Debate questions for Mr. Eddie Tabash

by Matt Slick

The following is a list of questions I had prepared for Mr. Eddie Tabash in our debate.  They aren't particularly great questions.  But, I needed to have some available per the debate agreement.  If I remember correctly, I asked the first three.

1. Mr. Tabash, what would be sufficient proof for you that God exists?
2. Can you explain how an impersonal, ontologically prior cause to the universe can perform an action if it is timeless, changeless, and impersonal?
3. Mr. Tabash, in your debate with Phil Fernandez at 54:44, you said, “We can’t even speak of a cause [of the universe] because there was no time and space for sequential causation to play out before the big bang occurred.” However, in your debate with Todd Friel at 17:52, you said, “there seems to be no reason why an initial uncaused state of the universe cannot be the self-explanatory cause of everything else.” So, With Mr. Fernandez you say you can’t even speak of a cause yet with Friel you say the cause is uncaused. Can you explain why you contradict yourself in these two different debates?
4. Mr. Tabash in your debate with Todd Friel: 18:00 you said, “…there seems to be no reason why an initial uncaused state of the universe can not be the self-explanatory cause of everything else.” Do you have any explanation for an ontologically prior uncaused state that could create the universe?
5. Mr. Tabash, I know you reject the Philosophical explanations that include God as a possible cause of the Universe. But, Science is based on certain assumptions that cannot be tested such as the validity of logic, the ultimate consistency of the universe, and the moral obligation of scientists to report their findings honestly. So, could you please explain why you accept the Philosophical assumptions of Science yet reject the Philosophical assumptions of Theism that posits God as a necessary precondition to the existence of the universe?
6. You are a secular humanist and an atheist. I assume you are a materialist, the philosophical position that the only thing that exists is matter, energy, space, time. Mr. Tabash, if this is the case, then isn’t your premise a philosophical assumption since you can't demonstrate that your materialisim is true?
7. I assume you are a naturalist, the philosophical position that the universe can be understood in purely naturalistic means without any supernatural explanation possible. Mr. Tabash, if this is the case, then isn’t your premise simply an assumption that there is no supernatural being?