Transcription
Maybe this makes me immoral in your eyes, but I would rather burn in hell than kill my own son. God never asked you to kill your own son. He did. He asked one. He asked one person.
Cliff faces a fiery challenge as a student questions everything: God, morality, eternal punishment, and even Heaven itself. This heated debate dives into the toughest questions about faith, justice, and the meaning of life. Can Cliff defend his beliefs under pressure? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Now let's dive into the debate. For the rest of the Old Testament, God communicates to the Jewish people: you are not to do what all the cultures around you do, which is child sacrifice. He communicates time and time again. Not only that, God says, I will judge you if you sacrifice your children. They disobeyed him. They sacrificed their children, and he judged them first at the hands of the Assyrians and then at the hands of the Babylonians.
So let's not go off into what-ifs. Let's stick with the facts. What really happened? All right, the facts. The facts are they disobeyed God, they sacrificed their children, and they were swept into captivity, for he judged them for it. That's the fact.
You're excusing God's hypocrisy on this one occasion. No, I'm not. I have repeatedly, repeatedly said to you it was a unique event. Right? Please understand it was a unique event where God is testing one man, Abraham, and he's saying, Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son. Clearly, verse one, Genesis 22: God tested Abraham. It was a test of one individual.
Okay, and you think, but then that's moral? Then my, I guess my moral question was, does killing your son become moral? Does anything— not necessarily killing your son, if that indeed was a one-time proposition— but does doing anything God tells you to do instantly become moral because he is commanding it?
For example, I'm under it. Me personally, I believe that if somehow— it's a silly proposition, I'll grant you— somehow we were to prove life permanently and with 100% absolute certainty that God is not real. Let's say we were to prove that God does not exist. Yep, Christianity is a book of fables, nothing more.
Right? I do not think that you would suddenly lose all of your morality and start murdering people in the streets. Nor do I think maybe you would undergo a severe crisis of faith, but I don't think that all the morals that you currently abide by— the idea that you very passionately presented that date rape is wrong— I don't think you'd suddenly waver in that understanding if you realized God didn't exist.
And so I guess what I'm saying is I think there becomes a problem if you feel the need to double-check your morals off of a higher power. It's not a question of double-checking. It's a question of if you are so convinced that certain things are evil, and if you're thinking deeply, you're going to have to ask: why are those things evil?
What's the basis of something being evil? Is it just my taste, my prejudice, my culture? Is it just me, the individual? Is it just a power elite that have taught me? King Arthur taught me that this is evil.
Well, I guess I guess here's my question. Because I don't believe in God, and yet I still find date rape wrong, where does that come from for me personally? Can you explain why I feel that's wrong? Sure. Because although you don't acknowledge it, you're a human being created in the likeness of God with a conscience and a rational mind.
So here's what I want to ask: isn't there a bit of redundancy in that assumption? That assumption that God implanted my morals on me already? I didn't have to learn about God to know that date rape is wrong, right? So why do I need to learn about him now if he's already implanted all my morals inside my heart?
Why do I need to know about it? For example, why do you need to know about God if he's already given you all of your morals? If he's, like you said, given me a conscience, whether I asked for it or not, I've got it now according to you. So why do I need to care about God?
First point: because my conscience convicts me that at times, although I know what's good, I do the opposite, and that's why I experience guilt. I think you probably have experienced guilt maybe once or twice on your own. More than once or twice. Good, great.
Now, Jesus Christ bled and died on a cross. He claimed to forgive you and to forgive me. Now, if we experience guilt, the question is: how do we handle guilt? One very healthy way to handle guilt is to turn to Christ for forgiveness and to receive God's forgiveness for the wrong that you and I have done.
Second point: there are very few moral absolutes— very few. And the majority of life is lived in the gray world. If there is a God who's just, don't you think it would be wise to ask him for wisdom to make ethically responsible decisions living in a very ethically gray world?
I wanted to ask you: in the Ten Commandments, God lays down some very specific moral guidelines. Yes, thou shalt not murder, right? Why couldn't "thou shalt not enslave your fellow man" be included? I don't know. Is that not a— why is that not something that he felt?
