Atheist Michael Ruse’s Confused Argument for Morality

Thank you very much.

Well, hello dear friends, and welcome to our show. It's called Stand to Reason, and I am

Greg Kokler, your host. I'm looking at an article here that I want to read to you because it

magnificently characterizes an understanding that I, regarding morality and evil, that I talk

about a lot. And this piece is written by a very fine philosopher who died last year. His name is

Michael Ruse. He's an atheistic philosopher. A really fine chap had a big beard and kind of a roton

to fellow with a hearty laugh and easygoing. I actually met him in, where does Tim live Toronto?

I was doing a TV show there many years ago, but he was also doing the same show, but a different

episode. It's called Test of Faith. And I knew of him, because I had quoted him almost 30 years ago

now in the book Relativism that I wrote with Frank Beckwith. And I also quoted him, I think at street

smarts, on the same issue, it was a different citation, but it really amounted to what he's talking

about in this piece titled, God is Dead, Long Live Morality. Now, if you listen to me on this

issue at all, you know that there, there is a contradiction in that statement. If God is dead,

there is no morality. And the way I have put it in the past, and I think this notion sometimes

is hard to sink your teeth into, but my point was if there are no laws, there can't be any broken

laws. And if there are no broken laws, morally speaking in the world, then there's no problem of

evil in the world. Things that may happen that we don't like, but so what? Who cares? Who should

care what we like and don't like? If there are no laws governing those kinds of things, even the

presumption that we should care about what people like is a moral law. And if there are no moral laws,

then there are, there is no, there are no broken laws then obviously. And if there are no broken

laws, morally speaking in the world, there is no problem of evil. But there is a problem of

evil. Therefore, there are broken laws. Therefore, there are laws. And then the next step, of course,

is therefore there is a law maker. Because laws are the kinds of thing that require a maker.

And if there is no maker of moral laws, that's transcendent over the moral law over everyone.

The only thing that's left is us making our own moral laws. And that's called relativism.

And if it's just up to us and people differ on what's right and wrong and they do,

that's one of the arguments people advance for relativism is the differences of moral points of

view. Then there is no, then there is no evil in the world. There are just different points of view.

But the problem of evil is one of the most salient features of reality.

And as I've said many times, it doesn't matter where you live or when you live, everybody knows

that there's something wrong with the world. The world's broken and it's morally broken.

Things happen that should not happen. It's not the way the world's supposed to be. But there

can't be a way the world's not supposed to be in problem of evil unless there is a will,

the world is supposed to be. And there can't be a way the world's supposed to be without a

spouser. You've got to have a lawmaker that makes the laws that get broken to cause the problem of

evil. No lawmaker, no laws, no broken laws, no problem of evil. So that's kind of the calculus

of the moral argument for God's existence. It's either objective morality or not.

And if it's not objective morality, it is subjective morality. And this is precisely what Michael

Ruiz argues for and he thinks it's good. Now, of course, the question needs to be asked if he

thinks it's good. What does he mean by good? Because objective goodness has gone on his view.

So I just want to, I just want to read this piece. You most of it. It's not very long. It's probably

about 700 words and a couple of pages. It comment a little bit on it and just listen.

God is dead, log live morality. And he starts, God is dead. So why should I be good?

The answer is there are no grounds whatsoever for being good. There's no celestial headmaster

who is going to give you six or six billion, billion, billion of the best if you are bad.

I'm not sure what that means, but I think he means that you're not going to get if you think

you're bad, you're going to get punished really bad. He says morality is flim flam.

Now, he goes on qualifier. Does this mean that we could just go out and rape and pillage,

behave like ancient Roman, grabbing, sobbing women? Not at all. Okay. Now this is just a pause.

Okay. I'm listening now. I want to know why if there is no God and there is no,

there are no moral rules that obliter everybody. There is no moral law governing the universe.

Then why can't I just do whatever? So he goes on. He says, I said that there are no grounds for being

good. It doesn't follow that you should be bad. Indeed, there are those and I'm one who argue

that only by recognizing the death of God, can we possibly do that which we should and behave

properly to our fellow human beings and perhaps save the planet that we all share. Now,

the pausing again, because I have a question about these words, it doesn't follow you should be

bad. No, it doesn't follow you should be bad. What follows is that there's no

should that can possibly apply to anything. And if you want to be bad, you can be. If you want

to be what people now call bad, you can do that, the raping, the pillaging, all that. But it wouldn't

be bad because there is no good and bad in the world you're describing, Professor Rose.

