Exposing Worldview Foundations 

Bingo, this is 100% my experience. I have two friends that are coworkers that I’ve had small talks about religion and philosophy, one is a devout Catholic and I notice he’s obsessed with the Mass, sacraments, church history and Acquinas.. any vid he’s recommended is all obsessed with the Catholic Tradition and Saints, rarely about anything scripture. The other friend is Eastern Orthodox, same thing, their focus is that they’re the “one true church” and attending mass and taking Eucharist and achieving sanctification… it’s all works based and dependent on their ecclesiastical organization to forgive their sins and deify them, it’s backwards from my Presbyterian upbringing.

@@Jaryism that's why I'm concerned with a lot of younger guys doing this kind of study. I think with that worldview in the next 5-10 years you're going to have a lot of people having spiritual burnout.

For my two-cents, Many people, for the past 100 years, have been pretending to have some sort of moral or pious "high-ground" in claiming to study the Bible over and against all those pesky academic philosophies. What really happens, however, is they just want to be big man gurus in their local church congregation, without having to do the hard work of climbing up the conceptual ladder and fighting intellectually with educated unbelievers (or other Christians of different denominations). This isn't always true of course. And it's also true many academics lose sight of the prominent role Scripture ought to have... but there are too many would-be grifters and gatekeeprs out there thumping their Bibles. Informed, thinking, Christians, who love Christ and aim their intellects at His north, are the only anecdote to both academic overreach as well as pious-yet-disingenuous grifters.

@@Scott_Terry My problem is not with the academics, my problem is with young men deciding to study these advanced topics without having a solid foundation in Scripture and prayer first.

@@thejoshuaproject3809 It hurts my heart to see bad and selfish men abusing our Lord's words. A well-meaning regenerate man, though, can roam the spectrum intellectually and always stay true to Christ (even though imperfectly and with a lot of stumbling).

That all sounds fine and dandy, and I feel that I can comfortably echo most of your statements. Would you care to share with us your four incontestable certainties?

@@babyfoot- The fact that existence exists. The fact that consciousness is consciousness of something. The fact that everything that exists is something specific, A is A, and the fact that existents exist independently of consciousness.

@@kitchencarvings4621 Interesting! Thanks for sharing. My own first principles would be somewhat different, so this interests me. If you'll allow me to quibble, I feel that your four certainties are just four ways of saying "there is a real world out there". Am I wrong?

@@babyfoot- You are welcome. Yes, there is a real world; I am aware of it, and it is what it is independent of my consciousness. These are facts implicit in all statements of knowledge. They would have to be true in order to attempt to deny them; hence, they are incontestible. This is my foundation.

@@kitchencarvings4621 Do you mind if I ask you some questions? I presume that you don't, or you wouldn't have posted here :) How do you come to be aware of the real-world-out-there? (Let's just call it Reality, for convenience). I mean, you are immediately aware of your sensory experiences and memories, but how do you distinguish between those produced by illusion and and those produced by Reality? How do you establish that your mental model of Reality (based on those experiences and memories, I suppose) actually corresponds to Reality itself? Also: how do you define _knowledge_ ?

Eli wouldn't be Eli without his mkay's and his doo-tadoo-tadoo-tadoooo's (also said with love) :D

Yes, what we Christians call "special revelation", is a special sort of empirical data. Imagine you're walking in the woods and hear a vicious-sounding rattle coming from under a bush. That's empirical data, but unlike the surrounding noises (crickets, bird chirps, wind through the leaves, etc. etc.), you give this particular set of empirical data a very high priority in your immediate situation...

​@@Scott_TerrySpecial revelation isn't empirical.

@@vladtheemailer3223 Yes it is. It's a very special type of empirical data. It comes to us via our eyes mostly, or if we hear the Bible read, via our ears. Some few people in history have been alive during God's active revelation periods, where they got to both see and hear directly from Him or directly from one of His authorized spokesmen. But it's all a special type of empirical data.

@@Scott_Terry What are you talking about?

I think Eli greatly overestimates the number of atheists who hold to an open system. To a good first approximation, NOBODY thinks that the world is a series of random events. That's a totally nutty position. It's not what "sound and fury signifying nothing" entails. So the argument against open systems is attacking a strawman.

