Session 9 (September 22) | Warren-Flew Debate

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]To God be the glory.

[00:00:05]>> The most significant question facing all of mankind is that of the existence of God. We welcome you now to the Warren Flu debate. Does God exist? Dr. Warren affirms, I know that God does exist.

[00:00:19]>> Dr. Flu, gentlemen, moderators, ladies and gentlemen, I confess to you that I weary of hoping to get Dr. flu to pay attention to the arguments which I present. I have presented in as precise logical form as could be presented.

[00:00:36]An argument which shows that by his admissions every premise involved in the argument concerning creation or evolution that every premise is true and the argument is valid. Therefore, the argument demands that the conclusion be true.

[00:00:55]I further gave you an argument in regard to a specific characteristic of an individual human being, making clear that was absolutely impossible for such to be the case according to a purely materialistic or naturalistic or evolutionary explanation that it demanded a miraculous explanation and therefore God. Dr. Flu has paid no attention at all to that.

[00:01:22]Suppose he will pay attention to it in his following 19 and 12 minute speech and then I shall have opportunity to reply to it only in a 1 and a half minute rejoinder. The thing he should have done was to have replied to it in these two speeches which preceded. Now my plan for this particular speech is to go through the things which he has said to which I have not given attention and then to introduce a third argument which will be presented in precise logical fashion and I will at least entertain some faint hope that he will pay attention to the logic of this argument.

[00:02:00]Now Dr. flu has had considerable to say about explanation and this involves us in the so-called scientific method. Now the scientific method if you can envision a line dividing the area below of facts empirical facts the world in which we live which we may experience with our senses. We make certain observations problems come to our minds. We then have certain solutions or possible solutions come into our mind and this brings us up above the line which is the realm of the theory and we postulate various hypotheses and we then conclude that certain one of this certain a certain one of these is the most uh plausible of all of these possible solutions which we have decided upon. Then by deductive logic we make a prediction of what will occur if indeed our hypothesis is true.

[00:02:56]And then we try either to verify or to falsify that hypothesis by coming back down below the line into the realm of the empirical.

[00:03:07]Now what the scientist is involved in doing is trying to find explanations that can be either verified or falsified. But this is not the only way of explaining things as Dr. Flu in effect admitted a few moments ago in the answering of the questions which I gave him. It is an explanation to give a sound argument. To give a sound argument is to give an argument which is valid, the premise of which are true. Now you may have a valid argument which has false premises and even a false conclusion. But if you have a sound argument, not only is your argument valid and a valid argument is one which if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. So when you have a sound argument, you have both a valid argument and true premises and this guarantees the truth of the conclusion.

[00:03:59]Now what have I done in this discussion in my affirmative by way of explanation?

[00:04:05]I have shown that granted Dr. Flu's own admissions the materialistic naturalistic atheistic viewpoint cannot provide an explanation for what we ourselves experience. The naturalistic materialistic atheistic position cannot provide an explanation even for the existence of each one of us. I have shown that by argument. I've shown it by his own admissions and he has paid practically no attention to it. I even went further to show in specific detail that man could not live longer than 5 minutes without his respiratory system functioning as it does and showing what is involved in it that oxygen carbon dioxide must pass through this capillary wall. Dr. Flu, how long did it take for that to develop? This lets us all see the the simple impossibility of it having uh evolved as Dr. Flu's materialistic explanation that is his basic stance or position would imply would occur. Now I submit to you that this is an explanation which carries us beyond this physical universe and which in the previous questions about which Dr. Fluis complained somewhat. He has admitted that you can reason from an empirical fact to the state of affairs of the class of things which is transcendent of this universe. He himself concludes that it's an empty class. But he noticed but notice carefully that he has admitted the basic thrust of it while he comes back and gives all of this explanation about explanation therefore to no profit at all. while he pays no attention to the affirmative argument. Now is to his difference degrees of difference in hell and his talk about God being finite in justice while he's infinite in love and says this is an entirely satisfactory explanation. But I submit to you that it isn't. I reiterate you're talking about a different God from the one I'm talking about. I'm talking about the infinite God. It is not merely you might envision some person who is infinite in one attribute and finite in another. But we're talking about the finite God. Now to show that that God does not exist, you must find some logical contradiction as this seems to be your basic approach between the concepts of that God. I have already charged that you cannot do so.