And when you say we should behave properly with our fellow human beings, I don't know what

you're talking about. What do you mean we should? And what is proper behavior? Do you see the problem

here? In denying morality, this brilliant man, PhD in philosophy, he thought the New Atheists were

idiots. And he complained profusely about them in public, even writing a letter or maybe as an

email to Daniel Dennett, one of the four, chastising him for his cheap and shallow shot at theists.

He says, you guys are embarrassing us philosophers, the smart guys who really know stuff,

and our atheist, you're embarrassing us. And what the New Atheists did was embarrassing to many

in the way they argued, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are the only two surviving members that

force them. But this is what Michael Rousse thought about them. But nevertheless, in his own writing,

he's saying there is no foundational or grounds, which is an appropriate philosophical way of putting

it. He's using the right language, no grounds whatsoever for being good. No celestial headmaster.

So notice that he understands there has to be a celestial headmaster for there to be transcendent

celestial, if you will, moral laws. But he said, no, we don't need that. Morality is a flimflam.

And but then he starts smuggling in these moral terms, which he just said are meaningless.

We should behave properly. What? What is that? Okay, well, let's give him a chance.

Let's start with the fact that humans are naturally moral beings. I admit that. If what he

means is that we naturally deal with deal in moral categories. Francis shape for used to call that

moral motions. Okay, I get that. But the question is why? And are they more than mere moral motions

are our moral motions actually capturing substantive morality that is necessary for us to be

meaningful when we use words like should and behave properly. So we continue. Start with the fact

that humans are naturally moral beings, meaning we want to get along with our fellows we want to.

We care about our families. We feel that we should put our hands in our pockets for the

widow's norphans. This is not a matter of chance or even of culture primarily. Humans as animals

have gone the root of sociality. Now I get this to pause again. You know where he's going with

this because he's starting to get into the evolutionary thing and how nature has done this. But

what do you think about this phrase? We want to get along with our fellows. We care about our

families. We feel we should put our hands in our pockets for the widow's norphans. Do you think

that's true of all human beings? Are there like exceptions? Yeah. And they're not just exceptions.

Lots of people don't care properly about their families. You got deadbeat doubts. You got alcoholic

drug, drug women. You've got, you know, everybody's digging into their pockets for the widow's

norphans. No, they're expecting the government to do that. We want to get along with our fellows

then why do people do so many things that outrage other people and cause problems? So this is

do you see how this is a very sanitized view of human nature? We don't need to do this. We're going

to he's with these breezy appeals to evolve human nature. We're basically good without God. Of

course, as I pointed out, the word good in the phrase basically good doesn't have any meaning

apart from an object to moral content. Because if you're just appealing to human beings as I've

just noted, they got lots of different ideas about what goodness is. And Sam Harris makes this

same mistake because he he says, well, we can all agree that human that that morality is about

human flourishing. We can all agree on that. And then he moves forward with the rest of his case.

Well, he's just made a huge assumption that morality is about human flourishing. No,

maybe you could make a case there, but what the heck is human flourishing?

Because people have entirely disparate understandings of what it looks like for humans to flourish.

That's why you have culture wars for good to sink. That's why you have Democrats and Republicans.

You have totally different ideas of what it likes, who it looks like to lead the good life.

It isn't as if we all agree on that. And now we just got to figure out where this thing came

from, naturalistically speaking, that we all seem to agree on. And then he goes into, you know,

this kind of a Darwinian story, a just so story about how we all, you know, want to survive well

as a as a as a people and and, you know, the murder rate among lions would make downtown Detroit

look like Haven. So we're doing better than lions. Oh, but lions murder. Is that what you want to

call that murder? You see, murder is a morally freighted term. It's not the same as just killing.

Lions kill. They don't murder. We murder. It's different. Hey, then, you know, disparages the

idea of morality being handed down from Mount Sinai by Moses. But it's rather something forged

in the struggle for existence and reproduction. Well, look at if there is no God, then there is

a struggle. And we can maybe manipulate that struggle for our benefit, but that's not morality.

That's not real morality. And this is a problem with all these Darwinian characterizations of

morality. They just don't work. They might, you might be able to tell a story about how if we

get all get along, then we'll all survive longer. But you know, and Richard Dawkins made this

clearer. It's not about us all getting along and all of us surviving in the survival of the species.

