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 karm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live.

Francis taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick live. If you're a new listener, you're not sure what the show is about. Let's see what to do.

That's right. I'm a Christian apologist, which means I defend the Christian faith. So if you are interested in talking about the Lord, Jesus, the Bible, Christianity, logic, aliens, the occult, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity of the High. Let's see. All kinds of stuff. Transcendentals, a little bit of philosophy, politics.

We talk about all kinds of stuff from a biblical perspective. And I hope it's going to work today. We have, let me see if they're doing that. If you go to the CARM homepage, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. Let's see.

I'm going to see if it's going to be the concurrent one because Laura usually is the one that goes in there really quickly and fixes it. I don't see that it's done, so I might do it. But anyway, what you can do is if you're interested in watching me sit at my desk with a radio headset on and all that kind of stuff and do this. If it's really fascinating and you want to see if my voice matches my face, which most people say does not, then feel free to check it out.

Go to the CARM homepage, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and on the right-hand side of the page you'll see the link and stuff like that. All right. I'm doing that. If you want to give me a call, go. We have three open lines, 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you. Please give me a call and we can blab. We can talk.

It'll be fun and hopefully everything will work out. All right. There was something to talk about.

I can't remember what it is. It's not that big a deal. Why don't we just jump on the air and get with Rudolph from Raleigh, North Carolina. Rudolph, welcome. You're on the air.

What's up, man? My question is, in Chronicles 21, why did God get mad at David for numbering the Israelis? Because he wasn't to trust in the arm, the numbers and power that he had.

There's theology behind it, but I won't get into it right now. So that was why. God told him not to do it.

He wasn't to put trust and faith in mere man, but in the work of God. That's why. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you.

Anything else? Yeah, but I didn't get my question in the right order, so I'll call you back and ask again. Okay? Okay. Sounds good, brother. Thank you, sir.

All right, Rudolph. God bless, man. All right. God bless you. Thank you. Bye-bye. I need to do this every now and then now, just to let you know that we stay on the air by your support.

We don't ask very much. Please consider going to the CARM website and signing up for $5 a month. It's not very much, $5 a month. All you have to do is go to CARM.org. I'm going to do it right now. CARM.org forward slash donate, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate.

And you can check it out. You have different donation amounts there. But $5 a month is good because, well, then we're able to make budgets. And what we're trying to do is get $1,000. Get 1,000 people to do that. Now, there are millions of people who come to the site yearly. That's for real.

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877-207-2276. I released some articles today. And one of them is in preparation for some further analysis of issues inside the New Apostolic Reformation. And the reason I did that is because we need to have the foundation of God's Word in order to understand if there are apostles today. Now, there are prophets today, but not in the Old Testament sense. In the New Testament sense, there is.

And I'm going to write an article on that. Are there New Testament prophets for today? And are there New Testament apostles for today?

These two articles I'll be writing. And there are no New Testament apostles for today. Not like the Word in the Old Testament. I mean, excuse me, the time of Christ. That's just not in the Bible. The NAR likes to say, New Apostolic Reformation, likes to say that, yes, they are there and that they are in authority. And there are lots of problems with what's going on. Also, within that article is a list of the prophets.

We have prophets in the Old Testament, prophets in the New Testament, New Testament prophets are listed, and abilities of New Testament prophets and stuff like that. So there's some information I've got there on the New Apostolic Reformation, which, in my opinion, is similar to the New Age movement, a blending of Christian theology and the New Age. Maybe I'll get into some of the stuff about that. Let's see, what else did I write?

I wrote an article and released it on, I've been working on this for a while, the argument against God's existence using conceivability and metaphysics. Now, for those of you who are interested in that kind of stuff, you can go check it out. But if you're not, because you don't even know what I said, don't worry about it. It's all right.

No sweat. Now, that reminds me, last night, I was on the air for three and a half hours with somebody, Carlos Luis, and a friend named Carlos, not the guy from Colombia. We discussed the Luz del Mundo, the Light of the World cult, and so my Spanish is not good enough to be able to teach the concepts I wanted to be able to teach in Spanish. So he was interpreting a lot, and we spent three and a half hours going through stuff, and I was teaching them some of the concepts of argumentation. Now, he knows the cult far better than I do, and he was telling me, well, they teach this, and I go, really?

