Defeating AI's Best Arguments Against God ft. Frank Turek

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show – "Defeating AI's Best Arguments Against God" ft. Frank Turek

Episode Information

• Title: Defeating AI's Best Arguments Against God
• Host: Charlie Kirk
• Guest: Frank Turek
• Release Date: August 8, 2025
• Description: In this episode, Charlie Kirk engages in a deep and insightful conversation with his friend and mentor, Frank Turek, addressing atheism, morality, and the top objections to committing one's life to Jesus. They delve into the challenges posed by AI-generated arguments against theism, provide robust defenses of Christian apologetics, and explore the evolving landscape of belief on college campuses.

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Introduction and Background (00:00 - 02:05)

Charlie Kirk kicks off the episode by introducing Frank Turek, highlighting Frank's role as a prominent Christian apologist and the founder of CrossExamined.org. He emphasizes Frank's extensive work on college campuses, engaging with students to discuss Christianity and counter atheistic arguments.

Notable Quote:

• Charlie Kirk (00:25): "Charlie's running the White House, folks. Thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy."

Evolution of Belief on College Campuses (02:06 - 04:43)

Frank Turek discusses the shift in the prevalence of atheism and the resurgence of interest in Christianity among college students over the past few decades. He notes that while atheism was once dominant, there is now a growing recognition of a spiritual force and a reevaluation of Christian values.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (03:45): "Atheism is waning, and the idea that there is at least some spiritual force out there is gaining strength."
• Charlie Kirk (04:43): "Yes, Atheism is fading."

Addressing Morality as a Central Objection (04:44 - 06:17)

Both hosts agree that morality is the primary objection atheists and skeptics present against Christianity. They explore how Christians can effectively respond to moral critiques, particularly those concerning biblical practices like slavery.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (04:45): "The top three objections to Christianity are morality, morality, and morality."
• Charlie Kirk (06:19): "They don't really get interested in like ancient text disputes very rarely."

Biblical Slavery: Contextual Understanding (06:18 - 12:34)

The conversation delves into the contentious topic of slavery as depicted in the Bible. Frank Turek clarifies that biblical slavery differs significantly from the chattel slavery practiced in America, emphasizing its nature as indentured servitude with possibilities for emancipation.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (05:22): "In both the Old and New Testaments, it was punishable by death."
• Charlie Kirk (07:20): "But we also must be unafraid to brag on how the teachings of the New Testament led to the abolitionist slavery."
• Frank Turek (10:17): "Indentured servitude was really a kind of bankruptcy law."

Genocidal Warfare and Divine Judgment (12:35 - 19:19)

Charlie and Frank address objections related to violent commands in the Old Testament, such as the extermination of the Canaanites. They argue that many of these commands were hyperbolic expressions of judgment against extreme immorality and not literal genocidal mandates.

Notable Quotes:

• Charlie Kirk (14:46): "How do you answer when someone says, the Bible told the people of Israel at time to wipe out."
• Frank Turek (15:09): "What do you think the reason for that is?"
• Charlie Kirk (16:38): "Well, here's the problem. If you look at the archeology..."

Resurrection and Historical Corroboration (29:09 - 31:57)

The hosts tackle AI-generated questions about the resurrection of Jesus, defending its historicity despite discrepancies in gospel accounts. They argue that multiple independent sources lend credibility to the resurrection narrative.

Notable Quotes:

• Charlie Kirk (29:09): "Given the discrepancies between gospel resurrection accounts and the lack of external corroboration, how do you defend the resurrection as a historical event without begging the question?"
• Frank Turek (30:57): "There are multiple independent sources of certain events. This isn't just one source."

Divine Jealousy and Moral Perfection (43:30 - 52:13)

Frank and Charlie explore the concept of divine jealousy as depicted in Exodus, reframing it as God's rightful desire for a covenantal relationship with humanity. They discuss how a perfect being can experience a form of jealousy that does not compromise His nature.

Notable Quotes:

• Charlie Kirk (43:38): "How can a perfect self-sufficient being experience jealousy without compromising his nature?"
• Frank Turek (44:56): "Jealousy in that regard is a good thing."

Evolution vs. Biblical Creation (34:03 - 37:32)

Frank presents a critical view of biological evolution, arguing against macroevolution and supporting a creationist perspective. He introduces the L.I.F.E. acronym to outline perceived flaws in evolutionary theory, emphasizing the complexity and information within DNA as evidence of intelligent design.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (34:18): "Life. L stands for the fact that there is limited genetic capability for change."
• Charlie Kirk (36:22): "So was that the I or the F? That's the information."
• Frank Turek (36:57): "The fossil record is a complete embarrassment to evolutionists."

Problem of Evil and Suffering (46:38 - 51:18)

The discussion shifts to the classic problem of evil, questioning how an all-good, all-powerful God can allow suffering and injustice. Frank introduces the "ripple effect" theory, suggesting that individual acts of evil can lead to greater goods that are beyond human comprehension.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (47:55): "If evil doesn't bother you, you probably haven't thought about it enough."
• Charlie Kirk (50:12): "Genesis 50:20 – you intended evil, but God intended it for good."
• Frank Turek (51:06): "Evil shows God does exist because evil is a lack of good."

Nature of God's Omnipotence (52:13 - 55:42)

Frank and Charlie tackle questions about how an immutable, timeless God can create a dynamic, temporal universe. They clarify that God's immutability refers to His nature remaining constant, not His ability to act within creation.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (52:26): "His nature doesn't change. He's always good, he's always moral."
• Charlie Kirk (55:03): "How can a being that doesn't change suddenly do something like create a world?"
• Frank Turek (55:42): "When we say God is all-powerful, we mean he can do everything consistent with his nature."

Conclusion and Resources (55:43 - End)

The episode wraps up with Frank Turek directing listeners to CrossExamined.org for further exploration of Christian apologetics. Charlie thanks Frank for his insights and encourages the audience to engage with the content by visiting their respective platforms.

Notable Quotes:

• Frank Turek (55:45): "We have a podcast twice a week. I don't have enough Faith to be an Atheist podcast."
• Charlie Kirk (56:02): "For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com."

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Key Takeaways:

• Morality as a Core Objection: Both hosts emphasize that moral concerns are the primary challenge to Christianity and discuss how to effectively address them.
• Contextual Biblical Practices: They argue that biblical practices like slavery and divine warfare must be understood in their historical and cultural contexts.
• Resilience of Belief: Despite AI-generated challenges, the hosts assert the robustness of Christian apologetics in defending faith.
• Evolution vs. Creation: Frank Turek presents arguments against macroevolution, supporting a creationist view based on genetic information and fossil records.
• Problem of Evil: The "ripple effect" is introduced as a way to reconcile the existence of evil with an all-good God, suggesting that evil can lead to greater goods beyond human understanding.

For More Information:

• CrossExamined.org: Explore Frank Turek’s extensive resources on Christian apologetics.
• Charliekirk.com: Access daily updates, resources, and contact information for further engagement.