It's about the selfish gene, getting itself into its to the next generation. So it beats out

all the other weaker selfish genes that other humans have. That's how that works.

Morality is just a matter of emotions he continues, like like liking ice cream.

I got a chocolate, Amy is chocolate because this is the exactly the characterization

that I use to describe relativism. It's like liking ice cream and sex

and having a toothache and marking student papers, you know, and hating toothache rather and

marking student papers. So what is ice, liking ice cream and sex is that good?

What if they kind of sex that you like is abusive to other human being? Well, that's the bad

really? By what standard? You see, he's already said there's no grounding

to these things, except for, as I said a moment ago, this breezy appeal to a

evolved human nature, but I believe in the human nature. Actually, it's not human nature that's

evolved its human activity. He would not acknowledge that humans have a nature

because nature's aren't physical. And evolution is a completely materialistic process.

It's physical top to bottom. He continues that morality, even though it is a matter of emotions,

it has to pretend it's a funny kind of emotion. It has to pretend that it is not merely an

emotion because if it didn't realize it was just an emotion, it would break down to accomplish

the end. In other words, and he's written this in other places, we have been tricked by evolution

to believe in morality. And part of the trick is that we believe that our morality is objective,

and maybe we have to create a god to make sense of what we think is objective morality when it's not,

but we've been tricked to believe that because if we didn't think it was really objective morality,

then we wouldn't it wouldn't do the job for evolution that needs to be done. So here it is in this

other piece, Michael Ruiz makes this odd statement. He said, I believe in objective morality,

but I only believe in objective morality because evolution has tricked me into believing something false.

Pregnant pause. I believe to be true, something I know is not true. That's

that's the simple form of the statement. This is not coherent to believe as to hold that

a thing is so, and you can't hold that a thing is so that you know is not so. It's not possible,

but that's what he's suggesting. So morality, he writes has to come across as something that is

more than a motion has to appear to be objective, even though really it is subjective. Why should I be

good? Why should you be good? Because that is what morality demands of us. This whatever spooky

morality that's invented by evolution, it is bigger than both of us. It is laid on us by evolution.

Now I'm adding these words in this, you know, my, what do they call it? Sate Vace or whatever,

like sub voice here. Is that the word? That musical? What does that musical term mean?

Here she's a flick player. Anyway, I mean, just adding this little thing here because it's so nonsense.

Why should I be good? Why should you be it? Because morality demands that what it's bigger than

both of us is laid on us and we must accept it, laid on us. Yeah, evolution. Just like we must

accept two plus two equal four. Are you kidding me? Anyway, am I now giving the game away? He's

closing out now. Now you know that morality is an illusion put in place by your genes to make you

a social cooperator. What's to stop you behaving like an ancient Roman? My answer is nothing.

Unless there's a moment of self-interest where you do what some people might call good for your

own benefit, but if you're just manipulating things for your own selfish reasons, that's,

itself is not even goodness. What's to stop you? Well, nothing you write in an objective sense,

but you're still a human with your gene-based psychology working flat out to make you think

you should be moral. It doesn't matter how much philosophical reflection can show that your

beliefs and behavior have no rational foundation, which is what he's arguing. Your psychology will

make you sure you go on living in a normal, happy manner. Many closes out. God is dead.

The new atheists think that this is a significant finding in this as in just about everything else

they are completely mistaking. God is dead. Morality has no foundation. Long live morality.

Thank goodness. So there you have it. And you know what I'm talking about? Smart guys advancing

foolishness like this. I'm not making it up. This guy's smart. I guess I could have gallows,

humor and say, knows better now. He's no longer alive. But this is what you have to do. You have to

say these largely incoherent things. I believe an objective morality, but I know my belief is false.

That's what he says. God is dead. If God has said, there's nothing, there's no lots of any kind.

