f1a8cb8c-6cc5-30c1-faae-f9e8f520ac3b
00:00:00.000 | I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast.
00:00:15.620 | The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's
00:00:19.740 | been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand
00:00:24.600 | the test of scrutiny.
00:00:26.620 | As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people
00:00:32.320 | in the right direction.
00:00:37.660 | For this episode, I wanted to explore some philosophical arguments for God.
00:00:45.220 | As one might imagine, this is a colossal topic, so what I'm going to be attempting to do,
00:00:53.740 | as really I attempt to do in just about every episode, is to really just give you the cookies.
00:00:59.260 | I'm going to give you the briefest of flyovers and then hand to you what I believe to be
00:01:06.540 | the most persuasive as it relates to philosophical arguments for God.
00:01:12.120 | To begin with, I want to say Christian philosophers and/or philosophers who happen to be Christian
00:01:19.220 | have a divide as to what method is either the most persuasive or even mandated.
00:01:27.340 | That is an entirely separate issue and I don't want to get you bogged down by it, but it's
00:01:32.860 | worth bringing up now because it will be relevant in the later portion of this episode.
00:01:41.020 | Understanding that this episode is devoted to the arguments themselves, let's go ahead
00:01:46.340 | and start off with some.
00:01:48.180 | I'm going to give you several arguments for God, but leave you with what I believe to
00:01:53.540 | be the most persuasive and attempt to justify my position on that.
00:01:59.460 | The first argument I want to present to you is the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God.
00:02:07.460 | The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, Kalam is spelled K-A-L-A-M.
00:02:15.740 | The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God could be summarized in its rudimentary parts as
00:02:22.260 | the following.
00:02:24.380 | 1.
00:02:25.900 | Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2.
00:02:30.900 | The universe began to exist 3.
00:02:35.100 | Therefore the universe has a cause
00:02:37.700 | Let me say that again.
00:02:39.940 | 1.
00:02:41.540 | Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2.
00:02:45.620 | The universe began to exist 3.
00:02:49.580 | Therefore the universe has a cause
00:02:53.020 | According to the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, that cause is what we call God.
00:03:00.520 | William Lane Craig, who is a Christian philosopher and apologist, he's the one that's popularized
00:03:05.940 | this particular argument and has added his own nuance to it and it goes on to make the
00:03:11.180 | case that the cause of the universe is a personal God as opposed to an impersonal one and the
00:03:18.060 | rationale behind that gets a little bit more technical so I won't be going into that.
00:03:23.420 | I do find, however, that this argument in its rudimentary parts is pretty compelling
00:03:29.140 | since everything we know of has a cause and in fact it's hard to think of anything as
00:03:34.540 | not having one.
00:03:36.460 | If we did think of anything, imaginary or not, as not having a cause, then at that point
00:03:44.140 | you really are delving into the realm of the eternal, aren't we?
00:03:49.940 | To give you an analogy, if I were to concede that the Big Bang Theory of the universe is
00:03:54.420 | how the universe as we know it came to be and that prior to that, the actual Big Bang,
00:04:01.980 | there were gaseous material floating in space and that just existed, what existed prior
00:04:10.660 | to the Big Bang?
00:04:12.820 | If you say, "Well, all the material that is necessary for life today," my next question
00:04:17.160 | then becomes, "Well, where did what was necessary for all of life today come from?
00:04:24.300 | What existed before that?
00:04:28.220 | What existed before space to come into being?"
00:04:33.300 | Even given all the preconditions for an atheistic universe, the answer I've always gotten is
00:04:39.100 | some form of, "Well, it always existed."
00:04:42.860 | And do you know what that sounds like?
00:04:45.220 | That is just an AKA for "eternal."
00:04:49.660 | And that sounds pretty religious, doesn't it?
00:04:53.500 | But what choice does the atheist have?
00:04:54.940 | Again, I'm not assaulting the atheist, I'm stating logical conclusions.
00:04:59.220 | And don't get me wrong, I've heard other answers to explain away the concept of eternality
00:05:05.220 | from a materialistic standpoint, AKA "always existed," but it's never amounted to what
00:05:10.700 | I would categorize as a good answer.
00:05:13.500 | If you are honest and unbiased, the atheist is left with blind faith.
00:05:19.860 | And I call it blind faith because there's no actual evidence that the material necessary
00:05:24.540 | for the universe has always existed, always existed being an AKA for "eternal."
