Dr Greg Bahnsen - Taking it to the Streets: Worldviews in Collision (Part 4)

Going to continue talking about atheism for a few moments here, and then I'd like to turn to religious versions of unbelief and how we as Christians can deal with them. How much does a person have to know in order to be an atheist? Well, let's talk about how much atheists know. When someone tells you that he knows that there is no God, I think it would be a valuable exercise for you to force the person to answer questions along this line. First of all, you want to find out, well, how much do you actually know? Let's begin to measure this by using as a standard of measurement the Library of Congress. You all know the Library of Congress is a huge library. Wouldn't I love to own the Library of Congress? That'd be great. But there are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of books in the Library of Congress. And so ask your atheist friend, how many of the books in the Library of Congress do you figure you have read? Now, it's important for us to know that not all human knowledge is enshrined in the books in the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is just some subset or percentage of everything that can be known. The Library of Congress isn't everything. But let's just use the Library of Congress and you ask your atheist friend, how many of the books in the Library of Congress have you read? What do you think the percentage is going to be going to be a real, real high percentage? Oh, 90%. No way. Nobody has enough time to have read that many books. In fact, if we're to be honest, just about anybody you talk to will have read less than 1% of the books in the Library of Congress. Okay, so you want to point out to your atheist friends, you know, we've already established that, or we've already accepted that the Library of Congress isn't all of human knowledge. It's just a certain subset of what can be known. And of that subset of what can be known, you are familiar with maybe 1% of the books that are there. Now, that should put into perspective how little any human being knows, and that means how little your atheist friend knows. But then how much would a person have to know to rule out the existence of God? You'd have to know a whole lot, wouldn't you? In fact, I think a case might be made for saying you'd have to know everything before you could finally say God doesn't exist. There's always the possibility that God exists in a way or in a place that you haven't considered that is that God exists in that area of your ignorance about reality. That's, that's always a possibility. Now, as a Christian, I happen to believe that God exists in a way that no one could avoid him anywhere. But the point is, your atheist friend cannot rule out the existence of God until your atheist friend knows everything, or certainly a whole lot more than he knows at present. The reason why I'm bringing this out is that it's important for you to humble your opponent. I'm not talking about ridiculing or, or trying to bring him down, insult him, but he just needs to realize really where he's coming from. He doesn't know all that much. And you'd have to know a whole lot to rule out the possibility of there being a God. But let's push now to a second step with the little that we do know. How are we going to decide whether there's a God or not? A few years ago, I was on a radio dialogue debate with a fellow named George Smith. George Smith had written a book, those of you who read in this area know, probably the best known book authored by an atheist in our generation, summarizing the arguments against the existence of God, Atheism, the Case against God. And the Jon Stewart people out in Southern California invited me to go on the program with George Smith and to discuss the existence of God. And so obviously, I'm going to do a little bit of research before I talk to this fellow. And it was amazing to me. I picked up his book and just started glancing through it. And one of the first things my eyes set upon was his discussion of the relationship of faith and reason. And the problem that he has with Christians is that they base their convictions on faith, whereas all of us are supposed to be following reason. I said, this is great. I mean, in fact, I didn't even have to read the rest of the book. That gave me everything I needed. Now, how is that, how did that give me everything that I needed? It's not because I'm some kind of a magician or wonder worker or great intellect. It's because this method that I have taught you allows me now to use just that little bit and say, now what underlies that? What are the assumptions that are being made by this man? And that in itself is going to provide a case against atheism. So the radio program began, and predictably, George Smith got into that, that Christianity is based on faith rather than reason. And I stopped him immediately. I said, wait a minute, George, there may be some people who look at religion in that way. I don't want to deny that. But that is not the Christian position. The Christian position is not that you have rationality over here and you can prove certain things about history and science and so forth and so on, and then you have faith over here which is non rational. I said, the Christian position is that faith is necessary for rationality. That if you don't have the Christian faith as your foundation, then rationality is impossible. Stop and think about that. The atheist says, we've got to be rational. So I asked him, I said, well now George, given your worldview where there is no God, how can you say as a universal statement that everybody's under obligation to be rational? If atheism is true, why do we have to be rational at all? It seems like you can make any number of decisions in this chaotic world. This world that is so random, has no reason, is going nowhere, who knows where it came from? Why should we choose rationality? Why don't we just live by gut feeling, feelings or our emotions or whatever it may be? And you know, the amazing thing to me is you couldn't see this on the radio, but I'm sitting in the studio across from this fella and you can