Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Author & Conference Speaker, Israel Wayne

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
4. 0:11It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
8. 0:24Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28And now, the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:33Many years ago, there was a great Christian thinker named G.K. Chesterton.
12. 0:37And he was very influential in the life of C.S. Lewis, by the way.
13. 0:40But G.K. Chesterton once said this.
14. 0:43He said, when Christians cease to believe in the true God, the biblical God,
15. 0:48they do not believe in nothing.
16. 0:50They believe in anything.
17. 0:53We'll unpack that.
18. 0:54And more, this is the Hamilton Corner.
19. 0:56Alex MacFarlane, very honored to be sitting in for Abe Hamilton, pastor, attorney, broadcaster.
20. 1:02We've got a great show and I'm so grateful that Abe, whenever I do sit in his absence,
21. 1:08he kind of allows me to go where we pray and feel led to go in terms of culture and worldview.
22. 1:15This is one of those shows we're going to be talking not just about worldview but about
23. 1:20philosophy.
24. 1:21is philosophy and not only why Christians should study, but we'll ask the question, should
25. 1:28Christians study philosophy. And so to help us with that is a colleague and friend, Israel
26. 1:34Wayne. Israel, for one thing, thanks for being with us on the program today.
27. 1:38Hey, it's great to be back with you. Good to have you back. For those that may be unaware,
28. 1:44website is christianworldview.net, largely based on apologetics. Give people a little background
29. 1:53about yourself and the work that you do, Brother Israel.
30. 1:56Yeah, I'm an author and conference speaker. I have been doing that for over 30 years and
31. 2:03that's my full-time job is traveling around the country and speaking at Christian conferences
32. 2:07and churches and so forth. But I also have worked in the Christian publishing industry
33. 2:13and have always had an interest in Christian apologetics and biblical worldview.
34. 2:18And so one of the latest projects that I've been working on really the last two years that's just
35. 2:23about ready to launch is I developed a high school philosophy curriculum textbook on philosophy
36. 2:33for Christian students. And so what it does is it's basically college prep and it helps them to be
37. 2:39able to think through the various disciplines of philosophy but to do so from within a Christian
38. 2:46framework. And so that project will be released later this year. It's not out just yet. But one of
39. 2:51the things that I've found interesting is that I've gotten some pushback from Christians who have said
40. 2:57we should study theology because that has to do with God, but we shouldn't study philosophy
41. 3:05because that's secular.
42. 3:07And especially when we were talking about introducing teenagers
43. 3:10or college students to those things
44. 3:13that we really don't want to be as Christians talking about
45. 3:16or engaging in the discipline of philosophy.
46. 3:19And so I thought that was a topic that you and I could talk
47. 3:22about because I know you have a lot of thoughts on that.
48. 3:24And then we could kind of talk about the various disciplines.
49. 3:27There's about seven different branches
50. 3:29or disciplines of philosophy.
51. 3:31And why it's important to think about all of those
52. 3:33from a distinctively biblical framework.
53. 3:37Indeed, yeah.
54. 3:40My mother, Restrosso, very godly lady.
55. 3:43But when I was in graduate school, I came home.
56. 3:46And I said, Mom, I'm going to major in philosophy.
57. 3:50And my mom, quoting Colossians 2-8, she says,
58. 3:55Son, the Bible says, avoid vain philosophy.
59. 3:59And I said, well, we're doing the non-vane kind.
60. 4:03But no, it's impossible not to do philosophy, I believe.
61. 4:10And I want you to comment.
62. 4:11But I get it when people piously say,
63. 4:14we should study theology, but not philosophy.
64. 4:17I get it.
65. 4:18God's word must be our foundation.
66. 4:20And hopefully for everyone listening, it is.
67. 4:23But if you're thinking, if you're reasoning at all,
68. 4:29I mean, it's impossible to do that in a vacuum apart from some sort of worldview that's driving
69. 4:35your thought processes and conclusions.
70. 4:38Am I right?
71. 4:40Yeah.
72. 4:41So if we break those words down in terms of the etymology, the meaning of the words theology
73. 4:47comes from two different Greek words, the alls and logos.
74. 4:50And so it's the study or the knowledge of discipline of understanding God.
75. 4:55And so obviously as Christians, we want to study God.
76. 4:58But then philosophy comes from these two words of Philos and Sophia.
77. 5:04And so it's this idea of the love of wisdom.
78. 5:07And so as Christians, we're told in the scripture that we are supposed to love wisdom.
79. 5:11Proverbs talks about that.
80. 5:13And so the love of wisdom is certainly something that we should be engaged in as Christians.
81. 5:19And we know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
82. 5:22And so we as Christians should be the ones who really understand philosophy.
83. 5:29We're the ones I think who can do philosophy correctly.
84. 5:33But I know there are concerns that parents have and certainly we want to be able to address
85. 5:38those as well because especially as we see a lot of the statistics, P research and other
86. 5:43groups that talk about Christian students raised in Christian homes who go to college,
87. 5:50these sociology, psychology, philosophy courses and get derailed and some of them deconstruct
88. 5:56and so forth. It's caused a lot of parents to be very concerned about even talking about
89. 6:02or getting engaged in those subjects. And so I think there's a way, as you said, it's inevitable
90. 6:07that we are going to do philosophy. We're going to think about the big issues and the big questions
91. 6:12of life. But the question will be, will we do that well or will we do it poorly? And it is my
92. 6:18contention that we as Christians need to learn how to do it well.
