Charlie Kirk's 3 Fixed Points: Bible, Western Tradition, and the Founding Documents
The Firestone Files: Letters to My Grandchildren — Dr. Chris L. Firestone
September 7, 2026 · Episode 54 · 1:04:26
https://drchrisfirestone.com/episode/charlie-kirks-3-fixed-points-bible-western-tradition-and-the-founding-documents/

Transcript is auto-generated from YouTube captions and lightly formatted; it may contain errors.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Firestone Files. I am Dr. Chris Firestone. Today we are talking about Charlie Kirk's Defense of the Bible, the Western Intellectual Tradition, and the Founding Documents of the United States of America. That's coming at you today on the Firestone Files. Hey everybody, welcome to the files. If you're following along with us, you'll know that I dropped a episode on my phone call with Charlie Kirk about two years ago now. Charlie asked me at the beginning of that phone call why a K scholar with my pedigree would be wanting to work with Turning Point USA and uh on a project that he termed a lysum a finishing school and sort of the apex of a K through 13 education.

And I laid down four commonalities that Charlie and I had with one another that I said were sort of um the watershed for why I would be there. Um uh trying to uh convince him to start this program. And uh the first one was the Bible is the what I call the point of orientation. Charlie in some of his clips that I've seen talked about the Bible as the owner's manual. And that's a that isn't a position he defended per se, although sometimes he defended the Bible in in uh in face of direct challenges to it. No, it was more of a point of orientation, a firm foundation, something he took on faith and um with all the available ev evidence for it in light of all the alternatives that are out there. But the Bible is the fundamental point of orientation, not unlike Kant's point of orientation that he finds in direct sense perception.

The other one uh another one that we talked about was the fact that there's no neutral vantage point that there's nobody who's coming at the big questions of life from nowhere. Everybody has faith commitments. And the classical Christian position on this has been faith-seeking understanding that you can't please God uh or even honor God without faith. And um everybody stands somewhere in faith. And so faith-seeking understanding is precisely the sort of attitude that Charlie came at his conversation with university students. U no one's a finished product is another piece here. Charlie's not a finished product. I'm not a finished product. You're not a finished product.

Socrates and Jordan Peterson, they're not finished products. All of those people, assuming you're in on this with me, recognize that we are beans in motion. We are beings unto understanding. We're asking big questions. We're trying to answer them and we're seeking authorities with better vantage points than our own for answering them. That's why it's faith seeking understanding. You have to trust somebody in this world. But nobody's a finished product and nobody uh takes advice from everybody, you know, from from people who are who are wise. We are seeking wisdom in this sense. We're seeking faith in someone worthy of faith so that we can better understand the world and our place in it. The last one that we talked about in the in the previous episode were the four human superpowers.

We are beings made for reality and the four human superpowers are our access to reality. And I think Charlie was a realist and I'm a realist and good philosophers generally are realists and the faculties that we have aren't just subjective uh touchyfey ways in which we interact with people and our surroundings. No, they're foundational ways in which we approach reality and they're they testify to real things. the moral law, meaningfulness or purposiveness in the world when we experience beauty, God who undergurs it all, who at the end of the day tells us who we are. All of those are fundamental to Charlie's understanding of how to approach the big questions in life through the eyes of faith.

So last week we had those four questions and uh and I tried to show that Charlie and I um or those four positions Charlie and I more or less agreed with each other on these. And when I presented them to Charlie, he says, "Now you're speaking my language." So we see that uh we see that uh we have some credibility, some reason to think we can go further with this and analyze Charlie's own arguments. So in this episode with these as our starting point um we're just going to take a closer look at how Charlie interacted with college students. Um these four assumptions overlapping principles that Charlie and I shared with one another uh really are a framing of his perspective.

You almost think of it as looking through a window or window frame. Charlie Socratically worked with con uh with college students from a folding table looking at the world through these fundamental principles. Now I've already mentioned that one of his points of orientation foundational pillars if you will was the Bible but he had two others that he would employ as well and that and those are the great books of the western intellectual tradition. And we could talk about which books they are. And they're not all uniformly great, but they do leave us a legacy of Christianity and providentially good Grecoman thought that has been brought together by the church fathers and subsequent Christian thinkers to provide a a a map or a roadway or pathway for the eventual establishment of civics.

the founding documents of the United States of America which have proven through 250 years of of of uh resilience to be and to lead to the greatest country in the world where freedom reigns, liberty reigns and uh people from around the world want to be a part of this great ongoing experiment. So those were the three I would say points of orientation. You might think of him as triangulating uh uh what Charlie thought mattered.

