Purified By the Word

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Living Hope SDA Church

Apologetics

Subodh Pandit

01 Come, Search With Me

Heavenly Father, you have given us a lot of information.

We know it's within reach, you have given it to us.

Grant that in our ways of looking at you and looking at this thing that you have given, we will see your mercy and also be able to stand firm in what you have given us.

Grant that our minds will be open to your spirit now as we talk and as we discuss.

Actually the topic is this, because when you have to deal with people outside, by the way, you will hear me talking a little differently from a Christian, because my ministry is basically with atheists, agnostics, non-Christians on secular university campuses.

That is where the last 20 years has been my ministry.

So the way they talk is very different from the way we talk.

We talk like, you know, what I call a cyber school syndrome.

But over there you can't say some, just can't say anything.

In other words, it's the first Peter, the third chapter in the 15th verse says, Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be always ready to give everyone a defense of the reason of the hope.

We are good at giving our hope, but we are not good at giving a reason.

Neither are we good at defending that reason.

So we can talk among ourselves, but once you go out there, whoa, that's a different world altogether.

But believe me, there are so many out there who long for some reason.

So James Sires asked this question which he called the prime reality question.

Why is it called the prime reality question?

Because everybody has to answer it sometime.

And that is, what is that thing from which everything else comes?

So many other ideas that are attached to it.

But my main aim is to make you think for yourself.

In fact, when I finish my seminars out in the universities, the most common response is, boy, you made me think.

So that's all really I want you to do, think.

Let's put on our thinking caps, and let's reason it out.

Most debates on such topics are not satisfying.

Because we have not settled out the premises or the principles on which we will govern, that will govern our discussion.

We haven't said, for example, we haven't said where we'll get our information from.

By the way, if you're talking about Islam, then your information will be from the Quran.

Are we talking about this, that, the other?

Once you settle your topic, you must settle where the information is going to come from, how are you going to argue this out?

In other words, before you start, there is something that needs to be done.

And If you looked at all the debates out there, atheism, God, no God, evolution and creation, nobody starts with this.

And if you jump into it, you are going to be lost.

That is why we never reach any conclusion.

By the way, these series, there are 2 lectures this evening, afternoon, tomorrow and other 2, and that's it.

And every time I've finished presenting at least 1 person will come up walking up the aisle and say my life has changed.

I can't do it any, I can't think back or go back to the previous thinking anymore.

There are about 5 or 6 premises, but I'm going to give you just a gist of what we're doing, what I do, so that you'll get a grasp of it.

And once you get a grasp of it, you will do your own search.

Nobody can do neutral inquiry because we are all biased.

So if everyone is biased, You shouldn't call anyone biased.

I'll use the word think more than once, all right?

If everyone is biased, how can you call anybody biased?

Just drop the word bias and do your argumentation.

Number 1 and 2, always make 2 competing theories.

We already have 2 right now, because we already said God's existence.

So 1 side of the theory is God exists and the other side is God does not exist.

You do not want to make default conclusions.

You will see this is nice and you grab it but wait, if you looked at the other side that is better.

So choosing the good is bad when there's the best available.

Similarly you think there's a questionable thing here, throw it out.

If you throw this out and go for the other 1, that's worse.

02 Come, Search With Me Q&A

The only thing in physics is a vacuum where there is no matter.

The other thing is The way you think about vacuum, when you think about vacuum in our existence, now we don't know what happens out there because that's in our 3D existence, 4D actually with time.

In our 3D existence, vacuum can be created only by having an impenetrable barrier from which you have taken out all the air and everything.

What we are saying is, that is questionable because it is extremely difficult to have absolute nothingness.

So what we are saying is in a vacuum, when you have pulled out everything, You have to have that impenetrable barrier.

You cannot have nothing without something.

It is the something that's the more prime thing.

It's the something that holds the nothing.

So we are doing it in such a way that we have a friendly talk, but the arguments are simply too powerful.

You may not believe like I said, but you cannot refute.

Yeah, that's the common, that's a common, very common.

We go say this was made by this, this man, finally God made that final 1 God.

If God made everything then who made God?

So the features of God preclude your question.

In other words, if you ask a believer And you have a tussle with the believer, the believer will say that's not God who was created.

So you're asking me who created the thing that was not created?

Are you with me Or did I go too fast on that?

A believer believes that this God, like he said, the features of this God are such that it is uncreated.

So you can't ask me to find out who created the uncreated thing.

Yeah, look, like I said, many times during my search, Any time during my search, we didn't discuss that yet.

You are right, but if you take, you are saying it is a belief, that is true, but the question is, is my belief based on something or just a belief?

So now I will tell you my belief is not baseless.

If you remember that, yeah, logically it has to be omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, logically.