00:05:33.060 | But even then, the atheistic universe needs to be dressed with religious garb.
00:05:40.260 | In other words, for the Big Bang Theory to work, it needs to borrow capital from atheistic
00:05:48.980 | worldview.
00:05:51.540 | If you want to go deeper into the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, I would point you towards
00:05:57.620 | William Lane Craig over at Reasonable Faith.
00:06:02.760 | The next philosophical argument for God that I found compelling is an age-old one that
00:06:07.900 | I've found to really have stood the test of time.
00:06:11.660 | We've all heard this argument in some way, shape, or form.
00:06:15.860 | The technical term for it is the teleological argument for God, the teleological argument
00:06:23.020 | for God, AKA the argument from design.
00:06:28.200 | If you've read some form of this argument, it was probably from William Paley, and it
00:06:34.060 | was called the Watchmaker Argument, the Watchmaker Argument.
00:06:39.260 | It goes something like the following.
00:06:41.480 | If you found a watch outside an isolated cornfield or some other remote part of the world, you
00:06:47.900 | would naturally assume that someone made that watch despite you finding it in a remote area,
00:06:54.340 | as opposed to the watch just naturally, spontaneously, and randomly coming together to form a watch
00:07:02.380 | over millions of years.
00:07:04.980 | You wouldn't entertain the possibility of disorder to order.
00:07:09.980 | You wouldn't entertain the possibility of random metal pieces working as levers and
00:07:15.940 | pulleys to come together to form a designed unit that has a specific purpose that also
00:07:21.900 | accords with the sun and the moon.
00:07:24.220 | You would think to yourself that someone made that watch, and that person has the requisite
00:07:29.220 | level of intelligence to do so, and some other person in possession of said watch must have
00:07:34.220 | somehow dropped it where you found it, or that person is the same person.
00:07:39.300 | Either way, there is creative and intelligent design behind that watch.
00:07:48.420 | The argument then from this looks at the vastness and complexity of the universe, and reasons
00:07:58.180 | from the same.
00:07:59.860 | The vastness and complexity of the universe.
00:08:04.700 | Using the vastness of the universe to illustrate this point, did you know that previous estimates
00:08:10.300 | used to put the number of galaxies in our universe at 200 billion?
00:08:15.380 | Current estimates now put the number of galaxies in our universe at around 2 trillion.
00:08:20.900 | To give you a size comparison, our galaxy, the galaxy that we are currently in, the Milky
00:08:25.380 | Way, is about 100,000 light years in diameter, and we are in a relatively small galaxy.
00:08:33.540 | A light year is the distance light travels in a year.
00:08:37.500 | So the Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter, we are in a relatively small galaxy,
00:08:45.740 | and there are about 2 trillion galaxies in our universe.
00:08:53.540 | Regarding complexity, let's just take a look at our solar system.
00:08:57.700 | In order for life to exist, the earth needs to rotate at a certain angle, must rotate
00:09:03.780 | at a certain speed, must be such and such a distance from the sun, the sun needs to
00:09:09.660 | radiate a certain amount of heat, or else we'll all die from heat, or we'll all just
00:09:14.500 | freeze to death, the moon and the other planets also need to be at such a distance to the
00:09:19.500 | earth, there are also certain physical constraints in our universe that needs to maintain their
00:09:25.020 | exactness, there's 23 of them, you couple this with the complex cellular machinery that
00:09:33.260 | is inherent in all living organisms, not just human beings, in all living organisms, and
00:09:40.380 | you begin to see a level of design completely outside human comprehension.
00:09:49.060 | A watch might be complicated, but it certainly doesn't even come close to the level of
00:09:55.620 | complexity and power associated with the universe and all that is in it.
00:10:04.020 | If we look at a watch and say to ourselves, based on the design inherent in a watch, of
00:10:09.780 | course there was an intelligent being behind the creation of that watch, then why wouldn't
00:10:14.420 | the same thought process apply to the material universe?
00:10:20.260 | Moreover you see this line of thinking echoed in the scriptures.
00:10:24.420 | Listen to Job 38, chapter 38, verses 4 through 12, Job 38, 4 through 12, it says this, "Where
00:10:32.780 | were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"
00:10:35.220 | This is God talking to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
00:10:39.740 | Tell me if you have understanding.
00:10:41.420 | Who set its measurements, since you know?
00:10:44.120 | Or who stretched the measuring line over it?