God in the Bible, the word of God, the western intellectual tradition which are uh in general Christian friendly or Christian thinkers who are addressing the big questions and writing the great works that are unpacking, if you will, the truths of the Christian faith and of the book of nature as we learn to encounter the world and of course the founding documents. Now these three things correspond directly to classical metaphysics. If you think of it, God, man and world or um is an exhaustive way of talking about everything that is God, man ultimately or the highest or most important aspect of God's creation and the rest of everything else, the world. And that was those were the sort of three categories. Even my philos my favorite philosopher Emanuel Kant borrowed that from the classical tradition. God, man, and world. Those are the major rubrics, if you will, for interacting with um the big questions.

Um Christian anthropology of course corresponds directly with this as well. We're made up of spirit, mind, and body, and those directly correspond with God, man, and world. Um Kant wrote a book the conflict of the faculties where he talks about the university having three primary faculties theology, medicine and law. Those three correspond if you will exactly with these same three things. They're all speaking the same language in the western intellectual tradition. Theology heals the spirit.

Culture is the medicine for the public mind or maybe the virus in the public mind depending or not if it's good philosophy that's uh giving rise to culture and then civics is the law orienting the the body politic and how we the laws the social contracts under which we live and give our allegiance. All of those three things fit neatly into those three categories. Charlie similarly believed that the university had basically three faculties and he handled them under a tent at a folding table. He just didn't give accreditation for it. He merely wanted to quicken people's awareness that these things should be at the foundation of the American university system.

And in many places they have been forgotten, marginalized or depreciated in some great form. Okay. Well, those three pillars are rubrics under which Charlie thought we needed to draw a line in the sand and be ready to give a defense. And those four powers he often times employed, but he didn't attribute them to Kant. He just thought of him as emerging out of the western intellectual tradition.

Kant didn't Kant was a very systematic thinker. He gave us four questions that unpack the four human superpowers. What can I know? You can know everything that comes to you through the five senses um organized by the categories of the mind things. The moral law, freedom and the moral law constitute the moral superpower. When you're acting freely on the basis of the moral law, you're exercising that superpower, the experience of beauty which has at its base a feeling of purposiveness that this there's more to this world than meets the eye and that gives us hope.

And then his final question that Kant raises and we're going to talk about this in a p set of podcasts towards the end of the year where I unpack Kant in excruciating detail but I think in very enlightening way. What is man or who am I? And that question can only be fully answered by God himself. God knows who you are. He sees your innermost being. He knows the way you appear and the way you really are. And that is going to be an answer you can only get from God and from theology. So those are the four kind of standpoints that Kant has in play. And interestingly, Charlie Kirk employs all four of these as well at various points in his argumentation.

So the four powers in one creature. Kant is not the man who would shrink from these questions. He's the man who mapped these four powers and refused to collapse any of them into the others. And as a confession, Charlie was suspicious of Kant. Charlie thought that um the received tradition on Kant was probably right, that he was uh a little antithetical to Christianity. Maybe he's definitely the father of secular autonomy. He's a villain of modernity. All of these kind of hats that Kant supposedly wore. He inherited that tradition. I don't think he ever read Kant in any great detail. and he was eager to have that conversation with me so that I might try to convince him.

I think he was looking forward to that, but I never got that opportunity. I've spent 30 years of my career trying to say no, Kant is not the fountain head of these things. He's in sense partially responsible for them because he never told us what he really believed about these things. But he was concerned the way some people were receiving his philosophy even in his own lifetime. And so I made a career out of showing that Kant is really not a foe of Christianity per se. He's friendly if you read the full range of his writings and if you allow his philosophy to unfold and look at it in its fullness.

So here's my claim for this episode. I'll spend the rest of the hour showing that there are more alignments than there are disalignments between Charlie Kirk and Kant. He's the man who uh doubted Kant, but he's actually, if I'm right about Kant, his true heir. And so without further ado, I would like to sort of jump into looking at some of Charlie's um work with college universities students. And I'm breaking it down into three quick sections, you might say. The Bible, theology, God is one section.

the western intellectual tradition or what I'm calling the philosophy of man or culture is the second section and then the founding documents civics how people interact in the world going to do that in eight clips and each time I'll spend one or two minutes kind of unpacking my thoughts on Charlie's methodology so here with this first clip uh we'll be uh he Charlie is addressing the question can you be an atheist and a conservative be on the lookout for the four human superpowers applied to the classical arguments for the existence of God. Let's go ahead and roll that clip. Let's start with the idea of atheism if that's okay.