'Cause he didn't feel the need to guard people away from murder. He didn't say you can murder people twice every year until you wean yourself off of it, you know? Right? 'Cause everyone loves to murder, so just get yourself away from that little by little like we will with slavery.
Right? Why didn't he just say slavery is bad? I'm God, deal with it. You bet. I don't know, and I really don't know why God hasn't sent a message to American Christians that driving Mercedes and BMWs and having free houses is immoral.
Because we have the solution to the starvation on the planet: it's wealthy people share your wealth. I don't know why God hasn't done that. But I could promise you, sir, what you need to tell your professor or yourself or whoever is talking to you about Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers and Deuteronomy is one thing.
And I'm pleading with you, and I've repeated it. I'm going to tell you one more time: if you think that the Mosaic legislation for the theocracy of Israel is not different from the moral law found in Exodus 20, you're making a huge textual mistake.
There's a humongous difference between those 613 laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy that apply to the theocracy of Israel and the moral law of God found in Exodus 20. And if you can't learn to distinguish between Mosaic legislation and a moral absolute, we got to go back and do some more homework.
Okay, I just wish that had been made more clear, I suppose, because I wish I'd understood that better 25 years ago when I first spoke here. The Inquisition didn't seem to stop them from misinterpreting the Bible. That's right. Should have been laid out a little bit clearer, I think.
Oh really? I look what Mark Twain said, sir. Mark Twain said, "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that disturb me; it's the parts of the Bible I do understand that disturb me." The Bible is all too simple and straightforward on the basics. Are there difficult textual problems? Yes.
And if I think I can go around and justify my polygamy 'cause Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, I'm a con artist. You don't have to have a PhD in the Bible to understand polygamy ain't what God wanted us to do.
So, okay, going based off of that, how do you feel about the people who use the Bible as an argument against, say, gay marriage? Well, I think it's real clear. The Bible clearly and consistently communicates that God created our sexuality to be enjoyed when it comes to sexual intercourse between one man and one woman till death parts us.
And from Genesis to Revelation, homosexuality is communicated as a twisting of that beautiful gift that God gave us, and homosexual sex is a twisting of that gift. It's a wrong use of that gift. Isn't that included in the same set of laws that you were just talking about? Yes.
So how do we determine which one is for everyone? See, homosexuality— answer that. You're a smart kid. Answer that one. When I read it through, when I read it through, maybe I need to look harder, but it seems a little muddled.
Which ones? I feel like they should have a tag: this one is for everyone for eternity, and this one's just for you guys right now. You bet. I'll answer it for you. Okay, thanks.
If the statement that I just made in answer to the gay marriage issue was based on Leviticus chapters 21 and 22, you caught me. Good thinking. But I can promise you my view of homosexuality has nothing to do with Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, or Exodus.
It has to do with Genesis 1 and 2. It has to do with the entire New Testament, which never once supports the gay lifestyle. Instead, it communicates the opposite: that God loves you, and by his grace, he offers you forgiveness.
I guess that's more what I was asking because I always see Leviticus passages cited as an argument against gay marriage. Well, then please do me a favor. Look that person in the face and say, "Now wait a second. You're telling me, if I understand correctly, that the reason homosexuality is viewed by you as a sin is because of Leviticus?"
And— and wait a minute— no, homosexuality is not a sin because in Leviticus it says it's a sin. No, it's a contradiction of Genesis 1 and 2, the creation mandate, the purpose for which God gives us our sexuality, which is outlined in Genesis 1 and 2.
And then throughout the rest of the Scriptures, it is communicated as the wrong use of that precious gift of sex that God has given us. Great point. Thanks, Katie. And your name is? Brennan. Brennan, thanks for raising issues.
Anymore? Something did come to my mind when I was listening to you talk. This is totally jumping tracks, oh, bear with me. Yeah, I remember when you were talking to her about— what's her name? By Katie? Katie. Great.
When you were talking to Katie about Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, right? How you were sort of extolling their virtues and everything. But I just wanted to sort of tackle another kind of personal problem I have, and I wanted to ask you, based on your considerable knowledge of God's rules and commandments and accepting the Lord Jesus Christ— and that is, what is it? John 3:16?