I didn't know that. And so he would teach me that, and I'd say, well, here's an approach you can use. And so I was dealing with that, with the issue of the ultimate, and we tried it with a member of the group that called up. And so, oh, we got a sneeze coming on here in a minute, so I hope I can get past this sneeze. Oh, my goodness. Oh, man. Okay.

I'm trying not to sneeze. And so, wow. Okay.

It's really distracting. Look at him pushing through it. Whoa. Okay. I think it's okay now. Whoa.

Survived that one. And so what I was doing was talking about the issue of the ultimate, because here's a question. Here is a question. It applies to Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses.

It applies to Roman Catholics and those in Luz del Mundo and, of course, Christians. So here's the question. What is your ultimate authority? What is the authority that you look to as the final thing? Now, if you want to be biblically consistent, the ultimate authority has to be God.

Now, if you're in a group, the ultimate authority is the thing you look to that tells you what truth is, or it's the thing that you found or ground or provide a foundation for, a grounding for truth itself. So in Mormons, for example, the ultimate truth for them, the ultimate foundation, is their testimony. It's not the word of God. It's not the Book of Mormon.

It's not their prophet. It's their testimony, because their testimony, they say, comes from God, but it's actually subjective. And therefore, they will say that their ultimate is their testimony. Now, if a Mormon wants to call me up and correct that, we can talk about it, because I can show you that that is the ultimate, because they don't subject themselves to the authority of Scripture. And the Book of Mormon certainly doesn't contain Mormonism in a lot of the areas, and their prophets, so-called prophets, aren't their authority, because the prophets can't contradict revealed word of Scripture.

They even acknowledge that, even though they show you better light and stuff like that. So in Catholicism, the ultimate is their sacred tradition, the magisterium, the papacy. And in Luftelmundo, it's their prophet, or excuse me, their apostle. And their apostle has the characteristics of God.

Their apostle is one who introduces you to Jesus and things like that. So you have to understand that the ultimate is a question. What is the ultimate? And I think in Spanish, it's maxima acuridad, the maximum authority, the ultimate, ultimo.

What is your final authority? So let's talk about this a little bit, because it's conceptually interesting. See, the ultimate is defined as the thing against which nothing is greater and nothing precedes. Otherwise, it's not ultimate. Therefore, it would be non-contingent, because if it's based on something else, then whatever the something else that gives it its position is the ultimate. So the ultimate is the thing of which nothing is greater and nothing precedes it. Otherwise, it's not ultimate. Therefore, it would be non-contingent.

It must be singular, not plural. Otherwise, there would be multiple ultimates, which is logically self-refuting. You can't have multiple ultimates. By definition, an ultimate is one thing. You can't have three ultimates.

This is logically not possible. And so when we look at this issue of the ultimates, we consider this. All facts, all actualities, and all potentialities must derive the occasional chain from the ultimate.

Now, I'm going to go over that, because it's really important. All facts, those are extant actualities and belief in knowledge. All things that exist, whether you're aware of it or not, and all things that might exist or could exist, everything must derive their existence from the causal chain of the ultimate.

I hope that makes sense. What this means is that whatever is the first cause of things is what brings into existence other things. If there is no first cause, there can't be a second and a third. So all facts, actualities, and potentialities must derive their existence from the causal chain based on the ultimate. That derives out of the ultimate, based on the ultimate foundation.

Now, it's a simple concept. And if you talk to, say, a Mormon, for example, what's the ultimate authority? They might say their church. They might say their testimony.

They might say their prophet, depending on which Mormon it is. But the ultimate there does not rest with God. Now, ultimately, the ultimate has to be God himself, who's uncreated. In Mormonism, however, the Mormon God is not ultimate. He is something greater than him because his existence is contingent on something else. So the Mormon God is not ultimate.

That's a problem. Because without an ultimate, you can't ground any truth. What is beyond that God and beyond that God and beyond that God and beyond that God? What is the initial cause of everything? You can't have an infinite set of causes because there's no first cause.

And I won't get into all that. It's just a problem. So Mormonism, for example, can't work.

