Darth Dawkins is so rude. If only someone could step up and point out how his philosophy is wrong.

Tom Rabbit likes to record these. Hey, Tom Rabbit. I do not know the specific law, but I'm going to I'm going to give you an example. Do not interrupt me. Is it Is it federal? Yes. Okay. In what federal body of law? Hey. Hey, listen. Hey, listen. I've just had about enough of you. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. You are You are You do not know what you're talking about. Okay. How would you know if I know what I'm talking about? Because me every time I've tried to state my opinion. You think you think by being

be having aggression and assertiveness, it does not make up for your ignorance. Now listen to me carefully. I am listening. What is What is the statutory basis for a right to kill your unborn baby? Talking about United States law. What is the statutory basis for the right to kill your unborn baby? So I'm going to state it again. I do not know the specific law, but I am going to give you an example. Hold on a second. Okay. Do you have any inkling whatsoever where this statutory basis is? Yes, it's federal where I don't know

what federal what federal what federal body came up. Let me give you the example and it will be clearer. All right. And then you can interrupt. I don't want you to give me an example. I don't want you to give me an example. I want you to tell me where is this federal statute. Okay? You need to decide now whether or not you're going to listen to me because I am not I'm about I'm about I'm about to kick your rear end out of the room because you are obnoxious. You know you're uninformed. I know

you're uninformed and the audience knows you're uninformed. You have no idea just by being I do I do have an idea because I'm talking to you right now and you're putting your ignorance on full display. Now I am handling it. I am simply confronting you with your obnoxious belligerance and pointing out to you you do not know what you're talking about. Now I will ask you one more time. I will ask you one more time. Where where is the statutory basis for the right to kill an unborn child and she flees. I didn't leave. They

muted me and then kicked me out. Okay. It Okay, good. Where is it? Are you done? Are you going to cut me again? You know what? I'm one more time. If you're obnoxious with me one more time, okay, you're going to be gone. Okay. So, okay. You're surprised that a grown ass woman in a debate is upset. Really? I I'm shocked that you're a grown ass woman. I thought I was talking with a a an arrogant teenage female. How old are you? 18. So technically, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're a grown ass woman at

18. Get out of here. Get out of here. She's gone. Here's an 18-year-old girl who says she's a grown ass woman. 18. Where do they grow these people? I thought Well, she knows Well, she knows it's federal. She just can't tell you where it is. I I thought I thought she was going to say she was 33. She's a grown ass woman. She's 18. Wow. What an ignoramus. Yeah. See, these young bimbos like her, they desperately want abortion to be legal so that they can go around and they can fornicate and not be accountable for

their behavior if if they become pregnant with a baby. So, they want to kill their baby. It's bad enough that the males are bloodthirsty and want to kill unborn babies, but it's even it's even more vile that a female who's capable and carrying a baby to term talks this Way. We, you know, is there any more proof of the depravity of the age that we live in? Yeah, that's about as definitive as you can get, man. I mean, h how about how cold even before I was a Christian, the idea of killing an unborn baby

was just like, what are you talking about? This is how sick and depraved these people are. It's crazy. Now, how much how much you want to make a bet? How much you want to make a bet? You see, this is this is the the the cancerous effects of the theory of evolution. Okay, thank you Charles Darwin. They deeply ingrained in these people. You're just an evolved monkey. God's not looking over your shoulder. So, no wonder they think it's okay to kill their own baby. But this this broad probably thinks I shouldn't say a broad because

she's still a girl. Okay. um probably thinks it's abhorrent for somebody to kick a puppy or to buy a gerbal and pull its arms off from from the pet store, right? Not notice notice notice how brainwashed these these these people are. They say I That woman has a a right to an abortion to bodily autonomy. What about the unborn baby's bodily autonomy? A few moments later. Yeah, Clark, you got to click at the top of your screen if you're on a desktop app. Yo. All right, cool. That gave me time to look it up. Your

tantrum was successful. Do you want to talk now? No. Well, f first first of all, uh I don't appreciate uh you know, obnoxious people, especially obnoxious females. Okay? And when you tell me that you're a grown ass woman, you're a bold-faced liar. You're not a grown ass woman. Okay? A grown ass woman would be maybe 28, 29, 30, 31, maybe 40s. 18 years old is not a grown ass woman. You're still a teenager, right? And you know what? You're you're you're extremely arrogant and unwilling to learn from somebody who's older and more educated than you

are. Okay. Okay. You're you're you're you're a big you're a big know-it-all. At 18 years of age, you're a big fat know-it-all. Okay. You don't know what you're talking about. Let me ask you a question. Okay. Do you think there should be laws against cruelty to animals? Yes. Okay. Do you think that people who buy puppies or kittens or gerbles or hamsters and they bring them home and they pull their arms and heads and legs off? Do you think that should be legal or illegal? Illegal. Okay. So, why is it okay to do that to

an unborn baby? I think the circumstances are different. Okay. You can get the hell out of here. You're you're psychotic. Okay, this is this is the level of craziness that we have to deal with. Okay, it's she wants it to be illegal to pull the arms and legs off of a gerbal, but not an unborn baby. How sick and depraved have have these people become. Hey, let's let's let's let's let me just go go out on a limb here and predict. Do you think she's an atheist? She is. She admitted that already. She's a piece

of garbage. And you know what's sad? It's usually the males that are far more perverted and and craven and reprobate than the females. A few moments later. Yeah, you're not welcome back in here. Okay. You're you're an arrogant, obnoxious, ignorant teenager. Okay. So, go away. Did you just let me back in to tell me that? And by by the way, you have no ability to make any Did she leave? She's in the audience. No, I I moved her back to the audience. Okay. Yeah. I really don't feel like talking with her. She She I mean,

and this arrogant at 18 years of age, she she'll she'll grow up and turn out to be another Nancy Pelosi. Go away. Oh, you're trolling because you keep requesting to speak. Yeah, go away. You can come back some other day when you're not so arrogant and obnoxious. If you keep on raising your hand, we will have to ban you. Okay. You're too hotheaded and arrogant right now. All right, I'll be back. I mean, the government should support rights. That's not what I asked you. Either you believe the government actually gives rights or not. No, the

government does not give rights. Okay, great. So, where do rights come from? Damn it. Uh, a moral standpoint. What the hell does that mean? I don't [ __ ] know. Where do you think rights come from? A moral standpoint. A moral standpoint to who? An individual person. Where does morality come from? We already argued about this. So, individuals, not the government, but individuals make rights. Okay. Since you seem to have an answer for whatever question you were asking, where do rights come from then? No, I'm asking you. You're the one pushing forth this murder [

__ ] Where do rights come from, such as the right to an abortion? Well, if you're going to ask me that, I expect you to have an answer as well. No, I want you to answer the question. You the one who believes in these rights, yet you can't tell me where the hell they come from at all. Uh, I said they come from morality. They just exist. Morality is the product of individuals. The the morality is the product of persons. What persons? Uh, basic human decency, Common sense. Oh, which Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

You said it's the the these are the products of things that come from people. I'm asking you which people give the damn rights. Goodness. Uh you're getting Okay. Just society in general. I don't know what you want me to answer for you. You don't know what in the blue hell you're talking about, do you? I don't know where right come from. And I do believe that my opinions are grounded and logical and also acceptable. You can't even say where they come from. Yet you're going to come grounded. You can't even give the grounded. Oh my

goodness. That your circular argument of truth does not substantiate the belief of a Christian God. No, that's a claim. That's not an argument supporting it. Okay. Do you know the difference between a claim and an argument? Yes, I do. So, what's the argument that the Christian worldview doesn't support itself? Uh, well, first of all, the Bible is contradictory in the New and Old Testament and even in the new in the Old and Let's go. Let's be quiet. Okay. Where? Give me the contradiction. I've been studying the Bible for 40 years. I've investigated dozens and dozens

and dozens of alleged Bible contradictions. When I investigate them, they evaporate. So, give me your contradiction. Okay, give me a second. Okay, stop right there. Here she goes again. She's completely ignorant. Now she's typing into Google Bible contradictions again. Yeah, you know what? Yeah, byebye. You're banned. Get out of here, you bimbo. She's gone. Oh, the Bible contradicts itself. Yeah, hold on. Let me look it up. Uh, Google.com Bible contradictions. That was awesome. Oh, that was funny. Yeah. You know what's going to happen with her? With an attitude like this, she's going to be promiscuous.

She's gonna She's going to get pregnant. She's gonna have one or two, maybe three abortions, and then she'll become an alcoholic the rest of her life. Exactly. More than likely, that's going to be the story of her life. Women Women who kill their babies are so vastly more prone to severe depression, alcoholism because they want to drown their sorrows that they know that they killed their babies. Yeah. She just wanted to make claim after claim after unsubstantiated claim. There's contradiction in the Bible and you don't even know. Well, she couldn't she couldn't even tell you

where her morality came from. She just wanted to read eight slogans, right? Well, I keep telling you that it's because of bodily autonomy as a right. Well, where does that come from? Clueless. Had no answer. What What does bodily autonomy even mean? Very arbitrary. She never really developed that at all. It means Jack squad. That's what it means. It means m feelings. That's what it means. Well, but the other thing is is is that she doesn't believe that. She doesn't believe she only believes certain people should have the right to violate autonomy, right? Yeah. Exactly.

Not anyone that happens to be in the womb. They don't deserve it. No. How how how depraved do you have to be as a a younger person, especially a female, to sit there and say, uh, killing an your unborn baby should be legal? I mean, it it's this is this is beyond disgust. These people are so satanic and they don't even know it. Yeah. They cheapen the value of human life. It's disgusting. Treating abortion like it's a damn preference. Thank you, Charles Darwin. At every turn, she had to, you know, they use terms to d

try and dehumanize, you know, the baby in the womb. That's why that's the whole purpose of calling it anything a clump of cells, a fetus is because she's 18. She's 18. It could have been her getting her arms and legs and heads ripped off, but fortunately for her, her mother mother didn't opt to kill her. Well, all they would say is, "Well, I wouldn't know it if it were me because I'd be dead." That's a stupid appeal. Now, we're dealing Listen, we're deal, look, we're dealing with some really spiritually sick and deranged people on the

interweb. I mean, really deranged people. Exactly. And even and even off the interwebs, man, these people show up all the time at like prolife rallies and so-called uh women's rights rallies and things like that. They bring their derangement in public display. Yeah. And the problem with her is that her world view, it couldn't even stand on itself. With so many holes, it it wasn't even consistent. Well, puppies, she has a problem with puppies and kittens having their arms and legs being ripped off, but not a human child. That's very contradiction. Well, I don't really know.

I just heard an atheist talking point at some point in the past and did research and when you have somebody who thinks it's abhorentt and should be illegal to pull the arms and legs off of a hamster, right? But then they think it's okay for a mother to kill her own baby. There's barely any reason to talk with these people. They're just so far gone. It's just it it the the mental depravity is just so deep. You know, I was challenging her point about bodily autonomy and I said, "Well, why why why aren't you for

public nudity?" She said because other people would be uncomfortable with it. So, She's more uncomfortable with people seeing naked bodies than she is about arms and legs of unborn babies being pulled off. How'd you like to have that for a daughter? Yeah. Oh, seeing nude seeing n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n nudity is worse than unborn babies being destroyed in the womb. Yeah,

that would definitely be a model daughter right there. You remember remember when she said she's a grown ass woman? I said, "How old are you?" She says 18. Yeah, that Yeah, that it doesn't get any more absurd than that, man. Yeah, there you go. I know I know about rights. I I I I I can determine my own future and everything else. I have it all figured out. Me being a grown ass woman at 18, I know what I want in my life. And what I want in my life is to advocate for killing babies.

Yeah. Well, she says bodily autonomy enough, maybe she'll start actually, you know, hopefully she somewhere from the ether she'll find a grounding for it. That's all she was doing. say Bali a Tommy all day and clap together your slippers, your red slippers, and maybe it'll come true. This is the reason why we had that that uh that stage the other day. Abortion and atheism is insane. She's proven how insane she and atheists really are. I'm not going to lie to you and say it's just about me having a nice conversation. Just like Darth says all

the time, I want to crush these stupid people's beliefs on abortion rights. I want to crush their damn argument into ashes. They need to see the futility of their worldview and how it cannot provide for any single moral moral or ethical norm they assert. Tom Lock. Tom Lock, I'm not hearing the love of Jesus in your voice. Yeah. I'm I'm not hearing any I'm not hearing any love. Yeah. I need to be more hippie dippy. That's There you go. Yeah. Didn't Jesus call people vipers one time? Yeah. By the way, did you get that Tom

Rabbit? Hey, Tom Rabbit. I hope you got this for your recording. Hey, YouTube out there. Tom Rabbit likes to record these. Hey, Tom Rabbit. While I've got you, I got a question for you. Um, I've been doing a bit of reading and I've read somewhere that uh claims that the presuppositionalist argument borrows from the atheistic worldview given that read. Please, please don't make me throw up. That is the most asinine thing I've heard in a long time. The last time I heard that that clap trap was 10 years ago on POW Talk. Well, can I

explain at least what they claim? Are are are you advocating this? Well, it makes sense to me. And if you think it doesn't make sense, you can tell me, but I'll tell you what. Oh, okay. So So you're advocating this that the the Christian worldview is borrowing from atheism. No, I I actually said the presuppositionalists has to borrow, not I said Christian. Yeah. Well, the Christian the presuppositionalism is presuppositional apologetic is the Christian worldview. All right. Okay. I'll stand. Well, I think that's probably in both cases, but I know at least with the presuppositional argument,

they can't uh Oh, I believe anyway that they have to borrow. Are you Are you Are you Yeah, hear it. I'd like to hear it. Well, well, before you do, before you do, are you an atheist? Yeah, I've spoken with you several times before and I'm an atheist. Okay. Yeah. Could you just tell me briefly how is it that there is no God? Well, I'd be happy to talk to you about my worldview, but I I just want to know I just I just want to know in brief. Yeah, I we can get that in

a second. All I want to know is how is it that there's no God? Well, I'll tell you that I I make an uh indirect denial. I implicitly denial the existence. How's that sound of gods? Yeah. You know what? I I want you listen to me. I'm tired of atheists playing verbal games with me. Okay, we're gonna try one more time. Okay. Are you an adult? I don't want to go on the precept treadmill. Are you promise I will listen to what you have to say, okay? But I simply want to know how is it

that there's no God. That's all. Just tell me. What I said to you the last time was that it hasn't been demonstrated to be exist. That's what I said to you. That's why I reject the claim of the Christian God. So So the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. No, because I'm an agnostic atheist. I'm not claiming that. Oh god. Listen, listen to me. You that just went right over your head. Okay. When you say it has not been demon that God does not exist because it has not been demonstrated that God exists that

is called the absence of evidence is evidence of absence argument. That's also an that's also an indirect claim that the existence of facts don't demonstrate God. Okay. Listen listen. Do you understand and we're going to get to your position in a second. Okay. You didn't even understand this. If you say God does not exist because he has not been demonstrated. He didn't say that. He didn't say that. Okay. You said God doesn't exist. I said how is it that God doesn't exist? And you say because God hasn't been demonstrated. Did you say that? Yeah. And

I I qualified that. Is that Yes. Yes. Yes, it is. And I qualified. Okay. So that Okay. So what that means is it's called the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Okay. You understand that? Yes, I do understand what you mean by that. And now that is that is that is listen. Well Then so so then you don't have a rationale that God doesn't exist. Is that correct? Yeah. Not at all. But here's the part where I would say that I I'm not understanding you. I'm not understanding you. Do you have a rationale that

God does not in fact exist? Yes. What is it? It's for the same reason that fairies don't exist because they haven't been demonstrated. And here's where you say it's a category error because we're appealing to an ultimate. No. Okay. Yeah. Well, first of all, we have very good reasons as to why fairies do not exist. Do you have a good reason that God does not exist? the exact same reason that fairies don't exist. Okay, you're simply repeating what you're doing is okay, we have good reasons to believe that fairies, vampires, unicorns, and Santa Claus do

not exist. And and what's that place? Why? Because if these things did exist, we would expect that there would be some re rational and credible people that could give us some testimony of this. Do we have any instances of rational, credible people having these sightings? No, we don't. Just like God. Okay. Now, now, well, here's the problem. Do you have Okay. Do you have a reason as to why God does not exist? Because I just gave you a reason why fairies don't Exist. Okay. My my rationale was that if fairies or vampires or Bigfoot or

Santa Claus or unicorns existed, then we would necessarily expect to see certain things by some credible witnesses and we don't. Okay. So, I just gave you an argument why those things do not exist. What is your argument? What is your argument that God does not exist? Just just on the quality of that evidence, right? If I actually don't agree that that if you dodge if you dodge another question of mine which you have been repeatedly doing the conversation will be over because I want to get back to your ridiculous claim that presuppositionalists borrow from atheism.

Now do you have a line of reasoning a good reason why God doesn't exist? Is there something that you would necess do not overtalk me because you don't understand this situation even your position I understand your position even better than you do and I have to explain certain things to you now I gave you good reasons that if such entities existed what we would expect to see we do not see. So we have an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Now what would you necessarily expect to see if God existed that you don't see?

You you've asked me two questions there. I actually do have a rational argument for why the Christian God doesn't exist. You got 20 seconds to answer the question. What would I expect to see if the Christian God existed? What would you necess Listen to me. Listen carefully to my word choice. What would you necessarily expect to see if God did existed that you don't see? Perhaps him manifesting in reality in a way. No, no, no. Listen to me. Don't give me perhaps. You're going to have to tell me what you would necessarily see. For example,

if Santa Claus did exist, what we would expect to necessarily see is that parents would report that presents were showing up underneath the Christmas tree for which they had no explanation whatsoever in different parts of the world. But we don't see that, do we? Now, I'll repeat the question and I'll shut up and I expect you to answer the question. What would you necessarily expect to see if God did exist that you don't see? Well, there would be a number of things like I started to say before. No, it's got to be necessary, not preferential.

Do you understand the distinction? I don't not sure I actually do. Right. If I said to you, you could say to me, "Well, if God existed, I I would like to see a bag of money on my doorstep uh Friday afternoon." But that's not what we would necessarily see. In order for your argument to work, it has to be necessary rather than preferential. What would you necessarily expect to see if God existed that you don't see for the fairies and those other creatures? You never okay please do not interfere. So what would you necessarily expect

to see if God existed that you don't see and thereby you can conclude therefore there's no God. I'm not sure what kind of an answer will satisfy you as a response rather than if you don't tell me if you don't if you don't tell me what you would necessarily expect to see then you cannot lay out the absence of evidence is evidence of absence argument for God. Oh well that's not the argument I was trying to lay out. Right. Okay then you are being patient. I'm going to give you one I'm going to give you

one more chance. You are saying that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. What evidence would you necessarily expect to see if God existed that is absent? Look, I'm I'm [ __ ] if I do. And I'm [ __ ] Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. All right. Bye, Darth. Do you disagree? You didn't actually meet that standard that you just gave him with your argument against fairies and other I certainly did. I said that if fairies existed, what we would necessarily expect to see that there would be some credible witnesses

who witnessed these creatures. Okay. Why do you think that's a necessary conclusion from that argument? Why? Because then if we have no credible witnesses of these creatures, then why would somebody posit it? Okay. And by the way, it's also a category error. Okay. Are you an atheist, John? John, are you an atheist? John, did did you have a heart attack there? Ah, look at that. Look at what he did. He taps out, folks. He taps out. Five minutes later. Well, because I'm Welcome. We got somebody in here to critique Darth Dawkins. So, just let me

know when there's a point of contention and I will pause it. Oh, well, it would be with his first premise, but he won't do a syllogism because he's a coward. Well, maybe you can just focus on the uh material at hand and give him a break. Really? So, only criticize things that aren't relevant to logic. Well, go ahead. What did you want to do? Do you know do you know his argument well enough to to give me the premises? He brought it up. Um yeah, he he believes that God is is the foundational thing that

grounds all reality and must be referenced for any fact. But he has no way to support those claims. And you think that's a problem in your worldview that someone would say that and have no support? just grant. Well, if he wants if he if he wants to to to get an understanding from someone, yeah, that's a problem. If his intention is to be understood, then yeah, he's got a problem. Well, if you're moving into intention there, his argument, Hold on. The argument itself isn't a problem, though. The struct the the actual information within isn't a

problem. Well, there is no information within. He's made a He's made a claim that's unsupported. It's like a dog barking. It doesn't mean anything. So, an unsupported claim is a wrong action in your worldview. You say wrong. Yeah. What is the intent? I mean, I can't I can't really speak to that necessarily, but I'm talking Well, then we can't say whether it's wrong or not because we're talking about whether the intent is met. No, we're not. I'm talking about the information within the argument. When you say wrong, you you mean some sort of morality? The

morality is going to be moving that forward. But I'm saying it's not immoral. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. The information itself, um, you think it's wrong. It's incorrect. Yeah. Yeah. It's incorrect. But that's that's not immoral. That's I mean, he can't help it. He can't help it. No, he's he's pretty simple. Okay. So So you disagree with information, Denny's. Well, it's unsupported. Okay. So unsupported information in your worldview is incorrect. It's wrong to speak of. Didn't didn't say it was incorrect. Why do you keep putting words in there? Well, go ahead and tell me what

it is. You're just you can you tell me if his intent Well, you're going now, though. You see, You keep moving to intent for some reason, right? Because why else would you speak if you didn't have an intention behind it? That's your point all the time. I'm asking about his information. Yeah. His information is only as good as what his intention is. His intention is not to be honest. His intention is I I was talking. His intention His intention is to pull the rug out from anyone that argues with him without giving up any of

his own worldview. How did you get to the conclusion that uh the information is only as good as the intent, right? Because see, he's just making statements if he doesn't support him. So there's no reason to take him seriously. I I that's not what I asked you. Well, what'd you ask me? Go ahead. Ask me again. The information is only as good as the intent you said. Well, it's the information is being used for an intent. Okay. It his statements may or may not be true. Okay. There's no evidence that he has any facts to

support it. So, it remains it remains just his opinion. How do you know which statements he makes are true or not? When you get Would you like to go through them one by one? I mean, we were talking about his first premise, and that's the one I'm specifically talking an argument against the existence of God. Oh, do we have any any reason to support the claim that there is a God? You don't have an argument against it, right? My argument is that it it's not in the form there's no supporting premises for that. I mean,

there's no Yeah. For that conclusion, do you do you have any supporting premises? That's not an argument, right? I'm asking you, is there a reason to consider it? Does it have any value? So you don't have an argument against it. You just don't like it. No, it's not that. It's just at at this point it's him making noise. There's no reason to consider it until he has something to support his argument with in the former So your noise is more important than his. You're dealing. No, not more important. Equally as important. So we're not getting

to any truth of the matter. We just have to truth is truth I think Serb explained is is the value of a statement. The property of a statement. So without statements, we can't get to the truth. We can't look at a I think you mean facts. I think Serb pointed out that you're looking for the word facts. What What does Serb have to do with your worldview? Because you're you're intentionally misusing the language again. That's what Serb has to do with your worldview. Are we trying to have a a coherency? Do you want to have

a coherency with me? Would you like to communicate effectively? Well, we're trying to critique Darth Dawkins. You're getting kind of emotional already. Why don't we just I'm not We are We're critiquing his argument. His main argument, the tag argument that he puts forth. Yeah. You said you don't like it. I get it. I didn't say I didn't like it. I think it's hilarious. It's great. It has provided Tom Rabbit with an entire channel. Yeah. You don't have an argument against it is what I'm saying. There's no reason to argue against it. There's He's not saying

anything that's backed by any evidence. He's making fart noises with his armpit. Huh. So, so no argument still. Yeah, no argument because he's not saying anything. He's not making a claim he can support. He's just going Oh, okay. Okay, that's all you needed. Go ahead then. That That's all we need that you just You don't have an argument against him, right? Why would I argue with his subjective opinion? I don't know. You came on to the stream. You wanted to critique. I'm critiquing and you're like, why don't you have an argument against him? Because he

ain't saying [ __ ] You don't have the argument. That's good. Yeah. Why would I argue against someone who hasn't put forth a single bit of evidence? I'm gonna overlook your sliminess and your So now you don't want to you don't want to talk about his argument anymore. So tell me, uh no, dude. Uh are you going to be able to do this? Oh, I thought we were critiquing his argument. I didn't hear you lay out any premises or support any of his premises. Do you want to defend Darth Dawkins? JG, you stopped me to

um to go to his main argument. And I said, "Let's just listen to what he has here." But then I You You with knowing You credit yourself with knowing his argument, don't you? You got to stop interrupting, dude. Are you still learning his argument, JG? Are you going to let me finish? I You had paused. I thought you were done. You wanted me to pause the video so you could go to his main argument. I said, "I'll grant you that." But you have no argument against his main argument. So, we're going to go back to

the video. Okay. You haven't you haven't begun to lay out his argument. I asked you for premises and you're avoiding it like he does. That wasn't my uh modus operande tonight. I was Do you know his argument, JG? Yes or no? Yeah. Okay. Can you lay out a syllogism to support idea this claim? Said you knew it already and then you So it's pretense. You want to you want to just fluff him. Okay. Well, do that by yourself. Yeah. So that's what happens when you have no argument, right? I just stay. You just stay with

the person say what is the argument he gives you all sorts of answers. You can go back and listen to it and then he bails but someone else can try. I mean that's expected of him anyway but someone else come in who he's not so emotional about this. How does the biblical presuppositional apologetic borrow from atheism? Is my mic working? Hello. I can hear you. I'd like to hear that, too. Well, he's you've muted me now. So, you've made it clear that you you aren't ready to talk to me, so I've gone and I'm doing

something else now. Cheers. Okay. Yeah, you can [ __ ] off. You're just a slimy another deceitful little atheist. I gave you a card blanch on a red carpet to explain to me. Okay. All I simply ask you, how is it that God doesn't exist? And you couldn't be transparent and honest about answering that. Okay. Then then I then I say, "Okay, come on. He tried to put me Listen, I'm giving you a golden opportunity right now to tell me uninterrupted how biblical presuppositional apologetics borrows from an atheistic worldview. I can't wait to hear this

colossal gem of glittering ignorance. All right. Well, can you let me finish? And if you disagree, I'll give you as much time as you need. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Okay. Great. Great. So the presuppositionalist starts with uh presuming that God exists, right? We press them on that and they say, "Right, how do you know that God exists?" All right? And they say, "Well, through revelation in the Bible." And then we say, "How do you know it's true?" Because God can't lie. It's self- testing and so on. And then we say, "Okay, well, how do you

read the Bible?" And then you would have to say that you read the Bible using your senses. Right now, we're getting down to a bedrock axiom that non-theistic worldviews hold. Right. And you would have to agree that that's somewhere where you start as well. Are you under the viewing? Are you under Wait a minute. Are you under the view that we're uh employing axioms? Um, no. I think that the presuppositionalist denies that they're using an ax, right? So, what am I what am I what what am I borrowing from the atheist worldview? Well, maybe he's

maybe you don't know that when we talk about our senses that those are part of God's revelation. Everything that exists no one asked you. Still waiting still. So, so what you're telling me is that So, what you're telling me, so I want to get this clear that biblical presuppositional apologetics borrows from coherent intelligible propositions ultimately. Yes. from a from a nonic. Okay. Could you explain to me can you give me one proposition that is intelligible in the atheist worldview? Okay. So, you I'm sure you've heard this one before, but please let me finish because you

might try. I want I want to I I don't want I don't want a community college lecture. Listen carefully to my question. Give me one proposition that is intelligible given your atheistic worldview that you're a dumbass. I I exist. I exist is an axiom. It's a necessary truth due to the impossibility of the contrary. Right? Okay. It has to be true and it cannot not be true. Okay. Well, here's the problem. When you say I exist, okay. Um, is I a statement of ultimacy? Ultimacy, can you define what you mean by that? Yeah. What is

ultimate would be that which is unconditionally non-dependent, non-derivative, and eternal and the source of all possibility. When you say the I and I exist, okay, is the is the is the eye ultimate? I don't think you could apply all of those characteristics to that without All I need all I need all I need instead of a word salad is a very simple clear answer. Okay. Now so then that means that this approximate fact cannot explain itself. Correct. Incorrect. Okay. If it explains itself then it will be ultimate and absolute. It'll be self-contained and non-derivative. Okay.

So is the eye that you're invoking ultimate and absolute and non-derivational and has no has has no independent context of how it exists, why it exists, what it exists. Look, the the eye is just a self reference. Listen to me. Listen, I'm beginning to get I'm beginning to get I'm beginning to get frustrated with you because you are purposely being obtuse. Listen to me carefully. Listen to me carefully. Right? I didn't say you're proaricating. I said you're purposely being obtuse. Listen carefully. Okay. The eye that you speak of, is it ultimate or not ultimate? Yeah.

By the definition you used, I don't believe so. However, it is. Okay. So, the eye, so the eye, so the eye that you speak of, okay, is not ultimate. Is that correct? In the context you used, I don't believe so. But it is still protesting. Okay. So, okay. Listen, listen to me. Either you're going to have a conversation with me or you're going to try to insert these mini machine gun community college lectures. It's not going to work. Okay? I'm trying to walk you through a stepby-step analysis to show you how what you are saying

is completely bankrupt and vacuous. So, the eye that they over talk me again, we're going to be done. Okay. Now the I you say I'm borrowing from the Christian worldview. Okay. Now the I asked you to give me one proposition just one that is intelligible given your atheistic worldview. You told me it is the proposition is I exist. The eye to which you refer to is the eye ultimate or not? Mhm. I think it's ultimate in the sense that it does not require justification. No, no, no, no, no, no. See, what you're now doing is

you're being deceitful and you are committing equivocation here. I asked you either the I I didn't ask you to say ultimate. Okay, you know what? Overtalk me again and you're going to be server muted and you're not going to get another opportunity to talk with me. I'm getting tired of your deceitfulness and your evasiveness. Is the eye that you are invoking is it eternal and unconditionally non-dependent and derivative and absolute within itself? I would say no. Okay, that's all I need to know. That's all I need. Okay, byebye. Byebye. No, byebye. No, we're done with

you. We're we're we're done. You're a [ __ ] See, you can't have a conversation with these motors. Okay. It's all these little mini community college lectures. Okay. I just don't understand why you expect people not to overtalk you when that's all you do. Well, when I just talk with you, you just server muted into Oh, he left. Okay, good. Now he's going to be server muted. Okay. Well, like I mentioned before, it's just a whole song and dance to try to get you to accept baseless claims as if they have a basis. Okay. Well,

he's going to be he's he's going to be impermanent. Notice how he says that his declaration of I uh doesn't justify itself because it's not eternal and self-justifi just justificatory, but he also doesn't need to justify in any other way. Right? So, what we have here is with the John the Raptist or whatever that's supposed to mean, uh is a drive by little troll. Okay? He wants to make these criticisms cat calls and he runs away every time. Well, guess what? That won't be happening again. Just give me a second. I'm just typing the code

so this guy can't troll. Okay, he won't be trolling again. By the way, did you get that Tom Rabbit? Hey Tom Rabbit, I hope you got this for your recording. Hey YouTube out there. Tom Rabbit likes to record these. Hey Tom Rabbit. Can I ask my question real quick? Sure. Before you do, are you an atheist or a theist? I'm an atheist. I just want to know if you agree with God when he said in Leviticus 20:13 that we should stone gay people to death. I just want to know your thoughts on that. Just this

up here. Just let me pull the verse. Okay. Yeah. Leviticus 2013. Okay. Leviticus 13. If there is a man who sleeps with a male as those who sleep with woman, both of them have committed a dis dist detestable act and they must be put to death. Okay. So when you say, do I agree with God? I'm not sure what you mean. Do I These laws were a law that was a part of a covenantal relationship with the nation of Israel. Okay. So, you know, But but God said it, right? It says the Lord says that.

So, what whatever God says must be true, right? Yeah. That it's it's true that he gave that command. Yeah. But so, if God is the moral authority of everything, right? Would you agree with that? Yes. and he says that, you know, sleeping with other men should be put to death. Wouldn't that be the moral thing to do? Oh, okay. So, now what you're doing is is what you're doing is you're removing this command from its covenantal context and you're trying to universalize this. I don't please don't please don't over talk me. Okay. Okay. Now, are

the 613 or 15 laws are these laws a part of a a specific covenantal relationship with one nation or are these laws uh intended by God to be universally binding upon all human beings? So, you're saying that God's morality say I asked you I I asked you a question, sir. Mhm. Now, now before you begin, okay, I've been around the block a few times and I've debated these passage on numerous occasions. Do you think I'm going to be bamboozled by this line of reasoning? You think you think I you haven't you think I haven't heard

this before? Okay. Well, so is God's morality objective or not? Now, now, now I I asked you a question. I asked you a simple question which you didn't answer, did you? The answer is yes. It's for those specific people. But okay. Okay. Are these are these Listen, let's have a conversation here. Let's have a conversation here or you're gonna get your mouth muted. I don't think his intention was a conversation from the start. Yeah, I know. Okay. So, are these commands intended by God to be an edict to the whole world that the whole world

must abide by all of the commandments? Okay. No, this is this is a set of rules that God has commanded that the Israel must follow all of these rules. And when they don't, they are to commit animal sacrifices in order for God to restore his blessing upon them as as their king. Right. I completely agree with you. I agree with you. I'm just I'm just asking, does that mean God's morality is no longer objective? Because now it depends on who's he's talking to, right? So it's no longer objective. Well, well, the mistake that you're making,

by the way, are you a legal adult? Yes. How old are you? Doesn't matter. 26. Okay. Why? Be be Why? Because sometimes I deal with teenagers and they tend to be arrogant. They they they don't have critical thinking skills. And sometimes I deal with some young 20some year olds who have the minds of teenagers. And I like to know which category or what Beast I'm dealing with. Okay. But since you're a young man, then I know what I'm dealing with here. Okay. So, the mistake that you're making is you are confusing that a command by

God to do or not to do means that the the command or or the or the forbiddance entails an intrinsically moral condition. This is simply fellacious. Okay. Some commands of God deal with intrinsic goodness that reflects God's character and nature. And some of the commands in the Old Testament simply re uh reflect God carrying out his redemptive plan of salvation through human history. Okay? So don't confuse a command uh of of forbidding or allowing that it would necessarily be in every instance what we would consider to be intrinsically moral or immoral. But if God makes

a command, surely it should be objective. You're not understanding. Did you even listen to a word I just said? You're an idiot. You didn't even You told me. Listen. Listen to me. Or not. Is it objective or not? I I am I am trying to answer you, but you're not listening. Okay. the the mores that God does communicate to us are objective because they are Derivative of and reflective of his eternal character which is the objective grounding for everything. Now, the mistake that you're making is that you think that every single one of God's commands,

okay, to do or not to do means that the command or the forbiddance is communicating an intrinsic good. Okay, you don't have to spell out. So, okay. Now, now listen carefully. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Listen, Mike. Mike, you're gonna be gone in a second. Are you J Mike? That's that's a compliment. Um, so let me ask you a question real quick. Okay. Do you think it's ever okay to kill a gay person? Do you think it's ever okay? Listen. Do you think it's No, listen to me. Do

you think it's ever okay? You are going to be gone. Listen, I'm gonna tell you one more time. Byebye. Bye-bye, sunshine. Okay, I told you I want to have an adult interaction here. And you are not acting like a young man in your 20s. You're acting like a defiant 15-year-old. All right. I'm just want to ask you a simple question. Do you think it's ever I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you one more chance, which I shouldn't give. If you if if you if you break your chance, you're going to be done. Now, do

you understand that not all of God's commands each individually uh are communicating something that intrinsically is reflecting the character of God. what where rather sometimes sometimes a command is is uh God fulfilling his unfolding redemptive plan of history. Sometimes commands or forbiddance uh is invoking something that is intrinsically evil in God's sight because it is hostile or contrary to his eternal character. Other times it has to do with a plan. For example, there was the command not to eat pork. Okay? And that pork was considered to be one of several unclean foods or animals that

they were forbidden to eat. What we find in the Bible later on in the words of Jesus that there was nothing intrinsically evil about eating pork. But it would be intrinsically evil to eat pork if you were a member of the covenant relationship where God forbade them to eat pork as a part of this covenantal relationship. So Jesus said Jesus said to his followers, "It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but that what comes out." And the gospel commentator stated by this Jesus was declaring that all foods or meats were clean,

meaning intrinsically clean. They were not ceremonially or in terms of the dietary code clean, but they were making it clear that intrinsically it was not evil to eat pork. Okay. Okay. I agree. I agree with you. Now, a simple question is I just want to know your opinion. Do you think it's ever okay to kill a gay person? Sure. It's it's okay to kill a non-gay person sometimes. Okay. No. No. Just for being gay. Is it is it okay to kill somebody just for being gay? That that that would that would depend upon um Wow.

