← Stand to Reason Weekly Podcast
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- [00:00]
Lucas
Sa.
- [00:29]
Greg Koukl
All righty. Welcome to the show, everybody. Greg Koukl here for Stand A Reason. I'm glad you're part of what we're doing. Always glad you're on board. And, you know, I get comments from people all the time. It's how much they like the show, how much it benefits them. I don't need the personal praise. That's not my project. What I do really, really appreciate knowing that whatever people receive here largely through my input, sometimes they have guests, I have interviews, whatever. But whatever they receive here is something that helps them as followers of Christ, as ambassadors of Christ with knowledge and accurately informed mind, wisdom, an artful method and character in an attractive manner. And I hope that I display all of those qualities here. Modeling or what it's like to be a good ambassador. So thank you so much for the kind words that you offer. And after 30, what is this? Our 30? My 34th year, I've been doing radio longer than we've been doing, Stand to Reason. I started in 1990. No, this is the 37th year, because this is 76. So I started in 90. And when I started 76, I'm starting my 37th year in radio, stand a reason, 33 years old. And anyway, radio is longer for me, but I'm glad to be sitting in this seat making some contribution to your life. So that's great. As you know, we are about halfway through the B1 of the 100 campaign that we do every August, inviting brand new strategic partners into our financial support community. And you know, to be completely candid, I'm a little bit surprised that our response so far has been somewhat modest. And it surprises me because since every year we've made this appeal in August, we've received such a wonderful and vigorous response from you. And I continue to get callers saying, as I just made reference to how thrilled they are to not only listen to our our podcast, et cetera, but how thrilled they are to be on our support team as strategic partners. I don't know that maybe this law just has something to do with August. Well, we do this every August, so. Or maybe, you know, it's crazy summer schedules. People are putting off their decision about becoming a strategic partner until later in the month, the last minute. I don't know. I get that, by the way. But I just want to encourage you that if Stand a Reason has played an important role in your spiritual life in any way, that you consider joining our team financially to help us bring the same benefit to others that we have been bringing to you. Now, becoming a strategic partner is easy. Just takes a few minutes. You can Simply go to str.orgpartner and follow the prompts. And that one quick, easy decision actually makes a huge decision, or rather a huge difference over time for us at Strike. And we are so thankful for our partners who make it possible to do all the things that we do. Our podcasts that you're listening to now, our events at churches that you might have attended, our reality conferences where we're passing the baton to the most important generation, which is, by the way, always the next generation, right? And Red pen Logic with Mr. B. Our monthly training materials that we send to you either through snail mail or through digitally, you know, like solid ground, and our mentoring letter. So we love doing all of that. We will continue doing all of that for anyone at no charge. And that's because we have wonderful people like our strategic partners who make that possible. So these are all the creative and effective ways that we're doing our best to extend the kingdom by building ambassadors for Christ. And you are part of that because you're listening to the show. So we'd love to have you go deeper and be one of the 100 this month by becoming a new strategic partner. By the way, when we do, when you do, rather, for your monthly pledge of $25 or more, we're going to send you a copy of Steven Driscoll's book, Made in Our Image. And as a thoughtful guide that will help you think biblically about artificial intelligence. And by the way, we all need to do that. I just heard a presentation at CIA with Frank Turek last week, and actually it was Natasha Crane's son, who is, what, 18 years old, did a magnificent job. He's somewhat of a bright guy in this area, done a lot of study on it. And one of the things that he said is, do not personalize AI. This is a danger. What do you mean, personalize AI? Don't make AI into a person in your mind. It's an it, not a she or he or who. It is an it. It is just a machine communicating. It's not even communicating. It's just pushing out zeros and ones. Data that is often, I would say maybe frequent, maybe usually, depending on the question, reliable, but not always. And there are liabilities. Anyway, I'm just saying that's something we all need a little education on. And we'll get that. You'll get that when we send you the book Made in Our Image. In fact, I think we have the author, Steven Driscoll is going to be on board. I think next week maybe we'll do an interview with him, find out more details of that. But we'll give you the book. We'll send it to you as our way of saying thank you for becoming a strategic partner. So your help is going to make a world of difference. That's my personal appeal to you. Join up, Join me. Join us. All right. And you will make a world of difference in the lives of so many joining the team by becoming strategic partners today. Str.orgpartner just do it. Be one of the 100. And I'm just going to thank you in advance. I know many of you will respond and we appreciate you so much. All right. Call number is 562-424-8714. That's the number you can call if you're listening now by live streaming. If you are thinking about calling me sometime during our live show, which is characteristically from 4 until 6 on Tuesdays, that will be Los Angeles time once again, 562-424-8714. All right. We're going to do some open mic calls. And by the way, these calls are really important to us. And I understand that lots of folk think in terms. Now, look, let me back up. I started in radio. Radio happens at a certain time of day and people listen then live, usually