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. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick.

Your list of Matt Slick live. Today's date is Wednesday, May 29th. Just going to let you know that I will not be live for sure on Friday because I've got to beat a debate at the time of the radio show's on.

I'm going to beat a debate in Utah with a Mormon on does the Bible teach salvation by faith or works or grace or works. So I'll be doing that and I may or may not be on tomorrow because it just depends on a couple of variables and I let the producer know. I'll let him know later or let him know tomorrow because I have to drive down. There's four and a half hours. So I have to get down there and it just depends on when I leave and how much stuff I've got ready. So anyway, if I leave after the show, I won't get there until like 11 o'clock at night, which is fine.

Get to a hotel and for me it's no problem. But we'll just see. We will just see. Made that drive many, many times down there to Utah. See Bill McKeever, Eric Johnson and the wonderful Terry. Hope she's listening right now and a lot of good people down there. So hey, look, if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 8772072276. You can also email me.

That's easy to do. Just dial, not dial, but just email me at email. It's going to be info at, um, let me try this.

I'm doing some things at once. Just email me at info at karm.org info at karm.org in the subject line. Please put in radio comment or radio question. So I might even get to some of those today because I may or may not be on tomorrow live. I will not be on Friday for sure, but Lord willing back on Monday and I put the newsletter out.

It went out, was it this morning? And, uh, hope you guys got the newsletter. And I'm going to ask people about the newsletter.

I want you to sign up for it. There's a reason. I'll tell you why.

There's a strategic reason. But nevertheless, uh, I put the information in the newsletter about the debate and where and if and if. I hope people show up at between 4 and 6 p.m. on Friday at Weber State University. I hope people, so it's kind of a too early, I think it should be like 6 to 7 or 6 to 8, but hey, that's just what it is. But after work, we're going to be going to dinner at a restaurant across the street nearby. And so if anybody wants to come and you know, you want to meet me or just hang out or whatever, um, and you don't have time to get to the debate, come in late or just come in at the end, roughly at 8 o'clock, roughly. Don't know exactly what time we'll end up. And then we're just going to go over to a restaurant and you can follow. It'd be fun, okay?

It'd be fun. All right, now, the reason I'm talking about the newsletter is because, uh, you can go to CARM, the website at the bottom of the page, it has a newsletter sign up. And we don't sell it, we don't give it away to anybody, we just don't do that. But the reason is because the way things are going with social media and with the cancel culture, I don't know how much longer what I do will be legal. They may tell me I'm not allowed to say the things I say, like I believe homosexuality is a sin and I think gender confusion is a real mental discontinuity issue. I think people are confused.

I think the Left Democratic Party is a semi-terrorist organization. So I say these things and I believe them. Roman Catholicism is not true. It's a false religion. Mormonism is not true.

It's a false religion. And things like this. I can say these things. Now, I have the freedom to say them. Someone says, you know, hey man, I think what you believe in is false. Okay, let's talk about it. I'm not going to be offended and say you can't have a bank account now. Which is what the Left does.

And so they're hard. And so one of the things we're thinking about is that, let's just say they say you can't be online anymore or you can't, I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen. At least if we have a newsletter sign up, we can keep in contact with people that way. As long as that's still legal. You just never know what the Left will do because you know how tolerant the Left is. They really enjoy different points of view. They enjoy facts. They enjoy fair and open discussion.

They enjoy all that stuff. Oh yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, uh-huh. It reminds me, I saw the video of this guy and he was a black guy and he says he was at a Trump rally. And he said, he's going to the camera, he says, look, I'm a black man.

And he said, I'm thinking about going into the Trump rally, but I don't know if it'll be safe. And so he goes, okay. And this lady was with him or something and she's Caucasian, whatever. And she said, well, come on in. And he filmed it. He goes, man, they were hugging me. They were taking pictures.

He felt perfectly safe. Then the woman says, let's go over to the leftists and see how they treat us, treat me. And it was foul language, threats, it was all kinds of stuff from the Left. Anyway, just the point is you can't trust the Left. You can't. It's a mental disorder.

Being a leftist is a mental problem. Oh yeah, I know. See, I can say stuff like this.

