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 CARM.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. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick live.

Today's date is January 5th, 2024, and I hope you can enjoy the show today as we, well, as we try and answer questions and stuff like that. All right, so we are live in Clubhouse. Hopefully, you can see or hear me in there. And also, we're on Rumble, Rumble. We're also on Facebook and YouTube and stuff like that.

So, we have wide open lines. Why don't you give me a call, 877-207-2276, and we can talk. And if you want to, you can email me, info at CARM.org. Info at CARM.org, and that's C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And, okay, good, good, good. And you can just send me an email with, let's see, a radio question or radio comment in there, in the topic.

And that's what I'm looking for right now is seeing if anything new came in recently. Here we go, radio on-air question. There's one. I'll move that over there. And let's see. Oh, yeah, that's right.

That's right. I got to do that TikTok stuff. Radio questions. Yeah, there's so much, there's a lot to do. You know, I say this every now and then, but I say, man, I'm so busy.

There's so much to do. And I just remembered something. The poor Christians in Nigeria, I can't give you too many details because they're just gruesome. The Muslims in Nigeria are going into the townsfolk in the outer outskirts and doing horrendous things to people, not just killing them.

And beheading and other stuff. They are evil, they're demonic, and hundreds of Christians are being killed. They've gone into churches and just, I can't even tell you what they're doing.

It's bad, into Christian churches and doing stuff. And the Nigerian government really isn't doing much, isn't really doing a whole bunch. And so, the reason I know this is because we have our Friday meetings and our guy in Nigeria is filling us in.

There are a few places that will talk about this stuff, but I just want to let you guys know that you can pray so that you can pray for the people in Nigeria and the Christians. Now, the question is, do we have the right of physical self-defense as Christians, or do we just let people kill us? Just so you know, we have the right of physical self-defense. And Jesus says in Luke 22, 36, he says, do you have a sword? He goes, no, we have two cloaks, okay? And he says, go buy one. He says, whoever has a money belt is to take it along.

Likewise, also a bag. Whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. So that's what he's saying, Luke 22, 36. So, this is what Jesus said, Luke 22, 36, okay?

Whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. So the commentators basically deal with this by saying that it's talking about self-defense. And I agree, it's self-defense. Christians have the right of self-defense. You have the right to be able to defend yourself. You don't have the obligation to. But you do have the obligation to defend others.

And so, let's see, physical force. I wrote an article about this, and it's a tough subject. But do Christians have the right of physical self-defense? I wrote this in August of 2021, and the answer is yes.

It's permitted, but it's not obligatory. That's Exodus 22, 2, and Luke 11, 21, and 22, 36. We have the right and obligation to defend others. Psalm 82, 4, rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. And Proverbs 24, 11 says, rescue those who are being taken away to death. Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

And I can give you a lot of other references for different topics, but we are not to take vengeance. We are to seek peace whenever possible. We can flee to avoid persecution, and we're to pray for our persecutors, we're to love our enemies, we're to be in spiritual battle, must defend the true gospel, et cetera. But we are also to resist evildoers, whether small in number or large. Now, that's Psalm 82, 3 through 4, give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and destitute, rescue the weak and needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. In Isaiah 117, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. And believe it or not, we're to resist bad governments, and I can get into those scriptures too.

So pray that the Christians there would learn that they have the right to defend themselves. And that reminds me, there's a movie Gerard Butler played in it, The Machine Gun Preacher. True story, Machine Gun Preacher.

Now how far do we go? But there's a movie that he made about this guy who, he's a bad guy, he got saved, became a pastry. He became too zealous, but he went over to Africa a lot, and Machine Gun Preacher. All right, you can check that movie out, I may watch it again just because I like to watch stuff like that to see what different people are doing around the world. But the thing is that the Christians are being slaughtered in Nigeria and other places in the world. And the media here is not mentioning a stinking thing about it. If it was Muslims being slaughtered, the media would jump in and call the Christians barbarians. But when it's Christians being slaughtered, no one cares.

