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Sa. Hello friends. Greg Koukl here on stand to recent and I thank you again for joining me. I always appreciate you listening in and calling in or leaving a question for open mike calls. That's what we're doing today. We're off schedule. Let me tell you how important this is. I'm so glad that I have a stack of questions here, but we keep working through them and we try to go with the oldest first so first in, first out kind of thing. But they're tremendous help for me personally because when I'm doing shows off schedule where you're not really able to call in and have me talk with you, it's so convenient to be able to have some your calls in the can, so to speak. And I am doing more and more of this recently just because I'm spending more time out of town. And coming up in we're getting closer to May and then the summer and there's going to be more of that. So if you just simply go to our homepage and the podcasts dropdown under live podcast or live broadcast rather, you can leave your open mic question and so you can ask it of me and we'll record it right there, just follow the prompts and then we'll get to it here. And it's an advantage to you because you can engage and ask a question and hopefully get an answer that's satisfactory without having to wait in the queue and thread the needle for a regular show, which is on Tuesdays and from 4 until 6pm Los Angeles time. Incidentally, the number for that is 855-243-9975. Just for the record, but if you want to have just leave a call or just leave an answer or rather a question for me that I can answer, you can just go to our website like I said, podcast, live broadcast and then leave an open mic call. So the first one we're going to do today is from Matt and this is a question about evil in heaven and let's see what Matt has to say.
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Hey Greg, my name's Matt. The other day my sister and I were discussing the problem of evil and she raised a question that I haven't heard answered before. Most of the time we focus on the origin of evil. Like for example, how could a God, how could a good God make evil? Or if he didn't create it, how could it exist? I know that this is something that you've covered in depth in other places. However, assuming that that question is answered, she asked how could evil then be removed in the Afterlife or once we reach heaven. The most common understanding, I think, that a lot of people have of heaven is that there'll be no pain or no suffering, etc, that that we essentially escape the pains of this world. But much of those pains are due to our capacity for evil, like murder, rape, et cetera. So if, for example, we do lose our capacity for evil, why weren't we like that in the first place? Or do we maybe still retain that capacity, but there's something else at play that prevents it? I suggested that perhaps our theology of heaven is off and that we're trying to sort of, you know, fit a square peg through a round hole. So I'd love to know your thoughts on that and if you have any good resources on the theology of heaven which might help clear up or negate those questions.
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Matt, thank you for the question. And I have written on that. I mean, I think adequately, to my purposes, in the story of reality, there's only so much you can say about it. I mean, some people have written a lot more, but I had a modest amount to say about the nature of the fall and why God allowed the fall and why there's evil in the world and what God's doing about it and that kind of thing. And also what ramifications the nature of evil and human badness have for our understanding of what. What the world is actually like. We know it includes that, but what worldview, what understanding of reality seems to make sense out of the reality of evil in the world? So all of that I cover in the story of reality because it's such a central part of ought to be anybody's story. Actually, I agree with that. What you're saying, this is so important and everybody's got to deal with the problem of evil. It's not just a Christian problem. It's not just a theist problem. It's a human problem, as I've said in the past. But there is kind of a standard query that comes up in light of this. And it has to do with what I think you said, your sister or someone said a friend of yours or relative, that all right, well, why didn't God just start out that way? And in a certain sense God did. That is he made the whole the earth and everything on it and arranged it in such a way that it worked exactly the way he wanted it to work. And he put man and woman there, made them in his image and kind of assigned them as co regions or sub regions under his authority, ruling and caring for the rest of the earth. And they were to be fruitful and multiply and rule. And there was. Everything that God made was good. And when I say good, I don't mean like it's infused with this special secret sauce called goodness that God gave them, but rather that it was just exactly the way his noble mind intended. It was all just right. It was the way the world's supposed to be. People sometimes will characterize evil with language like, well, things aren't the way they're supposed to be. That's not right, what happened there, okay, that means it's not right, it's wrong, it's out of kilter. But when God made it, it was all in kilter. Everything was