Pastor TRIES to Defend the Bible... Matt Dillahunty Isn't Having It

[00:00:00]Can God Does God exist separate from the universe?

[00:00:05]>> It seems like it. It seems like it.

[00:00:07]Yeah, it is.

[00:00:08]>> Did God create the universe?

[00:00:09]>> Did God create the universe?

[00:00:12]>> He did.

[00:00:13]>> Okay. Can God change the universe, including the physical laws surrounding the universe?

[00:00:18]>> Uh, it doesn't seem like he can in the ways that we typic that we traditionally think they can.

[00:00:23]>> So, there there are no miracles. God can't raise people from the dead. God can't turn water to wine. Nothing like that.

[00:00:28]There are there's certainly limited things that he can do, but it there's definitely >> Hey everyone, welcome back to Faith and Facts, where we examine faith, skepticism, and the biggest questions about reality with an open mind. What happens when a Christian pastor tries to redefine God to make Christianity fit modern science? Does that resolve the Bible's biggest challenges, or does it raise even more difficult questions? The discussion you're about to watch happened a while ago, but the issues at its center are just as relevant today.

[00:01:03]In this exchange, Pastor West defends open theism and a more progressive interpretation of Christianity, arguing that God is an all powerful or all- knowing in the traditional sense, and that biblical revelation reflects humanity's gradual moral development. On the other side, Matt Dillah Hunty and Forest Valky push back forcefully, questioning whether that approach genuinely addresses the Bible's moral and theological difficulties or simply reinterprets them after the fact. What's fascinating about this debate is that it's really asking a much larger question. Should our understanding of God evolve as human knowledge evolves?

[00:01:47]Or should the text remain the standard even when it conflicts with modern ethics and science? That's a conversation that reaches far beyond this one exchange and continues to shape discussions among believers, skeptics, and everyone in between. If you enjoy balanced conversations that challenge assumptions without telling you what to think, be sure to like this video, subscribe to Faith in Facts, and join us as we continue exploring these important questions together. Now, let's hear the conversation for ourselves.

[00:02:24]>> You're on the show with Force and Matt.

[00:02:26]Thank you for calling, sir. How are you?

[00:02:28]>> Hi, Wes.

[00:02:28]>> I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Y'all doing all right?

[00:02:32]>> Not too bad. Um well >> trying to wake up after that last call.

[00:02:35]How are you?

[00:02:36]>> Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a I'm a pastor. I am in the south in the United States and um you know I appreciate what you guys are doing. Um that the last call I I think it I've I've heard a few of your shows and I think that it really u it shows there's just a a huge a huge uh you know dissonance um between what people are are thinking. you know, I I I appreciate the ability to be able to talk it out, talk through ideas and different things. So, um, okay. So, there's two things I've I've wanted to ask you you guys about. So, I'll throw both of them out there. One of them is a little bit more kind of uh a regular and one of them is a little more wild, maybe a little more fun topic. So, let you kind of tell me what you want to talk about. But, I'm wondering what you think about like open theism and more progressive Christianity because it sounds like you debate a lot of kind of fundamentalists. I'm wondering what you think of something that's a little bit more progressive um and a little bit more scientifically compatible views of of uh of God. And I'm wondering what you think on the wild side of more uh actually scientifically feasible views of God like protospia.

[00:03:45]>> H >> uh I'm happy to talk about a lot of that. I don't know what the word open theism means. Could you please explain to me what that is?

[00:03:52]So open theism is kind of the opposite of Calvinism in that God uh you know the the I hear I hear a lot of arguments from people saying well if God is all powerful then a lot of this doesn't make sense which is true and if God is all knowing then a lot of this doesn't make sense which is true but in my view of it God is not all powerful in that uh Marvel superhero sense of all powerful and God is not all knowing in some type of uh uh logically impossible sense.

[00:04:27]>> Yeah.

[00:04:27]>> Um so I mean that that to me feels like a God that is compatible with the Bible and it's compatible with actual reality.

