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564. Famous Atheist Loses Debate
01:27:25
Join us for the newest episode of Apologia Radio in which we speak with our good friend, Eli Ayala, with Revealed Apologetics. Eli recently did a public moderated debate against the famous Atheist, Dan Barker. This is an informative and fun episode! We provide teaching and instruction and we play through the cross examination section of the debate. Truly a blessing and an equipping episode! Tell someone about it!
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- [00:00]
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Eli Ayala
Non Rockabotus Must stop. I don't want to rock the boat.
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Jeff Durbin
I want to sink it.
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Eli Ayala
Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite? Delusional.
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Jeff Durbin
Yeah, delusional is okay. In your worldview, I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being so. You calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. She hung up on me. What? What?
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Douglas Wilson
Desperate times call for faithful men and
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Jeff Durbin
not for careful men.
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Douglas Wilson
The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.
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James White
Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosephs.
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Jeff Durbin
Right?
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James White
Don't go into the world, make homies.
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Eli Ayala
Right.
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James White
Disciples.
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Jeff Durbin
I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, Pastor.
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Eli Ayala
When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.
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Jeff Durbin
Take an amazing journey to a place
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Eli Ayala
that will blow your mind and move your mind so you will never be the same again.
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Jeff Durbin
But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. That's 1st Peter 3:15, everybody. That's the charter verse of all Christian apologetics. 1st Peter 3:15. Always being ready with an Apologia a reason defense for the hope that's within you. Doing it with gentleness and with reverence. I'm Jeff, the Coleman of ninja. This is Apologia Radio. It's the gospel heard around the world. You can get more@apologia studios.com that's a P O L O G I A apologiastudios.com Go there after the episode today. Go check out all of the past episodes, hundreds of them via cultish Apologia Radio shiologians and provoked all of that. There's so much there that'll bless you. And don't forget to sign up for Apology All Access. When you do, you get all the additional content. We want to bless you as partners with us in this ministry. Bringing the gospel around the world. So many lives that have been changed through God's grace. In this ministry, the means of Apologia Radio people coming to Christ around the world out of the cults, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, atheists coming to Christ lives being transformed. It is all to the glory of God. And I always want to thank you for being a part of this ministry with me. And so sign up for Apology all access get all the additional content including Apology Academy, Eli Ayala's content as well. On apologetics, you can also get the full episodes of Collision and all kinds of stuff. It's just a way we want to bless you for being a partner with us in this ministry. So I just mentioned Eli and speaking of Eli and what he and I both do, what we teach in terms of the defense of the Christian faith, we are both standing on the shoulders of one of the greatest giants in the history of the Christian faith. When it comes to Christian philosophy and apologetics, that is Dr. Greg Bonson. If you don't know him, get to know him and get to know him through Bonson U, which is completely for free on apologiastudios.com youm just go to apologiastudios.com Sign up for your free account with Bonson U. You're going to get access to top tier theological education from one of the greatest in the history of the Christian church. To my mind, Dr. Greg Bonson, that is his seminary courses, his lectures. You want to learn to defend your faith. Learn from the best. All of his stuff is there. Again, these are top tier theological education courses. We're talking about seminary classes and lessons, his teaching as a pastor in church, church history. The debates that he's done will blow Your mind. And it's all free as a gift from the Bonson family through us to you. And a big shout out also to everybody who's All Access, because it's not really free. It's free for you, but it's being paid for by partners with us in this ministry. So thank you again to everyone who's a part of this ministry with us. So we are on with my friend Eli Ayala from Revealed Apologetics. And I. Let me just tell you, I was so thrilled. He'll tell you how thrilled I was when I found out that he was debating Dan Barker. So I'm introduced, Eli, onto the episode today. Eli, welcome to Apologia Radio, brother. I.
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Eli Ayala
It's a pleasure to finally be on here with you.
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Jeff Durbin
Is this not your first time? Is it seriously?
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Eli Ayala
I believe it is, yeah.
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Jeff Durbin
Is it seriously your first time? That's. That's my fault. I take full responsibility. There's no way this is your first time.
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Eli Ayala
You've been on my channel before.
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Jeff Durbin
Yes. Okay, that's.
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Eli Ayala
That's kind of the same. Because you were in the same spot.
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Jeff Durbin
That's exactly right. Oh, man. Okay. We're gonna have you. Well, you're already doing stuff for apology. All Access, all kinds of content where Eli is one of my very favorite. That's the truth. Eli is one of my very favorite when it comes to teach and practitioners of transcendental methodology, covenantal apologetics, presuppositional apologetics, whatever you want to. Whatever name you want to call it. Eli is one of the very best teachers today. So if you don't know him, get to know him. Go to his. His channel, digest what you can. Also, if you're all access. Get access to all that content. He's one of the best. And, man, when you told me, I forget. How did you tell me? Was it through a text message? You messaged me where you let me know that you're gonna be debating him, or did I find out and message you? I can't remember.
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Eli Ayala
It might have been through a message. And then we. When we went out to dinner, when we were both speaking at that event in Pennsylvania, we spoke about it.
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Jeff Durbin
That's right. That's right. That's right. Then we spent some time on the phone beforehand, talking to each other, preparing
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Eli Ayala
for it, having some fancy butter.
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Jeff Durbin
That's right.
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Eli Ayala
I still remember the butter.
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Jeff Durbin
Yes, that's right. That was a great dinner. That was a great dinner. Yeah, man. I had a great time with you when we were there. It was such an honor being on the same Stage with you. So. All right, so I heard that Eli was going to be debating Dan Barker. Now, if you don't know who Dan Barker is, you can go check it out. You know, you have like the most popular, I'd say, atheists of the last 20 years, where you have, you know, the, the. What is it? The four horsemen of the apocalypse. You had Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, I think it was back. Was it Eli? It was like 2010 or so somewhere around there. They were like in their heyday, those
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Eli Ayala
dudes, I think 2005 to 2010, around about there.
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Jeff Durbin
Yeah. And they were really making waves as atheists. I mean, Hitchens had some new stuff out, books and, you know, he always. I love Hitchens. I just absolutely loved Hitchens. Listening to him, man, I wish I could have met that guy. He died and so he had a book and you had Dawkins books. And, and it was just this, this flurry of activity from these popular atheists. But people may not know that, you know, before that moment, for them, the most revered, respected, you know, atheists, there was a handful of them. And Dan Barker absolutely was one of the most active, busy, respected atheists in the world. And Dan has. Has debated pretty much every major Christian apologist that, I mean, I. That I could think of. And, and so, you know, he's. He's a courageous man. He's brave enough to get on the stage and debate. Debate against Christians. He's my spiritual father in the faith, my mentor and my fellow pastor, Dr. James White. If you haven't got a chance to see those yet, please make the time to do it. James White versus Dan Barker. Just look it up here on YouTube. He debated Doug Wilson. And Eli and I were talking before the episode today that one of my favorite debates ever was where Douglas Wilson debated Dan Barker. And I was telling Eli it felt like an adult teaching a child. From Doug to Dan. It was just epic. One of my favorites. And you were telling everyone what one of your favorites were. Let's go ahead and let everyone know so they can just get more background on this. What was, what was it the debate you were listening to?
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Eli Ayala
So, so when you prepare for a debate, right, you want to go and find the material where that person has, you know, content out there. So the two debates that I enjoyed the most is the one that you mentioned with, with Dr. Dr. White. Does the triune God of Scripture live? And then there was a radio debate that, that Dan Barker did with Paul Monada. So it's there's no video, but it's an it's audio. You can look it up on YouTube. And that debate was, in my opinion, a massacre in terms of Paul Monada just slicing and dicing. And being so familiar with the work of Dan Barker, which helped a lot, I listened to that debate over and over and over again, along with the one that Dan Barker had with Dr. White. So those were very, very helpful and there's a lot to get from them. So it's one of those things that if people go and listen to those, Deb, especially the one with Manada, you can go back multiple times and get new things from it. So highly recommend both of those, but specifically the one with Paul Manada.
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Jeff Durbin
Now, you and I, brother, we approach the philosophy, the Christian faith and Christian apologetics in a particular way. And it may be good for our new viewers listeners to apology or radio to get to know the approach. I mean. So one thing I quoted here at the beginning of the episode today was the charter verse of all Christian apologetics, 1st Peter 3:15. And this is a passage that has been used throughout the history of the Christian church to inspire and encourage Christians to be ready with the defense of the Christian faith, to make sure that we are the kind of people that are not ashamed of truth, we're bold with the truth, and we're willing to interact with and engage with various different religions and worldviews. And so we're commanded to be ready with a reason defense. And that has to be something that's thought out. It has to be something that we're disciplined to work through and be ready to do those sort those sorts of things. But with that, Christians throughout history have approached the defense of the Christian faith with various methodologies, different approaches to, well, how ought we to answer? How ought we to give a reason defense? And so you have classical apologetics, you have evidential apologetics, and you have something we call presuppositional apologetics. Now, people have different names for it as well. We have revelational, you know, epistemology. We talk about those sorts of things. You talk about covenantal apologetics however you want to, you know, know, name it. Presuppositional apologetics says what, Eli? How is it distinct from other Christian apologetic methodologies?
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Eli Ayala
Well, first, I like to define it in biblical categories. One of my favorite definitions of presuppositional apologetics goes like this. Presuppositional apologetics is the attempt to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, even the thoughts of the unbeliever. So that we argue that unless the unbeliever starts where we're starting, God's revelation, God's existence, God's revelation, they can't have anything. And those who listen to your channel here are familiar with the details of that. Now, in terms of differentiating the presuppositional approach from say the classical approach and the evidential approaches, I like to define those approaches, classical and evidential, as bottom up approaches. They work their way up to the conclusion God very likely exists, it's most reasonable to believe that he exists and all the rest. Whereas the presuppositional approach is a top down approach, which I think is biblical. Right? We start with God in his revelation and we argue that unless you start with God in his revelation, you can't have anything else. So traditional approaches are bottom up approaches. The presuppositional approach or the covenantal approach, or however you want to refer to it is a top down approach. It is, it is a position that starts from authority, the authority of God and his and His Word. So that's how I would differentiate them. Now philosophically, there are different philosophies that undergird the methodologies. For example, evidential as an apologetic methodology sometimes is associated with an empirical approach because it deals with specific evidences that we observe and we draw conclusions. So there is, there's an undergirding empiricism that is underneath an evidential approach. Whereas if you take the classical approach, what undergirds philosophically the classical approach is a rationalism, is an appeal to reasoned arguments, a priori categories. You know, that's why you have the deductive arguments and all the rest. And then of course you have the transcendental approach or the presuppositional approach, where we're not rationalistic, we're not empirical in the senses in which those other methods are. We are transcendental, we argue from the authority of God and we argue indirectly that unless you start with God, empirical data, rationalistic arguments and reason and all the, all the rest don't have a foundation. So they're very, very different. And that's why we typically are looked at as kind of the weirdos of the apologetic scene. Like you guys start with the Bible, you can't do that. So you get all that stuff that goes along with it.