00:10:46.780 | On what were its bases sunk?
00:10:49.140 | Or who laid its cornerstone?
00:10:50.980 | When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
00:10:55.860 | Or who enclosed the sea with doors when it went out from the womb bursting forth?
00:11:00.660 | When I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands, and I placed
00:11:05.100 | boundaries on it and set up bolts and doors, and I said, 'As far as this point ye shall
00:11:10.580 | come, but no farther, and here your proud waves shall stop.
00:11:15.540 | Have you ever in your life commanded the morning and made the dawn know its place?'"
00:11:23.500 | That is God talking to Job in Job chapter 38, verses 4 through 12.
00:11:30.040 | Consider also Romans chapter 1, 18 to 21, Romans chapter 1, 18 to 21, "For the wrath
00:11:36.140 | of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people
00:11:42.220 | who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident
00:11:47.300 | within them.
00:11:48.300 | For God made it evident to them.
00:11:50.520 | For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and
00:11:56.180 | divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so
00:12:02.300 | that they are without excuse.
00:12:04.180 | For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they
00:12:09.020 | became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened."
00:12:15.620 | From these passages, one can make a colorable argument that the teleological argument for
00:12:20.400 | God doesn't have its roots in human philosophy, but is also rooted in the scriptures themselves.
00:12:31.820 | I want to move on to the last argument I'll be addressing, and this is the argument that
00:12:35.820 | I find the most persuasive.
00:12:38.180 | Although I find it the most persuasive, I also find it the most difficult to grasp,
00:12:43.260 | the most difficult to articulate, the most difficult to convey, and yet the most, in
00:12:48.660 | accordance with the scriptures, I find it to be the most powerful philosophically.
00:12:56.500 | This argument is called the transcendental argument for God.
00:13:01.860 | The transcendental argument for God, it's known in other circles as presuppositionalism.
00:13:08.820 | One of the several reasons why I find this argument so persuasive, and I want to highlight
00:13:14.140 | is that it portrays and magnifies the absolute myth of ideological neutrality.
00:13:22.620 | The absolute myth of ideological neutrality.
00:13:26.460 | I can't unpack that here because of time, and maybe I'll circle back around to it one
00:13:31.820 | day and do an episode solely devoted to that topic, but let me say it again.
00:13:36.540 | It portrays and magnifies the myth of ideological neutrality.
00:13:42.700 | We readily assume that when engaging in truth claims, when investigating truth claims, the
00:13:49.460 | fair way to go about investigating and dialoguing about such claims is that we take an unbiased
00:13:55.140 | approach and that unbiased approach must necessarily entail ideological neutrality.
00:14:02.340 | Don't get me wrong.
00:14:03.420 | We should take an unbiased approach, but my point is that unbiased approach, that desire
00:14:08.980 | to take that approach, we think necessarily entails ideological neutrality.
00:14:16.980 | Once you dig deep enough into this topic, you begin to realize that ideological neutrality
00:14:23.700 | is impossible, not because I want it to be, but because it just is.
00:14:31.300 | Hopefully after examining this argument, you'll have a better grasp of why.
00:14:35.600 | So let's do that right now.
00:14:37.220 | Going back to the transcendental argument for God, a form of it was arguably espoused
00:14:41.940 | first by Immanuel Kant, but the true substance of the argument was first formulated by Cornelius
00:14:48.980 | Van Til.
00:14:49.980 | So some people will tell you that Immanuel Kant was the first one.
00:14:53.140 | I disagree.
00:14:54.140 | I'm not going to get into that.
00:14:56.020 | The first to formulate this in its substance, in my opinion, is Cornelius Van Til.
00:15:03.300 | It was then sharpened, popularized, and then elaborated by Dr. Greg Bonson.
00:15:10.780 | I will spend the rest of this episode trying my best to unpack this argument, while not
00:15:15.780 | getting bogged down with the details, but you're really going to have to put your thinking
00:15:20.300 | caps on.
00:15:22.220 | The payoff, in my opinion, is worth it.
00:15:24.380 | The transcendental argument for God states the following.
00:15:28.580 | We can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary.
00:15:37.640 | We can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary.
00:15:45.960 | We can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary.
00:15:54.940 | The transcendental proof for God's existence is that without Him, it is impossible to prove
00:16:03.940 | anything.
00:16:05.820 | The transcendental proof for God's existence is that without Him, it is impossible to prove
00:16:13.680 | anything.