Just because of that, it's impossible. And there's other issues. We could take this to other things in other religious systems, including Christianity.

What's the ultimate in Christianity? Hey, look, five open lines. Why don't you give me a call during the break? 8772072276. I want to hear from you. Give me a call. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 8772072276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. All right, sometimes it happens I don't get any callers calling, maybe because they're interested in what I am talking about. And so what I'm going to do is continue to talk about this thing called the ultimate because this is an apologetic show and I'm going to teach people how to think a little more critically.

And what I'm going to tell you about this is very, very useful. And you don't have to use the term ultimate or necessary preconditions for intelligibility or necessary and sufficient conditions or universal particulars and the one in the many problem because most people are very ill-equipped to deal with these kinds of issues and just don't know what they are. And most Christians I know have no clue about them either. So what I want to say is that the way to talk about this is to think of this. What do you rest your truth on? Now, if someone says they rest their truth on their church, then you ask, and where did your church come from? Well, the church came from whatever they say. And they'll say it came from, you know, Saint so-and-so. It doesn't matter.

Whatever they say. Well, then what gives Saint so-and-so the authority? And you keep asking these questions to have them ground their authority, their belief in something that itself does not need grounding. Does that make sense? The ultimate truth of something or the ultimate grounding of something itself doesn't need to be grounded.

If it needs to be grounded, then there's something ultimate besides it. So think about this. And atheists have offered a challenge.

I came across some and I haven't seen it happen again yet lately, but I'm sure they're still using it. When they're challenging Christians saying the Christian God exists because, please fill in the blank. And what they're looking for is an answer that they can attack by applying the principle of grounding. If they say he exists because the universe and he are one and the same thing, which Christians should never say that. Well, then how do you know that's the case? And they can keep asking these questions and then a person wouldn't be able to find the terminus, find the answer where you can't go beyond it. So what I say is the reason the Christian Trinitarian God exists is because it is his nature to exist.

And that's it. So you can't, if they say, well, why is it his nature to exist? I'd say because that's his nature. So the grounding is in God himself and his nature. There's nothing beyond him, nothing that he's dependent upon. So this provides the terminus by which then we can offer the grounding and what's called the beginning of the causal chain of facts. A fact is something that exists and it could be a testimony.

If it's a testimony, what grounds a testimony? Now they might say the Holy Spirit, how do you know it's the Holy Spirit? And we give ways of undermining that position because they don't rest their ultimate authority, the Mormons don't, in the scriptures, which are the codified representation of the nature of God. And so it's functionally the terminus for God because it's self-revelatory. But with them, the word of God is subject to their testimony and therefore their testimony is the ultimate, but their testimony can't be grounded as an ultimate. I hope this isn't too confusing, but the principles here are very important.

And if you can understand them, you can then adapt them to any questioning situation or truth situation that somebody in a false religion might assert. And it's very powerful. It's very, very interesting. Let's get to Mike from Salt Lake City. Mike, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Hey, enjoying listening to your conversation or your explanations and just had a couple of thoughts to add. On the Mormons and your explanation on the belief in God being, you know, growing or whatever, the thing that I would add, though, is that Mormons don't believe that any matter or any soul was created prior, that all was intelligence that always has existed. Yes. So everything has always existed. And that's logically impossible.

No, you're fine. I'm just making sure, just adding to how you were describing that, because I think the way you were describing it sounded a little confusing. Well, I wasn't sure how far to go in Mormon theology. I was using them just as one of many examples.

But since you called up, let's talk about it, because they do teach that there is a functional infinite of intelligences that are without beginning, that are in the universe in which and through which and from which the, let's just say, manifestations of persons occur through the Godhead and through birth in the spiritual realm. Okay? Sure. Yep.

All right. So now, let's just say that in Mormon theology then, we're going to talk about these eternal spirits and we'll just say that the number is an X value. We don't know. It's just a value of X. How many are there?

There's an X number. A lot. Millions. Billions. Okay.

Sure. Then what they're saying is that those spirits are without beginning. Multiple spirits are without beginning.

