Cliffe Knechtle's Sharpest Debate: Why Doesn't God Come Down Prove Existence?

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]So, wouldn't it be a lot easier if, you know, he just came and and actually said what he was or isn't instead of having middlemen come to college campuses and try and tell us things like why can't we get the source?

[00:00:10]>> Good.

[00:00:10]>> Why can't he just come down?

[00:00:12]>> What's the purpose of your life? What are you living for?

[00:00:14]>> What am I living for? Uh >> to have sex with girls and say they love me.

[00:00:18]>> Okay.

[00:00:19]>> Um to have a couple good beers.

[00:00:21]>> Yep.

[00:00:22]>> Uh treat people well around me.

[00:00:24]>> Y >> and uh watch as much George Carlin as I can.

[00:00:27]>> Okay. So, your purpose in life is to have sex with as many girls who love you as you can. To drink as many beers as you can, >> to be a good guy, >> correct?

[00:00:36]>> And to watch as much George Carlin as you can.

[00:00:38]>> A group of sharp, skeptical college students corners Cliff with questions that cut straight to the bone. If God exists, why won't he just show up? Why trust an ancient book over modern science? The crowd pushes hard, refusing to accept faith as an answer. Then Benjamin steps forward, calmly but relentlessly challenging Cliff on the credibility of the gospels, the possibility of miracles, and whether a sinless life can ever be proven without a full record. Cliff fires back, not with religion, but with logic, evidence, and raw human psychology. The debate shifts from eyewitness testimony and ancient history to free will, the soul, and what it actually means to live a purposeful life. If we are nothing more than biology, then nothing truly matters. But if there is a creator, everything changes. Who wins this argument? Let's find out.

[00:01:29]>> So, wouldn't it be a lot easier if you know he just came and and actually said what he was or isn't instead of having middlemen come to college campuses and try and tell us things? Like, why can't we get the source?

[00:01:39]>> Why can't he just come down?

[00:01:42]>> Well, I am that's the whole point. He did come down.

[00:01:44]>> No, no, no, no. 2,000 years ago. Like, what's he been doing lately other than making footprints in sand? Like why can't he come here?

[00:01:52]>> Well, you have a source document. You have the gospels.

[00:01:54]>> No, no, no. Like that's that's an ancient book. We want now today. Like where's he been? What's he been up to?

[00:02:01]>> Okay, good. God, it's not enough what you've done to reveal yourself. Unless you do X, Y, and Z, you're not going to be privileged enough to have me believe in you. Do you think that that smacks of sincerity?

[00:02:17]If a girl looks you in the face and says, "I love you." And you say, "Really? I don't believe you unless you have sex with me." What do you think of that?

[00:02:26]>> That That seems good. I like that.

[00:02:30]>> Just think about it. Cuz I think your answer that you just gave is the answer to your previous question.

[00:02:37]>> But I mean I mean like I cuz I absolutely see you as a middleman.

[00:02:40]There's there's God, there's you. And then you're telling us, the the herd, the flock, what what God says. He's sending you out on a mission. Well, why can't he be here? Why can't he come out of the heavens and split the ground and and all kinds of good science fiction effects and you know why? That would be so much easier. Clear up a lot of confusion and we'd be good to go for the rest of human eternity now that we have uh technology to record it rather than.

[00:03:07]And the answer to that is >> I'm going to burn it. God respects your freedom.

[00:03:11]respect his freedom. God doesn't play games with you. Don't play games with him.

[00:03:22]>> It's a game, sir. You're playing a game.

[00:03:24]And the game is in order for me to believe in you, you have to do this. And if you don't do this, I'm not going to believe in you. Watch out. That's a trap. And if you treat a human being that way, you're going to have incredibly superficial friendships.

[00:03:42]>> Well, that's that's based on the presupposition that there is a god.

