Dr Greg Bahnsen - Practical Apologetics: Evil, Mormonism (Part 4)

As we get underway today, I have been organizing the questions you submitted to me on the first day of the conference. And I want to go through a few by way of review. Make sure you're all with me, that you're all awake. In fact, to make sure that you're all awake, we're going to practice our nodding in unison. I hope that you spent some time. Many of you were up late last night. I felt badly. I was sure you must have been up practicing nodding in unison to make me happier. Okay, so now when a good point is made and I say, this is really pathetic, it needs work in unison and everybody's got to be part. If I don't see you participating, then we're going to have to have you come up and work it out in front of the rest of the audience. Okay, so when a good point is made in a debate and we say, mm, that's better. Okay, Somebody wrote, speaking of mere opinion, the non Christian can say that the existence of God is just an opinion of mine. How can I prove that God does exist? And the short answer to this is, without God, you can't prove anything. Somebody says, how can you prove God exists? The answer is God is the precondition of all proof. Because what is taken for granted when you assume the methodology of science or you use logic or appeal to moral absolutes is something about the world that only makes sense if God exists. And so the proof of God's existence, you already know this. It's just review. The proof of God's existence is that without him you can't prove anything. Then another card said, give an argument to support the truth that we are not products of a blind physical, that Darwinism is a lie and that creation by God is the truth. You may remember that we covered this in our last lecture time together. There are tremendous absurdities in the story of man's origin as it's told by the Darwinians. In fact, there are so many absurdities that when evolutionists get around to speaking of the mechanism of evolution, all they can do is give us a philosophical rather than a scientific understanding or a philosophical account of how man came about. Remember how the survival of the fittest proved to be nothing more upon analysis but a claim that the survivors are the ones that survive and that the theory of evolution makes us believe that life came from non life, intelligence from non intelligence, morality from non morality, and so forth. Moreover, if the argument is that we are products of blind physical science, I want you to note this. It's the blindness of chance that undermines physical science. So when people say, I think the physical universe operates in a blind fashion or a random or a chance fashion, and that it's that physical universe that accounts for my origin, the person has, without putting it right up there where you can see it, contradicted himself. Because if it's blind, it can't account for anything. It's meaningless. And so that would undermine the scientific endeavor as well. And then a further card asks, seeing that God is all powerful and all knowing, why does evil exist? And that's the subject of this particular lecture. Perhaps the most intense, pained and persistent challenge that believers hear about the truth of the Christian message comes in the form of what we call the problem of evil. The suffering and evil which we see all about us seems to cry out against the existence of God, at least a God that's benevolent and a God that is almighty. This is thought by many to be the most difficult of all the problems which we face as Christians, not only because of the apparent logical difficulty within the Christian outlook, but also because of the great personal perplexity which any sensitive human being feels when confronted with the terrible misery and the wickedness that's found all around us in the world. Man's inhumanity to man is notorious, Notorious in every age of history and in every nation of the world. There's a long story of oppression, indignity, unkindness, torture and tyranny. We find war and murder, greed and lust, dishonesty, lies, fear, hatred, infidelity, cruelty, poverty, racial hostility. And then when we look at the natural world, we see what appears to be needless suffering and pain, birth defects and parasites, attacks of violent animals, radioactive mutations, debilitating diseases, deadly cancer, starvation, crippling injuries, typhoons, earthquakes. And on and on the list of natural disasters goes. And so when the unbeliever looks at this really unhappy veil of tears, he feels there's strong reason to doubt the goodness of God. Why should there be so much misery? Why should it be distributed in such a seemingly unjust fashion? After all, as Dostoevsky asked in Brothers Karmazov, if it were left to you to be the architect of the world, would you allow, would you permit this kind of misery? And most people would say to that rhetorical question, of course not. Now, I think it's very important that when you come up against that kind of objection that you remember that often people who are bringing it up are doing so because they personally have been affected by the wickedness and the cruelty and the pain in this world. It's always Important to take account of the emotional or existential condition of the person that you're talking to. I don't want to say it's only here, but it's especially here. I've noticed that people will bring up things. They want to know why their brother died in childhood. They want to know why they had to lose their mother to cancer so early in life, and things like that. So remember your audience. Don't imagine that when you're answering this. It's just a matter of slicing and dicing the academic side or the philosophical side of this. You need to minister to that person. And hopefully by the end of this lecture, you'll have some idea of how that can be done. Recently in Moscow, I gave a lecture at the Russian Orthodox University on Dostoevsky's problem of evil, where I used one portion of Dostoevsky's writings to show the presentation of the problem, but also how the author himself, in his own life, revolved it. And in talking about that, well, when I finished the lecture, I asked the students if they had questions. And I was kind of expecting, because here's this foreigner in an academic setting and so forth and so on, kind of expecting that the philosophical angle on this was going to, you know, be what people want to take on. There was a young Russian girl who began the questioning with tears in her eyes. And she said, Dr. Bonson, I understand how the problem of evil can be answered by those of us who are believers when people who are atheists throw that at us. She said, what I don't understand is how we who are believers can answer the problem of evil, because it seems so often the righteous suffer. And she had been through a lot. Not just her. Those who claim the name of Christ in Moscow have suffered for years. And she wanted to know how these sorts of things can take place if God is really in control of the universe. I need to remember too, when I go out and lecture, I'm talking to people who don't just think, you know, they live in this world. And God was very gracious and I think gave me some. Some grace to respond to her. I talked to her about the evil I've suffered in this world. I talked to her about the sorts of physical problems that I have with disease and so forth, and some of the injustices and hard things that I've been through. And I could tell that for all of the hope, brilliance of the philosophy, it's when I told her that I suffer and hurt as well, that I realized she was listening. And I told her that in the end, as a believer, when I want to cry out to God, why? Why do you let these things happen? And even committed Christians struggle with God. You read the Psalms, you'll see David struggled with God, wondered about these things. It's very helpful for me to remember that the first word of Jesus in the famous line from the cross is also, why? Why have you forsaken me? And if the Lord of glory, who knows everything, could also suffer that, then I don't believe that I've lost my humanity or my conviction about God just because it hurts me too. So please remember when the problem of evil is brought up, it's not always being brought up by a snide philosopher professor who thinks he just going to whittle the Christian faith down by that many times people are suffering personally. Secondly, it's important for you to recognize and indeed to insist upon the reality and the serious nature of evil. The subject of evil is not an intellectual parlor game. It's not something to be dealt with in a cavalier matter, something whimsical, some relativistic choice, or simply one personal way of looking at things in the world. Evil is real and evil is ugly. A couple of days ago, you heard one of the speakers refer to this Jewish intellectual, Dennis Prager, out in Southern California. Dennis Prager used to have, I'm told, the most popular religious radio program in Southern California on Sunday evenings. And his format was to have a Jew and a Roman Catholic priest and a Protestant minister, Jewish rabbi, all appear and he would throw some religious question out and they would kind of kick it around for about a half hour. Then for an hour and a half, there'd be call in from people outside. In a couple of evenings I was the Protestant representative on the show. One night I had occasion to speak of. I don't