I can say stuff like it right now, but for how long? Anyway, you can also, like I said, you can sign up for the newsletter. CARM.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And at the bottom of the page is, let me check on that. The bottom of the page is the newsletter signup thing. And when you send it out, there's an unsubscribe link. So when you unsubscribe it, it unsubscribes.

And at the bottom of the page, it says, join our newsletter, but name an email. That's it. It's easy. Muy simple. Oh, I'd like to say it in Spanish or in real Spanish.

Muy facil. Okay, let's see now. Hey, let's get on the line here on the phone with Fred from North Carolina. Fred, welcome here on the air. Hello. Hello. Hello, man.

Hey, what do you got buddy? Hey, I'd like to tell you my position on morality and, and then you can hopefully, you know, give me some, uh, where you see some weaknesses or holes in my logic. Okay.

Sounds good. Okay. Um, so I'm not convinced that, um, objective moral truths exist. Um, so what I'm left with is subjective morals. Um, I think that, uh, people that people have moral systems and by moral system, I mean, a system that has certain goals and it classifies actions as being good or evil based on how much they contribute or don't contribute to those goals. To the goals of that system.

So I think subjectively people create, you know, different systems, um, and that they apply to their lives and they kind of live by those systems and those systems can change or, you know, uh, add new goals, remove goals, all sorts of stuff that people have new experiences. Okay. Yeah.

There's all kinds of problems with that. Okay. Let me show you.

All right. So, uh, you're, you're not convinced that, uh, objective morals exist. So let me, I do this with atheists. I do this with people and I say, can I set you up? And you know, they know I'm not trying to hurt them. And they, that's what they say.

They go, yeah, go for it. Okay. Okay, good.

So here we go. First step is do you affirm that statements are true or false, such as I'm a man, you're a man, uh, you're a, uh, an elephant. Okay. True or false, right? Statements are true or false.

This is called the law of excluded middle. Okay. You with me so far?

So good. Well, I, I'm sort of with you, I guess, like for example, if I was saying, I think that person's beautiful, I don't know that you could say that's, I think you could say that's true in that. I think that person is beautiful, but you couldn't say it's true that that person is beautiful.

Right? So I don't think that everything. No, it's the third law of law.

They're called the law of excluded middle. So if it's true that you think a person's beautiful, it's true that I don't think that person's beautiful. No problem. Okay. It's true that two plus two equals four. It's true that I'm on the radio right now. It's true.

So it's called a state which are true or false. So here we go. Now I'm going to give you a, one thing I'd like to add. Oh, sure. Sorry.

Can I add one thing to that? I'm not, I don't subscribe to what I call like absolute truth. I don't know absolutely that anything is true.

I just kind of make my best, uh, uh, guess that conforms to reality based on my perception. So I just, I want to make sure that, well, is it absolutely true that you don't know if there's absolute truth? Well, I, my perceptions are telling me that I don't know. I don't know what the absolute truth is. Okay. So you're convinced absolutely that you don't know what absolute truth is.

So it's a trick of logic. I'm convinced in my belief that I don't know the absolute truth, but I don't know those beliefs are absolutely true. Okay. Well, we'll forego that for now, but here, look, so I'm going to offer a sentence.

The sentence is a statement and you can tell me if the sentence is true or false, true or false. This is where I'm trying to set you up and get you to see something. Okay. Not maliciously. Okay. All right. Here's the statement.

It is always morally wrong for anyone to torture babies to death merely for their personal pleasure. Is the statement true or is it not true? So I'm going to dodge, but I do want to clarify for you before I answer. If I were to ask you how fast are you going?

What would your answer be to that? I'm not, not going fast. You're not going fast?

I'm not going fast right now, unless you want to look at the relative speed of the earth, weigh a thousand miles an hour in rotation, but that's not the issue. See, a question is different. I'm saying, is the statement, the following statement true or false? It's like saying two plus two equals four. Is that true or is it false? Well, it's true. Okay. A square... Does it make sense for me to... Go ahead. I'm just, I'm just going to show you. Statements either have truth values.

It's okay. Statements have truth values or they don't have truth values. So things are true or false. So a circle is not a square.

That's true. Okay. I am an elephant.

So if I tell you it's true or false, that's your goal? No, no. I'm sorry. I don't need to keep interrupting. That's all right.