[00:03:45]>> No, forget that. That is false. You step forward. You painted the scenario. I didn't. I'm responding to the scenario you pictured. Now, that was a neat trick you tried to play there, but it's dishonest. Totally dishonest. You step forward. You set the scenario. The scenario you set was, hey, why doesn't God perform more miracles today, then I would believe in him. That's the scenario you set. And I'm pointing out to you how dishonest that is in approaching a personal being that way.

[00:04:16]If a girl says to you, I really love you, and you look her in the face and say, you know something, I don't believe you unless you have sex with me, you are one crash manipulator. You said more miracles, but they didn't they didn't have any understanding of gravity back then or oxygen. So why are why do their 2,000-year opinion of the way world is how does that compare to what we have when we have knowledge?

[00:04:42]So what I'm saying is how come the miracles can't happen today? Because you said you said more miracles. So you assume that the snake talked and the sea was split and he came back from the dead. But why can't that happen now?

[00:04:57]>> Miracles do happen now, but they don't happen on command. They don't happen for some cynical person who says, "Hey, God, do you want to have the privilege of me believing in you?" Which is obviously total human arrogance. Hey, why don't you do this miracle and then I'll believe in you? Instead, God respects your freedom. He doesn't force you to believe. He doesn't manipulate you. He says, "Here's the evidence that I love you. Here's the evidence that I care for you. Now, you have to make your own decision.

[00:05:28]>> It's not manipulative that God creates us to love him." Like, if I if I had an ant farm, >> yes.

[00:05:33]>> Would I demand that the ants love me?

[00:05:35]And if they don't, they're going to go to ant hell.

[00:05:38]>> If you create the ants for a purpose, then it would be the ants to live out the purpose for which they were made.

[00:05:46]It's a question of purpose. Why you?

[00:05:52]My friend brought up a good point which I feel like we may disagree a little bit upon. Uh he was saying that the claim that Jesus led a perfect life, sinless life, uh isn't really meant by the evidence even of the gospels because they they don't account for every single moment of his life, which you claim to be ridiculous. But given the extraordinary claim, it seems like that's what's required in order to have a justified belief in that.

[00:06:23]>> Well, I think you're making the same mistake that Dart made. Dart was trying to say that unless unless I can believe something is true, you have to be able to prove it to me. I think that's a ridiculously naive approach to truth and to life.

[00:06:38]Sir, I can prove almost nothing, but I don't that doesn't mean I can't make decisions. I make decisions based on evidence, not proof. And I think if you look at your life, you're no different from me.

[00:06:51]>> Uh, well, I'm a little bit different than you, but >> Yeah. Well, obviously you're a little different from me. And you're fortunate that you are different from me in certain ways. Okay.

[00:06:58]>> So, I mean, I pray you'll come to put your faith in Christ, but I know I don't pray that you be just exactly like me.

[00:07:03]That would not be good in all situations. I can promise you.

[00:07:08]I think if you look at your life, you've got to acknowledge I cannot base my life on proof. I base my life on evidence.

[00:07:16]I mean, if you're in Rosi, can you prove to me the United States government is not going to rip you off? No. If you're paying the University of Arizona lots of money to enroll here, can you prove to me that on your day of graduation, the University of Arizona is going to grant you a diploma? Maybe on your day of graduation, the University of Arizona is going to say, "Hey, you know something?

[00:07:34]Let's break tradition. No diplomas this year.

[00:07:36]>> Oh, no.

[00:07:37]>> It's possible, right? Anything's possible. But the reason you're so committed to this fine institution is because the evidence is you complete your courses and you'll get a diploma.

[00:07:47]You don't prove it, but the evidence points in that direction. Yeah. But um it's not so much a solid math something that's akin to a mathematical proof.

[00:07:57]It's more the ability to disprove it.

[00:08:00]For example, you don't need, if I were to make the claim that I had a perfect life, you wouldn't need an entire account because you would just be able to say, "Oh, I saw you trip an old lady yesterday or something like that."

[00:08:10]>> Good point.

[00:08:10]>> Uh it seems like if we're going to have little bits and piec pieces of Jesus's life missing here, especially that 30 years uh and of the gap in the gospels, uh there's a very good possibility that he could have um sinned or whatever or aired in some way.