This is how it's been throughout history. So I'm just going to ask that you would remember to lift them up in prayer, and our guy who is there is going to be publishing the article that I've written that we have the right of self-defense and trying to get people to learn to defend themselves. If I was over there, personally, I'd be organizing people to do just that, going around teaching them what to do. And I'm not a military guy, I don't know anything, but they have the right of self-defense. These Muslim pigs, these filthy, vile, demonically possessed, ungodly, evil people use Islam as a justification to kill. And they do this.

It's just demonic. So pray for the persecutors as well, that they will be saved, convicted by the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's him that they're persecuting. All right, let's just jump on the air with Dawn from Spokane. Hey, Dawn, welcome, you're on the air. Hey, thank you. Okay, so last night in your Bible study, I thought of a question for you today, and I think this is a good way to say it. How do rewards work in heaven?

And is that, okay. I don't know. Do we get bigger shoes?

Do we have our wings are faster? Do we get to be closer with the Lord? We get a free galaxy to take care of? I just don't know. Well, I didn't, okay, so I had some people tell me that we're going to be judges. Hold on a second. Yes, that's true. That we're going to be judges, and depending on what we do, will depend on which rank we're going to have in heaven.

I'm like, where did you find that? I never read anything about a rank. I don't even know what that means. Do we have different levels of heaven? Okay, good. We have different rewards. And when someone says something like a different rank in heaven, say, show that to me in the scriptures. Yeah, that's what I said.

Okay. Good, and a lot of times what they'll do is they might go to something like Revelation 22, 12, behold, I'm coming quickly and my reward is with me to render to every man according to what he's done. And they'll say, see, there's the ranking, and you go, there's no such thing as ranking there. There's different rewards. So they'll do that kind of a thing.

So I don't know what it means, and the Bible doesn't tell us, so we can just offer conjectures. Me, I would like to be able to fly instantly anywhere in the universe and visit galaxies. To me, that's a good idea. Okay, same.

That sounds better. Yeah, it'd be great. You know, there's trillions of galaxies out there. Maybe we can get 50 or 60, you know, and, you know, kabillions of stars. Of course, the greatest reward is just being with Jesus.

You know, I mean, close to him. That's the best reward. That's what I was saying last night. I thought that was our reward with salvation, but Paul talks about how rewards are burnt, like he's going to throw it in a fire, or our works, and whatever is good is saved, but the rest isn't. And I had that confused with salvation when I was a Catholic.

So anyway, that's why it's kind of messing with my head. Yes, because the Catholic Church, I just heard it today, I was listening to one of the errands, I was listening to the local Catholic station, I was listening to them, and, you know, the blasphemies that they just promote is over truth. It was just, I wish I could reach into the radio and yell into the studio, these people are speaking these lies, you know, and one guy was saying about how he has to, this is what you do, you go to the church, you get the sacraments, you hope that you make it on the day of judgment, you hope that you can make it when you die, you go to heaven, like holy, you know, it's just, anyway. So we do have rewards and loss of rewards in heaven. So if God has given us certain gifts, and we don't use them for his glory, maybe for our own glory, well, loss of reward, but we're still in heaven, okay? Are those rewards the same as the crowns that they're going to give us that we throw at Jesus' feet? It looks like that's the case. It looks like that is the case.

Oh good, I hope that's what it is. I hope so, because, yeah, because I don't want to be, I feel like double judged, you know, it's like, oh crap, yeah, well we, you talk like I do, so yeah, you know, we're going to face God, it's going to be an embarrassing day, at least for me, I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to be, I'm going to be really embarrassed. Oh no, I am terrified of it, I am terrified. Yeah, well, that means we're going to heaven, that's guaranteed, but I don't want anybody to know my thoughts, my deeds, I don't want anybody to know. Yeah, that's the point, but on that day, that day's going to suck, that is, I'm sorry, I don't know if I can say that, but it's going to be horrible, and I'm going to be so embarrassed, and then all my friends will know, right? Now everybody will know everything, correct?

So you've got me cracking up, because you say the same stuff I say, the same way I say it. It's going to suck. It's just true. I know, it just freaked me out. I know. I was trying to talk to my husband about it, and he's newer, he's a newer Christian, he's not a baby, but he's newer than I am, so when I asked him this, he's like, are you kidding me, is this happening?

