How Science KILLED God!

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Steve Thanks for listening this Truth partnerships podcast. I'm Steve The big breaking news is God is dead. Now the question is, who killed him? Is it Darwin? Did Darwin kill him in 1859? Did Nietzsche kill him? Did the Enlightenment kill him? Maybe we killed him. But the whole notion of God being dead, which we've seen on new magazine covers, if you saw the movie Jesus Revolution, they showed the famous Time magazine cover that said, is God dead?

A couple years later, the cover was Jesus Revolution. Interesting turn there. And then of course, Nietzsche's statement, God is dead.

So what's the deal with that? And how do you even get to the notion that somehow God is dead? How science killed God, which is essentially bad apologetics. Not my idea to go after the big guy, not the big guy in the White House, by the way, who gets 10%.

We're talking about the big guy, the capital T, big capital B, guy capital G. It's not my idea. It's Dr. Renton Rathbun's idea, of course, the Center for Biblical Worldview at BJU. And it's Theology Thursday.

So Renton, you're going to have to explain yourself here, all about killing God. Good to see you. It was great seeing you in Pigeon Forge. How are you doing?

Doing great. It was great seeing you at Pigeon Forge as well. I'm excited about next year with our plan.

Yes, our plans for world domination in the homeschool world, which would be excellent. So, yeah, Renton and I were both at the homeschool convention, the Teach Them Diligently homeschool convention at Pigeon Forge, the Redneck Riviera, just last weekend. So it was great seeing you there. Not either one of us heard the other one speak other than, hey, bro, what's going on? And then, but other than that, it was great.

Great seeing your family as always. But the whole notion of how science killed God specifically. Let's just dive into this because I threw a couple of things on the table, whether we're talking about Nietzsche, whether we're talking about the origin of the species, which a lot of people used as a silver bullet to allegedly kill God, and then the Enlightenment in general as we push away from our need for God. But this is an important topic because functionally, for a lot of people in this world, that God is kind of dead. Yeah, that's right. And so what I wanted to get at was how it is that Christians may have participated in this idea of God being dead. Co-conspirators.

Yes. So Frederick Nietzsche, obviously, a lot of people are kind of familiar with him. He is famous from his work called The Gay Science, where he said those words, God is dead. But if you look at that, he's saying God is dead and we have killed him. Now, in that sense, he was talking to people who didn't believe in God, but they were still holding on to things that Christians held on to, like being compassionate, being kind and all that sort of thing.

And he said, you need to get rid of all of it. God is dead. But the whole way he got there started with Christians who wanted to take science and the scientific kind of things that they were able to do, especially with Christians being able to conquer certain things in science, take those things and demonstrate how if the Bible is true, then we can demonstrate this in creation and show how in creation and in science we can demonstrate the truth of God's word, which was great. I think we still try to do that.

I think AIG tries to do that, and that's a good thing. But what happened was the unbelievers said that's not enough. Just because you're demonstrating something that if the Bible is true, then it still seems to fit isn't enough. You need to show me how all this science stuff is able to demonstrate, not demonstrate, but determine the truth of God's word. So if you can take God and go to science, we start with science to try to get to God.

Yes. And the problem is that we obliged them, and we started to show how there are things in the creational world that then determines whether or not the Bible is true. And so people then turn towards science to help us say whether or not the Bible is true. And so science became the thing that overshadowed the Bible, and that's where Nietzsche got in and said, ah, there is something wrong here. You Christians are, you know, you're trying to stand on this objective field and then look back and judge the Bible just like we are. And it's almost as if he was Satan himself saying, now I got you. Yeah, yeah.

You can hear the hiss of the snake and all of that. And while a lot of us would, just at the beginning of the conversation, say, well, I don't do that. I think a lot of us do. I think whenever here's a perfect example or near perfect, if I'm capable of such a thing, every time you see something come out of Fox News or any other news website about some archeological finding in the Middle East, something about David or a coin or whatever, I think a lot of Christians go, ah, see, archeology is proving that the Bible is true. So we're actually kind of playing by the same rules that Nietzsche was playing with. Was that a decent example? That's a great example. I mean, if I can even name some names, please do have you have Josh McDowell coming out with his big book, you know, Evidence that Demands a Verdict.