We're just stuck with, watch this. Beliefs about reality, these moral beliefs,

that morality is objective. That are false. He acknowledges that. Now I've talked about this

before. I don't even know if it's coherent to talk about evolution, creating beliefs. Beliefs

are not physical. There are physical things going on when we believe something, but a belief can be

stated in propositional form. And there are no propositions in our brain. Beliefs have

are about things, right? And no physical thing is about anything else. The word for that is

intentionality. He knows that. He's a philosopher. So how is it that a purely, purely physical process

produces beliefs of any kind that that makes no sense to me? And I don't, who is demonstrated that

this is the case, as opposed to just presumed. You can't just wave the wand of evolution over everything

as if this explains everything. It doesn't. But it gets worse. Even if I said that the Darwinian

process of mutation and natural selection, that's the Darwinism, the classical view,

even if that was true, and capable of producing beliefs. Guess what we just acknowledge? The

beliefs that evolution created in us are false. It's caused us to believe something false,

by our own admission, by his own admission, which then raises a question. And that question is,

what other beliefs do we have that we think are true? Turn out to be false because evolution

has tricked us in that area too. In other words, if this works to explain our false belief in

objective morality, this undermines our entire epistemic structure. We can't trust anything we

think we know because who knows how far evolution is monkeed with our brains? Can't say mind,

because there's no mind in evolution, monkeed with our brains to cause us to believe non-physical

things that are false. You see the problem. And by the way, I'm not the only one to notice this

Alvin plan against our dimensions. See, as Lewis has brought this issue up, in fact, this was a

significant factor in his own move to becoming a atheist. If you watched that film, it's really

good. I enjoyed a lot. I talked about a few weeks ago called the most reluctant atheist. You

can get it on prime now. If you got crime, you can watch it for free. I love that show.

Oh, Amy just correct to be. Thankfully, the most reluctant convert. Yes, yes, that's right.

The most reluctant convert who had been an atheist and then was reluctant about his atheism

and then he became a convert reluctantly. So there's a lot of reluctance in there to go around,

right? Okay. The most reluctant convert, there's a whole conversation about this that's reenacted

in this film by the actors where they ask the question, if naturalism is true, and it's just a

blind process that has created our brains with our beliefs, how can we trust anything we think we

know that had a powerful impact on Lewis? And that's what's going on here. That's an issue here.

So just thought I'd enlighten you with Dr. Michael Russe. And this to me is an example of brilliant

people making very foolish mistakes in thinking when it comes to spiritual things. All right. Let's

break. Be back in a moment for a standard reason. Would you like a standard reason speaker at your

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All right, 855-2439-975 is my number. If you're listening live streaming, I want to call right away.

But I think I'm going to move right now to open mic calls. And that is when you leave your call

on our website, and go to str.org and the homepage and under podcast, you see live broadcast,

and you can leave a call there. It turns out we have two calls that are about

my friend Frank Beckwith, and I'm sorry, Frank Turek, who said,

raised an issue about God's love and grace and Calvinism, I guess. And so I'm just going to combine

these two together, and we'll hear from both Matt and Justin, and then I'll do my best to respond

to their concerns. So you got that keyed up there, Kyle. Kyle?

Hey, Greg. My name is Matt, and I have a question I was listening to Dr. Frank Turek,

which I know is a friend of yours, talked to a student about Calvinism,

and he asked the student if why God doesn't regenerate everyone so that they can believe,

and the student's response was that it was God's plan not to regenerate everyone so that they

could believe. And Frank then says that that makes God finite in his love and infinite in his

justice, and then goes on to say that that's not the God of the Bible, that's allah, the God of

Muslims. And I just wanted to get your quick response. What would you say to Frank Turek, Dr.

Frank Turek, on that, meaning I know that you are, you hold to the five points of Calvinism,

and what would your answer be to Dr. Frank Turek in that conversation? Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, Matt. Before we get to Justin, I've actually seen the clip online where he

addresses this issue, and it would be, in a certain way, it would be convenient if it was that

easy to respond. So let me hear from Justin now, and I'll give you some feedback about this.

I don't think I've actually ever talked to Frank about this particular issue. I've talked about

some things related to it, but not this. And I'm not inclined to pick a fight about Frank

theologically with things or anybody for that matter. But if you wanted to talk about it,

I'd talk about it with him. But since this is being asked, I'll respond to it on the air.

Let's hear what Justin has to say in a similar vein about something Frank has mentioned in this area.

Hey, Greg. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about a recent

Q&A session that I heard with Frank Turek. He was speaking with a student about Calvinism,

and the student was trying to explain the Calvinist view of salvation, and how regeneration

was solely an act of God, monogistic, and obviously Frank was disagreeing as he's not a Calvinist.

And he had a hard time with the idea of if it's all God who does all of the work in regeneration,

then why are not, why are all men not saved? And he said to him, that seems as if

you have a God who is infinitely just, but finite in his love. He said, that's not the God of the

Bible. That's Allah. That's the God of Islam. And so a couple takeaways for me. First,

this seems philosophically wrong, but I can't really put my finger on it. I was hoping you could

kind of help me flesh this out. Something just doesn't sit right with me about that explanation.