You can't even give a straight answer. That is really pathetic. It's really sad. So, you're going to be rude and not let me finish my answer. Is that correct? Go ahead. Let's hear your answer. He's morally grandstanding. Uh yeah. Yeah. Later on. Later on, you can tell us why anything is wrong, including I would ask you. I'll go on your show. All right. Do you have a show? You have a show? Mike, I'll go on your show, dude. Mike? Yeah. Uh, Mike, do you smoke pot? Are you pro abortion? I'm curious. Mike, Mike, do you

smoke pot? No. Okay. Yeah. Are you Are you pro-choice? Yes. Aren't some of those babies gay? The difference is that it's a woman's Mike. Mike, listen to me carefully. You have just been exposed as a fake, a phony, and a fraud. Is an embryo woman's. Are are some of those are some of those unborn babies do you believe that gayness is biological? Yes, it is. Okay. Are are some of the No. Where where did you get that? It's a Wow. You are one del You know what? I don't even I don't even believe that you're

in your 20s. I can't imagine I can't imagine. Listen carefully. I can't imagine that a young man in your early 20s could make such a stupid statement that I would expect to come out of a teenager's mouth. Okay. Do you know Mike? Mike, I'm 60 years old. In the 1970s, they were stating that they were on, you know, various proponents of homosexuality were claiming in the news media that they were on the verge of discovering the gay gene. Now, can you show me where it is a fact scientifically that people are genetically programmed to be

homosexual? Well, there is evidence in science that it is based on genes. Not just one gene, But perhaps multiple genes. And the other evidence is that Hold on. Hold on a second. Are all conclusions in science provisional, Mike? No, of course not. Nothing's absolute. Okay. No, Mike. Are all conclusions in science provisional? Now, can you show me is there is there is there even a consensus that homosexuality is genetic? Yes. And did you know that in the bonobos they Okay, stop. Stop. Stop. We're done. We're we're we're done. We're done with you. You are a

liar. Okay. Byebye. Okay. You're you're you're Listen, you are an unhinged liar. Okay. No. I mean, you are you are you're just you're just a loose cannon. You're an unhinged liar. Okay? There's not a consensus on this. Nor is it a fact, okay? Even in a colloquial sense, that homosexuals are born this way or they are genetically determined. Okay? You're just you're just a liar. Okay? Um, he reminds me of um uh some of these internet uh these left-wing debaters who will just throw out, oh, it's a scientific consensus as if they're appealing to like

high priests or something and they don't even know it's a consensus. They just throw it out. If you said that it's a consensus within the field of science that evolution is either true or probably true, I could agree with you agree with you on that. Even though I consider evolution really bad science, okay? But there's not even a consensus that homosexuals are born that way. I mean, this is this is patently absurd. Okay. Now, um I think that uh God God was so serious about um his design and purposes for humanity. He did not want

the Israelites to fall into the evil and wicked deviant practice, sexual deviant practices of anything your mind can imagine. So God gave very strict rules that if people were engaging in uh physical unions other than with uh one man, one woman for life in marriage that outside of that that it was the death penalty. There was the death penalty for adultery. There was death penalty for promiscuity. Okay. And there was death penalty for homosexuality. There was the death penalty for rape. Okay. So what he objects to is that is that that God knows the societal

consequences uh to sexual devian and perversion of what a bad societal effect it has that he gave the death penalty so people won't even think about doing these things. But because this little manchild has grown up, he's says he's in his early 20s, which I find it hard to believe. He's he Excuse me. He's grown up Excuse me. He's grown up. I got to go drink water. Hold on. He's grown up in this atmosphere of uh, you know, pro media, pro-academia, pro homosexuality, and things like that that he has such a hatred toward the God

of the Bible that he that he thinks he has a silver bullet. says, "Do you think it's okay to kill gays?" I said, "Well, you know, uh, God said anybody who commits any of these deviencies should be put to death nation of Israel, so it couldn't be intrinsically wrong." Okay? Now, I'm not personally advocating that we have the death penalty for people who have sexual contact outside the bonds of marriage. Okay? First of all, it would it would in our current state, it wouldn't be feasible. But if that were passed, on what grounds could he

object to it? Okay, but the funny thing is Pyake made a really good point. He asked him if he was pro-choice. And here here, how many babies that this guy believes are already pre-programmed to be homosexuals or lesbians that he thinks it's okay to kill them? I mean, this is this is the psychotic reasoning of of atheism. Okay? So, it's it's okay to kill gay babies, but not gay adults. So, if you're a little gay baby, it's okay to kill you, according to this guy. I am I am not advocating that there are gay babies.

That's just ridiculous. But this is the mentality. Now, does anybody really think that that that person was a young man in his 20s? I don't believe that. Um, well, he's really indignant. He's really indignant that you're not conforming your thinking to his preferences. And I wish you had muted him because I was really looking forward to how he was going. Well, I I had a Popeye moment. That's all I can stand cannot stand more. It's not It wasn't the content. Is that he he was persistently not being civil with me. So, well, the reason I

was looking I I was looking forward to him telling us why anything is wrong and upon investigation, it would eventually boil down to because he says so. Well, Peri, you gota you got to take the monologues down. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, bro. I appreciate you giving me a line. You know, you know, you know what's interesting? You know what's interesting is they they cherrypick out of stuff out of the Old Testament. Um they say, "Well, look, your God killed babies." When when God told the Jews to kill the Cana Can Canaanites, the Midianites, the Amalachites,

there were babies and children who were killed. How terrible is your God? In other words, what you're saying is God couldn't possibly have a sufficient reason to kill ch children of babies. Well, I can think of one. Okay. What? And the Bible says, the Bible says that the Wickedness was so bad in these countries that God was patient waiting for them to repent over a couple hundred years. Now, what possibly could be that wickedness? Well, not only did they sacrifice their babies to their false gods, I believe that it's certainly feasible that the wickedness included

the worst kind of sexual aberration where they were producing, they were interbreeding. Okay. And producing severely uh genetically damaged human beings that if they were left to procreate and mix with other populations that could have very uh terrible repercussions in terms of the gene pool, okay, that that could be disastrous into the future. Okay. Just and and so and so God saw fit to end the lives of all of them if they were they were genetically compromised, right? Because number one, they're going to die anyway. So God is simply giving them an early departure. Okay?

In order to preserve and protect future generations from serious genetic corruption of serious genetic diseases. Now, can I prove that from the text? No, I can't. But we know that, you know, if if you have incestuous relations, okay, this can produce serious genetic defects that are either Both obvious or not obvious, but are inherent within the genetic code and can live on and reproduce in future generations and spread to other populations in the world. Okay? But they don't care about that. Okay? Because you see, they're smarter than God. Well, no, they're not. You know, you

try to have a civil interaction with these people and nine times out of 10, they just cannot control themselves. By the way, did you get that Tom Rabbit? Hey, Tom Rabbit. I hope you got this for your recording. Hey YouTube out there. Tom Rabbit likes to record these. Hey Tom Rabbit, right? And that's what that's her beliefs without without the Christian worldview. That's what her beliefs uh oft you know inevitably morph into. It's just we're we're just chemical their beliefs actually. Hold up a second. Timothy, can you hold up a second? Um it's there. I

use they them pronouns actually. I don't know what she said. No, I didn't hear her either. Wait, do you mind repeating that one more time? Sorry, I apologize. Um, I don't actually use she her pronouns. I use they them pronouns. Were Were you born female? Were you born? I am Yes. Biologically, I am female, but I identify as nonbinary. I'm not I'm not going to buy into your delusion. And you can't make me. Um, so if God made everyone the way they if God made everyone the way they are, then for instance, I like women

and you'll see me as a woman, however much I try not to. Um, so I like women. If God made me that way, then what's wrong with that? Nobody's born gay, though. Okay. And you think nobody's born gay? Did I just come out of the room and was like, "Oh, yes. I like men." Nobody's born gay. No. Nobody's born with any sexual desire. I hope you know that. Yeah. It's something that you've chosen. Yeah. It's a rebellious act. I'm not I'm not Did you choose to be straight? It's not. I'm saying like the actual study,

nobody's actually born. May I say something? Hold up a second, everyone. Hold up a second. Um what's no um the demon of death wants to say something. Can can I please say something? Okay. Um you say that we are born without a Sexuality and I I see where you're coming from. But people who are um part of the LGBTQ community, they go through so much hardship. They get kicked out of their families and some are even killed for it. blah blah blah. Why would they choose that? Let me Nobody's born gay though. Like there's actual

studies on talking. Here we go. I'm talking. I'm talking. Okay. I have I just wanted to Okay. I'm gonna start server muting people. Okay. I'm making a point of moderation. Okay. Okay. Now, I think you all are aware, those of you who are supportive of the alphabet soup league, okay? That the biblical and Christian worldview is opposed to your ideology. Okay? Now, because of the discord thought police, we really cannot discuss our differences because the people who are in the alphabet soup uh brigade will report the server as violating the terms of service. So, you

can blame your own fact. Would you not overtalk me, please? Now, you have no one to blame but your quote own of the Alphabet Soup Brigade. Okay? Because they were the ones when the last time we discussed this uh our our differences as being reported to Discord for violating the terms of service. So, you know very well that the biblical position disagrees with the alphabet soup brigade ideology. Okay? So, we're done discussing it. Okay? We cannot discuss it further because of your own falsely reporting us to discord. Okay. Thank you, Darth. Thank you. Right. We

are more than happy to discuss our ideological and worldview differences, but because you see, we don't have Christians or Bible believing Christians contacting Discord saying, "Oh, they're spewing hate speech." Okay. Well, we can't discuss this because of your own alphabet soup thought police. Okay. Who are going to falsely accuse us, right? Yeah. Good. So, we're not going to discuss that topic anymore. Okay. Okay. Um, but I wish it was otherwise. But in order to protect our server from false accusations from the Alphabet Soup Brigade, we have to put a kibash on the topic. Okay. that

that that's that's I'm totally gonna get kicked for this. I don't care at this point. I'm I I understand that and that is entirely understandable. But could you please just say the LGBT instead of the alphabet soup great? Uh could you could you please not impose your morality on me? Oh, [ __ ] this man. Impose your alphabet soup great. Uh, could you could you please not impose your morality on me? Be great. Uh, could you could you please not impose your morality on me? Great. Uh, could you could you please not impose your morality

on me? Be great. Uh, could you could you please not impose your morality on me? Oh, [ __ ] this man. Oh, and look at now. And now you see these are the people. Where's your tolerance? Yeah. Why are you trying to impose your morality on my speech? You are literally You are literally Why Why are you Why are you spewing hate? Why are we Aren't you Aren't you against hate? Take her Stop trolling, Dor. You'll get banned. Let's Let's take her down and report her to the authorities for uh sexual impropriy. She She said

she wanted to rape us. She said, "F you, man." That's what she That's what we interpreted as. Okay. Now, well, first of all, I have to go in a minute. I have to run an errand. I have to run an errand. But um um can can I ask you um a question to the guy who just was You're gonna have to make it quick because I have an errand I have to run. So, go ahead. Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Um, doesn't it say in a Bible love thy neighbor? Yeah. Yes, it does. So, if people

are part of the LGBTQ community, does aren't you like supposed to love them equally as your own? Absolutely we are. That is that is true. Loving our neighbor, loving loving our neighbor, whomever our neighbors might be, does not mean endorsing whatever particular lifestyles that are in rebellion uh against God. Okay. No, no, no. Of course, of course. But um they who are just talking, I mean, they are just a person. And aren't you supposed to love everyone? Because that's that's what God wants to do. How am I How am I How am I Will you

please not overalk me? How am I not loving someone? Will you please not overt talk me? Well, you're accusing me of not being loving. How am I not being No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. Um, she was asking you a question to just um don't say alphabet soup because it's probably hurt them and It doesn't it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't hurt them. Okay. You see there there's an old line that we learned when we were younger. Maybe y'all should learn this. It's a It says, "Sticks and stones will break my

bones, but words will never hurt." You know what's amazing? You know what's amazing? that there are certain people in Western civilization, especially in America, who are beating their chests like horny silverback gorillas that they're being as bold as lions for their particular uh peculiarities and their sexual interests. Yet, if somebody says something even in slight sarcasm about The stupid things that they say, they turn into snowflakes. That is true. You do you know how much do you know how much sarcasm is invoked publicly and privately toward people who hold to a biblical view of life

and we may disagree with but we're not snowflakes. Okay. People say to me all the time, "Oh, you're a Bible thumper. Oh my, that that is so hateful and hurtful. Why are they being so unloving to me?" I'm sorry. I am sorry for speaking over you, but people should not be doing that either. That is disrespectful to people that believe in the Christian belief, and I stand by that. No one should do anything like that. Why Why should anybody conduct themselves anyway? Hold on then. Why did you just a few minutes ago? Hold on. Hold

on a second. Listen. Why should anybody conduct themselves anyway? Why? Because you say so or because God says so? Are you God? And if we shouldn't do something because God says so and you're not God, why should I listen to what you say I should do? Why should I do anything that you say I should do? Um, isn't God the one who said, um, Don't speak? That's not an answer to my question. That's not a qu answer to my question. Why should I do what you say I should do? I mean, I personally believe we're

allowed if God if God is not the king of the hill and the creator and that we should do what God has revealed to us, whether you believe in God's existence or not, then if you're if if you don't acknowledge God, that means that at least you don't believe in God and that you're not God. So, why should I listen to you when you tell me I should do X? Why should I? I mean, that's the same as why should I be listening to Should I listen to any Why should I abide by any of

your moral imperatives? Why should I? Why should I abide to any of yours? That's not an answer to my question. That's not an answer to my question. Did you just say a few minutes ago that I and others do Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're not being very loving to me right now by overtalking me, are you? Don't you believe that we should love each other? You aren't being very loving to me by discriminating against me. You You see what a double standard these people have? They're living in La La Land. Anyway, on that

note, thank you For participating. I have to scuaddle. I have a couple of errands to write, but I do appreciate you coming in and speaking your mind. We don't have a problem with that. We just disagree. Darth No, Darth had a point, man. the the overly sensitive LGBTQ crowd is like they're like extremely sensitive about a lot of things, but like don't extend the same sensitivity to others. That's fair. That that is fair. That is a very point. Yes. And I can agree with that as well. Well, that was the point he was making. Well,

that's because people in the Labor community have been brainwashed into thinking especially the tea. The tea is the dumbest thing you could possibly even be. But especially people um in the look of I mean they've been brainwashed identity you've said some slight you've you've said some slight against them but there there's there's nothing an individual when you tell them to repent there's nothing against that individual that person really has a soul destroying belief but I don't want to say too much on that can we get the server taken down please yeah this is a dumb

topic move on. Yeah. Continue what you're saying, sir. Who's that? By the way, let me let me just say anyone who just said we don't want to get the server taken down, so we won't speak the truth. That's weak Christianity. That that's the reason why Christianity is being trampled over in the country because we're weak. Before you go on, that was Darth. That was Darth before you go on anymore. Okay. Did you hear what I just said? That is weak Christianity. Okay. Okay. So, take it off with the server mod. Take it up with Darth,

not with us. Okay. I I just said that it was weak Christianity. I didn't even That has no substance. What you just said had no substance at all. I don't need you trying to put me against two people like that. That's irrelevant. It had no substance. What you said? Zero because it comes from I have to agree with everything. Okay. Really? No. Okay. So, then that that means nothing your comment. But what what I was saying was get this is this idea is called weak Christianity. This is why the church is being destroyed all over

the place. Give everything up. Dude, it's not weak Christianity to not have yourself silent. I don't mean it. I'm working. Well, you are actually being silent when you say, "Well, I just won't talk about it." Yes. Yeah. I don't want to be silenced, so I just won't talk about it. I mean, it's not weak Christianity. Like, could I just pipe up for a second? It's not weak Christianity to not want Hold up a second. It's not weak Christianity to not want to speak about things that will get a server that you enjoy taken down. That's

called just preserving the server. It doesn't get taken down. Servers people can set up over time to continue to communicate the effectiveness of the gospel. So, what's going to happen now is Christians when they preach the gospel, they're not going to bring up certain things because God forbid the server gets taken down. You know, we won't preach the gospel. We won't preach something that saves people from sin and hell and eternity and suffering, but we're going to be preserving the server. That's this is weak Christianity. Now, if anyone wants to dispute that, that that's that's

fine. But that's my opinion. It's not going to change. I think that's weak Christianity and that's why we get trampled all over. That's why people don't take Christians seriously. I mean this is why our culture is being run over because we said no we just give that to them give that to them and eventually there's nothing there's nothing at all. I mean um the the proverbs talks about you know the righteous that gives way before the wicked is like a is like a a spring that becomes polluted. We lose our effectiveness. I mean we we

have to stand for something. We can't just give up because oh my gosh this No. Come on. That's that's crap. That's just weak Christianity. I'm sorry. What is it? Understandable I understand what Darth is saying and I understand his position. I don't agree with the position but I understand it. Okay. So the fact that I mean this like I mean you saying we do apparently has a Well one I didn't hear him articulate that. Um but I'm being told that that's what he believes and if that's what he believes I think that's weak Christianity. That

doesn't mean the individuals are weak Christian. I think that's weak Christianity. That kind of give way, give way, give way is a problem in my opinion. By the way, did you get that Tom Rabbit? Hey, Tom Rabbit. I hope you got this for your recording. Hey, YouTube out there. Tom Rabbit likes to record these. Hey, Tom Rabbit. because currently they they do not allow the ordination of women. Okay, you have to remember that the word Catholic in its root meaning meant universal. Okay, but now it's come to me represent what we call the church the

yeah the institution of the church of Rome. Okay, because they get it from the the creeds where it says we we believe in the Lord's one holy uh Catholic church. Yeah, we also believe in like the power of the institutional church um and the ecumenical councils that enemy spotted. Those who act on the authority of the successors of the apostles can promulgate. They're not the successors of the apostles. There are no successor of the apostles. Well, I mean like Matias is pretty clearly chosen as Yeah, that's that I've you know how many times I've heard

this. Okay. He was Selected by God. Okay. You had to be in order to be apostle you had to be selected by the lord and you had to be personally um uh witness the lord's resurrection. So in the book of acts, okay, Matias didn't witness the resurrection. Uh he he he witnessed the resurrection resurrected word. Okay. Jesus appeared over over 40 days. Okay. Now when we in the passage in Acts where he has selected, they said, "Show us Lord who you want." And then they they drew um what do you call it? I forget what

they call it. Uh not straws but something like that. Uh anyway, so this idea that there is apostolic succession is make believe. Okay. The reason why they have the doctrine of apostolic succession is so they can claim that there is an extra biblical source of authority in order to uh demand that certain interpretations of text and other doctrines that that cannot be derived from scripture. This is the sole historical reason for the doctrine of apostolic succession. Okay. So appealing to Matias or Matias, However you want to say it, it does not support apostolic session. Okay.

So then I'm wondering um what do you believe the role of a church if any um would be within the Christian community since it does seem like from the beginning the church is the body of Christ all believers who are believing in Jesus Christ. When it comes to the church in a local community, it's the local body of believers coming together once a week to worship the Lord and being to to fellowship and to be built up in in the faith make making disciples. Now, the apostles appointed elders and teachers, but they don't hold the

office of of apostle. I'm going to explain to you again the reason why this doctrine arose in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy was to force false doctrine that they could not derive exeetically from scripture. It's clear in history that that's being done. Let me ask you this question, right? Do you believe that um taking the eukarist, participating in the mass will bring you salvific grace? It it does have the ability to um reconcile you. I I know I didn't ask I I said do you believe it? It's not necessary for salvation, but it can bring salvific

grace. No. No. Okay. No. No. No. It No. What What What is it that brings salvific grace? What? What? The ultimate source of salvific grace is Christ's sacrifice at Golgatha. The Eucharist is No, notice notice she notice you said ultimate. Is is it is it faith in Christ alone apart from performance? No, you can't just cognitively ascend to the fact. I didn't say I didn't say mentally ascent. You have to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. Okay? But you see, you believe you believe that the mass is in some way

salvifically efficacious. That's what the Council of Trent teaches. Do you believe the Council of Trent? Yes. The Council of Trent is a legit Good. The C. Yeah. And Well, good. Then you're going to hell right now. If you die, you're going to go to hell because you are believing that that when you die, God is going to factor in. Please don't over talk me, okay? You believe that when you die, God is going to factor in your performance, your cooperation, uh, you know, in performing the mass and that that if you do that to a

certain level, you you will get into heaven. That is not the gospel that is in the New Testament. We don't believe that the amount of times you participate in Okay, listen. Okay. CIA, how old are you? I am 18. Okay. I'm 60 years old. I was studying Catholic theology before your mother and father even even met. Okay, you can sit there and tell me all you want while we over talk me again, Da Vinci, and you're going to be server muted. Okay, sorry, D. Mute your microphone. Okay, now I'm not trying to put you down.

I You don't sound stupid to me, but I do believe that you're naive and you are uninformed and uneducated on on the issue. Okay, the Catholic Church teaches a false gospel. Okay, that's why they have to have an extra biblical source of authority. In Matthew 23, Jesus was speaking about spiritual leaders and he said, "Do not call them the title father and father." Do you Okay. Do you call the man in Rome the pope? Yes, you can call him. Okay. Do you know that the word pope? Yes, I know the word is it means father

from Italian. Okay. So, you are violating what Jesus said. We're not. Okay. We have to He also says call no teacher. Call Do me a favor. Stop saying we. I'm talking to you. Okay. Now, uh the the your local clergyman, what do you call him? You can call him priest. You can call him pastor. You're okay. Stop lying. Stop lying. See, now you're lying. I do call him father. Yes, that is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. Now the truth comes out. Okay. You could you see notice I not You notice the deception here, folks. I say

to him, "What do you call him?" He goes, "Well, you could call him priest, right? I know it. You're beating around the bush. You're being deceptive with me. And when people are being deceptive with me and beating around the bush, I take issue with it and get indignant. Okay? You're talking to somebody who was raised Catholic. You're talking to somebody who studied Catholic theology. Okay? Now, the fact of the matter is is simply this. Okay? You believe that salvation is through the institution of the church of Rome, don't you? The the institution of the church

at Rome does not Oh, so so we don't need the church of Rome then. You do, you do need the Catholic Church to receive the grace of the sacrifice at Golgatha. That is how Christ instituted things. What what what gobbly [ __ ] was that that I just heard? The fact that um Christ established a church to communicate grace. Where did where did Jesus establish the church of Rome? Jesus established the church of Rome through Peter since in where where is that? Okay, hold on. Let me see. Bring up the Yeah. And by the way,

do you think I'm not prepared? I I understand you've probably studied this a long time. I'm just saying that yeah, you've been you've been sold a bill of goods. Okay. In in Matthew chapter 16, he says, "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church." He uses an entirely Matthew recorded an entirely different Greek word. The word Petro means a small stone rock. Now in Peter's epistles, in Peter's epistles when he says Jesus is the chief cornerstone of the church, he refers to all other believers by a Greek word. Do you know

what that word is? Not familiar with the exact word. He uses the word pro. Okay. So, So he refers to all other believers as stones and rocks within the church. The same word that Jesus used for Peter. Now, if that word was exclusive to Peter, why did Peter then use it of all believers? Okay. Well, let's reme let's remember that the um here we go. He's going to bring up the Aramaic. Yes, there is also Aramaic, but I That doesn't work. If you rename someone rock and say the next thing you say is on this

rock, do you really listen to me? Do you re do you really think you stand a chance defending the Catholic Church with the the stuff you've been taught against me? You really think you stand a chance? Well, I mean, if you I have I have over 40 years more experience on you dealing with this issue. You really think you stand a chance? I mean, maybe not in like rhetoric, but let me let No, let me explain it to you. Okay. The word Petra refers to a large rock edifice. Okay. So what do you think that

the rock was? Peter Peter the rock was Jesus Christ. So pe So Jesus renamed Who is the rock of our salvation in the Old Testament? Who is the rock of our salvation in the Yeah. Who's the rock of our salvation? Old Testament. Who is the rock of our salvation? That's right. It's God. Is Is Jesus God manifested in the flesh? Yes, he is. Oh, what a coincidence. And actually in one Corinthians 10:4 it says the rock is Christ. It explicitly says the rock is Christ. The rock and that's why the pop and that's why Peter

and the pope act. You know what? I feel really sorry for you. You are so you are so Christ. You are so gullible. Okay. This is the same mentality people have in all cults right here. Jesus did not say, "Peter, I'm going to build my church upon you." He said, "Peter, you're a rock, but upon this rock of Listen to me. Why are you overtalking me?" Matthew uses an entirely different Greek word. Okay. Upon this Petra, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail. Now, on what exeetical grounds do you

say the Petra is Peter? We say the Petra is Peter because it's pretty clear that the only reason why there's a distinction between the words is that the word Petra is feminine whereas it would not be appropriate to rename um a masculine. Listen to me. Okay. Yeah. That what you just told me is hot garbage. Okay. You see this is what this is what cults do. They build major doctrines upon cherrypicking and on a particular verse that they cannot defend. Can you show me anywhere else where the Can you show me where the papacy is

clearly taught clearly? If the papacy is such a monumental important doctrine, can you show me in the New Testament where the papacy is clearly taught? Okay. Do you do you want it like spoonfed to you or do you want all Listen, dude. You know what? I'm You know You know what? I'm about to server meet you. Okay. You're 18 years old. Okay. You don't know what you're talking about. Show me clearly where does the New Testament clearly teach the the primacy of Peter and the papacy where chapter and verse. There's also Matthew 14:23-27. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. There's Yeah. Peter is uniquely endowed there. or the um the like Jesus prays for Peter's faith that Peter what okay again I guess you don't I guess your heart where does the New Testament clearly teach the primacy of Peter the papacy where what verse okay I'm I'm really not sure how then I Could prove this to you if we're going something doesn't have to be said to us inript I've not had it with you, okay? Because you're a bit arrogant, okay? And you're willfully ignorant, right? I'm showing you the papacy is not taught in

the New Testament. This is why when I was your age and I had no axe to grind with the Catholic Church and I went back to my Bible and I'm like, where's the papacy? Where's the college of cardinals? Where's apostolic succession? Where is the efficacy of the mass? Okay, now I'll ask you one more time. Where is the papacy clearly taught? By your standards, there is no clearly taught. Good. Thank you for your time. You need to leave that cult. You need to repent and turn to Jesus Christ as your savior and cast all your

confidence that your performance in this life will motivate God in any other way because God will look upon it as hot garbage. Isaiah said all of our righteousness are as filthy rags. Okay. As a Catholic, you do and must believe that performing the sacraments will pro provide some type or to a certain degree salvific grace. In other words, your cooperation and activity will be the final lynch pin. What why God determines whether you would let let you into heaven or not? You believe in purgatory? Yes. Why? Why do you have to go and suffer for

your sins if Jesus paid it all? Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins. But that doesn't mean So then why do you have to suffer for it? If Jesus Christ What were Jesus last words on the cross? It is finished. Right? It's finished. So then why do you have why do you have to suffer? And by the way, this is ridiculous. Why do why would you have to suffer at all? If you're going to be absolved of your sins, okay, God forgives all your sins. Why do you have to now suffer? Okay, there's a

difference between what is the source of the salvific grace and how you actually Okay, you know what? Get out of here. You're you're you're you're so brainwashed. It isn't funny. This is what happens, folks. When people are in cults, right? They're so blinded by the cult dogma. It does no good to talk with them. Okay? He even admitted when I asked him over and over again, where does the New Testament clearly teach the papacy? I mean, I think I'll ask you again. Where does the New Testament clearly teach the papacy? Where I mean, we clearly

have different definitions of what Okay, thank you. Have a nice day. We're done. We're done. Okay, because you're like typical Catholics. You want to go waltw like Charlie Brown's teacher. I've asked you over and over again, where is the papacy clearly taught? Where did God clearly spell this out? Again, I really don't know what else to say. Thank you for your time. Yeah, you don't know what to say because you got nothing. The papacy is a fraud. Hey, Darth, I have a question for you. You know what? If people think I'm being too harsh, I'm

not being too harsh because this is a matter of eternal destiny. Go ahead, Darth. Um, when I came into the room, you were talking about Peter and then Christ says flesh and blood. Wait, wait, wait. Let me finish what I'm saying. Flesh and blood. We already discussed this. Okay, go ahead. Da Vinci, is there any possibility that the papacy could be the mark of the beast? Yeah, there's a lot of No, no, I don't I don't I don't hold to that. Okay. The um um clearly the Catholic Church is demonic when we when we take

a look at uh what scripture teaches. Um when you say the mark of the beast, you mean the antichrist. It's what Solless Scriptor does to a mother. Okay. All right. Listen to me. You know what? You know what? You're so You're so effing ignorant and naive. Okay. Here's what you don't understand now. Either the Christian either either the Christian scriptures because of their content are selfattesting and self- authenticating or not. Now are the Christian scriptures self authenticating or not? If you are referring to the Bible alone um yes they are if that's all I need

to know that's all I need to know there. Therefore, then there is no need for any other human beings to come along as a special group and saying these are the holy books and other ones are not because those books are selfattesting on themselves. They require no other independent source of authoritiveness or confirmation. Remember in the scriptures God says that he cannot swear by any other higher name than himself. Okay. Now, was when God spoke to various people through biblical history, was his revelation self attesting and self- Authenticating? Yes. Okay. When when when the Holy

Spirit breathed the words, the graphite, okay, all scriptures God breathed, God spy reading. Okay. Were those words self- authenticating? Because not only their source and but including the content were they self- authenticating through the initial authors. Yes. So no. Okay. Now now so now so now so you see that is what solos scriptor is all about. You've been brainwashed as an 18-year-old to have a misunderstanding of what solos scriptorer is. Okay. The reason why the Catholic Church has to condemn that is because the Catholic Church has to establish the the the magisterium, okay? The Holy

Sea, the pronouncements of what you you should or should not believe. Okay? Because now the Bible is not the final authority. Okay? Let me ask you a question. What is what is the ultimate authority? Is it the Constitution or is it the Supreme Court? It is the Constitution. But as as you implied, the document itself implies there is We're done. Listen, we're done. We're done. Listen, listen. We're we're we're done. Okay? I've already made it clear to you. You're following a false gospel. You're following false doctrine. Okay? You're going to dig in your heels and

you're going to defend because you're in this cult. Okay? Hey, more power to you. But you're gonna face an eternal wrathful God. And I would hardly call the largest cult. It's not a Christian church. It is a cult. A cult is any organization that claims to be the one and only true representative of Jesus Christ. Okay? It it denies one or more of the fundamental doctrines of the faith, which the Catholic Church does. It denies salvation by grace through faith. And it has an extra biblical source of authority, which is the magisterium. Okay? Church tradition.