@@babyfoot- Maybe you should give your definition of "open system" first. That'd make it more clear. Also, if all the matter that is organized in the cosmos wasn't "directed" by any agency, then it's "random" by definition. The "Chance Hypothesis" for abiogenesis was one of the most prominent theories of how life might have began the last 50 years, the entire theory was to explain how all life on our planet could be explained with only time and probability to create the first building blocks in prebiotic conditions.. so I don't see the contradiction unless you give me counter-evidence. All you've done is just assert "NOBODY" in caps with no example, like ok, it must be true because you said it..

@@Jaryism I'm just going by the definition of open system that Eli provided at 9:19. He says that it is characterized by a lack of fixed principles. That would imply that there are no physical laws. Literally nobody thinks that, and certainly not the prominent atheists you mentioned. The chance hypothesis for abiogenesis refers to the idea that the process was not an _intentional_ one; it does not imply that there are no laws or fixed principles involved. So it is not really relevant to the point I was making, I think. You asked me to give counter-evidence to help you see some contradiction. I don't know what you're talking about. What contradiction?

@@babyfoot- I think you might be missing the point-- under an open system, it's not that there are no natural laws. You have to tell me under your non-God worldview, what is fundamental and ultimate that secures what is possible then? When you discuss possibility/probability, this implies that there is something static in the past in a world in flux, what is your fundamental ultimate in your Materialistic world that sustains these laws to be static and unchanging?

@@Jaryism I'm choking on your first sentence. Are you saying that an absence of fixed principles is consistent with physical laws? I don't see how that's possible, since physical laws are themselves fixed principles. Please explain. Eli goes on to talk about open systems, and says things like "anything is possible in an open system". That's clearly not compatible with physical laws that put boundaries on possibility. As it stands it seems pretty clear that the implication of Eli's open system is that there can be no physical laws. Therefore it is a strawman to claim that atheists have open systems, and the entire content of the video pertaining to open systems is, ironically, sound and fury signifying nothing. Not "completely crucial" at all.

What's your opinion of presuppositional apologetics?

@@TheAaronYost i am not against transcendental arguments but presuppositional apologetics, as far as I heard it presented, is just question-begging.

@@daviddivad777 Ahhh, that would explain why, after you said with all due respect, you didn't show all due respect. It's not question-begging. You just don't understand the argument.

@@TheAaronYost let's pretend i don't. what is the argument? both the impossibility of the contrary or necessary prerequisite for intelligibility version are fine. lay them out in an actual argument (logic). preferably in a syllogism (that is not assuming the point at issue).

@@daviddivad777 Simple. In order to have ___________, God must exist. We have ____________. Therefore, God exists. Fill in the blank.

Well right off the bat, there's several things wrong with your approach if you're seriously self-evaluating, which I'm almost 90% sure you're trolling. But you say "I read some Bible passages, hooray" and "I tried repenting" whatever that means, maybe you spoke out the Sinners Prayer once or twice, you're not believing through any manner of true belief or faith at all--your approach is basically something like Hey God, I did x or y action/works, can you bless me with your saving grace? This is works based salvation, not faith. Read Ephesians Chapter 2 and Romans chapter 2 and 9 especially (actually just read all of Romans), our salvation through God's saving grace is a free gift that is monergistic, it's 100% God's doing as a free gift, but only if we accept our sinful nature and repent and put our full faith in the Triune God. But this isn't going to happen naturally because I can already tell from your post the pride is radiating from your keyboard as you type, your theory of man is wrong, your worldview isn't starting from God top-down, you're basically taking the Pelagian approach that's pretty much become the norm of your secular heathen in the West which is "I'm a good person.. I open doors for people, I'm somewhat respectful, I can do 'good in my own eyes' without regeneration from God, I don't need a savior"; God knows what's in your heart, the self deception you're referring to is that you might say you're paying lip service to pretending to go through he motions but God can't see right through that. He knows you don't believe in the Creator-Creature distinction, he knows you probably hold to some evolutionary neo-Darwinian model of creation, he knows you don't believe you're made in his image, and he knows you reject any type of Divine Conceptualist model and don't attribute your higher order faculties of reason, mathematical objects, logic, and moral compass to God as the necessary precondition to think any of that, you see yourself as an autonomous creature independent of God. For example, it'd be similar to if a kid in 1st Grade school and his first experience with computers in a computer lab.. the kid finds himself being able to log in and surf the internet thinking "wow this is cool"; now as an analogy, picture God as the wireless modem that's locked behind the cabinets that nobody can see. One day another kid goes "I'm able to surf the internet just like you, do you think all the computers are connected to some other device allowing us to do this?" and you go "mm.. I doubt it, my computer was just made always being able to do this, plus I don't see any evidence of this modem"; maybe it's a silly example but it perfectly illustrates my point, the first kid doesn't think they NEED a magic modem that they connect to, he thinks it's just a feature of how the computers were designed and installed being able to navigate, it's like not attributing to God what is his, which is why we're only able to understand categories and logical truths because we channel Him. The fact is this... you've never truly believed this, you believe you're autonomously able to think independent of God, and you think you're "a good person" on your own; you're not looking to fully repent and be born again, you're testing God and he's calling you out on your bullshit. I'll just leave you with: Romans 2: "5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. " Since your "foolish heart has become darkened", God has given you over to your own sinful desires so you can live your life in rebellion for the time being.

