All right. Well, good evening, everybody. We're going to go ahead and get started on this. And so we are continuing with the apologetics course. And so this is the round two of the philosophy of apologetics. And specifically, we're talking about Christian philosophy of apologetics. Right. So you got philosophy, you got Christian philosophy, and then you got all the worldly stuff. And so last week, And this week is the Christian side of the house. And then next lesson, I'll start the worldly side of the house. But let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll get right into it. Lord God, we thank you so much for you just being you, you creating everything, and then creating us and then giving your revelation to us so that we can know who you are and what's true and you know that our minds would just be formed and shaped by it Lord that even though this is an apologetics class first and foremost it's a class on how to think your thoughts after you, which from there, everything trickles down to the way we live. You know, the way we live is dependent on the way we think and how we reason and what we understand. And so this is as much discipleship as it is learning how to defend the faith. And the first third of this course as we're shaping and fashioning our worldview, Lord, be with us and really write these truths on our hearts because it's from that worldview that we're then able to go on the offense and defense when it comes to apologetics. And so Lord, just be with us this evening, have me teach accurately and may your will be done and may you get all the glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so as I said, this is part two of the Christian philosophy of apologetics. So I'm sticking with that analogy of building a shed, right? The theology of apologetics is the instruction manual, right? You can't just go and defend the faith without seeing what the Bible says about it, right? It's the instruction manual. But then you might have an instruction manual to build a shed, but without tools, it's not gonna get built. And so philosophy provides us the tools to build the shed. And so that's why we're talking about Christian philosophy in particular. And when it comes to Christian philosophy, well, last time I spent a lot of time talking about presuppositions, okay? So if you missed that, you wanna get caught up because this is called presuppositional apologetics for a reason. My whole point in that was to show you that everybody has them. Everybody reasons from presuppositions, and that's where the battle is going to be fought. Then from there, I moved on to the idea that, OK, with Christian philosophy, because Christianity is a philosophy, everybody's a philosopher, whether you realize it or not. You might not be a good one, but everybody's a philosopher. So I define philosophy as a philosophy is a view of metaphysics. epistemology and ethics, or we could say meta-ethics. And then I define what those are. Metaphysics is the theory of reality, of existence. What is existence? What things exist? What kind of things exist? What makes them different from each other? You know, what are their causes, origins, all that kind of stuff. Metaphysics is huge, right? Everybody has a metaphysic. And then epistemology is the theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know? What is it to know, right? And then ethics. What's right and wrong? Every worldview has a view of reality, which is metaphysics. It has a view of knowledge. Who's authoritative over knowledge? How do we know what we know? Epistemology. And every worldview has a system of right and wrong. So does Christianity have a view of reality? Absolutely, right? There's one God. He created everything and so on and so on, right? That's Christian metaphysics. Does Christianity have a view of knowledge or a theory of knowledge? Absolutely. We're going to talk a little bit about that today. Does Christianity have a system of ethics? Commandments of right and wrong. Absolutely. So, Christianity is a philosophy. Not just a theology, but a philosophy. Now, last time we started on Christian metaphysics, and I pointed out there's four things that make Christian metaphysics unique. The first is the fact that God is an absolute personality, right? And those are two concepts that we uniquely put together. Nobody else puts these together this way, that God is a person and he's absolute, that the ultimate reality is personal, not impersonal. Every other worldview believes ultimate reality is actually impersonal, okay? So again, you can listen to last week's and get caught up on that. And then the second thing we talked about, was the creator-creature distinction. God is not part of the creation. We believe in a two-concept view of reality, where you have God and everything else, and he communicates with everything else through divine revelation. Now, all other worldviews only have a one-level concept of reality, where both God and creation all exist in the same circle. That's not us. Christianity alone, or biblical-based religions alone, have the two-level concept of reality. So those are the first two aspects of Christian metaphysics. Today, we're going to finish the last two, and then we'll get through the epistemology and the ethics. And so the last two, the third and the fourth unique aspects of Christian metaphysics is that God is sovereign. and that God is a trinity. I'll get through the sovereignty of God pretty fast, but we're going to talk a lot about the trinity philosophically. I look forward to blowing your minds tonight. That's one of the funnest things that I get to do. So let's talk about the sovereignty of God, right? This is the third metaphysical truth that encompasses the Christian worldview. Now, if the first two, are true, that God's an absolute personality, and there's an absolute distinction between creator and creature, then the sovereignty of God is actually a logically required third belief. And what I mean by that is if God's an absolute personality that is distinct and independent from creation, yet he himself is involved in every detail of the created order, then God has to be sovereign at the same time. Now, let me define terms. What do I mean by the sovereignty of God? Simple definition. Sovereignty of God means the total lordship of God over everything. Over all creation, God is the absolute total lord over it all. Now we have to ask ourselves, what does it take to possess total lordship over something? It requires control over it, authority over it, and presence. So for somebody to be sovereign, they have to be present everywhere. Can you be present everywhere? Can Putin be present everywhere? Can a fart in the wind be present everywhere? Anyway, the point is, the point is, only an omnipresent being, an infinite being, God, can be present to exert control and authority over everything. So, if God is an absolute personality that's independent and distinct from creation, but He's transcendent and He's imminent, He's automatically gonna be sovereign. This is just a logical corollary that rolls out of the other ones, okay? Now, there's a lot of scriptures that teach this truth. Since God created the universe according to His will and His purpose, we know that God is the one who has all authority over everything that exists. And because He made everything and He's in control of everything, guess what? Miracles are possible. When somebody says, oh, miracles are impossible, it's like, wait a second. You're not present everywhere. You don't have control over everything. You don't have authority. But the one who does, if he wants to do a miracle, Are you going to stop them? You can't part the Red Sea. I'm going to prevent you. Good luck with that. There's a guy named Pharaoh. His whole army drowned. You know, so the point is, nobody's going to stop God from doing what He wants to do. Furthermore, the sovereignty of God rules out the autonomy and independence of man. If God is sovereign, we are not. And if we are not, we are not truly independent. We're dependent on a million things outside of ourselves. And all those things are dependent on God. So we are not sovereign, we're not authoritatively, we can't declare anything authoritatively apart from God. We don't get to determine what exists or anything like that. Now, fallen man acts like we do, but we don't. And so again, this holds true for metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. God gets to declare what's true about reality. God gets to declare what's true about knowledge. And God gets to declare what's true about right and wrong. Man, if we're gonna get this right, we have to consult God's special revelation. And does anybody remember what special revelation is? The Bible. General revelation is what He reveals in creation. Special revelation is what He reveals in His Word. And so here's the thing. We have to go to God's judgment on