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This episode offers a comprehensive and thought-provoking exploration of the arguments surrounding belief in God, providing listeners with insightful responses to some of the most challenging objections presented by atheists and skeptics. Frank Turek's expertise in apologetics, combined with Charlie Kirk's engaging hosting, makes for a compelling discussion aimed at strengthening faith and understanding in a complex intellectual landscape.

Transcript

[Charlie Kirk]

Hey, everybody. Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio. A phenomenal conversation with my friend Frank Turek about atheism, morality and top objections that people have to giving their life to Jesus. It's a very important conversation. Text it to your friends and email me. As always, freedomarliekirk.com that is freedomarliekirk.com Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

[Frank Turek]

I want you to know we are.

[Charlie Kirk]

Lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. Thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy.

[Frank Turek]

His spirit, his love of this country.

[Charlie Kirk]

He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever.

[Frank Turek]

Created, Turning Point usa.

[Charlie Kirk]

We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble gold investments@noblegold investments.com that is noblegoldinvestments.com. it's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com okay, everybody. Super excited for this conversation with my friend Frank Turek. Frank, great to see you, my friend.

[Frank Turek]

It's great seeing you, my friend.

[Charlie Kirk]

Frank is one of my mentors and friends and teachers and we've been studying together.

[Frank Turek]

Oh yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here in Phoenix. It's kind of our off season. Right. So it's a little different than an NFL player. I have two off seasons a year, so my on. It's similar to you. You're on season one. It's fall and spring.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, well, I'm doing colleges too, just not as many as you.

[Charlie Kirk]

Man, you're killing it. How many do you do?

[Frank Turek]

We try and do anywhere between 15 and 20 a year. You're doing 25 a semester?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, we do about 50 to 60 a year.

[Frank Turek]

Crazy.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, the pace is.

[Frank Turek]

But it's great.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so just remind your audience you do cross examined. You have the best books out on Christian apologetics.

[Frank Turek]

That's what my mom says.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes. Yeah, well, she's right.

[Frank Turek]

That's right. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Is the big one stealing from God? Why Atheists need God to make their case. Those are the two biggies on apologetics.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so you go to college campuses and you do similar type vibe that I Do open question, open mic. And your stuff has gone very viral throughout the years. Before we dive into just some of the fun, because I'm going to have you debate our AI in a second.

[Frank Turek]

Let's do it, man.

[Charlie Kirk]

But before we do that, what are some of the changes today? 20, 25 versus what you've heard from students five years ago and 10 years ago?

[Frank Turek]

Well, let's go back 15 years ago in the heyday of the new atheists. We got so many questions from atheists and we got so much pushback from atheists. But I'm going to schools now, Charlie. And the organizers are saying, hey, when you come and talk about the evidence for Christianity, could you spend more time on the New Testament than whether or not God exists? Because we're having trouble finding a lot of atheists on campus. Okay. Atheism is waning, and the idea that there is at least some spiritual force out there is gaining strength. And now Christianity is being looked at from all areas, as you know, because people are now, you know, you know, what's driving people to consider Christianity? There's too much evil in the world. Things are getting worse and worse, and people are going, there's got to be more to life than this. There's got to be some standard out there. Maybe I ought to look at Christianity again. And the work you're doing on college campuses is making people see Christianity as at least plausible. This guy Charlie Kirk is really sharp and he believes in Christianity. Maybe I ought to look at Christianity again. Because you're in the political world.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes, that's right. Primarily.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah. Yeah. And so people are going, Charlie is one of the sharpest speakers I've seen, and he is an evangelical Christian. Maybe he knows something I ought to look into.

[Charlie Kirk]

I do hear that feedback a lot. By the way, the most promising thing that we receive, freedomarlicirk.com, or emails or message on social media. We probably get 1,000 a year. Charlie, I believe in God because of you. I go back to church, and that doesn't count the comments, because the comments, you don't know, they could be trolls or whatever, but we get thousands of comments. Charlie, I've strengthened my faith in God and Jesus and life goes to you. And that's awesome because that's an ultimate purpose to what we do. It's not the sole purpose. I mean, we believe that once we instruct people of the civil law, then that will point people to Christ. But no, it's a very exciting moment. Would you say that? I don't think Atheism is dead. My friend Eric Metaxas I think gets a little bit ahead of himself, but it seems to be dying.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, it's waning.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Frank Turek]

And the difference between 15 years ago and now is people used to wonder if Christianity was true. Now they're asking, is Christianity good? So the top three objections on a college campus that I get, and I think you're getting too, if you think about it, the top three objections to Christianity are morality, morality and morality. It's all about morality. It's all about what does this mean to me.

[Charlie Kirk]

They don't really get interested in like ancient text disputes very rarely. But they'll say, oh, why is slavery in the Bible?

[Frank Turek]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

How do you respond when someone says, but Frank, the Bible endorses slavery?

[Frank Turek]

I would say, first of all, what do you mean by slavery? Do you know what the kind of slavery the Old Testament was talking about? Because it's not the kind of race based chattel slavery we had here in.

[Charlie Kirk]

America, which actually is prohibited.

[Frank Turek]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Kidnapping for slavery was a.

[Frank Turek]

In both the Old and New Testaments, it was punishable by death. In the Old Testament, okay, it was chattel slavery. It was indentured servitude. If you were in debt and you needed to get out of debt and you needed to pay for your family, to feed your family, you could put yourself in an indentured servitude position to work for that person, to work off debt and to provide for your family. And if you were in that situation, it was temporary, it could only go seven years. Unless by mutual agreement you wanted to become a bond servant, you could extend that. It wasn't race based. You could get out of it by running away. You could leave it. This is in Deuteronomy 15, Deuteronomy 15, 14, 16.

[Charlie Kirk]

You're not to chase after your middle was slavery.

[Frank Turek]

Yes, you could. So it's not like chattel slavery here. It was not an ideal situation, but you know, there was no welfare state in ancient Israel. There was no way to pay off debt other than put yourself in the employ of somebody else. In fact, it's a version of Old Testament. The Old Testament, slavery or indentured servitude was really a kind of bankruptcy law. It allowed you to work off debt and take care of your family. And so it wasn't the kind of slavery we had here. It was indentured servitude. And there's a lot of details on this. My friend Paul Copan, who wrote a great book called Is God a Moral Monster?

[Charlie Kirk]

I Know, it's on my list.

[Frank Turek]

Paul goes into it in great detail and I think this is true about the questions we have to deal with. Charlie, on a college campus people say what are the hardest questions to answer? And I think the hardest questions to answer are none of them. They're just hard to answer in two minutes.

[Charlie Kirk]

It takes time to explain.

[Frank Turek]

It takes time. A lot of time, a lot of context.

[Charlie Kirk]

But we also must be unafraid to brag on how the teachings of the New Testament led to the abolitionist slavery. But also, I mean in Philemon like 1:16, Paul writes the Philemon, you know, you should view your slave as you like, as an equal, basically.

[Frank Turek]

That's right.

[Charlie Kirk]

If I'm remembering correctly, yes, Philemon only.