00:16:15.820 | The problem is, if we're going to speak about the proof of the existence of God because
00:16:21.840 | of the impossibility of the contrary, that calls into question the very nature of the
00:16:27.400 | evidence that is going to be proposed to show such impossibility.
00:16:32.660 | To illustrate this, I'm going to be speaking from three key areas, addressing three key
00:16:39.120 | areas, and those three key areas are the uniformity of science, the universal laws of logic, objective
00:16:49.600 | morality.
00:16:51.180 | The uniformity of science, the universal laws of logic, objective morality.
00:16:58.340 | Here's an example of what I mean by that.
00:17:00.680 | If I were to tell you that my car is outside and you don't believe me, then in response
00:17:07.240 | to that, what could I say?
00:17:10.900 | What could I do to prove it to you?
00:17:13.280 | What do you think will resolve our question, our dilemma?
00:17:17.680 | You just go outside to verify whether or not my car is parked on your grass, right?
00:17:23.080 | It's observational.
00:17:24.080 | A car is a material object observable by the naked eye, so if you have a genuine question
00:17:30.560 | about whether or not my statement is true that, "Hey, my car is parked on your grass,"
00:17:35.920 | all you do is get up and go and look at your grass and see whether or not my car is there.
00:17:41.360 | However, if we're going to prove the existence of gravity, we don't prove gravity the same
00:17:48.640 | way we prove whether or not my car is parked on your grass.
00:17:52.760 | What if the question were the following?
00:17:55.400 | Is murdering all people, no matter what, when they turn 8 years old, objectively wrong?
00:18:05.080 | What if that were the question as opposed to gravity or my car being parked on your
00:18:10.800 | grass?
00:18:12.160 | Is murdering all people, no matter what, when they turn 8 years old, objectively wrong?
00:18:19.360 | We don't address every single question in the same way we address whether or not my
00:18:28.320 | car is parked on your grass.
00:18:31.840 | How about this question?
00:18:33.320 | Is the Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh a beautiful painting?
00:18:41.400 | Are the acoustics in the Hagia Sophia mesmerizing?
00:18:50.920 | Again, you wouldn't go about answering these questions in the same way you would go about
00:18:57.240 | answering whether or not my car is parked on your grass.
00:19:02.800 | The reason you don't is because different questions naturally call for a different set
00:19:13.280 | of criteria to answer those questions.
00:19:16.880 | You don't say the Starry Night is a beautiful painting merely because you see it.
00:19:21.280 | You don't say the acoustics in the Hagia Sophia are great merely because you hear it.
00:19:25.460 | If any of you listening are familiar with philosophy, we are now beginning to delve
00:19:31.000 | into the realm of epistemology and metaphysics.
00:19:37.600 | If you don't know what those words mean, don't worry about it.
00:19:40.160 | That's okay.
00:19:41.160 | I'm going to try to break down what I'm saying into very small pieces.
00:19:45.180 | They're fancy words, but don't be fearful of fancy words.
00:19:50.500 | If we are then going to engage in a debate about the existence of God, the factual criteria
00:20:00.360 | that is going to be employed to have such a discussion is crucial and yes, even foundational
00:20:08.840 | to our discussion.
00:20:10.340 | Undoubtedly, we're going to agree that the use of logic and reason is going to be paramount
00:20:16.720 | to having such a discussion and engaging in such an inquiry.
00:20:21.160 | Here's the thing though, why does the atheist or other non-Christian theist get to presuppose
00:20:32.480 | the universal laws of logic?
00:20:35.440 | Why do they get to presuppose that?
00:20:37.760 | Now that might seem like a silly question to the vast majority of laymen out there.
00:20:42.080 | However, this is a righteously investigated question by those in the philosophy community,
00:20:47.400 | especially those who focus on the nature of logic.
00:20:51.360 | The reason being is this, if in the eyes of the materialist, the only thing that is real
00:20:56.820 | is what you see with your eyes and everything that exists went from a state of disorder
00:21:02.560 | to order, then why are laws of logic universal?
00:21:08.600 | How do you know what they are?
00:21:10.920 | How do you know they don't change and stay constant?
00:21:14.240 | For the Christian, the reasoning is simple.
00:21:16.960 | Our God is a God of order and the universal laws of logic reflect who he is.
00:21:21.280 | This is his world.
00:21:22.280 | He created it.
00:21:23.720 | The universal laws of logic reflect him.
