any theories on how the soul is transmitted from the parents to the children? No. All I can do is tell you that theologians have discussed it, and we don't know. Does God put the soul into a person at a certain place of development? Don't know. Is the soul transmitted through the mom and dad? Don't know.

Is it transmitted only through the father because of what's called federal headship? Maybe we don't know. We don't know. Is it a product of the physical generation, and at a certain point the soul becomes a soul? We don't know.

And so because of it, I can't tell you, because the Bible doesn't tell us. Right, right. Okay. Yes, sir, Matt. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. No problem at all, Matt. God bless.

All right, let's get to Randall from West Virginia. Welcome. You're on Matt's Look Live. Hello, Matt. I'm glad you're feeling a lot better today.

Yes. Yeah, I had a really bad head cold earlier part of the week. I'm still getting over it. Yeah, I was worrying about you. We were worrying about you or your family because you wasn't on. Well, you know, I appreciate that. What I need to do, and it sounds narcissistic, but I need to go on Matt's Look Live, I mean, Matt's Look Facebook page, and just let people know I'm sick and et cetera, because as a public figure, I'm not boasting or anything, and on the radio people worry, and I get e-mails. I've just got to sort of let people know that, you know, I'm just sick. I'll be off the air for a couple of days kind of a thing. That's what I should do.

I'm just too lazy sometimes. Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great. I've got a question about, and I don't have my Bible open, where it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. I would like to really open the break.

Hold on, because that's out of the Old and New Testaments. I can show you where. But we write back, folks, after these messages. If you want to give me a call, we have one open line, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Okay, everybody, welcome back to Matt Slick live.

Let's get back to Randall from West Virginia. You're on the air. Yeah, you showed the scripture there. I looked it up. But it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and with all your mind. When I was a young Christian, it seemed like that my prayers and stuff were more on fire. And I have served the Lord for decades. But I'm wondering what does that mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart?

I mean, I serve God, but there's a difference between God and your family, I'm sure. Let me ask you a question. You're married, right? Yes. You love your wife?

Yes. So when you were first married, pitter-patter, heart, all that kind of stuff, and it was really wonderful. And now sometimes you look at your wife and you're like, yeah, there she is. That's right.

I wonder if she's going to fix her hair. And you don't feel that same thing. You're used to it.

And C.S. Lewis said being in love is the explosion that starts the motor of marriage and gets going. And it doesn't mean you don't love your wife. It's just that you're so accustomed to all of it.

The love is there. Well, this kind of thing happens with us as Christians, too. The initial time of our relationship with Christ is just so wonderful. And as is the case, we kind of move into an idol. But we're still going, you know?

And you don't have to worry about that. Now, what does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? What it means is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength. That's what it means. It means exactly what it says to do that. Now, the question then becomes, uh-oh, am I in trouble because I'm not? Because who loves God with everything that they are?

I don't know anybody who does. Now, Jesus is the only one who could do that. Jesus would fulfill the law perfectly. And he did, 1 Peter 2.22. Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is a quote from Deuteronomy 6.5. And Jesus quoted it in Matthew 22.37. So, was Jesus the one doing it perfectly?

Yes. But how did he do it? Well, he was talking to people. He spent time with the children. He spent time with the ladies, in a good, reverent way, of course. He went and talked and preached.

He prayed. We don't see what a lot of times what we would put upon ourselves, we don't see as something that Jesus did. And we have Bibles in our hands. Are we reading them five hours a day?

Well, here's the question. Did Jesus have Torah, scrolls, as he was walking around? Don't think so. Was he reading the Word every day?

Probably not. So, it doesn't mean we have to be legalistic about what we do. If I'm going to love God, I've got to read at least a half hour. That's not what love is. That's obligation. And so, love is other sexual.

To love God needs to focus on him and to consider him above us. I read every morning probably an hour and a half or so, but not because I feel like I have to. Because I want to. And I do a lot.

I go and I talk to people. If someone needs help, I help them. But when you explain that about your wife and being in love with your wife, that helps me a bunch.

That's true. Sometimes we look at our wives and we're frowning. Like, okay, let's see. She just said something that's kind of irritating.

You don't feel all that love, but if something happens where she's in danger, you're right there protecting her. You know, and you feel that. The different manifestations of how we express ourselves is just that.