these things in special revelation, and whenever our interpretation contradicts God's, then if you keep pushing your interpretation over against God's, you're promoting false knowledge. It might be knowledge, but it's false knowledge. It's not true. Now, it's also worth noting. And some people don't like this, some Christians don't like this, but it's also worth noting that since God is sovereign over all things, He's also sovereign over the decisions we make. He is sovereign over our will. Okay, so some people are like, no, no, love demands a choice, we gotta have an absolute, you know, libertarian free will. No, not if God's sovereign, okay? God has sovereignty even over the decisions we make. Now presuppositional apologetics is Calvinistic. You cannot separate it from Calvinism. It is a reformed form of apologetics, which makes sense. And it makes sense that Arminians tend to focus on evidence and arguments, thinking like, well, it's just the will of the man. I just have to give them enough. And then they could choose to become a believer, where in the reformed position, we're like, well, it doesn't quite work that way. And so our apologetic matches our theology. Now, I do want to give a quick excursus on Calvinism because when I say that label, some people do get a little squeamish, and so let me just say this for anybody listening. When I say Calvinism, I'm not referring to the writings or teachings of John Calvin. A lot of times if you say, well, I'm Calvinist, I'm going to be like, well, I follow Jesus, you follow Calvin. Listen, 99.99% of Calvinists have never read John Calvin. They haven't read his Institutes of the Christian religion because it's like this stinking thick. They haven't read his commentaries. We don't follow John Calvin. When we use the word Calvinism, it's a label. that represents a systematic theology, a theology that is built on the conclusions of the Reformation, and the Reformation's built on the conclusions of Scripture, right? And so again, Calvinism's just a convenient label that describes a unified understanding of biblical doctrine. Let me put it to you like this. Long before Calvin, well, not long before Calvin, a little before Calvin, Luther taught the same things about salvation. And 1,000 years before Luther, Augustine taught the same things. And 400 years before Augustine, Jesus, Paul, John, Peter all taught the same thing. And 1400 years before them, Moses taught the same stuff. In other words, it's biblical. So why do we call it Calvinism? Well, because the Reformation recovered all of this and put it together in a very cohesive, unified, systematic theology for us, and what reformer wrote more and had more influence than all other reformers? John Galvin, right? So because he wrote more, and we have more of his stuff, and he was a more profound theologian, conveniently his name gets attached to the system, but it's not his system. So when you have to explain this label to somebody, just understand that there is the explanation. Now, a lot of times people will throw a straw man argument out there. They'll say that, well, you're denying human will and responsibility. We must be robots if you're right. Let me state this very clearly, that Reformed theology, aka Calvinism, or the views of Jesus, Paul, John, Moses, David, et cetera, it is a position of compatibilism. Now, you could tell what the root word of compatibilism is, right? Compatible. We're talking about two things. that are compatible. The Bible teaches that God is sovereign in all aspects of our salvation, but the Bible also teaches that man does have a will and is therefore morally responsible. If you want to read a very helpful little book on this, it's written by J.I. Packer. It's called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, and it seeks to answer the question, if God is sovereign and predestined, then why evangelize? And he explains it in a simple, profound, biblical way. He uses the concept of antinomy. If you've never heard of that word, an antinomy is when you have two things that seemingly contradict But they're both true, indisputably so. Many of you may know from physics that light operates as if it's a particle and a wave. It is not supposed to do that. Nothing is supposed to be both a wave and a particle. But physicists just have to step back, close their book, and say, well, we don't know how to explain it, but this is both. That's an antinomy, right? It's true, even though it seems paradoxically intention. Okay, same thing with this scripture. Okay, the Bible is very clear that God is sovereign over salvation. All of those who were appointed to salvation believed, according to Acts 13, right? But the Bible also makes it clear that we are morally responsible. And so the Jews have a way of talking about this, which I've shared with you before. Think with two hands. Learn to think with two hands. With one hand, You know, all that the Father gives me will come. No one can come unless the Father who sent me draws them, right? Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you and your household, right? So you have to repent, but God is sovereign. Hold them in both hands. Now you might say, but these are in tension. So is a particle in a wave. But it's just the way it is. The reason why it's a tension for us is we are finite. Finite beings can't put something that big together. But God is not finite. He is infinite. And so an infinite mind can look at this paradox and see it in a completely different way. In God's mind, in his interpretation, there's no tension. And that's why in the scriptures, he reveals both. That's the Calvinist position, compatibilism. I remember when I was in my army basic training as a chaplain and I mentioned I was reformed, this one Church of Christ guy's like, I am a robot, I am a robot. I'm like, all right, stop being obnoxious, you punk. And then I had to explain to him compatibilism. And it still went over his head, but we are compatibilists. All right. So again, Reformed theology, Calvinism, and most of its teaching is thoroughly biblical. I don't think it's biblical in its covenant theology, but in terms of its In terms of its doctrine of salvation, it's spot on, right? Now, getting back to this, the reason why I brought this up is the sovereignty of God is something that is emphasized strongly by those who are reformed. It tends to be ignored by those who aren't. But this is a key component of our metaphysics, that God is sovereign. And it's very difficult to defend our faith if we let that truth go. So hold on to it tight, put it at the bottom of your heart, okay? Rejection of God's sovereignty, It's just an example of fallen humanity suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. Okay, so that's the sovereignty of God. Now I'm gonna get to the hard one, the Trinity. This is the fourth and final Christian metaphysical truth regarding God. Now often people see the Trinity only as a theological doctrine, but what I'm telling you is it's a very philosophical doctrine. I covered some of the theology in the Theology of Apologetics. We're now in the philosophy of apologetics, and so we're going to talk about it from a different angle. Trinitarianism is a philosophical necessity if you have a God that is an absolute person that is independent from creation, right? And you might say, really? Yeah. the other parts of the Christian metaphysics is true, then God has to be a Trinity. If he's not, we lose all the rest. And I will try to explain that, but this will probably be one of the heavier bench, spiritual bench pressing lessons in this whole course. So if you walk out of here not confused, that's great. If you walk out of here confused, I have to try to figure out a less confusing way to explain this, so I'm gonna do my best, right? So anyhow, anyhow, on this point, because when we're talking about God being a trinity and saying all the other views, all of our other metaphysics depend on this, on this point, Islam and Judaism fall short. Now, both of these will claim they hold to a two-level concept of reality, but they fall short because they hold to an incorrect view of God in His fullness. Now Judaism, their view is incorrect because of a lack of revelation, right? They're rejecting Jesus who came and tied it all together for us. So they're stuck at the end of Malachi. and all their traditions they built on that. Islam is wrong for a way worse reason. They just made something up. Well, no, let me rephrase that. Satan made something up, gave it to an illiterate man in a cave, and has unleashed hell on earth through that religion. But Islam, even though they claim to believe in one God and a two-level concept of reality, they get it wrong because of falsely added revelation. We're focusing on God's revelation, which is Old and New Testament together, and you end up with the Trinity. Now, we need to have a working philosophical