93. 6:21Indeed. Indeed. I rejoice that you've written this text. By the way, when does it release
94. 6:28and where may people find it?
95. 6:30Yeah, it's going to be coming out by masterbooks.com later in 2026. It's currently going through
96. 6:36all the layout and graphic design and all of that. It's in that stage right now being
97. 6:42formatted and so before the end of the year masterbooks.com will be releasing it for high
98. 6:49school students. And can I tell a quick story of something that kind of motivated me in this
99. 6:54process?
100. 6:55Yes, you may.
101. 6:58So I was working on the project. I'd already seen the importance of it. But last year I
102. 7:03was speaking at a family camp in Wisconsin. I was there with my family and I got talking
103. 7:09with some of the staff who were summer staff working there. There was a young lady who I
104. 7:14believe was a junior at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and she was studying biology.
105. 7:23And so University of Wisconsin is a fairly liberal school, has a reputation for not being
106. 7:29a bastion of conservative Christian thought. And so as I talked with this young lady,
107. 7:33I realized that she was a pretty strong Christian and I asked her, I said, how have you as a
108. 7:38young person been able to keep your faith in college. And she said there were two things,
109. 7:44two forces that really helped her. Well, there were several. Number one, her parents. She has
110. 7:48some good parents. But then she went to a Christian school and she had two teachers in Christian school.
111. 7:55One who was a science teacher who taught her the biblical view of things like biology,
112. 8:04the biblical framework versus the atheistic evolutionary framework. So that was a big
113. 8:11one. So she said as a biology major that was important and that and the other one was a
114. 8:18high school teacher at her Christian school who developed his own philosophy course and
115. 8:24he couldn't find a textbook. He couldn't find like just a turnkey. Here's a high school
116. 8:30course on philosophy, so he sort of made his own. And she said that those two courses of biology
117. 8:37and philosophy, she thinks probably would have derailed her had she not had such great prep in high
118. 8:45school to know how to think about those things as a Christian. And she told me that in her freshman
119. 8:51year, one of the professors literally asked the class, are you a Christian? Raise your hand. It was
120. 8:59was kind of one of those like out of the movie kind of scenarios, you know, raise your hand
121. 9:05of your Christian. And so she was able to kind of make a note and there was about a dozen other
122. 9:09students in the class that raised their hand said that they were Christians. And she said
123. 9:14now of the students that have kind of followed through in her class, she said none of them
124. 9:19are professing Christians anymore. They've all bailed on Christianity because they've
125. 9:22heard these new ideas and they have been derailed thinking, oh, well my parents don't know about
126. 9:29these things and my pastor doesn't know about these things and we have this new knowledge
127. 9:32that they don't have access to. But she said I heard nothing new in college that I hadn't
128. 9:38already heard in high school and that I hadn't been prepped on and I think this is why it's so
129. 9:43important the kind of work that you do, Alex and that I do and I know Abe Hamilton. You know,
130. 9:48we all have a passion for this to, you know, help our young people to really learn to think
131. 9:53biblically and be prepared not to shelter them from the ideas but to help them know how to think
132. 9:59about it. Indeed, indeed. And I give God the glory where my journey has gone, Israel. But I was in
133. 10:09the middle of a degree when I became a Christian at age 21. And I mean, this was in the late 80s.
134. 10:16And like I was surrounded, I had one or two Christian friends at University of North Carolina
135. 10:22at Greensboro UNCG, but all around were atheists and neo-pagans and not just all sorts of lost
136. 10:32people. And so I went to a Christian bookstore, I had never to my knowledge been to a Christian
137. 10:38bookstore before, but I went and just in the providence of God, I stumbled into books by Josh
138. 10:44McDowell and then Norm Geisler. And for those that don't know, and maybe Israel and I in the
139. 10:51the context of this show, we're going to give you guys some reading assignments hopefully.
140. 10:55But Norm Geisler, G-E-I-S-L-E-R, he became a great friend and mentor.
141. 11:02But he was one in 1975, he wrote a book called Christian Philosophy.
142. 11:08And it really was a game changer for me.
143. 11:12As I read that, for one thing, I began to realize that there is within Christendom, there
144. 11:20is this rich, rich history of some of the most brilliant thinkers of all time, like Augustine
145. 11:28and Aquinas, and in the modern era, more or more modern, people like Jonathan Edwards,
146. 11:35one of the early presidents of, I believe it was Princeton University, and then of course,
147. 11:41people like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, and in the modern era, not only Dr. Geisler,
148. 11:47people at JP Moreland, at Biola, William Lane Craig.
149. 11:53Here's my point, folks.
150. 11:55Far from being this blind faith, Christianity,
151. 12:02at her best, has produced some of the most renowned
152. 12:07thinkers in world history.
153. 12:10And I do believe, like John Wesley said,
154. 12:13the founder of the Methodist Church,
155. 12:15Wesley said, and I quote, the local congregation deserves the highest scholarship the church has to offer.
156. 12:24And I do think, I'm with you, Israel. I think we should teach people how to think.
157. 12:29We should teach philosophy, obviously philosophy grounded in and affirming of God's word.
158. 12:38But we need to help these kids be prepped, preemptively equipped, so that when they go to college or if they encounter false worldviews, they're not just really blindsided by that.
159. 12:53I think a lot of the kids that have disconverted and deconstructed their faith, they come on
160. 13:02statements they don't have an answer to and it really turns their mind upside down, doesn't it?
161. 13:13It does and I think sometimes the way that we react really is a game changer too as to how they
162. 13:18process it because I know of some parents and even church leaders who rather than saying it's
163. 13:24It's great that you have these questions.