[00:08:28]>> Theoretically, it's possible. I agree.

[00:08:30]But I can promise you, sir, if I live with you closely for 3 years, and if I never see you sin once, that's going to blow me out of the water, I'm going to be really impressed.

[00:08:40]>> Or I just sin behind your back, too. But I know what you mean.

[00:08:44]>> Well, I mean, if I if I track with you, I mean, if we're close friends, like if we're roommates for four years at the University of Arizona, and if I never see you sin once, you're always compassionate, always honest. Your integrity is pure and spotless.

[00:09:02]I mean, that's pretty incredible. I'm going to be blown out of the water by you. That's incredibly fine. Yeah. And that sounds good. But what I'm saying is that that's a little a good bit of inductive reasoning, but I don't think that's enough reasoning to back up the claim that he led a perfect life.

[00:09:23]All right.

[00:09:25]But you see, when other people say to me, "I've never sinned," their friends laugh. There was one student at MIT who raised his hand and he said, "Cliff, I've never sinned once." Well, I stood there with a poker face, but all of his classmates burst into laughter.

[00:09:44]So, when Jesus makes his claim that he's a sinless life, I mean, why doesn't everybody break out laughing? What kind of an idiot are you, Christ claiming to be a sinless person?

[00:09:55]And yet they didn't break out in laughter. Instead, they said, "Yeah, the guy lived a sinless life."

[00:10:03]>> But I don't think just Okay, so other people didn't laugh. I don't think that's good reason to believe him. I mean, maybe they're just really gullible.

[00:10:10]>> Yeah, maybe they are gullible. That's a possibility. It >> It is. And we have all these possibilities of it turning out that he didn't lead a perfect life. So, >> I I don't think the belief is justified.

[00:10:21]>> Okay. But when you read the Gospels, you're right. I'm looking for gullibility. And when you read the Gospels, you'll notice his bravest follower, Peter, denies knowing him three times. Is that gullibility?

[00:10:35]Is that blind faith? No. Peter believed in Christ, but he also doubted. He doubted to the point of denying he even knew Christ three times.

[00:10:46]You read the Gospels and you bump into a guy named Thomas. And yeah, Thomas was one of the twel apostles, but Jesus was such an ineffective communicator that when the other apostles said, "Hey, Thomas, Jesus is risen from the dead." Thomas said, "No, I don't believe it. Not unless I can see him with my own eyes. Not unless I can take my hands and put them in the nail prints in his hands will I believe."

[00:11:08]Well, I like that. That's like me. I doubt.

[00:11:12]But when the evidence is complete, consistently pointing in a direction, I got to follow the evidence. So, you're right. It's possible that these little 12 apostles were blind, gullible puppies, blindly following this heroic Jesus of Nazareth. But when you read about how they responded to Jesus, you can't conclude that they denied him.

[00:11:32]They doubted him. Judas's scariot, one of his 12 closest friends, betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. These are not blind true believers. These are skeptics. They're Christ doubters, Christ deniers. Well, guess what, guys?

[00:11:49]I like that cuz that's the way I am. But I can promise you that ups the credibility of the gospels because they're recording all the doubts, all the skepticism.

[00:12:01]>> Well, if you're going to bring in the credibility of the gospels, I mean, I think we talked about this a little bit before. I I don't find them to be very credible. I mean, >> what?

[00:12:11]>> Okay. Yeah. Like I mean, last night you said it's not like telephone, but I feel that it really is like telephone.

[00:12:16]>> How? So we have information starting at one point. It's passing through through certain people. Let's say it's eight people or something like that. Uh even then it tends to get uh misinterpreted changed a little bit or something like that.

[00:12:29]>> Sure.

[00:12:30]>> So if we have something like that, I'm not I'm not going to believe that it's the information is the same as the original point. So, if we change it to eyewitness testimony and things like that over a few thousand years, I'm not sure if I'm going to believe that anymore.

[00:12:50]>> Okay. Especially given that a lot of the things in the Bible seem to be Jesus talking, which is a very specific event.