definition of the Trinity. So the definition is this, there is only one God, but there are three persons who are this one God eternally, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, simply put, there is one divine nature, but three persons. The ancient Eastern Church articulated it as there being one Ussia and three Hypostases. So when people are like, how could you say, no, it's three gods, no. Three Hypostases, but one Ussia, not three Ussias, right? Ussias is the idea of divine nature. Now the Western Church said the same thing, but with Latin words. There's one Substantia, what do you think that refers to? Substance. One substantia, but three personas, okay? Both of these articulations convey the same truth. There is one God that eternally exists as three persons, or another way of saying it, there's one divine nature. that eternally exists as three hypostases or personas. Also, within God, there's one divine will. And this is where I don't want to get too deep on this. But there's one divine will, but there's three modes of that will's subsistence. I explain that in a systematic theology lesson dedicated exclusively to the Trinity. If you go look up my systematic theology class, it is the last lesson. I did a reboot of the Trinity at the end. And I cover all this stuff. Now, the operations of God are also one. They're inseparable, but they're executed by three appropriations based on each person. I'm not going to get into all that because that's more the theology side of it. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. There somehow are three, but they are one. And it's not tritheism, because tritheism is three gods. And it's not modalism, like the oneness Pentecostals, right, where you have one God who takes three forms but is not three persons. He's not a triple changer transformer from the 1980s. He's not astrotrain, where one moment he's a robot, the next moment he's a train, and the next moment he's a shuttle. No. No, God is simultaneously Father, Son. Holy Spirit. Okay, so we could say there's one divine essence that subsists in three ways. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, what I am pushing is the classical Trinitarianism of the early church, which is articulated like this. You have one God, two processions, three persons, four relations. You might be like, huh? Never heard of this stuff, right? Okay, so one God, that's the one Ussia or Substantia. There is only one God, okay? But the fact that we have the Son and the Holy Spirit, we have to count like, okay, how do we have the Son and the Holy Spirit, because there's two processions. What I mean by that is the Son is eternally generated from the Father. He's always been, but he comes from the Father. There wasn't a time where he wasn't, but in terms of his mode of existence, he eternally generates from the Father. That's the first procession. The second procession is the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. Okay, so the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. So those two processions then lead to us having three persons. So one God, two processions, eternal generation, eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, that then leads to three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then you have the four relations, meaning how they relate to each other. The Father relates to the Son in terms of paternity. Carlos was talking about some of this in his class. So Father relates to the Son in terms That's the first one. The second one is the son relates to the father in terms of affiliation, meaning he's the son, okay? In other words, the father's the father because he's always had a son, and the son is the son because he's always had a father, right? That's what those first two mean. And then the Holy Spirit, okay, so the father and the son relate to the Holy Spirit by actively proceeding the Holy Spirit from them. And then the Holy Spirit relates to the father and the son by passively being, by passively proceeding from them. the Father and the Son. And so, again, classical Trinitarianism, after centuries of arguing and debating, is summed up in one God, two processions, three persons, four relations. If you can remember that, great. If not, then as long as you remember one God, three persons, If that's not tritheism and not modalism, then you're all right. Okay. Now, all three persons have all the divine attributes, they're all called Lord, and they're all distinct from creation. That's how we know they're, all three are the one God. Now, nobody could tell you precisely how God is three in one, but the scriptures affirm this frequently. Deuteronomy 6, 4 and Isaiah 44, verse 6 make it clear there is only one God. John 20, verse 17 makes it clear that the Father is God. John 1, verses 1 through 3, and the beginning was the Word, and verse 14, the Word became flesh, makes it clear that the Son is God. Genesis 1, verse 2, and Acts 5, verses 3 and 4 make it clear the Holy Spirit is God, because lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God. Okay, so the Father's God, the Son's God, the Holy Spirit's God. Now, the modalists might come along and say, yeah, well, that doesn't mean three persons. When He's in heaven, He's the Father. In flesh, He was the Son. And right now, as He works, He's the Holy Spirit. Well, not so fast. Matthew 3, 16 and 17. And Acts chapter 7 verses 55 and 56 have all three in the same scene, all working together, all at the same time. So God is a trinity. Now, it might be argued at this point that the basis of believing in the trinity comes from the Bible alone. And most assuredly, our Christian belief in the trinity does find its most explicit affirmation in the Bible. And as Christians, we don't need any more than that. Because we know that the Bible is God's revealed, authoritative, and personal interpretation of Himself. And so the Bible definitely helps us understand the Trinity and explain the Trinity. But listen, even apart from the Bible, the Trinity is a necessary belief because God's an absolute personality. And I'm going to break that down as we go on. But what I'm saying is the Trinity is what is called a philosophically necessary doctrine, meaning if God is not a Trinity, our entire conception of God falls apart and our whole religion isn't true. Okay, so my goal is to show that as we move on. Now, as we delve into the the philosophical necessity of the trinity, let me state up front that this doctrine is unique to Christianity. No other religion has a trinity. Some of them have triads, like Hinduism likes to put Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma together as like a team, but they're not a trinity, right? It's a triumvirate, so it's a triad. They're three gods, not one God that's three persons. In fact, when liberals out there, theological liberals, try to argue for pagan parallels to the Trinity, If you look at every parallel they've put up there, you look at them, they're always three gods, and they're always very different from the biblical description of the Trinity, okay? It just is. So the Trinity sets us apart from all other religions, all the pagans, but it also sets us apart from the cults. Cuz one thing about all the Christian cults is they, have you ever noticed, deny the Trinity? Every single one of them, okay? So, Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons, like, you gotta be careful with the Mormons. The Mormons will say, we believe in the Trinity, and you guys say, what do you mean by that? And then they'll be clear, well, we believe that God's a Trinity in purpose, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share the purpose. But when you say, but do you believe they are one God, that are eternally three persons, they don't. So be careful, because they will use our words, hoping you won't ask. ask them, and then they make it clear that, okay, I don't mean what you mean, okay? So that's the first thing. And then, of course, Jehovah Witnesses, they just outright reject it. They're actual Aryans. They believe that Jesus is the first of God's creations, which ultimately means they believe in multiple gods, just a greater one and a lesser one. So anyhow, Anyhow, the Trinity sets Christianity apart from everything, just like the other Christian metaphysical positions do. Okay, so we need to talk about Unitarianism because the main argument against Trinitarianism is people who hold to Unitarianism. that God's only one person, okay? So as I elaborate upon the Trinity as a philosophical necessity, I'm just going to let you know I'm in debt to John Frame and a lot of what I'm going to say here. Also to Cornelius Van Til, they had some great stuff on this. But here's the thing, when John Frame's talking about Unitarianism, okay, the idea that God's One person, a unity. Unitarianism, when they say He's one person, not three, you have to ask the question, Unitarian, what's