00:21:26.400 | Again, this goes to my earlier point that the existence of God is proven by the impossibility
00:21:33.360 | of the contrary.
00:21:35.200 | For the atheist and the other non-Judeo-Christian theist, how do you prove the universal laws
00:21:43.900 | of logic?
00:21:48.740 | You need another vehicle to resolve this dialectical inquiry.
00:21:57.600 | You are forced to presuppose that the laws of logic exist and are universal and/or that
00:22:07.800 | the laws of logic prove that the laws of logic should be used.
00:22:12.760 | But you see, that's a real dilemma here because you've now engaged in circular reasoning without
00:22:18.200 | providing any justification for such.
00:22:22.680 | It's not that the circular reasoning in itself is inherently wrongful because you need a
00:22:28.560 | mechanism to delineate that, but my point is you haven't provided any justification
00:22:38.000 | for such circular reasoning to be accepted for the Christian.
00:22:46.940 | In the Judeo-Christian worldview, the universal laws of logic exist because it reflects who
00:22:53.840 | God is.
00:22:55.480 | If you were to dig deeper into the atheistic philosophy community or even the non-Christian
00:23:04.600 | theistic philosophy community, they acknowledge they have real problems here.
00:23:12.280 | To give you further proof of this, if you wikipedia "law of non-contradiction" and
00:23:17.160 | you scroll near the bottom of the page under "alleged impossibility of its proof or denial,"
00:23:23.600 | you'll see that the first sentence reads, "As is true of all axioms of logic, the law
00:23:30.440 | of non-contradiction is alleged to be neither verifiable nor falsifiable on the grounds
00:23:36.960 | that any proof or disproof must use the law itself prior to reaching the conclusion.
00:23:44.420 | In other words, in order to verify or falsify the laws of logic, one must resort to logic
00:23:50.800 | as a weapon, an act which would essentially be self-defeating."
00:23:58.160 | I understand that wikipedia is not an authoritative source, but I'm trying to show you that
00:24:03.960 | what I'm stating isn't some controversy I just made up.
00:24:08.200 | But it's a real pickle for those who have thought deeply about the universal laws of
00:24:12.800 | logic.
00:24:13.840 | If you were to click on the source supporting that portion of the wikipedia article on the
00:24:18.640 | law of non-contradiction, it takes you to a paper written by a philosopher named S.
00:24:24.240 | Mark Cohen entitled "Aristotle on the Principle of Non-Contradiction."
00:24:31.560 | My point being again that if philosophers see that all axioms of logic are neither verifiable
00:24:39.400 | nor falsifiable because in order to prove them, you have to use them, then they must
00:24:47.080 | be presupposed.
00:24:48.760 | The presuppositional argument isn't some weird Christian invention, it's a confessed
00:24:53.920 | observation by those who are not ashamed to omit what is right in front of them.
00:25:01.840 | To those who are not ashamed to just follow the evidence and see where it takes them.
00:25:07.400 | And it is completely consistent with the triune God of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
00:25:16.200 | To quote a couple verses here to elucidate this thought, let me read to you firstly Isaiah
00:25:22.240 | 118.
00:25:23.240 | "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.
00:25:28.640 | Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
00:25:32.080 | Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."
00:25:36.920 | Reason together.
00:25:37.920 | God is calling one to reason because we have the capacity to reason.
00:25:42.600 | We have the capacity to reason because every human being that has ever lived was made in
00:25:48.360 | the image of God.
00:25:50.080 | Listen to Romans 2 14-15, "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what
00:25:57.560 | the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.
00:26:03.480 | They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also
00:26:08.120 | bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them."
00:26:13.680 | Here Paul is telling us that there is something inherent within the makeup of mankind that
00:26:19.840 | bears witness using the dialogue of accusation and permission.
00:26:25.720 | Intrinsic in this interplay is reason, which is consistent with Isaiah 118.
00:26:32.960 | Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 14-33 Paul writes, "For God is not a God of confusion, but of
00:26:45.240 | peace."
00:26:46.240 | God is not haphazard, without composure, and just all over the place.
00:26:50.560 | Paul goes on to state in verse 40, "But all things must be done properly and in an orderly
00:26:56.360 | way."
00:26:57.360 | Paul is stating this because it reflects how God desires worship to be done, and people
00:27:02.880 | benefit more when things are done in an orderly way, in particular when worship is done in
00:27:10.480 | an orderly manner, again reflecting on God's nature.