I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6. Yeah, 14:6, right? I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Isn't Gandhi burning in hell right now by that verse? The person that we should all respect to some degree, and that you obviously respect, is he not— wasn't he cast into the pit of fire because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ?
I do not know whether Gandhi is going to heaven or hell. I don't know where anybody is going. Why? 'Cause I don't know what a person decides before they die. We can, you know, based on textual evidence, we can make reasonable assumptions. Correct?
You can make a reasonable assumption right now that if God were— if I were to die right now of embarrassment or shame or something, or nervousness, being on camera in front of this great crowd of people, and have not in my heart of hearts been moved so far that I would be given the elevator downstairs and not upstairs, right?
You could make that assumption. I'm pretty sure you believe that about me right now. And so can we not assume because Gandhi said several times that while he appreciated a lot of the philosophy in the Bible, that he was not a Christian? You know, he was Hindu.
And we can assume that because he was shot and killed, that he didn't have time to change his mind at the end, so we can assume he's burning in hell, right? So no. Okay, but you can assume I'm burning in hell. No, no, I would never want to assume that about anybody.
I know, but you have to if you believe that the only way to get to Jesus and to get to heaven, I'm sorry, is to believe and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And if I'm telling you right now that I haven't done that yet, that's an assumption you can make, right?
Because I know a lot of— that's, I guess, the big problem I have. I hear a lot of people say these things: you have to accept Jesus or you're going to go to hell. That's the only way to get to heaven. And then when we ask them these questions, like, do you really think I'm going to be tortured for eternity? They're like, oh, I cannot judge. God is the only judge of man.
But you're not judging me. You're not sending me to hell. But some, you know, somebody is, and you know who that someone is, and you know why. Yeah. Do you think there are going to be people who call themselves Christians who go to hell?
Um, you do? Do you? I don't believe in hell. But you believe that lots of Christians are going to hell because lots of Christians enslaved people. Lots of Christians rape their wives. Lots of Christians— actually, I'm rather impressed by the amount of Christians that were in the abolition movement.
But a lot of Christians enslave people. They're going to hell according to you, the same person, right? No, no, I don't. No. So because they accepted Jesus Christ and then enslaved tons of people, they're still in hell? I mean, heaven, right?
I do not know why. Sure, every follower of Christ sins. I sin. I don't know who a genuine follower of Christ is. Sir, guess what? You don't know that I'm going to heaven. Who knows? Maybe someone's paying me a ton of money to stand out here and speak. It's possible. Crazy things happen.
You, my friend, have seen more than enough Christian hypocrisy, so you know that we all are capable of being incredible hypocrites. So maybe I'm a colossal hypocrite. It's possible. Are you a false prophet? Maybe God condemns false prophets. How do I know you're not a false prophet? Exactly.
It's possible. How can I believe in anything you're saying to me right now? Because I know you're trying to change hearts and minds. I know that you want every single one of us to join you in the great vaults in the sky. I know that. I know you want us to join the theme.
Good, but— and I'm— me answer quick. That's a great question, Brennan. If I was to say to Brennan and Katie, in answer to your question, why should I believe in Jesus? And I were to say, "Cuz I do," you'd be an idiot to believe in Jesus.
Instead, what I'm saying is go back and get the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read them for yourself, separate from me. Ask yourself: does the historical evidence of the way Jesus taught, treated people, died forgiving his enemies, and rose from the dead, does that evidence point to Christ being trustworthy or does it not?
Do not believe in Jesus 'cause I do. Please don't. It's a horrible reason to believe in Jesus. Horrible. I was in a church for a long time, and I don't buy it. So I'm going. Good. Have you read the gospels?
What— what's your problem with Jesus? I don't want to talk about my phone, J man. Well, why did you not put your faith in him? Why did they not put faith— you read the gospels? I mean, come on, man. You know that if somebody lives the kind of life he lived, you got to respect the dude.