And then two, I would never make a sweeping claim like this about my Armenian friends. My

Armenian friends are clearly Christian and worship the same God that I do in scripture.

I would never say something like that to them. To me, that's just that's blasphemous because

of course, what if you're wrong and you're liking the God of Scripture to Allah or some other

pagan God. And I know that Frank is a friend of yours. So I'm just wondering, would he say something

like that to you? Or I'm sure that he doesn't really feel that way, but that just struck me,

that struck a chord in me. And so just wanted to get your thoughts on that. And I appreciate you

for taking my call. Yeah, thanks for that, Justin. And we're pretty much in the same vein with both

these calls. And first of all, I just want to dispatch the blasphemy part. I don't think it's

blasphemous at all to describe the God of Scripture, the way you use the word you used in Justin,

in your case, for Frank to describe the God of Scripture like Allah because Frank doesn't think

the God of Scripture is like that. His point is that on the Calvinist view, and I prefer to

characterize myself as reformed not Calvinist because Calvinism is Calvin. And the reformed view

is more expansive than Calvin. Lutherans are not Calvinists, but they believe in sovereign grace.

So that's I'm in that sovereign grace camp. And I don't have any problems with the so-called

tulip, the five points of Calvinism. That came from actually the Council of Dort. And their response

to five points of the remonstrance from the Armenians. So it isn't just unique to Calvinists,

but that's the way it's often characterized. Just a little thing, just saying. In my view,

I hold two sovereign grace. No, Frank doesn't hold to the view like I do, but he doesn't think I'm

blasphemous because although there are some who talk that way, not Frank to my knowledge,

but there have been some others that are friends of ours that have been a little bit

kind of aggressive and it's troubled us. Not going to name any names because I don't want to get

in a sense over personal about this, but their attitude was that they can't believe in a god

like that. That's so awful. How could a person like me believe in that? And so I don't know. I'm

the word blasphemy certainly has an applied to Frank circumstance because he's saying that's not

the god of the scripture. If you're going to characterize God that way, that sounds like Allah.

And that's not who we believe in. Okay. Now the way he characterized it was finite in his love

and infinite in his justice. All right. Now I actually don't think that's a helpful way of

wording it. This is what Justin was referring to by. He thinks that's philosophically wrong,

but he's not sure how to deal with that. Well, I think that the wording obscures some more

refined details that we have to think about. I don't even know what infinite and justice means.

I honestly don't. And this isn't disparaging. I've just got his just. He is not unjust in any way.

Adding the word infinite doesn't doesn't help. He is just and the justifier. So he makes sure that

every sin is paid for one way or another. So God is just. Now if if a person doesn't receive

Christ for whatever reason, then they pay. If a person does trust Christ for whatever reason

are many and are Calvinist or reformed, then they don't pay because Jesus has already paid.

The issue of infinite doesn't come in there at all. Both sides believe that God is fully just

and his justice is applied appropriately to those who are not forgiven. Calling that infinite justice,

I don't I don't need again, you guys can figure it out. If you think that's helpful, I don't think

it is. I think it's rhetorically powerful and I don't think that Frank is just kind of spinning

word webs at all. It seems meaningful to him, but if I'm going to stop and think about it, I said,

I don't know. Here's what we believe. We believe that God is just. He is not at all unjust and he

applies his justice in a in a perfect way. And he applies either the punishment that is due

us to Jesus, which Frank believes, and the punishment that is due the nonbeliever to them, which

Frank believes to. That's all that has to be said. Adding infinite justice doesn't serve any

purpose whatsoever. So when it comes to the issue of justice, we both agree. Now when it comes to

the issue of God's love, which is being characterized as finite, I don't think that word helps either.

Because nobody in this discussion thinks that God's love is somehow limited. However, we do hold

that God gets to distribute his love as he wills. And he doesn't distribute it equally to everyone.

So I have right here in the upper room discourse, gospel of John chapter 14.

