Matt Slick Live

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Live today's date is 12-12-23. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. If you have any questions, please call the owner of the with God and seeking God and that he would answer them. And what Jesus is doing is saying, you know, if you believe in me, the works that I do, you'll do also.

What's that? Well, he could do miracles. We could do miracles. Okay. I thought he was talking to Philip here. In John 14. Not the Jews. Well, no, he's maybe to an individual there, yes, but it's under the Jewish context where he's speaking to, in this one case, Philip, but it's always in the Jewish context of the people of Israel before the creative fiction, generally speaking.

All right. Sometimes he addresses the centurion and the gentiles and things like that. So it's just that they would understand that you just can't ask anything of God. You know, kill my neighbor.

I don't like him. God's not going to do that. If you go to 1 John 5.14, it says this is the confidence which we have before him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. So Jesus himself didn't want to go through the crucifixion. And in Luke 22 42, he says, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me. But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. And Jesus didn't want to do that. But the will of the father is what is important here. So what generically what he's saying is, look, you know, you're following God. You're doing what he wants.

You ask anything, it's going to happen. But we have to be in his will and it can't be an ungodly decision, an ungodly thing. Now I can tell you over my lifetime that there's many prayers that I'm glad God did not answer the way I wanted to answer.

As I look back, I go, I'm glad he didn't answer that one the way I wanted at the time. And lots of them, you know, and so, uh, it's just that he goes on, he says, believe me, I'm in the father. The father's in me. Otherwise, uh, believe because of the works themselves. And uh, well, let me go to verse 12 and 14, sorry, I was going to go ahead. He says, truly Sue, whatever he believes in me works that I will do, he will do also greater works than these. He will do because I go to the father. Some people say, well, what are the greater works and the greater works of these ideas of walking on water or a reason from the dead, a greater work would be leading someone to Christ for eternal salvation.

That's generally what the commentaries allude to in that respect. He says, whatever you ask in my name that I will do so that the father may be glorified in the son. Well, we know that this verse can't be just taken face value for what it says, uh, because in the broader context we have to be asking according to God's will. And that's why he says, if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. And so it's in the will of God with the humility of a Christian before him.

And if we're doing that, then what we ask will be granted. Okay. Hmm. Why? Okay. The corollary is important because the corollary is important because if it's not happening what you want, then you're not, you're not in the will of God. Okay.

Yeah. So what does, what does John 14, 14 add that John 14, 13 doesn't, uh, whatever you ask in my name, I mean, by the authority that I will do so that the father may be glorified in the son. Now, this is a statement of his deity, incidentally, how can Jesus do these things?

You know, you're asking in prayer, spoken in thought, he knows it's a son of his deity. And he said, repeats himself. This is just something common that the Jews would do truly, truly, truly.

I say to you, it's a repetition was just one of the teaching methods, uh, that were used by the Jews and by Christ himself and there's chiastic structures. There's all kinds of stuff, but go ahead. Okay. So it's not necessarily adding new information. It's reinforcing what he just said. Yes. Okay.

Yeah. A lot of times this is reinforcement, you know, it's like, why he just said that like Paul, the apostle I've been teaching through the book of Romans. And uh, I said to the people I'm teaching, they come to my house and I teach them and I'll say, you're going to find a lot of repetition in here, what Paul says.

And I forgot what chapter we were in recently. It was like, he says this like three times in the same chapter. Well, why is he saying it so many times? Well, because you know, if you're, you know, you're, you're, you're hurting sheep and you hear, there's going to be a teacher at a synagogue, uh, or on a hill, which they would often use and you go there and you hear something once, was you gonna remember it maybe, but what if he said three times, Oh, now I get it though. This is important is why he's saying it different ways.

And so they would know to remember something like that, just how it was done. Okay. All right. I appreciate it, Matt. Thank you. Hey, no problem, man.

God bless. Okay. You too. All right. See ya. All right.

Let's see. Let's get to Jesse from Arizona. Jesse.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey Matt. How are you doing? Uh, I'm in Arizona. I got a question.

I think I talked to you maybe 10 years ago or maybe less when I was, no, I'm kidding. When I was leaving the Jehovah's witnesses, um, and, um, I have a question. So me and my little brother were involved in a apostasy work. So we're called the coming apostate in apostasy work. You're trying to get people to go apostate.