164. 13:26I may not personally know the answer
165. 13:28to all of these questions,
166. 13:30but let's look into it.
167. 13:31Let's dig in there because there are Christian thinkers
168. 13:33who have provided answers to all of these deep questions.
169. 13:37And let's explore it together.
170. 13:38Let's find out how do we think about these things
171. 13:42as a Christian?
172. 13:43I think that's a good way to approach it.
173. 13:44I think when parents or church leaders say,
174. 13:48well, you know what,
175. 13:49you really just shouldn't be thinking about that.
176. 13:51We just need to basically just trust and just have faith.
177. 13:55And this kind of idea of we just turn our intellect off
178. 13:59and we just, you know, emote and we just feel
179. 14:02and we just believe or we just jump off of a cliff
180. 14:05intellectually, that just doesn't work
181. 14:08for a lot of young people.
182. 14:09And so it's not that we have to know everything
183. 14:12or have all the answers, but we certainly need to be able
184. 14:15to help them walk through that process
185. 14:18of finding the right answers.
186. 14:19And I think that was the thing for me as a young person.
187. 14:22I was raised in a Christian environment, but in my later teen years, I started to ask,
188. 14:26is this sustainable?
189. 14:28Where am I just simply believing things I've been told to believe from my pastors and from
190. 14:34my parents and so forth?
191. 14:35And so I kind of went on a quest to find out are there answers?
192. 14:39And is Christianity defensible?
193. 14:41I hope that thought we've got to take a brief break.
194. 14:43Our guest, Israel Wayne, author of the new Christian High School textbook on philosophy.
195. 14:48Hey, we are going to take questions.
196. 14:49Triple eight, five, eight, nine, eighty eight, forty.
197. 14:53Later on in the show, as we talk about the subject of philosophy, should Christian study
198. 14:58philosophy and what would that entail?
199. 15:01Sit in.
200. 15:02American Family Radio is back after this.
201. 15:08A discipleship minute with Joseph Parker.
202. 15:11Someone beginning at verse one, it tells us these words, blessed is the man who walks
203. 15:17not in the counsel of the wicked, or stands in the way of sinners, or sits in the seat
204. 15:23of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day
205. 15:29and night.
206. 15:31The most powerful weapon in the universe is the word of God, which is also known as the
207. 15:36sword of the Spirit.
208. 15:38As a believer spends time reading and meditating on the word of God, he or she is fortifying
209. 15:43their mind, body and spirit against the attacks of the Kingdom of Darkness.
210. 15:49Time reading and meditating on God's word prepares us to step out onto the battlefield
211. 15:53of life to walk in victory.
212. 15:56We as believers are wise to make it a high priority to read and meditate on the Word
213. 16:02of God every single day of our lives.
214. 16:13Shiting light into the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
215. 16:20Welcome back. Alex McFarland here is so honored that you're listening and so please have
216. 16:25with us Israel Wayne. He's an author. He's a speaker. His website is ChristianWorldView.net.
217. 16:32And I am remiss because in the previous segment, I was mentioning, you know, some influential
218. 16:37Christian thinkers and I neglected to mention maybe the most influential Christian philosopher
219. 16:45post-CS Lewis and cue that name up and tell us
220. 16:50about this person and his legacy and influence,
221. 16:54if you would Israel.
222. 16:56Yeah, absolutely.
223. 16:57Well, first before I get to him,
224. 16:59I like you kind of got introduced to Christian apologetics
225. 17:02through Josh McDowell.
226. 17:03He was the entry point for me
227. 17:05and then found this whole other, you know,
228. 17:08wonderful realm of thinkers.
229. 17:11One of the first thinkers that I found
230. 17:13that deeply impacted and influenced my life
231. 17:15was Dr. Francis Schaeffer, who was a Christian missionary
232. 17:18in Switzerland and founded a ministry over there
233. 17:21called Lebri, and he felt called to speak
234. 17:24to the intellectuals of the day,
235. 17:26but a lot of them were just college students
236. 17:29who were reading philosophy and studying art,
237. 17:31and they were trying to figure out how to navigate
238. 17:34through this world of existentialism and all these ideas
239. 17:38that were being thrown at them in the university.
240. 17:40He wanted to provide a framework of Christian answers.
241. 17:43And so many of Dr. Shafer's books had a very foundational impact on me, as well as you mentioned
242. 17:50Dr. Geisler, his book on Christian ethics, I think is pretty unparalleled.
243. 17:54Yes.
244. 17:55And so many of his works.
245. 17:57Yeah, I've actually just recently found out that there's an archive online of Dr. Geisler's
246. 18:03audios, and you can subscribe to it.
247. 18:06And so I've subscribed and listening through his lectures that he did for many years at
248. 18:12the seminary. And it's just amazing that we still have some of those that are available.
249. 18:18He's gone on to be with the Lord now, but it's great that we have books from Dr. Shafer
250. 18:22and C.S. Lewis and Norman Geisler and so many others, some of which you mentioned, but great
251. 18:28thinkers. And some of them disagree on some theological things. There's a spectrum. You
252. 18:33have some of the more staunchly reformed guys like Dr. Gordon Clark and Arson Sproul and
253. 18:38some of those guys that I've read all of them. And I just enjoy, you know, getting to learn
254. 18:43from the different viewpoints and perspectives. And I think there can be value and, you know,
255. 18:48not just camping out in one's own neighborhood, but listening a little bit to people across
256. 18:54the Christian spectrum as they've definitely all brought and contributed, you know, significant
257. 18:59thought to this aspect of philosophy. James Sire would be another one that would come to
258. 19:06I gotta say this about James Sire, one of the books that was just so revelatory in my young
259. 19:15Christian life was called the universe next door.