So let's just take one of them and take a look at it, because a spirit in that sense is not the ultimate. Now I take another side step, because there's these things called universals, like chairness, carness, tree-ness, and the laws of logic and numbers and triangularity and circularity. There are these things that exist and we use them and we, so to speak, touch them, so to speak.

We discover their properties and their occurrences in the world. And this is how we're able to communicate and make sense of our surroundings. We know that our round tires of circles work. We know that the bridge above us with the triangular structures is strong.

We recognize strength. We recognize the concept of triangularity and circularity. And we can argue with people in a polite way and say, no, that's not true, because we recognize the value of truth and the law of non-contradiction.

All right. These things are all abstract ideas. They're all truth values. And they occur in the mind, because truths occur in the mind. Now, we can recognize circularity and triangularity, because those are extant issues. And we can physically pick up a circle.

We can draw one. But at the same time, if we were to pick up a round object, a circular object, and destroy it, circularity is not destroyed. But the concept of it continues and it's independent of us. The question then becomes what must be in place in order for all of these things to exist like this and these things we need in order to communicate and survive in the world.

Because if you don't know the difference between a triangle and a circle and a flat surface and a cliff, you can die. And we'll get to it more after the break. I'll explain a little more. Okay? So hold on. Hey, folks. We'll be right back. I know it's a little bit heady. But just bear with me. And hopefully it can make sense. But we'll be right back.

Four open lines. 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Mike, are you still there? Yep. I'm hanging on.

All right. So the question then becomes, we're going to only use one at a time, how does a single concept provide the basis for universals, the universals of triangularity, of logic, of whatever concept you come into play with? You see, the thing is that we bump into transcendentals or universals every day, the concept of truth and speech and food and gravity and driving.

These are all things that we understand to be truth values. And as long as they mesh, we live. If they don't mesh, we don't have any way to be communicative.

If we don't recognize what cliff-ness is and we step off a cliff, we can die. So these things are necessary for communication, rationality, and survival. Well, what must be in place in order for them to be in place?

That's the question. And if you have an equal set, a potentially infinite number of sets of eternal spirits, you have no ultimate, you have no foundation upon which anything can be justified. And you can't justify these things called universals.

Therefore, the idea of eternal spirits that are multiple is ultimately self-refuting because you can't have an ultimate, and without an ultimate, you can't have a justification of causal chain. What causal chain means, well, here we are. How did we get here? Well, something brought us into existence.

Where did that come from? Et cetera. And you go back in time. Well, if the spirits are eternal, then there is no justification for their existence. There's no way they can be justified because nothing brought them into existence.

And they're equivalently saying they are possessing the quality of God himself, who just is because he is. But God himself is the initial cause of all things, including the universe. And in the spirit realm, eternal spirits have to exist in the universe. Therefore, where did it come from as well? And so the idea of eternal spirits just brings problems upon problems upon problems. And so Mormonism cannot be defended at all when this is raised.

It falls completely. Let me just try to make sure I'm understanding you right. So essentially, let's go with the triangle example. So me saying a triangle, we both understand what we're talking about. And so the formation of that idea, just saying historically wise, any scientific idea, there's somebody in history that's credited with discovering that truth, that we both recognize that truth was already pre-understood by God. So God is essentially the culmination of all truth in one.

Although we don't understand it, okay. Truth is what corresponds to the mind of God. And everything that he does, it connects with truth. And so he's the embodiment of all truth.

And so when we learn truth, then we're just learning something that's already him, right? Right. Am I following your thought process right? Yes.

I'm trying to understand. It's right. Okay.

And okay. Yes, there's no logic to this. So back to the triangle, yep, and I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding you right. So back to the triangle, you're saying that the existence of a triangle, it wasn't created because somebody had to discover that geometric shape. Now we agree that God understood it before, I'm not, I'm just talking about trying to understand your analogy here, because somebody had to understand it, then somebody had to give it a term, now we can communicate.

And because we can communicate, now we understand what we're talking about. Correct. Very good. Yes.

Okay. Your understanding and mine. Yeah, so the challenge back, just to kind of just challenge back a little bit, is like the law of, I think it's mass, where nothing can be created or destroyed in the laws of mass. So like, energy can be transferred, but it's still the same mass. But the mass doesn't actually change.