What do you mean? No, no, we've left the church. So we've been labeled as apostates because we actively speak out in our communities, in the news, on the radio. We march in the streets against the Jehovah's witnesses.

You know how, you know how Americans were an exceptional people. We Jehovah's witnesses were kind of exceptional that we're like a, a branch of Christianity that nobody wants. We're like the drunk uncle at a Christmas or Thanksgiving party that we're way out there.

It's a whack. And so, um, you'll see activists that are atheists and you'll see activists that are Christian or apologetic. So it's a really divided, um, extra holes witness world.

And um, one of the things I don't have no scientific evidence, no scientific numbers, but we see a great proportion of the people leaving the organization. That's what they call themselves. They don't call themselves a church. The organization lately are atheist, but rabbit evangelical atheist.

So my question to you is, wait, wait, wait, you offered to me something that was contradictory. How's an evangelical, which by definition is a Christian, also an atheist. Well, I, uh, I invented that term, evangelical, you know how there's an evangelical Christians who are evangelical of their faith.

Yeah. Evangelical comes from the Greek. It comes from the Greek which means to evangelize the good news.

It means the gospel. So anyway, it's a term that causes confusion. So you mean, um, activist atheists like that. Okay.

Yes. But we, we use absurdity to, uh, we illustrate absurdity by being absurd. And so we use a shtick like that, a humor, uh, so that, that evangelical atheism is what I use. But what it is, it's lately, one of the things I've seen in the apostate work, uh, is to bash on the Old Testament and the New Testament as being, uh, archeologically wrong as being, uh, chronologically wrong. But with a vehemence that when I talk to them, I tell them, Hey, you guys are borderline antisemitic. And I, I, I didn't know who to talk to about that.

Am I wrong in labeling my, my brothers? Let me give you an example. Let's say they go after Moses because the number is chapter five on the bitter waters and they say, what kind of, what kind of God is it who makes women drink a bitter water or a pregnancy test? And uh, we say, well, you weren't there 3,500 years ago. You don't know the context of it.

You don't know. So they go into any detail that they could find in the Old Testament to prove that there's no God. Well, there's a lot of principles here I could talk about.

Uh, I don't know, I could, I want to kind of coach you a little bit. If someone were an atheist were to say to me, you know, why would God have him drink bitter water? That shows he's not God.

I'd say, how does that show he's not God, that there's no God? Connect the dots and show it to me. Hold on. We got a break. Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. We'll get back with, uh, Jesse from Arizona and I hope you want to stay tuned. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Jesse from Arizona.

Jesse, welcome. You're on the air. Hello.

Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead. Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. So, uh, I guess my question was to label my brothers, uh, antisemite when they, uh, a borderline, I don't, didn't call them antisemite. I just say borderline anti-semite when they attack, uh, the tenants of Judaism and Christianity or basically Judaism better said, am I wrong to label an atheist, uh, borderline antisemite? Am I, when they go after, uh, things that you can't prove archeology, uh, I mean, we weren't, yeah, no, no, they're just, it's just like, if I, if I were to attack the validity of the Quran, does it mean I'm an anti-Islamicist or whatever, or Muslim, it just means you're attacking that one aspect now, but when they do that, uh, ask them for documentation. And one of the things I will do is I'll say, are you getting this off of a website someplace?

Are you doing your own homework or are you simply going to a website that has a vendetta against Christianity that list a bunch of stuff out, you're just copying it. I mean, that's what I want to know. Could you, and I asked him, could you please tell me which is the case? Yeah. You know, I had a feeling in my gut that I was wrong, that I was wrong and that's, I didn't know who to ask. I asked some people that I talk with all the time and, um, I felt I was wrong saying that I was borderline anti-Semite and, uh, of them attacking, uh, and I even went and read, uh, the antiquities of the Jews to see if I could see something on these scriptures.

But my conscience was hurting for me saying that to my brothers. Uh, so I'll apologize to them that I was wrong using. Yeah. And that's why I think I try to clean it up by saying borderline anti-Semitic. Yeah. And it's a term that you don't want to use today.

I mean, looking how ugly the world is right now. And um, and my conscience bothered me and that's why I called to try to get some help maybe in my use of the English language was wrong. So you helped me.

I'm going to clean it up a little bit. What's your first language or not? No, English is my second language. Uh huh. What's your first?