And then he came out with his next book, More Evidence that Demands a Verdict. You have Lee Strobel with his Case for Christ, all these things, you know, and they don't quite get to the point where they're like, these things, you know, and they don't quite say it. I think in the best light possible, you could say that they're trying to demonstrate that the Bible, you know, if the Bible is true, then you would expect these things to be.

Sure. The problem is the way they're written. And when you have, you know, kind of untrained minds, you can start thinking how this this determines whether the Bible is true, because if these things aren't true, then how can the Bible be? Right.

So once you crack that door open, you can start and you will because of your bias, you'll start to build up a case to take the Bible down, which denies the fact that the Bible is true in the first place. It's going to take some work, but we're going to do that today, of course, with Renton Rathbun here on Theology Thursday. We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show.

Gosh, Steve, that's a depressing song. It is and it isn't. This is and I'm going to jump back to Renton Rathbun here in a second. It is Theology Thursday with our friends at BJU Seminary and Bob Jones University itself, which is where Renton is leading the Center for a Biblical Worldview. But with that, if you listen to the title or you listen to the lyrics, any of these songs that I put in here, I put in here for a reason. But this one, because the reality is, listen, I love Jesus. I'm going to heaven when I die. I have a pretty well-developed biblical worldview. I do lots of Christian things. I'm on the radio.

I'm on I teach, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the brutality of life still is a part of my life. It's part of my family's life, disappointment and pain and heartache.

And that's real. And I think it's helpful if we all just acknowledge that particular elephant in the room, that life is rough and it's not always a box of chocolates. And we have brokenness in our homes and we have brokenness in our family. And I think the sooner we all get honest about that, we love each other better. I think we love the Lord better that way and we love each other better. So that's why I put that one in there to acknowledge the fact that, yeah, we all can experience heartbreak and many of you, including myself, probably experiencing some of it right now, this day, this week. But Jesus is close enough for all of that, powerful and all of that. So don't give up on hope. We're talking today about how science killed God.

That's a really bad apologetic. And we're going to talk about Nietzsche's statement, which is God is dead, with Renton Rathbun. And I mentioned a couple of things at the beginning of the show, Renton.

I mentioned 1859, the origin of the species. But the Enlightenment really is a bigger player before that. And I want to make sure people kind of understand what was going on with the Enlightenment.

Trigger warning here. All of our founding fathers were pretty well versed in the Enlightenment. These were Enlightenment Christians, which is why it's the founding fathers are more like a casserole.

As opposed to one specific ingredient, they're a mixture of stuff, right? There's a lot of Enlightenment thinking in our founding fathers. That's why you can get somebody like Jefferson that's going to say Jesus Christ is the most important, influential moral teacher in the history of the world.

There's lots of great philosophy and ethics in the Bible. He wasn't God's son. He didn't resurrect. Yet, yet Thomas Jefferson called himself a Christian.

Well, I could call myself a woman, but I'm not. And Thomas Jefferson, if you look at just an actual, what are the elements of a saving faith? He didn't have them. Yet he called himself a Christian and he revered God's word and he knew it fairly well. So the Enlightenment take us into the Enlightenment, because I want to make sure people understand, because Renton's asserting here today that when Frederick Nietzsche said God is dead, one of his implications was that we helped kill him. We being Christians. And I think this is in many ways kind of true today, which is why you brought up evidence that demands a verdict and the case for Christ and the case for faith and all those things. Let's go look at the natural world and say, OK, see, aha, there you go.

There's some more evidence for God's existence. But go to the Enlightenment, because I think it really helps set up a good foundation on having this conversation. So the Enlightenment had a very important role because the Enlightenment was assuming that there was an objective grounding that you can stand on that puts everything at a distance so that you can judge it. So we use, you know, they use science that way.

So testing, observation, you know, being able to take these scientific models, put them into use, make predictions, see the testing, make more predictions, do more testing. That was the common ground. So as the Enlightenment continued, common ground began to be understood, not just in science, but in a place where we could distance ourselves from things. It was called eventually the Archimedean point. So Archimedes was the guy known for saying, give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the world.