just the way he purposed it. Now we can think of things like that even in our own life. When we make something or develop something or put something together and it's just right, we say, wow, I did a great job. Good job. That's good in the sense that it fulfills our purposes. It fulfills its teleology, the purposes of its creator. You, in this case. And we label it as good. Okay, well, that's the way things were in the beginning for human beings. But there was a. I don't want to say a fly in the ointment because that implies something that's not quite right. But human beings were made in a particular way. And even though they were good in that they were innocent, there was no moral flaw in them. They were not immutable. They had the capability of making choices. And because they had the capability of making choices, this entailed the possibility, though not certainty, of using that moral freedom to make bad choices. Okay, so this is, in a certain sense, old ground I've covered before, and I know you're familiar with this, but given the question, yes, God made the world good to begin with. The only difference from this world, and in my view, the next one, is that in the next one there will be no possibility of sinning. In this world, there was the possibility of using the human freedom to do something evil. So the freedom that humans had was a freedom to choose not only to obey, but also to disobey. Now, I think that in heaven, and there's a split opinion on this, Clay Jones, for example, a colleague doesn't agree with me on this, but I think we will be changed so that we will share in God's goodness when we see Him. We shall be like him because we will see him as he is. And this is referring to Jesus there. But I think the one way that we will be like him is we are going to be morally perfected. So we will be able to do whatever we want in heaven, but we will never want to do anything evil. We will always do the good. And by the way, this is the kind of moral freedom that God has. He actually has a freedom much more robust morally than we do because he is fully capable of doing what is good. And he's capable and desirous of and will do that all the time because that's his nature. Think of it like somebody who is contemplating playing the piano, okay? A person who's good at playing the piano has much more freedom in a certain sense with regards to the piano than I do because I don't play. I could go to the piano and bang out noise, but that noise would not be good in an aesthetic sense because I don't have the freedom to create. That freedom is developed by something else. Hardship, difficulty by which somebody gains the ability to play. Well, now we would consider that freedom, but an advanced set of freedoms because of the aptitudes that are expressed there and capabilities that are expressed. So ultimate freedom would be the. The freedom to never ever do what was wrong and always do what was right. And that's the kind of freedom that we'll have. But it won't be, in my view, because we've just decided to always decide to do the right thing. That's Clay Jones and others like him. And I'm not disparaging that. It's certainly a noble point of view. I just don't think that's the case. I think it's going to be the case that we will be able to do right all the time because we won't be able to do wrong. Yet that doesn't mean we're automatons, no more than God is an automaton because he makes many choices that are his choices, yet at the same time he always makes the right choices because that's his nature. So I don't think it's like utter freedom to do whatever or machine like behavior of a robot. I think there's ground in between and we will be like that. But now, having laid that foundation to the very specific question, why didn't God do the second thing, the heaven thing, first instead of the other thing? The question was asked, why didn't God make us good in the beginning? I said, he did make us good, that is, without moral flaw. But it wasn't immutable. It wasn't good through and through and down and everything. It was mutable. We could make choices Having the good thing called moral freedom, we can make choices to do bad. Now, this particular question, so that's a distinction between the two, but why have a difference? Now, this is one of those questions, and I've talked about this quite a bit, and I just want you to all keep this in mind. You start out with the word, why did God? Or why didn't God? And you're already in a difficult spot because God hasn't told us the answers to most of those questions, why he did or why he didn't. And if he didn't tell us, then we can't know for sure. And so we take our best shot. Why did God do it this way and not the other way? Boy, if it was otherwise us, we would do it another way. We'd do it maybe the final way. On Koucl's view that we were morally good through and through and would never even be capable of doing bad. That's what we would do. Well, maybe you would do it. It isn't what God did. So we're looking at what God actually did, speculating on whether that's going to be in heaven, in the afterlife, whether that's a feature that is a change in our nature so we're totally morally good, or a change in our wisdom that we could do bad but we won't choose to because we're now smarter than we were then. Oh, whatever. We all agree that that won't happen, sin won't happen, tears are wiped away, agony's gone, death is done with, and everything's going to