the root? Una, right? One. One of what? One of what? God is one what? Okay, a unity of what? Now, I want you to think about that, because those questions undermine a Unitarian concept of God, okay? It is an inherently meaningless statement to say a God is unity, is a unity of oneness. What I mean by that is what does unity mean? You have two roots here. You have yun, which is one, and iti, Okay? What is it he getting at? What is it he getting at? So a unity requires diversity. To say something is united is to say that diverse things are working together as one. Take the United States, for example, right? It is meaningless. The word is, the word united is meaningless apart from the fact that we have states. Started off with 13, now we got 50. But the word United States, united means nothing without the states. It is a unity of multiple things. The United Kingdom works the same thing, works the same way. England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, they are all distinct, four distinct regions, okay? But together they compose what? The United Kingdom. That's what the UK means, okay? So when you say that God, like saying that God is Unitarian presupposes that God's a unity, but where's the itty in Unitarianism is my point. What are the multiple things that are being united? See, God can only be a unity if in His one being, He is uniting diversity. You get what I'm saying? The very word itself is a nonsense word. Unitarian God is an inherently nonsense word used by those who reject the Trinity. Now I do want to give a quick little excursus on Old Testament Hebrew terms because the Hebrew Bible supports everything I just said about divine unity. Anybody know what the statement of faith is for Israel? What's it called? The Shema, right? Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, "'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.'" Shema, Yisrael, Adonai. Eloheinu Adonai Echad. I don't know why I was having trouble with that. But anyhow, the word one is Echad, right? Now this is the same word. used in Genesis chapter one, verse five, when it says there was evening and there was morning, echad, day, one day, right? So when people say the Trinity, you're mentioning three things, so that must be three gods. No, it would only be three gods if we said God plus God plus God, they'd be like, well, that's three gods. Okay, but here's the thing, we're saying there's one usia, but three persons, hypostasis, right? Same thing here. A day, there's one day, but you have mourning. and you have evening. Those two things are echad, they're united. They make one day. And in Genesis 1, verse 9, it says, the waters, which was plural, were all gathered to echad, one place. Many waters, but gathered together to one place. And of course, Genesis 2, 24, how could we leave this out? The man and wife are echad, one flesh. Now, you know, man and wife, they're distinct, but what is humanity? Think about it. You have one humanity, one thing that's humanity, but what is that one humanity comprised of? Male and female. That's how God made us, right? So the two are one. Likewise, you have one God, but He is eternally three persons. Now notice with this word Echad what all these examples have in common. There is a oneness that is a unity of diversity. It's a unity of plurality. This is the word that the Shema uses when it says God is one. The same word used about male and female being one. The same word used about morning and evening being one day. That's what it's using when it talks about God's oneness. Now can it mean a numeric unity where just like one? Yes. But often this word is, it displays a unity of plurality. If Moses wanted to just give us one, there's like no plurality in God. There's other Hebrew words he could have used, most notably Yahid, but he didn't. God, when he gives the statement of faith to Israel, uses the word Ehad. Now what's interesting is rabbinical Judaism, under the influence of the venerable Maimonides, in the Middle Ages, he ignores Echad, and he came up with 14 articles of Judaism, and the key one is the oneness of God. God is one. And he did this as an argument against the Trinity, right? Now here's the interesting thing. When he's making the argument that God is one, you might assume he's going straight to the Shema. But he doesn't use the word ahad, he uses the word yachid. He goes out of his way to use the word that the scripture doesn't use to describe the oneness of God. Why didn't he use ahad? Because he knows that Christians are able to use ahad to point to the fact that no, God can be one, but be a plurality. That's what this word allows for. Maimonides was suppressing the truth and unrighteousness to such a point where even though the divine word itself that God gave us uses this word, I'm going to substitute it with the word that removes any possibility of the Christian interpretation. That is the suppression of the truth and unrighteousness. And so because of that, Judaism rules out Trinitarianism based on a word that's not even in the Shema, but they think the Shema is why they rule out Trinitarianism, and they don't know all the stuff that I just mentioned. They're unaware of this. I mean, some rabbis are aware of it because they've read Michael Brown's critiques and stuff like that, but for the most part, most Jews have no idea about this. Now, continuing with this, Unitarianism has another insurmountable problem. Remember that God is an absolute person. Well, think of what a person is. Have you ever thought of what personhood means definitionally? Personhood, to be a person, it requires relationships. That is an attribute of personhood. You are related to other persons. Personhood as a concept requires reciprocity. So, here's my question. How can God be a person if Unitarianism is true? Personhood requires a personal relationship, but a Unitarian God had no one He could relate with personally until He created people. He had to create angels and humans before He could become a person. Think about that. He can't be a person if He has no one to relate with, but a Unitarian God is not a plurality of persons. It's all by Himself. He's got nobody to relate to until He creates. And so, if God's an absolute personality, but He can't be a person until He creates something, then His attribute of personality is dependent on creation. At that point, he's no longer distinct from creation. He's no longer independent. You lose the independence of God. You lose the absolute personality of God. You lose the distinction between the creator and the creature. It all goes down the toilet when you have a Unitarian God, right? That's one thing people often miss about the fact that we all say God's a person, even the Unitarians, but they don't understand the implications of what they're saying. Tim Chester put it like this in his book, Delighting in the Trinity. He said, God cannot be solitary. If the one God is not a community of persons, then He cannot be personal. And if He's not personal, we can't know Him. God is knowable because He's relational, and He's relational because He exists as three persons in relationship. Now, ancient Unitarians like the Gnostics and the Neoplatonists, they understood this could be a problem, so their solution was they just made God a unity of all things that are separated by creation. So they kind of saw creation as a great chain of being, where God's ontologically at the top, and then everything else emanates out from Him. So we're closer to Him, and then a tree is below us, and a rock's below the tree. But technically, we're all just emanations from God. Well, listen, you might say, yeah, that's a unity of plurality. But it's still pantheism at that point. God is the universe, and we are part of God. That's not a personal God. That's not an absolute personality. There's no creator-creature distinction. And so, in fact, if you're trying to keep Unitarianism through that kind of emanation, you actually lose Unitarianism for pantheism. So it still doesn't work. It just doesn't work. And so the only way you could escape this trap if you want to hold to a Unitarian God, and by the way, this escape doesn't work, is you could say, well, fine, I believe God's like the Hindu conception of God, Brahma, but it's impersonal. There's no method or madness to it. It's just impersonal, and so you still lose a Unitarian God that's an absolute personality. It's self-defeating. It blows up. It's like in that Seinfeld episode when George says, if relationship George walks into the room, he will kill independent George. And if you're not a Seinfeld fan, then you don't know what I'm talking about. But when a Unitarian God walks into the room, it kills itself because it just can't cohere. Now, Jehovah Witnesses, like the Arians before them, also have to come to terms with their non-triune God. If God is a unity without being a plurality at the same