[00:04:34]Really something that that's >> I would agree with compatible with the Bible. So you're saying you're just saying dropping some of the omnis like >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's the thing.

[00:04:44]>> He's definitely not all powerful and definitely not all knowing.

[00:04:50]>> He limits his power. Yeah. Whether he limits his power.

[00:04:54]>> Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[00:04:56]>> So whether or not he's omni doesn't matter.

[00:04:59]>> Is God sufficiently powerful to to create a universe from nothing?

[00:05:08]>> Can Can you explain what you mean by that?

[00:05:10]Can God Does God exist separate from the universe?

[00:05:16]>> It seems like it. It seems like it.

[00:05:18]Yeah. It's >> Did God create the universe?

[00:05:21]>> Did God create the universe?

[00:05:24]>> He did.

[00:05:25]>> Okay. Can God change the universe, including the physical laws surrounding the universe?

[00:05:32]>> Uh I it doesn't seem like he can in the ways that we typic that we traditionally think that he can.

[00:05:37]>> So there there are no miracles. God can't raise people from the dead. God can't turn water to wine. Nothing like that.

[00:05:44]>> There are there's certainly limited things that he can do. But it there's definitely there definitely seems like to >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I believe in Jesus Christ and I I believe that he was that that God raised him from the dead. So, I I do that somehow.

[00:06:02]>> Okay. Um, the problem is is that when you start listing what the biblical God can supposedly do and has supposedly done, it doesn't matter whether or not he's omni, he's not a god that fits in with the open thesis model. Um the open thesis model will fit the biblical God only if you take a very limited view of sotiology where God is open or you know provided his son as a sacrifice for everyone so that all who send fallen short of the glory of God and everyone who will accept Jesus will ultimately be saved. But then when you read other verses about salvation being a gift of God and that not everybody who proclaims Lord, Lord will be saved. Now you have differences in uh sotiology that aren't consistent with open theism. But when open theism begins to limit the power of God to the point where God can't do the very things that needed to be done, which is to create a universe from scratch, to uh create life, to restore life, to do all of the things that we identify as miracles because they violate the normal physical understanding of the universe. That's no longer a god that's consistent with open theism. So when you asked I let Forest answer first, but when you asked what do we think about open theism? My first thought is generally I prefer open theism because it's less dogmatic but it's not compatible with a biblical view.

[00:07:32]>> Yeah. I would just say like based on what you told me already by saying you you drop some of the omnis and all these things that definitely does fit a little bit better with the Bible God as far as I can tell because the the God of the Bible is he's is he's kind of this bumbling Yeah. messy. He's clearly new at this job. He gets a lot of things wrong. He makes a lot of mistakes. He regrets having made humans at all several times. Um he like there there's over and over and over he tries to do something and fails. And usually because humans outsmart him um or or just completely go against what he wants and then he has to kill a bunch of people to prove how big of a dick he has. It's like this that saying that this God of the Bible isn't all powerful, isn't all knowing, isn't all wise, isn't all kind, isn't all good. That definitely fits with the Bible better, but I think all that would be doing is feeding into my anti-theist arguments of this God, if it exists, which I don't think it does, but if it does, isn't worthy of worship and should not be an idol for anybody. It's it's it's a monster.

[00:08:31]>> I I don't want to lose this. I want to give you a chance to respond, Wes, and and to ask questions, but I don't want I don't want to lose this point. So, let let's make sure we come back to this thing about making it more scientifically compatible, but but continue with what >> I do want to come back to that. You're absolutely right. Yes.

[00:08:46]>> Yeah. I I'm not sure how it makes God a monster. I mean, I feel like God is presented in the Bible as a as the the ultimate the the highest power like President Obama was the highest power of the over the world or the, you know, the most powerful man in the world. But that doesn't mean that he can't snap his fingers and and change people's free will. You know, God puts free agents on the earth.

[00:09:10]The the Bible is clear that he put >> I'm happy to explain how the God of the Bible is a monster to you. I'm happy.