be just right. But I think when it comes to answering why wasn't that condition the first condition with no possibility of doing evil? This is where we have to speculate. And these kinds of speculations have a name. They're called theodicies. Why did God allow evil in the world? And so because they're speculative, there may be value to them, but we also have to be careful that we're not too dogmatic. Now, I laid out my own speculation, admitting that it was so in the story of reality on this, it seems clear to me from the New Testament that God wants us to grow in virtue. He wants us to grow in virtue. And this is a level of virtue that we take with us into the afterlife. Now, there's a couple of verses that kind of hint at that, although there's some question as to exactly what's going on. For example, Paul says in 1 Timothy that physical exercise is, okay, profitable, but godliness by comparison to physical exercise, oh, that's a means of great gain. Why? Because it holds a promise not only for this life, and pumping iron holds a promise for this life, but also for the life to come. And pompaniyer has no. It's not going to survive the body that we have. We're going to get better bodies anyway eventually. So there is a sense in which the godliness that we acquire in this life is going to serve us well in the next life. And if we don't acquire it here or acquire it in lower degrees, that it's going to have ramifications for the next life. I mean, I think that's as far as it goes. That's a fair application of that verse, a fair understanding of what's entailed in it. Now, there's another passage in Hebrews 11 where it talks about the people of faith and how by faith they did this, that and the other thing. There's a whole list of them, and then there's the. And others who, instead of succeeding by faith and being rescued by faith, did not succeed nor be rescued, yet still by faith. And the statement there, that's cryptic, is that something to the effect of being able to receive a better resurrection? A better resurrection. Now, we get glorified bodies when we raise from the dead, and they're all glorified. But how is it that some have a better resurrection than others? I think that's a mystery. Says it there. In some sense it's going to be better. And in the other passage, the Timothy passage, there is a sense in which what we do here will have ramifications, for there the godliness we possess, there are going to be crowns and rewards and that kind of stuff that. That feels to me kind of external. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's like Lewis was talking about in his wonderful essay, the Weight of Glory, taken from the 2 Corinthians 4:18, passage 17, passage that glory glows, right. When we think of glory, we think, wow. And it might be that some people glow more than others. They glow more with glory because of things that are done in this life. Now, notice that could not be the case if everyone was created morally perfect from the outset. There wouldn't be any opportunity to increase the glow, as it were, nor to develop certain virtues. You know, you cannot have the virtue of long suffering develop where there is no suffering. You cannot have the virtue of forgiveness, not taking into account a wrong sufferer. That's a characteristic of love. If there were things that people do, they needed forgiveness for that there were no wrongs that they were doing and etc, etc. You can think probably on your own that there are going to be. The fact is there are virtues that we could not develop that are valuable for our souls that could not be developed if we didn't live in a fallen world. We'd still be morally perfect, but there would not be any opportunity to develop or express or learn those virtues if the world wasn't fallen. So that's kind of what they call a soul making theodicy. God allows evil because he's going to use evil to make our souls better, bigger, richer, more godly. JP Moreland said once that we're here on Earth and this is the time where God is going to make us fit to spend eternity with Him. I think there's truth to that light of the verses I mentioned. So I guess what I could say is it's going to be a very different kind of world. No, that's not quite what I mean. Those who go to heaven are going to be very different kinds of people given the fact that they develop virtue and godliness in the midst of a fallen environment than if God had never allowed anybody to fall and they were just perfectly, immutably morally good from the beginning. So another way of putting it is there is a greater good in view that God had in mind when he created the world with the possibility of falling, of sinning. And that's my speculation. So my way of approaching this is a kind of soul making theodicy. And there are scriptures that seem to support it. But I realize there are lots of loose ends and maybe that's the best we can do with so many of these questions that start out, why did God? Or why didn't God do this or that? But that's the best we can do. Now there is a blanket answer to virtually all of these questions that always applies, and that is God. The reason God did it this way is because it contributes to his glory. God will be glorified in this set of circumstances. Now that's kind of a formal characterization. The material characterization, the answer to the question, okay, how? Is much harder for us to answer. Sometimes we answer ex post facto. That means we look back