[Frank Turek]

Has one chapter, so Philemon 16.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so that's very important. But also that slavery has been the norm for almost every civilization. Yes, it is what worldview has gotten rid of it, which is noteworthy.

[Frank Turek]

Exactly. And also Jesus came to set the captives free. That was his initial inauguration. His inauguration into ministry is Luke chapter four. One of the things he says is I came to set the captives free. But people will say, well, why didn't the New Testament tell that culture to eradicate slavery completely right then and there. Let me ask you a question about this Charlie, see if you agree with this. Would it make any sense to tell people in California right now, particularly the minority of Christians to eradicate abortion in California right now?

[Charlie Kirk]

Would I tell them to?

[Frank Turek]

Could they do it? No, they couldn't do it. Right. What would be a way they could do it incrementally? They incrementally worked to hearts and minds.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is the least persuasive argument to a college kid.

[Frank Turek]

Oh, it totally is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Don't you agree? Incrementalism. They're like, how dare you? Yeah, because they're 19 and they're, they're zealots and they're, they're, they're self righteous. And so I would say that incrementalism, would you agree, is the least persuasive.

[Frank Turek]

Oh, it's the least persuasive, but it makes sense because of the political realities at the time. In fact, as you pointed out, it was universal. Slavery was everywhere it, in the ancient world. Now by the time you got to the Roman period, it wasn't totally indentured servitude, but it wasn't completely chattel slavery either because in the Roman period it wasn't race based and you could buy your way out of it. Okay, so it wasn't like we had here but it was still something that was not ideal, quite obviously. And God, the way he got rid of it was through incrementally. First of all, everyone's made in the image of God. Everybody is one in Christ. There are no social distinctions. Do you know that Pliny the Younger, who was somebody that persecuted Christians, said he tortured two slave women who were deaconesses in the church? How did slave women become deaconesses in the church? Because the church treated them as equals.

[Charlie Kirk]

What do you say to the argument, And I'm paraphrasing, and I can look it up here, where Paul says slaves should submit to their masters.

[Frank Turek]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

How do we work through that?

[Frank Turek]

Because what Christians are supposed to do is treat everyone as if they're made in the image of God, because they are. It is our way of loving people. Even those who don't treat us well. We treat everybody like they're made in the image of God. So if you're in a slave situation and Paul says, try to get out of it if you can, but if you're in a slave situation, he does say that, yes, you ought to do. You ought to do right by the person you're dealing with. In fact, Peter says this. He says, what good is it if you treat people well who treat you well? Even the pagans do that. He said, but you should treat people who don't treat you well. Well, it's better to suffer evil than to do evil.

[Charlie Kirk]

So they also say in slavery, and then this is a moral pomposum, you know, kind of. They say that if the Bible is perfect, like, why didn't it explicitly say, we got to get rid of this thing?

[Frank Turek]

Well, it did, but in it in a way that wouldn't have crushed it at its initiation. Because if the Christian church had all these commands for the people at the time to overthrow the Roman government, they would have completely crushed the Christian church. So what they said was, you can't kidnap anybody. That everybody, regardless of their social position, is an equal, that they get a Sabbath. They get a Sabbath. They have rights. If you hurt a slave, they go free. If you kill a slave, you're going to be punished. So the slaves weren't property. Although when you read in the Old Testament, you'll hear them referred to as property. What that meant was they were money. It's equivalent today to say, well, let me ask you this. Can the owner of the Golden State warriors sell Steph Curry?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Frank Turek]

Yes, he can, because he owns the basketball services of Steph Curry.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's a good analogy.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, but he can't sell Steph Curry as a person. Steph Curry is under contract. The services. This is the language that was used in the Bible. It wasn't the kind of language that chattel slavery used. It was the kind of language that we might relate to a sports team, a sports owner. You own the services of Steph Curry, but you don't own him as a person.

[Charlie Kirk]

So on the slavery question, then they would also say, why are there so many laws that make it seem like it's okay that doesn't forbid it?

[Frank Turek]

Because it's case law, just like we have in the United States where it'll say in the Old Testament, if a man hits his slave and causes damage, then there'll be a penalty to the man. But that case law isn't prescribing that you hit your slave. It's describing what you should do if someone hits their slave. Much like we have laws today, if somebody breaks into a house and steals something, what should you do to them? It's not prescribing breaking into houses and stealing. It's telling you what to do when somebody does evil.

[Charlie Kirk]

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[Frank Turek]

So.

[Charlie Kirk]

Slavery comes up a lot. The Canaanites.

[Frank Turek]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

So how do you answer? By the way? This is part of the work that we were going to do today anyway, so this is great. How do you answer when someone says but the Bible. And I believe I have an answer to this. But you're much crisper than I am. The Bible told the people of Israel at time to wipe out. To kill women, maybe?

[Frank Turek]

Sure, yeah. Women, children. Children, the animals, the whole deal.

[Charlie Kirk]

What kind of a God would tell a people to. I don't want to say genocide, but to wipe out an enemy?

[Frank Turek]

Okay. First thing I'm going to ask people who bring up any moral objection is by what moral standard are you using to say this is wrong? Because if they're atheists, they don't have an objective moral standard. But it's a fair question to ask of a Christian. You're saying, your God is good and he does these.

[Charlie Kirk]

So they would say, my view, I don't know what I believe, but I want to know how you could be consistent.

[Frank Turek]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

Which would actually be a fair question.

[Frank Turek]

It's a totally fair question, and it's a good question. It's something that should give us pause. And I think that skeptics of the Bible bring this up rightfully. So you should be able to deal with this issue. Okay, there are two views on this, two major views on it. One is these were literal commands to wipe everybody out. The second view is that these were hyperbolic commands. This is the way the ancient near east people spoke. For example, if you go to Egypt, where we just were about six months ago, there's something called the Bernepta stele. Pharaoh Merneptah on this stela, this standing stone with all sorts of inscriptions says, israel has been laid waste. Its seed is no more. In other words, it's basically saying, I, Pharaoh Merneptah, wiped out Israel off the face of the Earth. Really? How come they're still there? It's exaggerated language, much like we would say in sports, we obliterated, we crushed them, we annihilated, we killed the bears, as we always do. Right, okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

Or that, as a Gen Z would say, like, I'm dead.

[Frank Turek]

That's right. Yeah, yeah. And why do we think this is the case? Not only are there parallels in other ancient near east documents, if you go to say Deuteronomy 7, it'll say this, wipe everybody out. Next verse says, and then don't intermarry with them. And you go, wait a minute. How could you intermarry with a group of people you had just wiped out? And then, by the way, a couple chapters later, we see these people still around because it's hyperbolic language. And why is this being used? Why is this being done to begin with? This is judgment. These were people who were sacrificing their children to Molech. They would melt or they would heat up this molten hot God who would sear the baby on the arms of this molten hot God. In fact, Plutarch, who's not even a biblical writer, he was a Greek writer in the first century, says that the village drummers would beat their drums louder to drown out the cries of the kids so the parents couldn't hear their own kids being sacrificed. Charlie, on every college campus I go to, on every college campus you go to, there's going to be some kid who's going to say, why doesn't God stop all the evil in the world? Well, here's a situation where God does stop the evil by judging these people. And the atheists are complaining about it. Like, wait a minute, do you want God to step in or not? Here he is stepping in. He is crushing these people because of the evil they've done. And, and people are upset about it.