[00:06:29]that you cannot take the concept of God alone and take one concept, one attribute of God and array it against another attribute of God and show that they contradict one another. That is a matter of fact that you along with all other atheist will refer to some empirical fact or something that God does such as punishment. But now you are now concluding that God is finite injustice whereas the truth of the matter is is infinite injustice. You must show that there is some conflict between a god who is infinite in justice as well as infinite in love and that you have not done you as a matter of fact have not even addressed yourself to the matter. Now let me suggest Dr. Flu in all concern for you as a person that we can know what sin deserves in only two ways. Not by looking at rocks, not by merely intuition in our minds. Not by merely some deduction from some concept or from some empirical fact. but only by what it costs to get man out of it. The the death of the son of God and the price and the punishment that must be made for those who live and die in it.

[00:07:35]But Dr. Flu projects himself not only outside the physical universe, but outside of God as well. Looks down upon the universe and God and judges God to be unfit and unworthy, monstrous, even satanic as he put it last evening. And I submit to you that he has no springboard upon which to stand to make such a judgment.

[00:08:00]Now he admits that philosophy doesn't have anything to offer about guilt. So there's nothing more I need to say there. That's simply an admission of fact. And uh you have admitted Dr. Flu real guilt. Not merely a feeling of guilt. You have admitted that all men know that they have done what they know they ought to do. Now, you said you had difficulty deciding whether you should be an atheist or an agnostic. But, Dr. Flu, what we're interested in is not merely the fact that you've had difficulty, but whether or not you've decided which one you're going to be.

[00:08:33]You signed the proposition in this debate that you were going to be an atheist. Now, I suggest that at least until you come straight out and say, "I've now decided that I will reject my position of atheism and will become an agnostic," that you try to stay with that.

[00:08:51]Now, he again brings up the car has a maker while the eye and the ear and the respiratory system merely grows. My friends, I've shown by clear, precise, logical argument that the respiratory system had to be made by the eternal creator of the world. I have further shown that even in the case of the car, while the car has a maker, given his theory, the maker of the car has no maker. You see, you might just as well have figured that a whirlwind blew through a junkyard and blew him together. Absolutely by sheer chance.

[00:09:23]Dr. Flu gives some attention to the maker of the car. We grant the car was made but who made the maker of the car?

[00:09:30]That's the problem to which you have not addressed yourself at all in this discussion.

[00:09:37]Now again he comes to explanation why we both get back to a place he says where we can't explain not so Dr. Flu what Dr. flu does is start off with an assumption which he got from Straight of Greece and he calls the Stratonician presumption which he quotes by way of saying that every notice this carefully I want you to get it. Everything there is is a product of nature. Now notice that nature is now if everything there is is a product of nature and nature is then nature is a product of itself. Now nature if nature's is a product of itself then one time nature did not exist. Though one time there was nothing existing, but lo and behold, nature comes along and creates itself when there is nothing there to create it.

[00:10:19]Talk about incoherent concepts. Talk about lack of explanation. This is not an explanation. It is a mere assumption.

[00:10:27]He assumes his case that matter is all that exists and he does not give an explanation. We as theists do not face that kind of problem. I have reasoned from empirical fact in this world. What have I done? I'm said here I am in empirical fact. You are an empirical fact. I have given you precise logical arguments showing that from individual human beings you must reason if you reason correctly, validly, logically, soundly to the ultimate creator of every human being.

[00:10:57]Now that takes care of all he had to say on explanation. Science cannot give the ultimate answer and the stratenian presumption cannot be do so. It assumes the case and it is self-contradictory.