And I freaked him out, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'll ask Matt, geez, go away. That's right. I'm glad you don't know. We're going to go to heaven, and there's going to be rewards and loss of rewards in heaven, and I don't know what that entails.

The Bible doesn't tell us. So that's it. Just don't know.

Yay, thanks, Matt. Wow. I wish I did.

I'd give you an even slicker answer. I know, I wish you did, too. I wish I do. Okay.

But I don't. Absolutely. Well, thank you. Okay.

And you enjoy your day, and you can get to the other callers. Thank you so much. You, too.

God bless, Todd. All right. You, too. All right. Well, good. She does. She talks the same way I do, with the same inflection and stuff like that, it cracked me up.

All right. Let's get to Dave from Kansas City. Dave, welcome to You're on the Air. That girl was an absolute delight. Yeah, she was. Yeah, I was enjoying it. She was great.

She was great. Oh, hey, there's a break. Hold on.

We got a break, buddy, sorry about that, just timing. All right. So hold on, and we'll get back on with you.

I will. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, it's 2-open-lines-877-207-2276. We'll be right back after these messages. Here's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right. I'm going to welcome back to the show. All right. We have three open lines now, 877-207-2276, because it's back on with Dave. Dave, welcome.

You're on the air. Yeah. I had a debate with the Hebrew Roots guys on the Trinity, and one of the friends of mine that was helping me with it, who agreed with the Trinity, got me into a little bit of quandary with him. He's a Word of Faith guy, I will say he's Word faith guy, pretty much, but he claims that Jesus was begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit in some heavenly realm.

And when I say begotten, when even the Confession of Faith, I think the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith has begotten in it, when something is begotten, doesn't that automatically connotate a moment in time that it was begotten? Yes and no. Okay. Yes and no.

Okay. So let's work through this a little bit. So the Trinity, the being who is God, who is triune in his nature, this triunity of his essence is divinely simple, we call it divine simplicity, it means that God is one thing, and the one thing is triune. He's not three parts, a part of the Father, a part of the Son, a part of the Holy Spirit. The three persons who are the triune being exist in a parakeritic relationship.

This is the mutual indwelling, and it's natural and expected if the triune being is one being who exists in a triune sense. Along with this, we have the idea, the knowledge, that God knows all things from forever ago. It's not the case that God looks into the future to see who will pick them, and then he chooses them based on that, that's heresy. So when we talk about the doctrine of the Trinity and the intertrinitarian communion, Hebrews 1320, the blood of the eternal covenant, what we're getting into now is the issue of priority.

There's a difference between logical priority and temporal priority. So if the Father is the one who sent the Son and the Son is the only begotten, then we know from a temporal sense that Jesus was begotten 2,000 years ago on the earth. That's a temporal begetting. What about the intertrinitarian relationship? Was there a begetting there?

And the answer is yes. But it's not temporal, it's logical. So the illustration I use is regeneration preceding faith, and I use a light bulb. So we have a light bulb and we put a switch on and electricity enters the light bulb and five seconds later the light comes on, there's light emitted. That would be temporal priority, where electricity is there and then a period of time later light appears. That's called temporal priority. Logical priority means that when electricity is there, the light is there at the same time. But it is electricity that causes the light, not light that causes the electricity.

So we say the electricity is logically prior, they're simultaneous, but one is the cause of the other even though they're simultaneous. When we look at logical priority in the Godhead, we have the Father sending the Son because in Ephesians 1-4 he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. This means the Father elected people for salvation in Christ, but this could only happen if the second verse of the Trinity was going to become us, one of us, to redeem us. So this is the eternal plan that has a logical priority to it. The logical priority being the Father sending the Son, but the Son was eternally sent. So there is no temporal sense of, hey, now we're going to change states and change conditions and now it's there, because God knows everything eternally from all places, all time. It was always the case that the Son, the Word, would become the incarnate one and hence the begotten one in our temporal realm, but in God's realm he was eternal. So therefore it's the eternal generation or the eternal begetting of the Son that he was eternally begotten by the necessary will of the Father, that the Son is not created or caused in that extensive beginning, but that he was put, let's just say, for now, put in that position of being the one who would be our Redeemer. But that putting in the position is eternal, there was no beginning to it, it was all eternally understood and accomplished. So in the Confession, when it says eternally begotten, it kind of misnomers, really, it's eternal generation is what they should have said back in 1689, right?