[00:09:16]>> Yeah, it's easy to show that the God of the Bible is a monster, Wes, but also um he specifically hardens Pharaoh's heart.

[00:09:23]Pharaoh wants to let the slaves go. And God hardens Pharaoh's heart, therefore violating his free will to let the slaves go in order that he can keep showing off. This same God sanctions and endorses slavery, misogyny, >> murder.

[00:09:40]Um I I don't know how anybody not see a monster.

[00:09:44]>> The same God drowned every living thing on the planet because some people were mean >> like that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's an evil person. An evil god.

[00:09:54]>> It is. So the so the the Bible clearly shows something like something called dynamic inspiration.

[00:10:02]not some type of original automatic inspiration.

[00:10:08]Um, so are you familiar with dynamic inspiration or the idea of that as compared to like >> Yeah, dynamic inspiration is a is a post hawk rationalization that allows you to cherrypick the parts of the Bible that you find compelling and dismiss the ones that you find troubling >> because you have no way of demonstrating that anything in the Bible was was inspired at all. So what you're doing is you're saying, >> "Hey, I think the Bible's inspired, but not those parts." Okay. What criteria can you present to show that any part was inspired? And how do you tell the difference between a part that was inspired and one that wasn't?

[00:10:47]>> Okay. So that's a that's a that's a good question. I I' I'd say first of all that the Bible implicitly a lot of times we ignore what the Bible is telling us about itself. And that implicitly tells this.

[00:11:01]>> Well, okay. So, so for example, Jesus Christ says >> um in the Old Testament, >> no gave you this law.

[00:11:11]>> Jesus Christ didn't say anything in the Old Testament, did he?

[00:11:13]>> Yeah. You phrased that in a way where it was really easy to jump in there. So, Jesus Christ said what?

[00:11:19]>> That he Okay. Jesus Christ. What Jesus Christ was was quoted as saying, was written down as saying is that when he was talking to the Pharisees, they were asking him, you know, is it lawful for us to divorce for any reason? And he says, Moses gave you that wall because of the hardness of your hearts. But now I'm telling you this, and what we see is very compatible with science. It it it seems like what we're seeing is >> oh >> a it seems like what we're see hold on here. What we're seeing is a >> a god who is bringing beasts who is bringing animals out from animals >> to take to take no what normally would have been animals and and bring us into something that is above the the >> No no no no. This is why this is how you get to your confused cherrypicked mishmash.

[00:12:19]It's not Jesus bringing animals out of anything. If Jesus is God, then he was God all the way back in the Old Testament when he told them to [ __ ] kill people. The the the notion that um Moses >> told you not to divorce because your heart suffered and now I'm allowing you to divorce. the the very notion that you're willing to look at, oh, all those people up until 2,000 years ago were just too animalistic to understand the concept of divorce or slaver, why slavery was wrong. This is a modern revisionist spin where you try to make Jesus look like he did something good, but you forget that Jesus is supposedly God. So was was it did something used to be moral or immoral and then God changed whether it was moral or not? Was God a a violent psychopath at one point and then he got better because we got better?

[00:13:18]>> No. God was taking us step by step in out of being barbarians into being civilized humans.

[00:13:30]>> Who who made us the barbarians?

[00:13:33]Who made us the barbarians?

[00:13:38]>> That there there's there's nothing there's nothing wrong with being uh there's nothing wrong with being an animal. Okay. There's nothing wrong >> I didn't say there was. You're the ones that implied the dead. Who made us who made us murdering barbarians?

[00:13:53]>> Okay. So, is a lion a murderer?

[00:13:55]>> Who made us murdering barbarians?

[00:13:59]>> We were not us. Who made us murdering barbarians?

[00:14:06]>> Who made humanity? Who made humanity?

[00:14:10]>> God is making humanity.

[00:14:12]>> Who [ __ ] Why? Why is it that you will not answer the question you're asked? Is it because you know that you are about to step into the thing that exposes that you're full of [ __ ] Who made us?