[00:11:09]Now I want to give another argument in the remaining time that I have. Again I want you to note and this is certainly not done in any sense of braggadocia.

[00:11:17]It's simply doing what every affirmative speaker ought to do and every negative speaker ought to follow an affirmative speaker when he does this. But we've had a complete failure upon Dr. Flu's part.

[00:11:28]And I appreciate the very humorous confession that he made along that line a few moments ago. Certainly you can't help but like him a great deal the way he makes these things. But nevertheless, that doesn't help his case one bit. Now, before there can be, notice the admission that he has made regarding the moral argument. He has indicated that before there can be real objective moral law wrong, some law must be violated.

[00:11:58]Now, Dr. Flu says the reason why he hasn't presented any questions is because they simply don't get us very far along. Dr. flu. I think we've just taken big jumps along by the answers that you've given to these questions. At question number three, the first night you said there can be no wrong unless some law has been violated. The Nazis were wrong. They were guilty of real moral objective wrong in torturing and murdering those Jews. But it wasn't because they violated the law of Germany. He said, not because they violated the law of England, not because they violated American law. And ultimately we got him to admit that it wasn't even just international law but as Robert Jackson said some higher law that transcends the provincial and the transient which means it transcends mere human law. Now friends, the only way the only way you can uh really show an explanation as to the justification of the conviction, punishment and execution of those Nazis for their murder of those children is the fact that they violated the law of God. And Dr. Flu has in effect admitted it. That's one thing.

[00:13:08]That's why we ask these questions, Dr. Flu, and that's why it's so obvious to anyone who's followed this argument that you have completely admitted defeat in this discussion. Secondly, admits an actual case of real objective moral wrong when he admitted the Nazis were guilty of real moral wrong in torturing and murdering these children and admits a higher law above the provincial and the transient. But he violates the above when he holds that value did not exist before the first human being. Now, Dr. Flu says that when you when a man holds a position that violates major undisputed facts, then he knows he's got a false position. Well, here we have a man who's violating major undisputed facts because he's got himself in serious self-contradiction.

[00:13:52]If matter did not exist before human beings exist, then matter is nothing but I don't care how much he doesn't like the word merely or nothing but in connection with subjectivity. That's what he's got to face. That's what he's got to accept when he says that value did not exist before the first human being was here. It's nothing then according to that answer but a function of the human mind. And yet the conscience within him will not allow him to say that when the Nazis said we were right in doing it and the British said you were wrong in doing it that both of them were right at one in the same time.

[00:14:27]He knows the British were right in saying the Germans were wrong and he when he says the British were right in saying the Germans were wrong and he knows the Germans were wrong when he said they were right. But the only way he can consistently say so is to recognize the law of almighty God. Now I want to give this precise statement of the moral argument.

[00:14:50]First premise if the moral code andor actions of any individual or society can properly be subjects of criticism.

[00:15:00]By that I mean properly that we can judge that they are guilty of real moral objective wrong as he himself has done in connection with the Nazis. As to real moral wrong then there must be some objective standard that is some higher law which transcends a provincial and the transship which is other than the particular moral code and which has an obligatory character which can be recognized. Now all of us could do that.

[00:15:27]Even my learned colleague could do it in the case of the Nazi Germans. Now, you may say, "Oh, I'm tired of hearing about the Nazis. The Germans must have really won in this debate." But my friends, it's simply a fact on this earth that no materialistic, no atheistic system can deal with unless they're willing to say that the Nazis were simply doing what they thought was right and therefore they're just as right as we were.

[00:15:53]But Dr. Flu's conscience won't let him say that.

[00:15:57]Now you see that fits with this. He himself recognizes a moral code that can stand in judgment of a nation that can stand in judgment of the individuals in that nation. Therefore, there is a higher law which is greater than the law of that individual or the law of combinations of nations. Now the second premise in this argument, the moral code and or actions of any individual or society can properly be subjects of criticism as to real moral wrong.

[00:16:29]Incidentally, this is chart 43A13 and we'd like to have it on the screen.