Different at different times and different ways. And so it is with our love with God. So, here you are expressing your love to God. You're reading his Word. You read it more like that than I do on a daily basis. I don't read for that long. I'm always studying it. And my problem is I study it more than I just devotionally read it.

That's right. I'm working on correcting that. You know, because I'm an apologist, but I'm always in his Word and speaking his Word. I probably speak the Word more than you do. Probably, but maybe not. You never know. But does that mean I love him more than you?

Not at all. So, you know, how are we doing this? Well, each person must be before God and asking God to teach them how to love God with what we are. Our heart, our soul, our mind, our bodies, our strength, and everything. Because you can love, you know, like me, my wife's health. You know, I mentioned on the radio, her health isn't as good as it needs to be. And that's just what it is, okay?

And it's a lover. Well, one of the ways I'm going to love her today is by cleaning up the kitchen. You know, I went shopping today. I got groceries. And so I'm going to clean up the kitchen today.

And that's just a way of loving her. Well, when you serve God, you serve God in different ways. You can serve God by cleaning up the kitchen for your wife. You can serve God by reading your Bible. You can serve God by asking a question on a radio show that God wants you to answer. Or to ask that other people might hear and answer.

Who knows? Just submit yourself to him. Move forward.

Do the best you can and ask him to teach you how to love him according to Deuteronomy 6.5 even more and more. Okay? That helps me a bunch. Can I ask you real quick? Sure. Does this kind of go along too with the prayer life?

It seems like when I used to pray, I was so much more on fire than praying than what I am now. Yep. A similar relationship. When my wife and I were dating, it was like I could hardly wait to be with her and spend time with her.

Okay? Oh, it's just awesome. And I remember once we were circumambulating a well-penestrated edifice while curtailing our relative destinations. And I told her that. And she just said, do I have to slap you or what?

What does that mean? And we had fun. I still make her smile after all these years. I still open the door for her after all these years.

But our conversations aren't full of those excitement times. But it doesn't mean I don't love her. Yeah.

I do. After 34 years of marriage next month. So we've been married a while.

Yeah. And I just said to people, she's lucky to have me. I'm so wonderful. I'm just so great.

I tell people that. And then she rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She rubbed her forehead a lot around me. I don't know what the problem is.

Maybe she should go see a doctor about headaches. But anyway, so ask God to improve that in you. And see what he puts upon your heart and how he does it. Okay?

Yes, I have. And maybe that's why he had me to call you. That's helped me a lot. Well, praise God, Randall. Well, thank you for your answer.

Your question actually convicts me a little bit. You know, that's an important thing. And so I'm glad you asked it because it's speaking to me. Even my own answer. You know, ministers to me. It's like old crud.

Like I dare not say it now. So, okay. That's good. All right. Thank you, Matt. God bless you. You too, man. God bless.

All right. Let's jump on with Bruce from North Carolina. Bruce, welcome. You're on Matt's Look Live.

Hey, Matt. I just had a comment on some of the things you talked about. Okay. Hang on. Let me turn my speaker off. Okay.

That may be better. Yesterday someone had called in and asked you about why doesn't God always answer the prayer for healing when people are healed. Oh, hey, there's the break. You had a good answer. Well, thank you for that.

When you started about saying, well, maybe if we get to heaven, we'll know more what God was doing and how he worked our lives. Hey, hold on. We got a break, buddy. Hold on.

We got a break. Okay. We'll be right back. Okay.

Got you. Folks, we'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick Live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Okay, buddy. Welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on the line with Bruce from North Carolina. what I was going to follow up to say from what you had started on yesterday, and maybe you said it later, I don't think I heard the rest of the show, but I'm thinking, and it may be in 2 Corinthians 12, I'm not sure, but somewhere in there, you know, remember Paul said he asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn in his flesh, and God said, no, no, I'm going to do that, but my grace is sufficient, etc. So I thought that may be, that to my mind is another answer. It ties into what you were saying about maybe the way God grows us in those situations, so that's just my comment. Yeah, it's good. We should have brought that verse up, because it is a great verse.