remember how it came out, but I remember using this expression about adoring God. And somebody called in and was irate with me for talking about adoring God. And I asked why? And he said, if I understand right, he had been on some jury during that last week in a particularly terrible case of child molestation, had to look at pictures of this child that had been abused and so forth. And he said, how can you speak of adoring a God that would allow that kind of thing to happen? I could see the other people in the room backing away from their microphones like, that one's all yours, Dr. Bunsen. But you see, I wanted him to be indignant. I appreciated his indignation. I didn't Want him to be cavalier about that? I said, that really makes you angry, doesn't it? He said, it really does. I said, it does. Me too. And I want. You'll see by the end of the lecture why it's important that when people bring up the problem of evil, they bring it up as evil. Not just as unhappiness, not just as different strokes for different folks, but as something that they want to condemn. Let's see why you have to take it seriously, or why in terms of defending the faith, it's important you take it seriously. The problem of evil is, first of all a logical problem. Let me try to explain. You'll be told that Christians hold to a series of premises and that you cannot hold all of those premises consistently. And I'm going to simplify this. We believe that God is all good. Secondly, we believe that God is all powerful. Thirdly, we believe that evil exists. But as the argument goes, if God is all good, he wouldn't want that evil. Secondly, if he's all powerful, he could eliminate that evil. Therefore, if evil exists, God is either not all good or not all powerful. And that's the logical problem of evil. Allegedly, there's an incoherence in the Christian worldview because we have premises which will not logically hang together. But I'm going to ask this question. If you remember I put up on the board again the four things you keep looking at. When somebody gives an argument against Christianity, you want to know if that argument will fly. Ask, is this an arbitrary consideration? Are there inconsistencies in this presentation? What are the consequences of it? What are the preconditions of it? For whom is evil logically a problem? Is evil logically a problem for the Christian, or is evil logically a problem for the non Christian? It should be obvious, upon reflection that the unbeliever cannot urge the problem of evil against you or against me, unless the unbeliever has the right to assert there is evil. If there is nothing that counts as evil, then there's no problem of evil that has to be accounted for. And so it's crucial to the unbeliever's case against Christianity to be able to assert that there's evil in the world, to evaluate some specific instance as an instance of evil. So what does the unbeliever mean by good and evil? By what standard does the unbeliever determine what counts as good or what counts as evil? What are the presuppositions in terms of which the unbeliever makes any moral judgment? About goodness or evil whatsoever. Let's look at some possibilities, go through them real quickly. We could do a full course in metaethics, but I'm going to reduce this down to about five or six minutes. Consideration. Perhaps the unbeliever takes the word good and evil to pertain to what evokes public approval or disapproval. But if evil or good pertains to the evoking of approval or disapproval, then on that basis, the following statement would always be senseless. We sometimes say the vast majority of the community heartily approved of and willingly joined in that evil deed. But you see, if evil is what evokes the community's disapproval, then it could never be true that the majority of people engaged in an evil deed. The unbeliever, you see, is using a concept of evil that actually precludes a very common line of discussion or comment in the English language. The fact that a large number of people feel a certain way doesn't, shouldn't rationally convince anybody that that that feeling is correct. Ethics doesn't reduce the statistics. Ordinarily, people think of the goodness of something as evoking their approval, rather than their approval constituting its goodness. Even unbelievers talk and act as though there are personal traits, actions, or things which possess the property of goodness or the property of evil, irrespective of the attitudes or beliefs or feelings that people have about those traits, actions, or things. Now, if there's problems in saying that good and evil are defined by what evokes the approval of most people or the disapproval of most people, then the problem is even worse. If you think that good is defined by what evokes the approval of the individual rather than the public at large. If by the use of the word good somebody means I approve, then it turns out that we could never, ever agree with each other in ethical judgments. I realize this philosophy quickly, but I want you to see how easy it is to refute these points of view. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If good means Greg approves of it. So when I say, you know, helping that old lady that was good, and somebody says, okay, good means evokes the approval of the speaker, then it turns out you and I can never agree on an ethical judgment. You know why? Because when I say helping the old lady is good, what I mean is I approve of it. When I say that you think helping the old lady is good, that means that you approve of it. But that you approve of it and that I approve of it is not the same judgment. One is a judgment about me One is a judgment about you, and therefore there is no public or objective nature to good. The unbeliever usually turns then to what's called instrumental theories of good, saying that good is defined by the consequences that are brought about by an attitude or an action. An action is good if it achieves a certain end, like the greatest happiness for the greatest number, what we call utilitarianism. Now, the irrelevance of that concept of goodness for making ethical determinations is that one would need to be able to rate and compare happiness in order to make any judgment about goodness. If I say the good act is what promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number, then I need to be able to evaluate or in some way measure the happiness that is created by the action. Moreover, I need to be able to compare, because some actions might bring unhappiness to a few individuals or maybe to many, and the same action would bring happiness to a lot of individuals or a few. So you have unhappiness and happiness that have to be balanced, and then you have to draw a net judgment. Okay, so I'm going to give you an illustration. Let's say we take one of the students at the conference, maybe one of the students that's particularly disliked hasn't been showering using deodorant this week. And I bring this person up here, and I say, now I've got this pin, and I propose to stick this pin in this individual. Now, how many of you are going to be made happy by my doing that? Let him have it, I said, how many of you think it's going to hurt him? That's why we want you to let him have it. But you see, I've got to measure his unhappiness if I'm going to be a utilitarian. Okay, so what if the person now appeals with me? Please, Dr. Boston, don't take the pin in me. I say, give me an argument, you utilitarian, you. He says, well, it so happens that the amassed unhappiness that I will undergo outweighs the total happiness of this group. I say, well, I don't think that's true. But he's going to say, well, then how do you prove otherwise? You see, utilitarianism, which appeals to so many people, in fact, liberal theology thinks utilitarianism, which was destroyed philosophically long before Joseph Fletcher got hold of it and thought that was the way to define love, utilitarianism makes it impossible to make moral judgments. All we can do is guess at what would bring the greatest happiness. For the greatest number, we can't really prove it one way or another because we can't calculate all the consequences and we can't compare pains and pleasures. Utilitarianism is really unworkable. But there's even a more fundamental logical problem with utilitarianism. Utilitarianism, or any consequential instrumental view of goodness, says good is what produces a particular end. But you see, you could only know that that was good if the end that is mentioned is what good. That is to say, consequential theories of ethics always beg the question as to what is intrinsically good. This is to say, well, the good is whatever achieves this goal. Libertarians will say it's good if it maximizes freedom for people. Well, they're right if freedom for people is itself good. But that's what has to be defended. Unbelievers don't do that. So I've tried to run through quickly some views of goodness that have been propagated in the 20th century. Evokes approval, public, individual, or is instrumental. And it turns out none of them are workable theories of meta ethics, that is the philosophy of ethics. What is the nature of good and evil? Why am I bothering to bore you with these illustrations? Because if the unbeliever says you have an inconsistency in your system, you say God is all good. You say, God is all powerful. And then there's this evil. You have the right to say, can you prove that that's