I'm going to go through all of the arguments for God's existence. Okay? I want you to tell me if you've heard them before or if they are compelling. Okay. First is what's called the onlogical argument for God, which ontos comes from the Greek, it's the Greek word for being. So the highest conception of human beings, we can only conceptualize that which is real. And so the highest conception of our own, you know, combined wisdom is God. I think this is the weakest argument for God to be perfectly honest.

Right. And I agree with you there. Yeah. Yeah. But it is a it is a proof that the ontological view of God. The second of which is called the cosmological view of God coming from the Greek word cosmos which means all-encompassing creation. If you look around at creation, there are 15 fine-tuned measurements that if anyone went off by a micron, our entire existence would not exist. The tilt of the earth, our proximity to the sun, our configuration of oxygen to carbon dioxide. Uh, in fact, we can look at the probability of our existence. It's one in multiple trillions that all of this would come together at an exact time.

Let alone consciousness, let alone human beings, let alone our DNA. Sure. And I I want to count counter that with the fact that there are um millions upon millions of galaxies with millions upon millions of their own stars with millions and millions of their own planets. If if we didn't I don't I don't think that if if this earth was not in this exact space as as it exists now.

I think that that is is also not compelling because we if we would have we would have found existence on in another location in the universe if it was not just in this I don't have enough faith to believe that but let me continue onwards then there is what's called the teological uh argument for God that comes from the Greek word telos which means uh we get the word telescope it means goal destination or purpose this here goes to an argument that for every cause uh there for every effect there must be a cause. So for example we can agree that space time and matter exists. We agree.

Yes. Therefore definitionally something that is outside of space time and matter must have made space time and matter exist. Not necessarily. We we can there then it's against the laws of reason. Not because because there could always be a universe that existed before our big bang. It's not it could have we could have existed with space but no matter in a very tiny point that's what basically the big bang was. So I don't see how that proves how that disproves atheism and it's more atheism is more of a I don't believe God exists. Why is this compelling? Well, I'm going to go through two more proofs of God and then we'll finish.

Then there's what's called the column proof of time which is according thanks to Albert Einstein, we know that time uh is actually a real thing that can be traversed with enough speed. Um and in order for time to exist, something timeless must have created it. Finally, there's something called the axiological view of God. I don't know if you know this one. Axios comes from the word uh the Greek word judgment. Um axios and judgment mean the same thing, which basically means that every human being has some form of right and wrong embedded in us.

Uh for example, when the Nuremberg trials were happening, um the Nazis were not able to say, well, it was just the laws of the land, they actually appealed to a higher power, saying that every one of us had some good or evil within us. All right. In this first clip, we saw Charlie Kirk addressing an atheist. He's actually an interesting uh case because he's a conservative atheist and typically that seems to be an oxymoron because conservative obviously means conserving the great ideas of the western intellectual tradition, the Bible, the founding documents and so forth. But in this case, this guy was arguing that we don't really need religion at all.

We can still be conservative and it doesn't really matter about uh you know, belief in God and so forth. And Charlie immediately goes into this four-fold typology, the ontological proof for the existence of God, the the um teological proof of the existence of God, the cosmological proof for the existence of God, and then of course the moral proof for the existence of God. These directly correspond by the way to the four superpowers that Kant articulates. The first one has to do with immediate sense perception. That would be the cosmological argument. The moral argument is rooted obviously in the second movement of Kant's philosophy, the moral philosophy.

And then the third is based upon beauty and teology or purpose. That's the teological argument. And then the fourth is rooted in the very idea of God that gives rise to religion. And so all four of Charlie's arguments are a great typology that Kant would sort of uh uh understand would give us a perspective on and articulates a superpower that human beings have um that we exercise all the time and these things testify to human beings. Now, you might say that, you know, the cosmological argument isn't convincing to you. He actually employs the Kalam cosmological argument, which means to me that he's been reading William Lane Craig, another Christian apologist who has made a career out of the Kalam cosmological argument.

Um, and so he utilizes that as a version of the cosmological argument. I think he got his terms mixed up there between the cosmological and the teological there at the beginning. and then he sort of writes the ship uh in the second half of his uh answer there. But regardless, he's using a typology of the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the teological argument, and then of course the ontological argument. He doesn't have a lot of time for the ontological argument. If I were going to um have my conversation with Charlie, I would point out that all four of these arguments are found in the four superpowers that Kant kind of articulates make up the human person.