Well yes and no, but you have to understand the context, because if they understood and everybody understood a certain term, then that's the correct term of that time. So when people talk about eternal generation or the eternal begetting, because there's another sense, which Jesus says, I proceed from the Father, then we have the eternal procession, there's eternal generation or procession and begetting, and these are kind of interrelated. So eternal generation is commonly defined as an eternal personal act of the Father, where by necessity of nature, not by choice of will, he generates the person, not the essence of the Son.

By communicating to him the whole indivisible substance of the Godhead without division, alienation or change, so that the Son is the express image of his Father's person, and eternally continues not from the Father, but in the Father and the Father and the Son. And that's a quote on my website from Theology by A. A. Hodge. So this is a tough one, but that's what's going on. Oh, it is, it's causing me to think. Another one was the C. S. Lewis poem, where he said, God reached down and formed man out of the dust of the clay, and I can't remember the poem exactly, but he formed man out of the dust of the earth.

He formed him, and he looked down, and he was forming him through nailed, scarred hands. Yes and no. Okay. No and no.

No need to allow. Yeah. Yeah.

Some of the C. S. Lewis stuff, he needs to be refined, okay? Yeah. But so did he do that? In one sense, yes. In another sense, no. The sense in that the crucifixion and the eternal work of the Son was eternally proclaimed, so therefore it's going to happen. And so from the logically true and necessary it's going to happen sense, yeah.

But it hadn't temporarily happened for us, no. So it depends on the sense in which you're looking at it, but the clarification's always good. Wow. Well, thank you so much.

I mean, it's still an area that I relied too much on remembering theological terms from my Bible college without actually having ever had to debate them and follow them through. Now I'm going through a whole other realm, and it's just getting tough. So thank you. It's good.

No, it's good. See, when people ask questions like this, what happens is you have to learn to articulate them, and then you get an objection to the articulation, and you have to refine the articulation. And to do that, you just grow in your knowledge and your understanding.

And the reason I'm able to answer you is because that's what happened to me. I had to go research. And so I do.

And then sometimes people on the radio will ask me a question, and I will open up my file, and I will go and then start putting the questions in. That's what I do. Okay? So no big deal. Well, thank you very much, and I think everybody needs to support you. Oh, wow. Thanks. I appreciate that.

We do need it. All right. All right. Okay, God bless. Hey, folks, we have wide open lines.

Nobody waiting. If you want to give me a call, please do, 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. I want to welcome back to the show.

All right. Now, since we have nobody waiting, yay, on Fridays I get to do hate mail and wacko mail. And so that's what I'm going to do right now is get into some wacko mail. And for those of you who've not experienced the delight of wacko mail, let me just say that it is a pleasure to read what some people say. Now, I'm not trying to make fun of them, not the individual, but sometimes when they speak, they don't have all their paws in the litter box. And then they'll say things.

And I'm going to have, you know, I'm just going to talk about it and read through some stuff. So I've got one right here. Now, we have different categories. We have hate mail, and we have wacko mail. Now, hate mail is, and you are no good, you know, you're stupid. And that's hate mail.

Wacko mail is like this. My hope for you all is to become saved. There's thousands of unsaved pastors and millions of unsaved believers. Jesus never started a new denomination called Churchanity. And there's no such thing as a Sunday sermon in the Bible. Now, I can't let stuff like this go because, well, yes, there is stuff on Sundays in the Bible.

And it's because the guy, he's not thinking. In Acts 20, verse 7, on the first day of the week, that's Sunday, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to depart the next day. He prolonged his message until midnight. Now, this is Sunday evening when he was doing this, all right? On 1 Corinthians 16, 1 through 2, now concerning the collection for the same time, I directed the churches of Galatia. So do you also, on the first day of every week, let each one of you put aside and save us that you may prosper, that no collection will be made when I come? That's a tithing thing. Revelation 1, 10 through 11, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. That's Sunday.