evil? And it turns out they can't prove that what they're talking about is evil. Be careful. Right here. I've noticed taught Christians to do apologetics for a number of years. Trust me, many people get bamboozled just this point. Because if I'm dealing with an unbeliever, let's talk about the guy who called in on that radio program. He's talking about a terrible case of child molestation. And I say, you need to show on your premises why that is evil. He comes back and he says to me, oh, you don't think that's evil? And the temptation is for you to think, oh, yeah, I don't want to say that that's not evil. That is evil. So the point is you can say that it's evil because your worldview accounts for that judgment, because there is a living and true Creator of heaven and earth who sovereignly controls all things and his character is holy and unchanging, has revealed himself and so forth and so on. It makes perfectly good sense for a Christian to say Child molestation is wicked. It's abominable in the eyes of God. I would argue that it should be punished with death. It's terrible. But I can make sense of that. What you want to know is, how can the unbeliever make sense of that? See what I'm getting at? You want to say, well, on what basis do you call that wicked? Now, if the unbeliever gives us his philosophy of ethics or his basis, something that allows for arbitrariness, relativism, then of course, he's lost the argument. Now, do we understand this class? I'm looking. Okay. Okay, good. So the person who calls in tells me that good is what gives displeasure or unhappiness. I suggest to the caller that if the Christian God doesn't exist and good is just what gives pleasure or happiness, and this is a very unhappy thing, he's forgotten that it gave a great deal of happiness, allegedly to the molester. And so the irony is, and the caller had to stop and think for a while, I think he saw it. But you could tell, you know, it's like I said, the irony is you're being angry at God for this case of molestation. Angry actually condones this case of molestation. Because what you're left with if you reject God is everybody does what's right in his own eyes. And if you have that philosophy, let me just remind you, people who say everyone has the right to do what they want to do don't ever really mean that. They just mean as long as everybody lives within the general parameters of what I want them to do, everybody has the right to do what they want to do. And so you have to give the counter example and make them bite the bullet. You say, well, how about the molester? Does he have the right to do what he wants to do? Because if he does, you shouldn't have been trying him and condemning him. You should have just said, well, hey, it's different strokes for different folks. Some people molest children to get their thrills, okay? Now the unbelievers, really unhappy says, I don't believe that. And I say, I'm glad you don't believe believe that. Neither do I. But I'd like you to give me an account of your moral condemnation. So earlier when I said, you want the unbeliever to take evil seriously, that's because you don't want them to kind of weasel out later with, you know, evil is just what makes people unhappy. Evil is just a relative judgment depending upon your desires or your ultimate goals. When a person condemns child molestation, or you can pick whatever example you want, they are assuming moral absolutes. But moral absolutes cannot be made sense of, are not intelligible except in the Christian worldview. So up on the board here, when we look at the four things we're considering, remember the preconditions of intelligibility. The problem of evil is not even intelligible. You can't even make sense of the problem of evil unless you begin with the Christian conception of the world. Now, the reply that will sometimes get to this is, well, maybe as an unbeliever, I'm not able to call something evil. But the fact is, you Christians within the circle of your thinking still have a paradox that has not been resolved. The unbeliever says, I don't have the right to call that evil, but you call that evil. And I want to know how you can call that evil and still believe that God is all powerful and God is all good. Brighten your eyes here. Nod your heads. You understand how this is a slightly different approach to the problem. Now we need to answer, how can we believe that? There's no inconsistency there. And this is where presuppositional thinking, I think, is so powerful. Remember that we always evaluate our experiences or the particulars that we encounter in light of our ultimate assumptions, our presuppositions. So what are my ultimate presuppositions? If I'm a Christian, I presuppose God's revelation of himself, what he says about himself. And we learn in the Scriptures that God is all good, God is all powerful. We also learn in the Scriptures that evil exists, but for the time being, I'll just say that's something we observe in the world. If my ultimate presupposition is the goodness and the power of God, and then I point or someone points to evil in the world, I'm going to evaluate that in light of my presuppositions. And draw what conclusion? I'm going to draw the conclusion there's a morally sufficient reason for that evil that we find in the world. If that is my worldview, it is perfectly logical for me to draw the conclusion not that God doesn't exist, but. But that God must have a good reason for what he's done. This is a lot more profound logically than you might realize. The unbeliever has brought the problem of evil to you, thinking that you must evaluate evil in a neutral fashion. And if you approach it neutrally, the question is legitimately asked. So is There or is there not such a God? But if my commitment is to the existence of this God, when evil is presented to me, I draw this conclusion that evil must have a morally sufficient reason because the God I worship is all powerful and all good. That is just as legitimate a way of reasoning as actually it's more legitimate, but it's just formally as legitimate as the line of reasoning the unbeliever wants to take. And that is that evil shows God can't be all good or all powerful. So what you tell the unbeliever is, well, we Christians believe something else. Not only is God all good, not only is God all powerful. We have a third proposition taught to us in the Bible. God has a good reason for everything he does. And with that there is no longer a logical problem of evil. The logical problem just dissolved. That is, I took the logical sting out of it by adding this other proposition. But I'll bet as you're sitting there, the dissatisfaction, if there is any, with approaching the problem of evil in this way you feel is, well, yeah, there's no logical problem, but there's certainly a great psychological problem. You see, the problem of evil, ultimately, I don't think is a logical difficulty for people. It isn't all that difficult to point out. Well, if God is a good reason for the evil, then it's not something contrary to his character. If God is a morally sufficient reason for the evil that exists, as the Bible teaches us, his goodness and power are not challenged by the reality of evil events or evil things in human experience. The only logical problem which arises in connection with discussions of evil is the unbeliever's philosophical inability to account for the objectivity of his moral judgments. So the problem of evil is not fundamentally a logical one. The problem which men have with God when they come face to face with evil and, and suffering in the world, I want to maintain is not philosophical, but it's psychological. That is to say, we all find it emotionally very hard to have faith in God and trust his goodness and power when we are not given the reason why bad things happen to us and others. The unbeliever presents the problem of evil I'm suggesting, whether he says it explicitly or not, with this underlying demand. If there's a morally sufficient reason for this evil, then I need to know what it is. Why did such terrible things happen? Unbelievers internally cry out for an answer to that question by the waivers do too, as I've already confessed. But God does not always, and indeed, if I read the Bible Correctly, he rarely provides an explanation to human beings for the evil that they experience or that they observe. Deuteronomy 29, 29, we read the secret things belong to the Lord our God. As an aside, I might add, even if God told us why evil things took place, we might not understand it. There's kind of an arrogance in Dr. Bonson, or you or the unbeliever when we say, God, give me a reason for why I'm suffering. Because if God were to state to us the reason, we might be totally baffled. And that's because, as Isaiah tells us, God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God may be doing things with the evil you're undergoing, or that your loved ones. Ones undergo doing things which are so complex and so in a sense, mysterious that even if he told you, you might not understand it. But anyway, God doesn't usually tell us why we suffer evil. Nevertheless, the fact remains that though he hasn't given us the reason for our misery and suffering or the injustice of this world, they are part of his plan for history and for our individual lives. And as God says, for those who love him, everything will work together for good. And those who don't love him are going to be ultimately cursed, eternally