[00:14:27]>> God is making us. Uh, I give up. You are not worth having a conversation with if you cannot be honest on the most simple question. Who [ __ ] made us?

[00:14:39]>> The same people that made the same one that made >> Goodbye. Goodbye, Wes. You are an embarrassment to Jesus. And you are an embarrassment. No, sir. You're muted now. You are an embarrassment to Jesus.

[00:14:50]I was a better Christian than you when I was a Christian cuz I wasn't ashamed to stand up for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[00:14:56]But you are. You are now dabbling around with open theism and you're making [ __ ] up and you will not answer the simplest questions because you know where the path leads. that once you answer the first question, it leads to the next question, which leads to the next question, which gets you to where you have to admit that under your theology, the God of the universe, created all of us, put two innocent individuals into a garden and told them not to do the very thing that he knew they were going to do and needed to knew, needed to know ahead of time, and then punished them for something that they couldn't possibly have known was wrong. and then punished all of their descendants through inherited sin and then killed everybody off because they still wouldn't love him and then tormented them and then picked out the Jews as his favorite and then let them continue to be barbarians who he told to go out and slaughter the Midianites and slaughter the Amalachites to where there was no trace left. led led the charge against everybody who didn't have chariots of iron as the wararmongering piece of [ __ ] head barbarian that he was until a couple of thousand years later he turns over a new leaf and says, "You know what? I'm going to come down and take human form and sacrifice myself to myself to serve as an excuse and a loophole for rules that I make so that I can finally find it in my heart to forgive the people that I made broken." And then they're going to sit there and embarrassingly not represent the truth of the book or what I've said. They're going to sit there and tap dance. And when asked a simple question about who made humans, they're going to say God is still making humans.

[00:16:27]You sir should be absolutely [ __ ] embarrassed.

[00:16:32]I just wanted to ask him because he brought up first of all, I have nothing to add. Uh I just wanted to ask him about he said that Jesus came and changed all the laws. I read his book and it didn't say that. It actually says here in uh Matthew 5:17 um think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy but fulfill or verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass not one jot or tit of the law and no wise shall be changed. Like he he didn't say like, "Yeah, maybe at one point he said, "Hey, Moses is wrong about this or that." But like all the [ __ ] that God said to do in the Old Testament, Jesus came to fulfill it, not to change it. That's what he said in the book. Um >> that's why they killed him.

[00:17:15]>> I don't know what you want from me here.

[00:17:17]>> The God that you're worshiping and that you're trying to promote here is evil.

[00:17:21]He did horrible evil things for a very long time and continues to do so. If you're saying he's still trying to change humans and make up for those past mistakes, he's doing a [ __ ] job at it.

[00:17:30]And just saying, "Well, he isn't all powerful," isn't a good enough excuse.

[00:17:34]I'm also not all powerful and I haven't done half of the insane evil [ __ ] that your god had done. Like, I'm sorry. It's just not It's not compelling enough. I would love to talk about science, but I don't think we're going to get there.

[00:17:46]>> So, so here's your shot to rehabilitate all of it, Wes. Welcome back.

[00:17:51]>> Okay. Oh, I appreciate it. And you got a you got got away with words. So I feel like I feel like there are some that you know the picture that you painted of of God creating everything and this bumbling kind of God who create you know created us and then and then told us not >> the picture we painted le the picture the Bible painted.

[00:18:10]>> Yeah.

[00:18:11]>> Well I mean is it may be possible that you when you read the Bible that you had a misinterpretation of what the Bible was.

[00:18:17]>> Goodbye jackass. No sir.

[00:18:19]>> No sir. I'm hanging it up on you right now. Nobody gets to speak to you anymore. Wes, you are an embarrassment as a pastor. And how dare you suggest that I, who am sitting here and can give you chapter and [ __ ] verse from your embarrassing [ __ ] book, am misunderstanding or misinterpreting it.