And I heard behind me a loud voice with the sound of a trumpet saying, write in the book, and so, et cetera, et cetera. So I mean, the idea of them doing things on Sunday included preaching and teaching and tithing on the first day of the week. So when the person says, there's no such thing as a Sunday sermon, well, yes, there is.

He just has to open the Bible and do this difficult thing called studying. All right, he says, salvation is a conditional and relational word. Salvation and or saved is not a one-time occurrence.

Oh, really? So you get saved over and over and over and over again? I was talking to somebody online and, you know, can you lose your salvation? Yes. Can you get it back? Yes. Can you then lose it again? Yes.

Can you get it back? So what keeps you in? Well, what keeps you in is being good, is having faith in God, is having faith a good thing? Well, yes. Well, then aren't you saying you keep yourself right with God by how faithful you are to God?

You know, to me, it's simple. Yeah, salvation is a one-time thing. God saves me. I don't have to maintain my salvation with Him by my goodness. Anyway, he goes on. It's a present-tense, real-time state of being, not a once-upon-a-time confession.

Yeah, that's what he thinks. There's no such thing as a sinner's prayer or Sunday church in the Bible. I just showed him in the Bible that there is a Sunday prayer, and did you know there is a sinner's prayer in the Bible?

And I'm going to show it to you right now. You go to Luke 18, starting at verse 9. And also, he told this parable to some people who were trusting in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. Jesus said, Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.

I tell you, this man went up to his house justified rather than the other. So that was a sinner, and he prayed, and he was saved. That is a sinner's prayer, and it's in the Bible. People say the sinner's prayer is not in there.

Well, the modern form of it, but don't say there's no sinner's prayer in the Bible because, well, there is. That's what it is right there. I show people that, and they go, I didn't know that. So pre-trib rapture, this guy goes on, isn't for the generic lukewarm man-made pagan Sunday churches.

Wow. So wording like this is interesting. So the pre-trib rapture isn't for the generic lukewarm. Well, what about the non-generic lukewarm?

Because I always want to know. What does it mean to be a non-generic lukewarm person? I don't know. Maybe that means, I don't know, I could come up with something clever to say.

I can't even think. What's a non-generic, a special lukewarm person? Maybe he has three legs. Yeah, he's a special lukewarm person. Well, that guy over there is generic.

He has two legs. So I don't know. And man-made pagan Sunday churches, so he blew that one. The rapture is for his true bride only.

Yeah. John 3.29, he who has the bride is, who has the bride's bridegroom, the bridegroom will never be started. New John nomination, church anity. I don't know of any denomination called church anity. Anyone who isn't doing his will for their life will be left behind.

Matthew 7.21. Whoa. Boy, he took that out of context. You know, people just, you know, they shouldn't, some people should not, they shouldn't be allowed to think out loud. Sorry. All right, let's get to, uh, this could, uh, the Giggler, uh, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, how you doing, brother?

It's been a while. All right. Hang on in there.

Hang in there, man. What do you got? I wanted to talk to you about the problem of divine hiddenness, which I would say for me would be like, if you were to ask me, what's your biggest stumbling block in coming to Christianity? I would say problem of divine hiddenness. Can you define that? Cause people have different definitions of that. What do you mean? Oh, sure. For me, it's that, um, God appears to be hidden.

Um, let me give you the atheist perspective on divine hiddenness. Um, supposedly, um, there's this guy, Jesus, who's all powerful and is everywhere and wants to be my friend, but I, he's never like showed up for dinner and I'm baffled about it. Who says he wants to be your friend?

Where'd you get that? Oh, interesting. Okay. You know, a lot of people just say stuff, you know, and we, I know you and I have talked before on the net and, uh, hold on.

I had to clear my throat. And I, I've said this in our chat rooms and things like this, that a lot of times Christians just don't know what they're saying and they just assume certain things. Jesus wants to be your friend. Maybe not because so it's all five, five, it's all 11 five says, God hates all who do iniquity.