cursed. So the Bible, you see, calls on us to trust that God is a morally sufficient reason for the evil that is found in this world. But the Bible does not give us the reason or reasons that are morally sufficient for the evil, leaving it up to us then to finally judge whether God has been good or not. But the unbeliever will find that intolerable. Intolerable for his pride, for his feelings, maybe for his rationality, because he refuses to trust God, he won't believe in a God that doesn't tell him why evil things take place. The unbeliever says, unless I'm given the reason that I can examine and assess, I won't believe in him. And so let's, you know, put it briefly, look at the whole story, reduce it. Now, the bottom line is the unbeliever won't trust God unless God subordinates himself to the intellectual authority and the moral evaluation of the unbeliever. That's what it comes down to. The unbeliever says, let God be on trial. And when I'm satisfied that he has a good enough reason for the evil, then I'll trust in him. Unless God consents to trade places with the sinner, the sinner won't trust him. Now, what do you think? Is God willing to enter into that kind of negotiation. God says, well, since you're the guilty party, I'll have you judge me. No. The problem of evil comes down to the question of whether a person should have faith in God and his word rather than place faith in one's own thinking and evaluations and values. It finally is a question of ultimate authority within a person's life. Now, listen, if at the beginning of this lecture when I introduced the problem of evil, I would have said, you know, that really comes down to just the question of what's your ultimate authority. You all would have said, boy, that sounds a little too quick. But I hope upon analysis, you see, there's no escape from that. In the end, it's a matter of whether the unbeliever will judge God or whether God will judge the unbeliever. Now, what happens if we say, unbelievers, you all have the right to judge the Almighty. Do unbelievers all agree with one another about what's good and what's evil? Nope. The minute you take it out of the absolute authority of God, in a sense, you've made it impossible for any moral judgment to be made. The only logical approach, and the only one that maintains logical consistency, is to say only God has the right to declare what is good and evil. But from the psychological standpoint, it finally becomes a matter of ultimate commitment and trust. The way in which unbelievers struggle with the problem of evil is only a continuing testimony to the way in which evil entered history the first place. The Bible tells us that sin and all of its accompanying miseries entered this world through the first transgression of Adam and Eve. And the question with which Adam and Eve were confronted way back then is precisely the question that unbelievers are facing today. Should we have faith in God's word simply because he says so? He says, I've got a morally sufficient reason for what I'm doing. Trust me. Follow this. Or should we evaluate God and his Word on the basis of our own ultimate intellectual authority and moral authority? God told Adam and Eve, don't eat of a certain tree testing them to see if they would define good and evil for themselves. God said, trust me. I'm telling you, it's evil. Don't do it. Satan comes along and he challenges the goodness of God. He says, God's got base motives for this, Eve. And so you're going to have to decide, will you really die if you eat of this? Can you trust God to do what is right for you, Eve? And the entire course of Human history rested on how she would approach that problem. Hypothetically, Eve could have said, I'm not going to listen to you, Satan, get behind me. You're challenging the word of the only ultimate authority in this world. You have no right to call into question the motives of God or his goodness. But you know that isn't what she did. And instead she said, well, Satan's got a hypothesis, God has a hypothesis, and I'll have to be the final judge. And that's where evil came from on the Christian story. Since they would not presuppose the goodness of God, Adam and Eve have visited upon the human race whom they, particularly Adam, represented all the torments that are too many and too painful for us to inventory. When unbelievers refuse to accept the goodness of God on the basis of his own self revelation, they are simply perpetuating the source of all of our human woes. That is to say, rather than solving the problem of evil, the unbeliever is just part of the problem of evil. And so let's get two things from this lecture. First of all, the problem of evil does not present anything like an intellectual basis for a lack of faith in God. There is no intellectual or, if you will, logical problem in what's called the problem of evil. Rather, what's called the problem of evil is simply a personal expression of a lack of faith. That's true for the unbeliever. When the unbeliever says I'm not going to trust God, you give me a reason or else. But of course, when it's a psychological problem for doctor or for you or any other believer, it's also a lack of faith, isn't it? You know, and God constantly humbles me, brings me back around that circle again and he says, will you trust me for the sake of my promises and my word, or do I have to prove everything to you? Or to put it very simply, Greg, will you be God or will I be God? The problem of evil, when it's urged against Christianity is not a logical problem. It's a psychological problem. It is not a ground for a lack of faith. It is simply an expression of a lack of faith. So the question on the card was saying that God is all powerful and all knowing. Why does evil exist? As far as I can see, the only answer the Bible gives us is to glorify God God all the more fully. Somebody says, well, how's that going to work? We're going to have to wait to find out. But if you don't wish to Glorify him and trust him, you'll find out you won't be able to call anything evil at all. So from the preconditions of intelligibility, we have now refuted the problem of evil. Another card picks up a little bit on what's sometimes called the problem of evil. Says, how can a loving, sovereign, predestinating God endlessly punish an unbeliever in hell? And many non Christians use it. They'll say, well, the doctrine of hell is unjust. Well, now if you saw how I dealt with the problem of evil, you can by analogy deal with this too. To say that God is unjust, the send somebody to hell forever presupposes some standard of what justice. But how can the unbeliever have any standard of justice at all? You see, I told you about the problem of evil. If we believe God is all good and all powerful, and then somebody says evil exists, then we draw the conclusion, well, there must be a morally good reason for it. Likewise, if God is just and he will send sinners to hell forever, then we draw the conclusion sin must be really bad. The real problem over the doctrine of hell is not what all of these compromising evangelicals want to make it in our day, and it's not the problem that unbelievers claim that it is. The problem of hell is that we don't take sin seriously enough. Because if I believe that God is good and just and that committing adultery or telling a lie or gossip or whatever is sufficient to send me to hell forever, then that should tell me something about the depth of the wickedness of sin. Because of the infinite holiness of God. Sin calls for infinite punishment. How can God endorse genocide in the Old Testament, killing not only men and women who admittedly were in utter rebellion and but also all the children of the sinful nation. This question once again says, how can God be deemed just if he did something like that? What's presupposed by the question an absolute standard of justice by which God will now stand in judgment, that is, he will be judged by that absolute standard. Well then how could God. I mean, how could there be an absolute standard standard if God himself is not the one who stands behind it? All of these versions of problem of evil have the same resolution. Ask about the preconditions of intelligibility. By the way, the question here says, admittedly they were in utter rebellion. Well, if they were in utter rebellion, then God was just for condemning them. Well then what about their children as well? That brings up Another question. Are children guilty before God? Or let me put it in this form. Does the unbelieving Aborigine Bushman in the heart of Australia in the year 50 A.D. burn forever when he has never been exposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? The answer is yes, he does. I don't say that with relish or with glee, but you must take very seriously that the person who has not been exposed to the Gospel, even as the child in the previous question, are deemed guilty before God. If you have doubt about that, take the book of Romans. Read chapter one thoroughly. Paul tells us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Paul describes the entire human race as guilty of breaking the laws of God and that all men know the laws of God through the testimony of conscience and also from the created order roundabout. And that because all men know these laws, they are guilty for violating them. Please understand, time is short. God is not going to send anybody to hell for not hearing the Gospel. When the question's