time, then Jehovah Witnesses are stuck with a God who could not become a person until he created somebody. Same problem that the other Unitarians have. So, doesn't work. Now, I'm going to tell you something. that is not in my notes. I was arguing with a Muslim at the Mission Inn years ago when I was down there evangelizing, and I used this argument on him, and it went over his head. And I remember when I first shared this argument with Brian, he used it on a Jehovah Witness, and it went over their head as well. This argument's true. It's powerful. But the average person is just not smart enough to get it, to grasp it. They're like, huh, what, Mufasa, you know, or whatever. They just don't get it. You need to get it, though, because our concept of God, any concept of God depends on this. So it just reinforces our faith. And use the argument, but just understand that sometimes you will use the argument, and I remember that Muslim, he's like, sir, I do not understand what you are saying." And so I had to take a different approach on him after that. I'm like, well, how could I say this? And he was a close talker, another Seinfeld reference, and I was able to smell the alcohol on his breath. And so then that was my angle. I said, so wait a minute, you're drunk, aren't you? And then he smiled. I said, in Islam, you get kicked out of your religion for being drunk. And then all of a sudden, his head went down. And so then at that point, I'd be like, look, there's no hope for you now in your own religion. You're drunk. But let me tell you about a savior who can forgive your sins. And so that's where I went into it. The apologetic side had to give way to evangelism. But just know, everything I said about God's personality requires that he had to be a plurality, eternally relating with himself. That does go over a lot of people's heads. So just understand that. But it is fundamental that we know it because that is a key component of our worldview cohering. Alright, so, as complicated as any of that may have seemed, the Trinity solves this problem that is inherent in Unitarianism. When we answer the question, one of what, we say, well, no, one God who is one, a unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, repeatedly, the Bible emphasizes the oneness of God. But in many of the cases, it also emphasizes his plurality. Think of the many New Testament verses that place the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together. In fact, Paul, when he is exhorting the church to be united, he bases the unity of the church on the unity of God. And the unity of God, he then focuses on what each person of the Trinity does in terms of their work in the church. So for example, 1 Corinthians 12, Verses 4 through 6, the archetype of our unity in the church is this. Paul says, now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all and everyone. Now, we know that the Spirit's the Spirit, the Lord is Christ, and the same God that empowers them, that's the Father, okay? So think about it. Verse 4, you have a variety of gifts, but they come from the Spirit. You have varieties of service, but they come from Christ. And then you have a variety of activities, and they come from the Father. So the idea is that God is a unity. The church is supposed to be a unity, okay? But God gives to the church three different things, gifts, services, and activities, okay? And we're supposed to be united in those. Why? Because the Spirit that gives the gifts, and the Lord that gives the services, and the Father that gives the activities are a united, perfect unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right? That's the argument that Paul's getting at there. It's fascinating. And even when you look at the Old Testament, again, I'll go back to some Hebrew here, God speaks in the plural. He uses a plural title for Himself connected with singular verbs. And He also displays Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. in the Old Testament, so let me give some examples. In Genesis 1, verse 26 and 27, he says, let us make man in our image, okay, and then in the next verse, God created man in his own image. Now, what's interesting is the word for God in Hebrew, Elohim, is plural. It actually means gods, not God. Whenever you have an im at the end of a Hebrew word, that's like an English having an S at the end of a word. The word for God in the Old Testament is gods, the gods, okay? But why do we translate it as God? because Hebrew grammar breaks its own rules and always attaches a singular verb to the word. So, you know, some languages, if you have a plural noun, then you have to have a plural verb, okay? But in Hebrew, you got this plural noun, but they attach a singular verb. What they're letting you know is there's one God. That's why it's a singular verb. It's one being doing this. But there's something mysterious about that God, to where we describe Him as a plurality, even though He is only one. The language itself has that baked into it. The very first words of the Bible, Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay, it says, Okay, so barah is create. It's singular, Elohim's plural. The very first words of the scripture give us this one God that is a plurality, but has to be one, because it's a singular verb. It's right there in the first verse of the Bible. Now this happens so frequently in the Old Testament that our English translators just translate it as the singular God in English. That's the right move to make. And so this plurality in the very Hebrew word for God, it suggests what I've been saying, a unity of plurality. Okay, and now when you wanna see like, okay, if we got a unity of plurality, who are the pluralities? Well, you have this mysterious character in the Old Testament called the Malach Adonai or Malach Yahweh, the angel of the Lord. He speaks as God, appears in human form, is worshiped as God, right? And so a lot of conservative theologians say that's a Christophany. And what's interesting is after Jesus becomes flesh, The angel of the Lord never appears again, only before he becomes flesh. So it seems clear the angel of the Lord is pre-incarnate Jesus, right? You have the Son there. And then the Holy Spirit's mentioned in the second verse of the Bible. The Holy Spirit was over the deep of the water. Joel prophesies that the Holy Spirit's gonna be poured out on all humanity. And then of course, typically when you just see the word Elohim, it's referring to the Father. So the point is you see all three in the Old Testament. Now Jesus pulls it all together for us. But my point is Old Testament, New Testament, God clearly exists as a unity of plurality. And we can't miss the, or we shouldn't miss the philosophical importance of the Trinity. See, God could be described as a personal being, right, without being dependent on creation. For example, 1 John 4, 8, it says God is love. You ever think about that? God is love, but we should ask the question, well, love of what? If you say God is, cuz he's saying God is love, so this is an attribute. If you're saying, well, if God is love, love of what? God is love of the world? Well, then He couldn't be love until He made the world. That can't be it. Well, then it's love of us. Okay. Well, then He couldn't be love until He made us. That can't be it either. So the point is, the point is, And by the way, an attribute, let me say this before I get to this point, an attribute of God by definition is something that God has to possess in order to be God. If he loses it, he's not God. It can't be added to him, it can't be taken away from him. So if love could not exist until the creation existed, then God couldn't have existed as God until the creation was first created. But if God couldn't exist to make the creation, how could there be the creation that God made, right? It blows up. Relationship George kills independent George, is what I'm getting at. It just doesn't work. But if God is one being who is three persons eternally, then God is love and can share that love in an absolute sense as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have eternally loved each other independent of creation. And this isn't just philosophy, the scripture says this. In John 17, 24, Jesus says that He and the Father loved each other before the creation of the world. So before there was a creation, before anything existed other than God, Father and Son were loving each other eternally. That's what it means for God to be love. So when you ask the Muslim, is God love? Or the Jew, is God love? And they say, yes, you have the right to say, well, love of what? And then once they say, well, love of humanity, love of the, then show them how it blows up, okay? Only with a unity of plurality does it hold together. So the Trinity is necessary to keep every single one of God's communicable attributes intact. Also, the Trinity solves the one and many problem of