and we see what took place. We realize the much greater good that came out of what was bad at the time. And now we're glad we're through it, but we're glad we went through it. And I think something like that is in play here. So, Matt, I hope that's helpful to you. All right, let's take a quick break and I'LL be back with more of your questions on Stand a Reason Would you like a Stand a Reason speaker at your event? Greg, Alan, 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, courage and grace for every encounter. Have you ever wondered how Stand to Reason is able to produce fresh, accessible content? Each week we rely on generous donors so that we can provide you with the tools and tactics you need to be an effective ambassador for Christ. If you've benefited from this podcast or any of our donor provided resources, including our apps, blog posts, articles and short videos, consider making a financial contribution to Stand to Reason today. Just visit str.orgdonate to show your financial support. It has been an honor providing you with a host of free resources for more than 27 years to help you give voice to the Christian worldview. Help us continue by making a financial gift today@str.org donate. All righty. All right, who's next here on our Open Mic session today? That Once again, homepage str.org podcast live broadcasts and that's where you can leave your open mic question. Harrison is next. Harrison hi Greg. My question for you today is would it be considered a sin or morally wrong for a Christian married couple to use donor sperm to conceive a child if the husband is infertile? I look forward to your response. Thank you. Well, Harrison, good. Thank you for that too. And the answer is, okay, you're asking me. And my simple answer is no, I don't think it would be immoral. If you asked an observant Roman Catholic, they would say it would be immoral. But the immorality here is not that there's a donor sperm that's being used, but that there's any kind of medical technology that is in a sense being invasive with the natural process of birth, of reproduction, insemination, conception and reproduction. Because on one view, and it's not just held by Roman Catholics, but famously by them. And there is a rationale that has to do with natural law, and that is that there are certain things that God has arranged in a certain way and we have to. I don't know if this is the best way to put it, and I Hope no Catholics take umbrage at this. But in a certain sense, we have to play by the rules regarding those things in order to accomplish the purposes that God has in the way that he intended. And the purpose maybe is to get pregnant. But if we get pregnant in a way that God did not intend, that's morally suspect. And so there's a certain natural process that God has ordained, and that becomes kind of, in a certain sense, sacrosanct. And so then to break free from that and to use contraception, famously, with regards to Roman Catholics, or to use in vitro fertilization of any kind, regardless of where the sperm comes from, or adopting embryos or anything like that, all of those are the kinds of procedures that are outside of the pale, since they are outside of the natural process. And by the way, this would entail a number of sexual activities, even among a husband and wife that didn't comport with a certain. Try not to get too dramatic here or too graphic. Would comport with kind of a straightforward kind of insemination. Let's just put it that way. All of that would be immoral, according to an outworking of natural law theology that Roman Catholics would hold to and others that hold to a similar view, even though Protestant, that would disqualify anything like that. Now, if that's not your view, and I don't hold to that view, then the question. If the question of artificial insemination is itself not a problem, then maybe artificial insemination of someone else's sperm might be a problem. On my view. I do not think reproductive technology is immoral. And in fact, my wife and I got married late. I was. She's seven years younger than me. And when I got married, I had my 48th birthday on my honeymoon. Okay, you can do the math. We were both along the way, and we actually lost a child in 2002. And then we realized, you know, this just is not happening. And so we decided to have in vitro fertilization and we lost those children, and then we adopted embryos. So there wasn't a situation like in the question where there was someone else's semen in my wife's ovum that we used to create the zygote. But in this case, it was somebody else's zygote who was in deep freeze. And we had three implanted and we lost those as well. Very, very difficult, by the way. And for those who would consider in vitro fertilization or adopting an embryo, like I said, I see no moral qualms with Them in particular just understand that it can be hard, it may not be successful, and when it's not successful, it's very hard on mom. So the medical workup is hard on mom. In both cases, though, in vitro of your own eggs, the harvesting the eggs and then doing the in vitro and implant, that's really hard on mom. A donor rig is not as hard, but it is. But it's really hard when it's not successful because those are babies that are lost. And psychologically, it's really difficult. We ended up adopting both of our daughters. So When I was 54, we had Annabeth. When I was 57, we had Eva. We obtained them both, and they became ours two days after