Hey, it's that simple. I mean, St. Paul is pretty clear in second we're we're done. Listen, we're done. I'm tired of hearing the tradition. We're done by either by word of mouth or by letter, bro. Let CIA talk. Oh, we've already we've already talked. Okay, we're done. Okay. No, you've been mostly talking. It's bad enough that the pope is like a pantheist and a pagan at the same time. It's ridiculous. What? I don't think it's toggled on, Darth. I I mean, he does also realize we're done. This is like This is like This is like

talking to the wall. He's a naive, uninformed, ignorant 18-year-old Catholic. Okay. Look, I asked him, "Where does the Bible clearly teach the primacy of Peter and apostolic succession?" He's got nothing. Nothing. The reason why people believe this crap and they pedal it is because they think it's their means to salvation rather than the simple truth that repentance and faith in Jesus Christ alone. They do not want to take what the Bible says at face value. They want to come up with all these ridiculous dogmas like transubstantiation. When we look at the text, when Jesus said,

"Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood," he was clearly being metaphorical. In other words, what he's saying is, "Unless you partake of what I am, okay, you will die in your sins." Jesus, because you don't believe it, it means that it's crap. Excuse me. Of course, it's crap. Any anytime you have a cult that teaches a false gospel in in the book of Galatians, Paul deals with it may be false. Why are you overtalking me? Why are you overtalking me? Oh, because you have the you have the power to mute people. Don't over

talk me. If you want to object, wait till I'm done. Are you Catholic? Are you Catholic? Good. Then what are you bitching about? This is very surprising how someone who has four years experience an elder. Listen to me. You have nothing. Listen to me. Listen to me. Let's not talk past each other. You have you have nothing to say because you're an agnostic, are you? You have no statement about what's ultimate commitment. So why are you shooting your mouth off when ultimate truth is inaccessible according to you? Because you are very disrespectful. Okay, that's besides

the point. I think I I think you were being disrespectful to me. The point is this is do you have objective groundsing you? Okay. All right. Get Yeah. Yeah. And and and how old are you, little boy? I'm 19. How old How old are you? Really? Really? I'm shocked. You sound like you're 15. I'm old enough to I'm old enough to be your grandfather. That's how I'm glad you aren't. Yeah. I'm And I'm glad. Okay. Because you see, you're an agnostic and you're sitting there and you're you're bitching about what I'm saying or how you

think I'm conducting myself. You have no basis whatsoever to complain about me. None. Zero. Nada. I just don't like how you're using your power to mute people. I muted him because he's regurgitating the same thing all over again. And I don't want to hear him repeat the same hot garbage. Okay. You don't want to hear it, but other people might. Good. Then I'll tell you then I'll tell I'll tell you what. You're the only one who complained. If you want to go listen to him, okay, go talk with him, right? And by the way, you

think what he's saying is hot garbage, too, don't you? No. Good. Then you're be Oh, so you're going to become you're becoming a Catholic. No, I never said that. You're just assuming. Okay. So, you're full of crap. Yeah. 19 my ass. Yeah. 19 my ass. You sound like you're 16. I'm not. Yeah. It It says here says here Oh, it says here you're an agnostic. Okay. Which means which means you can't make any statements about ultimate reality, can you? I didn't say anything about that. I'm just talking about Well, guess what? Everything that he was

saying in opposition to me was also a statement about ultimate reality. But you can't accept that. Okay? You can't accept either one of us. I don't care about your religion. I'm talking about how much how disrespectful you're being. Here's another problem. See, but now what you're doing is now what you're doing is you're invoking ethics. But in your agnostic worldview, there's no ultimate na there's no fundamental ultimate nature about reality that would dictate how one ought to conduct themselves. Is there? What are you talking about? I'm just saying how rude you're being. No one cares

about being assertive with you. I'll ask you one more time and you can choose to verbally dodge and run away like a girl scout or you can be a 19-year-old young man or so you claim and you can answer the question, do you have an idea that you'd like to put forth as to what the ultimate nature of reality is that will ground any claims of ethics of how anyone ought to conduct themselves? Uh, nope. Good. Then shut up. Nah. Well, then you have no grounds to complain about how any anybody conducts themselves. Where do

you judge for how disrespectful you are? Then again, this is why I ask you how old you are. I don't believe you're 19 because your type of reasoning is sympathetic symp excuse me, symptomatic of someone who's less than you are. Listen very carefully. You have no background. Okay. Have it your way. You want duct tape, you I did just mute him anyway as quickly as possible. But yeah, you're not he's not he's not 19. Okay. I put him on the list anyway because he's obviously an idiot. Maybe maybe maybe he if he's a [ __

] Okay. Because he he sounds like he's 14 or or 15. Here he is. He claims he's agnostic, but he's spewing out ethical imperatives. Oh, well, you ought not to talk this way. You should be doing that based upon what? Based upon what? My 10-year-old nephew behaves better than him. Yeah, he's 19. Anyone believe anybody believe with a voice like that he's 19? We get these squeaky little 15-year-old. Yeah, I'm 19. By the way, did you get that? Tom Rabbit. Hey, Tom Rabbit. I hope you got this for your recording. Hey, YouTube out there. Tom

Rabbit likes to record these. Hey Tom Rabbit, I just have a simple question all hypistus. How is it that there is no creator god? Uh sure. Um so impossibility is an ultimate uh unchanging thing. Um if God Instantiates if God instantiates which question are you answering here? Which question are you answering? Mine or his? I'm answering yours. How is it that there is no God? Okay. Yeah. How is it that there is no God? If God is responsible for instantiating and securing impossibility, then that implies that nothing is impossible for God. However, some things are

impossible for God. No, that's false. That's a false implication. How so? Uh because uh God cannot do that that which contradicts his eternal character. So it's impossible for God to contradict his character. There are there are some there are some things that God cannot do. And is it God that instantiates that impossibility? No. The impossibility is in virtue of his eternal character. Okay. So, he does not instantiate impossibility. Uh God's eternal character and his purposes instantiate what is impossible. So, how does he instantiate something? Notice every notice everybody notice how he's not defending the proposition

that there's no God. Could you do that please? Well, sure. You define God as that which instantiates impossibility. Okay. God God is that which is ultimate and is the is the source of everything. Explain to me why what is ultimate is not God. Either you will tell us what is ultimate that's not God or you'll go the crazy route and say nothing is ultimate. So which is it? Uh I will say that that which is ultimate uh is able to do absolutely anything and is also unchanging? Okay that okay uh first of all that is

cockami. Number two uh how did you arrive? What what is it then that is ultimate? What is that? I don't believe I possess the ability to know what that is. So then you can't put it on the table then. I mean, we can uh Wait, do you do you know what do you know what vapor wear is? Vapor wear? No, I haven't heard of that. Okay. Are you in your 20s or 30s? I'm 38. Okay. Well, you should be old enough to understand what vapor wear is. when when the computer industry exploded on the scene

in the 1980s and in the 1980 the '9s, right, it was common for for startups and even non-startups to announce some um really a really great software, right? And they would get people interested, people would start buying their stock and then the then then the software application that was supposed to be killer never shows up and it was called Vapor Wear. Okay? because it never saw the light of day. Okay. What you're presenting of this ultimate that is not a mind. It's vaporware. You're asserting that there is uh an ultimate that's not God is there,

but you're not grounding that it's there, are you? Uh I mean I I can't know for sure. I'm just trying to deduce what it is. Oh, okay. So, are you by blind faith asserting that there is an ultimate and that it is not a mind? Uh, yes. Okay. Did everybody hear that concession? So, you don't actually have a rational case that there is no God, do you? Uh, yes. I believe I do. Did Did you just give one? Uh, yes. What was your rational case that there is something ultimate and that it's not a mind?

So, whatever is ultimate is responsible for instituting and securing impossibility. Some things are impossible. No. No. Sir, sir, listen. Listen to me. You're still not getting this. Wow. Wow. You're 38 years old. You're You're telling me characteristics of this thing that you haven't even grounded exists. What specifically is this ultimate? What is it? I don't know what it is. I just know it doesn't change. How do you know that there is even an ultimate? uh something has to be responsible for all impossible. How do you Well, when you say something must, you're talking about necessity.

What ultimately necessitates that? Well, the fact that some things are impossible must be and and where'd you get the idea that something is impossible? Um and we can come up with impossibilities all all the time. Yeah, you can you can vocalize it. I want to know in order to say that X is impossible, it has to be it can it Cannot it cannot conform and cohhere to what you designate as the ultimate. But you haven't put on the table what this ultimate is. So what is this ultimate? What is it? I don't know exactly what

it is. I just know it's Then we're done. Then you're done. Then you've just conceded that you can't falsify the existence of God. In order to falsify A, you have to present not A. Have you presented not A? Um, I have shown that the definition of God is contradictory. Wh how how is the definition that that which is eternal and the source of possibility is a mind. What's contradictory about that? If God instantiates and secures impossibility, then everything should be possible for God. No, that that's a nonsequittor. what you just said. I don't know how

else to phrase it. That's a nonsequator. And I've already explained to you this that it professional theologians would laugh in your face. Okay? Because the idea of a God who institutes what is possible and impossible does not mean all impossibility emanates from the mere will or purposes of God. Certain impossibilities are due to the necessity of God's properties. Okay? So certain impossibilities derive from God because they cannot Coexist with God's eternal nature. And certain impossibilities, okay, or we we could say most impossibilities are because God is the one who institutes creation and makes things impossible.

So either way, impossibilities are grounded either in the eternal attributes of God or they're grounded in his purposes and his will for creation. Now, you haven't shown so far that God is contradictory. You want to try again? Well, so I was going off of your uh often given definition of God, and you've just changed that. So, I'll have to think. No, I haven't changed anything, sir. Now, let's try again. God does not exist because So, your definition has always been he institutes. God does not get God does not exist because All right. Well, I guess

we're done talking. Thanks for the good. You see, another atheist taps out, folks. Another atheist bails. Okay? And that is how you defeat atheists. destroyed. our Lord and our God, we approach you acknowledging the full supply of wisdom that is your own and appealing to you that by your Holy Spirit you might enlighten our minds to grant us the wisdom necessary to understand how our faith relates to the pressing issues and the intellectual concerns of our day. We ask you to do this for us that we might Be better equipped to guard the gospel of

our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to discern those deathdealing errors of men over against the lifegiving truth of your word. We ask that you do these things so that we might be better prepared to be apologists, those who can compute the gains, those who can protect Christ's people. for the errors of men. Lord, and we ask that you would do these things, not that any glory would come to ourselves, but rather that you would receive all glory as the fountain of all wisdom, that we might be able to call upon you and that we

might be able to fear you, recognizing that that is indeed the beginning of all wisdom. We thank you for the privilege of studying in this classroom. We pray that you would make our minds submissive to your word through this hour. For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. In our last class hour, I began by asking a question why any Christian would be interested in studying philosophy, not simply in this class, but uh philosophy in general. And we came up with at least three reasons that the scripture itself supplies for us. The Christian is going

to want to study philosophy for critical discernment. Paul tells us in Colossians 2 to beware of that philosophy which is after human tradition and worldly rudiments or presuppositions. And he implies that there is a philosophy that is after Christ, but we must be careful of that which is not after Christ, lest we be robbed of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge deposited in him. And so, not only must we study philosophy for critical discernment, somewhat like a doctor who Studies disease that he might bring greater health to his patients, but we study philosophy to

preserve knowledge as well. Or if we take the wrong step philosophically, it appears that we may be robbed. We may be actually the Greek word mugged. Paul says mugged what? The treasure that we possess in Christ. And that treasure he identifies as wisdom and knowledge. And then thirdly, we study philosophy to learn how to guard the gospel, to refute the gains, to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the saints. Let me give you an illustration of the sort of thing that can happen when a Christian approaches undescerningly uh thought forms which

are popular today. How easy it is to get, if you will, deceived and robbed of the treasures that are in Christ. Imagine that. um you or one of your parishioners is reading let's say um you're reading in the writings of Dr. Carl Bart and Dr. Bart reasons in the following way that the resurrection of Jesus Christ as it's presented in the Bible has eternal significance for the Christian. It is of the most fundamental importance to the Christian. It is uh something that is of such spiritual value that nothing having to do the contingencies and the

vicissitudes of time can challenge. If I do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as Bart then I am not a Christian at all. But it's just because of the eternal significance of the resurrection that Bart says we must draw an absolute and Unqualified distinction between time and eternity. Whatever happens in time is um subject, as I've said, to contingency, to relativism. It's subject to nothing can be sure about it. But the resurrection can't be that for the Christian by its very nature because it challenges his Christian faith if it should be that. Consequently,

the resurrection cannot have taken place in calendar time. To put it in calendar time is to say that Lesing's broad ugly ditch stands between us and the resurrection. And what eternal significance could there be to an event that happened sometime way back then? And so it's only in order to glorify and to magnify the resurrection that Bart says it must have taken place in an arena other than calendar time. It must have taken place in the arena of eternity. And so you have the uh the well-known distinction between history and gashikta not only in Bart

but in other neo orthodox theologians. Now, if you're reading along and you are carried away by the uh expressed motivation of Bart or more importantly those who haven't had your seminary training are reading along and they are convinced by this line of reasoning that it's just in order to guard the resurrection that they must say it didn't take place in history. You see how easily they are robbed of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The question is is that a biblical way to reason? Is that a Christian philosophy? Now, we're not Talking about is that

a is that a Christian doing philosophy. I have no interest in in in drawing any conclusions about the spiritual state of Carl Bart today. We're asking rather is this line of thought in conformity with the word of God. We study philosophy just so that we might be able to discern such errors as this that you can only have something of eternal significance if it takes place in the arena of eternity. And we'll be talking about transcendence and eminence and other philosophical issues that are related to this palemic of bart later. But I think that's a

good example of why the Christian studies philosophy for critical discernment to preserve knowledge and to guard the gospel. Now the second point was that we have to discern uh what philosophy is and I went on to tell you that philosophy is many things but primarily it is a critical and a constructive task. Critically, men want to gain clear thinking by analyzing arguments and examining the most fundamental presuppositions of thought. And they want to constructively, if you will, put together uh their philosophical presuppositions into a coherent unified overall world and life view. And that led us

thirdly to observe that there are then two at least two major kinds of philosophy. Two ways of doing philosophy. There's a two-fold approach to philosophy. Simply put, there's the Christian approach which tries to answer philosophical questions about what is reality, what is knowledge, what is the proper way to live. Tries to answer such philosophical questions humbly before God and obediently to his revelation. Whereas false philosophy, non-Christian philosophy, is an attempt to answer such questions autonomously with man and his intellect being a law to himself and hindering the truth in unrighteousness. And I think that's just

about the point that we ended the lecture last time. And I'm about ready to go on and talk about um to give you a critique of all non-Christian systems of philosophy and show why I hold as I do in my syllabus that the Bible correctly says that those who follow an unbelieving manner of thought are really doing destruction to knowledge do not love wisdom and truth but are in fact making knowledge impossible. Paul says, "Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of this age? Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" Philosophy, as

we said, is the love of wisdom. And that which the unbelieving world loves, God makes foolish. Their philosophical schemes come to nothing. Those which do not follow Christ do not have the treasures of wisdom and knowledge because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. And we'll try to show um in a more philosophical rather than um if you will biblical and pmical way how that is. But I'd like to give you some opportunity now to discuss our last lecture. There wasn't nearly enough time for that previously. questions do you have

thus far about why we study philosophy, what is philosophy, And then the twofold approach to philosophy? I have a question that kind of springboards from the reading which I think ties in with what we've been talking about and that was thinking of the the scientific method uh as it applies to chemistry and aspects like that. How do you see um the believing stance then affecting the scientific method? I began to wonder um my perception of it was that one needs to approach um with an open mind as I was taught in chemistry and all and

now now what do you how do you see that applying without presuppositions I guess is what I'm saying yeah the question of open-mindedness in the scientific method well I think the most obvious thing that almost any Christian naively reads the Bible Bible will have to say about that. Now granted, a lot of people um make efforts not to make not to allow this to have a bearing upon the scientific method, but in some primacy way at least the Bible says the Christian does not have the privilege of having an open mind about certain questions. We

have no privilege to have an open mind about whether there is or is not a God, much less whether or not the living and true God presented in the Bible is the God that we want to talk about. We have no privilege to question the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That isn't to say we don't offer evidence of that and all that, but the Christian by his very nature does not question the Resurrection or to the degree that he does, his sanctification um at least is slipping and perhaps even worse, it challenges the integrity of his

profession of faith. And so there are certain things on which we cannot have an open mind. Um but we can get a little more detailed too. The Bible doesn't allow us to have an open mind, it seems to me, about a behavioristic approach to man. Okay. Now, in the realm of chemistry, you say, "Well, there aren't really full-blown high-level conclusions of a chemical nature to be found in the Bible." I think that's probably true. However, most of what a chemist does uh in terms of the philosophical or underlying presuppositions of the method is very much

affected by the Bible. Let us assume that the chemist approaches his subject and the method of science, the scientific method saying anything is possible. By the way, that is a presupposition of the scientific method as it has been classically expressed from the enlightenment. Anything is possible. Is that true for a Christian? Is anything possible? Well, the philosophy that anything is possible is in effect a metaphysic of randomness. That is one's view of Ultimate reality is that everything is random. And since everything is random or if I I I hate using this expression because it is

so ambiguous in popular expression, but you will hear it from time to time. It's a metaphysic of chance. It's everything happens by chance. Now we know that there are chemical um interactions that we've come to expect habitually. Uh but as far as we know things may be completely different tomorrow or in 2 minutes. Uh you do one experiment uh you do you do an experiment in one way on Tuesday and you get the following um distillation and and outcome. On Thursday it may be completely different. Who knows? uh the scientist, the unbelieving scientist, if he's

true to his assumptions about the world, says nobody knows because he holds to a random philosophy of chance. He says anything can happen. Well, now if that's true, if anything can happen, then I would argue and indeed I have argued and it's getting prepared for publication in my book on the philosophy of religion that if the scientist can give us no reason to trust the uniformity of nature, the scientist can't know anything at all. He can't even know his past experiments. Think about that for a moment. If anything can happen, nobody knows for sure and

there's no uniformity to my experience, no guaranteed uniformity to my experience, then usually the PMIC goes like this. Well, it's true that in all probability the future will be like the past and we only know for certain what has happened in the past. Okay, So here we are in the present and the projection into the future is an appeal to the idea of probability. Very probably this will happen and the idea is that at least in the past we can be certain certain things have happened and let's ask ourselves about both of those alleged inferences.

The scientist says like an existentialist, I only know where I am right now. And I can tell you for sure what has happened in the past and very probably will happen in the future. And the reason he says that is because he has this metaphysical chance. Does it know about the uniformity of nature? Okay. What is probability? What is a probability judgment? Okay, you know that you have a large number of instances. Okay, some number of instances and in those known instances, we've seen the following reaction take place. Let's say 10 out of 13 times.

That establishes a statistical probability that it's going to happen. If we do it again, we're going to get the same result with a probability factor of 10 over 13. Okay, what does that assume? That assumes that the way things have gone in the past and the proportion that we see there is going to be the way things go in the future so that we will be able to expect the same kind of probability. At this point we have to chuckle a little bit because you see the question is how can we be sure the future

is going to be like the past? scientist who is an unbeliever says we can't be sure the future's going to be like the past. We can only say very probably it's going to be like the past. But you see a probability judgment is inherently by its very nature a claim that what the future is going to be like the past. See probability is just putting things down in terms of we don't know for sure about all the instances but whatever the ratio was in the past is what you can expect the ratio to be in

the future. That is it relies upon the very thing that is yet to be proven that the future will be like the past. And so as a matter of fact the unbelieving scientist who says we don't know for sure and anything can happen doesn't know anything probably. I mean that is really as David Hume um showed many years ago a philosophical copout. That's just substituting another word and and showing a form of humility. But philosophically, it's on no better footing than the claim of knowing for certain because both claims rely upon the assumed uniformity of

nature. Well, now how about this past certainty? That's right. We're not sure. Maybe the sun won't rise tomorrow. Maybe the chemical reactions won't be the same, but they they certainly were that way in the past. Oh, how do we know? Because I remember doing it on Tuesday. Mhm. And is your memory consistent? is what you're remembering now what you were experiencing then. Now, because common sense tells you that that's true and everybody follows it, you probably will have to talk a little bit to your milkman to show him just how uh sleazy an assumption that

is philosophically. I mean, I I don't you know, people who just live pragmatically and say, "Well, hey, it works. You know, I remember it. I can count on it in the future." You have to do a little probing and show them how this is a critical assumption that hasn't been proven. But for a philosopher, I mean, we we'd like to know now what underlies the assumption that what I am now thinking that's an experience to remember is an experience. I'm now having a mental image of what I did last night. Well, no, wait a minute.

Not so fast. It's true that you're now having a mental image. Is it a mental image of what you did last night? Well, by its very nature, I'm thinking of last night. And therefore, what I'm doing in this image must be what I did last night. No, no, not at all. It may very well be that what you're thinking about right now has no relationship to the past at all because we dream up things we did in the past sometimes, too. So, if you can't be sure the future's going to be like the past, you

can't trust the consistency of memory. Or how about if You read a document, okay, I pick up some scholarly work and it says, uh, Dr. So and so on a certain date did the following experiment and this is what the result was. We say, well, obviously it was that way in the past. We do the experiment, it's that way today. So we have this much to go on. Well, that assumes, of course, that the meaning of the words used by the author in the past is the same meaning of the words that you're taking now

in the present. But how do where do we get where do we get the assurance of this linguistic consistency? We have the question of memory, the question of meaning. Uh for all I know, the very person who's doing the experiment today is not the same person who did the experiment in the past. How do we know that you know there's such a thing as personal uniformity? Now, this is the kind of radical criticism that a lot of people get very uncomfortable with because it's the sort of thing that you don't have to worry about when

you're cooking dinner or putting the kids to bed or, you know, making out the bills. You just don't sit there going through all this sort of thing. But that isn't to say that they aren't real questions that have to be answered. What it is to say is that everybody knows very well the answer to those questions because they're made in the image of God. Because God constantly reveals himself and we're relying on it even when we're challenging the very truth of God. Dr. Van Hill puts it very well when he says, you know, a little

child couldn't slap his father's face if he wasn't already sitting on his father's lap. And the unbeliever could not slap the face of God by all these questions about whether this or that's the case if he wasn't already being sustained by God. And so the unbelieving philosopher doesn't know anything in the past for certain doesn't know anything in the future probably. Well now if that's true then it's just becomes a question of how how finely you want to divide up the timeline. Right? Okay, you don't know anything for sure. A day ago or an hour

ago or a minute ago, maybe a second ago. Well, you don't know anything for sure a second from now or an hour from now, so forth. One begins to say, "What do you know for sure?" I'm not even sure the man can answer the question because the answer to the question is going to take a couple of seconds, but he doesn't know anything for two seconds. So now this is the sort of apologetic which relies upon a form of skepticism that only the Christian can answer. The sort of apologetic which even untrained Christians are able

to use too. It doesn't require although it's nice to have and I and I don't despise at all the you know the philosophical training that I was given. It's nice to have it to flesh it out and to make it stand up against some of the people who were a little more clever and try to get around it. But the fact is everybody can understand that everybody can use it. Now as you approach the scientific method coming back now and honing in on that question all along you say well the Bible doesn't have any chemical

conclusions in there So what relevance the Bible have to this well it always has that relevance. Can anything happen? Is that the assumption the chemist is using? Now he's using the assumption that what things are going to be today like they were yesterday and tomorrow they'll be like they were today as to say he knows very well the promise of the no8 covenant the sea time and harvest are going to follow each other even as night and day because there is a loving God who keeps things uniform and so he's sitting in the very lap

of God even while he may be doing his experiments in hopes of proving that life can be created in the test tube or that men evolved or something like Yeah. Well, I did I scratch for you, Richie? Okay, that's a good question. Another question. Well, okay, let's get on to um looking at a few more instances like the one that I've just been going over showing why it's so difficult to do philosophy from a non Christian standpoint, for an unbelieving perspective. The first thing I'd like to point out, I said I was going to show

you certain dialectical tension in unbelieving thought. And the first one's going to be called the rationalism irrationalism tension. Every non-Christian philosophy can be categorized as a rationalistic approach to life or an irrationalistic Approach to life. That probably doesn't come as a surprise to anybody who's read Francis Schaefer or has done any thinking about the subject at all. But it may come as something of a surprise to point out that every non-Christian philosophy of life is both a rationalist and an irrationalist approach to life. And that's what we'd like to talk about here for a few

moments. Let's begin by looking at rationalism. Now here I am not talking about schools of philosophy. And so if I don't make that point very clear at the outset, you may be misled. I am not talking about what is called the rationalist school of epistemology. The school did not begin with Daycart but popular and undergraduate textbooks of philosophy usually will tell you Daycart is the father of rationalism and that he was but following certain strains of Plato but my point is not to say who belongs and doesn't belong who's the originator of a rationalist school.

I'm talking about a motif, not a school, not those who claim the title rationalist, but I'm talking about a a motif of thought, a manner of thinking, a mode of reasoning. Now the rationalist the strong point of the rationalist motif in all thought is that any philosophy any philosophy must assume that the universe is ultimately Rational in the sense now of being capable of rational description in language. Anybody who does philosophy must assume that the universe can be rationally described in language. If you stop and think about it, you can see that that's not really

a very big claim. It's a rather obvious one, isn't it? You wouldn't do philosophy if you didn't think you could describe the universe in language. That's just what philosophy is. So, anybody who attempts to do a philosophy is assuming that the universe is ultimately rational, at least in this trivial sense, that it's capable of rational description in language. For anything that is not rational in this sense can't be spoken of. And if it can't be spoken of, it can't be reasoned about. And if you can't reason about it, you can't even say it exists. All

right? Can't speak of it, can't reason about it, can't reason about it, can't even say it exists. Consequently, if people are talking about the universe, trying to answer any question of philosophy, they are assuming in some sense that reality is rational. And so everything that does exist must in at least this sense that I've been speaking of be rational. Everything that does exist is rational. Now for Christians, they acknowledge that the world is fully knowable to God and it's knowable to us as far as he reveals his knowledge to us. Okay. So the assumption that

reality is rational is um quite Natural for the Christian because we believe God knows everything. We believe that we can know things to the extent he reveals his knowledge to us either through scripture or through the created world either through special or general revelation. So the knowability of reality is not a problem for the Christian. How about the non-Christian? As trivial as it seems, why should the non-Christian assume that um the universe is describable in human language? Non-Christians must assume that the universe is somehow fully knowable to someone other than God, either to another God,

to all men, or at least to an elite group of thinkers. That is, the non-Christian has got to assume the universe is somehow fully knowable either to another God than the living and true God of the Bible, to all men in general or to some elite group, a subsection of all men. The elite thinkers here, strangely enough, usually turn out to be the philosophers. By the way, one thinks of the kind of uh mockery that is inappropriately used uh by certain pagans that if if horses, you know, had a god, they'd make god in the

image of a horse. And I that's very Inappropriate for reasons we can talk about later, but it's certainly applicable here. If horses were doing the philosophizing here, they might think the elite group are horses, but the philosophers at least think they know what the universe is and can describe it. Perhaps all men do, maybe another god. Now, what's the breakdown of non-Christian rationalism? The breakdown of non-Christian rationalism is that sooner or later sooner or later it's going to become evident that the proposed rational scheme offered by the non-Christian philosopher cannot account for everything. Remember we

said the universe must be fully rationally describable if you're going to philosophize at all. But after you read just for a little while, you get past the first few pages, it's pretty clear that non-Christian philosophers cannot account for everything by their rational scheme. Something appears which is mysterious, which resists exhaustive description. And that's true of all non-Christian patterns of thought. Okay, let's look first of all at religious non-Christian rationalism religious non-Christian rationalism. Most every non-Christian religion has it turns out not a personal God that is Followed or worshiped but an impersonal principle. Okay. The first

subsection of religious non-Christian rationalism then is going to be those non-Christian religions that don't have a personal God which is the majority of them it turns out historically but they have rather an impersonal principle. For instance, the principle of karma which is above all gods in the Hindu system of thought. Well, what's the problem with that? Well, if it's an impersonal principle, it can't be said to know anything because principles don't know. People, persons know. And so, there you have it. To philosophize it all, there must be someone who knows or can describe the universe

fully in language. The non-Christian follows a principle and the principle can't be said to know anything. And the non-Christian religious rationalist can't be said to know anything either. Well, that usually doesn't stop the unbeliever. He says, but there are non-Christian religions that do have personal gods. And so, we need to talk about that. Not just these impersonal unknowing principles. There are some that are personal. But it turns out if you'll study them that the non-Christian religions which have personal gods generally conceive of them as being finite and limited and indeed limited by their own ignorance.

Just read the interesting stories of Greek mythology and look at the limitations indeed the knowledge limitations the ignorance of the gods. But if the god the personal god spoken of is limited in some way and especially if he's limited as to knowledge then he can't be relied upon to know for sure. And so you begin to see how this rationalism motif breaks down, admitting some form of mysticism, some form of nobody knows for sure. Impersonal principles can't know anything and limited gods can't be relied upon. So then we thirdly come to those non-Christian religions which

though um they are non-Christian are nevertheless deeply influenced by the Bible. And here I'm thinking of Judaism, Islam, and the cults. Judaism, Islam, and the cults. Again, if you will study historically the works of Judaism, Islam, andor the cults, you will notice that some of these develop impersonal gods. It turns out Christian science for instance, non-Christian mysticism, Zen, others of these develop finite gods. Think of Mormonism and the multitude of materialistic gods. And so if they develop impersonal gods or finite gods, what do we have? We're right back here to the problems of A and

B. And what are you left with? Well, the Ones you're left with are the ones that you can reason with theologically because, as a matter of fact, they're Christian heresies. That is to say, they really um if they can answer the question about rationalism at all, they're doing so because they're relying upon the Bible. And that may be true of Islam, Judaism, and some forms of the cults. But to the degree that they do that, what are they doing? They're heretically following the Bible. That is, they're picking and choosing, distorting, and all that. And consequently,

the way you reason with them is on the premise of the Bible. Since they want to make their appeal to the Bible, then to the Bible, they must be driven. And when you do that, that's a theological argument. And we can go on with the philosophical discussion. My point is then that all non-Christian rationalism sooner or later becomes in some sense mysterious because there's something that exhausts that that resists exhausted description. There is not a rational scheme that accounts for everything. Well, over against religious non-Christian rationalism, we have to add now secular non-Christian rationalism or

secular schemes of thought that have this rational motif. And what's the problem with them? Well, first of all, the rational principle offered by secular philosophers cannot account for all the details. cannot Account for all the particulars of experience. And let me give you an example. Take one of the earliest philosophers, Thales. Thales says, "All is water." And here's his rational scheme. The universe, that which is real, must be subject to description in human speech. All is water. Anybody see any problem with that philosophy? Well, uh, after all, this doesn't seem very watery, does it? What

did he have to resort to? Well, it is water, even though it doesn't appear to be water. And one begins very early in philosophy to say, "These philosophers are strange characters. You mean to say the way things appear is not the way they are. But if the way things are is not the way they appear, then what do we have? We have a real big epistemological problem because how can you count on anything if reality and appearance are not the same? So all is water. Here's my rational principle. But can't account for all the details.

You say, "Well, yeah, but those were those ancient Greek less than sophisticated philosophers." The modern 20th century philosophers don't have that problem because they don't say all is everything. Oh, they don't. Huh? All is matter. Materialistic naturalism. Oh. Well, then why is it that we love our wives, discipline our children, convict criminals, use the principles of logic, believe in art and beauty, and think that there's such a thing as a mind, if all is naturalistic and materialistic. You see, the non-Christian philosopher keeps trying to come up with some general scheme for things, but his general

scheme always leaves some details out. When examined, the claim of absolute truth turns out to apply only to something purely formal, to the bare idea of truth. The rationalist, when he's pressed, will generally claim only an absolute knowledge that there is truth. We don't know what it is, but there must be absolute truth. Nobody knows for sure, but there must be. You see, it's just a purely formal claim. no content to it, no substance to it, just the formal claim that no that that there Is truth. That knowledge gives us no specific knowledge. And so

you see the breakdown of religious non-Christian rationalism, the breakdown of secular non-Christian rationalism. Well, how do the unbelievers try to remedy their problem? How can we get around this difficulty? Well, you can try to be a more consistent rationalist. Okay, you start with rationalism. There must be some god or some person or all people can describe the universe in rational speech. And by now we're running into problem saying that because the schemes we're offering just don't take account of everything. How should we remedy the problem? By being more consistently rationalistic. And how do you do

that? You say, "Whatever seems to escape my rational scheme simply does not exist." Driven to the wall, the non-Christian rationalist can choose to be thoroughly consistent. And I liken that to the man who arrives at the airport with his suitcase in hand. And here out of the suitcase are all of his clothes dragging. Okay, you see his suitcase has not been able to capture the load and now there are things that are trailing out of his suitcase. And as he tries to check in his bag at the airport, the person says, "But um, Mr. Jones,

don't you see that your suitcase hasn't got all of your packing in there? It's it's it's going out the edges and out the side." And so what does he do? He becomes very consistent with his principle of the suitcase. takes out his scissors and just cuts along the edges and says, "Whatever is not in my suitcase is not in my suitcase." Very consistent. Great answer to the problem, right? It's also the ancient story of Procrustus. You know, whoever didn't fit his bed, he had a way of handling that. the rack would stretch them to the

point if they weren't big enough and if they were too big then he just had a way of cutting off their feet. So everybody fits the bed of procrust and everybody it turns out on the consistent rationalist scheme everything's going to fit his scheme because if it doesn't fit his scheme just doesn't exist right says all is water you say Bailey's but when I hit the rock it doesn't feel like water he says then it is not the way it appears it couldn't be real you think it seems solid couldn't be because we know all

is water. Everything is materialistic. 20th century naturalist says, "But now one's love for his wife doesn't seem to be a material object." Well, doesn't it appear so, but it must be so because I'm going to be consistent with my rational scheme. And that is simply to say that there must be some naturalistic biological explanation of love. Okay, rather than be driven to counter example, the unbelieving philosopher says, "No, I'm just going to cut around the edges and whatever doesn't fit just isn't going to be called real. It's going to be called illusion." And so there's

the breakdown of non-Christian rationalism. One way to deal with it, become more consistent and just call everything else illusion. What's the problem with that? on the rational approach to life. Even illusions have to be given an account. How do you account for the fact that we're having illusions about love or illusions about the solidarity of rocks? You see a even that has to be accounted for if you're going to give a totally exhaustive description of the universe. If we simply deny the existence of what eludes the rational scheme, then it will turn out that the

scheme itself becomes trivial. The scheme becomes only a Knowledge of its own structure and contents. And in that sense, it's no help in understanding the world. You have the rational scheme swallowing up everything. Well, there's another approach though, and that's the approach that says instead of being consistently rationalistic, we're going to allow in a little irrationalism as well. Okay? So, you have consistent rationalism and then less consistent rationalism that wants to let in a little bit of irrationalism. But what happens if you let in a little bit of irrationalism? What happens when you put muddy

water in with clear water? You're going to get clear water back. Now there you have the many the diversity of the world swallowing up the rational scheme. Now you don't even know for sure if your rational scheme is right. Many of you have to say the rational scheme has to allow for something that's irrational that doesn't fit the scheme. Then you begin to wonder about the scheme itself. So you can either say my scheme is ultimately authoritative and I'm just going to cut everything away that doesn't fit. That makes the scheme trivial. Or you can

say no my scheme doesn't work. How can a rationalist admit that if he allows some irrationalism that he's lost the authority of his scheme? Seems like that the non-Christian loses the authority of his scheme one way or another, right? Damned if you do and damned if you don't is what it amounts to. Because if he holds consistently to his rational scheme, it becomes trivial, therefore without any authority. And if he doesn't hold to it, it doesn't have authority. Now, we started with a very easy premise, didn't we? And just by step by step by step

thinking about the implications of this, the unbelievers got a lot of problems. Notice how natural it was for the Christian say, "All of reality is exhaustively describable in language. God is omnicient. God shows us by revelation what we can know. No problem." But for the unbeliever, it's a great problem. Let's look then at irrationalism. We've been looking at rationalism these few minutes. Now let's talk about irrationalism. What's the advantage of an irrationalist approach, an irrationalist motif? Well, the strong point of it is that any philosophy must admit that the human mind is limited. That it's

finite. That it cannot serve it as its own ultimate standard of truth. The human mind is limited in some way. It's finite and therefore can't be an ultimate standard of truth. If you admit that then your thinking is going in the direction of again direction or motif of irrationalism. We're not talking about uh the irrationalism of existentialism or anything like that. We're just saying that that admits that not everything's quite so rational and not everything fits. Are Christians irrational in this sense? In this sense? Well, sure we are. We're the first to admit that our

minds are finite, undependable, and not the absolute standard of truth. Christians therefore acknowledge that the human mind must look outside itself, must look to God, must look to the word of God for an ultimate standard of truth and for ultimate truth itself. What are non-Christians do though? If they begin with the premise that the human mind is limited, finite, somehow undependable, not the absolute standard. Non-Christians are driven to say that truth, well, they they're either driven to deny that truth exists or they're driven to say that any truth that can be known cannot be known

with certainty. Okay? Either you can't know anything or you can't know anything for sure. What's the breakdown of non-Christian irrationalism? Begins with a good point. Human mind's limited concludes, well, there is no truth or nobody can know it for sure. And the breakdown of that is very simply that it's inconsistent with the non-Christian rationalist approach. The non-Christian approach is, well, we have to be able to give some kind of description to the world. That's what philosophy is. And then he says, but nobody can know anything. Then what's he got? Oil and water. On the one

hand, he's got to be able to describe the world and know something. On the other hand, nobody can know for sure. And so you have this internal contradiction. Moreover, the non-Christian is reduced to saying, "I know that I don't know." Which is an awkward position to be in. If you can't know anything, how can you know that you can't know anything? So, you have an internal contradiction if you approach this from the irrationalist standpoint. Well, how can we remedy the breakdown? Well, we can be more consistently irrationalistic, can't we? Sounds well. How can we remedy

the breakdown? Well, we can be more consistently irrationalistic, can't we? Sounds like a contradiction in terms of sorts, paradoxical. More consistent inconsistency. More consistently, I can pursue this irrational motif by denying that we even know the truth of irrationalism. Person can say, "Nobody knows for sure, but I'm not even sure of that. deny that you even know the truth of irrationalism. But if uh that's what you're reduced to, Then you must renounce any attempt to convince others that you're right. You haven't got much of an argument left if you've been reduced to that. Moreover, although

you can say this, I mean, you can utter the words, the question is, can you really live that way? Can you really live like nobody knows anything for sure and I don't even know that? Of course not. And I think this is the strong point of uh Francis Schaefer's apologetics. Short of the mental hospital, people can't live like irrationalists. Well, then of course there is um another approach of more consistent irrationalism. Rather than denying that you don't even deny that you know the truth of irrationalism, just renounce reason altogether. Just choose insanity, if you will.