Jesus says this in verse 21,

he who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be

loved by my father. And I will love him. And we'll disclose myself to him. Now this is curious,

isn't it? This is Jesus identifying a redemptive love that is above and beyond the love that God

has for the non-redeemed. Yes, God distributes his love, and he distributes it, distributes it as

he wills. And I don't think that Frank would disagree with that point. What we would disagree

with is is another issue, which I'll get to in a moment. But God can be merciful to whom he is

merciful. And how does he put it in Romans 9? I will be merciful and just towards who I've just

however, in other words, I'll do what I want with what I have. It's up to me. So there's nothing

controversial about that statement at all. And we both agree about the way that's applied in

different people life. Frank is not going to take exception with John 14. God loves some

in a different way. Call it more than someone else. Now it doesn't mean his love is limited.

It means he limits his love is expansive. You can call it infinite love if you want, but it doesn't

mean that it just gets spent willy-nilly on everyone equally. God is God is love. It's part of the

core of his nature, but he can express his love as he wills. And he has not obliged to express

that equally to everybody. In fact, he doesn't, according to John 14, and probably other passages

I can find that say essentially the same thing. So what is the difference here? I don't think the

difference is infinite love versus infinite justice. And I don't think it's problematic, you know,

invoking the similarity with Allah from one of those views, because Frank doesn't think that

what he thinks is more like Allah is what the Bible actually teaches.

The infinite language is I think gets in the way of us being more precise about exactly what

is going on. And I think with regards to love and justice, Frank and I agree.

What we don't agree that grace is sovereign. That is, that the distribution of God's grace

is completely, he is the one who decides who's the ultimate decider of who gets saved and who

doesn't. On Frank's view, being Armenian in this regard, it is the individual who is the final

determinant. And then the question he raises, and it's raised by many people, if God is the one

who decides why doesn't he save everybody? Okay, so that brings us to the crux of the issue,

not this other stuff. And my response at this point is to say that that is the wrong question.

If God is the one who is the ultimate decider, then why does he save everybody? When you ask that

question without getting an adequate answer, then you, one feels it's safe to, and justified,

to conclude that God isn't the one who decides. But that isn't determined by our reflection.

It's determined by what the text says. So the real question, and I'm not going to go into a big

textual analysis to make my case for myself, but I'm just saying that the real question is what

does the text teach? That's the first question. Once you determine what the text teaches,

then you can ask other questions that follow from the teaching of the text that are, you know,

troublesome. Well, what about this? What about evangelism? If that's true. Well, there were answers

to those questions, but you can't say if sovereign grace is true, then evangelism makes no sense.

Therefore sovereign grace is not true. And that, I think, is the root that is being taken with the

way many people race this issue. And what I have to do is I go back to the text and what the text

John Tenon, Matthew Tenon, I mean, Romans 9, and a whole bunch, I'm sorry, not Matthew Tenon, John,

John Tenon, and John Six, and Romans 9, and a whole bunch of other places that seem to,

at least to my mind, unequivocally indicate that God is the deciding factor.

And, or even looking at the words elect and chose or chosen, it seems to me the word elect

indicates the action of the elector upon the one elected. And choosing indicates the action of

the chooser on the one chosen. The chosen don't choose themselves and the elect don't elect

themselves. And I know that there's ways theologically have tried to make sense of that,

but it doesn't make any sense to me. Oh, God knows that you are going to choose, so He choose you.

Well, that's not a choice of me. He didn't choose me. I chose myself for salvation. And God just

went along with it, seems to me. But in an event, that's the question that has to be answered.

Now, once you ask that, you answer that, and I answer that in the lines of sovereign grace,

then I have to answer the question, if it can be answered, why doesn't God save everyone?

I actually think that's a tough one to answer. It's not because it somehow undermines sovereign

grace. It doesn't, because sovereign grace stands based on the biblical testimony to it.

But it does raise an anomaly here. Wonder what, what is God thinking? I guess what? When you have a

question, pardon me, like that. Why didn't question or why did question? Now we're in the question

of what was in God's mind. And if he hasn't told us what was in his mind, then we can't answer that

with any certainty. I think the question about evangelism is actually quite easy to answer.

But this one here is more difficult, because I don't know the mind of God. Now, there can be

conjectures, but because we can't answer the question, why God didn't save everybody when he could

have, I agree with that, just because we can't answer. It doesn't mean that the testimony of the

text is sovereign grace is somehow illicit or inadequate. What we do is say, what is the text

teach and come to our conclusions there and then say, well, we'll see if we can answer the

questions that are raised from that. If they seem answerable and sometimes they don't seem answer,

well, it doesn't change the text. So that would be my approach to that, both Matt and Justin.