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Jeff Durbin
Yes, we can and we should or ought to. It's a moral oblig. Start with God and his authority in his word. Right? It starts in the beginning of the garden. That first conflict really had everything to do with what God said versus what somebody else said. So just to listen, I'm going to just do something real fast. You may be a new viewer, you may be new to the faith, and everything that Eli said made zero sense to you. Transcendental revel. You know, you said empiricism, rationalism, and you might be thinking, okay, I need to go ahead and turn the show off. I have no idea what he's talking about. You do, trust me. This is the everyday life stuff. It's when. Okay, let's do it this way. So when you said empiricism, what, Just simple, simply for the viewer that has never heard of that before, they don't even know what you mean by that. Empiricism means.
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Eli Ayala
Empiricism deals with like, how we gain knowledge about the world is through, like our senses, like a look. And so, so if I were to say empiricism is a view of knowledge or how we get knowledge, it's kind of a look and see view of knowledge. How do I get knowledge? I look and I see and I observe.
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Jeff Durbin
I have to observe it.
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Eli Ayala
Right? Rationalism, a rationalism as a philosophical perspective is kind of the stop and think approach. So instead of just looking, we stop and think, rationally reflect, and, you know, we create arguments and things like that. So one is based on observation, one is based on kind of rational reflection. And then transcendental is a big old fancy where I mean, my. I teach 8th grade logic. My 8th graders know what transcendental is or what a transcendental argument is. And basically a transcendental argument is a fancy way of arguing that in order for something to be possible, something else beforehand has to be the case. So I use this with example with my students. If I. If you were born on the second floor of a building and you never left the room on the second floor and you looked out the window and you obviously know you're on the second floor, you're not on the first floor. We would ask, or transcendental arguments would ask, what are the necessary preconditions for our being on the second floor? What must be true in order for us to be on the second floor? And even my students, they'll read, oh, there has to be a first floor floor, right? Well, how do you know there's a first floor if you've never observed? Well, it has to be if we're on the second floor. The only way that's possible is if there is a first floor. So transcendental arguments basically ask what must be true first in order for Something else to be possible as Christians who argue presuppositionally and quote, unquote, transcendentally, we're just saying that in order for knowledge, in order for logic, in order for science, in order for philosophy or mathematics to even be a thing, God must exist and his revelation must be transformed. True. So that's basically what we're saying there. I hope that clarifies.
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Jeff Durbin
Very good. Yeah. And so you said something else I'd like the listeners to. And the viewers to understand. You said the other methodologies, and I think it was a perfect way to put it. Eli, you said the other methodologies will argue from the bottom and move their way up. Can you help everyone understand what that, what that means? A Christian apologist, that's an evidentialist or a classical apology apologist, they will argue from the bottom up to God. Can you give us like a. What that would look like, like bottom up?
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Eli Ayala
Well, and when you look at those particular methodologies, they will take some fact of experience, of human experience, and they'll kind of just assume like these are kind of basic things that the unbeliever and the believer can kind of take for granted. We understand and we try to reason our way up to the conclusion there is a God. Now, what sets these, these methodologies kind of apart from a presuppositional approach is that when they take that fact of experience, you know, maybe causation, you got like the, The Kalam cosmological argument or the appeals to the cause of the universe and all the rest, they will take something like causation and they will treat it as a fact that can be equally understood by the Christian and the non Christian. So they will assume explicitly or implicitly that facts like causality or whatever they're arguing about, they're neutrally understood. We can think about these things and not have to look at the presuppositions necessarily. We have a neutral ground on which to start with the unbeliever. And then we'll argue from that neutral ground and say, hey, look, if you take this thing to be the case, I can lead you to the conclusion God very likely exists and all the rest. So classical apologetics, evidential apologetics, will implicitly assume neutral categories. That we would say from a biblical perspective is unwarranted. We shouldn't do that. And from a philosophical perspective, you can't do it anyway, right? There is no such thing as neutrality, as many of your listeners will know.
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Jeff Durbin
They'll know. Very good. That's good because. But it's important as you. Then I want you to describe top down. But it's important for us to make sure that we communicate this because we're often misrepresented by evidentialists and just various different methodologies at this point. We do believe in evidence. We do believe in the power of evidence and the glory of a lot of the evidence that we see in the stars and the persuasion of the sea, as Bonson used to say. And all of creation. It's undeniable. We're saying. It's undeniable. We're saying that. We're saying that the evidence is so powerful that people are left without an apologetic, a defense before God. So we're saying, go ahead, I apologize.
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Eli Ayala
There is a common misunderstanding, though, that a lot of people. I remember. I remember interviewing. I think Hugh Ross or something like that. I think you were the old Earth creationist guy and he said that. I love presuppositional apologetics. It's a great tool in an apologist tool belt. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, wait
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Jeff Durbin
a minute, no, no, you can't have
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Eli Ayala
presuppositionalism as a tool. Okay. It's the belt itself that holds the intellectual pants up, so to speak. Right.
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Jeff Durbin
So.
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Eli Ayala
So what a lot of people think is that when a presuppositionalist list uses evidence, they're shifting from presuppositional ism to evidential ism. And so we can use these different methodologies as kind of a fully orbed, you know, well, rounded apologetic approach. And that's just not true. There is a difference between the use of evidences and the use of evidentialism as a methodology.
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Jeff Durbin
Yes.
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Eli Ayala
So when a pre supper uses evidence.
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Jeff Durbin
Yeah.
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Eli Ayala
They're not ceasing to be presuppositional. They're using evidence within a consistently presuppositional biblical framework. And that's a very important point to keep in mind.
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Jeff Durbin
We're saying all evidence belongs to God, and without him, you can't even talk in a coherent way about evidence. A causation. The unbeliever doesn't have causation. They don't have induction. They don't even know the future. Be like the past. They can't look at past experience and project that on the future because they live in a godless universe with time and chance acting on matter. Nothing is predictable. I mean, just because something did happen in the past doesn't mean it will happen in the future. And you don't need a Christian apologist who's a presuppositionalist to tell you that. You can have Bertrand Russell tell you that. You can have David Hume tell you that, or any number of philosophers or skeptics, critics in the past that will tell you the same thing. They'll say, I don't know how we handle this. We just assume it, we hope it's true. But the Christian worldview can frame all the evidence and say all that evidence is evidence for God. Yes, but if you don't start with God, you can't even talk about it as evidence. Okay.
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Eli Ayala
They say those things have practical use.
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Jeff Durbin
Yes. Which is one of the things that was Barker was doing with you in the debate. All he could say is like, well, it seems like it's a useful tool.
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Douglas Wilson
Cool.
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Jeff Durbin
For now. For now.
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Eli Ayala
It's a slimy way of getting away with using it and not having to account for it or provide a justification for it.
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Jeff Durbin
Very good. I love how you said that. That's fantastic. Okay, so just quickly, before we go, we're gonna play, we're actually gonna play through the cross examination from Eli to Dan and also from Dan to Eli. Not all of it. I think it's 15 minutes a piece. So we'll get through. We'll get through a good bit of it. But if you could, Eli, you've explained that very well, brother. The, the top down portion. So you said the presuppositional apologist wants to top down. What does that look like when that happens? Yeah.
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Eli Ayala
So a classical and evidentialist are not arguing from a foundation of biblical authority, because if you do that for the classical and the evidentialist, you're begging the question. So you have to prove the authority of scripture first before you start appealing to it. So they have to work their way up to God exists. And let's now examine whether the God that we just proved exist is the God of the Bible. We argue from a top down approach because we are starting with God and his world word and arguing from that foundation. And people say, well, you can't do that. That's. That's circular. And I say, okay, cool. So demonstrate to me the reliability of your reason without using it. Use it using your reasoning. Well, that doesn't count. Right. Demonstrate to me logic without using logic. Well, we don't have to justify logic. And then they'll appeal to axioms and all sorts of philosophical jargon, which is just a roundabout way of saying, please let me keep this and use it without having to actually justify it without providing any warrant. Yes, that's right. That's right. So at a Foundational level. We all are, starting from our Bibles, so to speak. The unbeliever has his Bible. It might be reason and logic autonomously and neutrally understood, which is problematic. Or they have some kind of philosophical perspective that is cloaked with fancy philosophical terminology to hide the fact that there, there is no foundation. Yeah, but we are arguing explicitly and in a self conscious way that, that God and his word must be the rock upon which we stand in order to hold up all the other things we want in this, in this life. Intelligible experience, the laws, logic, the uniformity of nature, science as a methodology, mathematics, you know, abstract objects, all of the stuff that philosophy likes to talk about. You need the foundation of God's word to have those things. The unbeliever wants those things without the foundation.
- [23:41]
James White
That's right.
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Eli Ayala
They want to substitute the true foundation with a faulty foundation, cloak it with fancy terminology, write papers and get peer reviewed. And then we look like the weirdos when we are just saying very similar things. Things, but from a different foundation. Right. I have my starting point. You have your starting point. I'm just letting you know what mine is from the start. A lot of times in these apologetic conversations, their starting point is cloaked under a whole host of things that, you know, they don't want to show their hand because what that does is it gives them a burden of proof in the discussion, which in terms of atheism, that's not something they typically want to take on.