You know what? Uh, I'm Mexican. Okay. Spanish is my first language.

Yeah. You know, every language is beautiful. Every language is beautiful.

I believe that we as American are exceptional people. But when I hear a romantic Mexican song, I think Spanish is, uh, is a gift from God, you know? So every language is beautiful.

Spanish is very romantic. Yes. And you are a very beautiful man. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay, man. God bless.

All right. Now, let's get to Jamal from North Carolina. Jamal, welcome. You're on the air. Thank you for taking my call, uh, Dr. Schlich.

Um, always a pleasure. Did you call me? Wait.

Just curious. Did you call me doctor? Yes, sir, I did. I did call you. I'm not.

No, I don't have a doctorate. Yeah. Just so you know.

But go ahead. Not yet. Not yet. I'm trying to speak that into existence. I know we had a conversation a while ago. Yeah. All right. So, what's up?

What do you got, man? Um, want to have that conversation, um, and I think a little bit more about, uh, the books of the Bible being canon, uh, about that, uh, king somewhere. I think it was, um, was it King James that, uh, supposed to be throughout the book of the Bible? No, no, no. It's nothing like that at all.

Nothing like that at all. It's just, those are just, uh, myths and fables and fairy tales. No, the Christian church, uh, the first century, you gotta understand a little bit of context. So the, the, when the apostles wrote what they did in the first century, whatever they wrote was automatically scripture. Okay. But, uh, cause they could have written a menu, you know, on a piece of paper, uh, papyrus. That wasn't it.

Right. But when they wrote things for the, that God intended to work through them and inspired through them, then, uh, that was inspired and that was scripture right, right there. The Christian church just recognizes it. That's all it does. And a lot of people say that, uh, you know, some king or so some committee threw out the books of the Bible. No, it's just, it's a load of crud.

They don't know what they're talking about. So, but also during the first century there was what's called the diaspora and in the sixties, not 1960s, but 2000 years ago, sixties, Nero was in charge and Nero was killing Christians. And uh, in 70 AD Rome came in and destroyed Jerusalem. So what happened is the Jews, basically the Christians who are considered part of Judaism by the Romans became under attack too, and they just fled out to the Mediterranean area. It's called the dispersion or the diaspora. That's what it's called the term, the diaspora.

So during this time it wasn't like, Hey, let's all get together and do councils because they can get together. The Romans come in and kill them, right? So they're just busy running, screaming and hiding for the first hundred years or so. But the word of God was already known because it came from the apostles. And what they would do is they would copy these documents and then secretly send them out to different places and different churches in different areas around the Mediterranean area.

And so thousands of these copies of different levels were developed very quickly. And so later on when Christianity became tolerable in the Roman empire, well then they started having councils about different things. Well, where are the book, the true books?

And they'd say, well, we recognize this one. The church people did this, the Christian, because Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. And so the true believers heard the voice of Christ in the scriptures. And so what we recognize, they just recognize all that that's isn't from God, you know, and the gospel of Thomas is not.

And they knew, and they had some information we don't have. Like Paul wrote this and this and that, but not that over there. That was by a guy named Bob and, you know, Bob wasn't an apostle, so that's out. That kind of a thing. And that's all it is.

So it's not the case that the council of Nicaea, you know, like the kings threw out the books of the Bible or the King James threw out the books. When people say that kind of stuff, I just tell them, I say, look, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you haven't studied this. Oh, yes I have.

No, you haven't, because if you had, you wouldn't say that. It's just not true. And that's it. Okay.

All right. So for somebody that wants to have a follow-up question, because I haven't demonstrated myself, which is why I'm calling, of course, but I get to the conversation a lot. So for somebody that would say, well, how do you know you can trust those councils? What would be my response to that? Say it one more time. Repeat that. If somebody was to say, well, how do you know that those councils got it right?

How can you trust them? I wanted to ask what my response would be to that question. They say God works through his providence providentially through the people of Christ, the people who are Christians, the people of history to bring about what he desires. He's a sovereign King. And you can go to Acts 4, 27 through 28, where it says that he gathered together Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Jews and the Gentiles to do what God predestined to occur. So God's a sovereign King. And he's the one who ordained the councils come together and work through their counseling of the councils to recognize what is the word of God. God's certainly sovereign enough to do that.

That's the position. Okay. Okay. That makes sense.