But that has to, you have to have a place to stand. So where are we standing so that we can go back, look back and judge something? And so Christians began to catch on to that and really have a strong desire to demonstrate the truth of the Bible. But it ended up the conversation turned from demonstration to determine and they felt there was a neutral ground where I can turn around and make judgments about scripture itself. But what were they standing on to make that decision? Where were they?

How did they distance themselves from the Bible? And that's where Nietzsche in the gay science says, you know, we have killed God and he's talking to unbelievers, but I think he has believers in mind, too, where he says he's dead under our knives. How have we done this?

He's dead under our knives. How have we unchained ourselves from the sun? We have no more sun. There's no more up.

There's no more down. There's no more forward or backward because there's nothing keeping us oriented because we've tried to stand on something and we look and it's nothing. We're standing on nothing to make these judgments. And what Nietzsche was saying is, yes, you finally figured it out. When you stand on this Archimedean point, when you stand to try and make a judgment about your God's own speech, you're standing with us on nothing. And that's what you need to realize.

Yeah. And you mentioned science and obviously science in the last two, three, 400 years has been a major player in philosophy and worldview and around not just here in America, but around the world. So science and objective grounding based on observation and testing, but also just reason in general that we as human beings, that's why sometimes they would refer to the natural law, which was a head nod to God that there was a moral law, but it shows up in nature. And then the question becomes, well, then we use nature to validate the claim that God is the God of nature. And then reason.

We're reasonable people. That's why the founding fathers, you got to give them a lot of credit because they were brilliant. They were great students of philosophy. They were great students of history. They were incredibly brilliant people, but not all of them were born again, Bible thumping Christians.

But they had this interesting blend. But the Enlightenment also kind of kind of looked in the mirror, you know, you're like, and you kind of tug on your shirt and you get your tie nice and tight. And you're, yeah, we're pretty impressive.

It's a little tower of Babylish. But that was the Enlightenment as well as just reason. So now our thinking and our mental capacity and our scientific knowledge can then be used. Is that a demonstration of God? Or are we actually trying to say now we got to prove God exists by using these other things? And that's where the problem is, right?

Because you open the door. That's right. And, and again, there's really good use for a lot of these proofs. I mean, what we're, what, what a lot of people are struggling with are some kind of structure, argumentative structures that they have created up against the knowledge of God. And of course, scripture speaks of this when someone, you know, develops an argument against the knowledge of God, we're supposed to tear them down. And that's, that's exactly what we're supposed to do. The question is in tearing them down, tearing those structures down against the knowledge of God, are we then saying, therefore, because of this, we can rely on scripture?

Or are you using the power of scripture to tear it down? And those are two very different things. Yeah, and I think that's where we have to be careful.

Because when you're always looking for something in the natural world to prove the supernatural, you're, you're, you're, you're working in the wrong direction. That's right. That's right. You know, I, I speak because I am. Okay, you get into all that philosophical thinking. But like with Nietzsche, and I want to spend the next segment really kind of unpacking this.

You put this in our notes today. His argument is not for believers in God, nor is an argument against God's existence. It's for secularists who already reject God. Okay, problem.

They have rejected God, but still hold to Judeo-Christian values, which require belief in God. Oops. So that's a problem.

That's right. When we start, and this is an age-old argument between us and somebody claiming to be an atheist who says, well, sure, there can be a morality, so to speak, but it doesn't have to come from anything. We can make it up on our own.

And then we have a problem there. So we'll continue to talk about Nietzsche. And then what are the lessons for us as Christians from this conversation in the deep in the pool today? We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, the Steve Noble Show Theology Thursday, as it is each week with our friends at BJU Seminary. And today, Bob Jones University, Dr. Ren Rathbun back with us, who's the head of the Center for Biblical Worldview down at BJU.

Hey, before we dive back into Nietzsche here and talking about God is dead and then lessons for Christians, we'll finish that up with the fourth segment. Tell us about what's going on this summer down there. You were talking about we're playing the ads for EduCamp, and I know you were talking about that at the homeschool convention. But let's take advantage of this opportunity to share with everybody what's going on this summer, the EduCamp and specifically what you're doing. Awesome. Thank you.