- [24:15]
Jeff Durbin
Yes, and we're trying to demonstrate to the atheist or the unbeliever that you're living in the world as God's creature. You're living in the world borrowing from God, which you can only have in God. You can't justify any of your appeals. You want logic and reason, of course, because you're made the image of God, but you can't justify your appeal to it. And so when you press and press and press from a top down approach on the unbeliever, from the authority of scripture, from the biblical worldview, you can demonstrate to the unbeliever that they're living by faith. Right, but it's a stupid, it's a stupid faith.
- [24:48]
Eli Ayala
Right? And, and a lot of people get confused with the terminology when we say that the unbeliever cannot account for something. A lot of unbelievers that I've interacted with and like the common and YouTube and all the rest, they think what we're asking for is a story that explains the thing we're asking them to account for. But what we're asking for is actually a, what we call in philosophy, a rational justification. What is your rational basis? Not us, not a story that you think can explain it. You need to actually account from within your own worldview. How do you rationally justify those things you take for granted? And so that's what we mean when we say that they can't account for. For it, not that they can't come up with a story.
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Jeff Durbin
Right.
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Eli Ayala
People have stories all the time. You got the evolutionary picture. It's like, well, this evolved it. That's a great story. But that doesn't provide an act, a rational basis for the specifics of what we're. We're asking the unbeliever to justify.
- [25:37]
Jeff Durbin
That's right. Very good. So before we go to a commercial break, just for fun, we're going to do a little clip here from the debate between Doug Wilson and Dan Barker. And then we're doing a commercial break. And then we're going to go to Eli in the debate, cross examination, open up with that so you guys get a chance to, to hear some of that and, and benefit from it. So this is, that's an old one, I think. This was in the 90s, right? This is 90, 19, 96. 96, yeah, 96. This is Dan Barker. This is really when Barker was in his heyday. I mean, really, Dan's been a famous atheist for a very, very long time. So this is Dan Barker versus Douglas Wilson. The debate was does the triune God live? This was one of my favorite portions of the debate. Here we go.
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Dominion Wealth Representative
Lethal at all.
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Douglas Wilson
The, the thing that I would like to point out about so many Christians with so many different interpretations, what you're arguing is when you have the Bible and you get two or, you know, three Christians together and they start talking, you'll come out with maybe five denominations, that sort of thing.
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Dan Barker
So not very absolute, isn't it?
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Douglas Wilson
Well, I would like to suggest if you had five Bibles and five Christians and you put them into five different rooms and you came out, they came out with five or six different interpretations of the Bible. Where's the variable in the Bibles or in the people?
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Dan Barker
The Bible contradicts itself.
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Douglas Wilson
The Bible says no, you, you put the same Bible into the same Bible goes into every room. Different people go into every room. The different answers that come out of every room is a good argument for not trusting people.
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Dan Barker
Well, what couldn't we say? What if, what if one of the persons was reading the Bible verse that says thou shalt not kill and Another person was reading the Bible verse where God said, take up the sword and slay every man his. His neighbor. And what if they read two different contradictory Bible verses? That would explain why the humans can't agree agree. Because the Bible is inherently contradictory.
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Jeff Durbin
Right?
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Dan Barker
Can't he answer the question?
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Douglas Wilson
Can I answer the question? There are two different words in Greek for one is killing and one is murder. And in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Prohibition in the Ten Commandments is of murder, not of killing. Exodus 20 says you shall not commit murder. Exodus 21 requires the death penalty if you do commit murder.
- [27:46]
Dan Barker
Recrossed by the. Paul, can you ask me that question because I have something to say about it?
- [27:55]
Douglas Wilson
Because you are a gentleman and a scholar, I would be happy to. Now, what question would you like me to ask you?
- [28:01]
Dan Barker
The Hebrew word there is ratzak in the Old Testament, which is not the word for murder. It is used all throughout the Old Testament for simple killing, for accidental homicide, for people accidentally negligence. You are wrong to suggest, suggest that the ten Commandments prohibit murder only.
- [28:15]
Douglas Wilson
Okay, no, you missed. You missed the point that I said. I was talking about the Greek New Testament. That Commandment in Exodus 20 is quoted in the New Testament. Greek has a word for murder and a word for killing. When the Old Testament is quoted in Greek, it has the word for murder out of the ten Commandments.
- [28:30]
Dan Barker
So the Greek goof. The Greek translator goofed because the Hebrew scripture does not say murder. Look it up. The word ratzak does not mean murder in Hebrew. It means simply killing. And it's, it's committed by animals. Do animals murder? It's something that happens when somebody accidentally so. So it's not murdered. When God said thou shalt not kill, he said thou shalt not kill in Exodus 20.
- [28:51]
Douglas Wilson
In Exodus 20, God said you shall not kill. In Exodus 21, he requires the death penalty for certain offenses. It sounds like you're saying the Bible's contradictory.
- [28:59]
Dan Barker
The Bible is contradictory.
- [29:01]
Douglas Wilson
Now do you think it's contradictory between Exodus 20 and Exodus 21:1?
- [29:06]
Dan Barker
Well, I don't. Where's my Bible? So you want.
- [29:09]
Douglas Wilson
Are you seriously maintaining that Moses was a pacifist?
- [29:12]
Dan Barker
No.
- [29:13]
Moses was a bloodthirsty leader of a bloodthirsty religion.
- [29:16]
Douglas Wilson
Now when Moses came, when Moses was up on the mountain and he got the ten Commandments, he was looking at the tablets, walking down from the mountain. Did he stop up short when he get to got to the commandment not kill? Did he say no killing at all?
- [29:29]
Dan Barker
Well, if he, if he understood Hebrew, that's what he should have said if he understood Hebrew.
- [29:33]
Douglas Wilson
Do you think he did understand Hebrew?
- [29:39]
Dan Barker
Well.
- [29:39]
Jeff Durbin
Oh, that was the best.
- [29:42]
Eli Ayala
That's a classic.
- [29:43]
Jeff Durbin
Yeah, classic moment. Doug, Doug's a, Doug's a formidable opponent and a phenomenal debater. Okay, everybody, so stay with us. Make sure you guys do all the things, the likes, the shares, the subscribe, do all that stuff right now. Help us to through the algorithm of YouTube to get this thing out as many people as possible. We're going to take a quick commercial break. We come right back with Eli and his debate with Dan Barker. We're going to go through some of the cross examination. Thank you guys for being with us. We'll be back. Right, right back. This episode's brought to you by ion layer@ionl.com go and check out the health benefits, the wellness benefits and longevity benefits of NAD treatments. NAD is nicknamed the fountain of youth for a reason. You have an abundance of this in your system when you're young. As you get older, it drops off. And now we found a way to get NAD into our systems. They do it through IV treatments, but they're very expensive and it's also extremely painful and difficult. However, Ion Layer found a way to get a high dose of NAD into your system through a medical patch you wear on your arm. You wear it for about 14 hours. You get a high dose of NAD treatment into your system and no pain at all. And it is a fraction of the cost of what you would pay through for an IV treatment. In the coupon code, type in Apologia in all caps. They're going to hook you up with a great discount for an already amazingly cost effective product.
- [31:07]
Dan Barker
Product.
- [31:08]
Jeff Durbin
And they bless Apologia studios and help us to stay on the air and do all these programs with you. Don't forget. Also, Ion Layer has added a glutathione patch as well. Glutathione, the master antioxidant. Go check out the health benefits of glutathione. I'm doing this stuff anyways. It's blessed my life in tremendous ways. And so if you want to focus on your health, wellness and longevity, nothing better in my mind than ionlayer.com for your NAD and Glutathione treatment treatments. Ionlayer.com don't forget to put Apologia in all caps in the coupon code. All right everyone, welcome back again. Thank you for joining us for today's episode. Talking about the debate with my friend Eliyahu Revealed apologetics against Dan Barker, one of the greatest defenders of atheism of the last generation. And so they were able to have a debate together. It was Texas, right, Eli? Texas.
- [31:59]
Eli Ayala
Yeah, it was in Dallas.
- [32:00]
Jeff Durbin
In Dallas. All right. Okay, so here we go. So this is the opening, the best part. I mean, you can't, when you're watching a debate, you can't ignore the opening statements. I mean, that provides the foundation for what the rest of the debate is supposed to be about. And so we don't normally want to, you know, resist going through those, but, you know, we want to get through the, the.
- [32:17]
Eli Ayala
I like my opening statement. I'm very proud of it.
- [32:20]
Jeff Durbin
I thought your opening statement was phenomenal, but normally I'm not suggesting just ignoring the opening statements. Okay, But I. For the purpose of today's episode, I want to play through the cross examination where the real fight happens in any department debate. And so this is the first cross examination. It was Eli cross examining Dan Barker. And here we go.
- [32:41]
Eli Ayala
All right. So, Dan, your opening statement tried to focus upon the idea that the God of the Bible is somehow internally inconsistent. However, you have said in. Let me see here, I lost my track there. You said that gives. Given Christian presuppositions, the Christian. Christianity is internally consistent. You said that in Losing Faith and Faith, page 60. Can you reconcile that for me? If given my presuppositions, my position is consistent, then how can it be logically contradictory?
- [33:12]
Dan Barker
Well, the theology can. You can have a Christian theology, but the God of the Bible himself is not the. Is not Christian theology. The God of the Bible is a character in a book. That character in that book is. Is logically incoherent for the reasons that I gave. But the Christian system, when you're talking, you know, there's the, there's the God of the philosophers and there's Christianity as a kind of a worldview. You can hold that it's internally consistent. That means. Doesn't mean it's good. I mean, you know, I think Islam is internally consistent, but that doesn't mean it's good.
- [33:48]
Eli Ayala
So you say the Christian, given Christian presuppositions, Christianity is internally consistent, you said. Well, our theology can be. Well, where do you think our theology. Theology comes from?
- [33:57]
Dan Barker
Well, it can't come from the Bible.
- [33:59]
Eli Ayala
Well, I mean, that sounds cool, but that doesn't answer the question, right? If I, if I say God is a spirit, for example, I get that from Scripture. When I say God has certain features that the Bible says he has, that's where we get our theology from. Now, you, you don't have to agree with it. You might think it's logically inconsistent, but that seems to be inconsistent with your statement here that, quote, granting the Christians presuppositions, Christianity is internally consistent. Yeah, and you said this, this as well. Our position is logical. That's page 60.
- [34:26]
Jeff Durbin
Eli, what are you trying to do there as a setup?