Even Paul wasn't healed, and he had to deal with what he had to deal with, and that's what it is, we depend on God in it. Yeah, that's good. Well anyway, I enjoy hearing you, I listen to you often, I'm out in the car especially, but I appreciate your good work, and we're right outside of Winston-Salem, you probably know some of our friends in Winston that help with the radio network, so anyway, that's where we're located. Well, praise God, and there are good people at this network too, that's for sure.

Sure, they're the best. Listen, thank you, you keep up your good work, and blessings on you, okay? You too. Thanks a lot, God bless.

Okay, thank you. Okay, let's get to Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome, you are on the air.

Thank you, Matt, I appreciate you taking my call. I heard you say something last week, and I was kind of confused about it, and I did not know if I heard you correct or not. Did you say last week that when Christians are in a position of political authority that things are better? Well, I don't know what I said, what context it was, but I think it would be better if Christians were, true Christians, were in power and living according to God. Do you, are you basing that on anything empirical, or is that an opinion? Okay, so what's your question? What's your question?

My question is, you know, because it seems to me, I've done a lot of reading and studying of church history, and both since the Reformation and when Christians do have political power, and I was just wondering, you know, it seems to me that Christians, when they believe they have the authority of God and political power, they tend to be more corrupt than their secular counterparts, and that's why I was confused about it. Really? I did not know, yes, beyond any shadow of a doubt as far as I'm concerned. Let me ask you, if you've done any research, how many wars, how many people have died in all of recorded history of religious wars?

You have any idea? Well, you know, you can take one, World War I, which is basically amongst Christian nations, it was 23 million right there. Okay, you're not listening. How many religious wars, based on religious issues, where it was a religious thing that, not if someone happened to be a Christian, okay, how many in all recorded history are religious war-based? Like, for example, Islam, they do wars based on Islam. It's because of Islam. All right, so, Christianity doesn't teach having wars. It does not.

It teaches the contrary, okay, except for maybe self-defense, but that's not a topic. So, how many in all recorded history? Okay, how many? I would have to be informed by it.

Okay, you have an idea. Take a wild guess. I'm just curious to know what your guess would be, because my guess is way off. 40 million. I figured a few more, not 40, but I figured 10, 20 million.

It's less than five, less than five million, and you can get the information. Go to myth, the myth that religion is the cause of war, or the number one cause of war. It's on Karm, and I didn't write this article, but someone else did, and it is there, and guess how many non-religious dictators, you know, like Stalin. He was basically atheistic.

Stalin and Mao? Yeah, and just in the 1900s, 42.6 million under Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, 37.8 million, Adolf Hitler, 20.9 million, Ching Kai-Shek, 10 million, Vladimir Lenin, 4 million, Tojo, 4 million, Pol Pot, 2.4 million, so over a hundred million people in the 1900s alone lost their lives due to non-religious, non-Christian-based wars from secularists. So, let me ask you, if you have a real Christian, and people get into this, they call it the true Scotsman fallacy. What's a real Christian? A real Christian, as I said this yesterday, and what I'm going to do is read the qualifications for an elder. I think, let me turn my phone down, okay, I think that what we should have is qualifications for holding office, similar to what are required for holding an office, excuse me, let me get my head on straight here, similar qualifications for eldership should be applied to those who are going to be running for office. One person to be married to, not necessarily have to be married, but that's the idea, it's a man of one woman, temperate, prudent, respectful, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, not full of fighting, peaceable, free from the love of money, right there, that's most politicians right there, are gone. They manage their own household well. If we had people like that in power, and you know what, you don't even have to be a Christian for that, if people like that in power, do you think things are going to go better or worse?

Because with the rise of socialism, it's just going to get worse. Well, let me ask you this, if you have a Christian who has political authority and holds some political office, what is their responsibility to people that are not of their religion and not of their political persuasion? What is their responsibility? Well, the same as it is in scripture, to treat all men as people made in the image of God. If I were in some miraculous thing, President of the United States, I would make sure that all people were treated as equally as possible, and I'd also work to have Christianity not be the whipping dog of everything, but I would make sure it was treated equally. Well, would you apply the Ten Commandments with your political power? I mean, try and get it so people didn't commit adultery and didn't lie and didn't steal?