presented this way, the suggestion is, well, if they didn't have a chance, God's being arbitrary. But they are not going to be judged for not hearing the gospel or believing it. They're going to be sent to hell for violating the law of God, which they know in the natural order and in their heart of hearts that you truly believe in Christianity and you are very convincing. But Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims and Mormons are equally devout convincing. So why should I believe you? This is the problem of competing religious claims. The problem of competing religious claims in witnessing to somebody or answering their objections to Christianity, you may get them to the place where they're saying, well, there must be a God. I see that now. And the objections I had from evil and so forth, they aren't really logical. They're scientific, psychological. But then how do I know it's your God rather than the Muslim God? Or how do I know that a cult like the Mormons is not correct, rather than like you Protestants with your Bible and things of that nature? And for many people, that has seemed to be the most difficult problem in apologetics. How do we make Christianity stand out from the rest? Now, I'm going to give you a short answer and a long answer, and the short answer is very important. You probably will not appreciate how powerful the short answer is, though, and that's why I'll give you the long answer too. But the short answer is, I have not been Defending a God that's short enough. Okay, now. No, no, no. The short answer. I have not been defending the idea that there is a God. What have I been defending? I have been defending a very specific concept of God. That is to say, I have been defending the biblical God. My arguments have had nothing to do with what we might call generic. You all know what generic things are. Probably in the grocery store back home, you have generic products, don't you? You can buy this brand of tea or that brand of tea, or you can buy generic tea, right? It's a little blue line some places, or it's just a white box with red lettering or something. It just looks very plain. That's just generic tea. People will often fall into the mistake of trying to defend generic theism, just the idea that there's a God somewhere of some character. But in every one of the answers that I've given you thus far, and I trust if I'm faithful in all that I'll give you in this conference, I'm not going to be defending anything generic. I'm always defending and always only defending Christian theism, which is to say biblically defined theism. And the reason I'm emphasizing this, in terms of the short answers, you have to understand that it's only the biblical God, only the God who reveals himself in the scriptures that provides a worldview that is not arbitrary, inconsistent, have consequences that anybody would want to get rid of, and provides the preconditions of intelligibility. All the other concepts of God, all the other religions, including the Christian cults, do not do that. So you have to be kind of careful. Many times if you're witnessing to somebody on campus or, you know, you're in the cafeteria and having a talk, there might be a friend who comes along that's say a Mormon will sit down. And this Mormon wants to, you know, kind of chime in with you. This Mormon likes, in abstract or in general terms, what you're saying. So the Mormons say, yeah, we stand together on this. And you need to, in a polite and kind way, not sarcastic and cutting, but you need to say, no, we don't stand together on this. I am not defending the Mormon concept of God. Or if you have, say, a Muslim friend, Muslim, you are sitting down as a Christian with your Muslim friend and the two of you are talking to an atheist. And it may appear that you and the Muslims, see, we side. You know, we're buddies here for a while because we want this atheist to admit he's wrong and that we are generally right, there is a God. And then after we get to that step, we take another step and talk about, now, who's got the right idea of this God? Is, Is it Jehovah or is it Allah? That is not the proper approach to apologetics. Apologetics is a comparison of worldviews. Not an abstract, not generically, but very specifically and in detail. The only worldview that I defend is the biblically defined worldview. It's only Christian theism that I defend. So now when somebody comes along and asks a question similar to what's on this card, say, well, how. How do you know that it's yours rather than the Muslim, I'll say, the only one I've been defending is mine. Okay, but then the Muslim's going to say, I've got a worldview too, and I've got a revelation too, and I've got an absolute personal God too. And so now how are we going to choose between them? Anybody have any ideas what we might want to look at in the Muslim approach? Islam, like maybe whether it's arbitrary and full of inconsistencies, what its consequences are, and whether it provides the preconditions of intelligibility. See, we get misled. And by the way, there are schools of apologetics who look at presuppositionalism and they don't understand this either because they think, oh, yeah, well, that, that'll work real good with an atheist, but won't do any good when it comes to competing revelations. Well, sure it will, because we're going to evaluate these competing revelations on the same basis. You have to understand, I don't believe that Christianity, you know, is. How can I say this conforms to what we're looking at on the board here just because I say so. Christian claims, she said, that's just arbitrary. It's not arbitrary. God revealed that. Oh, well, it's full of inconsistencies. Show me one. Well, the Trinity. And then you go to show how the early churches define the Trinity in a way that's not inconsistent, so forth. Well, what about the consequences? Of course, we do real well on that. Unless somebody looks at the consequences of what is hypocrisy and a violation of God's law. And you should remember this when people point out, well, Christians have lived in a terrible way, blah, blah, blah, they killed those witches in Salem or people who claim to be witches. People bring that up. I always want to say, but don't you see, it's the Bible that enables us to condemn the killing of innocent People, people who claim to be witches. And so it's not the Bible that you should be angry with, those people claiming to follow the Bible. And they weren't those hypocrites or those people being disobedient. Anyway, the consequences is something we're glad to look at. And then the preconditions of intelligibility. The Christian story, if I can put it that way, and I don't mean it's a, you know, fabricated myth or something, but if you just look at the Christian explanation of this world and of human life and what, what's wrong with us and how we can get right with God, so forth, the Christian story will make sense out of logic and will make sense out of science, will make sense out of morality, will make sense out of human dignity, will make sense out of the ability of the human mind to know the world outside of it. We'll make sense of human community and on and on. And so we can ask those same questions. Now, when somebody comes and says, oh, well, I've got my own God, my own revelation, you want to say, okay, is this arbitrary? Are there inconsistencies in it? What are the consequences? And does it finally provide the preconditions of intelligibility? So we come to the question of competing religions. You can evaluate competing religions in the same way you evaluate atheism. That's the point of the short answer. Now the long answer, it turns out I'd rather leave this on the board. I'm not going to put this outline up. You can cut the cake different ways. And if you read a book or if you choose yourself to outline it differently, you won't offend me. But I've done this for a while and I found this helpful. Maybe you will as well. I would suggest you can divide all of the religions and cults of the world into three groups. Into three groups. And the reason I'm doing this is if you learn how to refute a member of group one, a member of group two, a member of group three, that same technique will be helpful then for the other members of the group that we don't have time to touch on at this conference. You all understand the method here I'm going to illustrate how to deal with three different kinds of religious competition or competitors. And from that, I hope you'll pick up some tools for dealing with others in those classes as well. We'll go to the three classes. First of all, if you look out there, you'll find religions of transcendent mysticism, transcendent mysticism. And I mean by this as a broad category, those religions that put their emphasis on that which goes beyond human experience and as such can only be contacted in a super rational or mystical way. There are religions that emphasize transcendent mysticism. One of the best examples is the world religion, Hinduism and all of its variants, all the denominational, you know, differences between the Hindus. According to the Hindu, Brahman, God is everything. But of course it doesn't appear that way to us. And so we have to understand that Brahman goes beyond our experience and beyond our rationality. And the only way you can get right with God, which is the all, is through mystical contemplation, yoga, and finally the enlightenment that comes. Okay, There are