- [34:29]
Eli Ayala
Well, I'm trying to set in a contrast his what he just said in this debate and what he's written elsewhere. So obviously, I mean, Dan is infamous for not liking when people quote his book. We all know that.
- [34:42]
Jeff Durbin
Don't quote me, bro.
- [34:43]
Eli Ayala
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So he's pretty infamous for that. But I wanted to show that what he was arguing was inconsistent with what he's written. And so what I was trying to do in terms of kind of just affecting the audience, I was trying to show the audience that he's not reliable in his statements. And so that's kind of like rhetoric, it's strategy. Right. But I think it was perfectly illustrated because he was led to make the weird distinction between our theology and, like, the Bible. Now, granted, there is a difference, but clearly our theology about God is taken from the text. So if he has a problem, he's going to have to take us to the text to show us where I'm off in terms of my theological assumptions. So, yeah, that's what I was doing there.
- [35:24]
Jeff Durbin
And you make a good point. You made a good point at the beginning of the episode in terms of methodological approach. You said top down. Now, I want every believer who's listening to this right now to step above the debate for a second. Okay, what do you have in the debate? You have one person who is a follower of Christ who believes that this, this book right here is the revelation of the true and living God, the only God. That God has spoken through creation itself. And God also has spoken specially in his Word, and especially in the incarnation of the Son of God, God. And so God has revealed himself to us. And so God's Word is the anchor for your certainty. So there's one person that believes those things. Then the other guy is an atheist that says, there is no God, and I hate him, there is no God. And then he also says, well, how do we get here? Okay, well, we don't quite know exactly. You know, nothing. You know, if you believe Krauss, something came from nothing. And then, you know, through time and chance, acting on matter in this godless universe with no purpose or no meaning, nothing, through some magical configuration, configurations, things sort of just came together. And so you have Bacteria into fish, into people, into African apes, and into us. And so we are just stardust, as Carl Sagan said. And so there's no meaning, there's no purpose. And let's say if you're a materialist like Dan Barker, you believe that all that exists is matter. Nothing is transcendent, nothing is beyond this experience. All you have is matter. This is just matter in motion, moving around in this godless universe with no purpose and no order. None of that. Okay, now stand above the debate now. Don't allow the unbeliever to take hold of things you're not supposed to have. Now Eli, I'm sure would have loved the whole time just he, he had a purpose to go through each point he wanted to do. So he can take Barker's legs off. But the truth is, is from a top down approach, you could just spend the entire cross examination, if you wanted to, challenging Dan Barker on his, on his saying that's internally inconsistent and that's not necessarily good. Good. Those two concepts right there could have been the topic of the entire debate from a top down approach. So you could say actually you're not supposed to be talking about what's internally consistent as though that mattered. You're an atheist, you're matter, it doesn't matter. And nothing is good in your worldview. I mean, Dan Barker was it in the beginning of this episode. We have like two openers for apology radio. One of them is my discuss my radio debate with Dan Barker where he says in the debate with us on the radio when it came to the topic of rape, that it's not ultimately wrong to rape. And he said in, in the cosmic picture it won't matter. What was he saying that about rape? Like when you press an atheist in the issue of morality and something that is actually good, the atheist will have to finally confess what Richard Dawkins confessed to in river out of Eden, that there is no good, there is no evil, there's only blind and pitiless and different difference. That's it, that's it. But yet in this moment with Eli, because he is an image bearer of God, he's trying to fight, he wants to go to war. He's talking about internal inconsistency and something being good. Top down approach says, wait a second, you're not supposed to have those, those, those concepts don't work in your worldview, they work in mine with God as the foundation. I have internal and I have internal consistency and I've got what's truly, you know, beautiful, true and Lovely. And all those things. I've got all that. But you don't even have that. So we'll move on. Here we go.
- [38:43]
Dan Barker
Internally logical. But that doesn't mean the Christian position is the position of the Bible. You might claim that it is. You might pick and choose and cherry pick. God is love. God is unchanging. And if one of your principles is that God is unchanging and yet he changes his mind, that shows that the God of the Bible can't be the God of the Christian position. It's more of a modern Christian idea that you have that doesn't reflect what the Bible actually says. I think most modern Christians are good people. I think they're moral, I think they're kind, I think they are consistent with their values. Many of those values are borrowed from humanism, you know, which long predated Christianity and which is, which is good, you know, trying to minimize harm. But if you look at that character in the Bible, which is what we're debating today, we're not debating internal consistencies. We could, it's some other debate, but today we're debating that character in that book. And that's the, that's the character that I presented to you who is.
- [39:38]
Eli Ayala
Surely, surely, Dan, we are debating consistency, right? We are debating the issue of worldviews. I mean, you're an atheist. Can you define for me your, your position of atheism? How do you define your.
- [39:49]
Jeff Durbin
I feel, I felt the whole time, Eli, I felt that Dan, even after getting defeated, soundly defeated by Wilson and Dr. White, that it didn't force him to go back to the drawing room board. No, I, I, that's what I felt. I felt that I, I think that I, I, you know, I can't see the man's heart, but I think that this, that this man knows what he's up against when he faces somebody who is biblical standing, the revelation of God, he doesn't have anything to stand on. And so he hasn't even tried to work on the problem because he didn't even have any responses. And so what he, what he attempted to do here, I'd love to hear what you have to say that this, I viewed this as he was attempting his very best effort to try to avoid having to answer the tough questions. That's why he was saying, like, well, that's a different debate. We can have that debate, like, whether this is consistent, whether I can justify this or that. But, like, that's not what we're talking about today. Because he, I think he did that because he can't.
- [40:52]
Eli Ayala
Right. It was interesting, one of the comments, and I don't know if it was an apology of studios where you guys posted the debate or somewhere else where it says, Dan's probably thinking where, where's a good evidentialist when you need one?
- [41:03]
Jeff Durbin
Yes, yes.
- [41:04]
Eli Ayala
Y. He didn't want to talk about.
- [41:06]
Jeff Durbin
Can you explain that real fast? Like when you just said that? Can you explain what you just said? Like, why would he be wishing he was talking to an evidentialist over against presuppositionalists? Why?
- [41:14]
Eli Ayala
Right. Because an evidentialist would most likely bite at some of the red meat he was throwing out. And then because evidentialists tend to agree with the atheist that certain facts are neutral and we can talk about those individual data points. For me, a lot of people, I wouldn't say a lot, it was overwhelming, positive response. But some people have a pet peeve that of theirs that they had an issue with was why I didn't address, for example, a lot of his biblical difficulties, his Bible contradictions and things like that. And the reason for that is I didn't want to play his game of answering him back and forth without establishing the fact that he's not neutral and our presuppositions matter in terms of how we interpret and engage the, the specifics. I mean, even Dan Barker said in one of his books, he says, epistema, a theory of knowledge precedes it comes before biblical criticism. Yet in this debate, he's trying to do biblical criticism without establishing his view of knowledge and, you know, being consistent and all the rest. So I wanted to expose that because I saw that he would consistently do this in past debates. So I wanted to talk about his worldview before going into the biblical data. Because your worldview is going to impact how you, you understand the biblical data.
- [42:25]
Jeff Durbin
Right.
- [42:25]
Eli Ayala
So he wanted to assume neutrality, and so he wanted an evidentialist, according to the comment someone made, because evidentialists tend to grant neut categories and it's easier to kind of go back and forth with them on those points.
- [42:36]
Jeff Durbin
Yeah, because you're having a debate with someone who says, hey, that's internally inconsistent. We need to be consistent, we need to be rational, we need to be reasonable. Right. And you're saying as a Christian, you know, that sounds like you're a Christian. Why are you talking like that?
- [42:47]
Eli Ayala
Right, right.
- [42:48]
Jeff Durbin
And, and before, before we can talk about why. Because, okay, let's, like, let's, let's say that I am being inconsistent. Let's say the Bible is inconsistent. Let's say the Bible contradicts itself left, right and center. Right. Okay. Why is that a problem? I thought we're living in a godless universe. I thought that we're all just matter in motion. I thought that functionalism was true, that, you know, this is just a function of the human brain and it's not necessarily universal, like. But you're. You're imposing it upon me right now. And in order to argue against the Christian God as though it was universal, as though it was something that was above all of us, we have to yield to. And so I'm confused. I'm confused as to why I'm talking to an atheist that is betraying all their commitments. Commitments. Because you said.
- [43:29]
Eli Ayala
Yeah, Jeff, that. But that's a. That's another debate we can talk about.
- [43:33]
Jeff Durbin
Right? Like, that's the whole debate. That's what we're in here doing right now. And so you got to give me some reason as to why I ought not to be inconsistent. I mean, why. Why can't I just sit and lie to you through this whole debate right now? Like, I'll just lie through my teeth. Is that wrong? Should I do that? Can I do that to win the debate? Just simply lie and just make up a set of facts. Can I do that? I'm like. Aloud, he would say, well, no, you can't do that. Okay, give me a justification. Given your position on the other side of the stage. That's what we're doing right now. Give me a reason as to why. So let's. Let's play some more. Such a great debate, brother.
- [44:07]
Dan Barker
For today's debate. I don't have to do that. I just told you.
- [44:10]
Eli Ayala
Sure. I'm going to dem.
- [44:11]
Dan Barker
And I don't need.
- [44:11]
Eli Ayala
I'm going to demonstrate that you. That you do. So how would you define atheism? That's my question. So you can answer it.
- [44:17]
Dan Barker
In fact, I think that's besides the point.
- [44:19]
Eli Ayala
Okay.
- [44:20]
Dan Barker
We're talking about the God of the Bible. We're not talking about my atheism.
- [44:23]
Eli Ayala
Sure, I understand that. Can you stop there?
- [44:25]
Jeff Durbin
Yes.
- [44:25]
Eli Ayala
Desperate.
- [44:26]
Jeff Durbin
Desperate.