What's the problem with that? Unbelievers don't like this when I tell them. But you know, even in the condition of insanity, the Bible says God forbids you. I mean, you're not going to run away from God by just renouncing reason and becoming insane. Because even in that condition, God's rational word can make a difference. Well, if you can't be consistently irrationalistic, then try less consistent irrationalisms. allow some mixture of rationalism now to reenter the scheme. But what happens if you add those if if you take that approach? Well, then you have all the problems that

we've already mentioned up here. Now, I hope you begin to get in at least some elementary way a sense for the dialectical tension of the unbeliever. You see, it looks like he begins with a rationalist approach to life. And the more he tries to be rationalistic about things, to have a a rational scheme that accounts for everything, he's driven more and more to irrationalism, to admit that his mind is finite, can't account for all the details, is ignorant, and is not an absolute stand of truth. But to the degree that he says that, and it's

consistent with his irrationalism, he's driven right back the opposite direction. He's driven to rationalism because if he isn't, then he's going to have to admit that he doesn't know anything. But then he's going to have to say that he knows that there isn't anything. But then if you say, "But how do you know that you don't know?" Then he's going to have to either give an account of it or become insane. And so he says, "Well, I do have a rational scheme." Oh, okay. Let's look at the rational scheme again. Oh, but well, we hold

it account for everything. Oh, but you can see back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's this constant problem of trying to deal with absolutes on the one hand and on the other hand trying to deal with his own definitive. How can a finite mind come up with an absolute truth? And so all non-Christian systems of thought are in one way or another combinations are on the move in the dialectic. Yeah. How does uh one admitting that uh whether you're taking a Christian perspective or a non-Christian perspective that there are presuppositions that all

of us have. How does one avoid getting accused of circular reasoning? Why would you worry about getting accused of that? Well, how does one uh argue? That's a that's a that's a big question. You want to narrow it a little bit? How does one argue about what? Well, were we to take any any one of these arguments, it wouldn't matter or even any specific point in these arguments, uh, a non-Christian can say that's based on your presupposition say about the Bible and then if you try to refute that with the Bible, they would be accused

of circular reasoning. Sure, you would. So, is a non-Christian free of that problem? No, they have their presuppositions also. Oh, so it all depends on which circle you want to be in then. Is that right? Non-Christian says, "Here's my standard of truth. Whatever truth is, it must be logical." Okay. My ultimate standard of truth. Truth is logical. And you say, "Oh, no, it's not. Truth is an onion shoot. That's what truth is." No. person says, "No, that isn't right because that's not logical." You say, "You're reasoning in a circle. You're applying the standard that we're

that we're supposed to be arguing about. You prove to me the truth is logical. Prove to me that truth is logical. How would you like it proved in the onion approach or the logical approach? What will you count as proof?" Well, if you allow something to be proved that is not logical, then you've renounced the standard and shown that it's not ultimately logical. But if you insist that whatever counts as truth must be logical, then you're reasoning in a circle. Because the very thing that's being challenged is what you're appealing to to prove your point.

Well, let's say that truth is not logical. Then you have the same problems. Well, what if you say anything that exists must be anything that is real must be sensible. You must be able to contact it with one of your five senses. Okay. Is the truth that whatever is real must be sensible. Sensible. Has anybody touched that recently? Misplaced it in your drawer at home. Maybe one of those things. No. You Can't sensibly touch that. And consequently, it must not be real. Must not be absolute must. You see, the non-Christian has got to appeal to

his standards ultimately in reason circle too. The answer to that problem, have you read through my syllabus yet all the way? Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm not sure where that takes you, but I deal with that problem for what you have is you have two circles of thought. By the way, the circular reasoning here we have to see right away is not the sophomoric fallacy of the logic books. Why do you believe A? Because of A. Why do you believe there's a God? Because there is a God. And why do you believe the Bible's true? Well,

because the Bible's true. I mean, that would just be saying A is true because of A. The circular reasoning we're talking about is how can you be sure of your ultimate standard? What happens is you have to apply the standard to all these problems. But of course, in applying the standard, you're always assuming the standard. But if your standard is able to encompass everything that has to be encompassed, then you see it's going to have some value. If it takes care of the diversity of one's experience and makes it intelligible, then that's fine. What you're

going to do then is compare different circles of thought. The Christian says to the non-Christian, look, let's just assume what you say about reality to be true, what you say about knowledge to be true, what you say about ethics to be true, and see what happens. Cuz you start reasoning with the man. You put yourself on his position and work it out. And what happens? Well, lo and behold, he can't Account for anything. That's this rational irrationalism thing that we've been going through today. Here he doesn't know anything at all. He he says, "Nobody knows

for sure, but I know you're wrong." Okay? He can't he can't give a consistent account of his world. And then the Christian says, "Well, now put yourself on my position. Assume for a minute the truth of the scripture. living and true God, the trinitarian God, the all powerful, sovereign, providential God, created the world, created you, created your mind, governs all things. You go on and on and on and pretty soon you see the Christian position accounts for knowledge and accounts for a knowledge of absence, accounts for ethics, and accounts for our lives and our experience

and makes it all intelligible. The non-Christian doesn't. I think that's the way you have to debate ultimate standards. Now, that's true whether we're in a religious classroom, by the way, or not. secular university. I teach the same thing. It's a transcendental approach to epistemology. You have to reason from the impossibility of the contrary when you're talking about ultimate standards. Here's what's going to happen. Somebody says, "This is my ultimate standard." When all said and done, that's rock bottom for me. That is it. No further. You say, "Prove your ultimate standard." Well, now what if he

proves his ultimate standard by appealing to something more ultimate than it? Well, that's not his ultimate standard, is it? But if he doesn't appeal to something more ultimate than it, then he doesn't prove his standard. He's using his standard. And that means in some sense he's reasoning in a circle. And I think the only alternative to that impass. Now, some people have been willing to accept it. Vickenstein said that it's just a matter of prejudice. Some people are trained to believe one thing, some people are trained to believe another. And there's when all said and

done, all you can do is yell heretic at each other. Okay, Dewey said the way out of that impass is pragmatism. You just better find out which solves the problems of your life, which helps you to integrate with your society or biological environment. And so you you can read about this in the foundations of Christian scholarship in my article on presuppositionalism, pragmatism and prejudice. The problem is that the only way out of the impass is to argue from the impossibility of the contrary. The Christian wants to say, "All right, I'm willing to well, let's let's

take all the time you want. I'll keep buying cups of coffee. Let's just keep talking. You tell me about your world and life view. Let's see what happens with it." Turns out it can't make sense of experience. Can't even make sense of what it's talking about. Can't make sense of the laws of logic, principles of science, art, beauty, Whatever you want to talk about. Just isn't able to do it. Then the Christian says, "Well, now look, one more cup of coffee before you leave. Let's talk about the way I see things. Put yourself in my

position for a minute." You want to show him the impossibility, the contrary. There's no other approach that will make sense of reasoning and science and civilization. So yeah, we reason in a circle, but I mean, everybody reasons in a circle in that sense. And that's no defect to a system of thought. As a matter of fact, it's the strongest way to prove your position to show that you can't prove anything without it. Dr. Van Tul says the proof for the existence of God is that one cannot prove anything without the existence of God. It's the

very foundation of proof. And I think that's the strongest form of theistic argumentation that's ever been offered. Not that Dr. Van Hill is the only one who's done it, but I mean that expression of it is very nice. That's what it amounts to. Does that satisfy you or would you like to proceed? You answered you answered my second question in that too. I was going to say if we're both if we're both admitting that we're using circular reasoning then is it a stalemate? And you answered that question also. That's right. I don't think we're reduced

to being in our mutual towers loathing each other. You know, you're in your world, I'm in mine, and you know, all we can do is just hate each other for it or scream at each other or browbe each other. No, we can say no. Let's reason about this. And as Paul says, the wisdom of the world will be reduced to foolishness. And that's very true because if you don't begin with the fear of the Lord, you can't really know anything. You can't account for it. That isn't to say unbelievers don't know things. It just is

to say that they know things because they already know God. They know themselves to be the creatures of God and accountable to him. They don't want to admit those things. They want to suppress it in unrighteousness as Paul says in Romans 1. But they do know it. And that's the only way that you can give an account of the knowledge they do have whether it be of lions or or mathematics or physics or history or religion. Well, my point is autonomous reasoning here leads to extremes. It leads to either extreme of rationalism or irrationalism are

running back and forth in tension between the poles. It's an unstable mixture of the two. Only God can tell us where our powers and limits begin and end, even if they are intellectual powers and limits. Only the Christian can successfully account for the rationalist motif. Everything is rationally describable. And the irrationalist motif, nevertheless, the human mind is not the ultimate standard of truth. Let me show you another tension that we can talk about. I think I can tell you very quickly before our time runs out. what I call the monism atomism tension in unbelieving systems

of thought. There are kind of two directions of thought that you'll find if you read through the history of philosophy that different uh different thinkers have Taken. one I call the monistic approach to philosophy. I'm being very very generalistic now. Okay? I'm not talking about monism as a as a school or atomism as a school strictly speaking. But the monistic approach to philosophy very generally is that the parts must be understood in terms of the whole. You want to explain something you must explain it in terms of a broader context. That would be the monistic

thrust of philosophy. Explain the parts in terms of the whole. Okay. An Axamander and Parmenities and Potinus and Ara and Spinosa and Hegel and on and on and on were all examples of this approach to philosophy. Explain the parts in terms of the whole. Would the Would this be the closest thing to the Christian? No. No. No. And neither is atomism. See, the whole problem is that by not taking the Christian approach, you're always going to be strewn, you see, on this tension between rationalism and irrationalism, monism and atomism. It's not as though, look, we're

closer to rationalism because we admit the finite fallen nature of our minds. So, we're not rationalists. Oh well then you must be irrationalist. Well by no means. See the Christian can't say am I closer to one or the other. Where did the tertum quit if you will and uh that's not right though because that that gives the appearance that we Have these schools of thought and we came along later and reconcile them. No it's just because we began with the truth of God and people have defected from it that they either go this way or

that way and can't ever reconcile their philosophies. But here you have the monist approach to philosophy. Hegel says you want to understand the war of 1812 to understand it in its context. You have to put it in the broader perspective of universal history. Okay. Well then how is that an explanation? When does the explanation end? If you have to explain the part in terms of the whole. Okay. This part is explained in terms of this broader context explained in terms of this broader context. explained on and on and on in terms of this broader context.

Then what is it that's finally self-explanatory? The whole the whole is only the entire universe is truly explanatory. Only the whole is self-explanatory and self-existent. Okay. So the modistic approach says that if you're going to explain anything ultimately you have to explain everything. If you're going to do know anything, Hegel said, you must know everything. To know anything, any detail of history is to know its place in universal history. Well, then you have a completely different approach to philosophy that I call the atomistic approach. What is it to explain something? It's not to get Bigger

and bigger and bigger context explaining a part in terms of a whole. It's just the opposite. It's to take something as a whole and break it down to its pieces. Break it down, analyze it, dissect it, chop it up. Instead of looking for the one huge context monistically to explain things, you break things down into all its discrete pieces all atomistic like that. Holes must be interpreted in terms of their parts. them. So here you have the attempt to explain monism is the attempt to explain parts in terms of holes. Atomism is the attempt to

take things as holes and explain them in terms of their parts. Reality has smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller parts until you have, if you will, one basic unit of being. I give you some examples of these people. Democrates, Epicurus, Lucriccius, Acham, Livvenets, the early Bertrren Russell, the early Vickenstein were all atomists. You explain things in terms of the parts of which they are uh that they constitute of which they are constituted. Excuse me. Yeah. Don't feel confused. In this monism, okay. Would not Christians be explained in terms of God? I mean, He being

the whole, is he the everything? He's everything. Yeah. The minute you follow that line, pretty soon you want to start going, "No, back this way." But when you start going that way, you're going to want to go, "No, back this way." No, you don't want to do any of that sort of thing. Believe me, this is this is the pits over here. You don't want to do any of this. Okay. I just don't want to get confused. That's okay. But I mean, so you get the point. No, this is what we're all glad we're saved

from. Okay, we praise the Lord. We haven't got these intellectual problems. We have other kinds, but not these. Let Let me just get this out here a second. We're going to have to break holes must be understood in terms of the parts. Okay. So, Bickkinstein says if you want to understand the meaning of a sentence is the early bitkinstein. You must understand the meaning of the discrete words in it. And to understand the meaning of the discrete words in it is to understand the reference of the words is to understand the materialistic reference of the

word which is to understand therefore the concrete grammar of the sentence and its reference. So what is the meaning of a sentence? Well, you had to break it down into its parts. And then at one point, one phase in his long and phase phase phase existence as a philosopher, Burjon Russell thought that there was, if you will, a universal grammar, not in the Sense of depth grammar. Now, if any of you have studied that issue, but the idea that a sentence is true if its syntax and its reference reflect what is true of the world

didn't pan out, as you can figure out, because words don't relate to each other like that, map relates to me. And so a word about the map and the professor is not going to have the same configuration as the map and the professor in the room. So it's very confused. But that's what happens when you try to explain holes in terms of parts. Reality is smaller and smaller parts. So you get a basic unit. But now look what happens. Whether you're a monus or an atomist just give me a second here. Whether you're a monist

or an atomist you're always going to have a tendency toward mysticism. Why will you always have a tendency toward mysticism? Because monism never gets you to an adequate universal principle. Any characterization that somebody offers of the whole is going to be a limitation of the whole. To characterize it is to limit it. And so reality will always be just one step beyond the characterization. Reality is always going to be larger than what you say about it. Reality is bigger than the particular designation you give it. But if you're an atomist, if you try to get

to the particulars, These can't generally characterize things. These can only characterize the properties of things. And so Adamus says, let's look at the properties or parts. But then you say, well, what's the property? What's the part? Well, then that has to be explained in terms of a more basic property or part. You can't finally speak of the ultimate element. You can't finally describe that ultimate atom of experience because it's going to be an indescribable simple, as Vickenstein put it. You're going to get to something that can't be broken down further. But if it can't be

broken down further, then you can't explain it, can you? Because what is explanation? It's breaking things down. But if you get to the thing that can't be broken down any further, then you can't explain it. But if you can't explain it, then you have to be rather mystical about it. And by the way, some 20th century philosophers have been about their ultimate simples of life. Very mystical. They can't be described, can't be accounted for. So you see the articulation of the basic concept is impossible whether you're a monist or an atomist. The basic concept is

too big for description in monism. And it's so small and indescribable for atomism. But either way whether you're a monist or an atomist you can't describe your basic explanatory context or part. And In that sense everybody tends toward mysticism. So here you have two forms of rationalist philosophy monism and atomism. Everybody start being rationalistic whether it begins out mystical. And on that note I'll leave you for this afternoon. Thank you. I'll answer any questions of those of you who have them but you're dismissed. I wonder if we can ask Dr. Kasola to begin us with

prayer today. Our father, we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, that matchless name by which we must be saved. Thank you for this course and for this hour together. Be with us, Lord, and help us to think through the implications of all of these things for the glory of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Amen. Amen. Okay. If you're going to do philosophy at all, you must have something of a rationalistic motif. to your thinking. You're going to try to give some kind of adequate description of the world, some kind of a analysis

of what there is. Now, if you're an unbeliever, this attempt to give a description in human language of the world, some way to describe the world, is going to take one or one of two courses. You might go in the direction of monism. Now monism is um is that motif of explanation that does what anybody That's right we take okay we we want to explain things we begin like with every house on this block and explain it in terms of the block and then the block in terms of the community community in terms of the

state on and on and on until explanation keeps working outward and outward broader and broader context Now what happens if uh if you take this approach eventually you can't explain things why anybody remember from last class time why why can't you eventually explain everything then you end up at an end point with a mystical definition of something that you really can't describe that you can't That's right it's it's indescribable and for what decent. You're trying to explain the whole universe. Okay. And then every time every every time every time you give an explanation of the

universe, a description, then you expand it a little further and you have to explain. But the description is going to be less than the whole is the point, right? Every description is going to be smaller than the whole of which it's trying to describe. It's always explaining the universe under this heading or under that heading or under this category. There's always a broader category. So if you try to explain parts in terms of holes, the whole gets too big if you will. Every human description is Something of a of a of a way of dividing

up the world. And so human description eventually can't give that which is all of the world. So modism in this sense then finally leads to mysticism. One does not describe the whole. one just has some kind of mystical, if you will, encounter or intuitive grasp of the whole. So, isn't it interesting? Here's this rationalistic motif through the monist way of explaining things ends up in mysticism, which is of course a form of irrationalism. irrationalistic motif admits that the human mind is finite, that it's limited, that it can't be the absolute standard of truth. Okay. Well,

if you don't take the rationalistic motif of monism, then you're going to take the approach of atomism. Atomism is what? Smaller and smaller. Smaller and smaller. Let's let's say it with a little more precision. You're right. small and smaller instead of parts in terms of holes in terms of That's right. holes in terms of parts. Okay. Now, why is it that atomism finally can't explain everything? Standard of preference is does not explain itself. That's right. You keep dividing dividing till you get an undividable, if you will, an atom, an uncutable unit. But if explanation is

what? Dividing things up. If you get to something that can't be divided up, in the nature of the case, it can't be explained. You can't divide any further. But that's what explanation calls for. Consequently, to know the atom of reality or the atom of truth, that smallest unit by which everything else is accounted for, you have to be mystical about it. You can't explain it analytically by cutting it up further because that is just precisely what that smallest unit is. uncutable, optimistic. And so, atomism leads to mysticism, the irrationalistic view that we can't explain everything.

Our minds are limited and not the absolute standard of truth. Now, I have found at least in my philosophical work, this little diagram on the board extremely helpful because you may not know a lot about the philosophical background of the person to whom you're speaking, but I can guarantee you they're going to fall in the chart somewhere. And as soon as you get them onto this chart, then notice how you can get the old cycle going. So you want to be rationalistic about this. You want a philosophical account of reality. Well, okay, you're either going

to try to give the broadest principle to explain things. All is water. Or you're going to say everything has to be divided up into its parts. Water is H2O, which is hydrogen and oxygen and they are and they are. And finally, you get where. So you're going to get back to this rationalistic motif. Well, we don't know everything and our minds are not an absolute standard of truth. But now notice that rationalism and irrationalism are like mixing oil and water. And so you're going to get the unbeliever doing this little dialectical dance that I told

you about the other day, running from pole to pole. He's trying to try to bring these two together. It's always going to be unsatisfactory. Now, let me give you another way of looking at the situation. Sure. I wanted to ask you if the four that you gave us last week or last Wednesday rather seem to fall generally into the problem of the universals and the particulars and they I think that's what you're proving here just as a as a way of just kind of describing it all of kind of putting it all together. uh if

they don't have a uh you know if there if there's just a secular philosopher who says it's all water that's his universal. If he's irrational about it and says that it can't be uh understood that's his universal or it's atomistic whatever but it's one or the other. That's right. Okay. I think it'll be convenient now to diagram this in terms of what is the traditional square of opposition and logic. Okay. So if you get nothing else out of this course, you're going to get a few diagrams anyway. That's valuable in theology, the diagrams. Okay. Okay.

Now, on this particular diagram, we're going to be contrasting the Christian position over against the non-Christian position. Now, the Christian position will be represented by this left hand line and the non-Christian position by the right hand line. Okay? So, that's the non-Christian position. That's the Christian position. Now the upper line is going to be the view of rational u of transcendence or if you will irrationalism. The bottom line is going to represent the view of imminence or if you will rationalism. Okay. So now you can put all this together. This corner here is going to

portray the Christian view of transcendence. Down here, the Christian view of eminence. Over here, the non-Christian view of transcendence or irrationality. The non-Christian view of rationality or eminence. Everybody with me so far? It's just a matter of identifying the map. Right? Now, you know how it's going to work. Okay. You know the non-Christian is always saying that whatever the absolute principle is it is beyond comprehension. Adamistically it can't be divided up further. You can only know it in a mystical way or if you will monistically it is so large that escapes rational description in human

language. There's always a sense in which the absolute is um beyond knowledge. Now the Christian view of transcendence, the Christian approach to the notion of irrationality is that um God and his word are absolute. ute are, if you will, Lord over creation, Lord over creation. And so we grant the transcendence of God. He is Lord. He is creator of this world. He's not part of this world. His word is absolute. It's not subject to the contingencies and the vicissitudes of time and human opinion and relativism. Now the non-Christian says about eminence or rationality nevertheless that

his mind Is the standard of truth. And the Christian says that God's word is the standard of truth. Okay, you get the general gist of these four corners. Yeah, I'll say it different ways. There's no this is not a formula sort of thing that we can say it in other words, but this will get the idea. But I want to show you now what kind of contrast we have going here between the Christian and the non-Christian view. Notice the Christian is an irrationalist in a sense. He admits that his mind is not the standard of

truth. He says that there are things beyond me. I accept mystery. I've got to bow to the all-encompassing mind of God. And so he says God's word is transcendent. God is beyond me. I submit to him as a servant to a Lord. On the other hand, the Christian says just because God is Lord, he can come right into our lives, just because God is sovereign, just because God is all powerful, just because he's the creator and the controller of all things, God can in fact come right into created history, right into the realm of nature

and show himself clearly. He comes right into our lives in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. He sends his son right into our history. He sends his spirit right into our hearts. And there's no ambiguity about this. There's no equivocation about this. There's no lack of absolute quality of it. Just because he's the Lord, he can give us a word that is a standard of truth. The unbeliever says that the absolute is beyond knowledge. You know that mystical jump. There's his irrationalism. And yet on the other hand, the unbeliever has to say that

nevertheless, his mind will be the standard of truth. You notice here you don't have something that's harmonious. The Christian view of God's transcendence is precisely what allows for the Christian view of God's imminence. It's just because he's transcendent that he can become imminent. And that's not dialectical thought. That's not paradox. That's just the way the Bible presents it. God is so powerful. He the reason he's so powerful is because he's beyond everything. He's not limited by the creation or by history or by time. And just for that reason, he can come right into creation, history,

time, our lives and show himself clearly. So those two are harmonious. But for the unbeliever, there's always this back and forth, this dialectical tension. These positions are pulling against each other. His thought is always pulling itself apart. On the one hand, he wants to be rationalistic. My mind and my mind only is going to be the standard. And on the other hand, he wants to say, but I realize my mind makes mistakes and I can't know everything and so it's beyond me. I realize that the ultimate principle of explanation, whether it's a universal or a

particular, is beyond explanation. The ultimate explanation is beyond explanation. So he has this contradictory approach to his thinking and to his philosophy and his life that's always working that way. Okay. So the first thing, let me go back. I'm going to recapitulate. First, I put the square up on the board and I gave you the road map to what it was going to symbolize. And then I described the four different attitudes that you have here. Christian and non-Christian views of transcendence, Christian and non-Christian views of eminence. And as after we've gotten that second step, filling

in the uh the different corners, notice that the Christian view of transcendence and eminence is harmonious. The two supplement each other, work together. The non-Christian view is always pulling against each other is what I meant by a dialectical tension. It's in tension as I said after class an ideological tension that's always yes and no. Can you count on your mind? Well, yes but no. But you see that's a yes and no that don't work together. Here I can say do I count on my mind? Yes to the degree it reflects the thoughts of God. No

to the degree that I'm relying upon myself. So Christian view harmonious non-Christian view dialectical tension. And now I'm going to add one more step to our diagramming here. Notice that there is an absolute diametrical contradiction between the corners, the outside corners. Now, okay, upper left and lower right, upper right and lower left. Okay, the Christian, the non-Christian says the absolute is beyond knowledge. Nobody knows for sure. Nobody knows for sure. The Christian says, "No, we do know for sure because the absolutes come right into our lives." Okay. The non-Christian view of transcendence is diametrically contradictory

to the Christian view of eminence. Or if you will, I'll put it Another way. The non-Christian view of irrationalism is a diametric opposite of the Christian view of rationalism. Christian says we can know for sure. There's an absolute inherent infallible word right here that tells us. Non-Christians always going to say nobody can know for sure because the absolutees beyond knowledge. And then it works the other way too. And I just this is the second step here. These two corners are diametrically opposed. The Christian says God and his word the standard the absolute is beyond our

mental abilities. God is the Lord. The standard is this transcendent person. Whereas the the non-Christian is always going to say the standard is going to be his mind. We say that the standard is transcendent. The absolute is transcendent. The non-Christian is always going to say the standard is in some sense eminent in his own mind or something having to do with history. And so you have the harmony of the Christian view of rationalism and irrationalism, the dialectical tension of the non-Christian view of rationalism and irrationalism. And then I've added to that, it will turn out

that just precisely when we're talking about rationalism, the non-Christian's going to want to talk about irrationalism. Just about the time you say God's word is the standard. God's come right into our lives. Here it is. Here's this infallible revelation. And the unbeliever is going to say, "Nobody knows for sure. The absolute is beyond us." He's going to be very mystical. And then when you're mystical in the sense of being irrational in the sense of admitting your finitude and your Dependence upon something that's beyond you, when you're admitting your limitations, it's right at that time, he's

going to get very rationalistic and say, "No, you see, if it's going to be believed, you got to show it to me, prove it to me, and that sort of thing." So you see then the relationship of unbelieving thought and believing thought in very broad strokes. what I've been trying to get at in the last hour and then today. Yeah. I I believe in the transcendent and imminence of God, but at the same time I I'm somehow you're explaining that I I didn't I didn't understand how you explained. Okay. The aspect of God's transcendence coming

in. When we say that God is transcendent, to put it in a word, we mean he's Lord. He's Lord. And as Lord, that means he is absolutely in control of all things and he's beyond challenge. He's beyond finitude. He's beyond limitation. To say he's Lord, you say he transcends all of the limits we know. He's beyond us in that sense. You see, part of the problem is many times we think of transcendence and eminence in spatial terms. God is way out there beyond the universe and yet God is right here in our lives. Well, the

Bible never portrays transcendence and spatial verbs that way. Metaphorically, it might. He's a God very near to us, to be sure. But his transcendence is always a matter of his power and authority. God is not part of creation. Nothing in creation captures God. Nothing in creation limits God. Nothing in creation is an obstacle for God. God is Lord. Okay? And in that sense, you see, he transcends all of our boundaries and limits. And yet, just because he's transcendent, he is able to come into history, come into our lives, be very near to us. It's just

his all powerful lordship that makes it possible for him to have a personal relationship to us that is not equivocal. When God comes into history, he doesn't lose his absolute character. because nothing in history can bind him or limit him or be an obstacle to him. And that's very helpful by the way in this inherency controversy that has been going on for a few years in the evangelical church. There's a view abroad which says that if God is transcended, if he uses human agents, then something is is lost in the process of revealing his word

to finite men. So as they express it in their words, there's some authority and some accuracy lost in the process. Well, that isn't view of God's lordship you find in the Old and New Testaments. I mean, after all, God's in control of all things. He sovereignly decrees everything. If if this person's personality has been determined by the hand of God and by the leading of God and by the providential government of God, then obviously he can use this person to say exactly what he wants. So, the very fact that God is Sovereign Lord overall makes

it possible for him to come right into our lives. And so there is no problem with inherency in human language and all that because we have a view of God's lordship or his transcendence. Yeah. You made a statement that in a sense the Christian position is irrational. Yeah. In a sense we are we have a an irrationalist aspect. We depend upon the mind of God. We say we're not self-sufficient. My mind is not the ultimate standard. And so that's irrationalistic in the sense that we're not holding everything all authority all self-sufficiency to ourselves. And on

the other hand, we're rationalistic. We say we can know things for sure. Now, I don't know what your own personal convictions are on this matter, but but my own credle uh position, the Westminster Confession of Faith says that the Christian can not that it's essential to salvation or that all do, but nevertheless, Christian can have an infallible assurance of his salvation. I think that's true. I think you can have I think many of us lack it because of the lifestyle that we live and our sin or and other reasons. But nevertheless, it is possible to

have an infallible assurance which means one you can know what the Bible tells you and promises you infallibly and secondly you Can know how you stand with relationship to that promise. Um the Bible comes to give us knowledge over and over and over again. You look at um you look at Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost. Let the house of Israel know with assurance. The Greek word there means certainly, without doubt, there can be no question, but that God has raised up his son to be Lord in Christ. Let the house of Israel know

this. Um John in his first epistle says, "I write these things to you that you might know that you have eternal life." And so the Bible says that we can know things. We can be very rational about it. No doubt about it. There is a God. He has the following character. He has sent his son, etc., etc. Okay. So, we're rationalistic. We're irrationalistic in a sense that we say it's not because of my knowledge or wisdom. It's because God has revealed it. I depend upon something beyond me. But on the other hand, what I do

know, I know for sure. The unbeliever says, "Well, I'm very rationalistic. My mind's the standard of truth." And then he has to be irrationalistic because his mind will handle the task. So he finally says, "Well, nobody knows for sure." And so you see, it's just this reversal that I'm getting at. It's just these different views of transcendence and eminence that give the um rational irrational combination in Christianity a completely different flavor and direction than the rational irrationalism of non-Christian philosophy. Well, this is your opportunity to ask some questions before I go on to another uh

major thought. Yeah. The problem involved in their starting points might be considered irrational rationality or it can work the other way too and that way they can cross. That's right. They're having a head-on collision. It's another way of putting it. And the dialectical tension within the non-Christian is that of did you call the tension between both of this dialectical? No. No. His is a dialectical tension because there's a there's an internal ripping apart internally. And then between Christianity and non-Christianity there is you see no reconciliation. That's a head-on collision. That's not tension. That's just antithesis.