[00:12:59]Uh, and that doesn't seem like a very credible thing to me that they were able to replicate exactly what he said, if he even said it to begin with, because, for example, miraculous things were written about Alexander the Great. But I don't believe those either. Um, but even then, those weren't on the small scale of everyday conversations between people.

[00:13:23]Those were about actual major events. So if I'm not going to believe the major events which seem miraculous, why I believe the gospels which were uh small events, that's what I'm trying to think. Yeah.

[00:13:38]But Alexander the Great never claimed to be God in human form. He never claimed to be a prophet of God. Obviously, Alexander the Great claimed to be a very committed general, leader of an army, and he was obviously a tremendously successful, talented general, leader of armies. And so, history chronicles how he led those armies to victory after victory after victory.

[00:14:03]Now, when myths grow up around Alexander the Great or around George Washington about him throwing a dollar across the PTOIC or whatever, because you study the literary style and when these myths grew up and you begin to study folklore, you begin to realize, no, George Washington wasn't this mythological figure who did all these things. He was a real historical person and this is what he did. And then look at how the myth grew up around him or Alexander the Great. But with Jesus Christ, you don't have an historical person who myth grows up around.

[00:14:41]Instead, you've got this historical person claiming to be God in human form.

[00:14:45]And right from the get-go, he's performing miracles. And these miracles are not added to his life later on to give it some zest and some punch and some persuasiveness.

[00:14:57]See, Acts chapter 2 records Peter standing up 50 days after the resurrection. Peter looks in the face of his listeners and says, "You killed the Christ. God raised him from the dead, and we are all eyewitnesses of this fact."

[00:15:13]And the people don't say, "Oh, no, no, no. You're wrong. Christ didn't rise from the dead." People knows the facts.

[00:15:18]The facts is these people claim to have seen Christ risen from the dead. This is 50 days after the resurrection. And Peter's going headtohead with him.

[00:15:28]Nobody can say, "Oh, no, no. We found the dead body. Oh, no, no, no, no. We know about the plot." No, they can't.

[00:15:37]Right from the get-go, the eyewitness testimony is, "We saw Christ dead. We saw him risen from the dead. You guys killed him. He's the Christ. He's the son of the blessed."

[00:15:48]>> Yeah, that's my point. It's eyewitness testimony for something that isn't physically possible. I mean a miracle.

[00:15:55]>> There you go.

[00:15:56]>> And there are other thing. I mean so first you have to just like you said last night you have to accept a supernatural being in order to accept a supernatural occurrence. And it seems a little circular. You have to accept supernatural before you accept supernatural claims.

[00:16:11]>> Well, no it's not circular. In order for a miracle to happen, there has to be a supernatural God.

[00:16:19]Obviously, if there's no supernatural God, it is impossible for a miracle to happen, right? Because if there's no supernatural God, all of reality is natural order. And you don't have a miracle occurring in natural order, right?

[00:16:37]So, in order to have a miracle, you've got to have a supernatural God who chooses to change a natural law. All right? What is Jesus doing when he's turning water into water?

[00:16:48]He's changing a law. And the law is not that water never turns into wine.

[00:16:52]Obviously, water does turn into wine, but it goes through a process of being in a grape and then fermenting.

[00:16:58]Obviously, Jesus is speeding up that natural process. And he's turning water directly into wine. Obviously, when Jesus walks on water, you don't do that.

[00:17:07]Why? Cuz gravity pulls you right down into water. He's changing a natural law.

[00:17:12]He's a supernatural God. Obviously, when Jesus raises a dead person to life, he's changing a a natural law.

[00:17:21]So, obviously, the only way a miracle can happen is if there's a supernatural God who created these natural laws in the first place, and then he's got the power to change these natural laws.

[00:17:33]That's why you have to figure out, does the evidence point to a supernatural god existing or does it not? And if you conclude there's no supernatural God because there's no evidence to support a supernatural God, then obviously Jesus did not rise from the dead because it's impossible. If there's no supernatural God for a dead person to rise from the dead, it's impossible.