But notice that the real issue here is not whether there's infinite love or infinite justice or

anything like that. I think that terminology keeps us from looking more closely at exactly how

God uses justice and love. And when we do that, I think that I could be mistaken, but I think

that Frank and I are on the same page. That means that that kind of one shot or one sentence response

is not going to be helpful. The question, why doesn't God save everyone is completely legitimate?

And I'm very sympathetic to that. It's the question that I ask myself. But that is something

that has to be dealt with, not as a determiner of the doctrine, but once the doctrine has been

determined, that makes sense to you. Okay, let's see. Where we're going to go next here?

DTTT, apparently to what? Oh, we got a caller. Oh, okay. Amy's knocking on the window. All right,

let's go to John and El Granana. John, thank you for calling. Welcome to the show.

Hi. Hi. I want to, first of all, say thank you so much for the reality of apologetics.

I got the live stream from Dallas. From Dallas. I've been catching up on it. I really love it.

Oh, that's great. I am curious about how the live stream experience is for those who use it.

Because we do that at Dallas. It's a big venue. We have over 3,000 people there. It was filled

to the gills. All of the tickets were sold out. And then there's a wait. Hey, John, I don't know if

you're washing dishes or whatever. In the background, there's a lot of noise there. If you could just

was that somebody else that's washing dishes, maybe I was getting a spoon. Okay. Well, that's a

sounds like a big spoon. Anyway, it's clacked pretty loudly. That's okay. So I am curious about how

the the the the experience of the that you're having like online with it. How's that coming across?

Oh, that's great. It's really easy. The reference number and it and it picks up where it left off,

leaves off. Oh, good. So that's great. Well, okay. I'm glad to hear that. And we had

a whole bunch of people. Oh, I'm sure over a thousand based on numbers way over a thousand

that we're taking this through live streaming and or archiving it like you're doing it. Take it

a little by little. So that's great. Okay. So what's on your mind? Thank you for the good words

and put this spoon down. I could hear still hear it clacket. Oh, sorry. All right, John. Thanks.

So I've got a a Jewish friend I'm trying to evangelize. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, is there any

merit to saying that the Jews have been around for six thousand years or something as a distinct

religion, but there's no malachites. There's no jaguicide. Right. There's there are Egyptians

that are still around, but that's not necessarily a religion. Yes, it's not a tribe either.

It's a country. You know, maybe that's a distinction that one could make, but no, you're right. This is

all of those those kind of small ethnic groups in that region, they're gone.

Right. And yet the Jews continue to survive. Yeah. So your question is, does this have some merit

to bring this up to Jews? And my answer is I think it does. Now, whether it's going to be persuasive

or not, that's something else. But it's interesting that this kind of thing was predicted by God. And

if you look back and it's not six thousand years, we say roughly four thousand years to get back

to Abraham. But if you you look in in Deuteronomy 28, 29 and 30 and in Deuteronomy you have,

you remember in Exodus, Leviticus, Exodus Leviticus, God is giving the law after the people leave the

leave Egypt and they're on Mount Sinai and then they get in trouble and they're wandering or

wandering or wandering. Well, that's 40 years. Now, that's where the number comes in. All that first

generation dies off and Moses is now with them at the about to take the promised land. And he

gives the law a second time. That's what the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomus means second law.

Now, at the end of that, after he lays this stuff out, he there's a section called a blessings

in cursing. And if you read in starting in chapter 28, God starts to talk about the blessings

that would accrue to the nation of Israel for their obedience. And I'm just going to read a couple

of lines here, the first few in verse chapter 28. Now, it shall be if you diligently obey the

Lord your God, be careful to do all his commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God,

will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you

and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God. And then it goes on. That's two verses. It goes on

for 12 more verses, 14 total, the first 14 of Deuteronomy 28 with the blessings. And then it changes

at tone. Verse 15 says, but it shall come about if you do not obey the Lord your God,

to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes with which I charge you today that all

these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Then we've got 54 verses. We got 14 verses

of blessing in 54 verses of curses. Okay, so God is putting a, how should we call it, a

standard before them. In fact, in one place, He says, here it is, life or death, you choose.

What will you do? Well, they didn't choose life for very long. And they got themselves in

the heap of trouble for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time. And we have a record of

that in the rest of the books, the historical books. So we, we see how God is dealt with. But the

entry, the question is, and by the way, when you read the cursings, I'm telling you it, it covers

not only those things that we see outlined, like we see in the history of subsequent history of

Israel, they even cannibalize their own children. That's what's promised will happen. And God is

removing His protection and all of this stuff is going to happen to them, which actually happened.