@@Jaryism It seems like you are saying rather verbosely, there is nothing I can or could ever do. God has to make the first move. If God doesn't make the first move he created me for the purpose of burning forever? That's kinda at odds with what Eli said. He said I know deep down the Christian God is real even though I don't sense it. If I really know deep down the Christian God is real, then deep down I must have repented even though I cannot sense it. It makes no sense to say I Know for certain Christianity is true and not have repented. I must be already saved even though I cannot sense it. Jesus already paid or all my sins since I repented (and don't sense it) or God created me for the specific purpose of burning me forever. Which is it? Personally, Paul claiming he could read my mind better than me is rather absurd.

@@gabrielteo3636 "If I really know deep down the Christian God is real, then deep down I must have repented..." This is not the presuppositional claim. The claim is, all sentient creatures know God exists - whether they've repented of their sins or not. On the presup / Calvinist philosophy, part of being conscious - that is: the experience of being aware of anything at all, even if only of one's own mental thoughts - is to simultaneously have experience of God's presence.

@@Scott_Terry So, it is up to God to make the first move and if God doesn't make the first move, God created me to burn me forever? It was never my fault. I was born broken and stayed broken, because God never fixed me. I gotta say, that's one of the most evil things I can think of, but what do I know, I was born broken. I think you presupps/Calvinists got something wrong and are too arrogant/broken to realize it. Good thing presups/Calvinists are infallible.

@@gabrielteo3636 God did make the first move, see my last comment: When you are aware of yourself, you're also aware of Him. You can deny this, of course, but if you deny it, you're no longer able to run your "unjust / unfair" God argument.

wait... hold on, you've watched over 2 and a half hours of this, yet you literally don't know shit about anything. Please, please tell me you have anything better in your life to do than watch a Christian apologist channel with 10k subs just to troll...

What's an example of something you were able to "justify in reality" ?

@Scott_Terry What do you mean by reasonably justify? I suspect you have an idiosyncratic definition of the term. I can certainly justify numerous things with the normal usage of the words! Eg I'm drinking a glass of cidar which I've just demonstrated to my son by showing him. So what do YOU mean by the term?

@@nickjones5435 My view is irrelevant since I was asking about your view, literally quoting you. So you think you can "justify in reality" the fact that you are drinking a glass of cider. This means, you're something of a naive empiricist: "...if I seem to see a glass of cider, that rationally justifies me in thinking there is a glass of cider." Setting aside all cases of illusion, mistaken identity, deceptions, as well as Matrix-like scenarios, you still have the problem of how we Christians can turn this standard back around on you. "...if I seem to experience God, that rationally justifies me in thinking God exists." Exact same standard. Now what?!

@Scott_Terry I didn't ask what your view was. I asked what your usage/definition of the term was otherwise we would have an equivocation fallacy! Why did you run from the question? Answer NOW PLEASE. What do YOU mean by justify in reality? As you're to scared to tell me I'm assuming you're using the normal usage of the words and so YES YES YES I certainly can and I just have by demonstrating it to my son. The only way you can argue with this is by using a strawman of my usage. Would you like to do that?

@@nickjones5435 I'm too afraid of your intellect, sir, and can't continue.