We have a little... It's okay. When you ask a question, it's not an issue of true or false. It's not a statement. It's an interrogative.

Is that over there under the chair? That's a question. It's not a statement of fact. So the statements of actuality and fact are either, it's either the case that it's true or it's not the case that it's true. That's what it is. I think this goes back to me. Like if I said, is that person beautiful?

Right? Does that question, is that answerable? It's a question. It's not a statement.

It's not an indicative. A question is not a statement. It is the case that that person is beautiful. Okay. It is the case that that person is beautiful.

It is the case or it is not the case. Yes. Does that statement make sense?

Yes. It's the case that the person is beautiful. That person is beautiful. Okay? But who are they beautiful to?

Because beauty is subjective. You can let me get in here, buddy. I've done this a thousand times.

I'm so sorry. Go ahead. So if you say something like the person is beautiful to statement, then what you have to do is you have to go in to the statement and define your terms. Then you have to have a standard by which you can define those terms. All right? So when you do that, then you're able to answer or say the statement has truth or does not have truth. Okay? Okay. So I can use that framework to answer your question then. Is that fair?

Yes, you can. So is it the case or is not the case? Is it true or is it not true that it's always morally wrong for everyone to torture babies to death merely for their personal pleasure?

Is that true or is it not true? Sure. Okay. So like you said, I'm going to answer that question by kind of going into it and defining my terms here. That question by itself doesn't really make sense to my worldview. So I'm going to say it is not the case that that statement doesn't make sense to my worldview.

So I'm going to say that that statement is not the case relative to mine. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

But you're not understanding. A question is not a statement. Statements have truth value.

It's either the case that it's true or it's false. Hold on. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.

This is what I do. Actually, folks, I love this stuff. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone.

Welcome back to the show. Hey, just a reminder that I'll be in Ogden, Utah, on Friday doing a debate with a Mormon from 4 to 6 p.m. at Weber State University. If you want information on that, where it is and more specifics, just go to CARM.org. C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash debates. And then you can see the link.

It says upcoming debates right there. All right. Let's get back on with Fred from North Carolina. Fred, you still there?

Yep, I'm here. OK. So statements are propositions that have truth values or the negation of the truth value is true. OK. Are you familiar with this? Do you understand? It makes sense, but it's sort of the same as like the statement of it is the case that that person is beautiful. I don't think that that has a truth value unless, like you said, you define the standard by which you're defining beautiful. Sure.

No problem. And so to me, it's the same idea with your question about the baby. It's not. It has a truth value, but only with, you know, relative to a particular standard. So I can answer that in terms of my standard.

What's your standard? Go ahead, sir. What's your answer then? What's your view?

Oh, yes. From my moral system standpoint, yes, that is wrong. So the statement is true that it is always morally wrong for anyone to torture babies is definitely for personal pleasure. That's your position.

You're saying the statement is true. If you're using my standard. Yeah, your standard.

Yeah. OK. Then what you're admitting within your standard is there's a universal objective moral truth. Because you're saying it's true that it's always wrong for everyone.

That means by necessity, the definition of objective moral. You're saying that you believe it's always wrong for everyone. Now, if you say, well, just my opinion that it's always wrong for everyone.

I say, exactly. It's your opinion that is always wrong for everyone. You're saying that they everybody ought not do this, which means you're saying there's an objective moral standard, which is why they ought not do it. But you can't just say it's wrong only because I think it. But it has no value or meaning to anybody else, because then you wouldn't be a true statement that is always wrong for everyone.

You see the problem with you're having here. My understanding was that objective meant outside of opinion. So what I'm saying is that based on my opinion, in my opinion, that is wrong because it's based on my standard. I'm not saying it's objective.

My standard could change the next minute. Right. Here's the thing. You said the statement's true. The statement has universal applicability. It's always wrong for everyone.

You're now saying it's true. You're saying it's true from your standard that it's always wrong for everyone. That is by definition an objective moral. You're saying to them it's not subjective to them, but it's objective.

It's outside of them. And they should they're obligated to follow it, which is what you're saying from your position. So the moral value there is not not objective, though. It's based on an opinion.