And would it also make sense that the Bible makes sense written by several different authors of thousands of years, and it's a clerical site. Yes, over 1,600 years, 40 authors, 40 men in three different continents. Hold on. We've got a break. Okay. We'll be right back.

Okay, buddy. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. And bam, we'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the show. I just want to give you a reminder that the month of December, we're having a matching funds drive, if you want to support this ministry, the radio show, and the CARM Intergalactic Empire, all you have to do is go to CARM.org forward slash donate. And whatever you donate, $10, $5, $100, whatever it will be, will automatically be doubled and global can accumulate it all at the end of the month and give it to the guy who is doing the matching funds drive. And so if you want to help out, just go to CARM.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate.

And also, there is the PO box information there at the bottom of the page if you want to do it that way. It's easy to do and we really appreciate it. All right. Now let's get back on with Jamal. Hey, Jamal, welcome.

You're on the air. Yes, sir. Thanks again.

You pretty much answered my questions and I appreciate that again. Okay, sure. Would this be on your CARM website and if so, under what title? Will what be on there? Forgot.

About the books being canon of the Bible. Oh, I don't know. It might be on there already, might not be. I've written so many articles that I find to remember them, but I do have a lot more I can work on. What's that? I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I was just saying, yeah, it's a pretty vast website. Yeah, it's big.

So yeah, I don't know. I don't even know if it's there and I do have literally a file open on the issues of the canon and it's so many pages as that file. It's only 15 pages of notes on the canon and scripture and yeah, that's small. My notes on Catholicism are like 180 pages and you know, philosophy, I think it's 140. Calvinism notes are I think 90 pages and this is with a table of contents and all kinds of stuff and yeah, I have lots of stuff I do like that. I have, it's called outlines on abortion, baptism, apologetics, the canon, it's all a system.

Eastern Orthodoxy, government, Islam, I wonder how big my Islam pages are, but anyway, so I just do outlines a lot because I have to remember a lot and I can't and so when someone brings up a question, sometimes I'll open up my outlines and just go from my outlines research I've already done. So anyway, okay. There's a lot of stuff. That's pretty good and it's been a, yeah, and it's been a blessing to many I'm sure.

That's it. I'll get off and let somebody else get on. Sorry about the whole Dr. Slick thing, you know, got a kick out of telling the guys at the Bible study.

You know, if it happens, cool, I'll be the first one to use it. If it's not, you'll still be a blessing to us all. So I appreciate it and thanks to Matt Slick and you have a blessing.

You too, man. God bless. All right. All right.

That was Jamal. Now let's get, I want to get to Jonathan from South Carolina. Jonathan, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, what's going on? Hey, Matt. What's going on?

Making another errand. Oh, can you hear me? Yes, I hear you. Hello? Yeah, I hear you.

Hey, how's it going? Yes. I had a question about Colossians 2, specifically the verses 13 through 15, I believe.

I know you've talked about this and I've heard, you guys had a discussion last night and you mentioned this and were pressing Warren on this, which I thought you did a really good job. But I was thinking about how that, and I know it applies to Abraham, but that's the same for him, right? And the patriarchs, the same thing. You're talking about the sin debt being canceled by Christ on the cross. Yes, it would be for Abraham. All individuals for whom Christ died was canceled at the cross, as Colossians 2, 14 says. Yes. Okay.

I was just curious, but I was discussing with my dad today about it. We were reading that and I was talking about it. I said, when was the debt paid? And he said, well, when we received Christ and I said, well, that's not what scripture says. And I showed him that and, you know, I was talking about the antecedents to us in those and I was like, who's the us? And he, and he would, you know, be like saints and I was like, okay, well then who is it?

The saints or is it the world? And he's like, and it was like that, you could tell that everything's turning and he goes, wait a second. And, you know, cause my dad, he's, I don't want to say he's very influenced or, you know, I don't know what the right word to use, but he definitely, he will look at the scripture and he's not, he doesn't hold to his traditions.

He'll actually look at it objectively and yield where it needs to be yielded. But anyways, and I, and I thought about that, just reading that to him about Abraham, it's the same thing even through time and we were discussing time and I remember you talking about A and B theory, which I'm guessing the proper would be B theory. I don't go with either one cause I don't know how time is respected to God's nature, but, but that's, you know, yeah. But you would say Christ, Christ would be, or God would be outside of time because time is created and that's part of creation and, and, uh, well, I don't say he's outside of time.