see it in his eyes. It's like no one has ever asked that. I mean, and he tried to, of course, play it off as a stupid question. It's like, well, everybody knows you're supposed to be rational. I say, oh, everybody does. If everybody knows that, why do we write books encouraging people to be rational? Not everybody does know that you're supposed to be rational. Not everyone does try to be rational. Now as a Christian, I think they should. I think people are under obligation to think God's thoughts after him, to be consistent in what they say, to not be arbitrary, to have evidence for what they believe. I believe people should be rational. So I can understand a Christian telling people you've got to be rational about things. But I don't understand why atheists insist upon rationality. So the first point that I was making here in dealing with him is pointing out that when he has some moral standard, some norm that he tries to impose on everybody, he's in no position to impose that he can't argue that everyone should be rational. But then I had a second point, and this was even more offensive to him. That's okay. The second point is you can't be rational if you're not a Christian. That as a matter of fact, rationality presupposes the Christian faith. You know what the best proof of God's existence is. Then my apologetics professor at Westminster Seminary put it this way. He said the best proof of God's existence is that without him you can't prove anything. Now, the fancy way of expressing that is to say God is the precondition of intelligibility. But now, last night I explained to you what that language is all about. Does that make sense to you now that God is presupposed in any intelligible discussion to make sense out of anything? In order to have standards of proof, in order to prove anything, you have to first have as a precondition the existence of God and what the Bible tells us about Him. I want to illustrate how that works. I've been doing that all morning. But let me give you another one. Let's say you're dealing with somebody who is enamored of the success of natural science. And I think people have the right to be. Science has done wondrous things. I've had open heart surgery a couple of times. I've been saved, been within an hour of death from a bleeding ulcer. And I'm glad people didn't go in there and just do a trial and error on my body. I'm glad that science has learned a lot of things about anatomy and biology and medicine and so forth that saved my life and obviously all the other benefits that we have. We have microphones and so forth that sometimes crackle. But nevertheless, science has done some wondrous things. Now, if you're dealing with somebody who is really impressed by the success of science, somebody says, now if you're going to believe in God, you've got to be rational, you've got to be scientific. Well, that's great. Now, what are the preconditions of science? What are the preconditions of science? You don't have to know all of them. You don't have to be a philosopher that wants to write a dissertation on this. Just stop and think about a few of them. I'll talk about one. Have you ever thought about this? It would be impossible to do any work in the area of natural science if this world were not predictable. If the world were not predictable, it wouldn't do any good to learn things about the world in the way that it was in the past or the way it is this morning in the laboratory. Because everything that you've learned is going to be out the window tomorrow. If the world is not predictable, there's no way for us to take what we have learned in the past and project it into the future and learn how to do open heart surgery or make microphones or whatever it is the scientist does. That is to say, the world must show some basic uniformity. There must be a predictability to the way the world works. And I'm going to summarize what I've just said with this expression. In order then to make sense out of the success of science, in order to pursue scientific endeavors, one must believe that the future will be like the past, okay? That the world's predictable, sometimes called the uniformity of nature. If the future is like the past, then what we've learned about cutting into people and opening up their hearts, or what we've learned about physics and electronics and so forth can be utilized in the future. We can, we can make devices for microphones and cars and rockets to the moon. So the success of science presupposes the uniformity of nature, which is to say that the future will be like the past. Now you're dealing with that unbeliever who's enamored of science. You're going to want to ask that person, on what basis do you believe that the future will be like the past? How do you know that nature is uniform? And I can tell you, if I were a betting man, I would bet I'd put money on this for you. Then in more than 90% of the cases, immediately the answer you're going to get will be something like this. It's always been like that in the past. I know the future will be like the past because nature has always been uniform in our experience in the past. Now, do we have any budding theologians in the audience? Can anybody see the problem with that answer? What the person is saying is something like this. In the past, the future was like the past. Okay, let's imagine this podium stands for what's going on right now. Well, it really is what's going on right now. But let's say this stands for the present time. Over here is the past. Over here is the future. Now, what the atheist is going to tell you is in the past, we always found it to be true that the future would be like the past. Now, he doesn't mean that future will be like that past. What he means is that in the past this future was like that past. Now do you understand what I'm saying? In the past, it's always been that way, that the future resembled the past. You say, okay, that's fine, but my question is, how do you know that in the future it will be like the past? Do you have any Reason for believing in the uniformity of nature as far as the future is concerned. Now, when the atheist says, we only know things that are