Did you want to be your friend? Well, I don't know. Does he have a desire to save you personally? Cause if he wants to, all he's got to do is show his glory to you.

It's all he's going to do, but he hasn't. Maybe maybe you're one of the ones that he's just going to just let go to hell. That's just something you have to face might be the case, right? Yeah.

Are you there? Yeah. Yeah. I suppose that is a possibility. Oh, it is biblically.

It's a definite possibility. And you've heard me teach theology in these rooms and I tell stuff, tell people stuff like this and I go, this is what the scripture says because the Bible tells us and, um, in Romans nine, for example, Romans nine 20, uh, I'm going to read, uh, it says, uh, right 21, 22 and 23, or does not the Potter that's God have a ride over the clay to make for the same lump, one vessel for honorable use and another for common use. What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory. So I don't know which one you are. I don't either, Matt. And I guess, uh, based on that, my question for you would be, what can I do? And it sounds like you're saying nothing. I just have to wait and see. Well, there's a yes and a no to that.

So what can you do? Well, it depends. Do you want to find out? If, if, if you've decided already, does it matter what I do? Yes.

Are you, are you suggesting I have some power over his decision based on my choices? No. Well, it seems like you are though.

No. Huh? But I know you, you see, we've talked before, and I know that you, what you'll do is you ask a question and you find a reason to, well, I mean, I don't mean this in a mean way, but you find a reason to not receive it, to not believe it, to not accept it. You always do that. I mean, you know, understand, I'm not mad at you or anything like that. And I think you're articulate, intelligent, polite, but this is what you do.

Thank you. So you're, you're, all you're doing is doing what you want to do. So let me ask you, do you want to find the Lord Jesus really? Well, I, I would disagree that all I'm doing is what I want to do, but that's a different conversation. Well, that's another topic you're right, but do you want to find Jesus?

Do you want, do you want to find the truth that, well, you got a break coming. Yeah, we do. Oh, good for you. This is one of the reasons I like talking to you. We've had so many good conversations. You're, you're a polite guy and you're still welcome with my house, you know, get to stake of stuff like that. But hold on. Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages and we'll talk to Giggler.

I've had many conversations with these and atheists, it'll be interesting. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Alright everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with the Giggler. You still there? I am. Alright.

Now there's more to this, but where were we? I heard you mentioned I was an atheist and I am an atheist. I am thoroughly convinced that no god or gods exist. I am convinced we live in a non-god universe, world, whatever you want to use.

Let me ask you. Would you agree with this statement? If Christianity is true, atheism is false. I don't think you could apply a true or false to atheism.

No it is logically necessary. If Christianity is true, then atheism is false. It's logically necessary to say yes, that's a true statement. I don't think you could apply a truth or false to atheism.

Even a lack of belief in something, I don't know how that can be true or false. It's either right or not right, correct or incorrect. It's correct. True or false. I don't buy it. It's correct logically.

It is true. It has truth value, propositionally, that if it's the case that Christianity is true, it's also the case that atheism is not true. If you say atheism is a lack of belief, it's not really accurate. Because what you're doing is you're just asserting a personal preference of a definition.

The dictionaries all over the place don't, generally speaking, don't go with that kind of definition. Furthermore, if it's just a lack of belief in something, I can tell you that a lack of belief is regarded as something that you are not aware of. But if I tell you that there's a specific concept, you either hold back judgment on its actuality or truth value or you just simply deny it. You believe, you affirm, deny, or you hold back judgment. So lacking doesn't work.

I was being too resistant. If Christianity is true, then atheism is false. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, that's true. So then we would say Christianity provides the necessary conditions for intelligibility.

If it does, then it's true. We would not. You would. You would say that. We would not say that. You would say that.

I don't care. But that's just it. That's why Christianity can't do that.

And if you can't falsify that, you're in trouble. I think I see where you're going here. I'm going to try to cut you off at the pass, if I may. Sure, try. Okay. So you ever seen a card trick? Yes. You ever seen a really impressive card trick? I guess so.

Yeah. Do you guess, or have you seen an impressive card trick? Well, I've seen card tricks. I don't remember all card trick instances and memories to say which one subjectively was really impressive or not. I've seen lots of card tricks. Have you ever seen a card trick where you didn't know how the person did the trick, but the trick was very impressive?