So we can have a fire, we burn wood and fire and there's mass, and then that becomes ash and smoke, but it's still the same amount of mass. Now you're committing a fallacy of category error, you're attributing the characteristics of mathematics to an object being burned. And though mathematics can describe it, the attributes of mathematics are not the same thing as an object being burned, called a category mistake. But that's okay, you're on the right track. So the principle here is- Well, what I'm trying to do, so on the category mistake, I'm not quite following that, because what I'm talking about is like the law of math, where we're talking about- No, no, no. You gotta be careful.

Go ahead. There is no the law of math. So just- Math. Math. Mathematics.

Right? No, no. M.A.S.S.

We're talking circles right now. Oh. Okay, mass.

M.A.S.S. Okay, sorry. Okay, now I'm with you. I was just on break, just to make sure I was thinking right, and it was something that was like discovered in the 1700s, but this is something that God already understood, right? Like, what we're understanding and we're seeing it, but it's the amount of mass in something, the matter can be changed, but it's not actually changing the amount of mass in existence, even though it's changed. The mass is different than energy, they're related, right. Right. Okay. So, anyway, but what we're talking about, say triangularity or mathematics, we must both have the same understanding of them, otherwise we can't communicate.

And I agree with you. Triangularity is not the product of my mind or your mind, because our minds are different. And if they were the product of your mind or my mind, if our minds die, then since they're the result of our minds, then the triangularity would cease to exist. But that makes no sense. Therefore triangularity is a universal. It's not dependent on my mind.

Exactly, the eternal principle, it's a fundamental truth, it's just in the world, it's the root. Nope. No, no, no. Okay.

Okay. Triangularity is not just in the world, because if it's in the world, then it's a property of the world, and properties can be measured, but concepts like triangularity cannot be measured. Triangularity is a universal abstract, and it occurs only in the mind.

We recognize triangularity when we see physical representations of it. And the triangularity is an abstraction that can only occur in the mind, and since it's universally true, there's a universal mind that authors them. So it's called the transcendental argument for God's existence.

The transcendental argument presupposes or recognizes what are called transcendentals, triangularity, circularity, cliffness, redness, and asks the question, what must be there in order for them to be true, to have their existence? And the only way to justify them is with a universal mind. And there can only be one universal mind, because if there's two universals, or as in Mormonism teaches, a potentially infinite number of universal minds, then you have an infinite number of ultimates. But an infinite number of ultimates is incoherent, because then there could be no way to ground anything, because you wouldn't know which mind is the ultimate source of all transcendental truths.

And in a worldview where there's multiple minds that are ultimate, it's an impossibility. So I'm going to push back just one thing on this, though. So the triangles and circles, if I'm saying that a circle is the strongest geometric shape, and I hold that as the truth, I'm wrong, right? Correct. Okay.

And so on the other hand, if I say a triangle is a stronger geometric shape, I'm just trying to define that there's ways you can be wrong, and there's ways that are right. Yes. Right? Correct. And I'm just explaining, the concept in Mormonism is the other existences, they have lots of wrong in them. There's lots of untruth that the circles that they think are the strong, right? That God embodies all of the truth, all of it completely understood and embodied.

Right. But that's why there's a conflict between this God or that God, is because there's only one that embodies all perfection. There's only one source of all truth, not multiple sources. Because if there's multiple sources, if there's multiple sources of truth, then the truths can be different because the sources are different, and you can't justify anything at that point. This is why it's required that there's only one ultimate source, one beginning, otherwise you have incoherence.

Mormonism can't be true. Okay? It's sophisticated stuff. Thank you for your time. You did a great job. I'll talk to you. All right then. Now you're good. Okay. Thank you. God bless.

This is another way to demonstrate that certain religious systems cannot be true. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, five open lines, give me a call, I'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. I know that the previous segment was a little bit heady, and these kind of talks are beneficial for me because they help me to learn how to say things in a more cogent way and easier to understand way. Actually, I took some notes out of what was said during the break because I plan on writing an article dealing with this so that I can equip Christians on how to think more critically and how to express these concepts to others. If you're a Mormon out there and you heard this and it didn't make any sense, well, okay, that's okay. Don't think you're stupid. That's just not the case.