- [44:27]
Eli Ayala
So I work with middle school students, and it comes very naturally to me to detect when someone is trying to avoid something. So my students, when they don't do their homework and they're trying to say something. That was the impression I got there. He wanted to move on to something other than defining his own personal position. So you can tell he did not want to defend his position. He wanted to play the. He wanted to wear the hat of the neutral observer, you're the one on trial, Eli. Not my position. But the reason why I wanted him to define his position was not because I wanted to critique him at that point. It was to show that this whole, this whole gig of I'm just a neutral observer was false. Yeah, and, and, and it's true that it's false just by, just in virtue of, of the definition of how you define atheism. I mean, neutrality is such a myth, to use Bonson's word, that even when someone says, I don't know, let's think, let's get away from atheism, let's go, let's go to agnosticism, the agnostic says, I don't know if God exists. Well, if that's true, then the Bible is false because the Bible says all men have a sufficient knowledge of, of God. So even the agnostic position by definition is not neutral towards the Christian position. You see what I'm saying? So when you say you don't know God exists, you're actually implicitly saying that the God of the Bible is, is false, is, is wrong. So even the, the person who says we need to be completely neutral because this is what we need to do, we need to be objective and things like this, that position is inherently biased against the position that says you can't be, be neutral. By definition, we need to be neutral. Well, that's not neutral against the position that says you can't be neutral. So it literally is impossible. The agnostic can't do it, the atheist can't do it, the Muslim can't do it, no one can do it because it doesn't exist. Neutrality literally is a myth. I think that's an appropriate nomenclature to refer to that.
- [46:24]
Jeff Durbin
That's right, and you made a good point here. And we'll go right back to this in just a second here. You made a good point in terms of the atheist wanting to put you on trial or put ultimately God on trial. And that's what Dan Barker wants to do, put God on trial. The benefit of presuppositional apologetics in this truly Christian epistemology and approach to epistemological questions, the benefit is that when you're speaking to somebody who is the unbeliever, like Dan Barker, is that you're saying, no, no, wait, hold on now. God isn't on trial here, you're on trial.
- [46:57]
Eli Ayala
Right?
- [46:58]
Jeff Durbin
Because everything that you're doing completely contradicts the system that you put promulgate. Everything that you say to the world that you want me to adopt. I mean the view of origins, anthropology, epistemology, you tell me all these things, you write books about, all these things, you want me to adopt them and yet I'm going to go ahead and say with my hand raised high. What you're saying and you're doing contradicts everything you taught me because everything you taught me goes against all the standards that you're upholding right now. And so the truth is, the top down approach, the presuppositional approach, starting with revelation of God is saying no, Mr. Unbeliever, actually you're on trial. God says about about you that you are without a defense, that he has made himself known to you and you have sufficient knowledge of him. And that the problem here is not intellectual, it's not a lack of evidence. You just, it's not that you don't have enough light, it's that you love darkness rather than light and that you're suppressing the truth about God. So no, actually you're on trial. Let me ask you some questions. And it is just amazing to me and it's, it's the first thought that came to Eli. You know, I was peppering you with like give me the debate, give me the debate. I was hoping to get it early and you know, use our friendship to find some way to get like an earlier access. Access to it. I was so thrilled to get it. And when I listened to it, I listened to it as soon as you sent to me. And the first thing I thought as we got to this point here was man, he has done nothing to try over all of these years because Doug Wilson's debate with him was in 96. I think his with James for his atheism, one had to be like 2003 or 4 somewhere around. It was really, really early on. He hasn't done any work to try to figure out how can I come up with at least a unique approach to these questions. He's just not done his homework. I think he's fear careful that he doesn't have answers to these questions. He knows it's a weak point, he can't. And so he wants to do his very best to divert the, the course of the debate to something else he feels comfortable in doing. And that's railing against God, right? Yeah, yeah.
- [48:49]
Eli Ayala
I think also too a lot of these guys who do like career debating, especially the older guys, I think a lot of them just phone it in too. It's kind of just a way to stay relevant. You're out there, you know, people see your face. Oh there's that guy. But they don't actually, you know, not. I can't speak of everyone, but a lot of them seem to just, you know, they just do it because, okay, it's another event. I can do another thing. And they don't actually prepare very much. I mean, I've had, I've watched debates where the Christian has this entire PowerPoint presentation laid out. And then the atheist guy, you know, he just has a piece of paper and a pencil. Like, you know, I'm not persuaded. You know, it's okay. They just play the skeptic and they don't present anything. It looks like they didn't do their homework at all. So I think that that's kind of what might have happened here, but I don't know.
- [49:32]
Jeff Durbin
Yeah, not compelling. Not compelling at all. Okay, here we go. Yep.
- [49:35]
Eli Ayala
Let's pretend it's not beside the point and you can answer my question.
- [49:38]
Dan Barker
I don't want to pretend.
- [49:38]
Eli Ayala
I want to. Okay, so topic Dan. Dan has defined atheism as a lack of belief in God. Now this is my, my question. If the Bible teaches, as per Romans 1 and other places, that all men have a knowledge of God such that they are without excuse, Dan doesn't have to affirm that. But if he, if he defines atheism as a lack of belief in God, is that not, Dan, an implicit assertion that the Christian worldview is false? That is a worldview position, is it not?
- [50:06]
Dan Barker
Can you say that again? That's a lot of words.
- [50:08]
Eli Ayala
That's okay.
- [50:09]
Dan Barker
That was a word salad.
- [50:10]
Eli Ayala
That's okay. Well, it wasn't a word salad. It was a lot of words, but it made sense. Okay, so you said the issue is not an issue of worldview. It most definitely is. And so I said, if you define your atheism as a lack of belief in God, how is that not an implicit assertion by definition that Christianity is false? When Christianity actually asserts that you have a sufficient knowledge of God, that leaves you without excuse.
- [50:34]
Dan Barker
Because a lack of belief is not the same as a belief in a lack. A lack of belief is an absence of belief. There are many atheists who would say, I don't believe in a God. Maybe he exists, maybe he could exist. But many atheists who do not come out and say I do believe God does not exist. That's a totally different thing. That's of part positive atheism. But this is still. I'll be side.
- [50:57]
Eli Ayala
If you lack, if you lack belief in God.
- [51:00]
Dan Barker
Yeah.
- [51:00]
Eli Ayala
Is God wrong when he says you don't lack belief In God,
- [51:05]
Dan Barker
if I lack belief, is God wrong when he says I don't?
- [51:09]
Eli Ayala
Yes. God says you do not lack belief in God. God says you have sufficient evidence such that you are literally on apologetus without an apologetic. You don't believe that if by definition of your atheism, you don't believe that which, which highlights the idea that you are not neutral, you are by very definition making a worldview claim. So this is very relevant because if we bypass this issue and we talk about the evidence and all this, that assumes neutral categories that I'm going to reject from the start.
- [51:36]
Dan Barker
Okay, suppose you're right. How does that make raping David's wives a just act? Let's talk about the evidence.
- [51:42]
Jeff Durbin
Well, again.
- [51:43]
Eli Ayala
Again. Well, this again, we can talk about the debate, but we're not going to pretend to talk about the debate without our presuppositions.
- [51:49]
Dan Barker
We have to put that aside. That's this debate. We have, have to.
- [51:53]
Jeff Durbin
So, so just on that point, I would refer everybody to the episode we did with Dan Barker. We had a radio debate with Dan Barker. Sai10brugencate and myself debated Dan Barker on Apology Radio way, way back in the beginning. And in that debate I brought up the, the challenge, the moral challenge, the ethical challenge of rape to Dan Barker. And Dan Barker said on record. And it's not unusual for an atheist to say this when pressed, but I mean, because all atheist ethicists will write this in their books, like there ultimate. There's no ultimate wrong in rape or pedophilia or murder. No ultimate wrong in it. But Dan Barker himself said in the debate, it's at the beginning of Apology Radio, the episode in our opening, it says from Dan Barker, in the cosmic picture, it won't matter. It doesn't matter. And yet what is he doing in the debate as an atheist? He's appealing to the conscience and to the emotions of image bearers of God. They know that rape is a moral evil. Evil. It is wicked. It is evil. And according to scripture it deserves a death penalty. That's how, that's how highly God views that crime. And so he brings up what about the rape of David wives? As though Dan Barker believed that there was something ultimately wrong with that. He doesn't. But what does he do? And Eli says this in the debate. He actually says you're borrowing. He says, that's like a light, that's a light word. Actually. I think you're stealing, you're stealing from the Christian worldview concepts, emotions that don't really belong to you, that's the benefit of a top down approach is that you were, you were looking over this going, no, no, no, you're on trial. You can't bring up rape as a moral problem or an ethical problem. You're not, you're not even entitled to those emotions given your worldview. Now when you say rape to a Christian audience, every Christian goes, oh, it's so evil, such an abomination. But they have a reason why they believe it's an abomination because they have the very voice of God, the ultimate who actually says what it is and the justice that's just due to it. And so a Christian has a right to all the emotions surrounding the evil of rape and even what happened to David's wives. But we have plenty of explanations as to like, well, why is that that way in a fallen world, why do things like that happen? Why do judgments like that actually happen in this world? We have answers for those things, but we also have a right to the emotions surrounding rape. And Dan Barker knows it. He knows he can appeal to those things because the people are filled with emotions. They start to disconnect their reasoning. But the real question to challenge Dan Barker on is wait, Dan, I thought you said that in the cosmic pict, rape is not wrong. So why are you bringing it up?
- [54:23]
Eli Ayala
Notice he was trying to leave the worldview discussion. Let's assume you're, let's assume you're right and then he brings in the specifics. Okay, well if I'm right, then on Christian presuppositions, then God has morally sufficient reasons for executing his judgment in the specific way that he did it. And you can get into the intricacies of secondary causation and God sovereignly working thing, you can get into all of that stuff. But on Christian presuppositions, by just definition, when God permits an evil that is not the same as God committing an evil, you might say, well, I'm not sure how God could do that. It's like, well, it doesn't matter if you could make sense out of it. On the Christian presupposition, God is righteous even when he executes his judgment in the ways that he does. So he was, he was trying even on an internal critique if he was trying to grant my perspective and then say, fine, you know what you're saying is correct about the worldview stuff. Well how can you justify, justify this, you know, David's wives. Well, we justify it by appealing to those other presuppositions that give context and meaning for God's. Judgment, his righteousness and, and the way that those things play out. So he was trying to get away from that broader worldview conversation and get into the red meat stuff that's difficult to answer Old Testament ethics in like a quick back and forth. Right.