part of our experience, we can only know those things that we observe, then you want to push even further and say, have you observed the future? Can you tell me that tomorrow when you put these chemicals together in a beaker, they're going to have the same response as in the past? Maybe it's going to, you know, nuclear holocaust for all you know. Do you know that airplanes will fly tomorrow? That open heart surgery will save people's lives tomorrow? Can you see that taking place? Well, no atheist can say that. He sees that. No one sees the future. Unless you believe in prophecy, in which case then you believe in God. But we want to get rid of that, right? So here's the atheist who doesn't believe you can see the future. So on what basis does he do his science? His own views of reality would make science impossible. And yet atheists continue to do science. And why is that? This is the second answer you'll get. Again, if I were a betting man, I would put it on the line that 90% of the time, the second line of defense will be this. Well, it works. All I can tell you is it has worked. But that's not an intellectual answer. That's not a philosophical defense. Because in a sense, what you are doing is you're asking the atheist to explain, why does science work, given your view of the universe? It shouldn't work. There shouldn't be any basis. It should just be a random chance universe. But instead we see predictability in the universe. We see the uniformity of nature. And so when you say that it works, as Christians, we grant that it works and we have an explanation for that. The reason it works is because this world is controlled by a sovereign God. And God made this world so that we'd be able to understand it and make predictions and to have dominion in it. So from a Christian perspective, I agree with you. It works and I can explain it. But your worldview cannot explain the success of science. Your worldview would make science impossible. After I had the debate with Gordon Stein that I kind of summarized for you last evening, Dr. Stein tried to summarize in one of his columns a new argument that he'd heard for God's existence. And I came across that, and he totally slaughtered what the argument was, didn't have it right. So I wrote to him, I tried to be polite about it and said, you know, the argument really goes like this. It's not the way you portrayed it there and so forth. And, well, that started us writing back and forth. And so now our debate, you know, went on for another eight or nine months in writing back and forth. And eventually I got him. He was not, you know, thinking that he was moving toward theism in this, but he finally had to admit that his worldview cannot account for certain things, like the laws of math and so forth and so on. And I had made the point that given your worldview, you couldn't even balance your checkbook. Do you know why that is? Can I take a moment on that? In order to balance your checkbook, you've got to rely upon certain laws of math, don't you? You certainly want to believe in the number line, right? So for. But if you're an atheist, what are numbers and what are the laws of mathematics? Do you all know what numbers are? Have you ever thought about this? Everyone uses math, or I think virtually everybody uses math every day. What are numbers, and what are the laws pertaining to numbers and their relationships? Got a blackboard here, and I were to write the number two in chalk up there. And I were to ask you, is that the number two? Would any of you be tempted to say, yes? I hope not. Because if I Write the number 2 in chalk on a blackboard and you tell me that is the number two, and I erase it, guess what? There's no more number two. We just lost Tunis. It's gone. Don't ever put two in your checkbook again or anything, because I just destroyed the number two. Okay, now we're thinking. Okay? That's right. You got to be careful when you talk to a philosopher. Don't answer too soon. If I put the number two on the board and I say, is that the number two? Now you've been burned, and you're going to say, no, no, no, that's not the number two, Dr. Bonson. That's an instance or an inscription of the number two. Or to be technical, we would call that a numeral. That's not a number, that's a numeral. And so I could have put a Roman numeral 2 on the board next to the Arabic 2 and ask, are these the same number? And if you said, yes, but you meant by that that they really were identical. I said, well, boy, they don't look like they're the same number. You say, oh, well. But they're different ways of inscribing the same number. Okay, little lesson in math. What does that have to do with anything? If you're an Atheist. Do numbers exist? What kind of existence do numbers have? Do numbers exist out in the world somewhere? Has anyone ever tripped over the number two? No. Numbers exist. We believe they are real. In fact, we balance our checkbook and do our daily life believing the laws of mathematics, and yet nobody can find the laws of mathematics in the physical world. Okay, so I'm writing to Dr. Stein and I'm saying, if atheism were true, you couldn't even balance your checkbook. And he gets to the place where he's willing to admit that he doesn't have a philosophical answer for all these things. And of course, he's real snooty. He writes back, and you can't answer these things either. Na na, na, na, na. You know, George, I said, okay, you know, now I'll start showing you what I believe the answers are to these questions. We did that, but in the process, he said, you may say that I can't balance my checkbook, but I do, and I drive my car and all these things. Now, did that refute me? No, it made my point, didn't it? I wrote back and I told him that. I said, I didn't say that you don't balance your checkbook. I said, on your worldview, you couldn't. And the fact that you do balance your checkbook tells me that, you know that atheism is wrong. You do believe in numbers. You do believe that there's something beyond the physical world and so forth. And I can account for that. Should people be rational? Yes, they should. They're under obligation to be rational. But if