OK, here we go again. Your opinion, you're giving an opinion. Your opinion is that everybody else's opinion should submit to yours.

And this is why you're saying that. Yes, it is. Let me explain the truth value in the statement. It is always wrong for everyone. You're saying it's true that it's wrong for everybody else, that they shouldn't be doing that. That's what you're saying. You understand that? Only if they're following my standard.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not if they're following your standard. That's not it. You're doing the exact same thing most atheists do when they when they get cornered with this.

They try and argue just like you're arguing. Well, it's just my opinion. Yes, it is. It's your opinion. That is a universal truth. No, it's not. Yes, it is. Because you're saying the universal truth statement is true. It's an opinion that if you're following my standard, then my standard places a moral value of evil on that action.

That's all. No, it's not because the statement is not. Is it your opinion? The statement is it is always wrong for everyone. You're saying the objective moral. Hold on.

Let me explain. You're saying the objective moral is true. It's always wrong for everyone. If you're going to say it's subjective for you, it has to be subjective for them. But if you're saying that it's true, that it's wrong for them, then it's not subjective for them. And you're refuting yourself as a contradiction. I'm only saying that it's true for them if, and this is important, if they choose to follow my standard.

They don't have to. It's not objective. It's not an objective standard. That's not the statement. You're moving the goal post. That is the statement that I clarified. Remember I said I couldn't answer the question unless I could clarify it with a framework? The same as if you asked me if something is the case, that's something.

Let's try it again. It is always wrong for anyone to torture babies to death merely for their personal pleasure. So it's always wrong for everyone is a universal truth.

All places, all time, all people. Always wrong for everyone, right? If you remember what I said was that statement doesn't make sense to my worldview. I can answer it if you allow me to define a standard similar to if you had said it is the case that this person is beautiful.

We would need to assign a standard of what we judge beauty, right? So if you allow me to assign a standard to morality, then we can go forward with that statement. Otherwise the statement just doesn't make sense to my worldview. Because your worldview is insufficient. That's why it doesn't make sense.

I do this all the time with atheists and the same thing happens. Because the worldview implodes on itself. If you say you have to develop a universal moral standard, you could say now the statement you're saying has universal applicability. It's always wrong for everyone.

It's true that it always is. Now what you're saying is that moral statement has universal applicability. That's what you're saying. It's your opinion that it has universal truth value.

Nobody has universal applicability. Only if they choose to follow my standard. No, it's not it.

Only if you use my moral standard as a standard. No, it's not it. If you ask the question by itself.

Oh, go ahead. But that's not it. The statement isn't in there. You can't understand. This always happens, okay?

And what you're doing is pretty typical. Is that the person I ask this to doesn't actually deal with the actual issue. They change it because they see the problem with their own view. See, the statement is...

I feel that I have. I've told you I'll write the statement as is. It doesn't make sense to my worldview. Exactly.

So that's the answer. If you allow me to define the standard, similar to if you said the statement about beauty, then we can talk about it. Define a standard for universal morals by which you can say that it's true. No, just to define a standard, not a universal standard. Just a standard. Okay, but you've got to understand something, Fred. You're saying it's always wrong for everyone.

Is that a universal standard? Not at all. It's an assignment of evil or goodness to an action only if you decide to follow my standard, which is not objective or universal. That's not what the statement is. You have to get over this.

You have to get over it. It's a statement. Two plus two is four. You're saying it's true only if they agree that it's true. The truth value is not dependent on someone believing or accepting it. That's the nature of an objective truth value.

So if I were to say to you that two plus two is four, it's always the case that two plus two equals four. You have to say, yes, that's true. But you would not say it's only true depending on if they accept it or not. That's not true. The bearing of truth in a statement is not dependent on someone accepting it. That's relativism and that's a problem.

Your worldview is imploding. We've got another break. Hold on. You've got to think about this. I'll corner you every way.

You won't be able to get out of it. Hold on. Be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Fred. Are you still there? Yes, sir. All right.

So you found a way out of this yet? I'm trying to make my view clear here. The question as asked doesn't make sense to my worldview.