- [55:32]
Jeff Durbin
You, you, you brought up, Eli, you brought up such a fantastic example. I want to, I want to highlight it. When Dan was saying, when he was alleging contradictions, you, you brought up, I think, one of the finest points I have ever heard on this in a way that somebody can actually understand it. So the atheist is saying, you know, there's contradictions here. You're not allowed to have these contradictions. There's contradictions in the Bible. You, you said, well, if, if I were to say it's, it's raining and not raining. Right. Is that a contradiction? To which the, if you just, if you just said that to an audience, hey, guys, I'm going to say, I'm going to say let's talk statement here and let me know if it's contradictory. It's raining and it's not raining. And is that contradictory? The audience would probably like on instinct go, yes, but if you were to say it's raining in Phoenix and not raining in New Jersey, it's not a contradiction. How is it not a contradiction? Because now you filled in the context. Right. And that's why it's, that's how you say it's not a contradiction because it's raining and not reigning in the world right now. And the context in the world right now is the context that actually gives meaning to it to show it's not a contradiction. And so that happens too with say, something like the rape of David's wives. Right. Well, I thought rape is a moral evil. Yes. I thought it's a crime according to God. Yes. But it happened to David's wives. Yes. Isn't that a contradiction? No. Well, how. Isn't that a contrary contradiction? Fill in the context. Right. Fill in the context.
- [57:03]
Eli Ayala
Is the theology, Christian theology.
- [57:05]
Jeff Durbin
Yes.
- [57:06]
Eli Ayala
You'd have to go through the whole issue of God being a primary cause and using secondary. I mean, you don't have time to go into that in a debate in a way that's going to be clear enough. So I didn't get into the details of that, but that you're correct. I teach logic. I teach 8th grade logic. We go through this all the time. I mean, if I could even get like Bible difficulties, if I can give a possible reconciliation of a passage, it logically follows that those two passages aren't contradictory. That's just simple logic. And.
- [57:31]
Jeff Durbin
Right.
- [57:32]
Eli Ayala
You know, Dan, if you. You guys didn't play it here, but if you played his opening statement, he says, you know, us Christians, we appeal to hermeneutics and the fuller. Yes, those are the things we all have to appeal to. Otherwise, you know, you do get a contradiction.
- [57:45]
Jeff Durbin
So. Right.
- [57:46]
Eli Ayala
So there you go.
- [57:46]
Jeff Durbin
Yeah. And you could do the same thing. And, and this is. This is what I think James brought up to Dan Barker and the. Their debate. I forget which debate it was, but. But I know that this came up on their debates. It was. It was regarding this whole thing of contradictions. Taking a verse here or verse there and making them look like they collide. And James brings up the point. You know, you've written a lot of stuff in all these books. I could easily do that to you in your books. I could take one statement over here you've said and bring it over against this, this, and it looks like a contradiction.
- [58:12]
Eli Ayala
Dan Barker professes to be a Christian. Dan Barker isn't a Christian. Therefore, Dan.
- [58:16]
Jeff Durbin
Therefore Dan Barker doesn't exist. That was the best one. I was just, Just thinking about yesterday when I was preparing for this. Yeah, yeah. Because Dan, just to explain it to the audience, Dan will do that in debates where he'll say, you know, here's a verse. God says this, and then here's another verse. God says this, therefore God does not exist. And that was his shtick, was just that. Here's a verse that says this, here's a verse that says that they contradict each other, and therefore God doesn't exist. And James said, you know, Dan Barker once professed faith in Christ. Dan Barker no longer professes faith in Christ, therefore, Dan Barker does not exist. It was just perfect. It was perfect. All right, so what we're gonna do, guys, quick commercial break. Stay with us because we have more to do here through the debate. I hope it's super helpful for everybody. If you're just getting in here right now. Don't forget to do all the things that YouTube likes, the likes, the shares, and then also the subscribe. And then don't forget also to go to apologiastudios.com Sign up for all access. Be a partner with us in this ministry. The millions and millions of people being impacted by this ministry, the people coming to Christ, the Christians becoming equipped, and the tens of thousands of babies that have been saved from death and as a result of your partnership with us in this ministry. So I want to thank you for that. And don't forget to also go check out Revealed Apologetics, Eli ayala's channel on YouTube. Go check that out. We'll be right back after this short break.
- [59:28]
James White
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- [60:12]
Jeff Durbin
All right, everyone, welcome back. Sorry about that. That was a weird way to start. Welcome back, everybody. We are on with Eli Ayala with Revealed Apologetics. He recently had a debate with Dan Barker, the president. Is he still the president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation?
- [60:26]
Eli Ayala
I think so, yeah.
- [60:27]
Jeff Durbin
Him and his wife, I think that's right. So just a great debate if you get a chance after the show today, sometime next couple days, make sure you guys listen to the full debate. Get the opening stage statements, get the rebuttals and the cross acts, and then of course, the closing statements. I love this debate. For now, it is just one of those debates you got to put into the wheelhouse to say, hey, if you're, if you're wanting to know how the truly reformed or Christian apologetic methodology engages in debates, that this has got to be in there with those debates to just say, okay, this is how you put flesh on it. This is how it all works out. Okay, so here's a little bit more of Eli cross examination examining Dan Barker.
- [61:02]
Eli Ayala
Let us to beg the question in
- [61:04]
Dan Barker
favor of your position in, in my life, other than outside this debate.
- [61:07]
Jeff Durbin
You're right.
- [61:08]
Dan Barker
I am an atheist. I'm not neutral. But for today's debate, we're debating.
- [61:11]
Eli Ayala
You're definitely not neutral today either.
- [61:13]
Dan Barker
Does the God of the Bible exist? And I guess he does examples from scripture.
- [61:17]
Eli Ayala
Okay.
- [61:18]
Dan Barker
Showing how he cancels out. That's what our debate is.
- [61:21]
Eli Ayala
So what I'm critiquing Dan and responding to you is critiquing your very ability to put forth forth your apparent objections. So, for example, let's talk a little bit about your view of logic. This is Very relevant, because I've given my argument as to why logic must be grounded in God. That was in my opening statement. What I'm confused about, and I'm sure people in the audience might be confused about, is how do you provide a rational basis for the very tools you use to critique the Bible in the way that you did in your opening statement?
- [61:49]
Dan Barker
I can do that, and we can do that in another debate, Eli. We can do that. And I can show you how logic is based in a natural worldview.
- [61:56]
Eli Ayala
Part of my argument, Dan, that God is required for logic. So that's not a different debate.
- [62:01]
Dan Barker
But. But before you can even get there, you have got to connect that idea with the God of the Bible.
- [62:07]
Eli Ayala
Correct.
- [62:08]
Dan Barker
Where did God of the Bible say I created logic? Where did he say that?
- [62:12]
Eli Ayala
You can ask me that when it's your turn to ask questions.
- [62:14]
Dan Barker
Well, that's. You can respond to a question with a rhetorical.
- [62:17]
Jeff Durbin
All right, let's do that real fast because you did it exactly right. You're to. In a cross examination, you have the person doing the cross examination is questions, and this person's answering, and so it. He has to wait for his turn to ask questions. Okay, so Eli didn't get a full chance in the cross X to really flesh that out. It is in your opening statement. But in the cross examination, you know, he's saying, did God say I created logic? I love how when he talks about God, he always does that voice, I created logic. He always, he's always like that. Help us to understand that when you say, like, you know, I'm arguing that you can't have logic apart from God. That's a foundational part of this debate. And so what would you say to that?
- [62:57]
Eli Ayala
Yeah, so it has never been my position that God created logic. Logic reflects the. The nature of God. Right. That wouldn't be my position. We would say that nature reflects the mind of God. It's not a created thing that you know. So I wouldn't say that. That the, the coherency of my view doesn't rely on eye upon that faulty question being answered. This is an example of when Dan offers what we call a straw man. Right. He misrepresents what I'm saying and then. And then ask me to respond to the misrepresentation. So I'll clarify here. Okay. No, the Bible does not say God does not say I created logic, because my position is that logic is not a created thing. It is merely a reflection of the mind. Mind of God. When we use the words that we use to explain and define the laws of logic. Those are just. That's just language we use to describe the rules that we derived out of the consistency of God's own character. Now, there is a sense in which God's being. You can, you can get this in scripture where you can get the laws of logic. For example, God says, I am. That I am. That's the law of identity. There you go. The law of. If you look at the three basic laws of logic, there's the law of identity, the law of non contradiction, and the law of excluded middle. These are very, very simple concepts. We always assume them, we all know them. Even though we might not be familiar with the language. The law of identity simply states that a is equal to a. Something is what it is, and it's not what it's not. This is a phone. It's not a table. I am Eli, I'm not Jeff. A man. This might be controversial, right? A man is a man, not a woman. Okay? So every time someone says they are a man when they are in fact a woman, they're actually violating the first law of logic. That's why it's not only false biologically, but it's actually logically incoherent. Okay, so you have I am. That I am. So the law of identity reflects God's own nature. The, the God says my word is not yes and no. That's the law of non contradiction. God does not say yes and no in the same time, in the same way, and contradicts himself. God does not engage in lying. Okay? And you put those together, you have the law of excluded middle, which is the law that simply states that, that a proposition or a state statement is either true or false. There's no middle option. So you get all of those from scriptural principles rooted in the nature of God himself. You don't need a sentence in the Bible that says, I, I'm God speaking. Thus says the Lord. I created logic. This is the same way. We don't defend the doctrine of the Trinity by looking for a passage in Scripture which says, okay, here's the Trinity, now we're going to lay it out. No, it's. It's taught throughout all of what Scripture has to say about the nature of God. We take that and we add philosophical and theological language to describe it. But those are all principles taken straight from the word of God. So I think his question is based on a misunderstanding and it's a misrepresentation of my position.
- [65:46]
Jeff Durbin
Very good. And you know, you brought it and I Think Bonson, when he used to address this point, when he would do it as quickly as he could, he would just talk about the laws of logic reflect the thinking of, of God. God cannot lie. That is to say, God cannot engage in logical contradiction. What is the nature of lying? It's saying something that isn't true. It's saying something that contradicts the truth. And so at the very foundation of all laws of logic, whether it's formal logic or informal logic, whatever, you're saying that the standard here is against lying, that we must use the tools that we use to make sure we're getting at the truth and not contradicting what is actually the. The truth.