you're an atheist, there's no obligation to be rational. In fact, if you're an atheist, there's no obligation to do anything to eat your broccoli or to balance your checkbook. And as a Christian, I can account for rationality. I can tell you why science works. I understand the precondition of intelligibility. I can explain to you why nature is uniform, why we expect the future to be like the past, why we believe in numbers and the laws of mathematics and the laws of logic and the laws of morality. Are you catching on? Beginning to see what I'm getting at? You don't have to know every criticism that somebody may raise. You don't need to know every objection people will come up with if you'll simply think in terms of worldviews. Think in terms of the underlying assumptions people have about the nature of reality. What is man? What is the universe? What. What is real? Underlying assumptions about the nature of what we know how we know it, how it's possible to know anything, underlying assumptions about how we should be living our lives. And if you talk to people about those things, if you finally get the conversation going in that direction, and I'm telling you, atheists are like marshmallows. No matter how tough the exterior is, there's a soft inside. Just keep pushing. Ask the right questions. So you can show the atheist that he cannot make sense of the things that he says and that in fact, the atheist is really working with two different sets of assumptions. Have you ever heard of cooking the books? You know what it is to cook the books if you're running a business, Somebody has two different sets of accounting, two sets of books. That almost always is an infallible sign that he's a cheat. He keeps one set of books that he shows to the auditors and to the public and so forth, and another set of books so he can keep track of what he has skimmed and what he has stolen and so forth. Atheists are kind of like that. They've been cooking the books intellectually. They have one set of books they set out there for everybody to see. They have their arguments, they have what they want to say that can be publicly dealt with. But then there's another set of books that they work with, but they don't want to admit they have that set of books. And that other set of books is really the book of God. What God has revealed through the natural order and through the conscience of man, what everybody knows about God but will not admit, because if they admit it, they have to stand guilty before him. Remember the moral motivation of atheism, but remember also the foolish character of atheist thought. No matter what they put out there in front of you, just keep talking to them, ask the right questions, and eventually you'll see that they have no foundation for logic, they have no foundation for science, and they have no foundation for ethics. And if they have no foundation for these things, they have no place to stand in argument at all. One more word about atheism. Atheism is. Another way of speaking of atheism is to call it naturalism. The naturalist says, the only thing that exists are things pertaining to the here and now part of human experience, the natural world, the objects that we can experience with our senses and the events in the natural order. That's all there is. There is no higher power, there is no God, there are no spiritual forces and so forth. Now, when you talk to people who believe that, one of the things I would suggest you do Is ask what is presupposed in our having this argument? What is presupposed in our discussing this matter pro and con? And then ask if that comports with naturalism. Can that be fit into a naturalistic view of the world? Now, I realize at this point you don't see the connection, but I think just if I push just a little further on both sides, you'll see real quickly what the problem is. Let's start with naturalism. What does naturalism assume? Well, naturalism says that what's real is what we can experience in this world. There's nothing beyond the physical world. There's just the operations, the events of nature and the objects in the natural world. Well, then, does man have a mind? The naturalist will say that the man has a brain. But that's not the question we're asking here. We're asking, does man have a mind? Have you ever stopped to think about that? There's a difference between brain and mind. The brain is a physical organism up here in the cranium for most people right here. But the mind is not the same as the brain. Some people would say there is no mind, because the way we talk about mind is different from the way we talk about brain. It would make sense for me to tell you that my brain is 5 foot, 10 inches off the ground. That makes sense. It would make no sense to say my mind is 5 foot, 10 inches off the ground. Because the mind is not seen as a physical organism. You can locate the brain, you cannot locate the mind. We can go on and on. Now, a naturalist says, yeah, I understand what you're saying. And there isn't any of these spiritual events or forces that you're talking about that you're calling a mind. Human beings don't have minds. They have brains. And the brains operate according to physical and chemical and other biological laws that the stimulus that comes into you determines how your brain is encoded and what kinds of responses you'll give and so forth. And so the brain, which is subject to the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, is all that man has. Man doesn't have a mind which thinks, that makes choices, can evaluate. You just have a brain that's been conditioned to operate in the way that it does. Okay, so here you have naturalism on the one hand. But what is presupposed by our having this conversation where we're looking at the pros and cons of different positions? What's presupposed there is that you can evaluate things and you can make a choice. The Naturalist is assuming that if he gives me enough evidence, I'll finally give up this silly superstitious idea that there's a God and I'll go along with the naturalistic viewpoint. Isn't that what he's assuming when he argues with me? But you see, if naturalism is true, I