260. 19:18And he's written a number of other books as well.
261. 19:21But here was the premise of that book, folks like, let's say at your house, your Christians
262. 19:25and you go to church and you say grace before you eat a meal and just 25 feet away, the house
263. 19:31next door.
264. 19:33It's just a few feet away, but it could be a whole another universe.
265. 19:36They might be atheist and they might be Satanist or Buddhist or Muslims or whatever.
266. 19:43The definition of worldview in Sire's book, I remember it to this day, he said, a worldview
267. 19:51is a set of assumptions which may be true, may be partially true, might be entirely false,
268. 19:57which you hold consistently or inconsistently, consciously or subconsciously.
269. 20:03about the basic makeup of the world.
270. 20:05And I mean, there have been a plethora of other books
271. 20:07on world view written, but I think James Sire
272. 20:11was one of the thinkers in the 1980s
273. 20:14that introduced the kind of much,
274. 20:21but I'm glad you brought his name up
275. 20:23to somebody else that I would love for people
276. 20:26to familiarize themselves with is Paul Copan.
277. 20:29Do you know Paul Copan?
278. 20:31He's written quite a number of books.
279. 20:33Oh, for sure.
280. 20:34He's written some really great books about relativism
281. 20:36as well are some of the ones that I've read from him about this idea that there is an objective
282. 20:42truth that's kind of your truth versus my truth that he's refuted a lot of those ideas
283. 20:48quite handling in some of his books.
284. 20:50Indeed, indeed.
285. 20:52I've got a quote and by the way we will take questions in the third segment if you've got
286. 20:57a worldview or a philosophy related question for our guest Israel Wayne or myself we'd
287. 21:03love to hear from you. And maybe if you're not a Christian, maybe you think, hey, this
288. 21:09faith thing and belief in Jesus is false. Let's talk. Let's talk. The number is going to be
289. 21:16triple eight, five, eight, nine, eighty eight, forty. But I've got a quote for Israel and
290. 21:22I love your response. Thomas Aquinas, 800 years ago, he lived 1225 to 1274. And honestly,
291. 21:30One of the reasons that the West did not fall to Islam in the 1200s was in large measure
292. 21:39due to the apologetics work of Aquinas and others, but he said this.
293. 21:44He said, every possible argument against the doctrines of the Christian faith are the result
294. 21:51of conclusions incorrectly derived, and therefore there exists the possibility that they be answered.
295. 21:58Let me say that again.
296. 22:00And what he's saying is he says all the arguments against the Christian faith have a rational
297. 22:05mistake in them somewhere.
298. 22:06Again, Aquinas said, all of the arguments against the doctrines of the Christian faith are the
299. 22:12result of conclusions incorrectly derived, and therefore there exists the possibility
300. 22:19that they be answered.
301. 22:23I love that quote Israel and comment if you would.
302. 22:26In other words, there is an answer.
303. 22:29The atheist says there's no such thing as God.
304. 22:32No, Christian apologetics says no.
305. 22:36God does exist and we can persuasively defend this.
306. 22:42Skepticism says Jesus couldn't possibly have risen from the dead.
307. 22:46No, he did rise from the dead.
308. 22:49And we can defend the historicity of that.
309. 22:54I would think it would be a great encouragement to Christians in the 21st century to know,
310. 22:59as Aquinas said 800 years ago, the faith, the faith claims of our worldview can be rationally
311. 23:07defended, can't they, Israel?
312. 23:09Yeah, absolutely.
313. 23:11And one of the things that Aquinas did was he was able to bring things like a Aristotelian
314. 23:16logic into the realm of theology. And so again, there'd been a little bit of a split, you know,
315. 23:23where theologians just studied the Bible, but they didn't really see the importance of things like
316. 23:29logic. And so one of the things that Aristotle did was he said that logic, while Aristotle
317. 23:35formulated it, it doesn't come from Aristotle, it comes from God. And so one of the things that
318. 23:40Christians have done is recognize the need to kind of claim ownership of these disciplines, right,
319. 23:48to say that the reason that logic exists is because it comes from the mind of a God who is logical,
320. 23:55and that the atheistic worldview that we all came from time and matter and chance,
321. 24:01that does not explain the existence of systematic structures like logic. It can't give us a framework
322. 24:08for why logical thinking exists or why it works.
323. 24:12And so it's interesting that in the Enlightenment,
324. 24:15the thinkers wanted to embrace the Aristotelian logic part
325. 24:20of what was salvaged by Aquinas in the Middle Ages,
326. 24:24but they wanted to push off revelation, the revelation of God.
327. 24:29And that's something that as Christians, we hold both
328. 24:32because we don't see them to be in tension
329. 24:35or in conflict with each other. We recognize that reason and rationality and logic correctly
330. 24:42and properly applied work in tandem with the revelation of God and that it is the most reasonable
331. 24:49rational system. So as Christians, we don't want to reject rationality and reason or logic. We embrace
332. 24:57all of those things. But we also don't want to do like the Enlightenment thinkers where we throw
333. 25:02revelation out and say we can come to no truth simply by these agencies alone apart from the
334. 25:09revelation of God. One of the things that you address in your speaking and writing is epistemology.