And we can set it there and set it down there. If you're willing to let me define a standard, sorry, not the question, the statement that you said doesn't make sense to my worldview. If you allow me to define a standard similar to the statement of beauty, if you allow me to define a standard, then we can kind of talk further. But I just made the assumption that you would allow me to define a standard. If not, then we can just kind of leave it at that statement doesn't make sense to my worldview. Yeah, if it doesn't make sense to your worldview, it's because your worldview doesn't make sense. But go ahead and define a moral standard.

Okay. Well, I have my moral standard, not universal or objective, anything like that. And in my moral standard, it is wrong.

So that's the answer. You haven't defined a moral standard. You just said the statement is true, that it's wrong. So you're saying it's true, that it's always wrong for everyone. That's what you're saying. I'm saying if you allow me to define a standard and then look at that statement with respect to the standard, then you can say it's wrong based on my standard. And what is your standard of morals? Well, it's not fully defined.

I have a lot of things I haven't thought about yet. But baby torture is one thing that I've thought about and I have deemed it to be wrong. Why is it wrong?

It's just my opinion. I think it's wrong to torture babies. Oh, it's wrong because you feel it's wrong? Yep. Okay. So I feel it's okay to come over to your house and rob you and shoot you and take your stuff. Okay. So on that basis, I'm good.

It's all good, right? Because it's based on feelings, right? Well, just because you think it's right doesn't mean that I think it's right. Well, who cares about what you think? It's my feelings I'm concerned about, not yours. It's not a universal thing. It's personal.

Just as you say, so therefore I win. Well, the time when it starts to matter is what are the laws of the society, right? Who cares? It's not feelings.

Who cares? It's not feelings. You said, Senator, it's what you feel. Well, from an objective moral truth standpoint, you're right. There are no objective moral truths. Everybody's on equal playing ground. But to say there's no objective moral truths is to make a universal truth statement, which you said earlier.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. You don't know if absolute truth exists. You're totally right. I should have said I'm not convinced there are objective moral truths. If there are no objective moral truths, then you're right that everybody's on an equal playing field. But then if everybody's on an equal playing field, then my feelings are just as good as yours. I come in your house, take my Glock, and I rob you, shoot you because I don't like eyewitnesses left over after the scene.

Hey, no problem. It's not an issue of society. Who cares? It's not objective. Because if you're saying it's based on society, then you're saying it's based on objectives. Objective morals, which is outside of yourself, is not subjective. So you refute yourself there, too.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you are correct in the sense of if there are no objective moral truths, then it's an equal playing field, and your actions are no more objectively wrong to shoot me, then my actions are objectively wrong to do whatever I'm doing. Good. I win.

There are no objective truths. I don't understand how that's a win, but I agree with what you're saying. What do you mean it's a win? It's a win because I feel it's a win.

That's my personal standard. So I win. Okay. Well, I'm not trying to say if objective moral truths would be better for society or not. That's not what I'm saying. I just am not convinced there are objective moral truths, and so this is what we have left.

And I'm looking for if there are holes in that. And the fact that you have shown me that actions aren't objectively morally better or not, I don't see how that is poking a hole in what my position is. Okay. You said people have moral systems. You based them on goals, which is arbitrary, because a goal for one person may not be a proper goal for another person, so it's arbitrary. And that which is based on arbitrariness has no universal value. And then the only way a society can work is if they agree on it. But if they agree that something else is wrong, like slavery or killing babies in the womb, because, well, that's what they want, then it becomes good. So then what we have is the Bible says, and everyone was doing right in their own eyes. And when that occurs, there's just chaos. So then people say, well, no, I don't want chaos, so I'll just minimalistically work with a standard, because I don't want to suffer. I don't want people to have Internet and good roads.

And if we are in chaos, all those things will fall apart and we'll get food either. So you're basing moral truth on how good you feel and how it serves you, which is narcissism ultimately. And so if you say that there's a moral obligation for someone, and if you and I, you know, we're arguing about this politely, we're walking down a sidewalk and going, no, you're wrong. And you're saying, no, you're wrong. And we see some dude jump a woman and start beating on her, take her purse.

You and I are going to jump on that guy, hopefully, and beat the crap out of him, hold him for the police. Why? Because we felt like it? And that's just the reason? It doesn't have any bearing on right or wrong.