have no reason to believe that naturalism is true. Write that down. I'm going to explain it. If naturalism is true, you have no reason to believe that naturalism is true. Because if naturalism is true, there's no reasoning at all. There's just the laws of physics, chemistry and biology operative in the gray matter up here in my cranium. And I have no control over the laws of physics and biology and chemistry. What I'm going to say, I'm going to have to say if I'm a naturalist, because my brain matter, subject to the laws of science, led me to say those things. And the naturalist is going to say whatever he's going to say, not because he has thought through issues, considered the truth, found the evidence and made a decision, but because the laws of physics have determined what he's going to say. You see, in the end, the conversation between a naturalist and a supernaturalist, or between a naturalist and a naturalist, if naturalism is true, such a conversation is silly. You're always going to say what you have to say anyway because the laws of physics control your brain. There's no freedom here. There's no finding the truth, understanding, meaning, making a commitment. None of that makes sense if we have only brains but no minds. So if naturalism is true, we don't have minds, in which case we can't reason about anything. If naturalism is true, then there's no reason to believe that naturalism is true. If naturalism is true, you just say whatever you have to say, and I say whatever I have to say, and there's really no argument or exchange of evidence or reasoning going on between us whatsoever. Isn't that a rather awkward position to be in? You're holding a position which, if what you say is true, then you could never show that it's true because there's no reasoning going on. We have no minds anyway. Atheism is an absurd position intellectually. Atheism cannot account for self consciousness. Atheism cannot account for the freedom of the mind. Atheism cannot account for the laws of logic. Atheism cannot account for the laws of science. Atheism cannot account for the laws of ethics. Atheism cannot account for human dignity. Atheism cannot Account for the fact that we live in a world that is uniform and that's why it's predictable. And yet there is freedom. The human being has freedom. How do you bring uniformity and freedom together? Atheism cannot make sense of life, and so why have we been giving it, you know, this stay of life? When you have friends that are atheists, press them to their presuppositions. Answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceits. Now, before we move on, however, I have to warn you, atheists don't always want to give up immediately when you show that they have no ground to stand on. And so be prepared for this. Don't be discouraged when you hear this. I'm telling you in advance, this is the sort of thing you're going to hear in many cases. Three quick bogus responses that you'll get from atheists. First of all, we don't need an answer to these things. Reality is just the way it is. I don't need to tell you why nature is uniform. I don't need to tell you about the laws of logic. I don't need to tell you about the freedom of human thought. Reality is whatever reality is. Now, I want you to recognize that answer for what it is. It's a cop out. It's to say, I'm just going to be arbitrary about my philosophical position. I don't need to explain to you how I can bring all these things together. I'm just going to tell you that's the way it is. Well, you know how to deal with someone who's being arbitrary. Give them a taste of their own medicine. You say, well, if you think you can stand on that position with arbitrariness, then you can't be upset when Christians stand on their position and are just arbitrary. If you say reality just is this way, our answer to you is reality is just not that way. And that settles the question. You see, the atheist who says I don't have to give you an answer is basically running for his life. And you need to point that out. Say, I'm going to let you run, but I want you to know that you're running. Don't pretend that you can just say it's this way. Second bogus answer. Sometimes atheists get more sophisticated and they don't say we don't need an answer. What they'll say is, no answer is possible. No one can know for sure about these things. Nobody can know anything for sure. Well, then, you see, atheism becomes self Defeating, doesn't it? Because if nobody can know anything for sure, then the atheist can't know for sure there is no God. And so the skeptic, you see, has just cut himself and now he's bleeding to death. When someone says, well, no one can answer those questions. Those are tough philosophical questions. People have been working on those things for hundreds of years in the history of philosophy. They haven't come up with answers. So don't expect me to answer that. I have. People do that to me all the time. And I'll say, now wait a minute, you are right. People have struggled for hundreds of years with these. But not Christians, because Christians do have a foundation for human freedom and the predictability of nature and the dignity of the human mind and so forth and so on. But unbelievers can't come up with an answer. It's only those who will not accept the revelation of God that struggle with that. Okay, a third bogus answer. Sometimes atheists. Well, the first one was we need no answer arbitrariness. The second was no answer is possible. That's the self defeating position of skepticism. Nobody knows for sure. And the third is, well, everybody knows about these basics. It's not that we don't need an answer, it's that everybody knows the answer. Everybody knows that nature is uniform. Everybody knows that the human mind is free to consider options and make a commitment. Everybody knows that there are moral absolutes that making child molestation wrong. And how are you going to answer when the atheist says that? You're going to say exactly. Everybody knows this and I know why they know it because God revealed it to them and they know this God. But on your position, how could everybody know anything? The atheist