Yeah, of course. Now, let's imagine that situation where you see a very impressive card trick, and the person who does the trick, you say to them, you say, wow, that was amazing. I have no idea how you did that. And they say to you, it was magic. And you say, I don't think it was magic. And they say to you, well, then you need to show me how I did the trick because either it was magic or you show me how I did it.

These are your only two options. You don't get to say magic isn't real unless you can show me how I did this trick. If you don't know how I did the trick, you have to acknowledge magic is real. Now, what would you say, Matt, in this specific situation?

Would you then acknowledge magic is real? I would get you back on track because you're just doing a different analogy and trying to make a truth statement out of an analogy, which isn't always- I would like an answer to my question, Matt, unless you don't want to have this conversation, which is fine. You don't have to.

Wow. Come on. You've got to be polite now. I've told people you're polite.

Are you polite or not? What would you do in that situation, Matt? Would you acknowledge magic was real or would you- We know there's no such thing as magic.

In this situation, right. How do we know there's no such thing as magic, Matt, because you think donkeys talk, Matt. How can you think magic's not real?

Giggler, Giggler, hold on. You're not thinking critically, okay? If Christianity is true, then atheism is false. It took you a bit to admit that, but that's necessary logically.

Christianity provides a single premise. I know you're trying to get back on script and I respect that, but let's redirect that to where I was taking you. You weren't taking me anywhere. It was a dead end because we don't believe in magic. I think your audience saw it.

Even if you didn't, they've already seen where this is going and they've already seen what you've lost. No, no, no. Look, look. You can try to dig your way out of the hole.

Go ahead. No, no, no. You don't understand the issue. I'm trying to get you on something to get you to focus, and you're the one who digressed ... Yeah, you're trying to get me back on script, Matt.

You're trying to get me back on script, but I get that. You're losing this conversation, which is fine. Okay, whatever you want to say. If it's the case that Christianity is true, then it should be able to provide a rational reason, justified true belief reasons on why there's universals, why there are universal truth values, why there's universal morals. We can explain the issue of the one and the many, as well as universals, particulars, and relationships. These are the fundamental aspects that deal with knowledge, justification, rationality, from which you're trying to argue. You don't realize that what you're doing... With all due respect, Matt...

Hold on, hold on, hold on. What you're doing is you're actually trying to use logic to verify your position, but the logic only works in my worldview, so you don't even realize that what you're doing ultimately is undermining your own atheistic assumptions. You have to demonstrate to me that Christianity cannot then provide the necessary preconditions for intelligibility. It's not magic. Matt, Matt, I don't have to demonstrate that to you any more than you have to demonstrate to the person doing the card trick how they did the trick. You can simply tell them that magic's not real.

You don't have to... Giggler. Logic. You're not thinking logically.

If it's the case that Christianity is true, then atheism is false, I'm giving you the reason Christianity is true, so therefore, if you can't refute that, then atheism is false. Modus ponens, modus ponens, you get into this stuff with logic. Matt, Matt, that was the whole point of the card trick example. I don't have to provide evidence that I know how the card trick was done. Okay. Okay. Okay. We both agree. We're on the same page. We both agree. Magic is not real. Okay. So we don't use magic in this. No, we don't. Atheists aren't the one.

You think magic is real. Giggler. Giggler.

You think donkeys talk. Giggler. Giggler. Giggler.

You think people rise from the dead, Matt. Giggler. You think magic is real. Giggler.

Deal with it. Giggler, you're not being nice. Why are you being so bad?

I am. You think magic is real, dude. You are being horrible.

Why can't you just say you think magic is real? I'm going to have to stop you. I'm going to have to stop you.

If you don't maintain, I'm going to have to get rid of you. I'm trying to be polite with you. You're just demonstrating. You're demonstrating your atheism. Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

I am listening. We both don't agree. I mean, we both agree that magic doesn't exist. You're just saying a donkey, look, if it's the case that God exists, hold on Giggler. You're not thinking critically. If it's the case that the Christian Trinitarian God exists, then it's possible for him to have a donkey talk.