[Charlie Kirk]

And they would say, yes, but not the kids and the woman. Right?

[Frank Turek]

Right. If it's a literal command that they did crush everybody, there's no evidence it's literal. It seems hyperbolic. But if it is literal, then the question is, does God have the right to take people into the next life whenever he wants? Of course, yes. If Christianity is true, people don't die. They just change location. They go from this life to the next life and it's up to God when that happens. And this, if it is true that everyone was killed, this is what happened. The more I think proper interpretation when you look at all the data is these were exaggerated commands to push people out of the land so the promised people could get into the promised land to bring forth the promised Messiah to save the whole world. Remember, God's working with free creatures. He's not going to overpower their free will. He's going to warn them for 400 years. If they don't repent, he's going to judge them so the promised people can get into the land and bring forth Jesus. Ultimately, that's going to bless the whole world. So there's a lot more on Copan's book on this. I have a little bit more on my book Stealing from God, on the killing of the Canaan. I so called killing of the Canaanites. But it's judgment. And Charlie, we don't like judgment in our country. Right. We want God to be, as C.S. lewis put it, a benevolent old man who just wanted to look down and see that everybody was having A good time.

[Charlie Kirk]

We want to be nicer than God, Right?

[Frank Turek]

Right. But God is the God of judge. He's infinitely just and he's infinitely loving.

[Charlie Kirk]

Which is funny because the campus group is very big on justice. That's their big point. I know, but not really. They say they are.

[Frank Turek]

That's why I always ask them, look, there's two things you can have in the afterlife. You can have either justice or grace. Does anybody here want justice in the afterlife? I don't want justice. I want grace. If I get justice, Charlie, I'm toast. An infinitely just being is going to judge me. He's got. I haven't been infinitely just so I deserve justice.

[Charlie Kirk]

What do you have to say? And this is an AI generated one. But I hear this all the time. This helps me kind of remember about the Bible. And I think I know your answer to this, and I've read a couple books about this, but that all that the story of the Old Testament closely resembles Canaanite and Mesopotamian deities, that the Old Testament has, like, a lot of similarities, such as the story of Moses or the creation story or a flood story.

[Frank Turek]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Well, every ancient culture has a flood story.

[Charlie Kirk]

Sure.

[Frank Turek]

Now, what do you think the reason for that is?

[Charlie Kirk]

Because there was a flood.

[Frank Turek]

It's a flood. Right. Everybody had some sort of story related to it. But if you look at the story of Moses, for example, you don't find parallels that are all that close. And if you do, it doesn't necessarily mean that Moses copied. What's unique about the Israelites is that they are told to be separate from their neighbors. That's one reason they're pushing out the Canaanites. Wholly separate, right?

[Charlie Kirk]

Same word.

[Frank Turek]

The last thing they want to do is borrow from the people that they're trying to separate from. In fact, what happens to them is when they do get too intermingled with the Canaanites, God judges them and continues to say, you're playing the harlot, you're going with baal, you're going with all these other deities, and you should be worshiping me. So he judges them.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so without getting into too much detail, though, is there any credence to this idea that the Bible was copied regionally between other river valley civilization mythologies?

[Frank Turek]

I have not necessarily heard that objection, but I can tell you from a.

[Charlie Kirk]

Bill Maher said that on our show, remember?

[Frank Turek]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, here's the problem. If you look at the archaeologies, let's just look at the archeology. Let's Go back to Joshua and Jericho. The evidence from Jericho shows that oddly, the walls fell down and out. There's no other city that has ever been discovered where the walls have fallen straight down and out. When you take over a city, you go inward, you crush the wall, you knock it down and the walls go inward. And here we find in the dirt there in Jericho that the walls fell out, just like the Bible says.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

[Frank Turek]

And there are. When we just did a 22 one hour lesson series on the top archeological discoveries of the Bible, Charlie, we discovered over 107, I think it was 107 people in the Bible that have been found in the dirt. And about 75 of them were from the Old Testament. And many of the events of the Old Testament have corroborative data in the dirt. How would somebody writing the old testament, say 1000 years after Joshua, 1406 BC know that the walls fell down and out? How would he know that? He wouldn't. In fact, you know how many places are named in the book of Joshua? What is it, 24 chapters in the book of Joshua. There's over 350 named places in the book of Joshua. Just in the book of Joshua. It works out to something like 13 places a chapter. More than that. Even I can't remember the exact number. But it's crazy how many place locations and many of these place locations have been discovered. This is not an invented storyline that was put into writing 1000 years later. Moses and editors, later there are editors that came after Moses. Like they put his death in Deuteronomy. They wrote this down at the time.

[Charlie Kirk]

So here's a question of morality. It's the problem of divine command theory. I've heard this question only once. Is something good because God commands it or does God command it because it is good?

[Frank Turek]

Euthyphro dilemma from one of Plato's writings. Socrates says this, and it's supposed to put the believer in God in a dilemma. If you're going to say God is the source of morality, does he look up at a standard beyond him and say, oh, that's good, I'll do that? If so, why do you need God? We can do that, right?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. I don't think it's much of a dilemma though. Maybe I'm over. I think the answer to both is.

[Frank Turek]

Yes, you are correct. Here's why it's not a dilemma. Why is it not a dilemma?

[Charlie Kirk]

Because God himself is good. Essence is good.

[Frank Turek]

That's it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Am I right?

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, he's the Standard he doesn't have to look up.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly.

[Frank Turek]

He's not arbitrary. He is the standard.

[Charlie Kirk]

He is the standard.

[Frank Turek]

So it's easily answered. And yet atheists online still think this.

[Charlie Kirk]

Is a good one. What am I missing about that though?

[Frank Turek]

You're not missing anything. It's a false dilemma. A true dilemma is A or non A, A false dilemma is A or B. Maybe there's a C, maybe there's a third option. And in this case there is. God is the standard. His nature is the moral standard. The buck has to stop somewhere. It stops with God's nature.

[Charlie Kirk]

So I asked AI this is kind of goes to show how good of a teacher you are. Like the best intellectually rigorous questions. And like I can answer most of these honestly. And I don't do this professional. I mean I do somewhat of this, but you're like a super professional on this. And so that's what my mom says. I'll read this one. This is from AI. If God desires all people to be saved and know the truth, why does he remain hidden or silent to sincere seekers who never experience divine revelation or compelling reason to believe?