position ends up defeating itself. Okay, now at this point we're going to make something of a mental change in what I'm talking to you about. So I'm going to let you kind of summarize your thoughts about atheism here. The objection will naturally arise. Well, Dr. Bronson, you probably made a good point. The atheist worldview is ridiculous. You can't make sense out of that. It doesn't give a foundation for science or for ethics or for logic or for rationality or human dignity. But not everybody who's an unbeliever is an atheist. There are people out there that are unbelievers that hold to a different kind of religion. And so how would you deal with them? And so I'm going to shift now from dealing with naturalism or atheism and talk about religious unbelief And I'm going to do that by having you turn back in your bibles to Psalm 14. I want you to see something further here, Psalm 14. And we're going to focus on verse two. To read it in context. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good. Now listen to verse 2. Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand that did seek after God. And the conclusion of the matter, verse three. They are all gone aside. They are together become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Jehovah looks down from heaven to see if there are any that are seeking after God. And the conclusion is, no, not one. None of them are seeking after God. Now why do I start with this point? Because again, as a Christian, when you deal with somebody who's a non Christian but is religious, the tendency will be for you to think, well, they're seeking after God and they're coming up with different answers. They've arrived at different conclusions. So I can't deal with these people like I would deal with the atheist because they're trying to find God. To which the Bible says not. No, they aren't. They are not seeking after God. This bothered me for a number of years. I would assume that it will bother many of you because I've known very sincere religious people, nice guys, you know, nice people. They're willing to sacrifice for their beliefs. They try to be good to people. They're very sincere. When you talk to them, they don't sound like they're lying or being hypocrites and so forth. You know, people like that, sincere, nice unbelievers who have a different religion. So you know that from your experience and then you read in the Bible that none are seeking after God. How can you reconcile that? It sure looks like they're seeking after God, but God tells me they aren't. You know how you have to look at this to resolve that conflict? I think you need to understand that the person that you know that's so sincere, that's an unbeliever, is seeking after a God. That's true. But the Psalmist says none of them are seeking after the God. Now I know that they also will say that the a God that they are seeking is the God. But the reason the Bible says none seek after God is because the Bible recognizes no one really wants to come into contact with Jehovah. The living and true God, the one and only God. And one of the best ways that you can avoid dealing with your maker is to create a different kind of God that won't put the pressure on you that Jehovah does. You see what I'm getting at? People make up different religious theories not because they want to get rid of religion. They're very happy to be religious as long as that religion shields them from the living and true God. And so you take a Hindu, maybe you know, somebody very sincere, very dedicated, hard working, they believe Hindu theology. Well, now, what does Hindu theology say about God? Hindu theology says God is impersonal. There is no person, no individuated person that you will ever deal with that is superior to you. God actually is everything. You are God, I am God. This gymnasium is God. Everything is God. The sky, the trees, the lakes, the seas, everything is God. Okay, now what's the advantage of having that kind of theology where everything is God? Well, if everything is God, then you're never going to be punished, are you? If everything is God, you're never going to have to answer for your misdeeds. In fact, if everything is God, good and evil are blessed, blended. Because good is God and evil is God. If everything is God, then we have dealt with our problem before. The living and true God. And so here's a religious way to avoid the living and true God. That's what I'm getting at. The Bible says none seek after God. The Bible doesn't deny that people seek after a God. But no one is really looking for the living and true God. By nature, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit by nature. The natural man suppresses the truth and unrighteousness by nature. According to Romans 1, the natural man exchanges the truth of God for a lie. And in particular, the lie that the unbeliever is willing to accept is idolatry. By nature, man makes idols. Not all the idols are wood and stone, gold and silver. Some of them are intellectual idols. Some of them are sociological idols. But by nature, man makes idols. Does that mean man seeking after God? No. Because if he were seeking after God, he would confess his sin and throw himself on the mercy of God. He would know that his only hope in life and death is a faithful savior. But by nature, men try to make a different kind of God that they can deal with. They bring, if you will, they whittle God down to a level that they can handle. And so that's why I've entitled this part of our apologetic seminar Atheists and other fools. Atheism is a kind of foolishness, as we have been talking about at some length. But the other forms of unbelief, even the religious forms of unbelief, are intellectual foolishness as well. The Bible tells us no one truly seeks after God. Well, how should you answer somebody who has a different religious perspective than your own? Let me first of all talk about secular religion. That sounds strange. Secular religion. Yeah, we have a lot of that in our day and age. You want to see secular religion rear its head, pay attention. Around Christmas time. Every year in this country, around Christmas, we have expressions like