And so here you see the antithesis, the square of opposition if you will. And here you see the internal dialectical tension. Okay. I'm going to try to add one more thought. I think I ask you after class privately to define the two senses of dialectical. I think it would help the class if you would do that once again. Dialectical tensions. You mean in a generic sense. What is that and how does that differ from neo orthodoxy in the sense in which they're using it? the the title of this heading that we're doing. Yeah. Well, it

doesn't differ from neo orthodoxy because what I'm saying is the unbeliever has to say one thing and contradict himself. He says yes and no. Is your mind the absolute standard? Well, yes. It is. Anything that's going to be believed is going to be believed because you prove it to me. Well, is your mind able to comprehend everything? Well, no. So, is it the absolute standard? Well, no. So, is it the absolute standard? Well, yes. But no. Well, but then of course it is. But it's not. But I mean, I that's dialectical tension. It's the yes

and no philosophically of unbelieving thought. Not. Now, on the other hand, I I don't want to make this seem like it's just duck soup either. You know that when you go to talk to an unbeliever, you say, "Now, I know that you're a rationalist and an irrationalist, right? Who's going to say, "That's right. Oh, shame. Well, shame." Well, no. They don't think it's that way. They think they've got a good thing going. And part of your work as an apologist in defending the faith and evangelizing these people is to get them to see that they've

got more problems than they're recognizing. So I mean I'm not trying to talk about the way people will portray themselves. I'm talking about the way things really are. And but dialectical means saying yes and no. It's a tension that is of that sort contradictory tension. It's tension dialogue. It's yes and no. Dialectical is dialogue. Now that's the generic sense. The specific sense of neo orthodoxy is yes and no in the same sense at the same time with respect to what? Same question, same issue. Okay, other questions. Okay, now number five in your outline, I think

it should be five. We've talked about the dialectical tension and unbelieving thought is I want to point out the ultimacy of world views. The ultimacy of world views. Now what I'm getting at when I say that world views are ultimate is that a person has a metaphysical view A person has an epistemological view and the two work together. One does not first decide on his epistemology and then from the standpoint of his epistemology decide upon his metaphysic. That is one does not first come to a view of knowledge and then given his view of knowledge

decide what really is. Okay, that is called philosophical methodism. Has nothing to do with John Wesley. Okay, philosophical methodism is one first chooses a method of knowing or a theory of truth or a standard of truth. One first chooses a view of knowledge and then from that view of knowledge decides what really exists. From his Epistemology he moves to his metaphysic. Now on the other hand there are people who think that philosophers start with their metaphysic and from what they know to be real decide upon their theory of knowledge. That's called philosophical dogmatism. Okay. One

begins with his view of reality and then he forces a view of knowledge in conformity to his view of reality. And what I'd like to do here in our our remaining moments is um point out how impossible both those views are. How one cannot be a philosophical methodist and one cannot be a philosophical dogmatist. One must rather hold that what is ultimate is a worldview that contains both a metaphysic and an epistemology. If you will, people come to their view philosophically in one stroke. They don't first get an epistemology and then a metaphysic or first

a metaphysic and then an epistemology. They get a combination. These two are on an axis with one another. And I'll try to use a homespun analogy to to get this point across. Let's say that you're trying to build the world's best apple sorting machine. Okay? You want to sort out good apples from bad apples. That's a method, if you will. That's a standard for apples. You want you want a machine that's going to apply a standard for apples. That will be like an epistemology. In epistemology, we say, what is the Standard of truth? What is

our theory of knowledge? And the reason we want to do that is because we want to be able to decide what we do know and what we don't know. Okay, here are a lot of claims that people make. And those are like apples, if you will. Okay. Now, some of the claims are going to be true and knowledgeable claims and other claims are going to be false ignorant claims. Now, how do you know which one of which of these claims are the knowledgeable ones? Well, in order to answer that question, people have devised theories of

knowledge. Okay? So, an empiricist says we know what is true on the basis of what we can sense. If you can see it with your eyes, feel it with your hands, hear it with your ears, that sort of thing. That's how you know. Rationalists say, "Well, if it makes sense, if it if it harmonizes with everything else we know, if it's consistent, if it's true to our intuitive concepts, then we know the claim is is true and knowledgeable. These are different epistemologies, different theories of truth. One empiricistic, the other rationalistic." Now, now I'm using rationalistic

in the school sense, not in the motif sense that I have been. So, I don't want to mislead you. Now, My point is you got to here are all these conflicting claims. You got to have some way of sorting them out. And the sorting process is epistemological. And I've likened that to apples. You have good apples and you have bad apples. And you're trying to find a machine that's going to is going to sort out the apples, right? Okay. And so you advertise in the paper and you say, "Now I whoever will who whoever will

make an apple sorting machine is going to do the job so that I don't have to worry about eating apples with worms in them, then I'm going to pay them $10,000." And you have to have to produce your machine by Saturday, whatever whatever on whatever month and whatever year it is. Now, come that day, lo and behold, 10 people show up at your place and they have 10 different apple sorting machines. Some guy comes in and he says, "Now just watch how this machine sorts the apples." Okay? And you watch it and lo and behold,

some apples go over in the bad pile, some go over in the good pile. The guy says, "It's done. Sorted your apples." The other person says, "Well, wait a minute. my machine will do a much better job than that. So, you set up his machine and it sorts out apples this way and that way. And the third guy says, "No, mine's even better than that." And you go through the whole shmear and you have 10 different machines doing 10 different ways of sorting the apples. What's the problem? No criteria. You got to choose which machine

is doing the right job. Now, what are you going to do to test the machine? Look at the apples. You're going to look at the apples. What is that presuppose that you already know what a good apple is? All right. If you have a machine that's going to sort the apples, you can only test the legitimacy of the machine, the accuracy of the machine if you first know a good apple from a bad apple. What if we had some native from the South Sea island that had never seen an apple? And we ask him to

choose. Now, which of these machines do you think is best? Bongo bongo. And what happens? Well, he has no way of knowing. He couldn't begin to answer that question because he doesn't know anything about apples. And so lo and behold, in order to sort out claims, one has first got to know some true ones, doesn't he? You have to know what a true claim looks like. You have to know what knowledge is before you can get a machinery by which to distinguish knowledgeable claims from ignorant claims, true from false ones. So what that shows is

if you try to have an epistemology, this scoring machine for claims, you're going to have to know something about reality first so that as everybody proposes a claim to you, you can have some test standards. You know, you can throw some good apples in and some bad apples in and see what happens. Okay? So somebody says, "We only know things on the basis of our senses." And you say, "Well, I know this. I know that my wife loves me." Now, can that be proven according to the senses? Well, if it can't, then there's something wrong

with this epistemology. There's something wrong because I know this much about reality and your machine won't accommodate it. Or on the other hand, I know that something is false and yet your machine makes it appear to be true. If we apply your standards, it comes out looking true. My whole point is then you cannot have an epistemology without firsthand a metaphysic. You got to have you have to know something about reality, something about the world, about way things are before something about being if you will and existence before you can test the conflicting epistemological schools

that are available. So somebody says, well then you what you're saying is you should be a dogmatist, right? You should first have your metaphysic and then you should go to your epistemology. No, no, because that's just as impossible. Just as impossible. Because what if somebody says, "Well, the world is green cheese." Somebody else says, "No, the world is water." Somebody else says, "No, the world is matter and spirit." And on and on and on and on with all the different metaphysical views. What's the natural question? How do you know? How do you know? I mean,

people don't come with their, you know, you just don't wake up some morning and say, "Oh, lo and behold, it hit me. The world's green cheese." Or somebody is just kind of having lunch one day and all of a sudden says, "Hey, I'm going to be a materialist." No, people come to their metaphysical views not just kind of like it falls out of the sky or just boom, it hits them. They come to their metaphysical views by applying an epistemology. Okay? metaphysical view is of any good unless one wants to claim that his view is

true. Consequently, you can't just have apples. You got to have sorted apples and they're going to be any good at all. So, which comes first, the apple sorter or the apple. Well, in this world of ours, neither does. You got to start first of all with a knowledge of how you know as well as what you know. Now, that isn't to say we have a full-blown view of knowledge. You know, I can tell you how many ants there are in Ethiopia right now, but at the most fundamental level, well, I what I'm telling you is,

you know, the whole menu isn't given in one stroke here. Um, but you do start out with the most fundamental principles of Knowledge and reality as being harmonious with each other. You start out with a worldview. You don't start out with a metaphysic and then develop an epistemology. And you don't start out with an epistemology and then develop a metaphysic. You start out with a metaphysic and epistemology. I'd like to uh illustrate that a little bit from the history of philosophy here. And um I think time will allow a couple of illustrations anyway. Yes. Um

trying to get a handle on metaphysical here. You distinguished how you know from what you know. what you know is a is a fairly general definition of metaphysical as opposed to how you know um what you know about the world about reality and being in the case of the apples what was the metaphysical what was the metaphysical the knowledge of a good apple you know that this world is you know that these apples here are good and these over here are bad and that is like a metaphysician saying I know spirits exist but that material

objects don't okay and the epistemology in the apples was what I the the way I know is because it went through this sorting machine and came out over here. This machine proved this apple to be good and that apple to be bad. Okay. I'm going to compare the views of um of a um realist and a nominalist here. Now you've all from church history studied a little bit that controversy. realism and nominalism. Right. I'm looking for the nodding heads. I'm not getting it. No hands on this altar call. Okay. All right. Realism, the view that

abstracts universals exist. What's a universal? It's a general truth or a general concept. A general truth might be um water freezes at uh 32°. That's a general truth. We're not talking about this glass of water or that bowl of water or this aquarium of water. We're talking about water in general, okay? Water freezes at 32° or a universal might be an abstract concept. Man, okay, I'm not talking about this man or that man or that man. I'm talking about man in general. Okay, that's a universal. It's abstract because it's not particular. It is um well,

here you know what abstract means, right? Abstract. What does stra mean? How about in subtract? When you subtract, you're doing what? Taking it out. Usually dropping it from under, if you will. Just taking it away from. Okay. Abstract. What does AB mean? Pull out. To pull out of, right? To abstract something is to pull it away from its concrete particular. Okay. Now, if I'm looking at a concrete particular man, I may be looking at this man or this man or this man or this man. But if I talk about abstract man, I've got to take

I've got to pull out from all of these particular individuals what they have in common. That's abstract and universal. It's general. Let me put some more words up here to help you. General, common. Okay. Abstract means that it is not something you're going to run into in your experience. It's not a particular. It's abstracted. Now, there is a view of philosophy held um by men as famous as Plato or Dart and Rodri Chisum today that's called realism that says there are such things as abstract universals. Abstract objects exist. There is such a thing as duckness.

Not just a way of talking. There actually is duckness. There are ducks and then there's the concept of the duck. And the concept of duck exists as much as the ducks. Okay. Now before we get too humorous about this, I have to think there's something to be said for that philosophy. Okay. Okay. But now Nominalism on the other hand says nah that's really quite silly. Abstract universals don't exist. They're only names. Nominalism. They're only nomina names. Okay. So we speak of man but the only thing that exists is men. For all the grammatical roughness of

that that gets the point. We speak of man but the only thing that exists is man. So it's true that there is this man and this man and this man and it's not true that there is man or mankind or humanity in that sense. They're just men just particulars. So instead of abstract you have um concrete particulars not universals just particulars and and every universal word is nothing but a word it's only a summary if you will it's only a convenient way of speaking okay abstract universals exist realism only concrete particulars exist nominalism Yes sir.

Uh realism does not deny the existence of the particulars. No the case. No no but it adds to that universals as well. Particulars exist and universals. The nominal says only particulars exist. How does the nominal handle things like justice? Things like what? Justice. Justice is but a summary word for all of the actions that are taking place in the courtroom. The only that exists are the particular decisions and justice is but a summary word for those decisions. I think it's a rather implausible theory question myself. Um yeah, I like to talk about these things. If

I get off on it for just a minute, let's watch what happens. Does cowess exist? Cowness? Let's say you're anomalous. Nah, cow is but a name. That's all. Okay. Well, only particular cows exist then. Right. Right. So, we look out in the field and there we find Betsy. Okay. And buttons. Elsie. Oh, okay. And uh and Elsie incarnation. I wanted to change my illustration to milk companies or something. Contented. Contented. Okay. Contented is out there. But we won't go any further. Okay. Here we have four cows, right? Betsy, buttons, Elsie, and Contented. Somebody says, "Um,

but what are those? What is Betsy and what is buttons?" Somebody says, "Well, they're particular cows." H, this one's a cow. Yeah, those are nominals. And what's that one? Oh, that one's a cow. Okay. Particular. And that that owns a particular cow. Okay. And this one's a cow. You say, "Oh, that's what they have in common. They all have the word cow used of them." That's right. Just the name. All right. Now, put on your thinking caps and be very analytical. How many words do I have up there on the board on the extreme right

column? Four. One. No, four. Or which is it? One or four? Three. How many words are there up here? If if the if the nominalist says that there is one word up here, what does he grant? That there is a universal, the word cow. But we thought abstract universals didn't exist. What he wants to say is there's a chalk mark here, a chalk mark here, a chalk mark here, chalk mark here. He can't say they're the same word. To say they're the same word is to say that there's a universal the word cow. You see

how implausible the theory of nominalism is because he has to say these are the same word. They don't even look the same. My handwriting is terrible. But even if they look the same, what would it mean to look the same? What is sameness of appearance? unless there's a universal by which you identify four things as being similar. And so you see the nominalist transfers the question to the uh oneness and mininess of words away from the oneness and mininess in the world. But he doesn't escape the problem. What's the problem with realism? Well, of course,

I think you all feel some there's something wrong with the idea of if I go along this road here and kick every chair, you know, I kick chair one and kick chair two, kick chair three and kick chair four and now whamo, I kick chairness. Okay, Plato is arguing with David Hume. Okay, great moments of the past. Okay, you can you can kind of reconstruct this thing in your mind. And here's Plato and and how are they going to argue with each other? Okay, David Hume brings forth his argument for the fact that only concrete

particulars exist. Now Plato is going to say your nominalistic epistemology is wrong. He says you're arguing on the basis that general terms are only names and that's all. They don't denote anything in reality And that nominalistic epistemology is wrong. Plato's going to say because there are abstract universals that you're not taking into account. And so then Plato gives his argument right. And then David Hume sits there and he goes, "Hm, that can't be right." Because you see your argument for realism, for the existence of these things is wrong because only concrete particulars exist. Does your

realistic epistemology is wrong? Because only concrete particulars exist. Plato's epistemology was one of intuition. If I can put it very briefly, Plato says we intuitit the forms. We intuit it. But you see this intuitional epistemology will not sit well with this empirical epistemology. Hume was an empiricist. He said anything we know because of our senses. We know it because of our senses. Plato says it isn't because of my senses. I don't sense duckness. I intuit it duckness. Hume. Okay, let's go through the argument. Plato says, "I have intuited the form of duckness." Hume says, "Prove

that you've intuited the form of duckness." That there is such a thing as duckness. Plato says, "Okay, I prove it because I'm now intuiting it." Hume says, "Well, you're obviously wrong because to prove it means to give sensible evidence of it, not reasonable, sensible in the sense of tactical. I can I can touch it, see it, smell it, whatever." Okay. So Plato's epistem Plato's metaphysic is challenged by Hume's Epistemology. He says you can't prove that abstract uh universals exist because you can't touch them. On the other hand, Plato says you can't prove that only concrete

particulars exist because intu intuition tells us otherwise. Why did Plato hold to an intuitionist epistemology? Because he held to a realistic metaphysic. Plato held to intuition because he believed abstract universals exist. Hume, on the other hand, held to an empirical epistemology because he believed only concrete individuals exist. His metaphysics determined his epistemology and his epistemology determined his metaphysic. and one stroke. You see these two have to go together. You don't have a combination of these two views. You don't have an intuition intuitionist epistemology when you think only concrete particulars exist. Because if only concrete particulars

exist, you haven't got anything to intuit it. On the other hand, if you believe that abstract universals exist, you're not going to hold to an empirical standard of truth because there's something that goes beyond our senses. And what am I getting at? world views are ultimate. One's epistemology, his theory of knowledge, and one's theory of Reality are going to supplement and um and support each other. They're going to determine each other. Let me give you another example, maybe one that's a little bit easier to follow than this technical question. In the history of philosophy, you

have two general approaches to philosophy. One might be called the outsider approach to philosophy and the other the insider approach. The outsider or objective observer approach to knowledge and then you have the insider uh passionate participant uh approach to philosophy. Okay. Now on the one hand you'll uh find uh in the spectator approach the idea of an objective observer the stress on being distant from your subject being neutral about it being a witness from outside so that you can gain knowledge about it. We're going to be very, if you will, technical and scientific and neutral

and objective and emotionless. Let's, you know, it's it's the old thing in the movies, right? Let's be scientific about this, right? Put your feelings aside and let's just be very hardnosed and get down to the facts. Okay? So, now we're going to get knowledge about some subject. The emphasis is on knowledge about it. I'm out here as an observer and I'm kind of casing the situation. Uhhuh. that atomic formula does this does this does this and this biological reaction I'm doing it as an observer very objective and neutral and distant uh spectator approach and that

would be um oh somebody like Plato or or logical positivism today the idea is we have to get something apart from us as subjects knowledge can't be subjective it's got to be object objective. Plato said it's in the heavens. It's in the the realm of eternals and universals, the forms, duckness. You know, I look at these little ducklings in the pond and there's something really strange about that and I can't be sure. But of duckness, there's no question. It doesn't move around. It doesn't get fuzzy. It doesn't get ambiguous. It's objective and plain. Or logical

positivism says you want to know things for sure, you have to know them in terms of what is an absolute experience of it. redness, roundness here, now that's an apple. Okay, very objective about it. But on the other side, you get the insider passionate Participant approach to reality. So you have like Piergard who um who says that he doesn't want to be an impartial judge about truth. He doesn't want to trample upon the modes of experience. He is motivated by a subjective commitment to truth. Okay. So here the insider doesn't want knowledge about things. He

wants knowledge of things. He wants an experience of things. He wants to be encountering things. Okay. On the outsider objective observer knowledge about things approach, you're going to get an increasing distrust of reason. I'm sorry, scratch that. Increasing distrust of feeling in favor of reason. Confidence in formal proof like daycart. Give me a syllogism. Give me something that is demonstrative. It follows mathematical certainty. Okay. The objective outsider wants you to see more and more to get away from feeling and to trust his reason. On the other hand, the insider or passionate participant approach to philosophy

shows an increasing deriggation of reason. This is reason you see is always distorting. Reason and analysis distort and falsify what experience really is. And you know what it is to go to the dentist and feel pain? Uhhuh. Now read an account of going to the dentist and feeling pain. What a difference, man. There's something distorted about that. Reading about it And experiencing it are really different. There's something unreal about reading about the pain of a dentist chair. Something very real about feeling the pain in the chair. Okay. So the passionate observer, you know, I mean

the passionate participant says, "I don't care how you describe it. It's what how it feels that counts. Okay. Here the emphasis is upon cold analytical reason. Derrogation of feelings. They're subjective. They're unreliable. They're relativistic. They're changing all the time. Here the person says, "Yeah, but reason is distorting. It doesn't really get down to the real nitty-gritty of life. The important thing is how we feel about things." So, emphasis upon reason, emphasis upon feeling. Yes, sir. There was an advertisement in my home paper last year by a Unitarian church. Big bold letters, you know, they're trying

to get people to come. And their come on was, "Nobody's going to tell you what to think, just feel." Oh, yeah. If it feels good, it's right. Yes, sir. That's what you call the ultimate passionate participant approach set for religion. Okay. Now, let's say we get this Unitarian pastor, if it's fair to call them pastors, in the same room with a cold analytical philosopher, And they're going to resolve their philosophical differences. Right? Now, what's going to happen? They try to resolve their philosophical differences. Okay, here's the cold analytical philosopher who says, "You know what's wrong

with your approach to life, Mr. Feelingoriented Preacher? Premise one. Premise two. Ergo. You're wrong. Okay. Has nothing to do with my feelings about it. I may like you as a man, but the fact of the matter is your philosophy stinks. And here's why. One, two, three. Boom, boom, boom. Fact, fact, fact. You're out. Okay. And then the Unitarian fellow or the or the character guardian if you will stands up and with his passionate participant he says yeah what does that have to do with life those marks up there on a blackboard now I want you

to tell me you people out there in the audience how many of you have been in a dentist chair huh okay the philosophers over here going oh this guy's appealing to feeling how wrong could he be whereas the other fell's going that guy's appealing to cold logic how wrong could he be how are they ever going to get these two together. You see, their view of life and the way they argue about life is going to be completely different. Their standards and their Conclusions are different. The one guy says, you know, life is to be

approached objectively as an observer. The other says, no, life is to be approached as somebody who wants to be part of the game and participate in it. And narrow the twain you'll meet. to argue with them each other. They're going to have to change their world views because as long as their worldviews stay the same, the way they argue is going to be different as well. They'll never be able to convince each other because it's not a matter of having done your homework wrong. It isn't as though the philosopher says, "Now listen, Mr. Feelingoriented, if

you'll go home and just, you know, recheck your homework, you'll see that I was right and you were wrong." That isn't the problem. The problem is they have different conceptions of the kind of homework they should be doing. The one guy says, "No, look, don't go home and read a book. Go home and get involved in life. Play with your children. Get out in the political world. Turn on the TV." The other guy says, "Nah, don't worry about what you know really makes you feel good or bad. You got to you got to get down

to facts. Get out an encyclopedia. Pull out a book of logic. Start, you know, working things out on paper. They're never going to be able to convince each other because their approach to life dictates different ways of arguing and different ways of arguing are going to lead to different conclusions about life. Their metaphysic, their view of the world and their epistemology, their view of knowledge are determined by each other and not one before the other. They come, if you will, in one stroke. And now that's what I'm getting at when I said world views are

ultimate. Now before we run out of time today, I want to go back and just review what we've done this week. This week has been calculated in my notes as a way of preparing you for the for the um particular issues going to arise now in the philosophy of religion that we're going to be taking up week by week. Uh this is our orientation not just to the class but orientation to the way we should be thinking as Christians. First of all, why should we study philosophy? Now it's your turn to answer. Why should we

study philosophy? To defend the faith. What's that? To defense of the faith. Okay. So we can defend the faith. Why else? Treasure truth. So we can preserve truth. The treasure of truth that Christ has that we're going to lose critical discernment. that we can have critical discernment for the sake of seeing which philosophies lead away from Christ and which are honor to Christ. Very good. Okay. What is philosophy? I don't care if you look at your notes. You don't have to do it from memory. But I would like us to review together before our time

gets away. What is philosophy? You know why we study it. What are you studying? It's a systematic study of thinking. Uh systematic study of nature. Of nature. That's metaphysics. Okay. What's another Where are other branches of philosophy? Let's finish that. A study of reality, love of knowledge. Knowledge. A study of what is knowledge and truth? Epistemology and ethics. In ethics, human behavior or conduct. Okay, those are the branches of philosophy. What is philosophical study? What do you do when you do philosophy? Remember I said there's kind of a there's a double task in philosophy. critical

task and constructive task. Ah, right. Okay. What's the critical task? Anybody? Seeking clear thinking by analyzing arguments and examining ultimate presuppositions. Okay. What is it that makes this person say what he's saying? Okay. Analyzing it, being critical about it. Okay. And then what the second task is constructive. And what is that? Are we just always breaking down, looking at arguments, trying to get, you know, down to the nitty-gritty of what motivates and justifies this point of view? No, we're doing something constructive, too, not just critical. What else? Good. Somebody said it over here, but I

didn't know. Unifying information. That's right. You're trying to get a unified and overall world and life view. Trying to bring together what is true in the sciences, what is true in art, what is true in religion, what is true in this. bring it all together in one Coherent view of our world and our lives. Okay? And then we've already gone through the three tasks or the three areas, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Um, so then we know why and we know what and uh then I said there's a kind of a two-fold approach. There's a two-fold

philosophy. And what are what are the two basic philosophies? truly false. Yeah, that is h that happens to be the way I put it by the way. Okay, now let's get a little more detailed and then a little more detailed after that. We can also say what about it? Christian that it's Christian and non-Christian. Okay, now say something about the Christian view over against the non-Christian view. Characterize them generally. Christian attempts to answer those questions of philosophy humbly before God and according to God's revelation. Ah, very good. Very good. And by contrast, the non-Christian approach

to do that account. That's right. Without reference. That's right. Suppressing the truth and being self-sufficient. That's what you meant. Yeah. Okay. And then we said after we looked at the two-fold approach to philosophy, there's a dialectical tension and unbelieving philosophy. Can somebody just generally characterize that dialectical tension? We We know why we're doing this. We know what we're doing. We see there's two ways to go. And now we're trying to say you don't want to go this way because it's dialectical tension. What is that tension? Yes and no. Yes and no. Okay. Yes and no

to what? Rationalism. Irrationalism. Okay. What do we mean by rationalism? Irrationalism. That's a little bit louder. My My mind is the definite thing. It knows all yet it doesn't know everything. Okay, that's right. That's one good way of putting it. How about atomism monism? Another way of expressing it. Yeah. Atomism monism. Two different approaches to uh explanation. Atomism is the the the particles that go into the hole. Yeah. Okay. explaining the part. No, explaining the whole by part and monism just the opposite part by theole. That's right. Explaining the parts by the whole. Very good.

Both of them lead to what? Uh I had my hand I'm not in the game. I'm question. Okay. Let's get the answer to this question. to mysticism because as a matter of fact the whole is too big to characterize so we have to just know it intuitively or the little atom can't be divided any further so it can't be explained so you finally end up in mysticism and that's just another way of saying a rational irrational tension first we got to know things by the standard of our mind but then we have to give up

and admit we have to intuit it mystically yeah you had a question yeah I was wondering uh about your approach to the two take-home exams if uh This is gonna this is going to help me study. Obviously, I wanted I was wondering if you were going to give us the questions beforehand or if these were going to be probably questions uh uh after the atomistic motif, you know, after one small part of the of the whole material. There'll be both. I'll be asking you questions in detail about your reading and about my lectures. That doesn't

mean picky legalistic, you know, nasty detail. Um, what was the third sentence I spoke? No, I'll probably ask you details like illustrate the dialectical tension, Unbelieving thought in terms of monism and um, atomism detail that way. But then I'll also be asking you if you will overall questions of evaluation like when we get done here then you'll have a basis for what is an over what am I trying to accomplish here? If you look at each unit of thought and say why did we go over all that okay this in one stroke let me put

the fifth and final thing of our discussion here the ultimacy of world views. What was I getting at here? That one begins his philosophy with a general perspective on life, a world and life view. He doesn't begin first with some cold epistemological standard by which he then decides what's real. Nor does he begin dogmatically with I know what's real and then I'm going to tell you what epistemology goes with it. You have these two working together. Well, why did you leave ethics out of that? Oh, just for the sake of uh of time. We could

have done it. uh we could have illustrated it more um elaborately and with greater complexity by including ethics. As a matter of fact, I think ethics is what motivates a worldview. It's the ethics of trying to get away from God that makes people believe that only concrete particulars exist. Therefore, Since I don't I can't touch God, there must not be a God. So, yeah, I could have illustrated it further with ethics, but it was only for simplicity that I didn't. Okay. A world and life view is one's ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological outlook at its most

fundamental presuppositional level. But I just didn't happen to have time to go into ethics. In fact, I'm going to run out of time here if I don't hurry on. The ultimacy of worldviews is everyone begins with a combined perspective and not with one moving on to the others. Now, on upper levels of thought, more sophisticated thought, you have refining going from metaphysics to epistemology. you kind of you kind of have this adjusting um or um cybernetic uh thing you know the the your your philosophy is moving from one to the other and doing fine-tuning but

most ultimately somebody begins like with a platonic approach to life or with a human approach to life or a pure guardian approach to life and that includes fundamentally a basic view of truth or knowledge a basic view of reality and a basic view of human conduct. So the ultimacy of worldviews. Now let's put this thing all together. I mean what what is the what is the conclusion of this? Why are we studying it? What we're studying is a twofold approach. One of them has a dialectical tension in it and there's this ultimacy of worldviews. Well

overall what I'm trying to get you to do is to see that when you when you're doing philosophy as a Christian, let me put it another way that when we do philosophy there's a distinctive Christian way to do philosophy. There's a distinctively Christian way to do philosophy. There is a Christian world and life view and there is a multiplicity of non-Christian world and life views. And each of these is ultimate. There is an ultimate metaphysic ethic and epistemology in each one. And these two are in antithesis to each other. In principle, remember I said up

here, the two in principle are at deadly odds with each other. In practice, because of the inconsistency of the unbeliever, it doesn't work out that way. But in principle, there's this two-fold ultimate worldviews that are intentioned. And this one is impossible because of the dialectical tension in it. So, this gets us back to why we're studying this. so we might be better able to defend the faith once delivered unto the saints. Unless I miss my bet, and I'm not a betting man, you probably have not got this in Sunday school anywhere. But there's no reason

under the sun why we couldn't be working toward the day when the people who go to college know very well that when they approach Naturalistic evolutionary thought or materialism and their philosophers if they know why they're going to approach it in the way they're going to the two-fold approach that is if they know the presuppositions that inform them as Christians then they're going to be prepared to see to keep mature Christian commitment that is intelligent not mature commitment because we say yeah we learn one thing in the university where we go over here to the

prayer meeting and have a different experience. Intelligent and mature Christian commitment. Okay? It's not just for the sake of those going to college. It's for our sake too. We need to realize God has to purify our thoughts and help us moment by moment every day learn captive to the obedience of Christ. And that is the reason we've been studying this. So we can learn to presuppose and to reason in terms of our presuppositions as Christians. Thank you. All right. The onlogical argument has roots in philosophers such as Parmenities, Plato and Augustine. It is an argument

that was rejected by Thomas Aquinus as not being grounded in in in any kind of appeal to experience or facts of the world. And it has been rejected by Emanuel Kant because it depends upon the false notion that existence is a separate predicate. We'll be coming back to that. It's been accepted in various revised forms, however, by the continental rationalists like Deart and Linets. Uh the idealists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries often accepted the argument. And some recent apologists have accepted the argument. You'll find in reading through evangelical literature. And then there

are also some linguistic uh analytical philosophers that have accepted the argument such as Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantica. Certain processed theologians and philosophers also do so. So it's an argument that's by no means eccentric. It has a long and illustrious past. Many people have accepted it. Many more perhaps have rejected it for various reasons. The ontological argument does not like the cosmological or teological arguments portray itself as a philosophically in rigorous philosophical and rigorous expression of what are common intuitive arguments for the existence of God. Okay. If I argue the cosmological argument, I may have

to give philosophical precision and get rather sophisticated in the argument. But what I'm getting at is pretty much understood by most people on on the basis of common sense and intuition. Okay? Uh everything has got to have a cause. What's the cause of the world as a whole? And a lot of people think in this way whether they can think rigorously and give it philosophical expression or not. Somebody says look at the order round about us. Now, how how is it that this world has this feature of order and purpose if there isn't a god

that gives it order and purpose? That's a common teological argument. And again, we may try to give it precise philosophical expression, but most people in the street understand the general thrust of the argument. That is not true of the onlogical argument. The onlogical Argument does not explicate what is a common and intuitive notion about the existence of God. It is the product purely of philosophical reasoning and thought and to complicate matters. Not only is this not simply putting rigorous expression to a common idea that is the thrust of which is felt by most people. It

doesn't appeal to facts about the world. The ontological argument doesn't say now look if you'll just understand the world better understand these facts if you just reason from these known premises from your experience you'll be able to deduce the existence of God it makes no appeal to facts about the world it is what we call a purely a priori argument it's p purely a priori because it makes no appeal to experience doesn't say now look you all know you know from your experience that everything has a cause or you know from your experience that there's

order in the world. What it argues is that just from the off priori investigation of a certain concept without appealing to experience you can know that God exists. God exist God's existence is to be proven by the onlogical argument by an appeal to reason alone. Now you may notice in your reading assignment on page 13 how Anelm when he stated this argument made the following claim about it. He says why then has the fool said in his heart there is no God. Psalm 14:1 since it is so evident to a rational Mind that thou dost

exist in the highest degree of all. Why? Except that he is dull and a fool. It's very strong words. Ransom says it is evident to the rational mind that God exists. Just from the very concept of God, it is evident to the rational mind that God exists. And only those who are dull and foolish are going to deny it. So if you're thinking clearly at all, you've got to think that God exists. That's what and someone wants to claim. So he's he's claiming a very high degree of certainty by appealing to reason alone, saying that

only those who are unreasonable deny the existence of God as he is portraying it. Well, we're going to be looking at Anselm's classical case for the onlogical argument. Anelm of course is a well-known Christian saint of Canterbury whose dates are 1033 to 1109. Anelm was influenced philosophically by Plato and Augustine more than anybody else. In fact, he was often called through church history the second Augustine. He was so um so influenced by him. Anson adop adopted the Augustinian slogan, I believe in order that I might understand. And by that he seems to have meant that

faith preceded reasoning when it came to divine matters. One first believed what God said and then one was to reason about it. Yet elsewhere in the writings of Ansom, you don't find a a purist position on that notion of letting faith precede reasoning. in his book uh curious homo that is why the god man one of the earliest and lengthiest explations of the uh satisfaction view of the um of the crucifixion and atonement he says somewhat rationalistically uh leaving Christ out of view as if nothing had ever been known of him this book proves by

absolute reasons the impossibility that any man should be saved without him. Now, although it turns out he smuggles in a lot of biblical premises, his attempt here is to be utterly rationalistic. Let's just leave out everything that God tells us and let's just reason on the basis of our common understanding. That doesn't seem to fit in with his earlier slogan, I believe in order to understand. I first have faith and then reason helps me to understand my faith better. Then also in his monologue um he gives certain rational arguments for the existence of God for

the unity of the nature of God very much similar to those of Thomas Aquinas a few years later and so what I'm trying to get across is that Anelm attempts to be Austinian and to hold uh very purely to this presuppositional idea that that uh reasoning is founded upon faith. However, he is inconsistent in that. Well, then we come to the proium in which the ontological argument is found. Oops. The proium is the discourse in which Anam argues for the existence of God according to the ontological argument. This argument begins with the conception of God

as all perfect. Begins with the conception of God as all perfect and then reasons from the very nature of God to the necessity of his existence. Okay. We begin with a conception and someone says if you understand what God is in terms of our conception of God then necessarily you can deduce God's existence from the conception of God. We can prove the existence of God. And that is what is at the heart of the onlogical argument. God's existence is entailed by his very nature. Um the argument I'm going to put the argument to you a

few ways just so you kind of get the idea. In its most simple form in the simplest way you can understand this. Anselm says God is perfect. Perfection entails existence. Therefore God exists. Right? God is perfect. Perfection entails existence. Therefore, God exists. Now, that's one way of putting it. Very simple. Let me put it another way now, a little more complicated, and then I'll I'll state it another way a little more at length. He formulates his argument in this way. God is that than which no greater can be conceived. By the way, that very uh

convoluted syntax is what makes your reading so difficult in Anelm. I'm sure many of you had to look at the sentences over and over and over again because you see he gets the uh the comparison um up there early in the sentence and it's very very difficult to read. But nevertheless, God is that than which no greater can be conceived. God can be conceived, but there's nothing greater that can be conceived. So he is that than which none greater can be conceived. He is the highest conceivable. Okay? Is the greatest conceivable thing than that which

none greater can be conceived. Okay? That's the nature of God. That's the conception of God that we have. No greater is conceivable. He is the no greater is conceivable one. God is then that which none greater can be conceived. Now and some reasons a God who exists outside of the mind is certainly greater than one who exists only in the mind. Okay. If God is that which which no greater is conceivable, then what is greater? Something that exists in the mind alone or something that exists in the mind as well as outside of the mind?