[00:16:34]You can see the rest of it while we read together.

[00:16:38]Now the conclusion therefore there must be some objective standard that is some higher law which transcends a provincial entrant which is other than the particular moral code that is of a particular nation such as the Nazis under Hitler. It has to be other than that and it must have an obligatory character which can be recognized. Now let's look at chart 43A10.

[00:17:03]How much time do I have?

[00:17:07]All right. Now we look at chart number 43 A10. This has been in the debate before but because it involves such great admissions from the question from Dr. Flu and because it shows uh how this argument works exactly I want to bring it up again. Notice over on the left of the chart you will see the law of England authoritative in this arrow pointing down to the people of England.

[00:17:30]The individual members of England are under the law of England. Now we in America are not amunable to English law.

[00:17:36]Only people who are in Great Britain or who are citizens of Great Britain are the subjects of that law. Notice the arrow pointing from the law of England toward Germany. I have it xed out. It is not authoritative over Germany. Now notice the law of Germany. It is authoritative over the laws or the people of Germany. Now the individual people in those two nations. But note that the law of Germany is not authoritative over England. What the Nazis passed had nothing whatever to do with either Dr. flew are with me during World War II or and the days just preceding.

[00:18:10]But nevertheless, the British as well as we charged the Nazis with crimes not merely of violating the German law which they their very defense was that they had not done so that they were obeying that it was their moral duty and obligation to obey the law of their own land. They were only doing what their superiors had said. But the British and the Americans joined together and Dr. Flu joins with me in saying they did rightly so. And he had answered one question to say that the judges did not have the right to come together and say let us formulate in effect a new international law and say that we cannot punish them. As a matter of fact, international law does not really deal with these matters. There was the recognition of a higher law which transcends the transient and the provincial. It transcends the area of Germany. You people cannot justify yourself for having slaughtered, murdered these Jewish men, women, and children, 6 million of them, in the most agonizing and horrible ways by the by saying that you obeyed the law of Germany. Dr. Flu agrees to that. But how can he agree to it? Only because if you look up there, there is a higher law which rises above it. A higher law which is authoritative over not only the law of England, but also over the law of Germany. Now, let's look quickly as our time closes at chart 43A12.

[00:19:27]Notice how there was moral degeneration in the nation of Germany from the time preceding the Nazis and the takeover of Hitler. And during the time of Germany of 1933 to 45, the people of Germany were under Nazi powers. They changed the laws according to Hitler's whims and fancies. It became the law of the land to really attend intend to exterminate the Jews. But notice there is a higher law that goes above both the law of England and the law of Germany.

[00:20:03]Um well, as I was saying, um my preacher father used to have a favorite warning, cause not a brother to stumble. Well, I'm afraid I may have been guilty of that fault. Because it seems to me that um Dr. Warren himself now when he's supposed to be taking the affirmative line is doing what he rightly accused me of doing when I was taking the affirmative line namely the opposite. Um uh well I suppose what I a conclusion I ought to draw from this is that it's high time I reformed in hopes that Dr. Warren would then no longer be by me caused to stumble. But I do have difficulty in seeing anything more I can usefully say at any rate at this stage about the points that he was raising this time. So I've noted them down for future use. I think there is a thing I can helpfully develop and that is that there's an artificiality about our whole debate here. Now that this is so is I'm sure nobody's fault.

[00:21:23]Any confrontation between any spokesman for an atheist naturalism and shall I say that atheist again just to satisfy the public? um any spokesman for an atheist naturalism and any spokesman for any system of belief about some transcendent reality.

[00:21:43]Any such confrontation would have to be artificial in the same way as this one is. But though this is quite unavoidable, I think that for that very reason we do need to see what this artificiality is and we need then to allow for it in our thinking about such questions.

[00:22:05]The artificiality which I have in mind arises from the fact that this confrontation, the debate of the century, like that other confrontation which you'll all very likely be watching in the TV repeat later this week, um is and has to be between spokesmen for two but only two opposing parties.