when they're driving their car, because that's the way radio works. There was no recording that you could listen to later. Now we have this wonderful thing called podcasts. And so even radio shows are presented as a, you know, archived as a podcast. Those shows that go out kind of while you're driving and listening to that medium still exists. And I'm part of that. American Family Radio airs one show that I know of, one hour a week of our two hours of this show, and it's on Sunday. I think I'm right after Frank Turek. But nevertheless, I'm glad to be part of that enterprise, reaching all those people through that old medium. But most people are not thinking about, you know, threading the needle time wise because you got this wonderful thing podcast where you can listen anytime. And some of you told me while you're cleaning your garage or mowing your lawn or dusting the house or doing laundry or whatever it is that you're doing, you're listening when you want. But if you want to call in, you can't call in usually when you want. Well, certainly if you don't want, if you want to talk with me and engage with me, you got to call in during the live broadcast. So in a sense, that's kind of like the old. The old standard, with the exception of open mic. And in that case, you're not going to be able to interact with me, but I certainly can respond to your questions or challenges, as the case may be. I'll give you a piece of my mind. That's my purpose and my goal here. And you could eat the meat and throw away the bones. Open mics allow you to do that without worrying about threading the time needle. I won't be able to interact with you, but I can respond to the live question or the voiced question that you provide. Now, you can provide that by going to str.org that's our homepage, str.org and look up podcasts and live broadcasts. And that's where you can leave your question. And I have been going through a lot of these lately, which means we're getting a little bit low. So I want to encourage you to go ahead and send that. Rather go to our website with your question comment, you know, something you want me to respond to, and go ahead and record it there. And we'll get to it lately sooner than later because we have fewer to go through. But this is tremendously helpful because I do a number of shows off schedule because I'm traveling and I can't be here on the Tuesdays when I could do the regular show. So now we can do that. So that's why the open mic calls are so good. They're so important to me. Go to homepage, that's str.org and podcasts and live broadcasts and Jesus. I'm sorry, I'm looking at one of the questions here. And you can leave your questions for Jesus, for me, and I am not Jesus. Let's talk. Let's answer Chad here, and he has a question about sustaining the universe. Chad, what's on your mind? Hey, Greg, this is Chad from Louisville, Kentucky. Scripture tells us that God not only created the universe, but also sustains it. How do we see God sustaining the universe? Do we have evidence of that? Thank you for all you do. Well, that's short and sweet. Thank you, Chad, for that. And you know, I know this is coming up and I've thought about it for a bit, and I'm not sure I can meet the. Meet the demand here because the particular demand is, as you put it, Chad, is, though the scripture makes this claim, how do we see God sustaining the universe? Obviously, we don't see it, strictly speaking, because we don't see God doing That we might see God doing a miracle in an instance where he's appealed to and then something incredible happens and then it seems appropriate to me to say, well that wasn't a coincidence, it was probably God since we appealed to him. But in this case this is like a huge thing and there might be, I don't know, somebody who's much more clever in physics might be able to give us a clearer explanation. But I'm just going to give you a broad one. And it is based on a type of cosmological argument that. Oh, now I'm trying to think of the name of the philosopher, the argument on contingency. And maybe Amy knows. Is it Schleiermarker? What is the argument? Who is the author of the argument based for God, based on the contingency of the universe being sustained by God? Leibniz. Thank you. Also author of the law of identity or the indiscernibility of identicals. That's another issue. But very helpful. Hoity toity sounding philosophically, but very helpful in the mind body problem. Okay, so we got Leibniz and Leibniz made an observation. Everything that exists either exists in virtue of something else or exists in virtue of its own self, existent characteristics. That's a simplified way of making this argument. So what I'm giving you, Chad now is not an observation. Strictly speaking, looking around the universe, I don't see God holding anything up. Okay? Some of the times our understanding of reality comes from our ability to reflect in sound, reasonable, reliable ways about the nature of the world. And so we have this capacity to make these kinds of reflections about the world that help us to understand details of the world. And this is not limited to empirical observations. I mean that's a particular way we know. And not that this is your view, but you know Chad, that there are lots of people out there, materialists, in particular atheistic materialists, who think that science is the only thing that can give us any true information about the world. Because the world is only physical and science examines the physical world. And if there's nothing else to examine, then science is the thing that tells us the truth about everything. But as it turns out, all kinds of things have to be true for science to even work. And I've talked about this before, say you've got a box that science, you have a box that you put truth items in. And science is able to help us through a careful examination of the empirical realm, the physical world, to help us understand things that are true about the physical realm. And we can put those true things into the truth box and increase our store of true beliefs. But there's got to be a bunch of things already in the truth box for science to even begin to operate. I think I did something like this