00:27:14.960 | You see the inherent quality of objective reason in God's prescriptions and directives.
00:27:23.960 | This is not just something I'm making up pie in the sky by and by.
00:27:27.760 | You can't say that the material universe is all there is, and then turn around and say,
00:27:35.640 | "Well, there's this abstract entity that's universal, and we can't see it, but it also
00:27:40.680 | exists."
00:27:41.680 | That's the very opposite of the material universe you just espoused.
00:27:47.600 | Some will then say, "Well, the laws of logic are agreed upon conventionally, but the problem
00:27:52.680 | is we all know that the laws of logic are objectively real, they're universal, they're
00:27:56.840 | not conventional, because then they would change and they wouldn't be constant.
00:28:01.400 | They don't exist because they're popular."
00:28:03.880 | Others will say that they are merely thoughts that all men share.
00:28:07.800 | The problem with that is that the laws of logic are rooted in reality.
00:28:12.480 | They're not some illusion that we all see.
00:28:16.720 | We can't even agree whether or not the dress is blue or gold.
00:28:21.640 | So we see and we use the universal laws of logic, not only in everyday life, but to make
00:28:28.600 | cars, to make trains, to make planes, and those cars get us to point A to B. Those trains
00:28:35.160 | take us along the coast, and those planes fly us all around the world.
00:28:41.000 | What you have to understand is that the Bible claims that God is not only the God of those
00:28:46.800 | who believe, but rather, he created everything that we see, and it reflects, reality does,
00:28:54.800 | it reflects who he is.
00:28:57.200 | God made this world, this is his reality, and when we go against his reality, it has
00:29:03.000 | a way of snapping back at us.
00:29:06.600 | That is true not only for the Christian, but for everyone, and for anyone who has ever
00:29:12.520 | lived.
00:29:15.840 | Let me illustrate this point because I know it's hard to grasp.
00:29:18.600 | An example of this would be gravity.
00:29:21.660 | Try not believing in gravity.
00:29:23.760 | It's not something you can see, but try not believing in gravity.
00:29:28.980 | Try jumping off of a story.
00:29:30.720 | You won't get very far.
00:29:32.680 | Again, science is uniform, and it behaves with a high degree of certainty, and the Christian
00:29:41.200 | understands this because this reflects who God is.
00:29:46.680 | Science is able to progress for these reasons.
00:29:51.620 | The great philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, K-U-H-N, understood this, and to the extent
00:29:59.200 | that it matters, I don't think he was a Christian.
00:30:02.640 | Christians have no problem presupposing this, and contrary to popular perception, it is
00:30:08.840 | not anti-intellectual to presuppose such notions because the existence of all things, including
00:30:16.240 | this conversation, is proven by the impossibility of the contrary, namely, a universe that exists
00:30:24.280 | without the Christian God.
00:30:27.440 | Revelation is greater than reason precisely because reason is born out of revelation.
00:30:35.440 | Understanding worldview claims, then, when examined at their roots, have their conflicts
00:30:40.800 | resolved by perceiving the impossibility of the contrary.
00:30:49.360 | My point is maybe still hard to grasp, and so I'm going to try to bring it together with
00:30:55.840 | this last example because I think what we're talking about here, we don't really grapple
00:31:04.400 | with it as much, but then when we do grapple with this next example, it is something we
00:31:12.920 | deal with routinely, and that is objective morality.
00:31:16.480 | We might not routinely deal with, in an abstract level, the universal laws of logic and the
00:31:21.040 | uniformity of science, but we routinely deal with the objectivity of morality.
00:31:31.920 | There are things, there are some things, that are always wrong, even when an entire culture,
00:31:42.840 | even when the entire world says differently.
00:31:47.160 | Is that not true?
00:31:50.600 | Don't we agree that morality is objective?
00:31:54.120 | There are certain crimes, certain conduct, if I were to articulate, even if the whole
00:32:00.600 | world agreed it's not wrong, because morality is objective, we would agree that it's wrong.
00:32:07.360 | If everyone in the entire world got together and made a statement declaring that all eight-year-olds,
00:32:17.320 | regardless of any other factor, should be put to death, again, not based on anything
00:32:23.840 | they did or said, but merely because they are eight-years-old, even if the entire world
00:32:31.000 | said that's okay, we would say that it is still wrong.
00:32:36.720 | We would agree that morality is not based on convention.