Yes, of course. July 9th, we start our week of EduCamp, and it's called Biblical Worldview Camp. Now, that doesn't sound too exciting, not as exciting as, you know, flying an airplane or whatever. But we got some really cool stuff we're doing. What we do is we go out into the community, we talk to professionals in their field, whether it be artists or politicians, and we talk to them. We go and look at stuff that we don't agree with. We go to a planetarium where they start talking about evolution and go deep into that stuff. And then we have a time where we say, well, how does this clash with a biblical worldview? How do we talk about a biblical worldview? And it's a really great way to look at things that we may not agree with, look at things that we do agree with, but then see what the Bible actually says about it and actually surprises a lot of the kids.

And they always love it. We even go to a play, and, you know, they're allowed to enjoy the play for a few minutes, but then they got to actually have to analyze it, and then we, you know, tear it apart, of course. Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, and that's where, again, you have to, that's one thing to build a biblical worldview. It's quite another to exercise one.

And that's where you have to dive into the culture, the everyday life that we're all in and say, because I think most of the time we just kind of go through the day we consume media, news, entertainment, whatever, and don't really stop and consider, what am I being fed? Yes, that's exactly right. Then you go to a restaurant, and we don't really worry about it unless there's, like, they have a 72 sanitation rating. Okay, that's a problem.

Or you're going to go to Chipotle, and they just had a recall of lettuce because of E. coli or whatever. Right. And then you're worried about what you're consuming, but most of the time I don't think we're thinking about it, which is what I talk about a lot and did at the homeschool convention. It's kind of that operating system that's being built under the surface in all of our kids as they just live life between kindergarten and 12th grade. What ages come to EduCamp, specifically the biblical worldview camp, and they stay there on campus, right?

Yes, that's right. So it's any age from junior high to high school, and they stay right on campus, and like you said, what we do is we start exercising that muscle in their brain that starts to dissect, analyze, and place against Scripture at all times. And I always have kids walking away saying, you know, you've ruined every song I've ever listened to, every movie I'm ever going to watch, and then we know we've done our job.

Yeah, that's right, that's right, because you have to remove the scales from their eyes. And then they can see, like I say this in most of my classes every week is, hey, just remember you guys, everybody's selling you. That is so true. There's nobody on this planet that's purely objective, and everybody's selling you, so you need to understand that so that you're not a sucker. Hmm, that's right.

There's one born every minute. When it comes to media, everything is by choice, nothing is by chance, and so you have to analyze those choices. Exactly, such a great point. I just put links up on Facebook Live as well as on Rumble to get specifically to the biblical worldview camp information at the EduCamp this summer.

So that's there. If you go to educamp.bju.edu, okay, just educamp, E-D-U-C-A-M-P,.bju.edu, you're going to land there. Or just look it up.

If you just Google EduCamp B-J-U, you're going to find it. You're going to land right on the right page, and you'll see the biblical worldview there, and you can click on that and go spend the week sixth through 12th grade with Renton, which would be very much worth it. It's only 400 bucks if you stay overnight for the overnight camp and $300 at day camp if you live locally. That's really, really cheap for a camp like this in the summer, so that's an awesome opportunity. So that's great.

I'm so glad you guys are doing that. Okay, back to Nietzsche. So let's talk about just kind of this whole notion of morality.

They've rejected God, but they still hold on to Judeo-Christian values because most people are operating, especially here in the West, most people are operating out of the Judeo-Christian ethic, but they deny that it exists in the first place or that that's at least the source of it. So let's dig into that a little bit, because I want to make sure we understand that. Yeah, so in the gay science, he talks about how the madman comes in and says, God is dead, we have killed him. He even talks about how God is decomposing, that even deities decompose, you know.

And so what does that mean? Well, that means the decomposition, the part that stinks, is the part that even though God's dead, you have these unbelievers that are still holding on to these values. You know, they're somehow, even though most, you know, a lot of Americans, especially in the Democratic side of things, might reject the God of the Bible, they still might think that what Biden is doing is bad.

They still might think that, you know, there are some morals that we as a nation have to hold to. But where is that coming from? And Nietzsche would say, you're getting that from them.