with Amy recently on strs, not this show, so I'll just repeat it. Sometimes people will say to me, maybe it was this show, but I'm not sure. Anyway, sometimes people will say to me, I can't believe in God because there's no scientific evidence for it. And then I say, well you shouldn't believe in science either. Why not? Because there's no scientific evidence for science. All the evidence for the scientific method as a reliable beings of knowledge comes from outside of science. Those things have to be in the box for science to even the truth box for science to even work. So now what we're doing is we're applying some other means of knowing something, reflection on the nature of things, in order to answer or deal with this particular question. Chad, yours. So what Leibniz says is, look, when you think about it, and this seems to be a logical necessity, that everything that exists exists because of something else or because it is self existent. So everything exists because accidentally it might not have existed, it might not have been the way it was. But osis exists as something else, or it exists necessarily couldn't have been otherwise. It's the ground, it's the foundation, it's what everything else kind of stands on. Now the observation is about the universe is the universe is contingent. It didn't have to be this way. There didn't have to be a universe. There's nothing necessary about it or the laws of physics that govern it. It's just what we discover to be here. Well then it raises the question, why is there something rather than nothing, why is it here? It must be because of something else. And it can't be something else that's just as contingent as the universe, because then you're going to ask the same question of that other contingent thing, why is that there? Sooner or later you're going to have to come to something that is not contingent, that is self existent and therefore responsible for the existence of everything else. And therefore on this line of thinking which I think is really solid, the universe owes its existence to a self existent one. And by the way, I think it has to be a one that is an individual. Because the universe came into existence and only individuals initiate causes. You can have dominoes falling and each domino falls because the cause was another domino falling before it. And the cause of that was another domino falling before it, et cetera, until you get to the first domino and someone has to make a decision to flick that first domino and start the causality chain that follows. And that's the same idea here. Now I know this is a little philosophical, but I've tried to make it as easy as possible. Throw the ball so you can catch it. I don't think this is too complicated. The universe is contingent. It didn't need to be this way. It owes its existence and therefore its sustenance, which is the specific question, to someone else. And the Bible says this is God, not just any old God, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now which God it is is another question. But that God is necessary for the existence and sustenance of the universe. God is behind it. And keep in mind, sustenance can be upholding all things by the word of his power, can be understood in a number of different ways, direct or indirect, mediate or immediate, you know, but nevertheless, without God, nothing, ex nihilo nihilo fit. Out of nothing comes nothing. Duh. Pretty obvious, right? So anyway, that's the way the universe is. And as we observe the universe the way it is, it is a reasonable conclusion without scripture that something else that is self existent, in this case someone else who is self existent, is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe. Now by the way, maintenance could be setting it all up just so, so it runs itself, but that it only runs itself starts the machinery of the universe because God set it up that way. And so that ultimate maintenance and sustenance is still up to him, dependent on him. And therefore what the scripture says about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has to be true about some God. And the author simply identifies that this God, Yahweh, is the God who is the one responsible for everything else, making it, sustaining it. That which I declare to you in ignorance, that's what you believe, in ignorance or follow in ignorance, I declare to you openly that was the statement that Paul made on Mars Hill to those who were worshiping the idol, to the unknown God. Okay, some God had to do it. Here's the guy. And that's the point of Christianity. And that is the evidence for it. That's not scientific evidence, but that is evidence based on clear thinking. And so this becomes a kind of cosmological argument for God without having to. That does not depend on a beginning. Normally we talk about God's existence, evidenced by the cosmological argument that is grounded in the fact that the universe had a beginning. That's called the Kalam cosmological argument. This is argument by Leibniz. And thank you, Amy, for that is a different kind of cosmological argument that doesn't trade on the universe having a beginning. God would still be the infinite or I guess the self existent source maintainer of the universe itself that is dependent on him. That's the way the argument works. All right, let's take a break and we'll come back with your questions when I return on Stand to Reason. Friends, if you like this broadcast, I know you'll love Strask. It's our shorter 20 minute podcast where I am paired with the wonderful Amy hall and together we answer the questions you send us on Twitter. Strask is released twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, and it's only about 20 minutes long, so it's perfect to listen to on your morning jog or while driving around running errands or cleaning your garage or just plain loafing at home. Amy and I tackle your questions on theology and ethics and culture and lots more, offering our insight on the questions you're asking or the challenges you face. You can listen on Apple podcasts or wherever you download your own shows. Just remember, send us your questions on Twitter using the name of the podcast. Strsk. That's Strs. Strask.