Yeah, I don't know what it means. I don't know what it means to be outside of time and it depends on what you're defining a time as. Is time something that exists or is time simply a measurement of, of, uh, changes of position and or events and time doesn't have any real existence.

These are some of the questions and then in God's mind are all points of occurrence equally valid to God in his knowledge or are they sequential because he looks into, so to speak, our world, so we don't have to get a lot of noise back there. Okay. Okay. Um, I, can I, can I ask you another question or, or, uh, sure. Go ahead. I know that you had time for another question.

Um, I was also thinking about this week about those who reject a penal substitutionary atonement and I was just thinking about it would be, would it not be a simple refute to their position on, um, the wages of sin at death and Christ died even though it was imputed, uh, our sin was imputed to him and he died, nevertheless he rose again. But that's what I was talking about last night. You heard that, right?

Yeah. I didn't watch all of it. I didn't. Oh, okay. I didn't watch all of it.

I was able to tie, tie time in and some of it, but I was just thinking about that, um, earlier this week too. Well, the wages of his death, that's a, that's a consequential, uh, result of, uh, the sin. But, uh, the other issue, their imputation deals with legal transference. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, we got too much noise.

You can't. So, uh, when that happens, just mute yourself because, uh, when people are driving, they want to hear some weird sounds and get distracted. Okay. I'm going to put him on hold. But we're going to move along, but, uh, Jonathan, just to let you know, yeah, next time, not so much noise and, uh, that's it. So hey, we'll move along. Okay.

All right. Let me see if I can get to Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air.

Hello, Matt. Thank you very much, um, for, um, uh, taking my call. Um, last week we were talking about, um, uh, presuppositional apologetics. And you made mention of something, um, uh, that I was a bit confused about. You talked about ultimate presuppositions. Um, I heard, uh, John Frame use that phrase and I was not real sure what is the difference between an ultimate presupposition and a penultimate presupposition and an anti-penultimate presupposition.

Uh, how do you distinguish between those? Well, a penultimate presupposition would have something that undergirds it. And so that it would penultimate and it would logically mean by the definition of the word that there is only one more that, uh, is there penultimate means next to last. So we would like in Christian presuppositionalism, we and you should, every Christian should do this presuppose the truth of the Christian Trinity as the precondition of all existence.

It should just be done and there's nothing beyond that. Okay. So last week I asked you about, um, one of the claims of presuppositional apologetics and I tried to reward it where I think it would be consistent with presuppositional apologetics. This is how I reworded it, that the ultimate presupposition for ontology and epistemology of religious truth is identical to the ultimate presuppositions for the ontology and epistemology of scientific truths.

And we discussed that and, um, from whose perspective? Because an atheist would never grant that God's necessary precondition for science. I'm talking, I'm talking about the, um, the, uh, from the perspective of a presuppositional apologist. Well, presuppositionalism, you know, basically just says presuppose the Christian Trinity, the truth of the scriptures, it uses transcendental arguments and things like that. And then we go and we attack the presuppositions of unbelievers and show that they're incoherent. And then there's a necessity, we call the possibility of the contrary. So what the sentence or the paragraph, I don't know what you can call it, you're writing there to seem to me to be a category error. I don't know if it's not sure if it is or not. I'm not going to see the sentence because it has a category of one and a different category for another. You're kind of blending them.

That's what's confusing to me. So hold on, man. We've got to break. Hey folks. We'll be right back after these messages. If you want to give me a call to 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. As soon as the producer reactivates Brian, I'll get him back on and we can talk. There we go. Thanks.

Brian, you're back on. Thank you. There was something else I wanted to kind of illustrate for you.