they were born in each case. So I'm not concerned about reproductive technologies. But there may be a wrinkle here. And the wrinkle is, what if it's somebody else's sperm? Well, I actually don't have a problem with that. Personally, I don't see how it's relevantly distinct from the other things I just described. I'm not against in vitro in principle, and I'm not against adopting somebody else's embryos. And if it turns out that it's the husband's motility, the sperm motility, that's the problem, but the mom's eggs are still fine, then I don't see any problem in itself. And I have thought about this quite a bit, and I'm open to pushback, but to sperm donors providing healthy sperm that then are able to inseminate my wife's ovum so that we have a child that genetically would be my stepson or stepdaughter, I guess, if you want to think of it that way. But I would never think of it that way. So those are the options. But people have to decide for themselves. And so you might want to get a couple of other opinions. Again, I don't know how having a stranger's sperm is going to make a difference in the. In the moral equation here, especially if you can have a stranger's embryo implanted. Zygote implanted. So anyway, that's my take on that particular issue. Thank you, Harrison. Now, Vittoria has a question here, and this is a little trickier. So let's hear what Vittoria has to say.
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Hi, Greg. Hi, Amy. Thank you for your work. I'm Vitar from the Netherlands, and I have a question about the Nicene Creed. I was recently arguing with my uncle about this. We're both Christians. We both believe in the Nicene Creed. We both believe in the Trinity, but we were arguing about if we would come to the conclusion ourselves about the Trinity. We can see clearly in the Bible that Jesus is God. We can see clearly that the Father is God. And we see the passage in Acts where it states that the Holy Spirit is God. But we were arguing if we would come to the conclusion ourselves that the Holy Spirit is as equal as the Father and as Jesus Christ. And we were thinking about the early Christians, what would happen if they did believe that Jesus was their Lord and Savior, but they didn't follow the Trinity. This is, of course, a big misconception about who God is. But would this justify them not being saved? I don't know if you can answer this question, but I would love to hear your thoughts about this.
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Sure. Thanks, Vittoria. I'll take a shot at it. And the question regarding the Holy Spirit's a little more tricky than the question regarding the Son, because Jesus himself says, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. Or does that John maybe 8 or something like that. And Romans 8 says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. So there are comments or statements there explicit about Jesus. Now, the Holy Spirit is kind of in the background in so many things. Obviously he's mentioned, but he's not as prominent, obviously, as the Father in the Old Testament, who also shows up in the New Testament. But Jesus is the main actor in the New Testament, certainly the Gospels. We see the Spirit acting more in the book of Acts and kind of taking up where Jesus leaves off. We know Jesus said in what John 15:16, 17, 15:16, right in there, upper room discourse, how the Holy Spirit was going to come and he will send another comforter, one like me. He goes, the comforter comes. So there's a passing of the baton, so to speak, spiritually of the members of the Trinity. And I actually don't know where it says, if there is a verse that I can center in on that says, you can't be saved unless you believe the Spirit is God. It just kind of comes with the package. And what happened in the Nicene Creed? Because part of your question is, without that creed, would we come to the conclusion ourselves that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and to Jesus? And my point is that's exactly what happened. Before there was a Nicene Creed. The Christians did come to that conclusion based on the biblical revelation and formulated the creed to reflect that it wasn't like the creed was developed in a vacuum. They had Scripture they're working with and they're trying to make sense of Scripture. And there was, admittedly, the focus in Nicaea was Jesus. And in what sense was Jesus God? Sorta, was he God in essence the same as, or was he kind of like God in some sense? And the difference in Greek was homoousios and homoosius. I mean, it's a diphthong that the whole empire was in disruption about. And also Arius was on the side of Jesus being God after a fashion, but not God himself, not having a fully divine nature. And there were a lot of people, in fact, when they started out, his was the majority party. But it was the arguments that Athanasius and others brought to the table during that time that convinced the council that Jesus was in fact, God himself. God in essence. Now, the Spirit wasn't the focus of that council, but I'm trying to remember. It's been a long time since I read the Nicene Creed, but I think the Spirit was also featured there. Proceeding from the Father and the Son, I think, is what it says. In any event, the point, the theological issue was how do we understand God writ large in light of all these statements about the Father, the Son and the Spirit, and the scriptural teaching that there's one God? And