You need to get rid of that, get the stink out and and be able to to understand that nothing means anything. Now, I say that to say that's just one step for Nietzsche. And he believes that many people will just realize that there is no meaning in this world and that will be good enough. And he says those are the weak people. So then we have after the Enlightenment, you know, with the modern age, then we have what was called the postmodern age, where everyone kind of embraced that there is no meaning in this world. I mean, if you listen to Jim Carrey's interview about how this desire that everything has to mean something is this thing that people have for deities, you know, and so they make up deities or something will mean something.

But really, we need to let that go and all that sort of thing. Nietzsche would consider him weak because he's and not he's not really saying that's bad. It's just we need weak people in the world because, you know, so they would embrace it.

Yeah. But Nietzsche said there's there's a certain level of people who are what he would call an ubermensch or overman or Superman. And the Superman is someone that realizes that there is no meaning, but then has the ultimate power within themselves to create their own values, to create what he would even say, if he were alive today, meaning. That's where we're getting people that all believe that their own they're their own ubermensch is walking around saying you follow your authentic self.

Yes, you do you, Renton, and I'll do me. And so we have all these people with these individual realities that they've created for themselves. And when that's when you get down that road, what you end up in is a carnival of chaos. That's what yes, which is what we see. That's right.

Yeah, you're exactly right. And we as Judeo Christian thinkers are thinking, well, that's crazy. There's only one reality. But Nietzsche would say, no, this idea of there's one reality is a Judeo Christian idea. That's part of the stink of the death of God. You need to get rid of that.

You can create your own meaning and therefore have your own reality. And isn't that exactly what Satan was selling in the garden? Yes.

Yeah, it's all old. And you're exactly right. Did God really say that you can't eat of any of these trees? Of course he doesn't want you to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because you need to be like God. And he's so petty.

He doesn't want you like that. But you, hey, Renton, you're a superstar, baby. You're an ubermensch. So you should be creating your own reality. You don't need to bow down to some narcissistic old man in the sky.

You need to do you, baby. And that's a beautiful thing. That's right. I mean, he was really selling Eve on nihilism, saying you can stand on nothing and be able to look back at the command of God and say he's not being fair to me because fairness is over here and we can make that decision for God. Yeah, and they see that.

I mean, obviously this is I think this is the standard operating system of the unbelieving world worldwide, but especially here in the Western civilization portion of the of the globe and especially here in America. That's it. Now, ultimately, isn't that just idolatry? We just don't want to bend the knee. That's right.

Yeah. And even in the in the gay science, when he's talking about the death of God, he says, Who are we to be able to kill God? Is this deed not too great for us? Should we not become God so that we may appear worthy of this deed? I mean, you know, you think about those words and what he's really getting at is if you want to be weak, you can just accept that none of this means anything. But if you want to be strong, you actually have to become God. And who is God? Well, it's the highest level of whoever's thinking. And if we're the highest level of whoever's thinking, then we are the trendsetters of what value is and what meaning is. Imagine the Uber injection of pride with with you can get the whole nation to come alongside with you to say, OK, sorry, I was wrong.

A man actually can have a menstrual cycle and a man actually can have a baby. Now, if that doesn't puff you up, I don't know what would. And then there you go. Now you're the ubermensch. And I just brought the whole world around to my way of seeing it. And to you, Nietzsche would say, well done. We'll be right back.

Yes. Hey, friends, it's Steve Noble. I want you to send a text. Just text the word dose. D-O-S-E to 66866.

That's the word dose to 66866. And that'll get you on the email list for my daily dose devotionals. Right now we are in the book of Colossians. After that, I'm going to do 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, hard hitting, straight to the point. Lots of application in the usual Steve Noble style.

So I hope you'll jump on the list for your daily dose and help get your day off to a great start. Welcome back. It's Steve Noble, the Steve Noble Show Theology Thursday with our friends at Bob Jones University, BJU Seminary, Dr. Renton Rathbun with us today, working through this kind of whole notion that Nietzsche said that God's dead. And pretty much everybody's been involved in that. It's kind of like the ultimate galactic game of clue. So God's dead.

We killed him with the candlestick in the parlor. And so we've been talking about that and whether it's science or the Enlightenment, a reason that we think we can figure things out. So then we detach ourselves from God and then we look back at him and we judge him and his worthiness. And then so there's a lot to talk about in this subject.