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Tripp Allman
Would you like a Stand a Reason speaker at your event? Greg Allen, Tim John, Megan and I Tripp are available in person or online. Just email bookingstr.org Our team speaks on a wide range of topics, from issues in bioethics, gender and science to topics in apologetics, theology and philosophy, and how to respond to other worldviews, all from a biblical perspective. Whether it's a conference, youth event or Sunday service, we're here to give confidence for every Christian, clear thinking for every challenge, and courage and grace for every encounter.
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Greg Koukl
All righty. Time for a conversation with Lucas in Virginia. Lucas, welcome to the show.
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Lucas
Hey, appreciate it. I love what you do. So thanks for everything you do with the podcast.
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Greg Koukl
Thank you. Well, it makes you feel good. Glad to hear it.
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Lucas
My question, I, I'm actually, I'm a youth pastor and I had, I had a kid who I've kind of. He's been in our youth group for years. He recently, he recently left the faith, graduated high school and he, you know, I think he got into a lot of just other ideologies and it kind of.
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Greg Koukl
Yeah, I don't know.
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Lucas
I'm not sure exactly what happened, but. Okay. And his big thing now. So I question about a lot of different things around like what he believes. And he would say he is a. A agnostic atheist. I've heard you talk about a little bit. That's kind of the. Where he would label himself as. And I kind of point out like the contradiction that you can't be both those things. So. But he says in terms of like morality. He says that the greatest good is that which gives autonomy to others. Like you can't, you can't take other people's autonomy. That's what would make something evil. And I'm. Yeah, I'm curious how you would break that down.
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Greg Koukl
Oh my goodness. It's. How old is this young man?
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Lucas
I presume he's 18.
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Greg Koukl
18. That tells a lot. Because people who are this age, and this is not. I'm not dissing him, I'm just describing people who are this age are very vulnerable to bad ideas that are personally appealing. Especially in a culture in which that which is personally appealing is elevated as that which is the most important. So it's the individualism. What was that term that. That Carson somebody. I'm thinking of a writer and I'm thinking of phrase. I'm at that stage where I download slowly and Amy usually helps me but she's not paying attention to me right now. Expressive. She's laughing. Expressive individualism is the idea. Carl Truman, not Carson. I got the cao right. Carl Truman.
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Lucas
Thank you, Amy.
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Greg Koukl
She woke up. That Carl Truman wrote about and this is what we got. We got this just unbelievable pressure from the culture. It's not pressure actually. It's a resounding, it's like a siren call that what a person wants for themselves is the most important. Now I don't call it pressure because they're not pressured into believing that. They want to believe that because that's human nature. That's fall in human nature. So you're dealing. Good for you. Lucas. You are in a very challenging situation. I could never do this. We have often said the most important generation, maybe you know, the answer to this is the next generation and that's the one you're working with. So good for you. But it comes with certain liabilities. Liabilities that are inherently self centered, encouraged massively by the culture to be so and who don't think well because they have never been taught. This has not been true of every generation. And a hundred years ago, 18 year olds could think really well. There were 18 year olds who were captains of tall masted ships, for example. But nevertheless, we're in a different world. So let's look at what is wrong with what he said? The greatest good is autonomy. Now, there's a couple of things that can be said about this. I will think that I'll give you the most important, what I think will be the most compelling for him to think about in just a few moments. I'm going to give you a little bit more of a philosophical concern first, because it's the first thing I think about and it's probably something that you're aware of. When he says the greatest good, he is using a moral term. In order to use a moral term in any meaningful way, there has got to be a moral foundation, that is moral obligation. And obligation is held between persons. So a thing can only be good if the appropriate authority says it's good.