It's just simple. If it's the case, you've already admitted, if it's the case that Christianity is true, then atheism is false. The premise then has to be validated or invalidated. Are you able to invalidate the Christian premise?

You have to falsify it. If it's the case the Christian God is true, it's possible for him to give Joseph Smith the golden plate. I totally agree with you, Matt. Yes, absolutely. If he's true. So we say that the validation of Christianity in this argument is that it provides a necessary preconditions for all intelligibility. You're trying to argue intelligibly how then can you justify intelligibility from your atheism? How do you negate the premise out of the Christian perspective?

Can you tell me? Here's the thing, brother. Here's the thing, brother.

And I think this is why you and I are always going to wind up disagreeing and then possibly complaining, but we're approaching it from different angles. So you're approaching the situation from, Hey, God is real and therefore, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I'm approaching it from, Hey, Matt's telling me there's this deity and I don't see it. And I'm a little skeptical. Like he's, Matt is giving, Matt's telling me a vacuum and I think he's talking it up.

I'm not so convinced that it will do the stuff he says it will do. Which one of us went to logic and which one of us went to magic? You have the talking donkey. I don't have a talking donkey, Matt. You do.

Which one of us went to magic? That's irrelevant. It's irrelevant. Giggler, think. Really?

It's irrelevant. Listen to me. I'm going to put you on hold.

I'm going to put you on hold because you just can't keep quiet. The talking donkey is irrelevant to whether or not God is or is not or Christianity is true or is not true. You presuppose that God doesn't exist, therefore that's not possible. You have to demonstrate now that God does not exist. As your position is, if you're going to require me to talk to you logically, you need to do the same thing, to simply state that a talking donkey is not possible because you presuppose your atheist worldview is simply to make an assumption and to presuppose its truth value. I can do the same thing and I presuppose that God exists, therefore he can make a donkey talk.

That's not a problem. The statements deal with the issue of logic. You're not able to deal with the issue that I've raised to you. If Christianity is true, then atheism is false and Christianity is able to provide the necessary preconditions for intelligibility. If it can, it means atheism cannot.

If you want to say that the premise I'm giving you, the second premise is false, then you need to attack Christianity and or provide the conditions in atheism by which universal truth values can be obtained. If you can't do it, then you're just out of the argument. You don't know what's going on. To go back and say donkeys can't talk is simply to beg the question and assume your position to be true, which you have not validated. This is why you're wasting time by going back to that. We're going to have to talk about this in the chat room sometime, Giggler. Because you're making logic errors.

Your atheism is stopping you from thinking critically. You're making mistakes. We'll talk about it, okay?

We've got our callers waiting. Okay, buddy? All right? Yep.

Okay. Let's get to Tammy. She's been waiting a long time from East Coast. Tammy, welcome. You're on the air.

Are you there? Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.

I have a very succinct question. Sure. There's no script necessary, so please feel free to answer as you please, Matt. Sure. And thank you for all you do, by the way. You're welcome.

See you on the valuable tool for everyone who's looking for truth. Here's my question. Yes. We only have about 30 seconds, sorry.

How long does it take to quit? Mm-hmm. Go ahead.

How does one best equip himself or herself from outside, what do you say, aggressive influences in today's times with technology such as AI and TPT powers that are growing exponentially? Yeah. Because IG, just in my experience- But we can't answer it right now. I tell you what, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

I want to hear you, but we've only got 20 seconds before the music starts. I'd like you to call back on Monday, because that is an incredibly valuable question, and we need to talk about it. Oh, okay. Seriously? Well, now, then everyone has the weekend to think about it.

Yes, they do. And I'm going to think about it too, because it's a good one. So see, there's a music. We're out of time. I want you to call back Monday, okay? And if you can, please do, and we'll talk about it, all right?

Because that's a good question. So God bless, Tammy. Thank you. All right. Sorry, we're not out of time on that one.

That would have been good. I hope she calls back Monday. May the Lord bless you. Have a great weekend, everyone, and by His grace, we'll be back on the air on Monday. Talk to you later. Bye bye.