this, other than at Christmas season. But around Christmas, you know, you get these silly things like, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Now, what lies behind this yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus idea? There is the view, although there's no living and true God that we're going to answer to, it is good for people to show goodwill, to be helpful to one another. To put it in philosophical terms, there are ideals by which we all should live. And Christmas is just a wonderful expression of that ideal of goodwill toward men, helping others, getting outside yourself. So here you have a religious position that says that there are moral standards, there are ideals after which we should live. But it's a secular religion. It doesn't look to a personal God whose character is the basis for these ideals. Of course, you get secular religiosity when people tell us that we ought to treat children well and not molest them too. I happen to believe that I believe in goodwill toward men. But then again, you know why I believe those things? I believe in a personal God. When someone tells you, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, that is the code for there are ideals of goodwill toward men. We should all be living according to. You need to ask that person, how is it that there are such ideals? What are they? Where did they come from? And why do we have those ideals rather than the opposite ideals? The problem with idealism in general, the notion that, well, we all know what it is to be a decent human being, we ought to live according to. To those standards. The problem with that is that it is arbitrary. Somebody says you ought to be nice to people, especially at Christmas time, don't cut them off on the freeway, you know, show some goodwill toward people. I, as a Christian, as a Christian, may agree, but as someone who's arguing against that position, I'm going to say, why? Why should I believe that? Why should I be good to anybody? Why should I be good to children? Why should I You know, go through this kind of, wouldn't it be nice if there were a Santa Claus feeling? Why, that's utterly arbitrary. There are people in this world who are not interested in being nice. There are people in this world who aren't interested in showing goodwill toward men. There are people in this world who are perfectly happy to take advantage of children rather than to help children. Secular religiosity has as its major problem arbitrariness. So let's move beyond secular religiosity and talk about the more religious world systems. How are you going to be able to answer any of them? Especially how are you going to be able to do that when people say, you know, other religions have their religious revelation too? You've got your Bible that you're depending upon, but if you were a Hindu, you'd be looking at the Bhagavad Gita. If you were a Muslim, you'd be looking at the Koran and on and on and on. And so other religions have got their revelations. You've got your Bible, what's the difference? And I need to tell you something here that the secular world will not tell you. You will not get this on the evening news. The general idea that there are competitors for a religious revelation out there is a lie that is not true. I know that surprises you, but let me say it again. There are no competitors for religious revelation out there. Let me explain why I'm saying that what people who give you the sound bites on the evening news or people who teach at the local college are doing is they're lumping together all religious books into one category. Now, if you want to use some broad, vague and probably meaningless category, religious books, yes, then the Bible is in that category and the Koran is in that category and the Bhagavad Gita is in that category. But the other religions of the world do not claim that their book is the personal revelation of the personal all knowing God. And you know why? Because they don't believe that there is a personal God who is all knowing, who can speak to man. The Bhagavad Gita cannot be compared to the Bible because they make completely different claims about themselves. The Bhagavad Gita doesn't claim to be God's personal revelation in human language because there is no separate God who can speak in human language given the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. And so to compare those two is really misleading. The Bible claims that a personal God has spoken to man in human language and has been recorded Here on these pages. That's not what you're getting in the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita doesn't even claim to be that. And so you need to know that, because once you know that, then all religions of the world have the same problem as secular religiosity, don't they? All the religions of the world are arbitrary. All the religions of the world are arbitrary, Just like the. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Religion is arbitrary. Now, I'm going to approach this from a different angle to show you what I mean, that all the religions of the world are arbitrary. And then I promise we'll take our break. And so we all get together around a table and we're talking about religious matters. And one person is representing the Christian position and another person is representing the Buddhist position. Another person is following the Muslim position another person is following is a Hindu, and so forth. Now, obviously, we're not going to agree on things we're arguing, okay, we can't come to agreement. Now, how should we settle our disagreement? Somebody comes up with this bright idea, okay, let's take a Gallup poll. We're going to go out and we're going to ask all sorts of people in our culture what they object even before the Gallup poll is taken. And you know, why everybody should object to that approach to resolving religious disputes is because what human beings believe is irrelevant to what God is like. We mustn't think that God is somehow like a smorgasbord. You know, if some of you want to think of me as mashed potatoes, then I'll be mashed potatoes for you. Some of you want to think of me as Jello, and