335. 25:17Israel, what is epistemology? Well, again, the country needs two Greek words epistemae and logos,
336. 25:24which epistemae is knowledge and then logus is the study or discipline of a thing. So this is the
337. 25:29study or discipline of knowledge and it seeks to answer the question of how do we know what we know
338. 25:36or how do we know what is true? And so as Christians we should not abandon epistemology to the heathens
339. 25:45and say they're the only ones who should be having the conversation about how we know what is true.
340. 25:50And so as Christians that's something that should be at the forefront of everything that we're
341. 25:55teaching and doing is what is the basis of knowledge and what is the basis of truth.
342. 26:01And you really can't do theology and you can't do evangelism unless you have that framework properly
343. 26:10understood how you know what is true. And so back to what we talked about with relativism,
344. 26:15so much of the world has embraced that idea that there's no objective standard for truth.
345. 26:20It's just my opinion versus your opinion.
346. 26:22That's an epistemological framework, but it's a faulty one.
347. 26:27Or others say, well, we know what's true just simply
348. 26:30from our own reason and rationality.
349. 26:31We don't need God, we don't need his revelation.
350. 26:34Again, faulty starting point, faulty premise.
351. 26:37And so back to Aquinas's thesis, these things
352. 26:42are properly understood when we do theology
353. 26:46and we do philosophy according to the biblical framework.
354. 26:50Absolutely.
355. 26:51And you know, folks, as we're talking about how we know what we know, sure, we put our
356. 26:58faith in Jesus, pisturo, that's the Greek word, it means trust.
357. 27:04But it's not a blind faith.
358. 27:06It's not a faith rooted in nothing.
359. 27:11It's a faith based on historical things that really did happen and really can be known.
360. 27:17Let's talk about the epistemology of many Christians in America.
361. 27:25Okay, theism, the Latin word for faith, faith alone.
362. 27:31I've had many a pastor say to me and I love the church.
363. 27:35I've been a pastor.
364. 27:37I love the church.
365. 27:38But every now and then Israel, I'll get booked to speak in a city and maybe somebody hears
366. 27:44me on the radio and they bring us to their city.
367. 27:47And sometimes the pastors, they tolerate it, but they're not thrilled about it.
368. 27:54And I've had more than a few pastors say, I tell the people, just have faith.
369. 28:00Well, I get it.
370. 28:02I get it.
371. 28:03Judaism is just faith in faith alone and
372. 28:09A feedieistic Christianity folks
373. 28:11It will melt away
374. 28:14in front of a PhD at a secular university that has incredible
375. 28:21Influence over the minds of young people
376. 28:23Yes, it is faith not works. It is trust in Jesus
377. 28:28But I think we have to all ages, but especially young people show them
378. 28:33Well, it's like 2 Peter 1, 16. We have not followed cleverly devised fables when we made
379. 28:39no Nundi the power in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a faith rooted in fact, isn't it?
380. 28:45Yeah, absolutely. And I love the title of Dr. Francis Shaver's book, The God Who Is There.
381. 28:51Because we don't just have faith in some abstract concept of a God. We have faith in the God who
382. 28:58who has revealed himself in space and time and history.
383. 29:02We don't just have faith in some cosmic Jesus
384. 29:05who we love and admire in our hearts.
385. 29:09We have faith in the historic son of God
386. 29:12who actually became human and lived among us
387. 29:15and was actually crucified and died
388. 29:18and physically, bodily rose again from the dead.
389. 29:22And that's what John says,
390. 29:23that that's what we have experienced
391. 29:24and that which we have seen
392. 29:25and that we have felt with our hands
393. 29:27which we've experienced empirically, that's what we reveal to you. That's what John talked about in
394. 29:33first John. So we're actually talking about a Christianity that works in the real world. And so
395. 29:39as Christians, we don't have to escape from reason, which is another great philosophy book that I think
396. 29:47that was a Shafer title. But we don't have to escape from reason. We can trust in the God who
397. 29:53really is there. And then also his follow up to that book was he is there and he's not silent.
398. 29:59Right? So God has not only exists, but he has revealed himself to us in the scripture. And so
399. 30:05God is noble. And you know, I want to touch on this too, real quickly. The gods revealed himself
400. 30:10in two ways, general revelation and special revelation. So the Bible has got special revelation,
401. 30:15but he's also revealed himself to us through the things he's made, Romans 1 says.
402. 30:19And Psalm 19 as well.
403. 30:21And science and mathematics and logic and music theory and all these things that he's
404. 30:27made, he's revealed the fact that he is a God of order and consistency.
405. 30:31And so we have empirical evidence that supports the existence of God.
406. 30:36And so these two expressions of his revelation go together.
407. 30:41They're not enemies, but in fact, they work in tandem together.
408. 30:45They really do.
409. 30:46And by the way, folks, if you're just tuning in, Alex McFarlane here, along with our guest,
410. 30:51author and lecturer, Israel Wayne, his website is ChristianWorldView.net.
411. 30:58You mentioned music theory.
412. 31:00One of our great friends is Lauren Green of Fox News.
413. 31:04And a lot of people may not know this, but she is a classically trained pianist.
414. 31:09And she wrote a book called Lighthouse Faith.
415. 31:13And by the way, she loves apologetic.
416. 31:15She's a devout Christian.
417. 31:16Lauren Green wrote what I believe is the best explanation of how music theory and the intervals
418. 31:26and the tones and the notes of the scale prove a theistic worldview.
419. 31:34And it's fantastic if you're a musically inclined person.
420. 31:37And I think the objectivity of music theory is one of the arguments for a theistic universe.