00:32:44.080 | If you disagree, that's fine, but you're saying, whether you like it or not, that morality
00:32:49.960 | is based on convention, then by logical implication, Nazi Germany was fine, Pol Pot was fine, Kim
00:32:59.720 | Il-sung was fine, Mussolini was fine, Stalin and Lenin were good dudes, but nobody would
00:33:05.400 | say that.
00:33:06.960 | Nobody would say that.
00:33:09.360 | Does nobody say that because morality is based on convention, or is there something we see
00:33:17.400 | to one degree or another that speaks to us in our conscience and tells us that morality
00:33:25.960 | is not subjective and based on convention?
00:33:29.560 | It is objective, it is fixed, it is constant.
00:33:36.240 | We might disagree on the perception of it, but wouldn't it be correct to say that morality
00:33:44.080 | is objective and we should be doing our best to ascertain what it is, rather than meting
00:33:51.400 | it out for ourselves?
00:33:54.000 | For the Christian, to define morality as objective is simple.
00:34:00.760 | Morality is a reflection of the Judeo-Christian God.
00:34:05.840 | Morality is a reflection of who God is.
00:34:08.560 | That's why it is objective, fixed, and constant.
00:34:12.920 | It is immaterial.
00:34:14.480 | We can't see it, but it is still objective.
00:34:18.640 | It is still there.
00:34:20.000 | And all the convention in the world, the entire world, all of mankind agreeing that it is
00:34:28.180 | something else wouldn't change it.
00:34:31.320 | Everybody has inherent value because everybody is made in the image of God and nothing we
00:34:38.160 | could do could change that.
00:34:41.040 | So even if the whole world says murdering 8 year olds is good, it is not good because
00:34:46.400 | morality isn't based upon convention, popular opinion, or other subjective changing whims.
00:34:52.880 | It is based on God who never changes and who has absolute authority.
00:34:58.080 | And we live in his world, this is his reality, and when you violate this objective morality,
00:35:04.060 | it inevitably has a way of snapping back at you.
00:35:08.080 | It might not happen as swiftly as gravity, but it will inevitably happen.
00:35:15.000 | Try sleeping with a married man's wife and see what happens.
00:35:18.320 | Try committing to a life of stealing and see what happens.
00:35:21.680 | Try lying to everyone anytime you want to get out of a sticky situation and see what
00:35:26.880 | happens.
00:35:28.160 | You will feel the effects of it at some point and maybe even right away.
00:35:37.400 | You cannot see morality, but it is still objective.
00:35:41.040 | It is a reflection of who God is.
00:35:44.520 | Just like the laws of logic.
00:35:48.820 | You don't see it, but you know that they are universal.
00:35:53.880 | And when you apply the universal laws of logic, it corresponds to reality.
00:36:02.200 | Science is uniform.
00:36:04.780 | Science is uniform because God created the universe, this is his reality, and he fashioned
00:36:13.040 | it as such.
00:36:19.040 | I want to do a quick segue here regarding the so-called problem of evil because it's
00:36:25.760 | got to be addressed, it's an issue that many people have with respect to the existence
00:36:31.480 | of God.
00:36:32.480 | I'm going to say this, when you say there is evil in the world, and what you're saying
00:36:41.060 | is that there is also good.
00:36:43.380 | When you say there is evil, you are saying there is also good.
00:36:47.180 | Because you need some sort of basis to differentiate between good and evil.
00:36:51.500 | Therefore, when you say there is evil, you are saying there is a moral law.
00:36:56.700 | Because there is some type of moral law to differentiate between good and evil.
00:37:01.100 | If there is a moral law, then there is a moral law giver.
00:37:05.860 | But once you say there is evil, you just proved the very thing you are trying to disprove.
00:37:12.980 | Evil is not resolved by discounting God.
00:37:17.100 | The existence and problem of evil only proves the existence of God, and any logical answer
00:37:25.220 | with respect to the problem of evil may only be resolved with the existence of God and
00:37:31.220 | not by his absence.
00:37:37.020 | So if this is indeed the case, the point to be made here is that the transcendental argument
00:37:41.980 | for God proves the existence of God by the impossibility of the contrary.
00:37:49.100 | Without God, we don't have uniformity of nature, uniformity of science, the universal laws
00:37:54.100 | of logic, or objective morality.
00:37:56.860 | Outside of the Judeo-Christian God, we cannot account for this conversation.