it was with that attempt produced what we now call the Trinity. The Trinity is not in the Bible. The Word isn't there, obviously, and it's. I think Tertullian was the first one to use that word late second century. But nevertheless, extra biblical words are fine to use if the biblical concepts they described are actually in the Scripture. So when I teach on this issue, my general point is that the Trinity is a solution, not a problem. It is a solution, not a problem. So if you're thinking about the Trinity biblically, you just have these statements regarding the Father, Son and the Spirit and God in general. There's one God, but the Father is called God. The Father has divine attributes and has divine privileges. We worship the Father, for example, but then Jesus is called God, has divine attributes and he's worshipped. Then the Holy Spirit is called God, has divine attributes and has prerogatives of deity. So we've got all of that information that's part of the revelation. Now that's a big problem unless you have the Trinity. So at nicaea in subsequent two, I mean, before that and after that, the first 400 years, 500 years, there was a lot of conversation about trying to nail all of this down. But it was early on that the Christians began to get the general idea of what we now call the Trinity. They hadn't worked it all out. There was no need to do that yet. But it was there in the text and it's there in Paul's writings. Just Son of God language. Even when Jesus is teaching and ministering and all of that, he's using language of himself that infuriates the leaders because he's a man using language that identifies himself as God. And Son of God is an example of that. So there's a lot going on early on where you've got all these indications of the divinity of all three, but it's not all packaged yet. CS Lewis has a way of putting it. I put it in the story of reality that they knew the Father was God. And here's a guy who did these things, who claimed to be God that only God could do. And then when he left, they all got together. And then they had the sense that God was now in them, in the person of the Spirit. And so little by little, it's kind of dawning on them how it's coming together. But they didn't have. No, and it's understandable they wouldn't have a sophisticated characterization of that for 300 years, almost 400. So, I mean, that's the best way to understand what went on. And as to whether a person who doesn't accept the Trinity, which. Nicaea. Nicaea is a standard of doctrinal orthodoxy for Christianity. And characteristically, if you'd reject Nicaea, which Mormons do, by the way, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, lds, I have their book on doctrine, and they explicitly reject Nicaea, which means they are explicitly not Christian. They're something else. I'm not saying they're bad, I'm just saying they're not Christian. I'm not even saying they're wrong in saying that. They might be right and we could be wrong when it comes to God, but they're not the same is my point right now. I do think they're wrong, mistaken on this. But if you reject Nicaea, you've rejected a cornerstone of orthodoxy. And my sense is it's funny how this works out, but when you become regenerate, there are a number of things that just seem to fall into place. And one of them is the belief of the Trinity. Another one is the belief in the authority of Scripture. Most people believe that the Bible's. Most Christians believe the Bible's the inerrant word. Of God, but not because they heard a talk, like I give on occasion, of why we can trust that's the case. It's something else that happened. They engage the scripture. They have this understanding that God is speaking through it and through the writers, and so that's how they adopt us. So there's a sense in which the Holy Spirit himself is working in such a way to pull together these elements to convince Christians of the true nature of God. And Jesus said in John 4, anyone who wants to worship the Father must worship in the Spirit and in truth. All right, I hope that's good, Vittoria. Now let's go to a break. Let's go to. You want me to take that call right now? Okay, sure. We do have a call, which we occasionally get on open call segments. And here's one of them. This is Tyler in Arizona. Tyler, welcome to the show. Hey, Greg. Thanks. Hey, I had a question. Yep. Can you hear me? Yeah, got it. Okay. I had a question about God's foreknowledge. Okay. I've heard this put this way a few times, and I'm not sure how to handle it. But the question is, does God only know the future simply because he has planned the future and that's where his knowledge kind of, I guess, comes from? Yeah, the kind of the correct philosophical way of putting is what grounds the knowledge God has about the future? And by the way, I know the word foreknowledge is sometimes used as a synonym for omniscience, which is God knows everything and that would include the future. But I think it does, cause in my advice, it's better to say omniscience, because in Scripture, the word foreknowledge refers to election. More often than not, rather than God just knowing the future events, he's actually knowing future relationships, people. He foreknew this person. He foreknows the person. That's an equivalent or synonym for he chooses him and he elects him kind of thing. So I'm just making a point about the words. But as to your question, this is a question, what grounds God's knowledge