[00:22:30]Now in the other the presidential case this two-party structure is not only necessary and unavoidable it's quite unmisleading.

[00:22:41]After all in that case there are effectively only two parties in the race indeed. Sometimes and to some people it may seem as if there's only one and that it's all over by the voting. But our case here tonight is different. For however it may seem to us here in this hall, both Dr. Warden and I are speaking for positions which confront innumerable alternatives.

[00:23:11]It may be that for any individual person, only one or at most only two or three or four of these innumerable alternatives constitutes what William James would have called a live option.

[00:23:25]Still, Dr. Warren and I um do confront and everyone here confronts innumerable theoretically possible alternative belief systems.

[00:23:37]If not on this present occasion, at least sometime, he and I both have to vindicate our chosen possessions, not only against the particular alternatives each um presented by the other, but also against all the other alternatives which have been and might be proposed.

[00:23:59]It is I think important that we should all recognize that there are these innumerable possible rivals not represented on this platform.

[00:24:09]Um few of course if any of these can at this time represent for any of us psychologically live options. The possibility of being converted um uh to most of these alternatives is not that is a live possibility which might be realized in the immediate foreseeable future.

[00:24:32]And indeed most of the theoretically possible alternatives have not in fact been formulated and maintained by anyone.

[00:24:41]It is nevertheless essential if we're to see this fornight confrontation in Denton, Texas in proper perspective to realize that there are all these other rivals off stage.

[00:24:55]And this is a point that it seems to me uh Dr. Warren was noticeably failing to recognize when he took it that um if he could or takes it that if he can show that the theory of evolution by natural selection is false then um he's home and dry uh not merely uh having thereby established creation by something or other but really having um established creation by um the particular God for whom he is um acting as a spokesman.

[00:25:32]Well, perhaps the best way to suggest this wider and deeper perspective that I think we should all remember and the best way to show that and why it is a background which we all need to keep in mind is to consider a very famous old argument and this is the argument called Pascal's wager. certainly wasn't invented by Pascal who was a French Jansenist Roman Catholic mathematician living in the 1600s.

[00:26:00]Um it was certainly imported into France from Spain where it had earlier been employed by Muslims a point which as we shall see Pascal ought to have remembered and the existence of these other alternatives is the thing I want to press now. Still, everyone calls this argument Pascal's wager, and I'm going to consider it in his version.

[00:26:26]Pascal began by presenting the human predicament as a gambling situation.

[00:26:33]There are, as he truly observed, many rival lifestyles, many world outlooks, all soliciting our personal commitments.

[00:26:43]But he went on, and this of course is much more disputatious. reason can decide nothing here.

[00:26:51]I don't think it's by any means certain that he was saying this second thing in his own person. Maybe he was only allowing it to an opponent as they say for the sake of the argument.

[00:27:04]Um um it's quite an interesting question whether he was or not because um a denial of what he was allowing uh later became a defined doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church under the first Vatican council though many Catholics rather wish that it hadn't and seem to have forgotten this since the second Vatican council but that by the way. So where are we? Pascal starts by observing that there are many different lifestyles supported by many systems of belief about the transcendent and all these are soliciting our personal commitment. And stage two is to insist if only for the sake of the argument that reason can decide nothing here. No evidence can make any of these alternatives even more probable than any of the others. So Pascal concludes we have a betting situation. Now what are the stakes?

[00:28:04]He now giving no reasons to warrant this limitation proceeds as if there were only two betting options in this gambling situation. Option A is Roman Catholicism. Bet on this and if you turn out to have been right, you'll enjoy an eternity of bliss. Bet on this and if you turn out to have been wrong, what have you lost? Option B is an atheist naturalism. Bet on this and if you turn out to have been right, what have you had? At best an agreeable four score years and 10. Bet on this and if you turn out to have been wrong, then from then to eternity you will be suffering the agonies which in Dr. Warren's view constitute a manifestation of the creator's justice.