I think there's a whole bunch of things here that, that identify what takes place from the time of

the beginning of the common era all the way through the Holocaust and into the present day.

In other words, there are, and I'm not the only one who thinks this way, there are Jewish people

who said the same thing. They have not, the Jews have, why, why the Holocaust? Why, well, just

read Deuteronomy 28, 29 and 30. And what's interesting about this is when you start chapter 30,

here are the words of the beginning of that chapter. So it shall be when all these things have come

upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have said before you, and you call them to mind in all

the nations where the Lord your God has banished you, and return to the Lord your God, and obey him

with all your heart and soul according to all that I command to you today, you and your sons,

then the Lord will, the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, have compassion on you,

and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.

And what's really interesting about that is that these three verses here mirror almost exactly

Jeremiah 29. You know that crazy verse that people take out of context? 29, 11. Yeah,

he said, and how does that go? I know that I will remember my good word to you is a phrase right

in that. I will read, I'm going to find it here just so I can get it right because Jeremiah

is, is, is harking back to this passage. I'm, I guarantee you he is. Let me find it. Okay. 29,

okay. For us said the Lord, verse 10, when 70 years of what are completed in Babylon of what?

They're outside of the country. They're banished outside the country. What he refers to in chapter

30, okay, of Deuteronomy. He says, when 70 years have been completed for Babylon,

I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you to bring you back to this place. In other words,

this isn't the first time he said, I already promised I'm going to do this. And now I'm going to,

and the next verse is our, is our, the, you know, most, let me take it out of context,

verse four, I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare, not calamity, to give you a future

and hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. I will

be found by you. I will restore your fortunes. I will gather you from nations, et cetera,

where I driven you. I'll bring you back from in exile. And I think there's a phrase here when

you seek from you with all your heart or whatever. But that's exactly the language of the first

few lines of Deuteronomy 30. This is harking back to this because they are an exile in Babylon

for 70 years. And that's the context of this chapter. And then right after that, it's very

interesting. We have, so these are verses you might want to share with your friend. We have Jeremiah

31, 31. And that's the, the, the initiation or the promise of the new covenant. And what he says

here, and I'm going to have to go quickly because we're almost out of time, behold the days are

coming to colors, Lord, 31, 30, 100 Jeremiah. When I will make a new covenant with the house of

Israel, with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I make, made with their fathers in

the day I took them by hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they

broke, although I was a faithful husband to them. So this is a new covenant. Okay. And then he

asks the question, and he says, I will forgive your iniquity and there sit, I will remember no more.

Very cool. That's language we get in the New Testament. And then he says this verse 35, and what

this does is in my mind really seals the long term commitment God has to Israel that even though

they have been under judgment every single day that they spend outside of their country,

he has not given up on them. So here's what he says, thus says the Lord who gives the sun for light

by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night. If this fixed order

departs, by the way, is that still fixed order still there? The sun by day. Okay. Okay. Then the

offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me. If the heavens above can be

measured, and the foundation of the earth searched up below, then I will cut off the offspring of

Israel for all that they have done. Now the point he's making there is these are two impossibilities,

although in a sense the heavens have been measured, but for the sake of his understanding of these

people, I am never going to desert you. I am with you for the duration. And notice that he's

speaking to Jeremiah when even the north, the southern kingdom, which is the most faithful kingdom,

is being disciplined. So this, I mean, I got 60 seconds here. So you get the point I'm making.

These passages all work together. And they indicate God's full commitment to the national Israel,

the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And they're committed to care for them. And also to

to eventually, although it doesn't mention the land here. Well, it says I'll bring you back to

the land. It does mention that here in Deuteronomy 29. Yeah, 29. And also in the Deuteronomy, I'm

sorry, in Jeremiah 29 and in Deuteronomy 30. So these are, this is all fits in with what's going on

now. And I think this, I hope that this would be compelling for a Jewish person that God is still

there for them, even though they're in a period of discipline and the lack of faith in him. So it

makes sense to you. That's so beautiful. Thank you so much. All right, John, I got to run the

music's coming up here. Incidentally, if you go to str.org and look up our, our training or

teaching on the Bible fast forward, I go into a lot of detail about these covenants and stuff.

And it should really be a help to you. Thank you for calling. That's it for the show. Friends,

great vocal here for standard reason. You give them heaven. Okay, bye bye now.