[Frank Turek]

Everybody experiences divine revelation. Because God has written two books. Yes, he's. He's written through men, what we call the scriptures, the Bible, but he's also written the book of nature. In other words, we could say God has the book of his words and the book of his works. And everybody has the book of his works. Everybody knows there's a creator God who's moral because of the creation and the moral law written on the heart. And the way we know God is we know God by his effects. So if there's a creation, that's the effect we reason back to a cause, a creator. If there's design in the universe, that's the effect we reason back to a cause, a designer. If there's a moral law written on the heart, that's the effect we reason back to a cause, a moral law giver. So there's nobody in the world who doesn't know that there's a creator God who's moral. And we haven't lived up to that standard. There are people who've never heard of the solution to our moral problem. That's Jesus.

[Charlie Kirk]

But.

[Frank Turek]

But everybody knows that there is a creator moral God. And the Bible indicates that if you seek take a step toward that, the works that he's provided, he will get you the word so you can be saved.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is the other one. We spend a lot of time on this, but let me just repeat it And I want you to answer it as you would a student. How can we trust Scripture as morally authoritative when it regulates slavery, commands genocidal warfare like 1st Samuel 15, and enforces harsh penalties for non crimes by modern standards without undermining the concept of God's moral perfection.

[Frank Turek]

I would ask the person again, by what moral standard are you saying?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, you're appealing to a Christian standard.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, you are. Secondly, we've already dealt with those before on this program. That slavery was not the kind of slavery we had.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was a kind of bankruptcy law.

[Frank Turek]

Right, it was a kind of bankruptcy.

[Charlie Kirk]

Law, the genocidal warfare.

[Frank Turek]

It wasn't genocide, it was sinocide. Now why do I say that? Because God wiped out the Israelites for doing the same kind of things. In other words, it wasn't ethnicity God was worried about, it was the ethics.

[Charlie Kirk]

After the golden calf, after the.

[Frank Turek]

Sure, he wipes them out. Right. How many times does God judge Israel for the evil they've done?

[Charlie Kirk]

Repeatedly, a lot.

[Frank Turek]

And our mutual friend Dennis Prager puts it this way. He said one of the reasons I.

[Charlie Kirk]

Know the Old Testament, the least flattering telling of it. No, it's true. It's the least flattering telling of an ancient people.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, yeah, that's it. You know it. Yeah. They would never invent such an embarrassing history of themselves. They keep getting dope slapped by their own God. And Charlie, you don't see this like if you go to, if you go to Egypt, all of the monuments in Egypt are propaganda monuments to how good the pharaoh is. They don't include any negative behavior. But when you read the Old Testament, this is the history of the Jews. They get the gold medal in sin every time.

[Charlie Kirk]

Ingredients. When I flip a container around and cannot pronounce nor recognize the ingredients, I put it back. That's why you'll find Balance of Nature fruits and Veggies supplements on a shelf in my home. Every single ingredient is a fruit or veggie plucked from the soil. No binders, no additives or artificial colors, no fillers, just whole fruits and veggies. Gluten free and vegan friendly. These harvested ingredients are freeze dried into a fine powder using an advanced vacuum cold process to better preserve nutritional value. I can say with absolute confidence that I'm getting 31 ingredients from fruits and veggies every single day with Balance of Nature. Imagine a platter with 31 different fruits and veggies on it every day. Join me in taking Balance of Nature. Use my discount code, Charlie to get 35% off plus free shipping and Their money back guarantee. You must use my discount code Charlie. Call them at 800-246-8751 and use discount code CHARLIE. Or order online at balanceofnature.com use discount code CHARLIE to get 35% off plus free shipping. Here's one that I think is important. This one is. I can answer this one.

[Frank Turek]

Answer it. Good.

[Charlie Kirk]

Thanks to you. Given the discrepancies between gospel resurrection accounts and the lack of external corroboration, how do you defend the resurrection as a historical event without begging the question? Well, first of all, the discrepancies are a feature, not a bug. The fact that there are discrepancies means that it's probably true. Because if you were trying to lie, every single account would be exactly the same. Right. It's exactly like we know this. Whenever there's, you know, car accident or something in the parking lot here.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Or even like, you know, something happens here and there's a little controversy at the Turning Point campus or an event, I bring three people in and I get a generalized telling. But I realize like, oh, okay, got it. Was what mile power do you think they were going? What was this? What was the color of the car? You know, eventually you get towards that. So I think it's a feature, not a bug. And then if there are a lot of external corroboration, I mean, there's Josephus, right?

[Frank Turek]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

There's other Roman historians also. The Talmud talks about Jesus, not the resurrection. But they said that people believed in the resurrection. Correct. I mean, that.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So how did I do?

[Frank Turek]

You did excellently.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

What else am I missing?

[Frank Turek]

Beautiful. Well, let me give another example for our listeners and viewers. It might be this. Do you realize that the eyewitnesses of the Titanic, the survivors disagreed on how the Titanic sank?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, I imagine because we actually didn't know how the Titanic sank for quite some time.

[Frank Turek]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

Because it happened largely below the surface.

[Frank Turek]

That's right. And some said it went down hole.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you meant.

[Frank Turek]

Okay, no, no, this is a good illustration of what you're saying. Some said it went down whole. Others said it broke in two when it went down. What should we conclude from that, Charlie?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, we should conclude that it did go down.

[Frank Turek]

That's it.

[Charlie Kirk]

And that the water was cold.

[Frank Turek]

That's right. No. And that everyone agrees there was a.

[Charlie Kirk]

Resurrection, but they also all agreed that they were female witnesses at the resurrection.

[Frank Turek]

Very embarrassing.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, embarrassing. And by the way, multi gospel.

[Frank Turek]

That's right. Every gospel says it so.

[Charlie Kirk]

But then Also, the discrepancies play against a uni gospel central canon. What is the right term? Well, the term that there was a shared canon, a Q document, they will say yes. Then they all.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, well, obviously what we're finding in the New Testament, well, maybe not obvious for everybody, is that we have multiple independent sources of certain events. And when you have that, you realize this isn't just one source, this is several sources. And it may be a problem for people who have a Bible under one binding. They go, oh, this is just one book. It's one source. No, it's not. These documents were written down in the New Testament, written down by eight or nine authors, depending upon who wrote Hebrews. And they were written at different times in different places by people who were not in contact with one another all the time.

[Charlie Kirk]

So I don't think that. I don't. That's a pretty weak one. That's the best AI could do.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

I want to get to evolution in a second because you and I haven't talked. Let me do this one. I think I could do this one too. If Jesus is fully God and fully man, how do you explain instances where he claims ignorance? Not knowing the day or hour? He's not saying that he doesn't know, he's just not telling you.

[Frank Turek]

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Or you can also say that Jesus had two natures. He had a divine nature and a human nature. And Jesus emptied himself of the privileges of his Godhead when he was on earth.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's Philippians 2 partially, though there was still a divine aspect.

[Frank Turek]

Right. But whenever you ask a question about Jesus, you have to ask two questions. Did Jesus know when he was coming back as God? Yes. As man? No. Did Jesus get hungry as God? No. As man? Yes. Sure. So when Jesus.

[Charlie Kirk]

The incarnation's a toughie.

[Frank Turek]

Yes. When Jesus died on the cross, God didn't die. The human nature of Jesus died.