What I am saying is, like I said, don't look at only 1 side.

And you will find that that theory is 10 times worse.

It's bad I know, but don't toss it off because that's worse.

It's the same thing when you go with religions.

I hope I don't ask a question that has already been addressed.

I'm just thinking that creationists accept that God is the origin and don't try to explain the origin itself which is God.

If an atheist were to acknowledge or accept that something must have been there, Would that lend credibility to the 80s position of godlessness?

But like us, we can't explain the origin of it.

Like we write that word here, just like we can't explain the origin of God, we cannot say we accept that God is, we accept what God says about his features, his characteristics.

If the 80s were to accept, something must have been there to make the mathematical equation.

With that credibility, how would we relate to that?

If I were A to Z, I would say, alright, I agree with you, This is observed.

So I believe there is something there, but nothing else changes.

I agree that there is something out there, but what's the ending of your sentence there?

No, we are not asking for an explanation.

We are just asking whether there was something.

But still believes everything else or holds on to everything else.

Like something created something, but of nothing creating something.

And eventually it ends up with everything.

So something knows there is something there in the mathematical equation.

03 Come, Search With Me

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we can call upon your name at any time.

We call you Father because we want now to understand again our places on this earth so that we can reflect you well and clearly.

Thank you for the information you have given.

May it find a place in our hearts and in our lives, we pray in Jesus' name.

Yesterday we went through a very fundamental aspect of our interaction with the world.

Because you'll find that many of them don't believe in God.

If you say you believe in God, that's very different from believing in God.

I was with an Adventist Christian school and they told me to speak to the 12th graders.

So they have been in the school for 12 years.

So when they asked me to speak to them, I said, I will have a little chat with you guys.

I want to first ask you very honestly, how many of you believe there's a God?

And the chaplain was standing next to me, and he said, speak to them.

I said, can I ask just 1 simple question?

12 years in Adventist education, 70% could not raise their hand.

It is the same, not only in that school, across the board.

Because we have never had information that appeals to our mind.

We have information that appeals to our ears and that's called the club mentality.

Everyone says there is so I also got to say it.

Everyone says God is good, I'll also say God is good.

But really, when you come down to that nitty-gritty, you'll realize that there is something else needed than just hearing the words.

And that's what we are trying to do here.

There's something more that a person needs.

Once you get that, you will be able to communicate that with the others, not just saying the words.

And that is why when you go out there, If you talk to atheists and agnostics, they just dislike these religion people.

They will only tell you, they will never tell you the reason.

And so this seminar is very specifically meant to say, I'm telling you this and here's the reason, which is 1 Peter 3.15.

Always be able to defend the reason of what you believe.

So 3 things, believe something, give a reason for it and then defend that reason.

And Paul says, to the Jew you become like a Jew.

In other words, when a person is an atheist, you think like an atheist, not a Christian.

So you drop your Christian jargon, that's the big thing.

Next question naturally that arises, how can we identify this God?

All over they are saying that that's the 1.

The way you approach that is not to figure out which 1 it is in the beginning.

It is to figure out how you are going to approach this big topic.

So I am going to just put it in a nutshell and then we will go through the material.

When you approach this you have to ask each of them, which do you think is the way?

So we'll ask a Hindu, is Hinduism the way?

And you'll find every belief system claims itself to be the only way.

Because if you say you're not the only way, then set aside, because the other guy is saying he's the only way.

So if you want to be in the fray, you must say you're the only way, otherwise you're out.

So in other words, every belief system is not only in religion, it's also in science.

For example, the origins of the universe, everyone talks about the Big Bang.

That's a good theory out there, but it is not the only theory.

Cyclic universe, multi-universe, string theory, super string theory.

So in other words, when you look at any of these things, there's always a question of a theory and every theory claims itself to be correct.

So those who believe in the big bang say, oh this super string theory, no, no, that's wrong.

And the string theory will say the big bang, no, no, that's wrong.

If 2 people say, more than 2 in this case, say that they are the only way, then logically there can be only 1 way.

Because you cannot call all of them wrong, let us say 5, we are dealing with 5 religions in our study, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity.

If each of them say they are the only way, then you cannot call all of them correct.

Each 1 is saying only, no you are not right.

You can't call all of them wrong for various reasons including the fact that you can't call any of them wrong.

So how are you going to call all of them wrong?

And if you call all of them wrong, then you have to throw out God because all of them agree with God.

But wouldn't there, couldn't there be other options outside the ones that you are considering?

So then it's possible that the ones that you are considering are all incorrect.

In other words, we might find the real 1 outside.

But remember when anybody uses the word possibility, We are inquirers who will look on the other side as well.

If you say this is possible, then I'll say that other side also is possible.

Series

Apologetics

03 Come, Search With Me

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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