421. 31:43I think math, I think one of the great untapped or partially untapped apologetics topics is pure
422. 31:52mathematics because I mean we would not, you mentioned we wouldn't have logic apart from
423. 31:58an orderly logical God.
424. 32:01We would not have mathematics in a non-theistic universe.
425. 32:05But while we're naming authors and books, here's when you, do you remember the dust of death
426. 32:12by Oz Guinness. Did you ever see that book Israel? I'm familiar with Oz Guinness. I know he worked
427. 32:17with Francis Schaeffer and others, but I don't think I've read that particular one. Yeah, and it's
428. 32:22basically what the Western world is going to be like if we don't return to a Christian theistic
429. 32:29worldview. And so folks, we're talking with Israel, Wayne, we've got a break coming up and we're
430. 32:34going to answer the phone. So if you have a question, we welcome that it's triple eight 5898840,
431. 32:40Triple eight, five, eight, nine, eight, eight, forty.
432. 32:44Israel Wayne, our guest on this edition of The Hamilton Corner.
433. 32:47We're back after this brief break. Stay tuned.
434. 32:50If we lose this cultural war, we're going to have a hedonistic, humanistic society.
435. 33:15Discover the story of the culture warrior, Don Wildman,
436. 33:18and how he went head to head with Hollywood, playboy, the homosexual agenda,
437. 33:23and the Disney Empire.
438. 33:25The movement Don started paved the way for Christians to boldly stand for truth and righteousness
439. 33:31in a hostile culture.
440. 33:34Watch Culture Warrior today for free.
441. 33:36Visit CultureWarrior.movie.
442. 33:37I'm Tim Moore from Christ in Prophecy Radio.
443. 33:41With all the uncertainty in the world, it's good to know God's promises never change.
444. 33:45That's why each week we examine current events through the reliable lens of Bible prophecy.
445. 33:50Join me for Christ in Prophecy Radio, Saturdays at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern, and Sundays
446. 33:55at 11 a.m. Central 12 p.m. Eastern. Find out what's really going on Saturdays at 1 p.m. Central
447. 34:012 p.m. Eastern and Sundays at 11 a.m. Central 12 p.m. Eastern on American Family Radio.
448. 34:07The Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Bitted Common Terrence are available at eafr.net.
449. 34:19Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio. Welcome back to the program Alex McFarland
450. 34:26And here, hey, by the way, our Revive US tour is coming to Elkin, North Carolina, June 7-10,
451. 34:34the western part of North Carolina, then June 20th.
452. 34:38We're doing our speaker series again this summer.
453. 34:40Last year we had Charlie Kirk and Dinesh D'Souza, many great Christian speakers.
454. 34:46Well, this summer, June 20th, conversations that matter.
455. 34:50And if you would, please go to my own website, which is AlexMcFarland.com.
456. 34:55Later in the summer we'll have Eric Metaxus.
457. 34:57Well, a lot of great content because like Israel, Wayne, we desire to see the church equipped
458. 35:04to thrive for the gospel in the 21st century.
459. 35:08And we're going to go to calls here in a second.
460. 35:11By the way, the number is 858-9840.
461. 35:16Israel I think you would love this quote.
462. 35:18I love G.K. Chesterton.
463. 35:19And in 1908, G.K. Chesterton wrote, as much as we need to win the loss to Christianity,
464. 35:28more and more we need to win the Christians to Christianity.
465. 35:32And I think that's more true than ever here in the 21st century.
466. 35:37Would you agree?
467. 35:38Chesterton had so many of those pithy quotes, right?
468. 35:43Just as one lineers.
469. 35:45One of my favorites from Chesterton was when he said that Christianity has not been found
470. 35:50lacking. It has been found difficult and left untried.
471. 35:54Yeah, very true. Very true. But yeah, we need more Christian thinkers these days, don't we?
472. 36:01We really do. And I appreciate you so much and we'll give your website again here in a second, but we're going to go to Texas right now.
473. 36:10And our first caller is Lowry from Texas. Thanks for holding. Welcome, sir.
474. 36:18Thank you very much. I came across a YouTube surfing YouTube body,
475. 36:26ball come presentation. And I put his call on the back of my business card, but I sure would like
476. 36:32it evaluated a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime
477. 36:40of other eyewitnesses reporting super natural events, fulfilling specific prophecies, and claiming
478. 36:47that their writings are divine, rather than of human origin."
479. 36:52Okay.
480. 36:54Speaking of the whole Bible or the four gospels.
481. 36:58I think the whole Bible.
482. 37:02Yeah.
483. 37:03We have conversations going on in the Old Testament that, man, someone else is saying
484. 37:08something else and it's got recorded.
485. 37:10This is what was happening.
486. 37:12I think it's the whole Bible.
487. 37:14Yeah.
488. 37:15Well, I think that's a good quote.
489. 37:18Vodie Bockum was a great Christian communicator.
490. 37:21He recently passed away and he really wasn't that old,
491. 37:25but I interviewed him when I was working
492. 37:27for a focus on the family.
493. 37:28We had him on the radio.
494. 37:31Yeah, I think that's a pretty good quote
495. 37:33because the 40 authors that wrote the 66 canonical
496. 37:39biblical books, it's God's word
497. 37:43they were getting God's revelation. But yes, they were, you know, eyewitnesses and they experienced
498. 37:51it themselves. But what say you Israel, Wayne? Yeah. Well, what he was a good friend of mine.