[Charlie Kirk]

So here's the counter argument. In AI, they say that's a heresy in the 5th century that centered that Jesus had two separate persons, one human, one divine, rather than one person with two distinct natures.

[Frank Turek]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

What's the difference? Does that make like.

[Frank Turek]

Yes. He had one person with two natures. He had a divine nature and a human nature. Give an illustration from Nestorianism or something. Nestorianism?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Frank Turek]

Let's give an illustration from movies. Not my favorite movie, but you remember Avatar?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Okay. It's very environmental.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Earth worship.

[Frank Turek]

So there's, you know. Remember the guy in the wheelchair and he would get in this device and.

[Charlie Kirk]

Then he becomes something.

[Frank Turek]

He'd be. He'd be the avatar on the outside. Right. He's one person with two natures. He has a human nature in the space station, in the wheelchair.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's a good analogy.

[Frank Turek]

And he has an avatar. Nature. Nature outside this space station.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Okay, got it. That one's not that hard. Here's one that I wouldn't know how to answer. The evolution one I'm not as equipped to answer because I don't know how important it is. And you could disagree, but some people have dedicated their whole life to it. I've never been that interested in it, actually. If by. I think we're created, that's it, I'm sure. End of story. How we're created is the question. If biological evolution is true and Adam and Eve are not literal historical figures, how do you preserve the doctrines of original sin, federal headship, and the need for the second Adam without unraveling the entire redemptive framework of Romans 5? I mean, I think they are real historical.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah. The first question I would ask them is why do you think biological evolution is true? Now, microevolution is true. That's adaptation within a type. But macroevolution from the goo to you via the zoo is not true. I think there's ev. Not only do I think there's not good evidence for it, Charlie, I think there's evidence against it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Make the case.

[Frank Turek]

All right, Let me give you an acronym. L I, F, E. Life. L stands for the fact that there is limited genetic capability for change. For example, even intelligent breeders can't break the genus of dogs when they're trying to breed dogs, Right? They can get a dog as small as a Chihuahua and as large as a Great Dane, but they can't break the genus of dogs. They can't turn a dog into something else just using that gene pool. If we, using our intelligence, can't break that genus. Genus of. The genus of dogs, why do we think an unintelligent process can. Can do so? That doesn't make any sense. Okay. The I stands for information. The information we find in every one of our 40 trillion cells is equivalent to a message 3.2 billion letters long. And to use an analogy, if you're walking along the beach and you see Charlie loves Erica in the sand, you don't assume the waves did that or crabs came out of the water and made that message. You would say that's evidence of an intelligent being. Right? Well, if Charlie loves Erica requires intelligence, why doesn't a message 3.2 billion letters long require intelligence? Because the software program in every one of our cells, our genome, DNA is a one to one correspondence with digital code. And we know that codes always come from coders. We know that programs always come from programmers. We know that messages always come from minds. The longest message we've ever discovered is in every one of our 40 trillion cells. That requires intelligence. Now it's a key point here we need to make is people will say that's a God of the gaps argument. You're plugging God into the gap of your knowledge. No, we're not. We're not arguing from what we don't know, we're arguing from what we do know. When you see Charlie loves Erica in the sand, you don't just lack a natural explanation for that. You have positive, empirically verifiable evidence for an intelligent being when you see that in the sand. Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

So was that the I or the F? That's the information.

[Frank Turek]

That's the I.

[Charlie Kirk]

Keep going.

[Frank Turek]

Information. The F is the fossil record. The fossil record is a complete embarrassment to evolutionists. And even Richard Dawkins has noted this that if you go back to the Cambrian explosion, according to their dating, 523 million BC or 523 million years ago, somewhere in that range, 500 million years ago, you see all. Most of the major body plans just in the fossil record. Without fossil precursors, it's as if they were just created there. You don't see this tree of life.

[Charlie Kirk]

Sure.

[Frank Turek]

You see, if someone put a botanical illustration in place, it would be more like an orchard. You would just see these body plans with some diversification at the top. But the body plans just come out of nowhere.

[Charlie Kirk]

Ex nihilo.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Do you then. So is the age of the Earth interesting to you or is that you're more open minded on.

[Frank Turek]

I'm absolutely convinced the universe is at least 63 years old.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Frank Turek]

I'm going to throw my mom in there. I like 87 years.

[Charlie Kirk]

Perfect.

[Frank Turek]

Okay. All right. I think the better evidence, it's old. And we can talk about that in a minute. Let me finish, Let me finish the.

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm sorry. Okay.

[Frank Turek]

So the F is the fossil record. The E is what's known as epigenetic information. Scientists have discovered in recent decades that you can mutate DNA from now till doomsday. You'll never get a new body plan. Why? Because DNA alone will not give you a new body plan. You need the structure of the cell and the structure of the organism to Change. And you can't mutate that by DNA. You would need to go into the embryonic stage of a creature and change its gene regulatory network at the embryonic level in order to get a new body plan. And if you did that, 100% of the time we've tried that, the organism has died. So to get a new body plan, you just can't mutate DNA. And this is why, Charlie, even the Royal Society, probably the biggest scientific affiliation, or the most august scientific affiliation in the world, out of London, once headed by Isaac Newton, called a meeting way back in 2016 to point out that we need a new theory of evolution. Because the current theory has too many problems, and this is one of them. You can't mutate DNA and get a new body plan. You need epigenetic information. An analogy would be that whereas the DNA might be the software for a particular, say, architecture program, the epigenetic information would be the hardware you need to build the house. You can mutate the software all day. You'll never get the hardware to build a house. So those four. And there's other reasons, but those four issues, limited genetic change information, fossil record and epigenetic information shows that macroevolution does not appear plausible.

[Charlie Kirk]

So then, is macroevolution at odds with an older universe theory?

[Frank Turek]

No, it would require an older universe theory. But the.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, no. I'm saying creation. I'm sorry, Creation. If you believe we're created, which is a belief I have.

[Frank Turek]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

Does that mean that you believe the universe is only 6,000 years old?

[Frank Turek]

No.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay, so work through that.

[Frank Turek]

Let's look at it biblically. What does the first verse of the Bible say?

[Charlie Kirk]

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

[Frank Turek]

Okay, when was the beginning?

[Charlie Kirk]

When God said it was. We don't know.

[Frank Turek]

It doesn't say. Right. Next verse says, and the Earth was formless and void. Wait a minute, wait, wait. We've gone from God creating the whole universe in verse 1 to now we're talking about the Earth. How long did that take? It doesn't say. You say. What about the days? The days don't begin until verse three.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, yeah. And so the day is Yom. But also a day is only possible as long as the sun exists.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah. And that comes in day four, I believe.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right, exactly. So this is Dennis Prager's argument, which is that you don't. So the literalists would say, well, it's seven literal days. Could be. I mean, it says Yom.

[Frank Turek]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

But using its own textual evidence, a day is only A revolution, A revolution of the sun, the earth around the sun. Right. So if there's no sun, then what do we mean by day?