Why not just help him out and then just take her money and we can run, hey, that's just as good, just as valuable as the other because it's self-serving. This is what your worldview leads to. It leads to inconsistency, it leads to self-refutation, and it leads to the problem of logic. Because if I give you a statement, it is always wrong for everyone. And you say, yes, you're saying from your personal opinion, it's always wrong for everyone, which means your opinion is there's a universal truth value for everyone. That's what the problem is with your position.

You see? I don't think there's a universal truth value for everyone. I think if you decide to follow my standard, then that's how my standard defines it. And wait, one other thing I wanted to, you seem to be saying if there are no objective, if there are no objective moral truths and it's just subjective, then that can cause some hardship for society. And I don't think that you can use the effect of a position to say, like, you can't say, or I don't think you can say, because this has bad consequences, it's not the case. You know, like, it's what we've got to work with. What's a bad consequence? And we can decide to make a better society or not, but the fact that...

Wait, wait, wait, you keep throwing in... You don't realize, you keep throwing in universals. You keep saying, we'll make a better society. What defines a better society?

What defines the right goal? Everything with you is arbitrary. All of this is in my opinion. Now, the reason I brought that up is because that seemed to be the position that you were taking, and I wanted to see if that was actually the position you were taking.

No. A moral is an abstraction. A moral occurs in the heart and the mind. Red is measurable. Weight is measurable.

Transference of energy is measurable. Morals and the like are not. It is wrong for someone to murder.

You don't measure it. It's an abstraction. I assume you would agree that it's wrong for someone to murder somebody, because I agree. What you're saying is you agree that there's a moral abstraction out there that's not dependent on you. If the truth value of... That's not good. Yes, it is.

I'll explain why. If the truth value is murder is wrong, is your opinion, then you're saying that that opinion is generated out of you. But if it's generated out of you, it has no applicability to anyone else, because it's just generated out of you. So when you die, then the generated moral dies with it. It has no bearing on whether it's right or wrong.

It's just arbitrary, brain chemicals working. That's all it is. But if you say it's always wrong to murder, now what you're doing is you're leaving your worldview, which you say doesn't make sense in your worldview, because your worldview doesn't make sense.

It implodes on itself. It refutes itself. So if you say, well, it's wrong for him to do it, then you're saying that you have a value system that you believe they are obligated to follow, because it's wrong for them. But if you say, no, they're not obligated to follow, then you can't say it's wrong for them. This is the problem with your position.

I can say that my standard assigns value of longness to an action, but they are not obligated to follow my standard. I think that's fair. Unless you say it's always wrong for everyone, then your opinion is they shouldn't do it.

I think my opinion is if they follow my moral standard, then it is wrong for them to do it, but they don't have to follow my moral standard. That's not the issue. The issue is it is true. You're not listening.

You pick a standard. You don't listen. You're not hearing it. You're saying the statement is always wrong for everyone. You're saying, yes, it's true. The statement is a universal truth. You're saying, yes, there's a universal truth.

That's what you're saying. It's not universal. No, I'm saying if you follow my standard, then it becomes true. But if you don't follow my standard, it's not true, not necessarily.

So that's not universal. Two plus two equals four is universal truth. It's not dependent on whether you follow standards of logic. It's just true because it is. What you're saying is the statement, it is always wrong for everyone. You're saying it's true. You're saying there's a universal truth. It's always wrong for everyone. But you already said you can't have that.

That's why it doesn't make sense in your worldview because your worldview doesn't make sense. And there's a break. We've got to go.

We've got other callers. So, buddy, you've got to do some thinking here. Oh, okay. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Okay. All right, man. Talk to you later. Hey, folks, there's one last break. Oh, I love this stuff.

And I hope you learned. Hey, we'll be right back after these messages. We'll get to Nate and Alberto. Please 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 on with Nate. Hey, Nate, welcome. You're on the air. How are you, Matt? It's been a long time. Hang it in there, man.

Hang it in there. You know me, but some Californian. Some Californian. The only Christian. No, I don't say that. I don't mean that, you know, as a joke.

I wanted to know, the Bible says, I think, to be correct, that a Christian must work. Correct? I couldn't understand you. I couldn't understand you.