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Lucas
Right.
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Greg Koukl
And if the appropriate authority is just the self, well, this is tautological. In other words, it's kind of repeating itself. The good thing is the good thing. He's saying the greatest good is autonomy. What do you mean? Well, why is that the good? Because I'm saying it's good. Well, that's what autonomy is. So you don't really have a meaningful statement when you say the greatest good is autonomy. If you're referring to a relativistic good. The greatest good is whatever I think it is. Oh, now we got the source and the grounding. And that's the same as autonomy.
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Lucas
Yeah.
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Greg Koukl
You with me so far?
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Lucas
I think, Yeah. I think what he would say is like, well, there are things that are self evidently like, better than others. Like being fed is better than starving or, you know, having is better than not having, I guess. But I, but I see what you're saying. It's kind of like the idea of who was that set up at the ought is problem? Or like, you know, science can say what is, but can't say why it ought to be.
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Greg Koukl
Yes. And even the statements you just offered, there is an equivocation if they make these statements, first of all, that if one is better than the other. I can't remember what you said. Autonomy is better than not autonomy. He is still smuggling in with the word better, a moral claim. Now in the second thing, that having is better than not having, that's not a moral claim. That's a subjectivistic, personalized claim. It's better to eat food that tastes good than eat food that tastes bad. Well, that's not moral. That's just what you like. Okay, so people like this, and not just young people, people who have PhDs do the same thing. That is they can't avoid Smuggling into their conversation objective morality. When they're denying objective morality.
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Lucas
Right.
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Greg Koukl
And there's a reason for this. Do you know the reason why they do this?
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Lucas
It makes them feel better.
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Greg Koukl
Pardon me?
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Lucas
I said it makes them feel better.
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Greg Koukl
No, well, yeah, that's true, but there's, there's. It. It makes them feel better to assert their own subjectivistic morality, but they can't help but affirm objective morality while they're trying to make subjective morality advance it. And this is what he's doing. Well, this is the greatest good. It's good. What do you mean good? Well, I like it. Okay, well then that's not good. That's just. You like it. That's not a moral good. It's not moral at all. Okay? And I don't mean it's immoral. I'm just saying the categories of morality don't apply. They do it. They do this contradictory thing because they're human beings made in the image of God and inside they understand that morality is objective. So they can't help but affirm objective morality when they're trying to deny objective morality. How about this one? There is no objective morality. It's all relative. Therefore, it's wrong for you to try to push your morality on me. Okay, well people will say that, well, wait a minute. If there is no objective morality, it can't be wrong for anyone see that to pursue morality. Okay? That's the little more sophisticated philosophical underpinnings there. And this happened to me, I don't know, like last September. I was on a interactive talk show podcast called the diary of a CEO Stephen Bartlett. Huge, huge thing. And Alex O' Connor was sitting across the table from me for five hours and 50. You know who Alex O' Connor is, right?
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Lucas
Yeah, I've actually watched part of that interview. It was great.
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Greg Koukl
Oh, okay. Well, good. Well, you might have noticed that. Well, first Alex is a moral relativist. He's not a moral realist. He's what by self admission, he is an emotivist. And that is that all moral statements are simply just emotional feelings. That's it. But then he started complaining or raising the issue against me as a theist about the problem of suffering. Now the problem of suffering is only a problem if there's something wrong with it. Morally wrong with it.
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Lucas
Right?
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Greg Koukl
But you can't have something morally wrong with suffering if there is no morality. Yet he kept playing this card and at the same time denying that he's smuggling morality in. So you can't have it both ways. But why was he doing that? He was made the image of God. Okay, so that's the more complicated under what's the word? I'm looking for a foundation of this problem and underlying problem of this kind of statement. I'm not sure he'd be able to follow that discussion, but you might want to try sometime. Okay, but there's something else that's more compelling or more accessible, I think to the rank and file that is problematic with his view. And this would be the one I would probably lead with just to get him thinking. And this one also trades on the point that I made just earlier, Lucas, that every human being is made the image of God and they're working with a lot of stuff that's built in. I call this the inside out tactic that God has built inside of every human being. Certain awarenesses of certain truths and they can't get away from it. And that's why these things will come out even when they're trying to argue the opposite. Okay, so now we're going to. And this is also kind of a taking the roof off tactics. So what he says is the greatest good is autonomy. What do you mean by autonomy? And I think you, you made some reference. Well, of course, it's just self rule, correct?