499. 37:59He and I spoke at a lot of conferences together and got to know Vody quite well. I think it's
500. 38:05first book, if I remember correctly, it's called The Ever Loving Truth. And it was a book
501. 38:09on why Christianity is defensible and why we can trust the Bible.
502. 38:16And so, Vodhi has a very interesting story.
503. 38:19He was actually raised by a single parent mother who was a Buddhist.
504. 38:24So he didn't come from a Christian background.
505. 38:27He was raised in Los Angeles and really should not, by all accounts, have become a Christian.
506. 38:33And yet the grace of God invaded his life.
507. 38:36And he saw the truth of the gospel and became a great defender of the Christian faith.
508. 38:43And so thankfully again, he's home with the Lord now, but we have his books and a lot of
509. 38:48his messages on video.
510. 38:50And so Vodie is a great resource for people who want to learn more about Christian apologetics.
511. 38:55I highly recommend his books and his resources, which are still with us, even though he's
512. 39:00not.
513. 39:01indeed, indeed. And do you know one of the, like in the spirit of that quote, one of the great
514. 39:08tasks of the apologist is to defend the Bible, which is very, very, very defensible, because
515. 39:18here's the thing folks, before somebody will seriously consider the content that Jesus rose
516. 39:27and we believe in Jesus and that's what the Bible says. But if they come to the table assuming
517. 39:35that the Bible, if their presupposition is that the Bible is false, not true, they're not going to give
518. 39:40much serious consideration to the content. So not only do we proclaim, but we have to explain and
519. 39:47defend as well. We're going to go to Arkansas, Mark in Arkansas. Welcome.
520. 39:53Hello.
521. 39:58Expounding on what you just presented, the problem there, I've talked to two Baptist
522. 40:05preachers, I'm accepted to Christ when I was 30 and have attended the Baptist church since
523. 40:12then, but found out one Baptist preacher I talked to, he didn't believe in the six days
524. 40:18of creation.
525. 40:19And another one, I was happy because we're going to spend time in Genesis.
526. 40:26We spent two and a half days on creation.
527. 40:29Now, if you want to talk about miracles, there's nothing more fantastic than the six days of creation.
528. 40:36And on top of that, considering the kids, you know, drift it out,
529. 40:41when you go into a classroom and a professor teaches you to tell you that you're a fool to believe in six days of creation.
530. 40:48creation and you haven't had good formal training by a person that believes to opponent point
531. 40:55out the facts way more than what we have in the Bible that God gave us, you're going to
532. 41:01lose them. You're just going to lose those kids later on.
533. 41:04Yeah, very true, very true. That's why, look, I believe in education. I've spent the majority
534. 41:14my adult life, either in class or teaching classes, I believe in education. But Israel, when young
535. 41:24people especially are unprepared for the philosophical battles of the university, I mean, it can be
536. 41:33very debilitating. And that's, I think, the unpreparedness of our youth is why so many,
537. 41:41If you go to bookstores like Barnes and Noble, there are shelves now about deconstructing one's
538. 41:49faith.
539. 41:50I spent a couple of hours on the road.
540. 41:52I was in Wichita, Kansas a month ago.
541. 41:55I went to this Barnes and Noble.
542. 41:57I liked Barnes and Noble.
543. 41:58They carry my books.
544. 42:00I looked at the deconversion section.
545. 42:06None of the arguments were new.
546. 42:09I didn't see anything I hadn't heard before, but it was all either Darwinian evolution
547. 42:16or the problem of pain and suffering or professed Christians that fell away.
548. 42:21And so we've got to prepare these people of all ages, but especially young people because
549. 42:28we're in a battle of worldviews.
550. 42:32What do you say about this, Israel?
551. 42:33Yeah, very much so.
552. 42:35And in fact, one of the disciplines of philosophy
553. 42:38is metaphysics.
554. 42:39And one of the topics that's addressed in there
555. 42:42is cosmology, cosmogony, which is the study of origins
556. 42:46and how did everything come to be.
557. 42:47And these are philosophical questions.
558. 42:50And I think one thing that's really important for us
559. 42:52to teach our young people is that these beliefs that
560. 42:56are being promoted within the atheistic framework
561. 42:59are really exactly that.
562. 43:00They're philosophical ideas.
563. 43:02They're really not scientific ideas.
564. 43:05They're philosophical ones.
565. 43:06And so we need to not grant them their argument,
566. 43:11which is, oh, we're dealing in the realm of science.
567. 43:14They're really dealing in the realm of belief.
568. 43:16And so as Christians, we shouldn't be afraid as though,
569. 43:20oh, they have information that we don't have access to.
570. 43:24No, actually, they have a bias.
571. 43:26They have an assumption.
572. 43:27They have presuppositions that they bring
573. 43:29to their study of these things.
574. 43:31And they basically often admit,
575. 43:33we can't allow a divine foot in the door.
576. 43:36I mean, there are actually atheistic biologists
577. 43:38who have said that.
578. 43:39We believe in atheistic evolutionary science,
579. 43:43not because that the science demands it,
580. 43:46but simply because we can't allow a divine foot in the door.
581. 43:49And so we as Christians need to prepare our young people
582. 43:53with a philosophy of this and show them that,
583. 43:55given the right starting points and the right assumptions,
584. 43:58there's nothing within the scientific argumentation
585. 44:02this contradictory to what the scripture teaches us.
586. 44:06Indeed, unpack if you would the word metaphysics.
587. 44:12Yeah, so meta is a really difficult prefix
588. 44:15and it kind of means above or beyond or over.
589. 44:20And so it is that which really relates to that,
590. 44:23which is outside of the physical realm
591. 44:25or the physical universe.