Which is greater? A a mere idea in the mind or something that actually exists outside of the mind? Well, obviously something which exists outside of the mind is greater than that which exists only in the mind. Thus, if God existed only in the mind, a greater than God could be conceived, namely one existing outside the mind. So, if God exists only in the mind, he is not that than which none greater can be conceived because we can conceive of something greater than something existing only in the mind. And that's impossible by the very nature of

the case. Therefore, God exists outside the mind. Well, what do you think of that argument? What kind of God is he talking about that exists beyond the mind? He says, did you say a god that article before? Mhm. So he's talking about he's saying there's a God that we can't conceive beyond that which we can conceive. Is that basically what you're saying? No. What he's saying is that the that the greatest type of being we can conceive must exist because he wouldn't be the you can conceive of something in the mind conceive of something outside

the mind. Obviously something that exists outside the mind is greater than something that exists only in the mind. And if God is the greatest thing you can conceive of, then he must exist outside the mind or else he wouldn't be the greatest because you can always conceive of something greater than that which is only in the mind. All right? That he's trying to separate that which is uh purely thought to that uh abstract to that which is in some sense concrete. That's the point. He's arguing from a conception to an extremental existence. From something which

is mental to something which is actual. Of course, here mental things are actual also. We mean by actual extramental beyond the mind. Is he saying the simple fact that we can conceive of an infinite God and that we're finite that we being finite couldn't conceive of something of our own selves. So there have to be something infinite outside of ourselves to put that thought. Now this is an interesting question. Pay very close attention to this. Dart reformulated the onlogical argument somewhat along those lines that you're suggesting. How could a finite mind conceive of an infinite

object? God must exist to have put the idea into the mind because the finite mind would never have thought of the infinite. Okay. Now that is not purely an ontological argument. So as you see that really rests upon the oh it's gone now the cosmological argument that is where would we get the idea of an infinite if we are finite. Okay there can be nothing in the effect that is not already in the cause of so there must be an infinite cause to the idea of this idea. So Decart kind of shifts around on the

ontological argument and combines it with the cosmological argument saying um you know the thought of God requires God to account for the very existence of the thought. How could we have thought of an infinite God if there weren't an infinite God to have put the idea into our finite mind? That's something of a cartisian version of the onlogical argument and we're not going to pay any more attention to it than what I've just said. It is in fact resting for its uh validity on the cosmological argument which we'll look at uh on another day. Let's

go back now to the ontological argument and sound's purest version of it if you will where he says the very conception of God as that which is the greatest the the most Perfect requires that he exists outside the mind because if he didn't exist outside the mind there'd be something greater than him. Um two problems I see. uh the result does not lead to the Christian conception of God necessarily but rather a candle now for a superstition uh a pantheistic concept of primitive people that they conceived of something their greatest concept was the sun controlled

everything yes I think that um what is being expressed here is a form of Christian critique of the ontological argument that it doesn't show the distinctive Christian God to be the one that exists. And some would resist that, of course, and for reasons that I'll show you later. He is actually, I think, trying to argue within a Christian world and life view. And so, he's not going to grant that God, apart from the Christian God, has this conception of greatest perfection. However, what you're saying is that if a man just wanted to reason straight out

on autonomous, self-sufficient, humanistic premises that he wouldn't necessarily reach the Christian God, even if this argument was a good one. I think you're right. Yes. Uh right in the very first presupposition Uh I see a problem in can a based on what was said before the finite mind conceiving the infinite is a finite mind indeed capable of conceiving the well um is I think we must recognize that um that Anselm was not saying we conceive of God as he is that we comprehend God. What he's saying is we know in a formal sense that God

is the greatest and we may not be able to comprehend his greatness but we can comprehend the statement that he is the greatest. You understand the difference? It's one thing to say um that is the uh that is the largest box in the world sitting out there in the parking lot. Another thing to be able to lift the box and now that's a poor analogy but Anson would say it's one thing to say that's the greatest concept that we have and another thing to conceive of everything God is. He wouldn't have to say I know

everything about God. I've conceived the infinite to say nevertheless that whatever God is he is infinite. So he's simply saying this is the greatest being there is the most perfect and if he's going to be the most perfect he must also exist because something that doesn't exist would be less perfect than something which is thought of only then at least it doesn't define God. That's right. It doesn't attempt to define God except that he is he has the highest perfection. Okay. Okay. Let me um I realize of course that this um this seems to be

an argument that is just uh playing with words. A lot of people it seems like uh there's just something wrong with this. It's much too easy. As some people have said, you just can't define God into existence. And it appears that God that God is just being defined as existing by means of this argument. But before we look at the criticisms of it, I do want to restate it for you. and uh make sure that we've understood it properly. As I've said before, the argument here is turning on the uh entirely uh turning on the

concept of God. Anelm first defines God as a being than which none greater can be conceived. God is then by definition the greatest being conceivable, not merely the greatest being that happens to exist. God isn't just the the greatest of the things that happen to be around. He's the greatest of anything you can conceive of. If it were possible to think of a being greater than the greatest that actually is, then according to Anselm's definition and its implications, this greatest actual being would not be God. God would not exist. The very fact that there are

atheists who say with the fool of the Psalms that there is no God, this suggests that this situation is at least a possibility. Anelm tries to show however that on examination is uh on examination atheism can't even be stated for the statement that god does not exist is selfcontradictory And this is where I think it's valuable uh to you might want to note in your notes the statement of the onlogical argument by plantica one of the authors you read in preparation for today you you did read plan in preparation for today I hope he gives

a statement of the argument that puts it as a reduct you out absurdum. Assume that God does not exist. Now what is God? What what do all these premises entail? And it turns out that that uh premise God does not exist is self-contradictory. He puts it in the form of reducturum. Uh as uh Anselm says atheism is self-contradictory as self-contradictory is saying that fire is water or water is fire. It's as self-contradictory as saying this square does not have four sides. Here we have a square but it doesn't meet the definition of a square. Here's

atheism saying we have a concept of God but it doesn't match up to the concept of God. Atheism is self-refuting on logical grounds alone. Then and the demonstration by Ansom goes something like this. We can distinguish between the things existing in the understanding and its existing in reality. For example, we can distinguish between a painting that is merely planned and the same painting after it's been executed. Okay, think in your mind of the artist planning his painting. Here is the idea of a planned painting. Okay, here's the Mona Lisa in conception. But you can also

think of the Mona Lisa as executed. You can actually think of the actual painting itself. That atheists speak of God at all shows that the being who is greater than any other that can be thought exists in the Understanding as we all have an idea of God. You know that it the the idea of God at least exists in the understanding. Okay, we all have a mental conception of God. But in this one case, it is impossible for the being in question to exist only in the understanding and not in reality. Also, in this particular

case, it's impossible. Now, you could have the idea of a Mona Lisa and only the idea of a Mona Lisa. There's no there's nothing in the idea of the Mona Lisa that means there must actually be a painting of the Mona Lisa. It might just be a mental plan. But in the case of God, you can't simply have the idea of a God because that idea is the idea of that which none greater can be conceived. If God existed only in the understanding and not in reality, then it would be possible to conceive of a

being who though otherwise identical with this God existed both in the understanding and in reality and in that case would be greater than the being who exists only in the understanding. If you have a God who's only in thought, he's not as great as a God who is in thought and in reality. Now since this is impossible by definition, no being who existed in the understanding alone could be the greatest that can be thought of. So the greatest conceivable being greatest conceivable being must exist in reality as well as in the understanding. And that is

simply to say that God does exist. Briefly to deny God's real existence is to imply that there could be something greater than God, something that had real existence. But nothing could by definition be greater than God. Therefore, God must have real existence. By one more time. Okay, let's put it one more time slowly. To deny God's real existence is to imply that there could be something greater than God. Namely, something that had real existence. Okay? If you deny that God has real existence, then you have to grant that there's something greater than God. Namely, something

that really exists. But that by definition is impossible because there's nothing greater than God. That's what we mean by God, the greatest. Therefore, God must have real existence. God's nature, which is conveyed by the very word God, includes existence within it. If you want to put it this way, the essence of God, the very conception or nature of God, the essence of God implies his existence. The essence of God implies his existence. One more time, the essence of God, the very concept of God as the greatest or most perfect being implies that he exists. Now

this argument from a Christian perspective can be interpreted in a couple of ways. It has traditionally been interpreted in terms of plonistic philosophy or if you will the type of argumentation you find in the early augustine. That which corresponds to imperishable truth must exist. Of course, taken that way, Anelm's argument proves only a very formal or contentless being. He doesn't prove the god of the scriptures as as we've said already. And it's of course true that the ontological argument can be used and indeed has been used historically to prove almost any kind of ultimate. Whatever

a person takes to be his ultimate concept or or being in life, he can call his god. So compare the different kinds of gods that are proven by this type of reasoning in spinosa, Decart, Hegel, Malcolm, Hartshorn. I mean you have process philosophy, analytical philosophy, idealistic philosophy, rationalistic philosophy, pantheistic philosophy. All of them using the onlogical argument to prove their ultimate. Why is it that this argument can prove so many different kinds of gods if it proves anything at all? Well, I think the reason for that is that the concept Of perfection is by its

very nature a value judgment or a value term. To say something is perfect is to say that it has a certain value about it. It's a value ladened judgment. And of course, what has highest value is going to differ from thinker to thinker. And that's why the onlogical argument is so slippery. can be used for pantheistic purposes, be used for rationalistic purposes, be used for allegedly Christian purposes. It all depends on what your idea of perfection is. And remember I said as we started to study Anselm you find this curious mixture of oil and water

in Anselm. The one hand he wants to be a presuppositionalist I believe in order to understand and on the other hand you get this strange rationalistic platonistic emphasis in him as well and we find that in other writings and to a certain degree I think we might detect it in this kind of reasoning. Yeah, I don't see how that this argument would carry a wave of stuff with atheists or market. Okay. Why? I don't differ with you, but I mean it isn't enough simply to state that it has some stock. You have to say why.

We imply By this argument that there is a god. It has its basic implication that there is a supreme being. That's right. That's the whole point of where where Marx is atheistic does not appeal to anything. It seems to me and someone would say he's a fool. He obviously hasn't thought through the implications of the concept of God. He'd say, "Listen, Mr. Marxist, you understand what we mean by the term God, don't you? I mean, I'm not saying you have to believe in God right now, but let's just start there. You know what we mean

by God? The greatest being, that that which none greater can be conceived, that which has the greatest and highest perfection. You understand that's what we mean by the term. Marcus says, "Well, yeah, I know that's what you mean, but that doesn't mean there is a God." And says, "Let's wait a minute. Let's think about that for a second. Is a God that is in the mind only greater than a God who's in the mind and in reality?" The narcissist, well, no. And consequently, the being that which none greater can be conceived must also be in

existence. Right? The very concept shows you that there is a god. Now, to my way of thinking, if I were a Marxist, I would then turn around and say, "That's right. I think the greatest exists. I think that which is most perfect exists." I don't happen to think the Christian God, however, I think it's the materialistic world. That's the greatest thing because that's what has Highest value for me. You see, what has been said already now twice in the class about this argument doesn't necessarily prove the Christian God begins to show you what is wrong

with the argument. It's not showing anything more, if it shows anything at all. It's not showing anything more, but that the greatest exists, that that which you conceive to be the most perfect exist. But what do you take to be the most perfect? So it goes back to your presupposition as to what you the great thing to be. That's right. And I'm going to go back in uh toward the end of this class period and and argue that Anselm although he seems plainistic and rationalistic in this argument and it's certainly subject to criticism. There's another

way of interpreting Anselm which is more presuppositional and quite acceptable to me. However, it will not be acceptable to somebody who doesn't share our presupposition. Okay. But we'll get to that in time. Let's let's keep looking at this argument. Ancel's given the argument that the essence of God, the very conception of God proves that he exists. Now, what are the criticisms that can be raised against this? Well, on the first hand, we have to ask whether the very concept of a being than which none greater can be conceived is a coherent or meaningful concept. What

could it mean to say that there is a being for which there is no greater conceivable? What does that mean? Let's ask ourselves this is a meaningful idea. Many people have found the idea devoid of clear meaning. I think it's worthwhile to pause just a moment to see what would happen if we uh were to decide that Anselm's formula is incoherent in itself. We could then say either that because the formula correctly expresses the implications of Christian worship and yet the formula is incoherent. Therefore, Christianity is incoherent. Want me to run that past you again?

What if it turns out that the idea of a being than which none greater can be conceived is a logically impossible notion? Now, if Christianity implies, as Anelm says, that God is than that which none greater can be conceived. If that is what Christianity demands, and it turns out that this doesn't make any sense, then Christianity doesn't make any sense. Or somebody could say that because the formula is incoherent. That is because this formula doesn't make any sense and yet Christianity is true. Therefore, Christianity doesn't imply this formula for God. Okay. What I'm trying to

get across is how very important it is to decide whether it's coherent to say that that's what God is. Because if it's not coherent to say that that's what God is, then either Christianity is incoherent because it implies the formula or this formula doesn't prove the Christian God. On either score, Anel would have failed in his attempt then to give a Christian argument for the existence of God. Well, so is the formula coherent or is it not coherent? Let's explore further what the phrase a being than which none greater can be conceived could mean. What

would a supremely perfect being mean? What could this mean? That God is supremely perfect. Now a natural interpretation is that there is no quality that other beings have that God does not have. Okay? If he's supremely perfect, that means every perfection is his. And a perfection in traditional philosophical language, especially the middle ages, means a property. Any pro any positive property is a perfection. Okay? Okay. Now, if God is supremely perfect, that means there there is no property, no perfection that other beings have that he doesn't have. Well, if that's true, how do we avoid

endowing God with physical properties? God is every perfection. That means God is a certain um size, spatial size, right? Yes. How do how do how can we say though that physical being or entity is a positive uh thing? Well, that's that's going to show a defect in the argument here in just a minute. Let's go on. How do we avoid endowing God with evil properties? If God is every property to the highest degree, then how do we know God isn't the most evil being? Because evil is a property, too. Yes. Again, you have not made

God the ultimate standard. you're applying a prior ultimate standard of positive traits versus negative traits. Yeah. What this is going to show is that nobody holds that God is supremely perfect in the sense that he has every conceivable property. What what you're going to say is he has all the good making properties. If you will in the uh Plantica article, you may recall that one interpretation of of Anom that God has all the G properties that is all the good making properties, right? He doesn't have evil properties. Now, in the middle ages, it was often

thought that evil was privation. It wasn't a positive thing. It was a it was the absence of being in a way which I don't happen to think makes much sense. Nevertheless, it was the view then and we have to deal with that. If evil is a negative property, then of course, God is doesn't have negative properties. We're not saying that he has all the good making properties. And if uh in a physical things are lower on the scale of being, after all, they're not as good As spiritual things. Then we might not have to attribute

physical properties to God. But it does go to show that how you interpret the argument depends on your presuppositions. what you take to be good and evil. So to avoid the implications that we've been talking about, we're forced to resort to denying reality to evil properties or claiming that although God has the properties of physical things, he has them in a higher non-physical way analogically and u you begin to squirm a little bit using this argument. A way of avoiding such problems is to stress that the word greater in our definition, as we've said, is

an evaluative word. It's a word having to do with values. So that one being could be greater than another and yet be without some property the other being has if it is in some way better, for example, morally better, not to have that property than to have it. And so we might think of a being that has deceit and a being that does not have deceit. Then we would say the being without deceit is better. It doesn't have all the possible properties, but it's still a better being. Let us assume then for present purposes that

God's being greater than any other being that can be thought of means at least that he lacks no qualities that could be regarded as making a being who had them superior to a being that did not have them. hard to say it very simply that God has all the G properties, all the good making properties of things. The definition of God still seems to suggest something about the degree to which God has his qualities though that he must have them to an unsurpassable degree. God is not merely good. He is unsurpassably good. But the whole

idea of God having a property to an insurpassable degree has its own inherent philosophical problems. Some attributes for instance love or power uh seem to have no upper limits. There doesn't seem to be an upper limit to love or to power. Whereas other properties like truthfulness do seem to have ceiling limits. They have limits to them. Let me explain. Once somebody has been conceived of as invariably and completely truthful, you can't conceive of a being that is more truthful than that. It makes no sense to say that somebody is more truthful than a being that

is always truthful. See, there's a limit to the the idea of an insurp unsurpassed truthfulness doesn't seem to be uh very sensible. It's doubtful whether it means anything to claim that God has limitless qualities then to a greater degree than any other being does because then you have to start specifying in what sense qualities have limits and so forth and so on. Well, we begin our first criticism then is what does it mean to say God is supremely Perfect? We begin to see some problems here, don't we? We see that all depends on your presuppositions.

what you mean by the good making properties, how you define properties, what do you mean by unsurpassable perfection, questions of that nature. But then there's a further kind of problem um Golan the uh the monk who wrote against Anelm suggest a number of arguments that time prevents us from going over in our readings. But nevertheless, the key argument is what might be called a reduct you addertum of Anelm's argument. That is he reduces he takes Anelm's premisees his manner of arguing and deduces an absurd conclusion from them. I reduct you out absurdum showing there's something

wrong with the argument because it proves far too much. that proves absurd things too which had some question about what a supremely perfect being might mean and now he has some questions about the reduct out absurdum that's involved in this argument said well I can think of an island that is the most perfect island now obviously the thought of the island is less perfect than the existence the real existence of the island therefore Using your premises, the lost island must really exist. An sounds. The lost island being a traditional literary feature in his day. The

idea of an island no man has ever inhabited. It's Perfectly endowed with all the most luscious fruits and the perfect weather unlike Ashland, Ohio and other sorts of things. And um and so Ganolan says to uh Encel does seem therefore that the very concept of this island proves the existence of the island which is absurd. Therefore how can you argue from the very concept of God to the existence of God. Okay and some tempted to answer that argument but I just want to list for you now some of the major pro uh problems we have

with it and then get on to a better way of looking at the situation. Thirdly, the traditional argument against um oh I should have told you up here that the the philosopher lives asked the question whether the very concept of God is coherent. He says you must first be conceived that the con you must first be convinced that the concept of God is coherent before Anelm's argument could be used. And that's what we've been asking in some detail with the lenitian question. Does this make sense to think of a being than which none greater can

be conceived, a supremely perfect being? And then of course the monk um gone along is known for his reducti out of sternum of the argument. And then the traditional argument that has come down from enlightenment philosophy against the onlogical argument is Kant's argument that existence is not a property in the first place. And therefore if it's not a property it's not a perfection. And if it's not a perfection you can't argue that the most Perfect being necessarily exists because existence is not a predicate. It's not a property. Now, can somebody summarize for me what the

argument of Alvin Plantica is against Kant? Let me just explain what Kant is getting at here. Our argument is um God has all perfection which is to say all properties of the good making sort. Okay. Um existence is a property. Therefore God has existence or God exists. But now Kant is challenging this second premise that existence can be counted as a property. He says existence is not really a property. doesn't add anything to the concept of an I of something. You conceive of the most perfect island and you see the most perfect island. And in

the concept of an existent most perfect island and the concept of a simply hypothetical most perfect island, there's no difference. Existence doesn't add anything to the idea. Therefore, since existence is not a normal property, you can't say that if God has all perfections that existence is a property of perfection and therefore he exists. He challenged he takes out if you see if you will the second premise of the argument makes it impossible to follow this and sustained in the long run or not. The fact is this is a very poor way of arguing against it.

How does planer show that? Anybody? Nobody knows. Okay. Plan says what could Kant's claim mean here? Kant says existence is not a property. Flaging says what could it mean to say existence is not a property. Well, he pursues three different interpretations, perhaps four if you count Fraga's interpretation at the end of the article. He says, "Here are three or four different interpretations of the claim that existence is not a property." Now, it turns out on some interpretations the claim's not true at all. For instance, um let's look at one of these. Let me help you

get into your reading today. Planah proposes on page 30 um well he says after quoting Kant at some length the point of the passage seems to be that being or existence is not a real predicate but now skipping down but what is the content of a concept or of an object in what ways do objects or concepts have content? Kant gives us very little help in the passage under consideration in understanding what it is to add something to a concept. What it means to say that a concept contains as much as an object or what

it is for a concept and its object both to have Content the same content at that. And then he he then he begins his argument. Perhaps what he means is something like this. Okay. Now, remember when I said if you have a hard time following your reading assignments, that's fine, but at least try to get what the structure of the argument is. And if you go through here, at least you can catch the syntax of the argument. Perhaps he means this, perhaps he means that. Lo and behold, you may not be able to understand exactly

how he's arguing against it, but at least you should see that what he's saying is, I can't find a very good interpretation of Kant's words. On some interpretations, it's simply not true to say that existence is not a predicate. And on other interpretations where existence is a predicate or where it's true to say existence is not a predicate. That's not even relevant to Anselm's argument. Anselm doesn't have to rely on the notion that Kant is refuting. But let me take one example. He says perhaps what he means is something like this. The content of a

concept is a set of properties the thing must have to fall under or be an instance of that concept. Okay. So that if the um if the content of a concept means you must have property one, property two, property three in order for whatever it is you're talking about to count as that concept. Okay. What is a what is a crevice? This is a a crevice is is something that is in a mountain. Property one must be in a mountain or something like that. It and it must be more than a foot deep. Okay, You

have property one, property two. Anything that doesn't have those properties doesn't count as a crevice. Okay? Is that what is that what Kant means? That existence is not a property that it isn't one of these kinds of properties that you add to something to change the notion altogether. Plan says, "Well, if that's what he means, it's obviously false because the properties of a real horse and the properties of an imaginary horse are different. For instance, a horse that you have in mind is neither 12 hands high or less than 12 hands high. But a real

horse is either 12 hands high, greater or lesser than that. You get the point? The properties of a real horse are not the properties of an imaginary horse because a real horse has spatial height, but an imaginary horse doesn't. You know, you can't measure an idea in your head. And so what he's getting at here is and this has been a timehonored maxim since the time of Kant that existence is not a predicate. Planagus says well that's a really silly sort of thing to say isn't it if you take it on this interpretation. Then he

proposes another interpretation. He says at the bottom of page 31 now perhaps Kant means to point out that existence differs from pinkness in the following respect. He says maybe it's not a regular kind of predicate like pinkness. Something being pink is a predicate. And he and he proposes a way of dealing with this. He gives an he gives an objection to it. At the bottom Of page 32, we might put the charge of triviality as follows. And now what he's saying is okay on a second interpretation of Kant's argument, we can reduce it to triviality.

He says to say under domain one that pinkness is a real predicate but existence is not really comes to saying that the proposition all existent members of the domain exist that that proposition is necessarily true but that all existent members of the domain are pink is not well that looks like a pretty good thing to say right how how can you prove that pink and existent are different kinds of properties Well, he says somebody might say if we take the domain of existing things to say that some existing thing exists is necessarily true. It's trivial.

But to say that some existent thing is paint or not paint is not trivial. That's really to say something. And so that appears to make Kant look very good. He has proven that existence is no normal predicate. It's not a regular property. But then Plancker goes on to say this is indeed so. But it seems no more illuminating in the present context than the parallel remark that can be made that although all pink members of the domain are pink is necessarily true. All pink members of the domain exist is not necessarily true. That's the end

of that. He's done an excellent job of reducing this argument to nothing. what he says, K, you're just getting at the the obvious claim that all existing things exist, but not all existing things are pink. But we could also say all pink things are not necessarily existent, but all pink things are necessarily pink. Okay? So, I have the concept of a pink wall. It necessarily is pink, but the concept of a pink wall doesn't necessarily mean the wall exists. and therefore the idea that existence is a property different from normal properties doesn't pan out. Well,

then he turns to another proposal for interpreting Kant's argument and he says, "Well, now this one seems to work. This one seems to be fairly good." But then he adds this devastating addendum that although that is a good argument, the interpretation of existence proposed making Kant look good has nothing to do with Anselm's argument. Anselm doesn't use that concept of existence and therefore Kant's argument doesn't touch him. Okay, now that's about all I'm going to get into Kant because I realize not all of you are Kant scholars or philosophical scholars are necessarily interested in all

those things. But I do want to point out that the traditional argument by K is that existence is not a property. Therefore, you can't conclude that a most perfect being necessarily exist. And that Mr. Plantica, Dr. Plantiga here has shown that this claim by Kant is sus is uh susceptible to many interpretations, not All of which are true, and the ones that are true are not relevant to Anel. Okay. Okay. Now, in your reading, you also find an attempt to resurrect the arguments used by Anselm. Uh, this attempt being made by Norman Malcolm, a Vickenstein

scholar and an analytical philosopher in America of no mean reputation, one of the best known philosophers in America in the last 20 years. And uh it was rather devastating to the philosophical world when Norman Malcolm came out defending the ontological argument which everybody had just poo pooed for years now saying you can't define God into existence. And so he he um Malcolm says that Anselm reformulated his arguments after Gonolan dealt with them. He says you find an early form of the argument that says that God nec that God is most perfect existence is a property

therefore God exists and that's a bad argument but after golon tried to refute his approach anelm gave then a different ontological argument and this one uses the concept of necessary existence rather than simple existence. Okay, Malcolm says, "Ancel finally got around to stating his case better by saying that the concept of a necessarily existing God calls for the real existence of him, not just the concept of a God that has most perfection and that includes simple existence. To put it very simply for you now, The first form of Anthem's argument appeals to existence as a

property or predicate. But in the reformulation of the argument, Anelm dealt with necessary existence. There's a different a different notion of existence. It isn't that God has just simple existence like any other object. he has necessary existence. And so Anel, excuse me, Malcolm tries to resurrect um this argument with the new concept of necessary existence. And um there are plenty of uh plenty of places you can go to read uh answers to Malcolm's argument, including the last reading assignment for today out of David Lewis. And my own personal conviction is that most of the people

who have argued against Malcolm's reformulated uh ontological argument are probably right that that's that too is mistaken. But that takes us well into the the notions of modal logic and so forth that I don't think any of us are are interested in following right now. Uh yeah, apart from the validity of Ansam or later Anound, is there a relative consensus among scholars that Malcolm has indeed discovered something about Anel? No, that is up for grabs. That's up for grabs, too. Yeah, there are some people who argue that Anselm did not reformulate his argument and people

who say he did. Malcolm says he did and tries to do better with the necessary existence argument. Do you have a hunch about Anel? Did he? I don't think he did. reformulate his argument. Okay, but if you ask for a consensus of scholars, believe me, I'll have everybody in the philosophical world coming down on me if I claim there was. No, that's just hotly debated. Did Anelm change his argument? And then those who believe that he did, what is his argument? And then after that, there's arguments as to whether that was a good argument or

not. So, it's really up for grabs. But now, what does David Lewis argue against Malcolm here? Very simply, David Lewis looks at the claim that a perfect being exists in our understanding. Now, do you all recognize that premise? That's one of Anelm's premises, right? He says, "God is by definition the being than which none greater can be conceived." Now he says everybody has this concept of a perfect being in his understanding. Okay? Everybody's got that concept in his understanding. Now if God exists only in the understanding, then he's less perfect than a being that exists

in the understanding and outside the understanding. Therefore, he must exist outside the understanding as well. Okay? We we've said that over and over and over again. My point is this is one of the premises there that we all have the concept of a perfect being in our understanding. We have the concept of a being than which none greater can be conceived the most perfect. Now David Lewis you see goes to work on that which seems to be a stepping stone in Anelm's argument but he tries to pull that away and he says now what about

that premise? Do we have in our understanding the concept of the most perfect being? And he says, "How are we to understand that premise?" And he proposes in broad strokes two ways of looking at it. What do you mean that this being is the greatest or the most perfect? The being than which none greater can be conceived. Does he he says now that might mean than which none greater can be conceived in some possible world. The greatness of this God is that he is the greatest being in any possible world. His highest perfectionist. He is

most perfect in any possible world. Okay, that is this is the highest concept of a being a concept of the greatest being concept of the most perfect being. If you're thinking of possible beings, This is of all the possible beings, the greatest. Now, let me tell you a little hint about learning philosophy. You know, you start looking at some of these formulas and you say, you know, it's late at night and I'm tired and I'm drowsy. It's awfully hard to follow this. The grammar is tough. These are new ideas. Sometimes you have to fill in

some of this and make it a little more concrete. We're talking about possible beings and we're comparing the greatness of possible beings. Now, I dare say it would have helped your reading if you would have just filled in that idea. What are possible beings? Well, think of a few imaginary beings. Santa Claus is an imaginary being, isn't he? Superman is an imaginary being. Batman is an imaginary being. What these guys are getting at is now which is the greatest of all those imaginary beings? Is Batman greater than Superman? Is Santa Claus greater than Superman? Is

Superman greater? All of a sudden, you guys have come alive. See, you all know how to do it. down. Getting back to Anfilm however he's saying David Lewis says Anthem claims that a perfect being exists in our understanding. We have the concept of the most perfect being. Now Lewis says does he mean by that the concept of that being which is most Perfect in all the possible worlds? Is it kind of like is he greater than Batman? That is which is the greatest of the imaginary beings in in in all the possible worlds which is

the greatest okay now that's one interpretation of what Anel's saying he's saying we all have the concept of the greatest possible being but if you see if the greatness of this being is the greatest in possible worlds that doesn't prove that he exists at all because to say that he's greatest in possible world is not to say that we have to compare him with the greatness of beings in the actual world. So Lewis's point is if that's how you interpret anel then the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. The fact that I have a perfect

being in my understanding is simply to say that in my understanding I understand that being in my understanding in my mental thought I'm conceiving of that being which is the greatest in any possible world. That doesn't get me into the actual world at all. And so Lewis proposes a second interpretation of Anselm's claim here. He says, "What Anelm probably wants to say then is that God, the concept that I have in my um understanding is the concept of a being that is greater in some actual world. He is the greatest being in some actual world.

Okay. What is this? What is this being that I'm thinking about, Anel? Is it the being that is the most that is the greatest in any possible world? In which case to do with your conclusion, or is it the being that is the greatest in Some actual world, the greatest actual being in our world? And Anelm, if that's what you mean, then you have to give us some reason to believe that God is the greatest being in our actual world. God is than is that than which none greater can be conceived. None greater in our

actual world. But then answering, you see, you're begging the question because maybe there is no greatest God in our actual world. Yes. Is there uh is there more than one actual world? Because if there's more than one actual world, then uh No, there's not more than one actual world. That doesn't make any sense. Dual reality. No, there may be many possible worlds. A world where there is Wonder Woman in a world in which there is Superman and a world in which there's Wonder Woman and Superman. And then a world in which there's Wonder Woman, Superman,

and Santa Claus. These are all possible worlds. But there's only one actual world. What is it? By world you mean universe then not restricted to just earth or just our solar system. Precisely. Okay. One system of reality. Yes sir. Don't hesitate. I haven't done my reading yet. That's why. But that will make it harder. When I look at I agree with what you're saying. I mean, it makes sense to to me it's logical, but um it seems to me that a nonbeliever could come up with something just as you know logical from his standpoint. Well,

that's what we have here. David Lewis is an unbeliever is saying, "Look at this argument. It doesn't pan out. This argument doesn't work." Kant said the argument doesn't work. Yolan says the argument doesn't work. Why says there's some serious questions about the meaning of the argument? And what we've been looking at is ways of of resurrecting the argument, but now it turns out that Malcolm's attempt to do better by the argument is not working out any better. That's what that's what I'm talking about, David Lewis. That's why the reading is as it is. You have

Anel's argument, Gonolan's argument. Uh you have uh Planica responding to Kant's critique. You have Malcolm responding to Concrete, but then you have Lewis answering both Planet and Malcolm. So this is just back and forth. Okay. So this is an attempt to show the arguments not working out. And Sam did believe that a man can fantasize. In other words, you could think about an island that doesn't exist. Sure, he did. He he said that that the unique thing is that in the case of God, it's a being than which none greater can be conceived. He has

all the properties, not just the properties of an island. And that's how he thought he escaped Nolan's argument. Well, we've we've done enough, I think, Of the philosophical homework to to satisfy ourselves that we you know that we haven't been irresponsible. I would like to go back now and propose another approach to Anelen altogether differently. Remember I said you could interpret him as trying to argue for God's existence from autonomous premises uh being a platonistic philosopher rationalistic philosopher and thus understood Anelm does run into all the problems that are scribbled on the blackboard. Now, okay,

let me back up and just kind of rehash what we've done in this hour. I introduced the idea of arguing for God's existence. I said the onlogical argument is one of three traditional arguments. It's a very difficult one. Doesn't appeal to intuitive concepts like the others do. It is purely rational. That the very concept of God proves that he exists. Okay. Then we looked at Anselm's statement of the case. And now we've been considering arguments against this. I'd like to suggest now that Anselm, although he quivocates on this, may have been arguing in a presuppositional

fashion in the following sense. Anelm does at times give indications that he's trying to give a distinctively Christian formulation of this. The document, the pro slogium, is in fact written as a prayer, isn't it? That's interesting. He's not he's not arguing in in the presence of an unbeliever. He's arguing in the ex in the presence of God. It's clear then that Anelm has no real doubts about God's existence. He's not suspending the question. He's not saying maybe God exists, maybe he doesn't. Now, let's look at this. God is a being than which none greater can

be conceived. ergo, God must exist. He's not doing that at all. He's praying to God in this document. After all, I want you to notice this in your reading assignment. Look at page 12. The opening words. And so, Lord, do thou who do give understanding to faith, give me to understand that thou art as we believe. We believe that thou art a being than which none greater can be conceived. Anom's praying to God for greater understanding of what he already believes. Look at page 13 just below the middle. Well, I'm sorry, right at the middle.