If someone teaches the type of ethical teachings that he taught— I mean, Robert Coles, psychology professor at Harvard, says all the writings on ethics over the past 2,000 years are simply footnotes to the Sermon on the Mount. I mean, the guy was an ethical genius.
Thirdly, if you watch him die nailed to a cross beam, and instead of cursing his enemies the way I would have, he prays, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." And then if you see three days after he dies, he rises from the dead. Guys, it's a no-brainer. The guy's trustworthy. You can believe in him.
So why couldn't you believe in Jesus? Well, actually, one of my favorite personal Christian philosophers, C.S. Lewis, disagrees with you entirely. Okay? He said that if Jesus— a lot of people, like for example, Thomas Jefferson, said, "I don't believe Jesus was God, but I think he's a great moral teacher. He's ethically genius."
What C.S. Lewis said is no, that's not true because if he was not the true Son of God, then he was a liar and a charlatan, and he led people astray. Exactly. I don't believe that he's God. So while I agree with a lot of the stuff he said, I can't buy into him as a perfect manifestation of God's existence on Earth.
And I find— I mean, C.S. Lewis disputes the point you made that, like, Jesus was an amazing moral teacher because, unlike, for example, Socrates, we can't prove Socrates existed either. There's no real evidence for his existence, but we can still take a lot of what he said to heart, right?
But the thing with Socrates is we don't— it's not an all-or-nothing deal. You know, with Jesus, it's like we got to go all in or we're going to burn. With Socrates, it's like, well, I don't believe that he was greater, that he was supreme, so I can take the little bits that I want that I think are great.
But with Jesus, you can't. You can't put shoes 100%. And so when I find little bits and pieces like, "You're going to hell if you don't believe in me," it's difficult. It's difficult to— you know.
All right, B.R. As I listen to you, I hear hell come up time and time again. What problem do you have with hell? Give it to me. Why are you so offended by the idea of hell? Um, I don't believe that there should be an eternal punishment for immoral crime.
I don't believe that the 80 years I'm going to spend on life gaining not a fraction of the knowledge that anyone never achieved on life is worth any literal never-ending eternity burning in hell. I don't believe there should be an infinite punishment for a finite crime.
Okay, I do not— that, sir, go back to the text. Read the text. Find out where does the Bible give us a photograph of hell? Now, does Jesus in the Bible describe hell in horrible terms? Obviously, yes. I'm going with him, but no question about it.
But now, come on now, why is there a hell? I wanted to— she has a question. I just wanted to get really out really quick. It's even less— honestly, and this may reflect poorly on myself— it's even less hell that I'm interested in.
I don't want to go to heaven. I don't want the idea of living forever. That really disturbs me. The idea of never— of existing for eternity and never stopping, especially living in a place where the only descriptions thereof are that we're supposed to be praising God on high for eternity.
That's not the only description, Brennan. I'm going to be— he talks about serving God, working. I love to work. Do you? You know, if I worked on this veil of tears for my whole life and I get to heaven, it's just more work, I'm going to be a little disappointed.
I'm sorry that university gives you such a headache. Both the reward and the punishment don't appeal to me. Maybe it's the reason I love to work. I love work. And guess what? When I work with street people, I want to get them a job.
Why? 'Cause if you don't work, Brennan, you're going to fall apart psychologically. And if you don't believe me, just go out and examine the homeless. If they don't have a job, if they don't work, they tend to fall apart.
It seems that God created us to work, and in heaven, we will be working. In heaven, we will also be relating. Guess what? I really love my wife. I really love my boys. And it's weird as this might seem, Brennan, I love you.
That's why I'm standing here talking with you. So I would love to be able to talk with you and get to know you throughout eternity in heaven. Heaven is all about relationship. That's why Jesus says in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that men might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent."
So heaven is all about relationship. It's all about work, creativity. You express your creativity in work. I express my creativity in work. That's good. Come on, guys. Are you really here just to make more money? Is that what you're here all about?
Come on, guys, think. Think. There's got to be more to life than just positioning yourself to make more money. Nothing wrong with money, but there's got to be more to your life and your work than just making money. You got to enjoy serving people, producing a product to help people. That is good. Work is a gift from God.