[Frank Turek]

Exactly. And not only that, and this is John Lennox's argument that when you look at the first few verses of Genesis, as we just did, the Bible leaves the age of the earth indeterminate because it's saying that the universe is created before the days ever begin. In fact, there are. We talked about this earlier, but for your audience, remember, the Bible is not written to you, it's written for you. Now, who was Genesis written to? It was written to people who just spent 400 years under slavery in Egypt. They're not asking the questions you and I are asking in 2025, Charlie. They're not walking through the desert going, I wonder how old this place is. That's not their question. Their question is, is Yahweh the true God or the gods of Egypt? The true gods. And scholars have looked at Genesis 1 and some of them are saying, do you know what Genesis 1 is? It's a polemic. It's a corrective to the Egyptian creation story.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's exactly right.

[Frank Turek]

Because if you look at the Egyptian creation story, these pre existing superhero gods, they're not explained. They just happen to exist, already have to fight one another to bring order to chaos. That's the creation process. Moses comes along and he says, no, Yahweh's outside the universe. He just speaks and he brings order to chaos.

[Charlie Kirk]

And God is not in nature, he's outside of nature. God is personal. He's not abstract. Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here. A close friend of mine just saved tens of thousands of dollars on his Medicare. And I want you to know how Medicare enrollment is a maze of misinformation. And it's no accident. The more confused you are, the easier it is for big insurance to steer you into overpriced plans that make them more money. Trump's Department of Justice sued three of the biggest brokers in America for allegedly doing just that. Fortunately, there is a way to fight back. I trust Chapter. They're honest and they're independent. Chapter's licensed advisors search every single Medicare option to find what is best for you. My friend made one simple 30 minute phone call and now he's saving tens of thousands going forward and is fully covered. The call is 100% free. No pressure, just real honest help. People are relieved when they speak with Chapter. I trust Chapter. They're honest and they're independent. So if you're turning 65 or already on Medicare or call Chapter today, dial pound 250 and say Charlie to speak with a trusted Medicare Advisor. That's £250 and say Charlie. It could save you thousands. Okay, let me go to some of the other hard questions here. This is a good one. I've gotten this one before. God describes himself as jealous in Exodus 34. But jealousy is a vice in human terms born of insecurity and possessiveness. How can a perfect self sufficient being experience jealousy without compromising his nature?

[Frank Turek]

I had this question from a student at the University of California at Fresno.

[Charlie Kirk]

Common or not common in 2010, it.

[Frank Turek]

Happened two or three times.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, it's very. I've gotten it once.

[Frank Turek]

Okay. And I asked him this question. I said, are you married? He said no. I said, let's suppose for the sake of argument, you were married. If your wife decided that she was going to start dating other people, should you be jealous of that? Of course you should. Why? In fact, she belongs to you and you belong to her. And if you're not jealous of that relationship, there's something wrong with you. She has broken the covenant and you want what's best for her. And that is for her to stay in the covenant with you. And that's what Yahweh does for the Israelites and us. He's jealous of us because he knows that what's best for us is for us to stay in relationship with him. And if you're not jealous over your loved one, there's something wrong with you. So jealousy in that regard is a good thing. Jealousy when it comes to pettiness, that's not a good thing. Or things that you shouldn't possess anyway. Right. But it is good for people who you are in a relationship with, in a covenant with, you ought to guard that relationship. That's a good thing.

[Charlie Kirk]

If light was created on day one, but the sun not until day four. What is the nature of light then?

[Frank Turek]

What is the nature of light?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, what light? This is just curious. What light are they talking about?

[Frank Turek]

Well, the light of God pre existed prior to the light of the sun.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. But I think, I think. Let me see here. Day. I'm just looking at this now. So God said, let there be light, and there was light. And he called the light day and the darkness night. But that was before he created the sun.

[Frank Turek]

Yes, well, he has the ability to create light right, from his own nature, quite obviously. And the sun is just one body in the universe that creates light. There are other suns, there are other stars, obviously. In fact, I've seen different estimates, but the number of stars in the universe are equivalent to the number of sand grains on all the beaches on all the earth times 10,000. Now when you think about that, that should evoke in us a sense of awe. The heavens declare the glory of God that you have stars equivalent to sand grains on a hundred thousand Earths. So God may have not created our sun until a certain point. That doesn't mean other sources of light weren't created.

[Charlie Kirk]

Makes sense. All right, let's we have time for a couple more then. I got to get you in front of our Turning point staff here. Let me see this one. This is a simple yet deep, but you get it all the time. But I think our audience would really appreciate it. Okay. How can an all good, all powerful God coexist with the gratuitous, horrendous suffering of innocent children, natural disasters and systemic injustice? Especially when no greater good is apparent or accessible to the victims? Okay, you get it all the time.

[Frank Turek]

I get it all the time.

[Charlie Kirk]

But it blesses our audience.

[Frank Turek]

Yes, yes. First of all, there are so many assumptions in that question that would need to be challenged. First of all, how do you know it's gratuitous? How do you know it's not going to bring forth good later? Sure, if life ends at the grave and there's no afterlife, there's a lot of injustices that occur. But injustice only occurs if there's a standard of justice. And the standard of justice is God's nature. If God doesn't exist, nothing's just or unjust. So you can point that out. You can also point out the fact that only if God exists, do human beings have any objective value.

[Charlie Kirk]

Totally.

[Frank Turek]

And if they don't have objective value, there's nothing wrong with them.

[Charlie Kirk]

So that whole question is a Christian question, actually. So if it's a Christian asking it, then let's say, hey, Frank, I believe in God. I struggle to think he's good.

[Frank Turek]

I agree.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, that's a better question. I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I have trouble believing that he's all good when a tsunami wipes out 100,000 people.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, agreed. Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's a toughie.

[Frank Turek]

That is a great question.

[Charlie Kirk]

And I told you on our walk last night, that's the hardest question I get.

[Frank Turek]

Totally.

[Charlie Kirk]

The natural disaster is the hardest.

[Frank Turek]

And here's the answer that has helped me because I've studied this and it bothered me. And if evil doesn't bother you, you probably haven't thought about it enough.

[Charlie Kirk]

You're Supposed to hate evil in Psalm 97. 10.

[Frank Turek]

That's right.

[Charlie Kirk]

We're actually commanded as Christians.

[Frank Turek]

That's right. Love doesn't mean approval.

[Charlie Kirk]

Correct.

[Frank Turek]

Okay. So this is what unlocked it for me. Charlie, if you ask me, why, say, why do babies die? I can give you a general answer. I know why babies die because we live in a fallen world. Okay. But if you ask me, why did this particular baby die? I can't tell you why, but I can tell you why. I don't know why. Because I'm finite. I'm inside of time. And I don't know how all this is going to turn out ultimately. But if there's a being outside of time that can trace all of the ripples, this is called the ripple effect. That every event in this world ripples forward to affect trillions of other events and potentially billions of people. We can't trace all those ripples. Maybe a baby dying today ripples forward through free creatures to bring forth a great evangelist 500 years from now who saves millions of people. Can I trace all those ripples? I can't. But a God outside of time can. And so the ripple effect, while it doesn't give us a specific answer, it helps us to understand that there is an answer, even if we don't know what it is.