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Lucas
Yeah. You can't, you can't impose somebody else's self rule.
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Greg Koukl
Okay, so does he believe in prisons?
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Lucas
I think, yeah, I think you would say he does. And I think you would say, like there are some necessary times when you have to do that because those people were, you know, imposing on someone else's free will by what they chose to do.
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Greg Koukl
Okay, if he says that, then he's going to have to say that sometimes it's good not to allow their autonomy.
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Lucas
Right.
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Greg Koukl
All right, so then autonomy isn't the greatest good.
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Lucas
Oh, that's true. Yeah. Good.
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Greg Koukl
Something else can trump autonomy. Maybe you don't want. Don't want to use the word trump with him, but.
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Lucas
Yeah, but then maybe it's more of like utilitarianism kind of thing. Or you might say like, well, the, you know, the most. Most people having autonomy is the best result or something like that, maybe.
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Greg Koukl
Okay, so when most people have autonomy, most people do things that interfere with other people's autonomy, right? All the time, yes.
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Lucas
Yeah, that's actually kind of what I said. Yeah.
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Greg Koukl
What I've said in the past is because this is a type of moral relev. Relativism and an individual moral relativism. And the point is that everybody wants, I mean, those who are relativists want to be relativists for their own sake. This was me back in 1970 as a non Christian pre law student in the honors college at Michigan State University. I mean, yeah, I want to do what I want to do, so morals are relative. But I was marching against the war in Vietnam because it was an evil war. So there's a contradiction. But the point is people want to be relativists, but they do not want other people to be relativists towards them.
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Lucas
Right, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, who was it, who was it that said that they don't, or they don't think, you know, Christianity is real, but they don't want to live in a world where Christianity, Christian morals aren't real?
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Greg Koukl
Well, you know what's interesting is one of the most famous atheists in the world said that recently, Richard Dawkins. Maybe that's what you're referring to.
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Lucas
Yeah, it might be.
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Greg Koukl
Yeah, he wants to live in a Christian world or a Christian culture is the way he put it in England, which is being overcome by Islamic culture right now. And I mean, it's a tsunami that's taking over Europe because Islamic culture results in Sharia law. And Sharia law takes away all autonomy, every shred of it, you know, and, well, of course, all laws take away some autonomy. But the understanding of the value of the human being, the individual human being, that's part of the Christian worldview, puts the brakes on what. What otherwise is a legitimate force of government to punish evildoers and to praise those who do good. I mean, you go only so far because there is a. There's a limit as to how much you can oppress essentially human individuals by taking their autonomy away. It's. So what's really odd is this individual arguing for his own autonomy. So he's leaving the Church. Why? Well, because Christianity doesn't let him do what he wants to do. Yeah, okay, so also he doesn't want other people to do what they want to do when it's against his will. Now, there might be a few times when he'd be able to say, all right, I can live with that. You know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander kind of thing. But when push comes to shove, given the extremity of the circumstances, I know that he is going to say, that ain't right, what you just did. That ain't right. Oh, you're exercising your autonomy, but you're not exercising it in a good way. You're exercising it in A bad way. Now, I've just kind of put in very clear, crisp terms what all of the rhetorical shenanigans amount to. What you did was wrong, even though you were exercising your autonomy. And they can't keep from voicing a moral standard that is outside of both of them and of everybody, an objective moral standard that then applies to the circumstance. But he does not want that standard to apply to himself.
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Lucas
Right.
- [42:59]
Greg Koukl
So, you know, do your best with this young man, and maybe he's got other objections, but this kind of thing is so characteristic of her. It's you. Do you. Yeah, right. That's it. And there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of churches that are much more lax on this kind of thing because they don't have the strength of their convictions like you do. I saw when I was at a church teaching and usually a church that asked me to come teach, they're not wayward at all. So they had a youth pastor who had a cover on his Bible that he made, like a plastic cover with writing on it. And here's what it said caught my eye. Obviously, the first big words were follow your heart. And then underneath. Well, underneath, then it said in smaller words, straight to hell.
- [44:01]
Lucas
Okay.
- [44:02]
Greg Koukl
Yeah. A pretty bold statement, but it's so sound.