religions that have that kind of stress. It's all very mysterious. It's beyond our rationality. Now, what is the first problem that you're going to have with anybody who says, my religion is beyond human rationality, beyond human experience? You say, well, then how do you know about it? If it's beyond rationality and beyond human experience, then there's nothing you could possibly tell me about it. Because anything you would try to tell me would have to be rational and it would have to be based on your experience. And therefore if you're making these kind of mystical claims, they are going to be arbitrary. When somebody who has a mystical religion says, well, this is what you need to do to be right with the oneness of being. You can come up with a different alternative. So I know, I think eating hot fudge sundaes is what makes us right with the oneness of being. Say, oh, no, but that isn't what the sages of old said. You say, well, but so what? They have their opinion, I have mine. Why should I listen to the me or you? Whatever. Let's look at Hinduism, particularly. The Hindu tells us that the problems in this world from our seeing things as discrete and separate from one another, because Brahman, the ultimate reality, God, if you will, is everything. There are no distinctions, therefore. And when we draw such distinctions, then we are not seeing reality for what it really is. And so in this world, this world of Maya illusion, we walk around drawing distinctions, saying there's really two things or 30 things or a thousand things, when in fact there's only one thing. Now, the Beatles went through a phase in their music, in their lyrics, when they were interested in Eastern mysticism, a more or less Hindu approach to life, you know, and you hear things there about turning off your mind and floating downstream. It is not dying. In fact, you Are me and I am you and we are all together. No differences between us. I never knew the Beatles to hold that philosophy when someone tried to take their wallet out of the room. But nevertheless, if they were living up to their religious convictions at that point, they would have said, everything is the same. There are no distinctions. There's no difference between you and me, and there's no difference between us and the trees and the lakes and the. And the skies and so forth. All is one. Now, when you live in this world, it's hard to see that. And that's why you have to meditate. You go through the yoga and eventually you'll be enlightened. And when you are enlightened, you will enter into nirvana at that point, according to Hinduism, then the drop of water that represents you as an individual will be spliced back into the shoreless ocean of being. The shoreless ocean of being. So there are no distinctions. There's no beginning, no end. And you are, you know, you're now part of that and you draw no more distinctions. Okay? Now the amazing thing is, for something which is supposed to be mystical and beyond human rationality and beyond human experience, there's a whole lot of sentences that were used in human language to explain that, weren't there. That should make you suspicious right away. How can you say that? Listen closely. People who don't study world religions have this really stupid idea. Well, the answer is you Christians have a revelation and the Hindus have a revelation. It's called the Bhagavad Gita. But you have to look at what the worldview says. On the Christian story, there is a personal God who created the world sovereignly, controls all things, who can reveal himself in language even written in a book. That story may be true, may be false, but at least the story hangs together. It comports with itself. The Bhagavad Gita cannot be a personal revelation of God. God, because God is not personal in Hinduism. The Bhagavad Gita cannot be made an analogy to the Bible in a formal sense. They're both quote religious books because people acting religiously read them. But what the Bible claims to be is nothing at all like what the Bhagavad Gita claims to be. So when people give you all these sentences, the Hinduism, you have the right to say, how do you know that? You're just being arbitrary. God didn't tell you that? Oh, yes. Brahman revealed this through the great philosophers of our religion. Brahman revealed it. That's a personal statement about a being that you're telling me is not personal. Or even worse, let's look at those sentences. And those of you who've been to our conference before, before have heard this refutation. I always enjoy it because it's so easy to do. If I run into, say, a Hare Krishna, one of the versions of Hindu thought, at the airport. And the Hare Krishna goes through all of this stuff and he says, you know, you're not in nirvana. You're in this world of Maya. You are on the wheel of life, and if you don't get things right, you'll be reincarnated. You ought to go through this again until you finally get enlightenment. Then you can enter nirvana. I always say, now let me just see if I can tell this story back to you. If I got this right. The real problem in my life and in this world is that we draw these artificial distinctions when in fact the ultimate reality is one. We see many things, and we shouldn't draw those distinctions. He thinks, boy, I almost have a convert here. And I say, and I. I haven't entered into Nirvana yet because I keep drawing these distinctions. And I need to be enlightened and to give up that way of thinking. Yes, that's exactly right. I draw the conclusion. Well, then I am already in Nirvana. No, you're not. Because you're still here in this world that sees things in an illusory way. I say, now wait a minute. When you say that, you're assuming there's a distinction between Maya and nirvana. And if there's a distinction between Maya and Nirvana, then you're wrong that ultimate reality has no distinctions. Some of you are wondering, is that the end of the lecture? That's the end of it. Because the Hindu has just given you the rope by which you hang him. If you listen to the story, it's arbitrary and it's got inconsistencies. Or another. Well, we'll get to the preconditions in just a second. If there are no distinctions, then I must already be in nirvana because there can't be a difference between nirvana and anything else. Everything is Nirvana. Or you could say, everything is Maya or everything is samsara. If everything is one, ultimately, then it makes no sense to even have a sentence that distinguishes one word from another. Now, I'll. I'm not making this up. I'm not making it easy on myself. You will then have Hindus tell you things like this. Well, that's your problem, doctor. You're committed to this Western logic. And so you found an inconsistency in Our theology. And you think you're so smart, but our theology is, what did I tell you? Transcendent. It is mystical, it is beyond logic. And that's at this point that we're now dealing with the preconditions of intelligibility. And I say to the Hindu, well, if you tell me that your religion does not follow the laws of logic, then I tell you that it does. Sound familiar? A few days ago we went into this. Somebody says, I reject logic, okay? If a person rejects logic, they have no right to insist on consistency then, do they? Anybody who rejects logic says, this is permissible P. And it is not the case that P. Both of those are permissible if you reject logic. So when somebody tells me I reject logic, if he really does, then it is permissible for me to contradict him. And here's the contradiction I choose. You say you reject logic. Then I'll affirm that you don't reject logic. And on your view you can't say, uh, that contradicts what I said. Contradicts. Well, that's resting on what logic? Okay, so this is like three different layers now dealing with Hinduism. I hope you can see the Hindu religious option is no competition. If you wish to be rational, I will grant you there will be people who will say, well, then, if I have to give up rationality to be a Hindu, so be it. And then you'll say, well, if you, if you give up rationality, you don't. Then they'll say, okay, I won't talk to you then. So then you can't refute me. The best defense is not to say, say anything. But you see, from a Christian standpoint, and I mean this sincerely and tenderly, from the Christian standpoint, even if the person doesn't want to talk, they're not inaccessible to God. The Holy Spirit doesn't worry about the fact that they've closed their mouth. God can still reach them. They'll say, well, you're going to have to think logically even though you won't say anything. No, I'll become insane rather than, than be a Christian. Well, remember, I mean, I'm interested in the conversion of the individual, but from an apologetical standpoint, honoring Christ and the truthfulness of his Word. When a person says, I'd rather be insane or I'd rather give up the laws of logic, all you want to say is speak up into the microphone, please. Because that's just another way of declaring the only way to be rational is to be a Christian. And that's what we're trying to show. And if somebody says, well, then I don't wish to be rational because I hate God so much, they'll say, well, you know, in a sense, that's very consistent of you, you inconsistent person, because what you're saying is your heart is so much in rebellion against God that you don't want to be rational if it requires Christianity. Okay? Religions of transcendent mysticism. The