[00:18:37]You sit around there and you figure out how when it says that if a man lies with another man, they have committed an abomination or deserving of death. How can you [ __ ] misinterpret that? when it says how you enslave the Egypt your your your your fellow Jews and you have to let them go in six in six years unless you trick [ __ ] them by giving them a family and kids that they don't want to leave and then they become your slaves forever. How can you present pretend that I'm misinterpreting it when it says that you can go buy your slaves from the heathen that surround you that they become your property that you can pass on? That's Leviticus 25. It's also in Exodus 21. Um, no sir. I'm not misinterpreting anyone. And I'm not this shitty Christian who's trying to toy around with open theism. You're an embarrassment to Christianity and to reasoning. Do better. You don't have to stay stuck there. You can find your way the rest of the way out. But don't you dare suggest that I'm the one that's misinterpreting [ __ ] because I took this [ __ ] seriously and you [ __ ] didn't.

[00:19:33]I just want to throw out uh Genesis 3:16.

[00:19:37]Unto woman God said, "I will greatly multiply your sorrow at your conception.

[00:19:43]In sorrow you shall bring forth children, and your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over thee." So this is him punishing women for all eternity with painful child birth and subservience their husband.

[00:19:57]And if you read it, he says that part of this punishment is thy desire shall be to thy husband. Heterosexuality was part of their punishment. Fun fact, it's just Yeah, [ __ ] [ __ ] this guy, right?

[00:20:09]>> I'm going to make your child birth painful and problematic and make you subservient to men because of a thing you did. And all of your children and your children's children's children will all suffer this same curse. What a [ __ ] [ __ ] Can you imagine any real like church today or court today saying, "Hey, you robbed that bank.

[00:20:28]Guess what? Your great great great great great great grandchildren are going to be beaten to death because of your actions today." No [ __ ] way we'd be cool with that, right? Like what a [ __ ] >> Wes is probably a generally good guy.

[00:20:44]Wes probably doesn't like a lot of things that are implied by the religion that he's associated with. and that's why he's dabbling into open theism. But if you're not going to be honest and say, "Yeah, I got problems with this."

[00:20:58]Or, "You know what? The Bible properly read seems to support slavery." Never once does it say it is immoral to own another human being as property. It literally says the opposite. It doesn't say that it is morally >> preferred, >> but it's permissible. What's that?

[00:21:17]That's why the slavers used the Bible to justify slavery. That's why we had the slaves Bible in America where they cut out all the parts about freedom and liberation and redemption and kept in all the parts say slaves obey your masters so you can participate in their piece of heaven. That's that's all there. That's part of our history in this country that you're ignoring just to say, "Yeah, but like God was kind of [ __ ] around that that he was in a silly goofy mood and he wrote that part.

[00:21:46]It didn't really mean anything.

[00:21:48]>> But by one thing, all right, go ahead.

[00:21:51]>> One thing that >> the one thing that sent me over the edge >> is when he talks about in Matthew chapter 19 where Jesus is talking about divorce and he's referring to Moses.

[00:22:00]This is where he said Jesus said in the Old Testament you were at. Jesus didn't say in the Old Testament. He said Moses because of your heart's heart suffered you to put away your wives. From the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whoever shall put away his wife except to be for fornication and shall marry another committh adultery. Now, what he said, you can go back and rewind it, was that this is consistent with science. And that's when I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, it's not consistent with science.

[00:22:26]Science doesn't have [ __ ] to say about when you should or shouldn't divorce someone. Second of all, it's inconsistent with good moral principles and sound relationship advice. To say that the only reason to divorce someone is infidelity is absurd. You should divorce someone whenever you no longer want to be with them forever. If you cannot keep that commitment, you need to break it. It's better for you. It's better for them. It's better for everyone in the long run rather than you staying there in misery. What science has to say about relationships is not consistent with only leave someone only divorce someone if they've cheated on you.

[00:23:07]>> It's it's you just make [ __ ] up.