So truly, therefore, dust thou exist, oh Lord my God, that thou canst not be conceived not to exist in rightly. For if a mind could conceive of a being better than thee, the creature would rise above the creator, and that is most absurd. God, I realize that you're the greatest. I'm praying to you as the greatest. I'm asking you as the greatest to give me understanding. Look at page 14. Anelm suggests at the very end of the reading there, he says, "I thank thee, gracious Lord. I thank thee because what I formerly believe by thy

bounty, I now so understand by thine illumination that if I were unwilling to believe that thou dost exist, I should not be able not to understand this to be true. He is saying, God, I realize you granted me belief in your existence, but now you've granted me understanding of that, that of course, given who you are, you must exist. He says, I had faith. You've now helped me to understand it better. You have enriched my faith with a greater comprehension of how for a Christian you must be thought of as necessarily existent. And then I

think a very important passage page 19. Uh Anom is answering Gonal now. Um and Gonalan has suggested that this concept of God that that Ansom has given us is not really in the understanding after all. Anom says God is that that which none greater can be conceived. And Gonalan says I'm not sure that that's in my understanding at all. And look at how Anom answers him. This is the second paragraph in the very middle. He says, "But I call on your faith and conscience to attest that this is most false." He Says, "I call upon

your faith. I appeal to your conscience. You know very well this is what we mean by God." Gonolan, he says, "You're a monk. You haven't got the right to suspend belief in God as we're arguing these points." That's very strange, isn't it? In a philosophical argument. Now, I don't want to suggest that Anselm is a purist here. I don't want to suggest something that isn't true. He does seem to be going back and forth between a presuppositional and a rationalistic approach to this. But all I'm suggesting is that there is some strong indications here that

he's arguing as a presuppositionalist, as one who who presupposes belief in God and then goes about to try to understand it better and more philosophically. He writes as a prayer reasoning in the presence of God. He asked God to clarify his understanding recognizing his weakness and sinfulness. He says, "I long to understand in some degree thy truth which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe than unless I believed I should not understand." Indeed, the very title that then which no greater can be conceived is taken by

Anam as I showed you as a datim of revelation. He says, "Gonalan, you know, if you have faith, you must think of God in this way." And so when Gon Gonolan replies on behalf of the pool on on behalf of the fool who says there is no God, Anom refuses to reply to the fool. He replies only to the Catholic, only to the monk. He says, "I appeal to your conscience." And so it does seem that Anom has a particular god in mind, the Christian god. He's not going to let this open up to proving

pantheism. And it does seem that his idea of perfection is governed by scriptural notions then. And so I think you could make a good case that the argument here is the attempt to give a presuppositional defense for the existence of God. And we've run out of time unhappily because I hate to leave you hanging here. But I'm going to propose in our at the beginning of our next class hour how we might um reconstruct Anelm's argument for our own benefit and satisfaction. Try to make a little bit better of it as a presuppositional argument reassuring

those who already believe that this is what we must think of God that he must be an existent God. He must be a God that necessarily exists that than which none greater can be conceived from a Christian perspective. That is what we must say about God. Okay. Thank you. Our Lord and our God. We call upon you acknowledging that we are your servants, that indeed you are the Lord. And therefore we bow before you as one who makes an absolute demand upon our lives. That we bring all of our thoughts into captivity to Jesus Christ.

And that indeed we love you with all of our heart, soul, strength, and minds. We ask that you would enable us by your spirit to be obedient to these injunctions That indeed we might reason in a way that is pleasing to you and especially as we think about this crucial subject of your own existence. Lord, take away our arrogance, take away our self-sufficiency and do show to us, convince us that indeed there could be no existence at all were it not for your own. How we praise you that you have dained to call us into

existence and even more that you have called us into the kingdom of your son. We might exist as your sons and daughters. We pray that you would bless us as such in this hour. For it's in Jesus' name that we come to you. Amen. Who can say for me the onlogical argument? No greater being. The waiter conceres. All right, one down. Uh, who would like to make a Would you like to keep going? I don't want to cut you off. First round thing. Somebody give me the strategy of the argument. Maybe you can't state it

in terms of all its premises. What is the what is the what is the map of this argument? What is what kind of argument is it? Well, I'll try again. The our idea of God is what I can conceive of and it it really doesn't hinge on actuality. Uh I'm not a philosophy major. No, that's all right. You don't you don't have to be. That's fine. Um there's some ambiguities in what you're saying I'm afraid that that perhaps not the best summary for the sake of getting started here. Let's come back to that though. Yeah.

The mere fact that is it possible for me to think of that which is perfect makes it probable or even necessary that it exists. A question of probability is altogether out of the story here because this is a this is a proof that appeals to offriori notions and to pure reason. Consequently, it either is a valid proof or it's an invalid proof. There's no probability involved and nor is it based upon the idea of possibility of thinking. Um so let's make another run at it. Somebody all of these attempts here are are are really much

more than I'm asking for. just what is the general thrust of this argument? Okay. Um, let me take a stab at it. Get shot down. Um, okay. God exists. Um, and God is the most perfect thing conceivable. This this is where the concept starts out. Okay. And if he is the most perfect thing conceivable, then God exists. Uh God exists because of that particular argument. Okay. That he's most perfect thing conceivable. Uh you're starting with what then? What is the what is the um foundations from which this argument proceeds? Concept. A certain conception of God.

Right. Okay. So we have a certain conception of God. And from that conception we can deduce his existence. Now this is the heart of the ontological argument. And this is what everybody should be able to state what in your own words if you wish but this is what everybody has got to have down. Even if you can't fill in the premises or do um what you would consider a sterling job of stating uh the case so that others might be convinced. You should at least know that this is what we're trying to do in this

kind of argumentation. An ontological argument deduces existence from a conception. The very conception of God requires his existence. It's a rational argument in that sense. You don't have to know anything about the world to see that This argument is true. You don't have to appeal to any facts from your experience. If you just know that God is that than which, none greater can be conceived. And you start to think about the fact that that which exists outside the mind is greater than that which exists in the mind. And by the very conception of God, we

must deduce his existence. All right. What's wrong with the argument? Okay. Um, first of all, you you by starting off with conception, you can't prove whether he you you've got to how do I want to put it? um God. Well, it's it's arguable because of the the point that it's a conception and and it can't be it just can't really be be proven. I want to put it. I hear you talking to me. I just don't hear any good reasons for what you're claiming. Okay. And some would undoubtedly say to you, but don't you see

the very conception of this God demonstrates that he must exist? I mean, you say it can't be done, but all you have to do is look at the definition of God. It's been done. You've already granted his existence by saying that God is that then, which none greater can be conceived. But only conceptually, only conceptually, what have you granted his existence? You'reing that there are two cases involved. that to conceive of his existence is the same as his existence. Okay. Now, who expresses this argument in our reading? That's harder question than because you you either

are equivocating here. I don't think you are or you're not. And if you're not, you probably will recognize that your argument comes from David Lewis. Lewis distinguishes between the greatest being in a possible world and the greatest being in an actual world. Now I may conceive of that which is uh the greatest in some possible world. Okay, remember the possible world we were talking about last time. The the possible world where you have Superman and Batman and you have Wonder Woman and Okay, now that's a possible world. Now is God the greatest being in that

possible world? Is that what you're thinking of Anel? Are you thinking of God as being the greatest in the actual world? To con to think of God as being the greatest in the actual world is simply to think of that isn't to show that he is the greatest being in this actual world. It's only to think of him as being in the actual world. Okay? And certainly to think of him existing is greater than to think of the concept of God not existing. Therefore, you cannot think of God except to consider that he exists. To

think of him as existing is greater than to think of him as not existing. Yes. Why? When what does it argument? Okay. Go ahead. that he's saying that the concept of God demands that he exists, but I'm putting that caveat conceptually. Consider what God is, the most perfect being, you've got to consider that he also exists. That's right. In the realm of conception, if your idea of God is that he's the greatest, he's the most perfect, then in the realm of conceptions, you must grant that he exists. And the reason why I have before you

go on, I want to make sure the class is with us here because I think you're on to something that's important, but I don't want it to be lost. Okay. Okay. Does everybody follow that? Anelm, the argument goes like this. Anelm, you're right. If I think of God as that than which none greater can be conceived, then I must also conceive of God as necessarily existing. You're right. I can deduce the existence of God conceptually. I can say if I think of God this way, I must also think of God as existing. But now whether

God is this and whether God does exist, that's another question altogether. Exactly. Because the whole process of the reasoning is to place reason as the God. I'm not going to push that one. Okay. Okay. That's that's what I would push though. Okay. that that's getting into something we'll probably get into in our summation lecture about the whole attempt to prove God's existence and what reason does how it what role it plays in all this. Okay, this is um this is one of the major problems with the onlogical argument. Now, we didn't really begin where we

should have in terms of criticizing it. The first criticism was Anselm has begged the question as to whether it is a coherent notion to say that God is that than which none greater can be conceived. Remember how Livvenet said, "Now wait a minute. What does this mean that there is this greatest being? Does that mean he has all attributes? That means he's green and red at the same time all over. He has all attributes. It means he has the evil attributes, too. Is that what you mean by all perfection is in God? Oh, you mean

all the remember we said the G properties? The good making properties are in God. Well, even then you have to start distinguishing between properties like truthfulness and love. is to see there is a highest limit to truthfulness, but there is no highest limit to love as a matter of conception. And so to say that God has all these attributes in the highest degree is not even to make sense In some cases. There's no such thing as someone who is more truthful than another once you've got someone who tells the truth all the time. And so

if we have the idea of a man who tells the truth every time the question arises to say that God is truthful par excellence it's not to say anything more but that God always tells the truth and so you begin having difficulty even talking about a most perfect being in the ancelian way and that's what livets was getting at now uh gone along remember had a reduct out of certain of anelm's argument talking about the lost island the most perfect island and uh while Anselm responded to Gondolan that has remained at least in the history

of this um of this argument something that has to be taken account of what was Kant's argument against the cell existence is a property very good okay God is most perfect existence is a perfection which is the medieval way of saying of property of course okay existence is than perfection. Therefore, God exists. Existence is not a perfection. Kant says existence is not an ordinary property, but you can add to a notion to uh to make it a different one. It doesn't make it a different notion. Consequently, the Argument is faulted because the second premise is

not right. Now, Alvin Plantica responded to Kant. And can somebody tell me the strategy in in Plantica? Just the strategy. We're out of hands. No. Okay. I think he made a reference to kind of an island that No, no, that's that's Garn. Okay. The monk who responded to Anel. What is what is planka's strategy for dealing with the contean criticism? It's very simple. Whenever I'm lecturing, rather, I think you'll find it helpful when I talk about strategies and maps and so forth. That's when you want to write an awful lot because that means we're getting

down to the structure of what's going on here conceptually. Planer's argument, as I told you the other day, is this. To to deny that existence is a perfection or a property calls for some interpretation. What does what does Kant mean by that? Okay. Now, he proposes a few things Kant might mean. He might mean that um that to conceive of something as existing is not any different a conception as to think of something as not existing because the conception of the thing remains the same. And Planer of course laughs this One out of uh out

of the arena because he says, "No, wait a minute. Uh a horse in conception has no height at all, but a horse in reality has height. And so you couldn't mean that certainly existence is a property in that sense cop. Okay. Well, now here's another possibility. Here's another possibility. He proposes different interpretations until he finally comes up with an interpretation that will be true to what Kant says. That's right. Existence is not an ordinary property um Planagus says um on this particular interpretation. But then what happens? Anelm is not interested in that interpretation. He says

that has nothing to do it's not even relevant to Anselm's argument and since it's not relevant the sense in which Kant says existence is not a property doesn't affect Anselm at all. So that's one attempt to save Anselm. Now another attempt to save Anelm was Norman Malcolm's attempt which you read and now in general terms without you know giving all the details what did Malcolm attempt to do? Well, what did Malcolm claim about Anselm after Gonolan criticized him? Anelm Yes. Reformulated his argument. Exactly. He reformulated his argument. Now, not using the concept of existence as

a property, but necessary. Necessary existence as a property. And Malcolm argues that this argument is successful, that this one will work. And that's where David Lewis comes in. And Louisis says, "Yes." Now look, um whether you're talking about God having existence or necessary existence in a possible world or an actual world is the whole issue. And um when he draws that distinction, it turns out that the argument tends to evaporate. Now, all along we've been assuming the rationalistic interpretation of this, that is the more or less plonistic direction of Anelm's philosophy. But there is another

whole tradition that says that Anselm was not arguing this way at all. That is let's suspend all of our most ultimate convictions and see if we can prove God's existence. This um this other interpretive approach says that Anselm was really reasoning in a what might be called presuppositional way. Before we get to that, if I may summarize Kant and then ask a question about Lewis, Kant to me is saying in essence, Anelm, you have not shown how the ideal implies the real. Did you accept that much so far? Anselm, you have not shown how the

ideal implies the real. Well, Kant is actually saying you can't show that the ideal implies the real just because existence is not a property. Okay. It's not just that he's failed to do it. It's just it can't be done at all. Okay. I was going to say if that's true, how is it different from Lewis? It's Lewis who's saying that you have not shown how the ideal implies the real. Okay. I I I'll buy that as I was K and Lewis. Yeah. Lewis is is is that that really almost trivializes Lewis's um uh thing and

that's why I think if he were here he might be chafing a bit by your description of his argument is I think that is the th that is the underlying thrust of his argument so I'll accept it is anyone critiquing him by saying you haven't shown how the ideal implies the real well that is that is the attempt being made by everybody I mean that is that is the general discretion of all reputations is to say you've got a definition you've got an ideal you've got a conception doesn't prove that it's actual. Yeah. And what

what we've been looking at are different ways of doing that. The reduct of sertum of golon. Okay. The denial that existence is a predicate in K and so forth. This distinction between conceiving of something in a possible world conceiving of something in an actual world in David Lewis which is the more sophisticated argument. Okay. But now let's let's let's clear the register. Okay. We're going to take a different approach to Anselm. the approach that says he's really reasoning on the basis of a Christian presupposition. Remember that an Selm writes this document as a prayer. He

is reasoning in the presence of God. He is not reasoning to somebody who denies the faith. When Galan questions some of his reasoning, God, I can't think of I don't have this conception of God that which none greater can be conceived. And immediately answer says, oh, I appeal to you as a Catholic monk. You certainly Do. You have faith. You trust the scriptures. You know this is our conception of God. And so it becomes rather evident in the way that he deals with criticism and the way that he's writing, the way he addresses God. The

way he says, "Help me think this through God so that my faith will be enriched. So having once believed in you, I might now understand what I believe." It's it's rather clear to me that that at least on on some um in some areas of this discussion in the proium that an Selm is trying to reason out from within the Christian world and life view. And that's what I'm getting at. We have to take a different approach to him now. He's trying to set forth the role of God's existence within the system of Christian faith.

not trying to prove the Christian faith to somebody who wants to deny everything all the presuppositions but he says for us for us as Christians this is the role God's existence has it's necessary to even if you understand the Christian idea of God then God must exist at least within that uh framework of thought God is necessary existence for us as Christians it isn't his existence isn't just like any other kind of thing like maybe a 68 Thunderbird You know, it isn't as though it might exist, it might not exist. It's not like us. We

might have been born, we might not have been born. God exists necessarily. Okay. So, this is um this is an approach we can take to Ansim as well. And I'd like to play it out here for a few moments. Um I've read you the quotes from Anel. Let me give you a reconstruction of his um of his argument. It would seem that the proof is an appeal to one's most basic commitment and that his commitment with respect to a paradigm of perfection. What to your way of thinking? What in your most ultimate commitment of life

and thought is the paradigm of perfection? And says for us as Christians, it's God. God is the paradigm of perfection. And that there's two things going on here. Get all this rationalistic stuff off the board. There's two things going on here. We need a paradigm of perfection. And Ansome says for Christians this is God. Moreover, this claim that our that the paradigm of perfection is God is a most ultimate claim. It is our presupposition to use the modern language. Okay, note that God is the paradigm of perfection and this is a presupposition for a Christian.

Now, this is rock bottom. I mean, there's nothing that Goes beyond this sort of reasoning for us. You take this away, you take away our faith. This is one of the defining critical features of Christian faith that God becomes the paradigm of perfection. And so for Christians, the God of scripture, our paradigm of perfection must exist. He must exist because otherwise all other evaluations, all other predications, all other descriptions of the world will be meaningless. If the paradigm of perfection doesn't exist, then there can be no perfection or property attributed to anything that is this

is showing if you will the logic or the grammar of Christian faith. Here's how Christian faith operates. You deny God's existence as far as our world and life is concerned and nothing else has meaning. Nothing else has any perfection or property. Now the argument would continue that without this particular paradigm of perfection there can be no meaningful predication for anybody. Okay. I show you the logic of Christian commitment. God is the paradigm of perfection. And if you deny that paradigm, everything else is meaningless. Now, and some might add, and the unbeliever has no competitor. The

the unbeliever can't even offer another Paradigm of perfection that will allow for meaningful predication, meaningful description, attribution of properties to things. nothing else can be perfect in terms of the world of the unbeliever's world and life view. And um that argument could be continued. It seems to me I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but it would be something like this. That which is most perfect for a Marxist is the is the material dialectic in history. But of course, since there is no God, no sovereign personal God controlling whatsoever comes to

pass in Marxism, the dialectic, the materialistic dialectic of history is predicated on a metaphysic of randomness and chance. But if that's true, if what lies behind everything is chance, to put it very simply, then whenever a perfection is attributed to something, a property attributed to something by a Marxist, that can't really make sense because it's only an appearance because chance really the irrationalism of uh of history makes it impossible to say anything for sure about anything else. Okay? I'm not going to go any further than that cuz we're going to come back to this reasoning

over and over and over again in our course. But now that might be one way we could approach Anselm. I'm going to take this a step further. Now I'm I'm going to get a little more personally and passionately involved in this issue. As a matter of fact, I think that's right. It's a ma as a matter of Christian commitment. I think the onlogical argument does function within a presuppositional setting in a way that we as Christians want to endorse. and I'm going to give you my own approach to it. Okay? Now, again, this is not

an argument that you can just, you know, for any unbeliever coming down the street, you hand him this and he says, "Now, you have to be a Christian." Right? There it is laid out for you. Pure reason. It's certain. No, no. This is within the system of Christian reasoning. Okay? And it goes like this. If God is truly the Lord, if God is the Lord and not merely someone who is conditioned to my thoughts or relative to my attitudes, somehow dependent upon my actions. If he is the Lord, then there must be a sense in

which he exists in himself. If God is the Lord, there's a sense in which he must exist in himself. I'm going to be arguing from the idea of lordship then to the idea that God exists in himself. God makes an absolute demand upon man as the Lord. That he's the Lord means he makes an absolute demand on me. Please underline or at least in some way stress that this is an absolute demand. It's not conditioned by anything. It's not relativized by anything. It's not qualified by anything. When God makes a demand upon man, upon me

in particular. There's no um there's no fudging about it. We don't have any claim upon God. For the Bible says he owns everything. Moreover, he owns everything and we are sinners. We are attempted usurpers of his property. He owns everything in creation. And yet we have tried to take over, if you will. And so we have no claim on God. We have no claim on God because we're creatures. And we have no claim on God because we're sinners. Moreover, when God makes a demand upon us, that demand cannot be questioned. Paul says, "Nay man, but

who are you to respond to your maker in the following way?" Okay, he whenever God says something to us, it can't be questioned. Moreover, when God makes a requirement or makes a demand of us, uh, lays a demand upon us that transcends all other loyalties. Jesus says, "You must hate your parents if need be to follow me." Nothing takes precedence over the demand of God. nothing. It supersedes all other loyalties and it covers all areas of life. So whatsoever we do, whether it's eating or drinking, we must do to the glory of God. Look at

this absolute demand. It can't be questioned. It supersedes all other loyalties and it covers every domain of Life. And if that's the case, then God as the Lord is our ultimate standard. God's not accountable to us. He is the ultimate judge. He is the ultimate standard of all things. Now, let's take this a step further. For a Christian, the absolute demand of God is made upon our actions as well as our beliefs. God doesn't simply say, "Do the following with your body." But I really don't care what goes inside your head. God also makes requirements

as to what we will believe and how we will think and reason. That is to say, the absolute demand upon God by God is made upon our ethics as well as our epistemology. Now, if God is the Lord and makes an absolute demand in ethics and epistemology, then I would argue that this absolute demand in ethics and epistemology implies an absolute demand in the realm of metaphysics. We must have a particular view of the being of God. If he makes an absolute demand in our behavior and our thinking, we cannot look upon God as having

the same kind of being as other things. God has a unique ontological status in some sense because he's the Lord. His ontological status is going to be unique for the Christian. And what is the uniqueness of his onlogical status? How is it that his being is different than the being of a 68 Thunderbird or even my own existence? Well, it's different in that uh because God is my absolute standard. Because God is the absolute judge, because God is the fundamental presupposition of my thought and behavior, I can't think of him as not existing. I mean,

what sense would it make to have a Lord that you can think of as not existing? Obviously that kind of lord would not be making an absolute demand upon you. It would always be qualified by if in fact he exists. Okay. So let's say you have a boss at work and he makes a demand upon you but he can't make an absolute demand upon you for a number of reasons that we could add because there might be qualifications. I mean you might be sick someday. He can't tell you what to do when you're sick. All

these sorts of things. But in addition to that, in terms of the way you think about this boss, you can say, well, you know, he might not even exist. I mean, it's possible that he was never born. So, I mean, his de his demand upon me is not absolute. He doesn't have any unique existence. He's just like me. But that's not true of the Lord. The Lord makes an absolute demand. In which case, I can't think of him as as somehow qualified in his being any more than I can qualify his demand upon me. You

see, if I did think of him as not existing, then I wouldn't be submitting my thoughts to him, would I? And is it obedient before God to pretend that he doesn't exist? Of course not. I wouldn't be regulating my life according to him if I thought of him as not existent. And therefore, I cannot think of God's existence as somehow questionable or contingent. And let's kind of wrap this all up here and see what we've been saying. Then by recognizing God's unique status epistemologically and ethically, there's a certain metaphysical framework established with a Christian and

that entails what we will call now the necessary existence of God. The very uniqueness of his existence, his ontological status is that he exists necessarily for the Christian. And so unlike the autonomous spirit which feels it needs no revelation from God, this form of the ontological argument is based on scripture and has if you will a religious ethical orientation. It has a religious ethical force to it. To really understand the conception of God presented in the Bible is to conclude that he cannot but exist. Let me say that again. To really understand the conception of

God as presented in the Bible is to conclude that he cannot but exist. He necessarily exists if you understand the Christian conception of God as Lord. Now, I think there's a certain um exeetical foundation for this um this line of reasoning that I want to suggest to you. Uh very quickly, the Bible teaches that God possesses all things. And because he possesses all things, he's totally independent. He's totally self-sufficient. Everything depends on him, but he depends on nothing. And thus, his existence is necessary. And I'm just going to give you these verses very quickly to

jot down in your um in your notes. Genesis 14:2, Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 24:1. That's the premise. God owns everything. The conclusion, his existence is somehow necessary. Job 41:11, Psalm 50:12 and 14, Romans 11 uh at verse 35-2 and then Acts 17:es 24-28. Consider also the PMIC against idolatry in the Bible. Unlike the pagan gods, the prophets tell us the living and true God needs nothing to keep him going. The pagan gods may be contingent. They're dependent beings, but God's not. Isaiah 4:17, Isaiah 44:16-17, Isaiah 46 6 and 7, Jeremiah 10:es 3-16 and Habach 2 18

and 20. I will not often give you a string of passages like this, But I'm afraid our time will get away from us if I look at all of them. So, at least you'll have the benefit of having them in your notes if you wish to look them up and consider this. But I think the passage that is most telling in this regard is Galatians 4:8. And somebody please read Galatians 4:8 for us. While that's being looked up, John 5:26, John 1:4 are passages that, it seems to me, illumine what we're going to read in

Galatians 4:8 also. Okay. Galatians 4:8. Anybody have it yet? Go ahead. However, at that time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. All right. When you didn't know God, you were slaves to n to to gods, to idols, to false conceptions, which by contrast apparently by nature were not gods. By nature they were not gods. In essence, they were not gods. By contrast, the God that you worship is by nature God. Now, we're not talking about in terms of something in the created world. By nature

here is being used in the in almost the linguistic or philosophical Sense. He is essentially God. It is naturally the case with respect to him that he's God. Now, these other things were not by nature gods, but he is by nature God. The implication is that the Christian's God is God inherently and in that sense he self-exist so he gave to the son also to have life in himself. Here we have God described as the one who has life in himself. Now, it's certainly a richer conception than existence to be true, but it's at least

existence. He's self-existentially the same thing. Okay. What I've been trying to do in the last few minutes is to suggest that um Anel made some mistakes philosophically and there's an ambiguity. You can understand him rationalistically. You can understand it presuppositionally. But on the presuppositional reconstruction of the onlogical argument, there is some value to it. And as a matter of fact, there is some biblical foundation for it. For this line of reasoning, the idea that the very conception of God shows that he necessarily exists within the world and life view of Christianity. If you understand what

God is the unique Lord, then you must conclude that he exists. Or you can deny the whole world and life view of Christianity. Then try to come up with another standard of perfection, Some other self-existent thing that is life in itself. And then you have the clash of worldviews that we were talking about last week. And uh anybody recall what happens to the unbeliever's worldview? A little bit louder. Dialectical tension. Dialectical tension. Great. See, we're getting this down. By the end of the 10 weeks, we're going to have that one mastered. Okay, that's good. Any

questions about the onlogical argument? Today is really uh dedicated to the cosmological argument. If I don't move on quickly, we won't get much of it done. But I do want to make sure that you understand what we've done. Any um any questions? Are we going to end up at this end point where each of the arguments ended there? Unless taken from a Christian presupposition are rationally unprovable there with every argument. What I'm going to argue in each case is that they have to be reconstructed on better philosophical and theological premises. Yes. Now, in each case,

there's going to be variations on that. I don't want you to think we're just running some kind of monoomaniacal argument over and over and over again under the guise of all these different labels, but uh there is a certain logic to this. That's right. That each one of these will fail philosophically and then you can reconstruct it on a philosophy that is geared toward Christian theology, if you Will, and you can make them function, I think, fairly um adequately. But a lot of it depends upon being able to reason as a Christian because this clash

of world views is always going to come in. It's always going to have a variant. Would you say then that that's what Romans 1 is saying? The whole thing no matter how we try to cond concoct a philosophy that excludes God. The only way we can come to a conclusion about his existence is from the Christian point of view. that only was that um well if you add to that Paul says that it's unavoidable that you have the Christian point of view because what he says there of course is that everybody does know God and

knowing God they suppress the truth and unrighteousness not just they on knowing the living and true God they nevertheless make fools of themselves okay so we want to say that the unbeliever does know these things even though he's just attempting to suppress it and it's just our apologetic is trying to show him that he's suppressing the truth that he has to know if you were to know anything at all. Okay, let's turn to the cosmological argument now. Really change gears. This will be a real relief to you. Remember I said we started with the toughest

of all the stuff in the reading on the onlogical argument. That's the kind of weed the sheep from the goats. I guess if you can make it through that, You can make it through the rest of this. That's everything else is easy by comparison to the ontological argument. And the reason for that is that the ontological argument makes no claim to be a philosophical explation of some intuitive notion. But the cosmological argument, by contrast, is something that everybody's supposed to think about. I mean, this is rather obvious. It's common sense. It's it's something you have

an intuitive grasp of. The ontological argument. You have to learn some philosophy to be able to make that one work. But everybody can reason this way. It's it's it has a certain um um obviousness about it. It is thought. Okay. So, we're going to move into some easier terrain. Although the philosophical issues are going to um are going to be stiff to be sure. Let me say a word or two about Aquinus before we talk about the cosmological argument itself. St. Thomas Aquinas. Uh first a word about faith and reason. We're going to come back

to this in our evaluative lecture in a week or so. Natural reason according to Aquinus operating apart from revelation is able to discover many things not only about the natural world but even about God. that is reason that is not dependent upon God's revelation is able to discover many things not only about the world itself but about God in particular his existence and his major attributes. Now other things are known about God only on the basis of special revelation Aquinas says and therefore can be Received only on the basis of faith. For instance, we wouldn't

know that God was triune. We wouldn't know that the world was created out of nothing unless he had told us so. We receive those things by faith. But there are some things which are provable by natural reason apart from faith. Now it turns out the things provable by natural reason are also revealed in the Bible. And that's uh for the sake of those unable to prove them on their own. Okay. So, if you will, this is a pjorative way of putting it, but I have a pjorative attitude toward it, so I guess it's appropriate. God

does tell us certain things in the Bible for the sake of those who can't do their philosophical homework. Sophie, the wash woman can't work out these proofs, and so God does condescend to tell her these things. Uh but nevertheless, those things are also provable by natural reason. And then there are other things which are not provable by natural reason, which neither Sophie the washman nor the greatest philosopher ever living could prove. And God expects us to receive them on the basis of faith like the trinity. Well, that distinction between natural reason and faith does leave

reason autonomous. Well, autonomous within its own sphere to be fair to Aquinus. It's not totally autonomous, but within a certain range it is autonomous. And even there Aquinus was, I think, um, Right to say that faith has veto power if it should turn out that the way you're reasoning contradicts something found in the Bible. That is, that would force you to go back and try to work things out again. You've made some mistake even though you didn't notice it up to this point. But it's this whole idea of reasoning being self-sufficient, no dependence upon revelation

at all that uh I'm later going to want to talk about. Thomas develops his basic metaphysical scheme out of Aristotle. It turns out because it makes no difference that Aristotle was a pagan because in this realm of natural reason we can get along quite well with that revelation. And then after he works out his metaphysical scheme that is aristoilian by um everybody's sophisticated perception, he then goes and fits the data of scripture onto that scheme as best he can. As to epistemology, Aquinas is a empiricist. He believes that what we know is based upon sense

experience. All knowledge begins in sense experience. And so you sense um Borugard and Bula and Buttons out in the field, these three cows. And uh and from the sensations that go through your eyes, apparently you're able to abstract intellectually the form of coweness. Okay. The active intellect determines the universal forms or essential properties of those uh by abstracting from sensation. So he's an empiricist in the most traditional sense. All knowledge begins with sensation. If all knowledge begins with sensation, how do we know God by natural reason? Is God a physical object that could be known

empirically? Yes or I don't know if this is brief or not. Um maybe you don't want to deal with it. What's the difference between Platonic approach to the Aristotle Aristotle type logic? The difference between intuition and sensation. Okay. Plato knows the forms by intuiting the forms and it has nothing to do with abstracting from his sense experience which is totally unreliable according to Plato. But Aristotle says we go and we look at these different cows in the field and then we intellectually abstract the features of coweness from them. And the gentleman behind you I thought

was raising his hand. I was going to say does he hold any kind of intuitive thought or intuitive knowledge? As a matter of fact, Aquinas does not have um what might be considered the most in integrated epistemology because later on in his life he gave up writing his magnum opus and theology and apologetics Because he said he had had a soundss like I'm being unduly harsh on the poor uh saint today. I'm not trying to to do that, but I mean there are some real questions we have to at least ask. And if you're satisfied,

then then that's fine. And if you're not, well then you're going to look elsewhere. But anyway, this much must be known by way of background to Aquinas. Oh, how how do we know God if he is not a physical object? That's where we were in our discussion. All knowledge begins with sensation. Aquinus says we know him in three ways. The way of causality, the way of remotion, and the way of eminence. One, the way of causality, attributing to God the ability to cause the things which we know and experience. Okay? We only experience the Thunderbirds

and and cows and and other such of things. But after all, there has to be some cause for those, and that's what we call God. the way of remotion which is traditionally called the via negativa. We know God by by uh negating the things we find in experience. We can learn what God is not by distinguishing him from all that is merely finite, all that is creaturely. Okay? So God is not physical. He is not limited to certain times and spaces. And then the way of eminence we ascribe to God in utmost degree every perfection

known in our experience. He is most loving, most just, All knowing. Okay, we we know people that know things. We know people who are loving. We know people who are just. But God is all those things par excellence. So the way of eminence, he is the greatest degree of these things. The way of uh negation, he is not any of those things which are merely finite and creaturely. He is not temporal or spatial. And then the way of causality. He is the explanation for those things that we do find in in sensation. Okay. Let's go

now to the cosmological argument in particular. This by way of background so you know why he reasons the way he does. It can be found elsewhere and before Aquinas but Aquinus is the one who gives the classical expression to the cosmological argument. And the cosmological argument is found in what is called the uh five ways. The five ways of proving God. And the first two of those ways, there's some dispute about um the third or fourth, but everybody will grant that the first two of the five ways of proving God are cosmological arguments. What is

it that makes something a cosmological argument? We're back to our map. You know, the structure of argument. So this is where everybody wakes up again for a while. What is the thrust of all cosmological arguments? Whether it be way one in Aquinus, way two or Swinburn or anybody else. What is it that makes something a cosmological argument? Remember now let's let's just do a little review. An ontological argument reasons from the conception of God to the existence of God. By contrast, a cosmological argument begins by saying, "Notice some fact about the world." Okay? Note some

fact and experience. And the second thing you do in a cosmological argument is you invoke the causal principle. What is the causal principle? Many popular Christian apologists attempt to state the causal principle in a way that trivializes it when they say that every effect has a cause. Why is that a trivial way of expressing the causal principle? It's redundant. Well, yeah. Okay. It's redundant. But effect is just defined by something that has been caused. And then cause is defined as that which gives an effect. So of course every effect has a cause. It's true by

definition. So what is a better way to express this that doesn't trivialize it? By the way, if you want example of that, some of you are Familiar with the the work of RC Sproul and Sproul tries to make his cosmological proof rest upon the idea that every effect has a cause. What's going to be the problem if you say every effect has a cause and try to prove that God is the author of the world? Well, the argument will have to go like this. Every effect has a cause. The world is an effect. Therefore, the

world has a cause, which we call God. What's the unbeliever going to say about that argument? God. No, no, no, no. That's another argument that comes up. But if every effect has a cause, how do we know that the world is an effect? You see, that's the point. Why categorize the world as an effect? To say that it's an effect is to beg the question. It's to say it must have a cause. And so, it turns out this is that's why I say it trivializes the cosmological argument to do that because the unbeliever is immediately

going to say, but I don't categorize the world as a whole as an effect. I categorize it as a cause and therefore I don't have to go any further. I don't have to go a step back to God. Okay. So the cause uh the causal principle does anybody want to suggest or shall I just run ahead here? Want me to run ahead? Okay. Every event has a cause. Okay. Every event has a cause. So we note some fact about the world, Something in our experience. Then we invoke the causal principle. What sort of thing might

we um what what sort of thing might we invoke about our experience? What what do we want to note? Well, Aquinus said you might note that a change occurs, right? You were sitting in one position 5 minutes ago and you've changed in your chair. Okay? Something has happened. There's something different about the world now. Change occurs in this world. Or even more mundanely, something exists. hardly the sort of premise anybody's going to want to question that something exists. Okay. So, if you note this that something exists or you note that change occurs and then you

appeal to the causal principle that every event has a cause, what's the conclusion? There must be a series of cause and effects that preede what we have noted in our experience. Okay? Okay. So let's say we've noted the change of a young man to an old man. Now if if we see this change and we appeal to the causal principle then there's going to be a series or a sequence of causes and effects that preede What we have noted that is the aging of the man. Okay. But that doesn't complete the argument does it? Okay.