And if you don't mind, let me take in a few more seconds here. Consider this. Statement number one, it's going to be three sentences within this statement. If A, then B, period, A, period, therefore not B. Now statement number two would say statement number one is an invalid inference. Now you see that statement number two is an evaluation statement of statement number one. And that evaluation statement, the first one is an inference within first order propositional logic. And the second one is an evaluation of that statement that is within propositional logic. And necessarily when we make an evaluative statement like that, it's going to be from outside of the logical system. And we can make evaluation statements like this, like of a sentence saying it's true or false. We can make an evaluation of an inference like I did here, saying it's valid or invalid. We can make evaluative statements of logical systems, saying they're consistent or inconsistent, they're incomplete or decidable or not decidable. And all of those things are outside of that and we use different terminology and use a different set of tools to make those evaluative statements. And I've made it abundantly clear to you before that I think all of the claims of presuppositional apologetics are false. And when I go through evaluating these things, the evaluation of these things necessarily takes place outside of the claims and outside of the structure that is making those claims, just like outside of a logical system, outside of a logical inference or outside of a logical statement. And it is not something that is self-refuting simply because we are stepping outside of those claims and making an evaluation of them. Do you understand that?

You said too much too fast, so I can't agree or disagree. But one thing I did kind of catch, you said all claims of presupposition is false. Presuppositionalists presuppose the validity of the Christian trinity as a necessary precondition for all truth and existence. Do you think it's false to do that? I think even though I believe that, I believe all of the claims of that presupposition, all these claims do not follow from that presupposition.

And again, when you're... No, no, no. You said all the claims of presuppositionalism is false. One of the presuppositional claims is the truth of the Christian trinity has a precondition for all existence and truth. So is that false, that we should not presuppose God's existence?

Well, here is the thing. What I'm saying is that these claims, the eight claims that you agreed to last week, that it's a rational and logical defense of Christianity, that all worldviews except the Christian worldview fail to account for laws of logic, and so forth. The eight of them that you agreed to, that I presented to you last week, I think all of these claims fail. And that has no bearing on the truthfulness of the trinity or the biblical truths. And so what I'm saying is that the evaluation of these things is from outside of these things, and it's not self-refuting to, just like it's not self-refuting to use logic to evaluate first-order propositional statements or first-order propositional logical systems or first-order inferences. So it's also not self-refuting to take a look outside of these claims and make an evaluation of them. And I think when we make an evaluation of them, even assuming the presupposition... Well, you're saying way too many things. You're saying so many things, I can't respond. You're just going and going, and there's all these little nuanced issues here, and you're just blending them all together, and it's not very conducive to a good discussion on the radio.

I'd like to answer just simple questions. Do you believe that we should start with the Christian Trinitarian God as the basis for all actuality? No. Okay. So then you deny assuming the Christian God's truth?

No. So then it's neither true or false then that the Christian Trinity is a precondition for all intelligibility? I think that it does not follow from the Christian Trinitarian formula that all truth flows from that. Just as you also agreed that the ultimate presuppositions of scientific truth is not the same as the presuppositions of religious truth. Wait a minute, are you saying all truth does not flow from the Trinity? Well, you just said that, okay? You just said that the statement I just said you do not agree with, that the ultimate presuppositions for ontology and epistemology of religious truths is identical to the ultimate presuppositions of the ontology and epistemology of scientific truth. You said that is not the case. So you have also made a division between religious truth and scientific truth. Now when people talk to me like that, I'd have to ask lots of questions to see what you mean by the clarification and the bridging of the different categories and what senses are used in the categories.

But I'm trying to get down to this. Do you deny or do you affirm that all truth is grounded in the Christian Trinity? No. I said do you deny or affirm, which is? I do not believe that all truths come forth from the Trinity, no, even though I believe in Trinity. Can you define what truth is? Can I define what truth is? Well, I would make a division between religious truths and scientific truths and logical truths.

Okay, great. But what is truth? Again, they're going to be defined differently, whether you're talking about religious truths or scientific truths or logical truths. Okay, but you can't define truth, yet you speak of it. And so it's a little bit, in my view, my opinion seems to be a little incoherent to speak of something you can't define. How are you defining incoherency? Well, no, I'm just making a statement. If you don't know how to define something, how can you then speak about it with logical assurance?

That's what I'm asking. Well, as I've shown to you before, well, you're talking about logical assuredness. Logical definitions change according to logical systems and contradiction changes according to logical systems. Logical systems are defined by... Can you define truth? Can I define truth? Well, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I believe that as a religious truth, if I go to truth as a person, religious truth as a person. All truth is Jesus? All truths are God's truths.

So whether it's religious truth or scientific truths, or... Would you agree that truth is what corresponds to the mind of God? No. There's no way to know that for sure.

Okay. There's no way to know that with any certainty. Then you wouldn't know what truth is? You know nothing of the thoughts of... Then you wouldn't know what truth is that you can't break? Well, you know nothing of the thoughts of God.