of the future, his omniscience regarding the future, and does he know the future because he's going to plan it out. And inevitably, every single jot and tittle of the future story, he's already planned out, and in virtue of that planning, it's going to turn out the way he decided. Well, that would mean he would have to determine every event in the future. I mean, strictly determine. And therefore every human being would be Strictly determined. All the actions of every human being would be more like machine like action. Because that's what determinism amounts to. It's like a machine moving forward, you know, dominoes falling, as it were. I don't think that's the case. That isn't the characterization we see of God's interaction with people in the future. No, God is sovereign. He is certainly in control. He makes plans that take into consideration all the evil actions of human beings. And that's all woven together in a very sophisticated way that it's hard to unravel. What the heck is going on here? Did God do that or did man do that? Or did they both do it? Kinda. All right, But I don't think that even though I acknowledge God's sovereign management and control of the future, I don't agree that he knows the future because he has laid it out stick by stick, because that's determinism. I'm not even sure entirely how I would cash God's omniscience out in terms of grounding. One could just say he doesn't know it because he makes it all happen. He doesn't know it because he sees it in advance. That's called prescience. That God looks down the corridor of history, as it were, and sees all these things happening. And because he sees them in advance, he knows they're going to take place. I don't think that's true either. That's more like the future or all of time is like a book. And he knows the whole story. He's read the whole story. He sees what's fore and aft in a story. The only way that I would feel comfortable characterizing this, Tyler, is that God is that it is a kind of a brute fact. That part of the divine nature possesses the knowledge of all things. And I can't take it any further than that. There's no other mechanism that I want to appeal to. Well, he knows it because he sees it, or he knows it because he causes everything to happen. He knows what he's going to cause. No, I think he knows it because he's God, nothing more. Nothing more. I don't know. Creative than that. It's just kind of. That's God. God knows the future. Some philosophers will call it a brute fact. It's a basic foundational thing for which there is no further explanation. That's the way I'm comfortable putting it. Okay, that makes sense to you? Yeah. Yeah. I think you solved my dilemma. Yeah. So, I mean, other people may have other ideas and I'm actually open to it, but that's the best. That's the best I could offer at the point. So how did you happen to call me at this time? Because this isn't my regular time. Oh, I don't know. I thought it was. Okay, well, God. Part of God's plan. Yes, there you go. You acted. But God planned. See, you acted. There you go. That's a good application of this. Anyway, I'm glad you called. Tyler in Arizona, thank you for the chat. Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, buddy. Bye. Bye. All right, well, let's go to the next. Let's see, where am I? The next question on the open mic calls. And let's try David's question about baptism for the dead. David. Hello, Greg, this is Dave calling from Hudson, Wisconsin. And I have a question on First Corinthians 15:29 about baptism for the dead, which almost sounds like a Mormon doctrine, but would appreciate your insight on that. Thank you. Okay, this is a Mormon thing and this is the verse that they use. The problem. There's a couple of problems here, and I think there's some mystery associated with this verse. So I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to give you a thoroughgoing answer, but let me read. This is actually the beginning of a new section of Pericope. They say when it comes to scriptures, like a big paragraph. And he is making the case in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrection. Now the whole chapter is about resurrection. There's lots, lots of stuff there. And it even entails the resurrection of those who haven't died yet. That's what some people call the rapture. Okay. And that's in here. The mortal will put on immortality and the perishable will put on imperishable. And we'll all be caught up. Okay, so this is all about resurrection. Now he is having this discussion about resurrection because there are some people who deny the resurrection, even some in the religious circles. Certainly the Pharisees denied the resurrection. That was part of their philosophy. They were kind of anti supernaturalist after a fashion. And Jesus had encounters with Pharisees about this particular issue and discussions with them because they. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, actually this is a. Sadducees got it wrong. I said Pharisee. The Sadducees were like the anti supernaturals and that's why they were sad. You see, no resurrection. Okay, that was a bad joke. But that helps me to remember which ones which. Amy wasn't even listening. She didn't think it was funny. That helps me remember which of the group, the Jewish leadership group, Sadducees and Pharisees. Sadducees said there was no resurrection. Rather, Paul traded on this notion, by the way, to get them to all fight together after he got arrested by them. And I'm here uphold the resurrection. And that got them fighting the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So pretty clever. But 1 Corinthians 15 is all about resurrection and addressing those who deny the resurrection. And so in defense of resurrection, there are a number of points that Paul makes in defense of the reality of the resurrection is this odd statement he makes in verse 29, and in fact, it just sits there. I'm going to read verse 28, 30, 31, and you'll see it just kind of jumps out of nowhere. I'm backing up to verse 26. The last enemy that will be abolished is Death, for he's put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that that he is accepted who put all things in subjection to him. But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one speaking there of the Father, who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? Why are we also in danger? Every hour I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily, on and on in that flow of thought. Doesn't that verse 29 kind of stick out like a sore thumb? It's like, how did that get in there? Otherwise. Otherwise, what will those do who have been baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? Okay, so this is a line of rationale. People are baptized for the dead, and why would they be baptized if there's no resurrection? That's his argument. It doesn't say that Christians are doing the baptism for the dead. He's just making reference to a practice. It might be that this is a pagan thing. And this is what I've heard He's saying, look at it now. He's baptized for the dead. Are you baptizing for the dead? And you're saying there's no resurrection? What's the point of that? But this is the only verse in Scripture that makes any reference to it. And it's always dangerous to try to build a doctrine on a single verse because you might be misunderstanding something. And all the important things that are really vital, especially to salvation, are repeated regularly. So the fact that LDs have seized upon this verse now as a regular practice, baptized for the dead, using this as a proof text, this is unfortunate because now, in a sense, they're giving hope for people who have already passed the point of no return. That's why they're interested in genealogies. They're trying to get them all baptized. But keep in mind what they're baptizing them for is part of their theology, their unique and distinct Mormon theology, which bears virtually no resemblance to biblical Christianity whatsoever. The language is all the same. God, Jesus, heaven, hell, Satan, on and on. But marriage. But when it comes to what these words mean, they're so different that Mormonism is an entirely different religion, not bearing hardly any resemblance to Christianity whatsoever. It's polytheistic. For example, I mentioned earlier, they reject Nicaea. One God, three persons. No, there are three gods. They're explicit about this, yet at the same time in their writings deny that they are polytheistic. Now, my view is people are free to decide for themselves what they want to believe. They are not free to redefine the English language. If you don't believe in one God, but believe in three distinct gods, as distinct as each of us are from each other, and that's the language they use in their theological tome, then that's three separate gods. That means there's a poly of gods, there's a poly of Theos, there is a polytheos, polytheism. Why do they deny that? They should be shouting it from the rooftops. I don't understand that. But this is their view. But so they have a whole different construct of religious view within which baptism for the dead fits. It doesn't do any work for us, if you understand Christian theology, but it does work for them. And then this is their proof text. So what's it talking about? Not sure. But I'll tell you for sure. It doesn't have to do with any Christian practice because it's not identified as a Christian practice. It is not taught anywhere else having any efficacy in any way. And baptizing for the dead makes no sense, given the Scripture saying it has appointed men to die once and then comes the judgment. In other words, once death is final, everything else is set in stone. Judgment comes, that's it. There's no second chances. There's no opportunity afterwards for another shot. There is no baptism for the dead. In that sense, somebody was doing it. And it gave Paul the occasion to raise the question, well, obviously, if they're baptizing for the dead, there's some purpose to this. There must be some life after death, some resurrection of that individual in virtue of whatever theology is associated with baptism of the dead. But he doesn't own it as Christian at all. And it doesn't seem to fit anywhere. It's contrary to other passages that make death full and final death, I might say, in the age of NDEs, as the final door that closes and locks from the. From the other side. And that's it. And now one's fate is cast, and it won't be changed. Just a matter of going to the judgment, and that's it. No rescue by things that you do on this side. By the way, there's a kinship there. I just thought with Roman Catholic prayers of people in purgatory. We pray to get them out of purgatory. That's another problematic doctrine. True. All right, friends, that's our show. Thank you so much for being part of it. I'm Greg Kokel for Stand a Reason. Give him heaven. Okay, boys, Bye bye. It.