Yeah. Would you? Or love the Lord your God with all your heart? Well, that's what they should. Everybody should do that, and I would promote that, which would promote that. It doesn't mean everybody's forced to. You see, what's wrong with saying that people ought to serve God? They ought. Do you agree? Let me ask you, do people ought to serve God? Do you believe that they should? That should live in God? As a Christian, I believe that that is the purpose of my life, yes. Okay, so if you were in power, would you want would you want to work things out so that people started serving Allah and following Surah 9 about killing people?

What would you do? To me, that's the grind, that's the tension of a Christian being in political power, is because you do have a great many different religious beliefs, and you have your own convictions, and trying to do that, like the theonomy, you know, wants to use government. I'm not talking about theonomy. No, no, no. Well, but that's the purpose of the theonomy, is to use political power to exact Christian principles, isn't it? You just heard me say, I'm not into theonomy, okay? Oh, okay, excuse me. So, you know, it's not my bag, all right?

But if you were to go to Qarm, you could read up some of the quotes, and there's a lot I haven't even released. The founding fathers of this country repeatedly said, repeatedly, we have given you a nation, see if you can keep it, and they said that the only way to have America work is to have a religious population and a religious system, a religious people. That's what they said over and over again, and the reason is because you get people in, like wacko loser Pelosi, third most powerful person in our country. She wants to misuse power all the time because she's full of hatred. She's got mental problems.

No one uses, misuses power more than Donald Trump. No one. I don't know.

I don't know about that. I'm just saying, look at Pelosi. She's whacked, you know?

She got outsmarted by a hair salon place, and she was set up. Give me a break. Look, we want people in power who are gonna be godly, or do you want them in power who can act like Stalin?

What do you want? Well, we have people in power now that are completely undermining everything that is our democratic republic. Biden, Obama, yeah. Trump is the worst one of the bunch.

Trump is the worst one of them all. I don't buy that for a second. You know what? Here's the thing. What we need are people praying and people asking to get godly people, asking God to get godly people in office who won't be bought with money and who don't have special interests, but say that as they hold up their hand and swear before God that they're gonna uphold the oath that they have to defend the Constitution and uphold the Constitution. If I ever gave that oath, I would keep that oath to the best of my ability.

May I offer some empirical data? No, because we're gonna get going. We've got callers waiting, and we can just move along, all right? All right, let's get to John from Raleigh, North Carolina. John, welcome. You're on the air. Oh, thank you.

Matt, I was driving in that car, and I called your radio program, and I was wondering... We're gonna break, John. Hold on. We'll get right back to you after the message, okay?

Okay. Hey, folks, be right back. Welcome back to the last segment of the show. Let's get back on with John. You're back on the air. Welcome.

Yeah, thanks, Matt. Yeah, I was driving in a car, I called your program, and I watched the movie called After the Wrath, and it made some interesting claims, like, which I never thought about, that most of the miracles done by Jesus were in the Galilee area, walking on water, turning wine into, I mean, turning wine into water, walking water, I think even feeding 5,000. They also claimed that the Galileans were not as bad as the zealots, but they were upset with the, not only Roman occupation, but also the corrupt Jewish authorities, so therefore that would explain, when Jesus went to Judea, why, I mean, Jerusalem, he didn't get a, you know, it's a warmer reception, and just interesting, you had any comments or heard it by any chance, saw that movie? No, I haven't seen it.

In fact, I hadn't even heard about it, and I saw what you, what the producer wrote in there, and I went and researched a little bit during the break, and so I need to check it out, and it says there's new evidence that's been discovered, archaeologically or something, that supports a rapture, which is fine, and some stuff, and so because of that little research, I found something called christiansinema.com, christiansinema.com, and so I'm giving them a free plug, so I'm gonna have to check it out, and see, there's a lot of movies that they have there that are apparently family-friendly and Christian-based, but at any rate, so I've not seen that, I'm gonna have to check it out. Okay, do you have any comments about whether or not you thought the Galileans were kind of known to be, you know, against the Romans and against the Jewish authorities, or? All of Israel was. Anything like that? But all of Israel was, they did not like being under the Roman oppression, and so the zealous were a party that they wanted to work against, I don't know geographically if there were more centered areas, I've been to the area, and, you know, looked at the, you know, what you're saying, you say, I was there, I was there, I was there, but as far as that history goes, I don't know.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are some inscriptions that they've discovered that, you know, might, in that particular area, you know, might shed some light on things, because they're always discovering stuff in Israel, always, and, you know, so. Well, thanks a lot, and I enjoy your program, and I liked your answer to the, you know, about the, you know, the wars, I've come across that argument before, and I use your answer to it very well. Thank you.