second category in world religions and cults would be a category that I call religions of eminent moralism. Eminent is the opposite of transcendent. By the way, there are two spellings of what we say when we use the word eminent. This is IMM a N E N T rather than in. We're not talking about the eminence of somebody like a movie star. But eminence means it has emanated or it's near at hand. It's close to or part of human experience. There are some world religions that don't emphasize what goes beyond human experience, but rather what's here and now and part of our detailed experience or our daily experience. And those religions prove to be not so much mystical like the Hindu, Christian and other sorts, but moralistic religions. And a good example here would be Confucianism or Buddhism. Okay, Confucius was not. I mean, Confucius asserted something that he thought was transcendent TN the heavens. But even at that, as you can tell, the heavens are not as transcendent as Brahman, which is beyond all categorization of words and so forth. And the emphasis in Confucianism is not upon ritual meditation, mysticism, and so forth, but upon living in a certain way. And so you all know the Analects of Confucius. Confucius say, okay, and so the man, the noble man in Confucian religion, the nobleman lives in a certain way. He protects the face of his neighbor. What? Which is a way of saying he does not publicly shame people. He is courteous on and on and on. And so there are plenty of religions like that. And by the way, that is the most devastating refutation of religions of eminent moralism. There are so many of them. How is that a refutation? Let's say somebody you know is arguing with you, you're a Christian, and you say, well, Jesus tells me to do xyz. The other person says, well, I don't follow Jesus. I follow Confucius. And Confucius say abc we have every right to say, well, what authority does Confucius have? Now you're all sitting there thinking, well, there's Got to be more. No. Don't you understand? That's the end of it. So Confucius said this. I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but quite honestly, big deal. Who's Confucius? Okay, now the Confucian person says, okay, this is a reversible argument. So then who's Jesus? And you say, he's the Son of God and he will be the judge of all mankind. Well, I don't have to accept that, you say, well, you may not accept that, but you have to understand that in terms of the Christian story, it makes sense to say Jesus is our moral authority. But in terms of your view of the universe, where tien, the heavens control all things. So what? What's so special about Confucius? He was especially wise. Now, are you going to be fooled by that? The next question is, and who says so? Who was the person who had a contest, like, about zucchini and its proper use? I want all the wise people, all the guys who think they're wise to come forward and I'll judge you, and then I'll determine who's the wisest of all. And even if there were such a contest, the next question would be, and how do you know who's the wisest of all these eminent religions that don't have a transcendent authority to appeal to that which goes beyond human experience? That's what we have as Christians. The creator of heaven and earth says, jesus is my Son. This is my beloved Son. Hear him. Jesus says, no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals him. Now, you may reject that as not being true, and then there are consequences for that rejection, both intellectual and spiritual and eternal and so forth. But at least it makes sense to say everyone's supposed to bow the knee to Jesus in terms of the Christian story. But in the Confucian story or the Buddhist story, who cares what the Buddha said? Why should I listen to Buddha? Because he's the Enlightened One. Well, and how do I know that he's the Enlightened One rather than Confucius or Garth in Wayne's World? And I've always thought there was a real religious solemnity and special character to that guy. There is no way to judge. It proves to be arbitrary. There are a number of inconsistencies in these religions, but, you know, I can't give you a survey of all of them at this point. So maybe I'll give you one or two most moralistic faiths will tell you that the problem that men have individually and corporately, is that they don't live up to a particular code. And they will say that all men fail to live up to that code. Just take their story as far as they tell it. If it's true that all men fail to live up to that code, then there must be something wrong with men, right? If there's something wrong with men, then they're going to need some help to get out of trouble. I'm being very vague on purpose here, very abstract, because I want you to see the problem's the same in all moralistic cults. If man is guilty because he hasn't followed the code, the question is first, how are you going to change man so that now he'll start following the code? If you grant that all mankind's got this problem, then you need something like, well, what we call redemption, deliverance. But moralistic faiths don't have redemption. You know what they put in the place of redemption? Try harder to follow the code. There is no hope in moralistic faiths. You say, well, okay, I've broken all the rules that Confucius gives. What should I do to become a noble person? Person? Well, start living by the rules. But don't you see, my previous problem was that I was breaking the rules. What's going to make me a person that can now keep the rules? No answer. But it's worse than that. If the problem is that you were breaking the rules previously, even if tomorrow morning, somehow, miraculously, without explanation, you could now live up to all the rules for the rest of your life, the guilt of your past transactions would not have been dealt with. Moralistic faiths not only fail to deal with the human problem, they cannot bring it about that people who are law breakers can now become law keepers. They can't deal with the guilt of past law breaking. And so there are these internal contradictions or inadequacies in all moralistic faiths. Eminent faith to as well. Well, let's move on quickly here to the third category. We have, first of all, religions of transcendent mysticism. Got to get my mouth to work. Secondly, religions of eminent moralism. Thirdly, you have religions that are counterfeits of Christianity. And like I say, I've taught this and debated this for a number of years and I find this a helpful way to break it down. Hinduism isn't aping Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, they don't ape Christianity. But there are a number of religions which in one way or another are counterfeits of Christianity. And now within that third Category, we don't want anyone nodding off here because I have yalapeno peppers to throw at you. Tomorrow we graduate to zucchinis. That will really hurt. Within that third category of counterfeits of Christianity, you have three subdivisions. You have polytheistic perversions of Christianity, Unitarian perversions of Christianity, and thirdly, pseudo messianic perversions of Christianity. That is where the main error in the first case is that this alleged version of Christianity is polytheistic. In the second case, the perversion is a rejection of the Trinity. You have but one person that is God. You have Unitarian perversions of Christianity. And then thirdly, you have the main problem in the religion being a false messiah or some person or rule or being of some sort that takes the place of Jesus in a deliverance function as illustrations. In the first category, a polytheistic perversion of Christianity is Mormonism. This may surprise some of you. It surprises Mormons who come to my door. I kid you not. I have often. When they come, I always invite them in. Sure, I'd love to talk about religion. Come on in. Can you stay a while? And they'll sit down. You know, you always let them speak first, give their nice little spiel, you know, say, well, but. But I have problems with you. You all are Mormons, right? You forgot to mention that. But that's okay. You're Mormons. The problem I have is this idea that there are many gods. And I've actually had on a number of occasions, people say, we don't believe that. I'll say, well, sure you do. No, we don't believe that. I said, well, excuse me, I'm going to get my Book of Mormon. And don't you also hold to the pearl of great price? Oh, you do? Okay. And the doctrines and the covenant. Okay, go and get their three big books. You know, I mean, big in the sense of authoritative books. And then you point out all these polytheistic passages. Now, this is shameful because I'm doing their homework for them. But I want, you know, Mormonism, according to its own authoritative documents, teaches there are many gods. I remember one, two girls, two young ladies that came by and were shocked when I said that. And I pointed out. And they said, well, we're going to go ask about that. We'll be back. I said, please do come back. And they did come back in a couple of weeks. And then they came in as though this is some great revelation. And this solved the problem. They said, okay, well, we do believe there are many gods, but there's only one God for this universe. Well, big deal. So there's only one God. That's, by the way, called henotheism, the idea that you worship only one God. But there are many out there. And all sorts of problems with polytheism