philosophy. You may not have heard of this if you're not a philosopher, but there's this problem called the one and many problem. Just in case I need more caffeine. If God exists in a one-in-many form, then it would make sense for his creation to do so as well. But philosophers have long struggled with the one-in-many dilemma, leading many to one of two extremes. Secular philosophers have historically either denied, they'll either deny the existence of plurality in the world, or they will deny the existence of unity in the world. And here's what I mean. Those who deny plurality, they say, all that exists is one. There's only unity. Monism is what it's called. And they say, plurality is just an illusion. Now, those who deny the unity, they'll say, no, no, there is no unity. Everything's disunited. It's all, any unity is an illusion. Everything is completely disunited from everything else. That's called pluralism, okay? Now, with pluralism, all things in existence are completely independent of all other things in existence, and they have no relationship to anything else. But you'll be like, wait a second, the laws of nature seem to work together in a unity, and so what's up with that? They'll be like, it's an illusion. Don't believe your eyes. It's an illusion or it's an accident because all that exists is plurality. There's nothing that unites everything, even if it looks like it. It's an illusion. But then when you deal with the monists, those who think all is one, there's no many, there's only one, they'll say, well, no, everything, everything is part of that oneness. And even though we might feel that we're different from other people, and I might feel like I'm different from this music stand, we're all made of matter, which ultimately makes us one substance, and so plurality is the illusion, okay? Now, under the Christian metaphysical worldview, God is one, God is many, and he holds these in perfect unity, okay? And so, since God exists as a unity of plurality, why should anyone have difficulty seeing a creation that is both a unity and a plurality, okay? We're all made from the dust of the ground, which makes us one with creation, where there's unity, but we're different ontologically from plants, and animals, and rocks, and from each other. So there's a real plurality, a real unity, and a real plurality, both at the same time. There's no absolute unity that is devoid of plurality, and there's no absolute plurality that's devoid of unity. Now, only the Christian worldview accounts for this, and even though many secular philosophers and pagan religions reject a universe where you have both one and many, nearly everybody lives their day-to-day life as if One and many were true at the same time, and I'm gonna come back to that idea in a minute, okay? But God is the ground of both unity and diversity, okay? And the two are perfectly integrated in His one being. Let me go back to Tim Chester from Delighting in the Trinity. He says, the unity of God does not compromise the diversity of the persons, and the diversity of the persons does not compromise the unity of God. And he's absolutely right on that. Let's talk about how this affects us. Since humans are made in the image of God, God's unity of diversity has major implications for our own identity. When Genesis 1, verses 26 and 27 informs readers that God created man in His image, it hints that the image has to do with both unity and plurality. You might be like, really? I don't remember that. Verse 26, God says, let us make man in our image, focuses on God's plurality. Verse 27, God made man in his own image, unity, right? But then you go back to verse 26, and it makes it clear that the image of God, okay, involves us ruling over creation, but it also involves mankind's sharing of this one and many relationality. Verse 27 demonstrates this with two parallel statements. First, it says, verse 27, in the image of God, he created him. Notice that? In the image of God, he created him. Immediately after that, it says male and female, he created them. God's image, he created him, male and female, he created them. Him, unity, them, plurality, built into creation right there. And so God created, and then it sums it up at the end of verse 27, so God created man in his own image. Him and them is God's own image. So what does it mean that God created man in his own image? It's the oneness and the plurality. Existing in the image of God renders humanity as an analogy to the unity of diversity that's found in the Trinity. Humanity consists of individual persons. All of us are individuals, right? We're individual from all other persons, yet humans possess communal identities. Half of us are male, half of us are female, right? So I'm not just me, I'm also male, which puts me in identity with every other man on the planet. And women, same thing. That's why this whole transgender thing is such an affront to God. It's such a blasphemy. It's a rebellion against the created order, right? Not only are we individuals and we're male and female plurality, but we're also plurality in terms of nations, tribes, clans, all that kind of stuff. So built into how we even function and survive, you notice how we're always a unity of plurality in one way or another? Now, non-biblical positions inconsistently assume what the biblical worldview demands. And what I mean is both the monists and the pluralists, they treat us, they treat humans as if we have dignity. And they recognize each person's individuality, while at the same time, They try to hold each of us responsible to the whole. That only makes sense if you believe in both the one and the many. And here's what I mean. Individuality assumes plurality, whereas responsibility to the whole assumes unity. If we are all in absolute unity, why recognize any of us as individuals? Yet, the Monas philosopher professor at Harvard would be very mad at me if I plagiarized his work. He'd be like, he says, all is one, there is no distinction. So I take one of his papers, put my name on it. He's like, wait, that's mine, not yours. Mine, yours. Oh, we're different. There's a distinction. And he's like, get out of my class, young man, right? But the point is, his monism isn't true. He just, he can't live according to it. He's assuming there's distinction between us, which assumes pluralism, even though he denies it. Now, on the other hand, the pluralist assumes everything's radically independent of all other things, but if I rob his house, he's going to demand I be held responsible to society. Well, wait a second. If we're all radically independent, how am I responsible to the whole? You're assuming unity now. You get what I'm saying? The pluralist says he doesn't believe in unity, but you rob him, all of a sudden he believes in unity. The monist says he doesn't believe in plurality, but you plagiarize his paper, all of a sudden he believes in plurality. We can't escape the world God made. We can't escape reality. We are what we are because he is what he is. And he's a one in many, and so we're a one in many. The universe exists as a one in many. And so my point is, all these groundless secular positions prove themselves untenable. They can't live according to what they say. So every day they live according to what we say, but then they deny it, right? That's my point. And that's what we have to be able to point out to some of these people sometimes, right? So summing up, The Trinity, the Christian worldview alone accounts for the one and many problem of creation. It's also the only philosophical possibility if God exists as an absolute independent personality from which all other things are derivative. The other distinctive points of Christian metaphysics actually are impossible unless God is a unity of plurality. So God's triune nature is necessary for God's absolute personality, the creator-creature distinction, the sovereignty of God. If you deny the Trinity, you're denying his absolute personality, because now his personality is dependent on creation, right? And the same applies to, same with love. His love is dependent on creation. If he depends on creation, then he's not distinct from the creation anymore. Creator-creature distinction, gone, disappears. And if he's not distinct from creation, then how could he be sovereign over it, right? hinges upon the Trinity. It is that important of a doctrine and a philosophical concept. When people act like, well, it's no big deal. It's complicated. It divides. Listen, you give up the whole plot if you give up the Trinity. It absolutely is required. And really, the philosophical necessity of the Trinity should compel Jews and Muslims to come to terms with the inadequacy and self-defeating nature of their Unitarian conceptions of God. So let me sum up Christian metaphysics, and then I'll be able to get through epistemology and ethics really quickly. Christian metaphysics stands over against all unbelieving counterparts. Christianity teaches that God's an independent, absolute personality that's distinct from creation and is sovereign over it because he's above it, and God is a trinity. These four points make Christian metaphysics stand alone in perfect uniqueness. All other systems of thought, they deny and battle against the Christian position to such a point that it demonstrates that fallen man really does suppress the truth. Because if this is all just made up, why does nobody else hold our position or an equivalent of it? Why do all the rest, in some form or the other, they all end up at the same conclusion? But we alone end up here. It's because there's one truth, God's truth, and everybody else is just suppressing that in unrighteousness. Now, metaphysics is the broadest of the fields of philosophy because it studies so many things, but we still have to cover epistemology and ethics. Now, the reason why I'm able to be fast is I'm gonna do a whole, there's a whole chapter in my book on Christian epistemology. And so that's probably gonna, I'm probably gonna just do two full lessons here on epistemology. So all I'm giving you here is the basics, and we're gonna come back to this. We as Christians should value epistemology because it gets to the bottom of our basic intellectual commitments. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It asks us how we know what we know. And that's very important, right? If a person tells you knowledge only comes through reasoning, you have the right to ask them, well, how do you know that? How do you know? That knowledge only comes through reasoning. See, human beings by ourselves, we can't really know anything for certain because we're finite. Our finitude gets in the way. As much as people might try to claim that they can, the fact is there's always more to learn. There's new facts that will come to light from the quantum level and the macro level. Our microscopes get better, our telescopes get better. New facts undermine old certainties all the time. And even reason itself is not safe from epistemology because reason can't prove that knowledge comes by reason. You're like, okay, prove with reason that all knowledge comes through reason. You can't. You can't. And so again, they can't justify that. So now some people recognize this like, oh yeah, our finitude makes knowledge impossible. And so they say true knowledge is impossible and we can't know anything. That's where they go. They say, we can't know anything exhaustively. But apparently, they know exhaustively that we can't know anything exhaustively. Again, it blows up, right? Their position can't work. Christian epistemology solves that dilemma. Apparently, humans, we do learn things. And we do have true knowledge because we're able to do science experiments that predict outcomes and so forth. But this fact occurs simultaneously alongside the fact that we can't exhaustively know anything because of our finitude. For example, I give this example a lot, but take one square inch of the earth. What would it take for you to know everything about one square inch of the earth? You would have to know everything that has ever happened to that square inch, every bird that's flown above it, every raindrop that's hit it, every wind that's went over it from whatever direction, you would have to know that just not for now, but for all of time before and all time after. Furthermore, you would have to know what's happening on that square inch at the molecular level, the submolecular level. So can any human being satisfy the requirement of exhaustive knowledge on even one inch? No. So if we can't even exhaustively know one inch, we can't exhaustively know anything. So our finitude makes that the reality. So really, we shouldn't be able to know anything with certainty, but we do. That's the weird thing. In life, we do know things with certainty, but we can't account for it. We shouldn't be able to know things with certainty, but we do. Okay? And so there's a reason for that. There's a reason for that. And so as human beings, we live with a simultaneous certainty and uncertainty, both at the same time that's forced on us. And we can explain it and we can observe it, but we can't account for it on our own knowledge. As a finite human, you cannot explain why we can't exhaustively know anything, but somehow we know things. You can't explain it, because if it's just us and there's no God and we're finite, it should not be this way. What it should be is we can't know anything, but we do know things, right? And so Christian epistemology accounts for this tension. We start with God. God exhaustively knows everything because of His omniscience, and therefore God has all authority over all knowledge. There's nothing He doesn't know. So knowing all things perfectly, He's the only one with certitude. So knowing all things perfectly, He interprets everything as it really is. So God can and does speak with absolute certainty. Whatever He says, we can know for certain it's certainly true, because the only person who can know things with certainty has said it, right? So because there's a God, we can know things are certainly true if He tells us. He is the source of all knowledge, and that's why the Bible, Proverbs 1, 7, says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, right? We have to start there. The Christian possesses a dependent certainty and a dependent uncertainty, both at the same time. We're like, you know what? We know we don't know everything. We're finite. There's so much things, like there's that Psalm, I was just praying it today, like, Lord, keep me from the things that are too big for me, right? There's just things that we can't know. We understand that. We're not God. And so God's certitude depends on the fact that He knows everything. Our certitude depends on the fact that we trust what He reveals. But we have this dependent uncertainty where we recognize that if God doesn't choose to reveal something to us, Then we can't know it for certain. Deuteronomy 29, 29 says, what God has revealed is for you and your generations forever, but the secret things belong to the Lord. What He doesn't tell you, you can't know for sure. The things we can't know for sure, they're like, yeah, we could conduct science experiments and say, hey, we have a pretty good reason to believe this is true because it keeps passing these experiments, but we still hold it loosely because there might be something that comes up later that overturns that. And it might even be useful. Like we might be wrong, but it might be useful. You know, back in the day when they believed the Earth was the center of the universe, the geocentric model, and they mapped all the stars and all that type of stuff with a false model that was really complicated, but they could still predict eclipses and seasons and stuff like that. So even with the wrong conclusion, it still was able to be useful. So sometimes we could have a position that's wrong as humans, but it could still prove useful. And then later, more knowledge overturns it. So the only things we can know for certain are the things that God tells us. Everything else, we can learn things because God wired us and the universe to work in such a way to work through cause and effect, we can figure things out. just not with certainty. That's what we have to hold on to. So the harmony of these two truths accounts for why we as humans can know things with certainty even though we don't possess exhaustive knowledge. Now those who reject the authority of God over knowledge, they can't claim what I'm claiming here. They can't claim to know anything with certainty. Now some of them are going to say, but we do know things. And I'm going to address that in a future lesson. They know things because they're borrowing from our worldview. That's why they know things. And so we have to point that out to them, that they're not being consistent with their worldview. Van Til put it this way. He said they're like the child sitting on the father's lap slapping the face of the father. In a sense, they say there's no father, but it's only on the lap of the father that they're even able to slap him, right? And so it's the idea that they say there's no God, but it's because they're in God's world using God's gifts that they're saying there's no God, right? And so we'll get to that later. But anyhow, I'll say more about epistemology later, let's finish. with ethics. The final area of Christian philosophy is ethics. Like metaphysics and like epistemology, the Christian has a distinct system of ethics. Human personality and human knowledge have to be grounded in God. Same thing with human ethics. We don't exist independently as persons. Our personhood depends on God. Our knowledge, our ability to know things depends on God, and likewise, it's gonna be the same thing with ethics. We do not independently know good from