The only thing we know is how God has revealed his thoughts. That is one of the huge flaws in presuppositional apologetics. No, it's not. No, it's not.

It's not a flaw. You see, look, God is a necessary precondition for everything, because nothing exists apart from God. So therefore, all truth that exists in our world are ultimately due to the causation of God.

He is the ultimate cause of all things. So all facts that exist in our world trace their origin back contextually to the causal chain brought into existence by God. So therefore, all facts have a context, all truth values have a context that ultimately rests with God.

In the mind of God, before all things were created or he created everything, all things potential were known by God. So all facts and all potential existences existed in the mind of God. So truth is what corresponds to the mind of God. If you're going to tell me truth has something other than the value of what corresponds to the mind of God, then I'm going to ask you to define what truth is apart from the Christian God.

That's basically what atheists do. Well, and then my question to you is how do we distinguish between the truth that is in God's mind and the truth that is or something that is not in God's mind? The only thing we know of God's mind is the manner in which he's chosen to reveal it.

We know nothing of the thoughts themselves. Yes, we do. Because God tells us.

No, we don't. Because God tells us in the scriptures things. The only thing, the scripture is the way God has revealed his thoughts, not his thoughts themselves. Oh, okay. I get what you're saying. God has revealed his thoughts.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. We don't know his present thoughts. We can't reach up into his mind. I get that. But we can see what God has done to the person of Christ, and we can understand his intentions through the word of God and the person of Christ. But you've got to understand, you're having a grounding problem.

Because you're presupposing the validity of the laws of logic by which you can discuss other logical systems, which means you're presupposing the law of identity and uniformity in nature and in the laws of logic. But how do you ground those as being absolutely true? You can't.

I don't see how you can. Well, they're not absolutely true. Without the Christian, Trinitarian God, who also is the one in the many and the necessary precondition for all intelligibility with universals and particulars that are manifested in the world. So, I've thought this through. I've had very sophisticated discussions with atheists on this, and I'm with you. I understand what you're saying, but I think you've got problems, logically.

Okay, here's what I'm saying. Greg Monson in his debate with Gordon Stein talked about things reflecting the thoughts of God. I'm saying that the only thing we have in the Revelation, in the Scriptures, is the results of God's thoughts as they are revealed. We know nothing of the thought processes themselves. And so, therefore, Gordon Stein was correct when he said, any talk of something reflecting God's thought is meaningless because we don't know, with any degree of certainty, whether or not it reflects God's thoughts. We only know the results of God's thoughts as he has revealed it. No, no, no, I disagree.

And Stein got his rear handed to him. And the thing is, if you can't define truth, then you need to justify your definition of truth, because now what you want to do is define truth apart from God. How do you justify that? Didn't I tell you that religious truth, that I am the way, the truth of life, that it is a person? Did I not say that?

Yes, you did. But I didn't ask you, you know, because you said truth is a person. So a statement 2 plus 2 plus 4 is a truth. Is that statement Jesus? The answer is no.

So it's a category error, and there's non-transitivity of identicals there. It doesn't work. So you have to have a definition of truth that's going to be better. Well here's the thing, I make a distinction between truths and facts. Science deals in facts. No, it doesn't. Not always.

It seems like you're, huh? Science does not always deal with facts. It deals with assumptions and guesses and testing and belief and philosophy. It is based upon what is observed in the world around us, and it makes models about that world. That's what science does. No, it's not. Science is a philosophical approach to the physical world.

We're almost out of time. And I'll tell you why. Because they presuppose the universality of the laws of logic, but they can't prove it with the scientific method. No, they don't.

No, presuppose it. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. There's a lot of study on what science is. Well, I can show you that they are not.

Hold on. And the philosophy of science. Plus, it presupposes the uniformity of nature, and the laws of physics are the same everywhere. It presupposes this. May I discuss with you?

These are philosophical assumptions. May I discuss and rumble with you after the show? If you want. May I discuss this with you and rumble after the show? If you want, come on out after.

We can talk a little bit about it, but it'd just be more of the same. Hey, folks, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you.

I know it's a little bit sophisticated, but I enjoy that kind of stuff every now and then. May the Lord just really bless you tonight. And by His grace, we're back on air tomorrow, and we'll talk to you then. God bless. God bless.