- [44:07]
Lucas
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:08]
Greg Koukl
This is the worst advice. What is your heart telling? That's the worst advice that anyone could ever give you, given that in modern culture, heart means your emotions at the moment. And so that's where he's at. You know, he's following his heart. And that's. That's. I don't know. What do you think about what I've offered here, Lucas?
- [44:31]
Lucas
Yeah, I think that. I think that's helpful. I think that's helpful. I really appreciate it.
- [44:36]
Greg Koukl
Yeah, it's a kind of letting him know. All right. Okay, Fred. Whatever his name is.
- [44:42]
Lucas
Fred.
- [44:42]
Greg Koukl
All right, Fred. Whatever you say. Okay. I get it. Are you willing to live with that and grant that same ethic to everyone else around you? Because if that's what you think is sound, first of all, it's relativistic. It's just you. You can't say it's good because you're not using any objective outside standard that people are obliged to do. And secondly. All right, look at the consequence. Look at all that follows from this.
- [45:13]
Lucas
Yeah, I really like the idea of what you said about prison. I think that makes a lot of sense. It really clearly points out that autonomy isn't the greatest good. There has to be something bigger Than that. And then autonomy is always. Someone's always going to be imposing on your autonomy. Like, I think we do it all the time.
- [45:31]
Greg Koukl
I think that makes a lot of sense. That's right. By exercising their autonomy, which he's championing, it's going to undermine his own autonomy. And by the way, this is world history. This is world history. Power subverts. And the only way to protect from that is by a use of power. I mean, the second world war was like that. The Korean war, the Vietnamese War, all of these wars were, you know, or another way of putting it in a policy issue. You want to. If you want to do away with war, if you want to have peace, prepare for war. Yeah, all right. But that all ties into the fact that humans exercising their autonomy consistently hurt other human beings terribly. And not always terribly. I mean, then there's a whole bunch of things that just really inconvenience us. They aren't going to kill us, but they make our life miserable because they're interfering with our autonomy. But they're exercising their autonomy when they do it. There you go. All right, Lucas, I appreciate the call. Yeah, yeah, thanks so much. Okay. All the best to you, buddy. Okay, bye. Bye. And let's go to break, and we'll come back with more calls after that.
- [46:55]
Mr. B
As a high school teacher, I always had a red pen close at hand. When I wasn't in front of my students teaching a lesson, you could find me assessing assignments, grading essays, and evaluating exams. The red pen played a crucial role in the educational development of my students. With it, I questioned their assumptions, exposed their errors, and challenged them to think critically. You see, a good teacher doesn't merely tell his students that they're wrong. A good teacher shows his students why they're wrong so they don't make the same mistakes twice. He corrects because he cares. Last year, I was scrolling through social media, and frankly, I was discouraged at all the bad thinking that undergirded much of what I was reading. Then it hit me. What if someone applied the red pen to this flawed thinking? And Red pen logic with Mr. B was born. In the last few months, Red pen logic has grown in popularity through our engaging and shareable educational graphics and videos. We are helping people, especially young people, assess bad thinking by using good thinking. And we have a lot of fun in the process. So here's your homework assignment. Like the red pen logic Facebook page so you don't miss our next graphic. And subscribe at the Red Penlogic YouTube channel so you don't miss a Single video. Class dismissed.
- [48:13]
Tripp Allman
Do you have a passion to train people in apologetics but you don't know where to start? You may be interested in starting an STR outpost. STR Outposts are local communities of Christians seeking answers to the hard questions about Christianity. Each outpost is led by a qualified director who trains others with STR content and curriculum in their local church. By becoming an Outpost Director, you'll be equipped with the content and coaching you need to lead your own outpost. We currently have around 160 outposts spanning 38 states and in eight other countries, and we're adding more each month. If you're interested in learning more about starting an outpost or you want to find a current outpost in your area, visit str.org outposts. You can also email me trippallman outposttr.org.