What was that again? The Bible says that a Christian must work. Correct? Yes, normatively speaking, yes. How about, I think, man, because how about if you're handicapped completely, but your brain is functioning all the way. Okay, if you're handicapped physically, but your brain's fine. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, but that person can't move from chest down.

Well, he is not a must for him. I'm not sure I'm following you. Go ahead.

Try it again. Well, let's put it this way. Let's put it my way. I'm handicapped. I'm not handicapped, but my dad was. Okay. But I'm epileptic.

I'm epileptic. Okay. All right. I get mathematics. Okay.

I'm starting to, I thank the Lord not to have any more seizures. Okay. Must I work?

Is it a commandment that I work? Oh, okay. Not that I don't work at home.

Like, example. Yeah. I clean my house and I clean and I wish my mom to get when she gets home. Sure.

I help her out and everything. But I don't have any money. Okay. Is it a must for me to work? So the idea of working for the Christian is that you're to be productive in society.

That's the norm. Not to be lazy. Lazy is, you can work, you can do something, and you're just choosing not to do anything, not to add to society, to glorify God in your work. So that's what he's talking about there. When we have someone, like, I was involved in a car accident once, a really, really bad one, back when I was 19 years old. And it took two years to fully recover. And I couldn't work for a while.

Well, it doesn't mean I was in sin. It just meant that I was not physically capable. So my wife has medical issues. She can't go to a full-time job. She can't. The only way she could work is by doing a little bit of stuff with the car ministry from home on a computer in her bed kind of a thing.

That's okay. You have people who've retired, and then what they can do is they can use their time and effort for the glory of God in some other way. It doesn't have to be 40 hours a week. But, you know, they can do what they can do.

If someone like you has epilepsy and you can't hold a full-time job because of it or do whatever, well, then you just do what you can do. That's all. And you can be productive that way, taking care of the house and taking care of family members and praying for people. And that's okay. It's fine. I thank you, but it's not a must. The reason I say it is because I had it when my epilepsy started when I was four months of age, practically four.

And my mother watches out even though she goes to work, and I stay at home and do all everything, clean the house, clean everything, fix everything that needs fixing, and I don't complain. Okay. And I even apply for jobs, but then at the end it asks me if I have epilepsy and I have to, I don't lie, I market and they never call me. That's okay. That's just what it is. You have to find a group or a place or something that is dealing with people with special needs like that. And that's okay. You know, there are people with mental challenges, they're born that way and they're going to be able to be on their own.

And so there are places that have areas where they can work at the level and the competence that they have, and they're being productive. That's fine. But some people just can't, and that's okay.

What Paul was talking about is normative. If you can work, then do it. Don't be lazy. You're certainly not being lazy.

I wouldn't worry about it. Okay. I can't be lazy. My, my mother taught me never to be that way. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Like my mom. I've been lazy.

She snapped me upside the head. That's right. Okay, good. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reason I ask is because, um, I have a friend who sees it now. I haven't, I stopped having seizures practically.

I think I have to say because of my age, but I'm 50 now, um, but I've had it ever since, but I still get massive headaches and I still have to rest like half an hour every day. Yeah, that's okay. But there are ways to work. We have people on who work with calm who, uh, I don't want to say what one person has, but you know, they can, they can write it in the private and I'll say, yeah, this person has such and such and another person has another such and such. We have people who are defective, let's just say they have issues and they can't really work full time. Like Charlie, a friend of mine, he's got mental problems all over them.

He's nodding, right? I can see he's got all kinds of issues, but you know, I'm joking cause I love the guy, but the thing is that God uses people in the way he just uses people. We have people who work with us as an example who can't hold down full time jobs because of their physical condition and that, you know, praise God, my wife. Then it wouldn't, then thank you.

I thank you for your answer. I also, I'm not a lazy guy. I know I love to read, I love to read especially apologetic books, your books. I listen to you, but I still clean the house and do everything that I got at you, my house. I won't do it. Well I got, you know, go back to California.

See Laura just said, even though I'm a human, which means I'm Republican. That's good. Well, Laura from CARM here, she says she's legally disabled and she works with CARM. Okay. I'm not going to say anything to anybody else I know and stuff unless they give me permission, but we have people with issues, different kinds of conditions and that's okay. All right.