[00:28:50]Obviously, if the betting situation is as Pascal describes it, and if in particular there are only the two options which he allows, then it must be madly imprudent to do anything but bet on the Roman Catholic option.

[00:29:09]And Pascal here thoughtfully allows for those who still find it hard to persuade themselves, well, take holy water here.

[00:29:16]Mass is said and you will come to believe. Now, having presented this famous old argument, let me draw some lessons. First, notice what sort of argument it is. Pascal is not offering evidence to show that Roman Catholicism is true. He's not, that is to say, offering what we might label evidencing reasons, reasons as evidence. He's already insisted, if only for the sake of the argument, that there are not or cannot be reasons of this kind in this most important of all cases.

[00:29:53]What Pascal is offering is motivating reasons, reasons as motives.

[00:29:59]The desired conclusion is that and in your own interests, you must persuade yourselves to believe Roman Catholicism in spite of any lack of evidencing reasons. Anything else would be madly imprudent.

[00:30:13]But now the second thing to notice is that Pascal has no business at all to limit the betting options to two.

[00:30:22]Certainly as William James observed in the circles in which Pascal moved, no one would ever have seriously considered conversion to Islam. Although as William James curiously failed to observe, some people at that time and place did become Protestants.

[00:30:42]Uh but of course no fact of this sort about which if any of these options are or are not psychologically live for this or that person or group is either here or there. If Pascal's wager argument is to work as an argument, then we've got to find some version consistent with his initial assumptions or concessions to justify his limitation of the options to two. And that we cannot do. For if, as he allows, there really is no good evidencing reason for dismissing any self-consistent alternative system, then we shall have to admit among the runners, Islam, various brands of Protestantism, and indeed infinitely many others.

[00:31:29]Now, discounting for the moment all but the hellthreatening options, that still leaves us with infinitely many theoretically possible options. For for every way of life you can think of, you can construct a system which promises heaven for all and only those who pursue that lifestyle and for all the rest. Um, what the winners will no doubt see as the just punishment of eternal torment.

[00:31:57]But now notice that on Pascal's own allowed assumption that there can be no adequate evidencing reason for again or against any self-consistent system for each such system. You can also construct another in which all and only those who would under the first system be rewarded by the joys of heaven suffer the torments of hell. While those who would in that first system suffer the torments of hell enjoy eternal bliss.

[00:32:29]A bliss of which perhaps one element would be the contemplation of the justice of the punishments of those who are on this second system the losers.

[00:32:40]Well, now uh where has all this got us?

[00:32:43]Well, first we've got a fundamental distinction between two sorts of reasons and in particular sorts of reasons for believing. One sort, the only proper sort in my view in this context is evidencing reasons. Reasons for holding a belief to be true. The other sort is motivating reasons. Reasons for trying to persuade ourselves that some belief is true, whether or not it is. Second, we now know, if we did not know before, both what Pascal's wager argument was and why it is not, even on his own assumptions, a good argument.

[00:33:18]Third, and this is by far the most important, this is what I'm really after. We've begun, I hope, to see, why anyone who takes any position about some possible transcendent reality behind and above the everyday world of common sense and behind and above the hidden structures revealed by science. Anyone who does this must be seen as confronting innumerable self-consistent alternative theoretical possibilities.

[00:33:46]Here in this hall tonight, you see a spokesman for an atheist, repeat, atheist naturalism, confronting a spokesman for the Church of Christ. But neither of us and none of you must forget that all these other theoretically possible alternatives are in the running. Some of them have had millions of adherence. Um, and others have never even been thought of and have never won any adherence. Now in practice we all reject all but one of these systems where all atheists in terms of almost all understandings of the word God.

[00:34:28]But one of these systems um is for better or for worse um in a special position in relation to all the others.