That's what it is. All right, man, God bless. Okay, and let's get on the phone with, let's see, Daniel from California. Daniel, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, can you hear me well? Yes, I can hear you. I hear you fine. What's up?

Well, I hope you're doing well. I have a pretty simple, I'm kind of worried it might be a little bit too trivial for you to answer, and you're just going to tell me to go to karm.com or something, but anyways, I'm wondering what you think hell is, and, you know, I kind of want to add to this, because I realize there's a lot of Christians who have different ideas of what hell is, right, like annihilation or just separation from God, so I'm wondering what you think, and kind of where you go in Scripture to come to that conclusion. Sure, hell is not what the annihilationists say, just non-existence, it doesn't make any sense. There are 180 articles on annihilationism, but there are different words used to describe hell, to reference it, Gehenna, Hades, Sheol, and it's repeatedly referenced by analogy of eternal fire, fire burning, torments, conscious torments, in Revelation it talks about this, in Matthew it talks about this, so what I would say is that because the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever as they burn, so I'm going to just say that that hell is the eternal conscious existence of those who rejected Christ in an agonizing condition, and it may be hell fire, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is hell fire, and not that this makes doctrinal proof, but there's lots of evidences, lots of NDEs, near-death experiences, where people have bad guys, bad girls, they've died and seen fire, and they come back, they're screaming, and they don't want to ever go back there, so is that proof? No, but it's anecdotal evidence in support of what the Bible says. I wonder if I can ask you a follow-up, by the way, I'm not a Christian, so I don't really have a lot of knowledge here, but what I'm kind of wondering is how do you reconcile the existence of hell with God, like is God sort of the arbiter, do you set it up, or how does that work?

Hell, biblically, was set up initially for the devil and his angels, the devil was probably the greatest creation of God, the light bearer, in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 37, it talks about the fall of him, and his arrogance and stuff like that, so hell is a place that was made for the angels, the fallen angels, and the higher echelon of fallen angels and Satan, and it's a very bad place, and it makes sense because they were in his presence and knew the very things of God rebelled against them, and so those who join with him are going to experience life with him, because the greatness of the glory of God in the redemptive work of Christ, who is God in flesh according to the scriptures, is so vastly, wonderfully, infinitely valuable, because it's God in flesh who became one of us who died for us, that to reject him is to, without voting for it, by direct voting, you're voting for it by omission, when you reject what God has in Christ, then the consequence of that rejection is necessarily put upon all those who would not receive him and trust in him. So what are you? Are you an atheist, or just don't know, or what? I think I call myself an atheist.

I was kind of into this whole subject for, I don't know, like a year, a couple months ago, but I've kind of been disconnected for a while, but I think I still play an atheist. Well, let me run something by you really fast, okay? Okay. So let's just say there's only two things to count for something. I use this logically. God or not God. It's either the case that the Christian God exists, or it's not the case that Christian God exists.

There's no third option. So it's either the case that God exists, or not the case that God exists. It's either the case that God created the universe, or it's not the case that God did it. It's either the case that the cup I'm holding in my hand...

I'm holding a coffee cup right now in my hand created the universe, or it's not the case that the coffee cup created the universe, you know. It's not the case, you know. So we know that kind of a thing, and so we have these options. So when we have an option, it's either the case that God exists, or it's not the case that God exists. You with me, right? Sure, that's the truth I caught on it, yeah.

Okay, good. So if we can demonstrate that the not-God position doesn't work for a lot of things, it would be falsified and would not be true, then by default, the other position is verified. It's called a disjunctive syllogism in a true dichotomy. So if you only have two options to account for something, and one is negated, the other one automatically is validated by the possibility of the contrary. So if you're an atheist, for example, your worldview excludes the possibility of God as an explanatory option.

For example, how he came about, morality and things like that. So let me ask you one further question. Are you a materialist? What that means is the only thing that exists in the universe is the material world, physics, chemistry, motion, matter, things like that.