evil. Now, people will think they do. I don't believe in God, but I think things are good, I think things are evil. It's still dependent, whether they realize it or not, okay? So here's the point, okay? God, as the independent, absolute personality, distinct from creation, is the supreme standard of right and wrong and good and evil. Now, we must not misunderstand what this means. God does not arbitrarily deem some things good and some things evil. Instead, everything that is good is good because it matches God's nature. He's the original being. He's the necessary being, okay? And so what's good is what agrees with him. What's evil is what disagrees with his nature. Now, it's important that we understand this because unbelievers often advance this fallacy that, well, if good and evil are dependent on God, if they're not independent of Him, then God could arbitrarily say murder is good, and it would be so just because He's God. But here's the thing, they fail to realize that God's decree concerning good and evil is not just He makes it up, well, okay, this is good, this is bad. No, it's all based on His nature. Why is lying evil? Hebrews 6.18 says, because it's impossible for God to lie. He's the God of truth, right? So truth is good. Lying is the opposite of that. So it is bad. Anything that is bad is contrary to his moral nature, and therefore it is evil. Anything that is good is what is in agreement with his nature. Since God is the ground of all created existence, ethics has to agree with God's nature. So we're just intuiting, in a sense, the things that are good, and we can intuit it, because whose image are we made in? God's. So it's not independently that people come up with their standards. Unfortunately, as part of the suppression of truth, unbelievers deny that God has the right to declare good and evil in an authoritative manner. Romans 1.32 tells us fallen man knows God's ethical decrees, but they ignore them and they encourage others to ignore them as well. What they do is they want to escape accountability to God, so they want to claim that humans are autonomous and that we independently determine good for evil. By the way, what did Satan tempt Eve with? If you eat this fruit, you'll be like God and will know," what? Good and evil for yourself. You'll be a law unto yourself. So ethics is what it all, like what the fall all hinged upon. Who gets to determine authoritatively what's right or wrong, God or us? Well, since it stems from God's nature, only God. It's always wrong if we autonomously think we could determine stuff separately. from God's nature. Now, fallen man, because they're rejecting God as the ground of everything, so now they can't really account for their ethics, they come up with a number of theories to try to justify it. So some will push their theory of ethics in terms of pragmatism, idealistic duty, or relativism. Those are the really three systems of ethics that unbelievers will appeal to. And I will say more about them in future lessons as well. But the fast version is pragmatism Under pragmatism, man autonomously determines what's good by its usefulness. If it works, it's good. If it works, it's good. It's called utilitarian ethics. So if you've taken a college philosophy class, you might be like, oh, that sounds like utilitarianism. That's another word for it, pragmatism, utilitarianism. Same thing. So it's not that things are inherently good or bad, it's that if it works and benefits people, it's good. Well, again, I'll talk about this later, but that's circular reasoning because you have to know ahead of time what the good result is. So again, it becomes circular. Now, the second kind is called duty-based ethics, and the technical term is deontological ethics. You may have heard that before. That's the idea that good and evil exist as independent standards. They're just in the stars, for all we know. Just good and evil, they independently exist of us and God. And so both us and God appeal to this independent standard. And maybe God judges us by that standard, but we also can judge God by that standard. That ultimately, that God is not independent of the standard, and it stands over Him. This is how a fallen man tries to judge God's actions in the Bible as morally questionable. Well, God tells you to worship Him. He's a megalomaniac. Or God commanded Israel to destroy the Canaanites. He's genocidal. So they're acting like there's these standards. of ethics that even God's bound to and now we could accuse God and put him on trial. Deontological ethics, it doesn't work. And then finally, you have relativism, which is the most pervasive form of ethics in the West. Each person chooses for himself right and wrong and no standard exists that binds everyone. And of course, that's self-defeating and nobody actually lives as a relativist and so Again, we'll get to some of this in later lessons. But all these types of ethical systems, this is what happens when man tries to claim autonomy over ethics. The main difference between believing and unbelieving ethical thought comes down to dependence versus independence, okay? And it's the same with metaphysics and epistemology, dependence versus independence. We as Christians know that God created man in his image. We know that man was originally created good. Okay, we know that the fall damaged the divine image in us, but in our hearts and our conscience, we still know that certain things are good and certain things are evil. But our will, tainted by sin, seeks rebellion against God and rejects his authority to declare right and wrong. So we'll still get some things right, but we wanna do it without giving credit to where the credit is due. And so with our damaged image, we need more than ever to listen to God's interpretation of ethical standards. We need the Bible. But as a race, we prefer autonomy in order to deny the reality of the judgment to come. If we reject that God can have the final say over ethics, then there's no judgment. Now, even before the fall Adam and Eve's moral will was never meant to function by itself. God gave commands. You could eat of all these trees, but not this one. Right? Even in perfection, we were still dependent on God's moral standards and instruction. Okay? And so even a perfect humanity required dependence on God to uphold his ethical standards. But as we noticed in the theology of apologetics, their very refusal to depend on God concerning ethics is what caused the fall in the first place. And ever since then, God has revealed through the Bible his perfect moral standards by which all people will be judged. Now, apparently, The conscience, like all other aspects of general revelation, it only provides enough to us to reveal our wickedness and our coming doom. We need special revelation where God gives us the specific instructions through human words to show us what we ought to do. and where we find salvation since we failed to do that. So again, we need special revelation. And the Bible, because it comes from God, is absolute, authoritative, and it's binding on all of us. And it requires a day of judgment for God to be just. And so for this reason, fallen man rejects God's sovereign right and ethics and deceives himself with all of his groundless theories of ethics. So let me conclude and then I'll take any questions. is a worldview and a philosophy, and it stands over against every other competing philosophy of the world. Christianity gives us a comprehensive view of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. And unlike the world's version, ours is internally consistent, meaning it has no contradictions. It's logically flawless. and it perfectly accounts for everything we see in the real world. Unbelieving philosophy, which we're going to see in the next lessons, regardless of its many varieties, it cannot account for what we see and know in the real world, and it always works against our common everyday experience. In the next lesson, as I said, we're going to go over the various philosophies and worldviews of unbelievers. We'll evaluate them. I'll give you a grid on how to classify them. And then at that point, both Christian and unbelieving worldviews will be laid out on the table for you to see. And once you see both types of worldviews clearly, you should then start to see why presuppositional argument makes so much sense. You should start to see why At the evidence level or individual argument level, that's not where it's at. It has to be at the presuppositions once you understand the worldviews that are driving people's interpretation. So, at the end of the day, I'm believing presuppositions are internally inconsistent and logically flawed, and they are unable to account for reality. And so they're going to make a perfect target for our attack. And that's what we're all about. We're defending the faith and savaging their worldviews. So that being said, any questions?