I'll be Jello for you. Some of you want to think of me as chicken like, then I'll be chicken like for you. Man is in no position to determine what God is like, to imagine what God is like. No human being is in a position to formulate God, to define God. Isn't that right? If any human being had the authority and the confidence to do that, that human being would have to be God. Now, everybody should recognize this. When I talk to a person that has a Bhagavad Gita in his hand, I don't say, well, let's go find out if there are more Christians in this culture than Hindus. I say, now wait a minute. Man cannot define God for himself. If man is going to know God, what's going to be called for? What is the underlying presupposition when anybody says this is what God is like, the underlying presupposition is that God, God has shown himself to be like that. Only God can define himself. Only God can reveal what he is like. If we don't have God speaking to us or making it known what he is like, then everybody's out on their own just making up according to their own imagination. God's in their own image. And that's why I say that all non Christian religions are guilty of arbitrariness because unless they claim that God has personally spoken to reveal himself, then they're in no better position than anybody else. If I have somebody that's a Confucian here and a person that's a Hindu here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, see both of you, you cancel each other out. You have no authority in following Confucius and you have no authority in following the Bhagavad Gita any more than anybody else. We could call in somebody else say, hey, want to write your own religious book? Join the discussion over here. Unless somebody claims God has made himself known, God has clearly shown himself, then it's just a crapshoot. Nobody's in a position to talk about what God is like. And you need to remember that. Then when you deal with non Christian people that are religious, you need to keep pushing them. Well, how do you know God is like that? Doesn't it frustrate you when you're talking about what you believe as a Christian, Maybe you touched upon the doctrine of hell or something. And then you'll have somebody say, oh well I don't want to think of God as being like that. When people do that, I always give them something of a quizzical look like what difference does it make that you don't want to think of God as being like that? That's kind of like the person who's just been told by the doctor that you have tuberculosis. And the person says, well, well, I don't want to think of myself as having tuberculosis. You know, reality is what reality is whether you want to think about it that way or not. And likewise, when somebody has another religious point of view and they say, well this book over here says this. And you say, well did God reveal that? Well no, I mean that's what Confucius said. And on his view there was no personal God, I say, oh, so that's Confucius opinion there, right? Well, yeah, I guess so. I agree with him. Well, but you're agreeing with them. Doesn't make it any more than Confucius opinion. And over here we have the Buddha. Watama said this and his opinion was different. You need to keep pushing on the fact that only Christianity is in a position to speak about God because only Christianity has a personal revelation from God himself. And the back of your mind you're saying, well, but what about the Quran, Dr. Bahson? Didn't Allah reveal the Koran? Yes, he did. Keep this in mind though. The Koran is 700 years after the New Testament. And when Muhammad wrote the Qur', an, he specifically said that Allah had spoken previously in the Bible that Allah had revealed himself in the law of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospel of Jesus previously. And what I'm getting at here, first of all overall is you need to understand that the Koran apes the Bible. The idea of a personal revelation from God is not unique to the Muslims. They got that from the Jews and the Christians. And beyond that, you should remember that according to Muhammad, the Koran stands in succession with the teaching of Allah in, in the Bible. So that if you can show that the Koran contradicts the Bible, then on Muslim premises you have to give up the Koran. So all the religions of the world come down to three kinds. Secular religiosity, that is totally arbitrary ideals out there. But who knows what they are, where they come from or why they are what they are. Second, you have the religions of the world which, which have no personal revelation of God. And they are arbitrary because what man can tell you what God is like, one man's opinion cancels another man's opinion. And then thirdly, you have those religions that ape Christianity. They are not Christians, but I'm going to call them Christian heresies. That is, they claim that there's a personal revelation of God, but they got that idea from Christianity. And what do you do with those faiths? Eventually what you do is you use the Bible to refute what they are saying. When a Jehovah's Witness comes around, you don't have to do a lot of work with the presuppositions you could. I won't bore you with that. But when a Jehovah's Witness comes around and says, I accept the Bible and it doesn't teach that Jesus is divine, then you're going to use the Bible to prove that Jesus is divine. Okay, so you have secular religiosity, which is arbitrary. You have the religions of the world that have no basis for what they say because there's no personal revelation from God. And and then you have those religions of the world that ape the Bible, in which case you can do what? You can use the Bible to refute them. And so this method of apologetics that I'm trying to teach you deals with atheists as well as the other fools as well. There are no options besides Christianity and foolishness. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Paul says, hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? And when we come back, I'm going to try to show the foolishness of those who think science has disproved Christianity by looking at the theory of evolution. Thanks.