- [49:15]
Greg Koukl
All right, friends. By the way, a couple of announcements that are important and sometimes I miss these, but you probably know that we're getting geared up to start the season for reality, which starts every September. And then we have reality October, then one November, then we have a couple month break in February and then in March and then in April. Okay, so in first thing in the fall, in this case September 11 and 12, we'll be in Atlanta and we have a fantastic enterprise. You know, I give you all the skinny. The details stand a reason team is going to be there. Jason, Jason. Jason is going to be there. Sorry, Jace. And we just are building. Every year we build a tremendous group of people that will help you. Alicia Witt is going to be there. Nate Sala, the podcaster, the very successful podcaster, will be there as well. Alicia's with Apologetics Inc. We got a great team and these events are fabulous, as you know, if you've ever been to one or ever talked to anyone who's been to one, we'll be in Atlanta September 11 and 12. And you can actually save $10 per ticket through August 28. So the time is running out on that. Don't delay. Otherwise you pay the whole thing. And by the way, it's bargain at twice the price. Three times the price. Trust me, these are great. Friday night from what, 5:30 to 10:30 roughly. Saturday morning from 9 until 5:30 in the afternoon. And you will walk away kind of semi dazed in a good way by the tremendous thing that you experience and what these are. Last year, four sold out, four of six sold out. Some sold out a month in advance. They're sold out because young people go and then they say, wow, this was great. They tell everybody else and the Youth group will come the next year. And the only two that didn't sell out were the two that we had brand new locations at. One is Atlanta, Georgia. So that's coming up. September 11th and 12th, we have Seattle, October 16th. Oh, my goodness, is this really true? Seattle is sold out already. That's what it says here. Overflow still available. But October 16 and 17, sold out. That's October. That's two months from now. More than two months. August, September, October. Holy cow. Well, there you go. There you go. Why is it sold out? Because this is a little bit smaller venue, what, 1300 or so, but these people are rocking and rolling. They've been there before. They know how great it is. Minneapolis, Minnesota. November 13, 14. Now, that's a big church. It's the biggest one in the state. It's the biggest one in the state of Minnesota. Grace Church, Eden Prairie. But that was sold out last year. 4,100 seats. 4,100 tickets sold last year. And they sold out the week before the event. Dallas, Texas. Now in next year. What is that? 27. So painful to say those words. 20, 27, man. The time is flying. The days drag on, the years fly by.
- [52:52]
Lucas
Right.
- [52:54]
Greg Koukl
We'll be in Dallas on February 19th and 20th. I think we had about 3000 that time. Sold out. We'll be in Philly March 12th and 13th, what, 1600, roughly. And that sold out. And we'll be in LA April 23rd and 24th. It did not sell out. But though our LA events have been selling out for years and years, except for when Covid kept us from having the event. And that didn't get sold out because it's a new location. Calvary Chapel, Downey. April 23rd and 24th. Okay, all the information is@realityapologetics.com you can go there to look at the dates, to sign up, to get the information, who's the speakers, all of that. I just highly recommend it. I mentioned what to our last caller, Lucas, who's a youth leader, that the most important generation is always the next generation. Okay, got it. Yeah, that's our view. Now, we're not a youth group organization, but we understand how important it is for us to pass the baton to that generation. And so this is what we're doing with this major investment of our time and resources. Reality. We put together a great event. It's got high production values, it's got tremendous communicators, and it's lots of fun. Now, I'm not responsible for the fun because I'm not Fun. My daughter's telling him not fun. All right, But I'm not responsible for the fun. Actually, I'm not responsible for anything with reality. I do speak. Last year I was in the main stage, but next year, this next season coming up, I'll just be in breakout sessions. That's fine with me. I don't have to be in the, in the limelight, but the. We put in the limelight people who can do the job well and speak well to your children, your grandchildren. We throw the ball so they can catch it, most of them. And we do it in a good environment. There's unbelievable worship. I have many of you know, I have concerns about Christian worship, but this particular group that we have heritage is magnificent for us. They do a fabulous job. We are. And I, I get into it. I totally get into their worship. So does everybody else. So the website is realityapologetics.com and all the information is there. And reiterate for Atlanta, on September 11 and 12, you get in early, before by August 28, you'll save 10 bucks, which is what, about a 20% saving? Roughly. Now, I made a comment to Lucas that I just have a few minutes here, so I want to highlight that comment, and that is that people know so much of the truth, no matter who they are or where they are, they know the truth because it's been built into them. And this is the inside out tactic that was added to the 10th anniversary edition of the tactics book. And basically what it says is we know God made it evident to them. Romans 1, what, 18:17, 18:19. And God made it evident inside of them, too. It says both things. The sense of God, the sensus divinitatis that Calvin talked about. If you understand that, you can appeal to that inside knowledge in different ways to help people see they know the truth that they're trying to deny. It's already built in. And whatever is inside will come out, as I say, as the last line of that, that chapter, they can run from God, but they can't run from themselves. All right, good to be with you today. Greg Koukl here for stand a reason. Give him heaven. Bye bye, Sam.