If you will you can call these the first two premises. This is a subconclusion. But now another premise has got to be added. And Aquinus adds that immediately. And what is it? What is the missing link? He's proven a series only. Now he's got to do something to get to God. The conclusion is going to be down here that God exists. Again, many evangelicals, I think, misconceive the cosmological argument by going simply from here, if you will, from one and two to five. that that is not right and it's philosophically horrendous to think that you

could do that. What you prove is a series and now you must add another premise and from the series you'll get to God and that premise is you cannot have infinite number of causes must come to ultimately must come to a first cause. Very good. You have to deny an infinite causal regress. All right, we have an we have a series of causes and effects. Okay, we have this cause, excuse me, this effect and behind it, this cause and then behind it, this cause back back. But you can't go on forever. You can't have an

infinite regress of causes. That is to say, every series must end. And where the series ends is what we call God. Looks very neat, doesn't it? It also, as I said, seems to explicate philosophically what is an intuitive notion, an intuitive way of thought for many people. Well, where did the universe come from? Had to come, everything comes from something. Where did the universe come from? Came from God. Of course, in that very simple way of expressing it, that's where you get the the obvious child's question and response, well, where did God come from? And

so, to put it a little bit uh um more precise, uh you argue that there is a series of causes, but every series must end. And therefore, there is a God, the beginning of the series. Now, if you were going to um if you're going to challenge this argument as you see it on the board, what would you take to be the most crucial premise? Obviously, if you challenge any of the premises, you're not going to get to the conclusion. But what is it that everything is going to rest on? I mean, where is the

real swing in this argument take place? Where do you turn the corner where it finally can become something of religious interest? Certainly, it's not that, you know, Something exists or that old young men get old or that every event has a cause or there are series. Ah, we've all gotten to the same place. Okay. This denial of an infinite causal regress has been the focus, you see, of challenges to the cosmological argument. And um depending on how much time we have here, yeah, I think what I'd like to do is to talk about um the

direct challenge to that. There there have been direct challenges to the idea that there can be no infinite causal regress. And then there have been um attempts to reformulate the cosmological argument without this premise. Yes. All right. Good. made a statement that uh in number four that it has to an end as well to the series. Okay. Uh and then also the the five um wouldn't someone bring up why why does God have to do that? Aquinus's answer to that is that that becomes a linguistic thing. That's just what we call God. Whatever is the

end of the series is what we call God. What what you see what this really proves and and I'm glad for you to bring this up. What this proves is that every causal series has an end. Okay? And then what there's kind of just a little parenthetical thing that Aquinus then adds at the end of each one of his ways. He says, "And that's what we call God." Okay? Now you you unbeliever, you pagan Aristotle, you may have called it the unmoved mover, you may have done all these sorts of things. But I mean in

in terms of the nomenclature of the Christian church, we call it God. We're talking about the same thing and our language is God language about that. Okay? So he's not trying to say anything more but that God is, if you will, the most adequate cause or the first cause. It's a little misleading. I think more adequate is better, but nevertheless, he's just saying God is the first cause. Okay? Nothing more is being important. He may not be personal. He may not be a very nice person. He is personal. He may not be very powerful. He

may not be this. He may not be that. But when all said and done, he is the first cause. He's the most adequate cause. Now, there are two strategies that you can take. You can challenge number four. Challenge uh the denial of the infinite um causal regress. and then try to um uh overcome the challenge or you can grant you can grant the challenge. You can say okay we give up maybe there can be an infinite causal regress and then reformulate the argument to get around that challenge. Now, what I was trying to do by

looking uh at how much time we had left is to decide which one of these we want to explore first this afternoon before we ran out of time. And I think we can probably say something intelligent about Patterson Brown's um challenge. You all have read Patterson Brown for today and uh what he attempts to do is to explain the difference um between an infinite causal regress that Aquinus could accept and an infinite causal regress that Aquinus would have to reject. Okay, let's put it this way. There's at least two varieties of infinite causal regresses. Okay,

there's at least two kinds of infinite causal regresses. One of which Aquinus could accept. In fact, his literature evidences that he did and another kind that he could not. One that he kind of he would have to reject. Okay, the kind that he rejected turns out is a very special kind. Okay, if you will, I'm going to do this twice. I'm going to start very simply with you and just go through this once and then go back and fill in details. There's a kind of ordinary infinite causal regress, if you will, the garden variety sort,

you know, that you run into in all the cheap markets around Town. And then there's a very special kind, a very unique kind of infinite causal regress. Okay, that's this very special kind that Aquinus could accept. Yeah, he he he could he could put up with a very special kind of infinite causal regress regress. And this ordinary kind he couldn't. Now just saying that much without even telling you the difference between the different kinds of regresses. What's going to become the problem? How do you know when to apply which one? Well, of course you have

the difficulty of applying one. But in terms of philosophical argument, we can let Aquinus choose his own. Okay? But Aquinus is going to be choosing the special kind. The special kind. Well, how do we know that events have a cause in the special sense in which Aquinus is going to use an infinite causal regress? How do we know that events have this special kind rather than the ordinary kind? There's kind of a special pleading going on here. You see when everything begins to look a little shady about the argument, Aquinus redefineses his terms. Now if

he redefineses his terms, then that of course gives a whole new complexion to the whole argument. We have to go back. We've been we've been accepting some things on an ordinary language approach to it, if you will. We've kind of taken for granted, okay, There things do exist, events have causes, all this sort of thing. And now lo and behold, Aquinus introduces a new idea of causation. You say, "Well, now maybe not every event does have a cause then in the special sense." Now, do you all follow this? Aquinus says every event has a cause.

And then it turns out he's going to talk about causation in a special way. Sir, if there's a case, there's even one case where infinite causation is possible, then that series of causation needs no creation. And it may be true for many other series as well. Special causation may not exist. I think what you're actually doing is taking the other approach to this that I' I've now erased and we'll come back to after our vacation. Um there have been those like Samuel Clark and uh and um and Ed Row and others who have wanted to

say well okay maybe we can have an infinite causal regress but there has to be some explanation or some cause for the entire series taken as a whole. now not just of the individual members and if I understand your remark just now that fits into that line of thought right uh not exactly uh I'm refuting acquaintance at this point okay let it pass me again how do you if there is a series of causation which Does not require a root cause there can be an infinite cause regression yes and a one case or sever several

cases if they don't need a creator the necessity of creator is not necessarily proved by any one special quotation. No, you see the difficulty is that Aquinus can grant a certain kind of infinite causal regress and still salvage his argument. Then as V says, if somebody says, now look, Aquinus, here's an argument for an for an infinite causal regress. And Aquinus listens to the argument. He says, well, you got a point there, but that isn't the kind of infinite causal regress I had in mind. You see, he can escape his tormentor by now drawing a

distinction. He can say, "Well, what you were talking about, yeah, you're right. You win there. But over here, there's a different kind of infinite cause aggress. And boy, we sure can't we can't grant that kind of infinite causal regress. Or quinus could take a different approach, which he didn't by the way, but some of his um some of his supporters have. And that's that well maybe you can have an infinite cause of regress after all. But you still have to have an explanation for the entire series. Okay, the infinite causal regress is okay. We explain

Z in terms of Y and Y in terms of X and back back and maybe it keeps going. But now, how do you get the whole thing accounted for? But that's the other way, you know, that we're going to do after vacation. I I I begin to think we're going to do this one after vacation. Okay, let me see if I can just in the concluding moments here um wrap up one explanation of what Patterson Brown is trying to do. Uh Patterson Brown points out that the special kind of infinite causal regress that Aquinus has

to deny may not apply to events at all. Very simply put, the special kind of causation and therefore the special kind of infinite causal regress that Aquinus must deny is that of legal responsibility. Cause in the sense of legal responsibility. Now, if you have not done your reading assignment for today, that that has got to sound just a little bit strange. But if you've done the reading assignment, you'll understand that Patterson Brown goes through these various kinds of causal chains that you might have. And he draws the traditional distinction between an accidental chain and an

essential chain. What is an essential chain of causes? I think it's right on your lips. I know. Propulsion is the example he he gives. Okay. So my hand moves the stick. The stick hits the ball and the ball moves it. Okay. What caused the ball to move? The stick. But of course, it's my hand that moved the stick. And so in a very real sense, we can say my hand moved the Ball by means of the stick. Now that is that is called essential causation. That's an essential chain of causes just because well there I

I'm not going to beg the question. philosophers have argued as to what makes it essential causation. But the point here is um it's just the moving of the hand. It's just the moving of the stick by the hand that brings about the moving of the ball. Okay? So what we have here is a moving hand and therefore a moving stick and therefore a moving ball. And you notice that you have all these things are the same motion. It's the same hand motion that is moving the stick that is moving the ball along. Okay? So, it's

essential in that sense. It becomes the same whenever every every time you look at the effect. Here's one cause. Here's an effect. This effect turns out to be a cause and it has another effect. Okay? But nothing is lost in the transference here. It's all the same. The cause and the effect are the same here. Now, that's different. That's the example of propulsion as a causal chain. But there's another kind of causal chain we sp we speak of and that would be a genealogical chain. Okay. Abraham brought about who? And he brought about Jacob. We'll

use Jacob. Okay. Now here you have a causal chain also. You couldn't have had Jacob without Isaac, and you couldn't have had Isaac without Abraham, right? But what's different? It isn't true that Abraham is the cause of Jacob. It is true that the moving of the hand is the cause of the moving of the ball. And that's because there's an essential causation here because the effect is the same as the cause. It's just in this that you see the essential part of it. But now notice Abraham begets Isaac. Isaac begets Jacob. The effect here is

not the same as the cause. Abraham is a cause. He causes an effect. Isaac, his son. And it turns out that Isaac goes and does something that brings about somebody else. But it's not the birth of Isaac that brings about the birth of Jacob. Isaac is an effect in a way that that is different from the way that he's a cause. It's about I think the clearest way you can express that. It was all it was very clear to you. I can tell. Let's do it again. Okay. Isaac is an effect in a way different

from the way he's a cause. It's true that Abraham causes Isaac and Isaac causes Jacob. But you see, Abraham causes Isaac as an effect. That is to say, he's born because of Abraham in a way that's different than the way in which Isaac becomes now a cause. As an effect, he's a child, if you will. As a cause, he's a man. And so, there's a difference here. That's called a genealogical chain of causes. And it's not essential. In medieval philosophy, it was called an accidental chain of causes. Okay. So, Patterson Brown um Oh dear. Patterson

Brown distinguishes between these two. And then at the end of his article, he introduces another notion of causation, not just essential causation and accidental causation. He introduces the whole idea of legal responsibility causation. and and um what's his example there? You remember the auto pile up? Okay, Mr. Alpha hits Mr. Beta who hits Mr. Gama who hits Mr. Delta. Okay, so here's this fourc car pileup. Boom, boom, boom, Boom. All right, now you go to court. See, Delta goes to court and he says, "Now I want my car paid for and now GMA, you caused

it. You're accountable for it." Okay, GMA says, "Well, that'd be all right, but as a matter of fact, I was hit from behind by beta, and beta gets to alpha, and alpha becomes the cause of all of this in the legal sense. You got to pay all the bills, alpha." All right. Now, that's a causal chain that is established in terms of legal responsibility moving backwards. And Patterson Brown shows and I think makes a brilliant suggestion that in the toistic way of proving that God is the cause of the universe. We don't mean that he

is somehow the essential cause. Just think about what that would mean. And he's certainly not the accidental cause because the accidental cause could have an infinite regress without any problem. I mean, there's nothing to say that one's genealogical tree stops at a certain place or just goes back back because it turns out there's always a break between the cause and effect at every child that comes along. So, it turns out that this legal responsibility is the prime candidate for interpreting the cosmological argument. Every event has a cause in the sense that something's responsible for that

event. Something's responsible. Now, if you believe that, if you believe that every event in the world has someone responsible or something responsible accounting for it, then you Might very well conclude that this world has got to have a maker or God. But Patterson Brown says, "What assurance do we have that every event has some kind of legal responsible cause behind it?" Science can only tell us about simultaneous um events. one event is simultaneous with another and we we say because of habit that there's this cause effect relation. What assurance do we have from the scientific

world which is by the way what Aquinus wanted to appeal to our natural experience. What assurance do we have that this notion of causation is applicable to every event in our experience? Well, none whatsoever. And consequently, it turns out that the challenge the the way of denying the challenge to an infinite causal regress relies upon a notion of causation that is itself suspect when it comes to natural things or natural order. And on that encouraging note, we'll take a break and come back and do the cosmological argument in the helological in about a week's time.

Thank you, Lord. We pray you would bless this hour to the nourishment of our souls that we might understand our Christian faith and commitment better. And we might understand better how to defend it, present it in such a way that indeed those who need you the most might see the truth, the scripture, and they might Come to have a similar commitment as we have. how we thank you that your spirit has granted to us faith and how you've given us enlightenment in this course to this point. We pray that you continue to be with us

in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, last time we were together, we were talking about the cosmological argument and we'll continue to do that today. Let's see if um anybody remembers last time or the reading. uh give me the basic structure map of the cosmological argument. How do all cosmological arguments reason? And there are different uh different expressions uh different ways of arguing but they all have a similar structure effect to cause from effect to cause okay that's basically very simple uh but accurate description of cosmological arguments they argue from effect to cause but now I did

say that if you argue from effect to cause in a sense that's a trivial way of putting it uh let's let's see if we can go and do it again now with a little more detail a little for sophistication. Not a lot more, just a little more. Remember I gave you premise 1 2 3 4 and five last time. Some fact is your experience. That's right. First of all, you notice some facts in experience. What kind of fact might this be somebody? What might you notice in your experience? What kind of fact? Changes. There are

changes taking place. there is motion. Okay. And secondly, there must be some causal principle principle which causes that event. Okay. You appeal to a causal principle. And here's where we want to distinguish between a feeling from an effect to a cause. That's true by definition. Every effect has a cause because that's what we mean by effect. That's what the word effect means. Something has a cause. And so usually the causal principle is every event has a cause. An event is understood in the broadest possible sense. A thought is an event. Uh the existence of a

body is an event because there is there's some kind of eventuation even in the existence of a body. if it's a stone or a living body. Okay, we notice that there's motion in our experience. Okay, we appeal to a causal principle. Say this event, this motion needs a cause and then we conclude that there must be a god, right? Go right for the jugger. Right then, Right, clench the argument. No, what what do we conclude at three? Series of serious. That's right. there must be a series of causes. Okay. And then we add another premise

to this subconclusion. What is that? Okay. There cannot be an infinite causal series. And then we conclude that God exists or let's keep it in the form of the argument there must be a first cause which we call God. All right. Does this strengthen your faith? You find this convincing uh as you look at it putting yourself in the shoes of the unbeliever or in the brain of the unbeliever. I've got the wrong part of the anatomy here. As you're thinking and as as an unbeliever might think, would this convince you? Well, what sorts of

problems might there be found in the argument? I said when we were together last time that the really crucial premise actually in any argument every premise is crucial in a sense but the one that really is bearing the weight that is the hinge of this argument is the idea that there can be no infinite causal series. There can be no infinite regression of causes. Okay. Now Thomas Aquinus argued against the possibility of an infinite causal regress. He argued against the possibility. However, in the article that we read by Edwards, he pointed out that Aquinus really

gave us a very poor argument. Aquinus kind of passes over this point without the kind of detail that he usually gave things. And the argument is not a good one. And Edwards points out Aquinus allows for the possibility elsewhere of an infinite series. And indeed he allows for certain kinds of infinite causal regressions. Okay. So this is rather destructive to Aquinus's argument to point out that even he elsewhere grants there can be an infinite causal regression. Okay. Now what is done now by tomist followers of Aquinus those who want to have a natural theology? What

is done to try to resurrect this argument or to reconstruct this argument to avoid this damaging concession that even Aquinus elsewhere in his vast body of literature granted infinite causal regressions? Well, now we're either still on vacation. Two kinds of can't give up now. I mean, all of the history of natural theology is resting on the answer to this question. If Somebody look here you have a guy who is I mean Thomas Aquinus is the natural theologian par excalance right and he's numero uno when it comes to this sort of thing he says no infinite

causal regression his critic says oh is that right well did you notice by the way over in chapter 15 of this other book you wrote you granted that there are infinite causal regressions I mean does that shoot the whole thing out of the water what is going you're going to have to draw some kind of distinction right Aquinus is going to have say, well, yeah, that was one kind of infinite causal regression I'm willing to grant, but there are other kinds I I won't ordinary and special regression. Now, I put it I put it in

my own language that there are ordinary causal regressions and there are um extraordinary or or special kinds. Um, and the problem with the argument is going to become now how can Aquinus be sure that his argument works when he appeals to his very specialized notion of uh causal regression. You see, he wants to say there are certain kinds of causal regressions that we'll grant, but there are other kinds we won't. Okay? Now the kinds that he um that he won't grant depends on a notion of cause that turns out to be rather extraordinary. Okay. Now

I started to distinguish between various kinds of causal chains. Uh toward the end of our um our time last week, we talked about a um a causal chain that is modeled after propulsion, One that's modeled after uh genetics or genealogy, and another one that it turns out is kind of a law analogy of causation. Can somebody um can somebody explain this? What kind of causal chain is the is the chain of causes seen in propulsion? What is it that is uh that makes that uh an instance of this particular kind? What is the salient feature

of propulsion? The causal chain of propulsion. Okay. I have a stick. I move my hand which moves the stick which hits the ball which moves the ball. Now what is it that makes that the kind of causal chain that it is? The motion of each event is related to the other in terms of the kind of motion involved. Okay? Or I put it this way. You have a cause that brings about an effect. Now that effect is itself a cause which brings about an effect which is itself a cause bringing about an effect. Okay let

me go through this now putting in the detail my hand moves which has the effect of moving the stick. Now this the moving of the stick is itself a cause The moving of the stick is an effect of the moving of the hand. It's also a cause of the moving of the ball. Okay. So you see how the effect and the cause are one and the same thing here. But now is that true when it comes to the causality uh causality of uh genetic relations? Okay. So you here you have um we're using Abraham as

I recall. Okay. Abraham is the cause of Isaac, right? in the sense that Abraham's relationship with his wife brings about the birth of Isaac. Okay. Now, this is the effect. Abraham's relationship with his wife brings about the effect of the birth of Isaac. It's also true that Isaac brings about uh the birth of Esau. Jacob. No, we're going to use Jacob. We want to be covenantal here. Even in philosophies in covenant theology has something to say. Now is it true that this effect is the cause of Jacob? Did the birth of Isaac bring about the

birth of Jacob? You don't have to have a lot of philosophy to know the answer to that question. No. You see, Isaac had had relation with his wife and then that Brought about the birth of Jacob. So, it turns out that Abraham is the cause of the effect Isaac. But Isaac is the cause of uh the effect Jacob in a way different than his being the effect of his father Abraham. Okay, that is really not all that complicated, but I mean to express it in an English sentence, it gets kind of convoluted here. You understand?

Abraham is a cause. He brings about an effect, the birth of Isaac. Isaac brings about the birth of Jacob, but not as the effect of Abraham. He brings about it as a separate cause. Here, the effect and the cause that we call Isaac are different. Up here, the effect and the cause in propulsion are the same. The moving of the stick and the moving of the ball are the same. Okay, go ahead. Reading reading through that stuff again it just strikes me that there's two different kinds of causation depends upon an artificial discrimination that what

you have to admit in the genealological side there that there are many causes for Jacob. One of those causes is Abe having had Isaac. There are other causes as well. And a multiple causation theory, which is hardly even touched on. The propulsion is very simple causation. There's one cause for each effect. Well, there's really multiple causes there too to be honest, right? To be honest, but they aren't they never really discuss that. And if you start bringing in the Multiple causes involved, you can trace according to some people would be able to trace it back

that a is one of the causes. There are also many other causes. Let's ask this question. Given the moving of the stick in the particular way described, right, is the moving of the ball necessary? I I'm sorry. Given the moving of the hand in the particular way described, is the moving of the ball necessary? Okay. Yeah, it is. But now given Abraham, is Jacob necessary? No. That's why it's cause that's why this is called cause per accident or whatever the Latin is. It means accidental causation. There's nothing necessary if you start with Abraham that you're

going to get to Jacob because you know h there has to be a whole life history here of Isaac and he has to have a wife and they have to have a certain kind of relationship before they they have a child too. And so there's nothing necessary in this cause that brings about this effect. But given this kind of cause this effect is necessary and that's why it's called essential causation necessary causation. this is accidental causation. So I think that probably is a very good distinction philosophically. It's one that we should respect. But then what

happens in Patterson Brown's article? Patterson Brown says there's another kind of causation apparently that Aquinus is really resting on and the thrust of the argument rest on and that is this kind Of law analogy what he calls responsible causation. Responsible causation. What is it that is responsible for this effect as we now see it? What is responsible for it? Okay, remember he gives the um he he gives the illustration of a of a traffic pileup. Okay, so Mr. A hits Mr. B and slides into Mr. C, slides into Mr. D. Okay. Now, if you go

to court and D here wants to claim damages, we can trace co we can trace causation back using a legal frame of mind. We're looking for responsibility here. Legal responsibility. And so D blames C, but C says, "Uh-uh, no, no. I was hit from behind by B." And B says, "Oh, no, no. I was hit from behind by A." Well, turns out that A is the first cause in the sense that he is responsible for the whole pile up. And what Patterson Brown is saying is this seems to be the kind of reasoning Aquinus is

using is using. We notice in our experience here at D um motion in the world. Let's say it's the turning of the earth. Okay, night and day. So here's this this change this motion in our experience. Now that must uh there there must be something responsible for that. Right. Okay. And it turns out in the Aristotilian framework that's the moving of the spheres in the heavenly bodies above. Okay. And because the spheres in the in the heavens are moving they are turning the gases the ether between the between the stars and the earth. Okay. And

and as it's turning the ether the ether is turning the earth. Is that right? You didn't know that. That's Aristotilian physics. Okay. There is no there are no empty spaces. What you have is the turning of the stars, you see, is is kind of like if you get a watery um um track around the Earth. Okay? And if you get the water moving, what's going to happen? That's going to communicate motion through the water to the edges of the earth. And although you're not going to get the same kind of ratio of turning, that's going

to get friction moving on the outer uh surface of the earth and get it moving. So ether kind of uh does that sort of thing. It's this uh this blue of the universe. And so you have cause cause, but you finally have to stop somewhere. What's responsible for the turning of the stars which turns the ether which turns the earth? God. Okay. Who is responsible for this? Now I think the reason Patterson Brown points out the law analogy of responsibility is because the causation that is being used here is really a form of explanation. Explanation.

How do you explain the fact that there is something rather than nothing? How do you explain the fact that things are in motion? Well, let's say somebody takes a very mundane uh approach to this and says, "Well, you want to know why things are in motion? Okay. What do you want to know about? Okay. Well, here's D back here. You want to know why that's in motion? Well, because of C. Okay, that's it. Somebody says, "Oh, no, wait a minute. Wait, why is C in motion now? I I want to know more." And you say,

"Oh, well, okay." You do the analysis and lo and behold, something we call B causes C. Okay, now that's it, right? We we've got an explanation of what we want to explain here. And after a while, the natural theologian gets impatient. He says, "No, it's not enough to give an explanation for every particular thing in my experience. What I want is an explanation for the whole chain of causes." The whole chain. And this is where we turn to um uh the uh short piece by Samuel Clark. Samuel Clark in your reading. Um this is the

nature of the cosmological argument and somebody challenges four here says there's no infinite the Premise is there are no there can be no infinite causal regression and somebody says well why does that have to be now Samuel Clark says okay I give up there can be an infinite causal regression I grant your point I concede the argument but I'm still going to make the cosm ological argument work. And the way Clark does that is after granting the point he wants to rescue the argument by saying what causes the whole series of causes everything taken together.

Even if you have an infinite chain, okay, moving all the way back, even if you have an infinitely long chain, Clark says we need to have an explanation for the whole series by granting the infinite length of this chain. He cannot argue there must be a first cause in the sense that there must be an a back here that is the absolute rock bottom first. That's what Aquinus wanted to do. Now Clark tries to resurrect the argument if you will if you will by putting it in another form. He means first cause in the sense

of what stands over all of it. What brings about the whole series? Not just what causes the first point in the series to get rolling and then that Causes the second, third, and on. He wants to know about the whole shooting match. Why is the whole series exist? And his conclusion is, well, there must be a god that explains everything taken together. Now before I before I erase this right here, does everybody have the basic natural theological form of the cosmological argument? Because it's going to take another form. Obviously with four taken out of here,

we're going to have the different kind of argument. That's what we have to look at here for a few moments. Okay. Now this way of putting the argument is if you want an explanation for D, okay, you can get it in C. If you want an explanation of C, you can find it in B. an explanation for B is found in A and then on and on and on we can go. There is an an infinite causal regression here. Every point in the series is explained by the previous point. But the question is how do

you explain the whole series? How do you explain the whole series? That's Samuel Clark's point. The only way you can explain the whole series is now to um is to make it dependent upon God. Now David Hume as well as Paul Edwards more recently uh have both these men these philosophers have disputed this argument. They've disputed the point. Anybody tell me in your own words what the problem with this argument is back to a grammatical explanation of some necessary existence. What is a necessary existence? Is it does it go back to linguistics? I don't I

don't know. I don't think so. There's really a logical point here. Yeah. Hume says, well, he asked the question, how can anything that exists from eternity have a call? And uh since that relation implies a priority, a time and a beginning of existence. Yes, that's one way in which Hume argues against this. He says if this is an infinite series, then it's eternal. And so it makes no sense to speak of it having a cause because that would have to be something that is pre-eternal. Now, would it be heresy to agree with him? What's that?

Would it be heresy to agree with him? You heresy to agree with him? It'd be heresy if that was your theology. But I think philosophically he's right. That's a good criticism. And therefore, we've got to get, you know, our ducks in order if we want this argument to work. Um, but now I'm looking for another form of criticism, one that's not even as as subtle as the one that has been read. Um the assumption here is that if you Explain every member of the series, you haven't explained the series as a whole. That the explanation

of the whole series goes beyond the explanation of the individual parts. The uh presupposition of Samuel Clark's argument is that when every member of the series has been explained, we still have the sequence as a whole left to explain. And that's a serious philosophical confusion. Why is it that we should have to explain the entire series now once every point in the series has been explained? Let's say we're um we're walking in downtown Ashlin this afternoon and lo and behold to our surprise we find down on the corner of uh Main Street somewhere five Ekimos

standing together in their traditional Eskimo guard. Right. Five Eskimos. Somebody says, "Now, how do you explain that? Five Eskimos standing on the corner of Main Street, downtown Ashlin on Wednesday afternoon. How do you account for that?" And so somebody says, "Well, Eskimo number one here happened to be in town visiting his parents and came downtown To buy something at the store at this particular time. Essimo 2 is waiting for the bus, wanting to go back home to Alaska or wherever. Eskimo 3 was dropped off here and told to wait for his ride. Eskimo 4, Eskimo

5. Okay, we give an explanation for every Eskimo being on that particular corner that particular time. Okay, so the person who's riding in your car who has asked a question, this person has said, "How do you account for five Ekimos on the corner of Main Street on Wednesday afternoon right here in Ashlin?" Okay. And you've given an explanation for one, you've given an explanation for two, you've given an explanation for three, you've given an explanation for four, you've given an explanation for five, and then your writer says to you, "Oh, that's all well and good,

but how do you account for all five of them being there?" And you would probably look with some puzzlement at him. You see, wait a minute, I accounted for all five of them. Watch. Explanation one, explanation two, explanation three, explanation four, all five. You can see 1 2 3 4 5 every one of them has been accounted for. He says, "But wait a minute. Isn't the whole greater than its parts? I mean, you've accounted for every part of the complex there. But how do you account for the complex as a whole? That'd be a serious

confusion in this person's thought. You would recognize it immediately." Now, is there Not such a confusion in Samuel Clark's argument? He says, "Okay, we grant an infinite causal regression. Every point in the series is explained by the previous point in the series. On and on and on and on and on. And then Clark says, "But how do you account for the series as a whole?" Well, how's that different than asking for an explanation for all five of the Eskimos, even though each particular Eskimo's been explained? Yeah. Why are there Eskimos has not been answered? Explaining

how the Eskimos came to be in Ashland does not explain why there Eskimos at all. No. In the particular story I told the the question is how do you explain them being on this corner at 5:30 in the afternoon in Ashland Ohio which is the problem because the analogy does not the individual explanations does not go back far enough when you explain the seriation the parts you haven't explained the cause of this there being a series at all. Okay. Okay. Now, who you're you're you're really giving it. You're giving the argument um to uh to

save the cosmological argument that is advanced by one of the other people we've read for last time and for today. Who's that? I'm ready to move on to that. So, this is a good lead into it. William Row. Okay. What Rose says is what we need to do is clarify the uh kind of argumentation Clark was using. He's not asking um about the explanation for the whole series in terms of accounting for five Ekimos in the same way that you account for the individual Eskimos. Rose says when we ask the question why does the sequence

exist at all we're asking why does the sequence have any members at all why does the sequence have any members at all why are there any eskimos after all to use my little story okay when somebody says okay I see how you've accounted for all five of the eskimos but why why why is there a sequence why is there a complex of eskimos Um that question which is what Clark was asking Samuel Clark was saying how do you account for the whole sequence should be clarified in this way says William Row you all know row

you've read that I trust Ro says that really amounts to asking why does the sequence have any members at all. So even if each member in the sequence is explained, we still do not know why the sequence has any members rather than none at all. Why is there a sequence rather than nothing? Or let me simplify it. Put it right down to your front yard. Why is there anything rather than nothing? Why is there anything rather than nothing? Well, that's the question Jean Paul Sarter asked. Why is there anything rather than nothing? Why do our

sequences have any members rather than no members at all? Why is there a universe? The response to that from sophisticated unbelievers I think is that um is that asking such a question such an ontological question with this kind of air of existential astonishment that's that's really the thrust of the argument. I mean, why is there anything? I mean, how how do you account for the fact that there are any members to the sequence? Asking that kind of question with that kind of cutting edge to it may be nothing more than realizing our anxiety over our

individual precariousness. They give a psychological explanation for that question. Maybe asking that question just goes to show how upset you are about your own contingency, you know, or if you want to be a little more blunt, perhaps asking that question is shows nothing more than a desire for a kind of pseudo profundity. Okay, you asked me to account for what you see in your experience and I account for Eskimo one and I account for Eskimo 2. And after I get done with all this and we filled all the encyclopedias in the world, then you say,

but why is there anything to explain rather than nothing to explain? The unbeliever is likely going to say, "Isn't that just being a little pseudo profound? I filled all the encyclopedias in the world explaining everything in your experience. And now you want to go back and say, well, why are we explaining anything at all? Well, because that's just our human predicament. We look for explanations of things. And to say, now we need an explanation for the whole explanation game is just kind of, you know, doubling over on yourself. There's just no purpose in that. What

we want to explain are particular problems, particular issues, particular facts of our experience and we've explained them or we're in the process of explaining them. And when all the explanation is done, we don't have to take another step back and say, but now why was there anything to explain to begin with? There just is that now that's just the way it is. You know, people don't have a choice of the onlogical worlds in which they will occupy. And in this particular world, in this particular situation, you find yourself having things to explain. I mean, why

do we have to go any further than that? Why must we explain? Because we must explain. Explanation is its own explanation. Now, I realize that as Christians, you're probably not satisfied with that. And by the way, the existentialist realizes that uh that as an unbeliever, he's not satisfied with your explanations. But what's the difference between them? Is it just psychological? Some people are willing to say explanations go back, back, back. And finally, we have to have the explanation that beats all explanations or we go back, back, back and the end believer says an explanation is

its own explanation. Okay? Explanation is its own explanation. Okay? You Christians are looking for the alltime explanation. You want a god at the end of the series and we're just saying the series is its own explanation. Now, somebody says, "Now, wait a minute. A series can't be its own explanation." That's cheating. Reasoning in a circle. I mean, that's not letting the series itself be explained. If the series is its own explanation, if the series of explanations is its own explanation, Then what you really do is begging the question. Okay, let's say you want to take

that approach to the unbeliever. You want to say, "No, wait a minute. explanation can't be its own explanation. You just can't say we stop at this particular point. There's got to be another explanation for the whole thing. What is the unbeliever going to do? I mean, if he's sophisticated and philosophically sharp, he's going to turn right around and say, "Oh, okay. Then what's the explanation for your God?" Right? Get a few amens on that one. You see, if we insist that everything's got to have an explanation that goes behind it, so that you can't stop

somewhere, Mr. Unbeliever, and say, "Well, the whole chain just explains itself," then he's going to say, "Okay, then what explains your God?" We say, "No, wait a minute. In the very nature of the case, God is the being that explains himself. God is self-explanatory." Okay? And I think that's true, by the way. That's my own particular religious commitment. I think God doesn't we don't require an explanation for who God is or what God is or the way he the way he does things. God is his own explanation. He is self-existent. He is self-explanatory. But if

if we are going to allow ourselves the privilege of stopping the chain of explanation somewhere with God Who is self-explanatory, then we have to recognize that the unbeliever could deify the world and say the world is self-explanatory. He could make just the material world his god if you will and it will perform the same function that our god does. The world becomes self-explanatory. Somebody says well now how do you explain the world as a whole? He says I don't. That is the explanation. And if you want to go any further you're just being pseudo profofound

because when you get to the self-explanatory you go no further. But that's what we do when we appeal to God too. We say God is self-explanatory. He's the eternal one. And that that should put an end to the chain. Okay. What has happened in this series of discussions is we find out that the cosmological argument usually calls for a first cause. But there is no assurance that the first cause must be what we call God. Now the unbeliever can grant the argument to say okay I'll call it God but that means for me the world

is God isn't the way I'm accustomed to speaking but since you people insist on this religious vocabulary okay well then the world's god now you think you have a personal god that goes beyond the world but all all you've really proven is you've got to stop somewhere and I'm willing to stop at the world or at the universe or something like Okay, way back when when we started this Discussion, I said there are ways to trivialize the on the cosmological argument by saying every effect has a cause. And then what happens is you've got to

argue that the world is an effect. Lo and behold, now that we've taken a more sophisticated approach to it, we're right back to the same problem, aren't we? How can we prove that the world is an effect? That's what it all comes down to.