[00:34:39]And that special one is the one for which I stand. I am of course in being confronted by innumerable alternatives in exactly the same boat with Dr. Warren and with everybody else. Where I and my lot uh do differ from all the others is that we reject the whole idea of any transcendent reality behind or above the universe. We start and stop with what is common to all men of all religions and none. That is to say, we start and stop with the universe itself, with the everyday world of common sense and common experience and with those hidden mechanisms of that world which are progressively revealed by the advance of science. And we reject all transcendent supernatural systems, not because we've examined or could have examined each in turn, but because it does not seem to us that there is any good evidencing reason to postulate anything behind or beyond this natural universe.

[00:35:56]Um and for the reasons I gave earlier on, this is a perfectly um possible position because though it does of course leave the existence of the universe and the fundamental principles of the universe unexplained, um um every system including every conceivable rival system will have the its those principles which it will have to leave unexplained as fundamental.

[00:36:30]Well, having um got a little time left over after having not been um doing the negative, I can run through some of the things I noted down um about Dr. Warren's last not I think frightfully positive uh positive affirmation. Um well um about um the uh law positive and moral. Um, one of the fundamental things one needs to distinguish here is between systems of positive law, you know, with um, human authorities prescribing punishments, penalties and so on prescribing things to do and um, uh, the uh, notion of a moral law which uh, can be distinguished in many ways. But the most obvious thing about a moral law is that the moral law um uh can legitimately be appealed to to criticize the content of any system of positive law and it doesn't have a structure of enforcement by rewards and punishments.

[00:37:34]And hence it's perfectly possible and can be perfectly consistent to say um uh that those people arraigned by the court at Nuremberg were indeed guilty of offenses under the moral law. that perhaps there was not any system of positive law including the alleged system under which they were in fact condemned and punished which um did um uh make what they did illegal before they did it.

[00:38:06]Um uh second one about we go on about um how if you um uh don't believe that values were uh laid down in some way or are endorsed by God um you've got to say that they are merely um the um desires of individuals or groups. May I perhaps remind people again of um the account I gave of one particular sort of value namely going market price. Now that clearly isn't something that is determined at the whim of any individual or group. And yet equally clearly, the going market price of a Fox bargain um would be a senseless notion even if there were any Fox bargains around if there weren't any um consumers and sellers of fox bargains. So um you can't just assume that because something um is in some way a function of human desires.

[00:39:07]Therefore it's just a matter of people's whims and so on and can be arbitrarily determined by any individual or group.

[00:39:16]Well I've got some more for tomorrow.

[00:39:24]Dr. Dr. Flu gentleman moderators ladies and gentlemen in this brief rejoinder I should like to raise the question for Dr. the flu and I shall have to do so very hurriedly.

[00:39:34]On one occasion he admits there is real moral objective wrong and I've asked him again and again which law is violated.

[00:39:42]He's admitted that some law must be violated but for there to be real objective moral wrong has distinguished from mere subjective wrong. Now when it's subjective wrong that means merely that human beings have decided upon. It is purely a function of the human mind.

[00:39:58]It is a state of either approval or disapproval. But to say that something is objectively wrong, real morally objective wrong, entails a violation of a law higher than that which is merely provincial or transient. In fact, if we are only matter in motion, then there is no wrong at all. The ultimate creator of man is only rocks and dirt. I submit the question, who is being rational in this debate? Certainly not Dr. flu because it is I who presented these arguments in precise logical fashion while he's failed to do so with a single argument and he spent his time in the negative in paying little or no attention to those arguments.

[00:40:36]Now flu tries to come back to an explanation. He says as a matter of fact we both must wind up with no explanation. I admit that he does so because he can go back to nothing else than rocks and dirt. It's a sort of God that he goes to because it is his position that rocks and dirt are the ultimate creator of all there is. But we actually do have an explanation. We get back to the God who explains everything because the God in whom we believe is living, personal, and thinking. And I'll try to have a bit more tomorrow night myself.

[00:41:10]>> The Churches of Christ are not only committed to the existence of God, but are also committed to the restoration of New Testament Christianity. We invite you to visit our services. Any questions or comments concerning this debate are welcome.