[00:17:54]>> What's the evidence of a soul? What's your evidence of a soul?

[00:17:59]>> Uh my evidence for a soul is free will, love, conscience, independent rational mind. How do you test for this?

[00:18:10]>> I test for it by self-reflection, judging myself, analyzing myself, saying, "Look, when you did that, that was boneheaded. When you did this, that was good."

[00:18:21]>> How do you know that's the soul and not just some mistake you're making or some emotional thing? How do you know it's the soul?

[00:18:28]>> Well, we don't have to call it a soul.

[00:18:30]It's it's me. It's me that goes beyond my chemical drive.

[00:18:36]I have a sex drive now. I don't have to do whatever my sex drive tells me. Three years ago, I was speaking out here and there was a guy right over here who said, "Yes, I date rape and I don't think it's wrong." I said, "Okay, fine. Why don't you think date rape is wrong?" He said, "Because I have a very high testosterone level."

[00:18:57]You see, he was being consistent with his worldview that said, "I don't have a soul. I don't have a free will. I just do what my genetic makeup programs me to do. My experience is I have sexual desires and I don't have to put them into practice. I can control them. My experience is I really hate some people who treated me rather despicably. But I don't have to continue to hate them. I can choose to forgive them. Now, to be honest with you, Benjamin, at times I've hated them, and I'm embarrassed by that.

[00:19:33]But I know that I've also been able to change and with the help of Christ love people who naturally I would hate. Let me give you one quick example. I went to college to play major college basketball down in North Carolina.

[00:19:47]But there was an assistant basketball coach who would stand on the sidelines and every time I'd make a bad pass, every time I'd make a bad shot, he would mock me.

[00:19:57]Stupid. Look at the chicken out there.

[00:20:01]can I can't play ball worthworth squat.

[00:20:04]My teammates would come to me and say, Cliff, what have you done against this guy? Did he treat you like a piece of dirt? And I'd say, I don't know, but I can promise you, Benjamin, I had some major bitterness and hatred towards that guy. I tried to love him, Benjamin. I tried to care about the guy. I I failed time and time again. I hated his guts.

[00:20:23]If he would have died, I would have been celebrating at his funeral, to tell you the truth. And it wasn't until I reached the point where I said, "Christ, I need your help. I tried to love the guy and I failed repeatedly. And Christ, helped me to love a man who I hated on my own."

[00:20:40]>> I' I've had similar hatred toward people, but I've been able to restrain myself without the belief in Christ.

[00:20:48]Good, you know, ethical measure.

[00:20:50]>> And isn't that your free will? Isn't that the real Benjamin choosing not to hate? I guess but it's it's constrained, you know, by certain events, >> right?

[00:20:58]>> It's not just, you know, something I feel that it was >> I was born with this uh, >> you know, to to not go kill this guy or whatever.

[00:21:09]>> When certain people have hurt me very deeply, my knee-jerk response is to hit him as hard as I can. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to deliberate about it. If someone cuts me off at the knees, my knee-jerk reaction is I'm going to cut you off at the knees.

[00:21:25]>> That's not That's not my knee-jerk reaction then.

[00:21:28]>> Okay, good. Well, that's great. But Benjamin, I think if you look over your life with a fine tooth comb, you'll have to acknowledge that too frequently your knee-jerk reaction has been selfishness, thoughtlessness. without much. Of course, there's selfishness here and there, but as a whole, no. I would say the majority is not selfishness.

[00:21:53]Maybe some people are like that, but you can't take one person and assume the entire species like that.

[00:22:00]>> Benjamin, I used to think that I was a really selfless guy. Then I got married.

[00:22:07]>> And I can promise you, Benjamin, being married to a woman showed me very clearly how selfish I am. Then I thought I got over my selfishness. Then we had three boys.

[00:22:18]Then I really found out how selfish I am. Human selfishness is deeply ingrained.

[00:22:25]And yet we could fight that selfishness and be generous. We have free will.