- [66:29]
Eli Ayala
Right.
- [66:29]
Jeff Durbin
And so when you ask the child, you know, did you take a cookie from the cookie jar? And they did, and they say, no, I didn't. It's also a logical contradiction because you did. Yes, you. You absolutely did. So even something as simple as that should be understood by the, you know, the average Christian. It's, it's. What are the tools of. The laws of. Laws of logic are getting at getting our thoughts in accordance with God's thoughts. The truth is what matters. And so we don't contradict ourselves.
- [66:52]
Eli Ayala
And that's biblical.
- [66:53]
Jeff Durbin
That's biblical.
- [66:54]
Eli Ayala
It comes straight from Scripture.
- [66:54]
Jeff Durbin
It comes straight from Scripture. Exactly. And also there's something else really important, and you are pressing on this. And many Christians, as they first engage us, they may not actually catch this. I know that I didn't the first time I listened to Dr. Greg Bonson take apart Gordon Stein and his worldview. I had to listen to that debate like 10 times to go. All I know is this guy got beaten, beat badly, and I don't understand exactly how. I just know he did. I'm trying to formulate how all this work together. And so there's also the issue issue, and this is something that Dan Barker had to contend with and he just can't, is that all he has as a materialist is what's in his head. And I'm talking about the matter in his head and the chemical processes happening in his head. That's all he's got. And then all these other heads with, you know, chemical reactions happening in their heads, and it's all he's got because he's a materialist. He doesn't have a worldview that has a transcendent part to it, something that is not made of man matter, but still exists and is still relevant. So all he has is matter in the material world and biochemical responses. He can't appeal to something that is transcendent or immaterial, that has any meaning, because he doesn't have an immaterial aspect to his existence. So when we say, hey, tell me how you justify an immaterial law of arithmetic. Like, arithmetics. Like, how do you get math and laws of math in a universe that's only matter and motion? Motion, right. And. And dude, Bonson blew my mind when I first learned this from him. You know, he was like, obviously I was listening to audio, but he was writing a math equation on the board, and it was like, one plus one equals two. And he was like, everyone, Is this true? And everyone's like, yeah, that's true. Okay. He goes, so is this two? Is this two on the board here? And that's. Yeah, that's two. One plus one is two. That's correct. And that is definitely two. And then he erases two. And he goes, okay, I've now erased two out of exactly existence. Never use the number two in your thinking again. Because I just took out what you said is two. And of course everyone goes, well, no, you didn't. And then he's like, okay, so where is two? You said that was two. Oh, that was a representation of this abstraction, this concept of two ness. But how do you get two nests in a materialist universe? Because I just took out the representation of two. Right. So is two gone now, or is two universal? No two is universal. We bridge. We built bridges off of two. Like, we need the number two to build bridges. We need the number two to land airplanes. Right? Like, if the. If the laws of. If the laws of math are simply the result of. Of. Of functionalism and just brain chemistry, just stuff happening in our heads, if that's all that it comes down to, then, you know, I'd say have fun believing that when you get on an airplane, right? When. You know, when you. When you have to go from LA to Honolulu, Lulu. And everything has to be just right and precise to make sure you landed exactly the right spot. I mean, the laws of math are universal and they matter and they're unchanging when you're in that airplane, here's what I'm saying, you better hope that your pilot. When you're flying from LA to. To Honolulu, you better hope that guy doesn't live out his atheism consistently.
- [70:08]
Eli Ayala
Right?
- [70:08]
Jeff Durbin
Right.
- [70:09]
Eli Ayala
When I was subbing at a public school, there was a student. He was an atheist student. The kids were done. We were kind of just talking in the front of the room, whatever. And this kid, he had told me he was an ATH and he knew I was a Christian. And he said, you know, I don't believe in anything outside the material world. And I was like, all right, well, let's. Let's try. Let's try this. And I said, how many fingers am I holding up? And he goes, oh, two. And I'm like, and where is it? Where's the two? And he pointed to my fingers. I'm like, no, that's.
- [70:33]
Dominion Wealth Representative
That.
- [70:33]
Eli Ayala
Those are my fingers. Where's the two? Right. He had to scratch his head. I was like, these are just. These are my fingers. You can't say this is two. Right. I want you to tell me where the two is when you answer the question, how many fingers am I holding up? And he got it. He was like, well, I guess it's an idea. Like when you touch an idea. He's like, well, no, so. But I thought you said the only thing that exists is the material world. Now, that kid came back to me two years later when I was at the gym. Now people can't see. I'm not a very buff guy. I was. There was a short time when I was going to the gym, but I went to the gym, and this young man came up to me and he's like, do you remember me? And I was like, I think so. You were at that school. He's like, yeah, you were my substitute teacher, like, two years ago. He's like, I can't. I remember that conversation we had. I can't get your exam example of two out of my mind. He goes, I was really thinking about this. Watch this, Jeff. He says, I. I'm thinking of going to church from that, too. He's like, I think there's a world of immaterial things. I need to look into this. Do you know any churches in the area? That was from just that small little conversation.
- [71:30]
Jeff Durbin
The number two years later, the number two. That's it. The number two.
- [71:34]
Eli Ayala
Yeah. Yeah.
- [71:34]
Jeff Durbin
That's a great example, too, with using your fingers like that, too. That's phenomenal. You know, those are my fingers. Yeah. I was. I was thinking, you know, we've been saying for years that if you take. If you take the presuppositions of a materialist view of reality and atheism, then the laws of math are not ultimately universal. They are not unchanging. If it's just what's happening in your brain chemistry and it's just happening in your mind, it doesn't mean it applies everywhere in all times. And so ultimately, if atheism is left out, then the laws of math are not ultimately secure, right? And so. So all the madness around Covid starts happening, and then there was this just huge push towards, like, there was antifa and Marxism and all this nonsense was happening. And I just saw, like, a flood of videos for, like, a hot moment. There was a flood of videos where these people, these ridiculous people were arguing that the laws of math that we learned in school are just really from white stuff. Supremacy, and the 2 plus 2 may not equal 4. And I thought to myself, there you go. Like, we've been saying it for years. Like, you abandoned God, and you're going to have to come to those, like, you know, conclusions when you're thinking those thoughts. Like, I think it's white supremacy.
- [72:45]
Eli Ayala
Like, math is racist, though.
- [72:46]
Jeff Durbin
That's what they were saying. Yeah, math is. Math is racist. And I was thinking to myself, that's just crazy, because none of these people live like that. And, dude, I. One of the best examples I can have of, like, just in my mind, because it was just so entirely impressive for years. My family's. I was born in Vegas. My family's first from Vegas. And so I still had some family in Vegas. So I would like to go visit and do things in Vegas at times. And so I drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas. And at the time, you had to drive as you got up towards Vegas in Nevada, you had to go down all the way down towards the Hoover Dam. You had to drive through there and then drive back up the mountain again. Then you're getting into Vegas, you know, and that took a long time. I think that took. Sometimes it could take hours because it'd be a lot of traffic. People, like, going over the Hoover Dam want to stop, and they want to look. And so it just slowed everything down. Well, what they did was, is. And I'm sure Vegas had a lot to do with this, is they wanted to make it much easier to get to Vegas. So shave, like two hours or two and a half hours off the drive time. All they did is, here's the Hoover Dam down here. They built a bridge on the mountain pass. And what was incredible about it is I watched it for. For a long time while they were building it. As I would go to Vegas, I would see that, you know, their progress. This was. Was crazy. They built that bridge from one side of the mountain over here, and the other side, they built it from opposite sides like this over time to meet right in the middle. Boom. Like that, which is insane to me. But you need to, you need two. You need the number two. A lot of number twos and other numbers. And it was just insane to me. I was like, no way. They're building it from one side to the other and they are just going to meet and then, boom, absolute perfection. Boom, right there. And the only way you could accomplish a feat like that is if the laws of math are actually universal and unchanging. And the question is, where are they? Yeah, right now.
- [74:33]
Eli Ayala
Now. So just to help your listeners, because if they ever encounter someone who's a little bit more philosophically minded, there is a view known as nominalism that folks want to be aware of. And nominalism is, is a view that denies universals. So they don't believe that there is something out there called the number two. They, they would say that those things are just what we call to is just the name. Or like logic, we just call it. But it's not, there's not a thing out there. So if someone says things like that, they're probably coming from a nominalist perspective, but the critique is going to be the same. Right, Jeff? I mean, okay, if you say those don't actually exist, then, you know, how do you make sense out of your sentences without universal laws of thought, which apparently don't exist? That's just the name we call it, we call it logic. So folks want to be familiar with that terminology when they hear people, people say those sorts of things, you know, two doesn't exist or whatever. It's typically coming from a view known as nominalism.
- [75:30]
Jeff Durbin
Let's wrap this up here and like, let's give a, let's put a cherry on top of this. What we've been demonstrating through this, engaging with some of the cross examinations, speaking through these things we've been demonstrating is that apart from God, you can't know anything. Apart from God, you can't demonstrate anything. Apart from God, you can't truly justify anything. And we're, we're not, we're not simply saying it's just in like one or two or three categories. We typically press on, on things like uniformity in nature, the principle of induction, the laws of logic, morality. But what we're saying is that it's actually everything. It's all of life, it's wisdom, it's ethical demands, it's truth, it's beauty, it's goodness, all those things. You can't have any of those things apart from Jesus Christ. So I'd like you to speak to that. That's the main thing we want to Communicate is that apart from the Christian, Christian God, you can't prove anything, you can't know anything and just speak about, I guess maybe the beauty and the glory of the Christian worldview. In, in this respect.