But I want to land today, Renton, and thanks for being here and taking us into this deep water, which is great. It's a great intellectual and theological exercise, which we all need. But what lessons do we take away from this?

And again, I know this is kind of high minded conversation that we're having to the best of my ability. But what's the takeaway? What are the lessons that we can learn from all of this? So the lesson, the main lesson that I think is the most important lesson we can learn is the lesson that you talked about at the very beginning is how much of the door are you going to open?

And it comes down to this. The minute that you believe that you can stand in objective distance where you can judge God's word, the speech of God himself and decide and what C.S. Lewis called is putting God in the dock or making the Bible, put the Bible on trial. And do you think you can stand distant from the Bible in order to try it?

You have fallen into the snare of Satan that has regenerated itself through hundreds and maybe thousands of different philosophers, one of which being Nietzsche, that we need to really believe that God's word is powerful enough to be the interpreter of the world because it is God's speech. And there's nowhere to stand in order to judge it. And so that's the first I think that's the first and most important rule that we can learn from this. Yeah. Is that a little bit of the who is the clay to judge the potter?

Yes. Romans nine. And you just got to kind of. And I know that's the philosopher would say, well, Steve, that's your presupposition and you're just doing circular reasoning. OK, fine. I'm not going to take a whole lot of advice from an unbeliever, even if they're smart, because they lack spiritual discernment because spiritual truths are spiritually discerned. So so I know that. But that's we have to I think we have to every once in a while, I'll I'll struggle with a little doubt here and there.

It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally. And for me, as a Christian, I always engage my intellect because I find that my faith, because I believe that the word is true, that God is real. He's certainly not dead. And so intellectually, I can unpack that. And then I see it bearing out in the in the realities of the world that he created. And then it all just makes sense. And that's why I say, if you have a strong operational biblical worldview, which is what you and I are both trying to help our students develop, it's like getting the secret to Kota ring. So when you watch what's happening in the news, you're like, duh. I mean, of course, whether you're talking about history, philosophy, whatever, it all makes a lot of sense.

But I think we have to be careful that you got to make sure that it's as settled for you as it can be. Do you the guy that did the truth project? Had a line in that, which is an excellent kind of biblical worldview development program that focus on the family put together years ago.

Adele Tackett is his name. And he said, do you believe that what you say you believe is really real? Mm hmm. Yeah.

And you say, is that a limerick? No. Do you believe that what you say you believe is really real?

Yeah. And then that becomes the foundation. And then everything else, you use that to judge everything else. You don't use everything else to judge everything else.

To judge that. That's right. And I think that's the fight.

That's right. I mean, we are in a reality war and everyone is bringing their own measuring stick to decide what reality is. And God's word, we cannot we cannot step on someone else's measuring stick to say, see, even with your measuring stick, we can measure God's word and maybe it will fit and maybe you'll like it.

Maybe it'll be more what you're looking for. And the minute we do that, we have opened the door. And and you're right there. Scripture becomes the interpreter of our world.

And if I could do a little plug for for what for what you've said that you do in noble and noble you were with your history class of being able to take everything you're looking at and then relate it to what's going on today, as in what God's word says to it. It makes everything alive because you have the the tools you need to make those kinds of interpretational decisions. You become the Christian version of Neo. So in The Matrix, which was a big illusion, Neo gets to the point where he can see it for what he is, what it is.

So he doesn't see like you and me on the screen and what people see wherever they're listening to the show or the podcast. He sees the reality behind it, which in that case, because it's all a big computer simulation, is code, meaning ones and zeros. So all of a sudden everything to him is ones and zeros because that's what's real. And all the other stuff is the packaging on the outside. It's an illusion. And so when I look at the world, it's kind of like seeing ones and zeros with the biblical worldview and everything starts to make sense. That's right.

That's right. And even even when we're having these reality wars where people have, you know, strong cases for their reality, you know, the thing that we always act as if we're ashamed of, the thing that we think is the weakest is actually the most powerful thing we have, which is God's word. I mean, people say, well, I want to introduce God's word later because they don't believe that. Like, no, introduce it as soon as you can, because that's your nuclear weapon. You don't just start, you know, going to war with a stick.