Or any Christians, either. These are difficult concepts. My responsibility and goal is to break them down in such a way as to make them understandable. This is difficult to do because you really have to understand the concepts, how they interrelate and how to communicate them.

But I am narrowing it down more and more as I practice. And also, the issue of truth. Have you ever thought about what truth is?

Because we want truth, don't we? Truth is that which corresponds to the mind of God. In Christianity, in the Christian Trinity, God is the ultimate truth. That means is that all things that exist and all facts exist because of God. So all facts and all things that exist exist because of God, because God is the one who started everything by which all facts exist. So if this makes sense, well, then good.

I hope it does make sense. And what we're trying to do is to get people to understand that truth is what corresponds to the mind of God. And what people are doing is, instead of giving glory to God and recognizing truth that is in God, what they're doing is trying to determine truth on their own. They're trying to say things like, I will be the one who decides what the truth is. This is what a testimony is. Or a burning of the bosom.

Or a, I have a feeling. And therefore I know what truth is because God is communicating the truth to me. And the ultimate there is not God. The ultimate is their experience. And that's a problem. If there is no ultimate of God being the necessary condition by which you can justify any truth statement, then you can't make sense of anything. So this is hard to get through to with a lot of people because it's difficult to describe. But I'm working on it. Like I said.

Anyway, nevertheless, if you want to give me a call, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. We're not talking about Mormonism every now and then. And just so you know, I know a lot of Mormons are listening in Salt Lake City.

I remember very clearly I was with a friend of mine, Bill McKeever, and he's out there in Sandy, Utah, and we were walking down near Temple Square and going to the beehive. And I was walking, and this woman just happened to be walking kind of with me. We weren't together, but you know how people walk near each other. And she and I had a conversation.

Bill's about 30 feet in front of me, and I'm talking to this woman. And she was pleasant, really nice. And she's a Mormon. I asked her, you know, LDS? She goes, oh, yes.

How long have you been a Mormon? And she would get talking. And I was seeing that, because she said she's going to a certain place that was just a hundred feet or so up above, I mean, in front. So I knew I had to say things quickly. So I tried to be as polite as possible, and I said, so you believe Mormonism, right? She said, oh, yeah, yeah. I said, okay. So do you affirm that God, Elohim, is an exalted man? She said, of course. And I says, and so God was exalted by the God on his world, right? She goes, yeah, yeah, that's all, that is true. You know, I says, okay. So then Elohim came from another world, right?

Another, you know, another world. She goes, well, I said, isn't that true? You know, because he's not, he wasn't born on this planet.

He formed this planet by his effort because he was alive on another planet, right? And she didn't like the way I was saying it, but she, she goes, yeah, that's true. And I said, okay, yeah, I know it is true. I said, so then just as she had to turn left and go up the steps, I said, doesn't that make your God an alien? She did, she did not like that. And she, she, she just took off, you know?

And it wasn't me just trying to embarrass, uh, you know, that's not it. I was trying to get her to realize that what the Mormons are doing is worshiping an exalted man from another world. That means they're worshiping a created thing. They are worshiping technically an alien, because that's what an alien is, a life form another planet and it's mate now, isn't that the case that in Mormonism God came from another world and that from that God and his goddess wife who have relations and produce spirit offspring through which these eternal intelligences arrive, then if that's the case, then what they're saying is Mormonism teaches that they worship a being from another world. And by definition of being from another world is what we would call an alien.

That's where an alien is. And Mormonism, a lot of people don't know this, but Mormonism teaches there's many gods and that there's a mother goddess and that God used to be a man and he was exalted and he became a God and that Mormons have the potential of becoming gods. Well, this is interesting because the Bible says there's only one God in Isaiah 43, 10, 44, 6, 44, 8, 45, 5. It says there's only one God. God doesn't even know of any other gods. Now what Mormons will do is say, well, that's just means of this world.