And that's okay. Charlie is 70 years old. He's 70 and he does a great job in the areas that he does. We have another guy, he's retired border patrol and he just works with CARM doing emails. It's super helpful. We have Laura, she's the one who says she's legally disabled and she helps with a search engine optimization stuff inside of CARM and then when I write an article, she goes through and she'll read it and make a couple of corrections, not to the doctor and the truth, but because sometimes you just can't write your own stuff, you know, and correct your own stuff.

And it's all helpful. Okay. All right. And then there's Joanne, like I said, what issue she has, she's a sweetie, but she runs the prayer ministry.

All right. And so look, God uses people. How about the one you have on your program that fights the TVN people, he has to, the way he walks, I forgot. You mean Justin Peters? Justin Peters.

He has cerebral palsy. Must be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's well, he travels all over the world. Yeah. And he has cerebral palsy. Yeah. And may the Lord bless him.

Here you go. Look. He's afraid.

Well, we've got other people waiting. I want to get to him, but look, you give what you have to God. Let him work with you and it glories for God.

You'll be rewarded in heaven. Okay. Brother.

Pray without ceasing. That's right. And may the Lord bless you always, and I'm glad to talk to you again. All right, man.

God bless. All right. We'll see you then. Okay.

All right. Let's get to Matt from San Francisco. Matt, welcome. You're on the air. Hi. How are you doing?

I'm doing okay. Can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. I can.

What do you got? Yeah. Yeah, so John 6, 3, 8, or John 6, 38.

I have to do my own will. Uh-huh. Yeah.

So does Jesus have his own will separate from that of the Father? Yes. Uh-huh. Huh.

Is that possible? Because the doctrine of the Trinity is that in the one being who is God, God is one substance, one thing. The one thing is triune. The one substance of God is triune. And within that triune substance are three distinct persons. But when we say distinct persons, we don't mean three gods. We're saying that within the triune simplicity of what God is, there remains distinction.

And so the Word, you're making background noise, the Word became flesh. Jesus says in Luke 22, 36, not my will, but your will be done. So he is distinguishing his will from the will of the Father.

So yes, he has a separate will. I can get into this a lot deeper in different areas, but that's the basic answer. Okay? Yeah, it just seems like the Bible is saying kind of two different things because in other places it says, you know, that you're one.

Nope. The doctrines that you have to understand here then, I would suggest. You go on CARM and look up the hypostatic union, the communication of the properties, and inseparable operations. These three doctrines deal with the nature of God, the work of Christ, and how the interpersonal paracordic essence works within them.

This is advanced stuff, but these are some of the things that are there, and I've taught about it many, many, many, many times. So it's not illogical. It could be paradoxical because paradoxes means we don't understand how it all works.

That's fine. Right. Contradiction means it can't be true. There's no contradictions there, but there are paradoxes. We don't understand how you can have one being who is also in his beingness three distinct persons, but yet they all three are paracoretically related, which means they mutually indwell each other because they're the one substance.

So how do you have a, so to speak, blending of distinctions? This is a question we don't have answers to. And then when Jesus is man, and he still is, but when he's man on earth, he's talking in John 5, 19, John 5, 30, he speaks in the present tense about God. He says, I can only do what I see the Father doing. So there's a relationship between the members of the Godhead and how work is done between them. And Jesus can only do what he sees, present tense, the Father's doing. That's because of inseparable operations in that the work of the Son is not separate from the work of God, the Trinity, because they're all of the one essence, yet there's distinction within them. This gets very difficult to work through, but these are things that the theologians have been discussing for centuries and going through. Is John 6, 38, is that something that Jehovah's Witnesses cling to, to try to say, they believe that Jesus is a created being?

Yeah, they can certainly do that. And I get more technical than the average person, so Jesus is created, in the sense that, I'll come back tomorrow if I'm on, but it means that not the divine nature was created, but the union of the divine and the human that began 2,000 years ago. I don't have the time, I can't expand on it too much. Hey Ben, come back tomorrow. I love your dialogue with the atheists, that was great. Oh good. A little bit earlier.

Okay, thanks. Hey, God bless everybody. Talk to you later. Goodbye. God bless. I'll see you later.