Why not start with the nuclear weapon? And we we are ashamed of it. And what's interesting about Romans one that tells us what our main problem is and what what it all leads to. It starts, you know, at the very beginning of Romans one is, you know, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

And that is that should be at the heart of every apologist. You know, saying that over and over, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Yeah, because that's really helpful and it's convicting to me because sometimes I'll adjust how I talk to an unbeliever because I'm like, well, the Bible holds no authority for them. Yeah, that doesn't mean the Bible holds no authority. That's right.

God's word never comes back void. That's right. I think when we I actually think you undercut your own argument when you overthink it and say, well, I'm not going to appeal the scripture because for them, it's not a source of authority. Well, and that now we're falling into the trap that we've been talking about the whole hour. That's right. You're working in the wrong direction. You go, well, whether you like it or not, whether you tease me or not, this is the ultimate source of authority.

And so by by by by willingness to wield it unapologetically, I'm showing you, I'm demonstrating for you where my foundation is. Yeah. And I think a lot of people like, wow, you really believe that thing. Yeah.

Well, wouldn't you? That's true. You're not going to go jump off a 30 story building because, you know, for a fact that you're going to fall to your death. You know it to be true. And so you operate out of that. The Bible is true. I operate out of that. That's right.

Just like gravity. And when they see that, you know, many of them have never read, really read it. Really read it. They've seen stuff on on Reddit, but they've never read it. Right. And so they and so when you give them a little piece of it, they'll they'll have a lot of questions about it.

Yeah. It will intrigue them. Now, oftentimes, and I love that word intrigue.

Oftentimes I'll say, all right, here's what here's here's the position that that God takes in the Bible. Now let's go let's take a drive out of there and go look at what's the what's happening in the world or go look at social sciences, because what you're going to find with the destruction of the family is prisons full of men who had no father. Mm hmm. Well, how did that happen? I can explain.

I can explain that to you. And so that and that and that's where it's kind of working in concert. But again, we don't go to the world to prove the word. The word proves itself. It is true. And then we use that to deal with the world. That's right. And isn't it interesting that someone's relationship with their father always affects them profoundly, whether it's a good, bad or or whatever relationship it affects them profoundly.

Yes. And so then the question is, why is that? Why is it that we have so many people in in prison who had a bad relationship with their father or had no father? Why is that principle seems to be keeps rearing its head? And what's great is that one demonstration of God's word being true is that the ultimate relation that never began is between father and son. God has always been father. Christ has always been son. There was never a time where they became those things, which means that's going to be the ultimate relationship on earth as well. Yeah, it's central to reality.

And when you walk away from reality, back to Romans one, you suppress that truth and you replace it with a lie. There's always a price to be paid. That's right. Always.

Yeah. Sometimes it's society wide. Sometimes it's your family. Sometimes it's your marriage. Sometimes it's your kids. Sometimes it's just and I could speak to this. We all could speak to this.

Sometimes it's just the guilt and shame you experience in a room by yourself. But there's always a price to be paid. That's right. And if we're and, you know, as your original question was, what are the lessons we're learning? You know, the other lesson is that we're not in a fact war. We're in a reality war. And the fact war would be this going back and forth with, you know, well, what about, you know, these facts about evolution?

Well, what about these facts of Genesis one? And those are important to talk about because some people use those as barriers. But that's not the real war. Those are little battles to get a conversation going. The real war is the reality of God's word being the authority. I think that's the big war that we're facing even in the church. Oh, yeah. Where people love the Bible and they respect it, but they don't see it as their ultimate authority.

And I think even at universities and places of learning, people love the Bible where it is, but they don't want to invade it in their classroom. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a little bit of a inconvenience at that point. Renton, always great to have you on. Thank you so much for sharing. As always, Renton Rathbun at Bob Jones University. EduCamp, you can go check that out. Just Google it.

EduCamp biblical world view. You'll find it. And you can join Renton and have your son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, join him the week of July 9th. What an incredible opportunity. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you again real soon. And like my son, my brother, my sister, and like my dad always used to say, Ever Forward.