can be brought up. But you need to know that Mormons often are not even aware of their own theology. Okay, now somebody's going to ask the question. In fact, someone did ask the question. Well, then, why we accept the Bible? Why don't we accept the Book of Mormon? Let's ask, what do Mormons say the relationship is between the Bible and the Book of Mormon? Do they reject the Bible? Some of you may already know? No, they do not reject the Bible. They say that God revealed all these books that we consider biblical and that a number of years later, Jesus made a revelation of himself to the Indians of North America. And from this we get the Book of Mormon. So they see the Book of Mormon as an additional revelation to the Bible. What does the Bible tell us then? Is the judge or the standard of judgment for additional revelation? That is, since they grant the Christian worldview, that is, they'll say it in words. Ultimately, they don't really, but since they will say the Bible is authoritative, you say, okay, well, then we can look at the Bible for the standards of additional revelations as they come. And one of those standards is further revelation cannot contradict what God has said previously. If a prophet comes to you and he says, follow after other gods that you have not known and so forth, or as the apostles say, if somebody comes to you and says that Jesus is that the Messiah has not come in the flesh and so forth, then you're to reject that alleged further revelation. So this is a biblical standard. They say they're committed to the Bible. That means they are committed to judging the Book of Mormon by previous revelation. You all with me? So now all you need to do is show that Mormon theology in the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great price and so forth is in conflict with the Bible. A good place to start is whether there's one God or many. By the way. And there are any number of other things, because this always happens. Time is short. I can't give you all the illustrations. I might, but you go through and show contradictions. By the way, Mormons believe some rather strange things. Not just that there are many gods. Some of you are chuckling. Maybe you've already heard some of the things they believe. Do you realize that Mormons believe that Adam was a God? Adam, as he walked in the garden was our God. So when you point out these contradictions, what you have done is on their own terms, you have refuted the Book of Mormon as a revelation of the God. Now you're probably thinking they're not going to sit down and take that just that easily, Dr. Bonson. And no, they aren't. Because now you're going to find out that what they meant when they said they accept the Bible is they mean they accept the Bible as it's properly interpreted and translated. And when the Bible is properly interpreted and translated, then they say it is consistent with the further revelations like the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of great price. Now what are we going to do? You're going to say, well, how do we know that you have a proper translation of the Bible? You need to ask Mormons for documentary evidence for their translation of the Bible Bible because you have to understand it's not a matter of how you take a particular Greek or Hebrew word here and there. Their rewriting of the Bible is pretty amazing. In Genesis 3 in the Mormon Bible, Satan offers to God to redeem mankind. That doesn't look like just the semantic difference on a few words in Hebrew. That looks like somebody's added something to the story. Story. In Genesis 6, Adam is baptized by immersion in the Mormon Bible. Again, I don't think that's just the translation of a few Hebrew words. Something gives. There's a long prophecy by Enoch given in the Book of Genesis that we don't have in our Book of Genesis at all. We learn in the Mormon Bible that man's ability to propagate so sexually rest on his fall into sin. That's why men are now able to make babies. And Amazingly, in the 50th chapter of Genesis in the Mormon Bible, we have a prediction of the appearance of someone called Joseph Smith. Well, I think it's a little understatement to say, isn't that a little too convenient? And so you're going to have to say we need some manuscript evidence for this. You know how much they will give you? Exactly zero. There is no manuscript evidence for this. They will say that the Book of Mormon must be trusted because the prophet of God, Joseph Smith gave it. And if he endorsed this translation, then you must endorse it as well. That is the translation of what you call the Bible. Well, also, let's ask about the Book of Mormon. Then you all know the story of the Book of Mormon. What is the Book of Mormon? What was it like? Well, it was written according to Mormons, according to the book itself in chapter 9, verse 32 in Reformed Egyptian, the language of reformed Egyptian. Now, we as scholars of language don't have any examples reformed Egyptian. And so we've got to take their word for it that it was written in a language that no one else knows about. Now, in chapter nine, verse 33, we read that Hebrew would have been a more perfect script to write the Book of Mormon on these plates, but the plates were not large enough for the Hebrew script, and so it had to be done in reformed Egyptian. Of course, that, that does make you kind of ask, why didn't God make the platform bigger so that he could have used the more perfect language of Hebrew that other people could have read? We have no record of writing on metal plates from antiquity, yet they claim the entire Old Testament was once put on brass plates about 600 BC. Many changes have been made in the Book of Mormon after its original translation, although Mormons tell you that it was translated infallibly and inerrantly. Joseph Smith did the translation with the Ummum and Thummim, or so we're told. But we don't know what the Urmum and Thummim were in the Old Testament. And he did it behind a sheet and no one could watch him. He called out these things and his friend was supposed to write them down. Now, Mormons will tell you they were written down. And then the plot plates were taken with the translation to an expert, Dr. Anton in New York, so that he could confirm the reformed Egyptian translation. Now, Dr. Anton, when he heard they were making these claims, swore that it never took place. And he never said that. And he said, there is no such thing as reformed Egyptian. Well, chapter nine, verse 34 of Mormon says that no other person on earth knows reformed Egyptian. Well, if no other person on earth knows it, how could Dr. Anton have done what he was said to have done? You see, the story just doesn't hang together. There's all this arbitrariness and inconsistency and so forth. And so it comes down to this. Mormons will tell you I've had this happen many times as they're at the door, getting ready to leave. Well, I just trust Joseph Smith, and if you pray about it, you will too. Does that sound subjective to you? In the end, the refutation which is biblical, the refutation which is internal, that are inconsistencies, the refutation that comes from their own false claims, they finally want to override that with but I've got faith in Joseph Smith. So now the final thing you need to know about Joseph Smith is we have the court records from this. Joseph Smith was convicted in Bainbridge, New York, before he became the prophet of God, of glass looking. You ever heard that expression, you know what a glass looker is? In the 1800s, there were people, charlatans, what we today call con men, who went around putting a glass, a rounded piece of glass in a hat or something, putting his face in the hat and claiming to see buried treasure or where a well could be found or something like that. And some people were stupid enough to pay him to do that sort of thing. And finally, he was brought to court and convicted of being a con man. And so when Mormons are leaving, having said, okay, there are all these problems, but if Joseph Smith is the prophet of God, you need to trust him, then I finally say, yes. And you need to know that before he became the prophet of God, he was a convicted con man. So you have your choice. All of the religions of the world, whether they are religions of transcendent mysticism, eminent moralism, or they are somehow counterfeits of Christianity, will fall subject to these problems that I've been teaching you. Now, to deal with particular ones, you have to study those particular religions. But the method that I've taught you will be usable in every one of those cases. I don't believe I have time, and you probably don't have to do another one. So tomorrow I would like to start out with the example of the Muslims. Mormons have such wild claims and such terrible history that in one sense they're sitting ducks. They're really easy. Many people will think, what do you do, however, with the Koran and with this, you know, not many gods, but one personal God, Allah. And maybe I give you a commercial here as well. Those who want more on Mormonism, I debated a Mormon. I said it wrong. If you want more on Islam or those who are Muslims, I debated a Muslim scholar at Orange Coast College some time ago, and that's available out of our catalog as well. We'll begin with that one tomorrow. And if you have any other questions, make sure I get them before tonight so that when our last session comes about, I can answer them for you.