592. 44:26So empiricism is the idea that we know everything
593. 44:29through what we can touch and taste and see
594. 44:31and experience with our physical senses.
595. 44:33Metaphysics is really that whole realm of ideas
596. 44:35that's outside of the physical world.
597. 44:38And so it encompasses ideas like ontology,
598. 44:41which is the nature of being,
599. 44:43the ideas of purpose and meaning and destiny.
600. 44:48It encompasses a lot of those ideas
601. 44:50that really are the big issues of life, right?
602. 44:52How did we get here?
603. 44:54What is our purpose?
604. 44:55What is the meaning of life?
605. 44:56Where are we all going?
606. 44:58What's our final destiny?
607. 44:59Those are all metaphysical questions.
608. 45:01And so they're answered by theology, right?
609. 45:05We have good answers within theology
610. 45:07for the metaphysical questions.
611. 45:09And so we don't wanna abandon metaphysics to the heathens
612. 45:12and just let them be the only ones that talk about that.
613. 45:14We wanna come into Christians and say,
614. 45:16there are answers that actually explain all of metaphysics
615. 45:20within the Bible itself.
616. 45:22Indeed.
617. 45:23And you know what, just this conversation reminds me
618. 45:25that the lexicon of words and good solid meanings
619. 45:31We need our parishioners to be conversant on these things and talk about these things
620. 45:37so because like even like with the word philosophy or epistemology or metaphysics or even ethics
621. 45:45or you know aesthetics.
622. 45:49If kids, the only definition they've heard is that which comes from a secular classroom,
623. 45:56they may assume that's the only definition there is.
624. 45:59And so there's the Christian worldview that we need to make sure they're up to speed on.
625. 46:08Talk about if you would the bias though because I think that people probably assume that maybe
626. 46:16the professor or the the YouTuber or whomever the newscaster is just blissfully neutral.
627. 46:25But really nobody is neutral.
628. 46:26Are they everybody has their presuppositions and their biases?
629. 46:30Yeah, for sure.
630. 46:32And I think that's one of the things that we as Christians fall into the trap of granting
631. 46:37them that fallacious argument.
632. 46:41So they say, you're biased.
633. 46:43You trust in religion.
634. 46:45You trust in faith.
635. 46:46We're neutral.
636. 46:47We're just looking at evidence.
637. 46:49We're just looking at science.
638. 46:51We're just looking at math.
639. 46:53And you're trying to incorporate your religion into this.
640. 46:57And yet really we all have these starting points.
641. 46:59And so theism, the belief in God or non-theism, a-a-theism, no-theism, those are conflicting
642. 47:06worldviews.
643. 47:07And if you start with a premise that there is no God and you interpret everything according
644. 47:11to that framework, then you're going to reach certain conclusions.
645. 47:14And when you are open to the fact that God exists, then you have a different framework
646. 47:20through which you interpret the evidence.
647. 47:22So it's not as though we don't have a filter or a bias, we all do.
648. 47:27And then we receive that information and filter that through our grid, our set of assumptions
649. 47:31or presuppositions.
650. 47:33And that really is what that worldview is.
651. 47:35It's a set of lenses by which we understand and see and interpret reality.
652. 47:41We believe the only correct set of lenses in the universe is that which has been given
653. 47:45to us by God through the Holy Scriptures and that that is the lens through which we understand
654. 47:52and interpret all things rightly and correctly,
655. 47:54and that we see things the way God sees them.
656. 47:56We can interpret and understand truth.
657. 47:59And so as Christians, that's the message
658. 48:01that we wanna get out there.
659. 48:02And the earlier that we start doing this
660. 48:04with our young people, the better,
661. 48:06we can't just wait until their college bound.
662. 48:09Dr. Barnas, as a young person's worldview,
663. 48:11is essentially locked down by age 12,
664. 48:14with another window from like 13 to 21,
665. 48:17and that we need to be getting them even before age 12,
666. 48:21with simplified explanations of these things.
667. 48:24But we as adults need to understand the ideas
668. 48:26and be able to communicate them even to younger children.
669. 48:30Indeed, indeed.
670. 48:33Before we run out of time,
671. 48:35and first of all, I wanna thank you for being with us today
672. 48:37and thank you for what you're doing to equip and inspire,
673. 48:41but give us a little bit of a homework lesson.
674. 48:46How could we begin to read and get up to speed
675. 48:49on Christian, specifically Christian philosophy.
676. 48:54Yeah, well, I would like to invite people,
677. 48:55again, you mentioned it before,
678. 48:56but my website, Christianworldview.net,
679. 48:59it's kind of a yellow pages for Christian worldview
680. 49:02and apologetics resources.
681. 49:03And so you can go there and kind of branch off to see,
682. 49:06how does the Christian faith address these different
683. 49:09disciplines of philosophy, of logic,
684. 49:11of environmentalism, of sociology, of science,
685. 49:16and whatever it is.
686. 49:17and there are great ministries and authors and speakers
687. 49:20who have spoken to these kinds of things.
688. 49:22And so it's a great way to kind of branch out
689. 49:25and to get to other resources.
690. 49:27And then if somebody has specific questions.
691. 49:29Brother, forgive me, we're almost out of time.
692. 49:31Almost out of time.
693. 49:32Israel Wayne, thanks.
694. 49:34Bobby Rosa, Jeff McIntosh, thanks for engineering.
695. 49:37Blessings to you all.
696. 49:40The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast
697. 49:43may not necessarily reflect those
698. 49:45of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.