[00:23:10]>> Oh, here's what science says and it's consistent with what Jesus said. No, what Jesus said, and this is for Cliff Kley as well, who tried to claim that Jesus was a moral genius. Here's a verse right off the bat where Jesus not only isn't a moral genius, but is morally [ __ ] stupid. He doesn't understand relationships. Maybe that's what happens when you are run around with a whole bunch of of wandering dudes that contribute nothing to society.

[00:23:36]But anyway, that's [ __ ] crazy. Uh Austin Fuentes, >> race, monogamy, and other lies they told you. This guy's a uh professor of anthropology at Princeton, I think. Uh talks about, you know, a lot of cool stuff about about human sex and sexuality in there. uh if you want to learn some actual science about you know this stuff instead of just like well Jesus technically kind of said I'm looking for I have another one around here that's similar topics. Um also I just want to throw out that like the that part of Genesis that I just said out of random about you know punishing women. If that seemed a little off the cuff and kind of out of nowhere it's because it was. I literally just flipped open a random book. Everything in yellow highlighter is God being a [ __ ] [ __ ] So every time that comes up I literally just have to find a page.

[00:24:21]Here's some yellow highlighter. Uh, right there is a bunch and the literally random page here is Samuel 24:1. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David unto them. Go uh number Israel and Judah. Go murder everybody. So like just immediately go God sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning to the time it's like sending plagues. Just anytime I want to find God being a dick, I just open a random page and look for yellow highlighter. It's it's it's all over it.

[00:24:52]It's all over it.

[00:24:54]>> Yeah. I'm not the one reading it wrong.

[00:24:56]The one reading it with God colored lenses is the one that's reading it wrong. Where you decided ahead of time that God was the good one. By the way, Wes, how did you decide that God was the good one and Satan was the evil one?

[00:25:07]That's an interesting question for another day. But thanks for the call.

[00:25:11]>> What makes conversations like this worth revisiting is that they're about much more than one disagreement over the Bible. At their core, they're asking a timeless question. How should ancient religious beliefs interact with modern knowledge, science, and evolving moral values? Pastor Wes represents a growing movement within Christianity that tries to reconcile faith with today's understanding of the world. By limiting God's power and knowledge through open theism and emphasizing what he calls dynamic inspiration, he hopes to preserve belief while addressing many of the difficult questions surrounding suffering, free will, and troubling biblical passages. Matt Dillah Hunty's challenge, however, is difficult to ignore. If the Bible repeatedly describes God performing miracles, issuing laws, and acting in specific ways, how much of that can be reinterpreted before you're describing a different version of God altogether?

[00:26:16]That's really the heart of this debate.

[00:26:18]Forest Valky approaches the discussion from the text itself. Rather than debating philosophy alone, he asks whether the Bible actually supports the progressive interpretation being presented. His argument is that many of the moral concerns critics raise, whether slavery, collective punishment, or violence, aren't isolated verses, but recurring themes throughout scripture.

[00:26:44]Both perspectives are trying to solve a genuine problem. Many believers recognize that some ancient biblical laws clash with modern moral intuition, while skeptics question whether reinterpreting those passages after the fact is an honest reading of the text or simply an attempt to preserve faith in light of changing values. It's also worth remembering that this conversation happened some time ago. Yet, the questions remain remarkably current across many religious traditions, not just Christianity. People continue to wrestle with how eternal truth, historical context, and modern knowledge should fit together. And perhaps the biggest lesson isn't deciding who won the debate. It's recognizing that meaningful conversations require us to examine our own assumptions. just as critically as we examine someone else's.

[00:27:38]Whether your conclusions are religious, skeptical, or somewhere in between, intellectual honesty begins with the willingness to follow the evidence and acknowledge difficult questions rather than avoid them. If you enjoyed this discussion and appreciate balanced conversations that explore both faith and skepticism with respect, be sure to like this video, subscribe to Faith and Facts, and join us for more thoughtful explorations of life's biggest questions. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep seeking understanding, and keep an open