00:38:02.140 | I want to keep illustrating this.
00:38:06.700 | If the Big Bang Theory is true, and the universe somehow existed in complete chaos, then what
00:38:13.500 | would follow is that we go from disorder to order, not uniformity.
00:38:20.460 | Laws of logic wouldn't be universal.
00:38:21.820 | They'd be conventional.
00:38:22.820 | They'd always be changing.
00:38:25.460 | The atheistic universe cannot account for a universe where the immaterial laws of logic
00:38:31.260 | apply everywhere in the same way on the same plane of thought.
00:38:35.460 | It certainly doesn't account for objective morality.
00:38:40.700 | You don't see a council of monkeys ordering civilization against cannibalism.
00:38:45.140 | Some monkeys just eat other monkeys, and for further development of that, just see episode
00:38:49.340 | 3.
00:38:50.700 | The transcendental argument for God rightly hits you in all the right places, and that
00:38:55.900 | is the very foundation of all that we know and see.
00:39:01.580 | To merely assume objectivity in immaterial space, when you claim to only believe in the
00:39:09.060 | material, is disingenuous, arbitrary, and unfounded.
00:39:14.420 | The atheist must admit that he is being religious, and he's taking quite on faith the immaterial
00:39:22.020 | universe that he is so vehemently trying to deny, or else just admit that the laws of
00:39:30.140 | logic are not universal, they might not exist, they might be just convention, there are thought
00:39:36.420 | patterns within our head, that morality is not objective, so might makes right, and you
00:39:41.180 | cannot logically decry some of the greatest injustices that have occurred throughout history.
00:39:47.180 | David Hume's skepticism of science wherein he states that there is no rational basis
00:39:53.980 | for expecting the future to be like the past, in which case science is based simply on convention,
00:40:02.140 | or if you will, habits of thought.
00:40:04.980 | Admit that David Hume was right.
00:40:06.660 | Admit that Thomas Kuhn was right.
00:40:09.380 | And these men were not Christians, David Hume, Thomas Kuhn, they were not, as far as I know,
00:40:13.660 | they were not Christians, but were honest philosophers who saw the implications of a
00:40:20.140 | purely materialistic universe.
00:40:23.780 | But for the person who takes the Bible as the word of God, there is open to that person
00:40:30.700 | an extraordinary amount of evidence that even certifies that person's belief, that bolsters
00:40:37.380 | it.
00:40:38.380 | That person reads in the scriptures that God is kind to all, even to those that do
00:40:44.220 | not believe, that he sends the sun and the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,
00:40:49.140 | that he gives common grace to all, that he created the world with a certain objective
00:40:53.460 | reality that we see.
00:40:55.820 | Individuals learn about societies that try and repel against this moral reality, and
00:41:00.100 | they see what happens when they do.
00:41:03.180 | That he fashioned the universe in a way that is consistent with who he is, as God himself
00:41:08.580 | claims to be a God of order.
00:41:11.300 | Moreover, we see that God at times either suspended or intervened in his own creation
00:41:18.220 | the natural laws that we see to demonstrate his power and his kindness.
00:41:24.900 | Jesus of Nazareth showed a sampling of this suspension to demonstrate his own claims to
00:41:30.780 | deity, and we go through this reality experiencing the profitability that comes with obeying
00:41:38.380 | him, whether it's through the realm of science, logic, or morality.
00:41:46.580 | To drive the point home again, it is only the Judeo-Christian God that has shown himself
00:41:55.060 | to be this way, and that is why the transcendental argument for God only works for the triune
00:42:03.820 | God of the scriptures.
00:42:06.620 | It is not merely a theistic argument.
00:42:11.440 | The triune God of the scriptures is a different God from every other religious text.
00:42:21.940 | The existence of God is proven by the impossibility of the contrary.
00:42:31.540 | First Corinthians chapter 1, 18-20 states it like this, "For the word of the cross
00:42:38.580 | is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power
00:42:45.820 | of God, for it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.'
00:42:51.860 | And the understanding of those who have understanding I will confound."
00:42:56.860 | Where is the wise person?
00:42:59.300 | Where is the scribe?
00:43:01.700 | Where is the debater of this age?
00:43:04.820 | Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?
00:43:15.780 | Thanks for making it to the end.
00:43:17.460 | I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it.
00:43:22.460 | To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion.
00:43:50.060 | Amen.
00:43:57.620 | (upbeat music)