[Charlie Kirk]

And there is a teaching. John MacArthur would say this, that children do go to heaven. And would you agree with that? Because it says God will gather the children to him. Would you agree with that?

[Frank Turek]

Yes. And I would go to the Old Testament, too. When David loses his son, he says, I will not, or the son will not return to me. I will go to him. The baby died. That's right. So, yes, I think God is going to bring people to heaven. But I would also say this, that the ripple effect explains so much. The ripple effect you see in the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, his brothers do evil. They sell him into slavery. And then they, you know, he. He goes through all sorts of evil in Egypt, but he somehow rises to power, and he puts a whole bunch of grain aside. He's like the number two guy in Egypt. And then his brothers flee Israel to escape a famine. And as soon as Joseph sees him, what does he say? He says, you dirty rat, you're going to pay for what you did to me. No, he doesn't say that. He said, what you meant for evil. God meant for evil.

[Charlie Kirk]

Genesis 50:20.

[Frank Turek]

The saving of many lives. Exactly. The evil they did rippled forward to help them later. Most of the time, we don't see the ripple effect in this case we do you know, there was a Roman Catholic priest in Notre dame in Paris, 150 years ago who said this. This is one of the best quotes, I think, on this topic. He said, if you were to give me God's power for 24 hours, you would see how many changes I would make in this world. But if he gave me his wisdom too, I would leave things as they are because God is working. We're to fight evil because we don't know where it's going to wind up. But God can even allow evil that gets through to bring good later to those that love him and are called according to his purpose. And by the way, one last thing on this. Any God who is big enough for you and me to be mad at is big enough to have reasons we don't know about.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, that's right.

[Frank Turek]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

The great quote from Dennis, he got it from a rabbi, is that we as theists have to explain child suffering, natural disasters, and atheists have to explain everything else.

[Frank Turek]

Everything else.

[Charlie Kirk]

Existence.

[Frank Turek]

That's right.

[Charlie Kirk]

Love, mercy, joy, forgiveness. So we have our challenge in front of us, right? All right, let me do one more here.

[Frank Turek]

But can I say one other thing on that? Evil doesn't disprove God. It actually shows God does exist.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, keep going.

[Frank Turek]

Because there'd be no such thing as evil unless there was good. And there'd be no such thing as good unless God existed. Because evil is not a thing in itself. It's a lack and a good thing. It's like cancer. If you take all the cancer out of a good body, you got a better body. If you take all the body out of the cancer, you've got nothing. Or it's like rust in a car. If you take all the rust out of a car, you got a better car. If you take all the car out of the rust, you got a Pinto. No, you got nothing. Right. It doesn't exist on its own. So evil is a lack in a good thing. But good in an objective sense only exists if God exists. If God doesn't exist, nothing's good or bad. Things are just different. And evil doesn't exist. So evil doesn't disprove God. It may prove there's a devil out there, but it doesn't disprove God.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay, here's the last one. How can an absolutely perfect, changeless, timeless, necessary being who lacks nothing create a contingent temporal change filled universe without undergoing change or acquiring a new will?

[Frank Turek]

Well, there are theologians like William Lane Craig who would argue that when God created. He entered time. I don't agree with that. But that's a view that some Christians.

[Charlie Kirk]

Be like, it's God, he could do whatever he wants.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah, right. Anything. Everything he wants is not logically impossible. Like he can't create a square circle or a one headed stick.

[Charlie Kirk]

But. No, but he created the rules of reason though.

[Frank Turek]

Well, he is the rules of reason, so he did. I don't think he created them. I think they're. They're his nature, just like his moral nature.

[Charlie Kirk]

So then how would you answer this question? The one, the one I just said. Oh, how could a timeless necessary being who lacks nothing create a contingent temporal change filled universe?

[Frank Turek]

I don't see why that would be a problem. I don't understand why that they say that this.

[Charlie Kirk]

Let me say, what's the paradox? How can a being that doesn't change or do anything new suddenly do something like create a world?

[Frank Turek]

Who's to say when we say God doesn't change, it doesn't mean that he doesn't act. What it means is his nature doesn't change.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, I agree with that.

[Frank Turek]

His nature doesn't change. He's always good, he's always moral, he's always just, he's always loving. Right. It doesn't mean he can't do things. It means that his nature doesn't change.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. So then they'd also say there's a dilemma of God did not freely choose to create, which is not true. The universe is co. Eternal with God. We don't believe.

[Frank Turek]

No, no, no.

[Charlie Kirk]

Not co. Eternal with or that God changes. We say that God acts, not change. Yes, his nature is eternal.

[Frank Turek]

Yes, his nature doesn't change. He is the standard of goodness, the standard of rightness, the standard of law.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's really interesting. You're saying. So you're saying geometry, math, that's all the language of God. Yes, the physics. Chemistry.

[Frank Turek]

No, physics. Physics can be different because they're not based on his nature. But morality can't be different because it is based on his nature.

[Charlie Kirk]

But is math and geometry based on his nature? Yes, because why would geometry be yes in physics be no, because.

[Frank Turek]

Well, if in all possible worlds two plus two equals four, but not in all possible worlds, does gravity have to be the strength that it is?

[Charlie Kirk]

Sure.

[Frank Turek]

Right, but.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so then in all possible worlds a square circle can never exist.

[Frank Turek]

Yeah. Because it's a logical contradiction.

[Charlie Kirk]

Got it.

[Frank Turek]

Right. We make. Since it's a political show, we'll.

[Charlie Kirk]

I always say, does force always have to equal mass times acceleration?

[Frank Turek]

I don't know if God could create a different universe where that was reversed. This is what we always say, that God can't do impossible things. He can't create a square circle, he can't create a one ended stick. He can't create a married bachelor. He can't create an honest politician. There are some things that are just too hard for God.

[Charlie Kirk]

So then does that undermine the idea that God can do everything?

[Frank Turek]

When we say God is all powerful, we don't mean he can do everything. What we mean is he can do everything consistent with his nature. So he couldn't make two plus two equals five because his nature is such that his nature is logic, is truth. He could create a different universe because that's within his power. But he can't create a universe that has square circles in it because it's not possible given his nature. So when we say God is all powerful, it doesn't mean he can do everything. He can do everything that's not logically impossible or that contradicts with his nature.

[Charlie Kirk]

Got it. Frank Turek how do people find out more?

[Frank Turek]

Crossexamine.org/ we have a podcast twice a week. I don't have enough Faith to be an Atheist podcast. We have a TV show. Go to crossexamine.org there's so much on there. We've got a YouTube channel, obviously cross examine. We have Facebook, we, we have Instagram, TikTok, the whole deal.

[Charlie Kirk]

Got it. Thanks so much, Frank.

[Frank Turek]

God bless you sir.

[Charlie Kirk]

Thank you. Thanks so much for listening everybody. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk. Com. Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

[Frank Turek]

For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk. Com.