It's not what it says. He says, is there any God besides me, I know of none. And what they do is they reinterpret it in such a way that it's consistent with what they've been told. So for them, the ultimate authority is what the Mormon church tells them to believe. Well, the question then becomes, how does a Mormon know that the Mormon church is true? If they say it's because they prayed about the Book of Mormon and that's how they got their knowledge, because they'll say the Bible says in James 1.5, if you lack wisdom, let them ask of God. Then they're saying that the Bible is the source of authority to which they went by which they learn that the Book of Mormon is true. And yet Joseph Smith said in History of the Church, volume four, page 461, that the Book of Mormon was the most correct book of any on earth and a man could get closer to the precepts of God by following it than by any other book. Well, wait a minute, if that's the case, then that means that the Bible, according to their eighth article, is not that accurate and it's been corrupted. That's what they teach. You really can't trust it.

You can, but you can't. Well, then why would they go to the Bible to authenticate the Book of Mormon, which is more correct than the Bible? That doesn't make any sense, because they have to have a way of saying this is the ultimate source of truth and upon this ultimate source of truth, that's how we're resting our belief. Well, if they say the ultimate source of truth is our testimony, well, then how do they know that their subjective experience is correct? Because another's subjective experience, which is contradictory to that, then stands in opposition and both cannot be true. So one's subjective experience of truth can't be the way of determining ultimate truth. You see, one's testimony is only a personal subjective experience. It does not determine ultimate truth, which is universal truth for everyone.

It's only for themselves. So it's not the way by which you determine ultimate truth. If they say the Book of Mormon is the ultimate truth, how do they know the Book of Mormon is the ultimate truth, especially since it's been altered so much? Oh, boy, has it. It's been changed by the Mormon Church thousands of times.

It has, all over it. How do they know it's true? Well, because they feel it's true?

Then they're back to their subjective experience. If they say that their God is the ultimate truth, well, then how do they justify the ultimate truth that's true for everyone in their God who is still learning and growing in wisdom? Because in Mormonism the God called Elohim, God the Father, is still growing in wisdom and he's learning. If he's growing in wisdom and learning, then that means you can't trust everything he says now because he might learn something that contradicts what he has now. He might gain more, let's see, more truthy truths, to use a very loose phrase there, and therefore how would you know that your God has ultimate truth? Well, he can't because if he's growing in his knowledge, then he cannot have ultimate truth. Now that's out of Joseph Smith's Journal of Discourses, Volume 6, page 120, that God is increasing in knowledge. If he's increasing in knowledge, then he doesn't have the ultimate foundation of truth.

It does not rest in him. If the Mormon wants to appeal to the Mormon God as his ultimate truth, then he can't because ultimate truth doesn't rest in the Mormon God because he's increasing in knowledge. So ultimate truth has to exist somewhere outside of the Mormon God. But if that's the case, then that would mean whatever is the ultimate truth outside the Mormon God is greater than the Mormon God.

Wow. Well, then what is that God? Well, just so you know, in Christian, historic Christian biblical theology, the Trinity is not three gods, but one eternal being who has never not existed. He's always existed as the one being.

There's not a plurality of intelligences out there that are eternal. Nope. Our position is that there's one being, the Trinity, who exists as one entity, one being with three, what we call, persons, not as a person like you and me with body, flesh, and bones.

Nope. It's a theologically significant word that has self-awareness, awareness of others. The Father speaks of the Son, the Son speaks of the Father, etc., the attributes of personhood.

And in this we say that God, the Trinitarian God, is the ultimate, that there is nothing beyond him. So only in Christian Trinitarianism can we then justify truth. In Mormonism you can't justify truth.

You can only think you have it. But if it's based on the Mormon God who's increasing in knowledge, then there is no ultimate sense of truth with that God, and without an ultimate sense of truth, a foundation of truth, you can't know anything for sure. And your testimony cannot be grounded in truth. It can only be grounded in subjective experience, which is not universal truth. Therefore, the Mormon testimony is self-refuting because it causes doubt upon itself because you can't know if it's true, because there's no ultimate foundation of truth. But the ultimate foundation of truth rests in the Christian Trinitarian concept of the eternal being, the only eternal being, the only eternal intelligence, the Trinitarian God who exists as one being in three persons.

That's how we ground truth. There you go, folks. May the Lord bless you. May the Lord grace you back on here tomorrow, and give me a call then and we'll talk about it here. God bless. Bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.