- [76:29]
Eli Ayala
Yeah. One of, one of my favorite definitions of Christian apologetics, and it's related, is given by Cornelius Van Till on page one of his little book, Christian Apologetics. He says, apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life. That's the key. The philosophy of life over against the non Christian Christian philosophy of life. The beauty of the Christian worldview is it, it doesn't just speak to one thing. It is an entire way of seeing and understanding the world. Whether it's interactions with unbelievers, whether it's, you know, your marriage relationships, your relationship with your kids, whether you're in the laboratory doing science, whatever you're doing, all of that are, are just pieces of a set system that is coherent and grounded in God and his revelation. Right? We honor God when we look at the world and interpret the world in a way that he's revealed it. There's a consistency to it. There's a, there, there's a systematic way of seeing things. How the flower relates to God, the grass relates to God, the squirrel relates to God, the other image bearer that you're interacting with relates to God. We relate to God. That is the beauty and consistency of the Christian worldview. It is a system of thought. It is, is all encompassing. You know, you, you nailed it just a moment ago. We tend to speak of logic, but you don't have to speak of logic. You know, in isolation. We can talk about anything. The reason why we talk about logic is that you need logic to talk about those other things. So it's more fundamental than say, talking about like beauty or, you know, some fact of science. Logic kind of undergirds all of that. But you're right, it is, it is the fact that God has created us in his image and we think God's thought after him. Right? It's because of those things that we could have all of these wonderful, beautiful things that we experience experience in this world. We can build bridges. We could, you know, just based on the number two, we can, we can link two mountains together and all the rest. It, that is the beauty of the Christian worldview. And so what we're called to do as Christians is to see the world through that lens that God has given us. And in doing so, it abounds to the worship and glory of God because we see the consistency and the interconnectedness of everything. We see how a wonderful our maker is. And it's our job as Christians to show that to the unbeliever and to expose the fact. My son's in the background.
- [78:46]
Jeff Durbin
Expose the fact, no problem.
- [78:47]
Eli Ayala
That my, that the unbeliever knows this very God. He can't help but to think in those categories. Right? They want consistency, they want intelligibility, but they can't have it unless they see the world through the lens that God has provided. And so our job as apologists is simply to point that out. And so, yes, consistency is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Random things that have no purpose or telos to them, no design to them tend to be very ugly. You got someone scribbling colors on a piece of paper, you know, it doesn't really look beautiful, but when you see design and purpose, there is a beauty to that that can only be given because. Because there's a designer. I'm not giving a design argument, but you get the point. Things that are designed tend to express the beauty of the mind of the one designing it. So I think there's something to be said there.
- [79:32]
Jeff Durbin
Absolutely. All right, so tell everyone where they can go to get more fans from you, Eli.
- [79:36]
Eli Ayala
Well, you can go to revealed apologetics.com I have a blog there. I've got some articles there and you can find all of the podcasts and YouTube stuff there. Also Apologia Studios, you guys have my stuff there as well. So it has been a great pleasure working along with, alongside you guys. And so they can check there and you can re. You could email me any questions or topics you'd like me to cover at revealed apologetics gmail.com you can reach out to me there if you want me to come and speak as well. Many people know I, I speak across the country, do kind of conferences and debates sometimes and so people can reach me through those, through those venues.
- [80:11]
Jeff Durbin
Perfect, brother. Well, I'm super thankful for you man. I'm so glad you did this and you dedicated the time to prepare for it and also to fly out to Dallas, time away from your family, everything to, to go there and to be courageous and bold enough to, to stand against one of the great atheists of, of the last generation. And you did a phenomenal job. I'm thankful for you, man. Thank you. Thanks brother. Absolutely. Okay. Look forward to having you on again. I it appreciate feel, I feel absolutely ridiculous that we haven't had you on Apologia Radio more.
- [80:36]
Eli Ayala
I love to. I, I know I do other stuff than apologetics Yeah, I know you got it.
- [80:41]
Jeff Durbin
You got a black belt in karate movies.
- [80:42]
Eli Ayala
That's right.
- [80:43]
Jeff Durbin
Yes, that's right. Okay. All right. Thank you, Eli. Man, we'll look forward to seeing you again, man.
- [80:48]
Eli Ayala
All right, God bless.
- [80:48]
Jeff Durbin
God bless you. All right, everyone. So thank you for joining us today. I hope this benefit to you benefited you. I think that this is one of those episodes that you need to go back, listen again, just pull out all the gems, wherever you heard them and prepare yourself. Oh, actually, Eli, you're still here. I meant to do something. Let's give everyone some book recommendations. Christians may hear this. Let's. Let's do a few book recommendations.
- [81:12]
Eli Ayala
Yeah. So I can't move around too much, but I'm gonna go from my memory. If you're just getting into apologetics and you need like, and this is not to say anything about the book itself, the book is really good, but if you need a dumbed down version, like, man, I don't do apologetics often. And I need a book. Every Believer Confident by Mark Farnham. Excellent, excellent book. Very, very basic, Very, very introductory. Of course, if you're just a little bit above that and you want to see the biblical basis and application of presuppositional apologetics, I'd recommend Always ready, obviously by Dr. Greg Bonson. Presuppositional apologetics, Pushing the antithesis sounds fancy, but it's actually based upon a series of lectures Dr. Bonson gave to high school students. So it's actually quite un. Understandable. And at the end of each chapter they have study questions and like, assignments you can do to reinforce the principles that you learned in the chapter. Now if you want to go a little deeper, my favorite presuppositional book used to be. Used to be Vantil's Apologetic by Greg Bonson. That's his master's masterpiece.
- [82:11]
Jeff Durbin
That's.
- [82:11]
Eli Ayala
I highly recommend you get that. But there was a new book that came out just maybe a year ago or two years ago or something like that called the Objective Proof for Christianity. And it is actually a transcription of Dr. Bonson's 10 part lecture series on transcendental arguments. It's a little bit more advanced, but it can be followed. And I would highlight the living daylights out of that book. When you take the presuppositional approach and you get to the heart of its argumentation, what you find is the transcendental argument. That book specifically focuses on on that and answers criticisms and, and all the rest. I've learned most from that book, more than any of of the other ones there. So those are just a few I can. You can do a whole episode on book recommendations. I'd keep you here forever, but.
- [82:55]
Jeff Durbin
And.
- [82:56]
Eli Ayala
Okay.
- [82:56]
Jeff Durbin
And. And. And favorite. Favorite debate. Presuppositionalist debate. Favorite one.
- [83:00]
Eli Ayala
Oh, why are you doing this to me? My.
- [83:03]
Jeff Durbin
The. The. Huh.
- [83:05]
Eli Ayala
Okay, so the. My. I have to go with the Greg Bonson, Gordon Stein.
- [83:09]
Jeff Durbin
Yeah.
- [83:10]
Eli Ayala
But the problem with that debate is not the debate itself. It's. Have we seen a presuppositionalist go up against someone who actually is philosophically familiar with the argumentation and stuff like that? That's hard. There's not a lot of professional philosophers slash presuppositionalists that are going up against other professional philosophers. So, you know, I would have to. I have to think about that, man. But the Bonsenstein debate, that's classic.
- [83:36]
Jeff Durbin
Yeah.
- [83:36]
Eli Ayala
And your appetite. What's my appetite?
- [83:39]
Jeff Durbin
No, I said. I said it'll wet. It'll wet your appetite. If you're new to this.
- [83:42]
Eli Ayala
What's my interesting question? What are.
- [83:45]
Jeff Durbin
What are you hungry for right now, Eli? That. That. That soft, delicious butter.
- [83:49]
Eli Ayala
Well, that's right. Well, the first time I went to. To Arizona, the guys, I think it was Isaac, they're like, what do you want to eat? Like, let's do hibachi, man. I love hibachi. So, yeah, I'm a big fan.
- [83:59]
Jeff Durbin
Come to Arizona to get Japanese food and sushi in the desert. That's right. Yeah. There we go. There we go. Super fresh. And the butter is good, too. Thank you, brother. Appreciate that. Okay, everybody, I want to encourage everyone also to go and please get stuff and support the sponsors of this show. We connect to and use products and different services that we actually believe in here at Apologia Studios. And so you've already seen some of those commercials already. The stuff that I'm doing on a regular basis, like, nad just a huge blessing. But I want to point everyone also, if you are Christian, you love the Lord, and you want to start thinking about your financial future, you know, how do I invest and how do I build things? What should I do for my family? If you're a husband, a father, and a family, and you're saying, I need to start thinking about these things, go to reform money, go to those guys, make a connection, get some consultation and start preparing for your financial future and for your family's financial future. If you haven't started that yet, get started on that. And also, don't forget to go to heritagedefense.org if you are a Christian, if you are a homeschooling family, you need to have Heritage Defense, period. It is. I've said this a million times when I talk about them. It doesn't make any sense to me the amount of money that they're charging Christians to have their services because it is insane what they do. So to protect yourself and your kids, your family from any three letter agencies that show up at your door. You have heritagedefense.org and they show up at your door. Maybe some false claims are being made, something you said online offended somebody. We're getting to that, especially in the UK right now. Whatever the, whatever the situation is, Heritage Defense is a phone call away. You literally call Heritage Defense. A lawyer's on the phone. You hand the phone to the three letter, three letter agency and close the door. Just make sure you get your phone back when you're done. And so they are amazing. I don't understand how they're charging what they're charging. It doesn't make any sense for the service itself. If you don't have it, you got to get it. It make. It only makes sense to get it. Heritage defense.org have somebody who's ready to support you and see stand with you on the other line. It's sad that we need that in this day, but we do. As Christians, I've been watching a lot of content online of, you know, police knocking on people's doors, challenging them of what they're saying online. And we need to protect our kids and our families. And so heritagedefense.org make sure you get it. Everybody. Thank you. Go to apologiastudios.com get all access partner with us. I know some of you are waiting for the app, so are we. It's done, it's finished. I have a web team working on it right now. Final stuff. We're doing our very best. I want to ask you personally to forgive us for the delay. It's a long story, but we had some technical issues at first and then we had to restart. And then we had some stuff at the very end of the last year, we were going to release it in November. And so I just want to be transparent with you. We want it worse than you do. And so if you would just hang with us, be patient with us. We're working on it. We have our team working on it right now. And so just be in prayer for that. It's coming soon and when that thing releases, man, it's going to change everything. And so if you would sign up for all access right now, be a part of this ministry with us. You are truly a part of a ministry that God is using to lead people to Christ and to change people's lives for eternity. And so thank you all. To all of you guys who have been part of this with us since the beginning, thank you to everyone who's signing up now. And we'll catch you next week right here on Apologia Radio. Don't forget to share this episode. Let everyone know about it. It was a huge blessing. So grateful for Eli. We'll catch you guys next week right here on Apologia Radio.