Is that what you hold to? I'm actually less solid on physicalism versus non-physicalism issue than I am my atheism or non-atheism. I'd give you a wishy-washy sort of answer. I'm functionally a materialist, but I don't really know how to account for mental objects or abstract objects on that framework. It's something that I still deal with. You just clued me and you know a lot more than I thought.

Good. So then you know that there are such things as universals, and how do you account for universals in an atheistic worldview? If the atheistic worldview cannot account for universals, then at least in that area of explanation, it fails. If it fails in other areas as well, in objective moral systems, and if you know anything about logic, statements are either true or false. And so moral statements either have truth value or not. If a moral statement is true and we can make a universal moral truth statement, it requires a universal principle of truth.

How do we have universal principles, which are abstractions, in a materialistic world? It would require a universal mind. These are the kinds of things that I talk to atheists about and I do quite a bit offline. We talk at this level.

And so I can demonstrate atheism doesn't work on those kinds of arguments. That's fair. In all honesty, I don't think I could really rebut most of what you say about universal. Was it particulars?

Is that the other side of the coin there? I didn't mention particulars because particulars are instances of universals. Universal concept of a chair and you might have a chair in your house and I have a chair in my house.

Those are two particulars. When particulars are destroyed, the universals are not. But universals are, by necessity, abstractions.

We don't find them under things. And so if there's a universal abstraction, it implies a universal mind. How do you have an abstraction without a mind? You apprehend the same logical principles I do.

And I can tell, you know stuff, I can tell. And so you and I both access the law of identity, or the law of non-contradiction, or the law of excluded middle, or the law of proper inference. But these are laws that are not dependent upon your mind or my mind. Because if they were, well then they would change according to what we thought, what we wanted, what we desired, whatever it is. So that means you and I apprehend universal laws at which we think properly. But those laws are not dependent upon us. But those laws, by necessity, are abstractions. Well, that implies a universal mind.

How do you account for them in a materialistic worldview? You see? Fair enough.

Again, I don't think I can recite you on that, Matt, to be honest. But if I could ask you one more thing, because I've watched you a lot, and I've watched you debate, you know, what, Bill Hunty, and a lot of people. But the most interesting one I've found you do is talking with Alex Malpat, right? Yes. Where you guys talk about tag. Yes. And I think you kind of just ran tag, at least a form of a transcendental argument, in front of me, right?

Just now? Mm-hmm. So, right. So that's fine.

I'm just wondering, I mean, how do you reflect on your conversations with Alex, right? No problem. He basically says that that runs into, what, a tautologist's argument, or one that begs the question, something like that?

Yeah. He said it was tautologist's, but he also said, if you pay attention, it does not refute tag. I said, tag's not refuted. He goes, no, it's not.

And he kept going. He says, it's just on paper. The idea of P or not P, not P, therefore P, is therefore tautologist's. And he said it's not, I forget the word he said, it was not convincing, it wasn't the word, but it was not, it was synonymous with compelling, it wasn't compelling. Well, compelling is a subjective preference. Right. Well, if it's not compelling, so what? And I actually discussed this with John Frame, he's a Christian philosopher, he said, yeah, it's a little bit tautologist's, but it's still true. Malpass didn't refute anything. Well, yeah.

Sure. Well, tautologist's are always true, that's what it means to be a tautologist, but I think what he means, well, you said compelling, right, or maybe interesting, logically interesting, something like that. I think what he means is that, right, it doesn't matter. I think we're on the same page there. I think what he's trying to say is that, you know, saying if P and then concluding P is not compelling in the sense that it's not really an argument that has any substance to it, right?

He's saying, of course, P follows from P, right? Yeah, but it does. Disruptive syllogism and a true dichotomy is still true, and that's the issue. We're out of time to discuss it, which we could. Get on Discord.

I discuss these things on Discord if you ever want Discord. Okay, buddy, we've got to go. Hey, call again. Okay. Thanks, Matt.

Appreciate it. All right, man. Hey, folks. Oh, that's the kind of stuff I love to talk about. Hope that wasn't too confusing. Hey, you know what? I hope you all have a great weekend, and by God's grace, back on there to Monday. We'll talk to you then. See you, bye.