When we are fully developed, we are scientific and empirical in our understanding. We're fully uh articulated moral agents. We appreciate beauty and purpose in nature that the teological argument uh uh zeros in on. And then of course God himself is the all in all the one that is the what Kant calls the unrealism the ultimate reality when all else fades away. And that's really where the cosmo uh where the ontological argument um gets its start. And so, yes, Kant argues against some of these arguments, but I would be willing to suggest that he argues against them as definitive proofs because they only employ one superpower.

But Charlie ingeniously uses a cumulative case argument that employs all four of the arguments. And that is maximally persuasive. It's one thing that I would say would be a wise thing to do. Not maybe all at once like he does here because he only has a limited amount of time, but he quickens within this fellow the sheer amount and uh uh um depth and quality and quantity if you will of these arguments for the existence of God. They may not be persuasive in a sort of uh way in which faith becomes unnecessary but they at least give rational assistance to belief in God. And if you don't have that kind of belief, what is your anthropology?

What kind of powers do human beings have? What observations of the world would you make? and he shows the very limited explanatory power of this young man's position. So, you can go ahead and find that video online to see the full conversation. I would recommend that you do that. But clearly, he has a Charlie has a kind of contean uh typology of perspectives and arguments in play when he's trying to convince the atheist. All right. Well, that is that argument. The next clip I want to look at is the argument that he seems to prefer of those. Now, he seemed to zero in on the cosmological argument and the teological argument.

Those two seem to be his bread and butter there. But he gives a whole separate case for moral objectivity. And he utilizes that one, I would suggest, even more than the others. And of course, that's a preeminently contean thing to do. So, let's go ahead and roll the the the the uh the tape here on Charlie using moral objectivity to get through to these college students. Yes and no. I mean, if you're an atheist and you want to be part of the conservative movement, go ahead. But you must be an honest atheist and acknowledge that morality is definitionally subjective without a belief in God. That you cannot be an atheist and believe in objective morality. It is an impossibility. And true atheists will acknowledge this at some point. You have an ought claim. Well, things ought to be a certain way.

We as Christians or we that believe in the divine, we have is claims that there murder is wrong. Whereas an atheist will say, well, murder ought to be wrong because you can't have an objective definition if there is not a divine eternal power over you. So look, if an atheist wants to fight alongside of us to end abortion or to try and end the massacring of our kids, that's called gender affirming care. And or if an atheist wants to march alongside of us to say no men and female sports, they're more than welcome to be able to do that. But atheist for liberty is an interesting phrase because I don't believe you can have liberty without God cuz liberty is not man's idea.

It is God's idea. That's just my own personal belief and it's also the belief of everything that built this nation. But yes, I'm I'm I know a lot of good atheists. The question though is how do you know they're good? It's because you're appealing to a moral authority above just the secular material realm, one that is transcendent, we would believe, given by God. All right. Well, in that clip, Charlie encounters another conservative atheist.

And interestingly, he immediately says, "You're welcome to join the conservative movement. We always love to have other people fighting alongside us as it were. But you have to be an honest atheist. And by that he means that morality is subjective without God. If there's no God, then why would we want to be moral at all? And so the moral law is rooted in the moral lawgiver. And so we see the arguments here of um apologists in the Christian tradition over the last 50 years just come screaming out here about moral objectivity. Um he even goes a little bit further here and this is philosophically interesting because trying to you know as I've been contemplating what he means he says there's no liberty without God.

There's now I don't think Charlie means there's no freedom. There is freedom because freedom is what makes us culpable. Right? That is because we freely sin. We are under judgment as it were in the Christian worldview. But there's no liberty. There's no manifest freedom. There's no country in which we can live and move and have our being within the confines of liberty without God. This is God's idea for the state that if the state is run well by good leaders with righteous laws and proper sanctions and so forth, we have liberty. And this is God's idea.

This is the possibility of this kind of liberty is what gave rise to this nation in the first place. And so in this piece, Charlie made two arguments. One, moral morality is subjective without God. And therefore, we can't call the Nazis wrong. We can't call anything wrong in in the ontological sense unless God exists. And yet he goes one step further into civics to say that there would be no liberty without God. That's philosophically interesting and I think right with regards to the way in which our country was founded and the freedom that we all recognize as being part of the American dream. Anyway, okay. So that's it for that clip.

fascinating arguments for the existence of God that we find there. And of course, the Kantian connection is undeniable. Kant is if there's one argument that Kant thinks really matters to people, particularly in public when you're trying to share philosophical concepts, it's the moral argument for the existence of God. That morality itself, the moral law, and our freedom testify to the existence of God. And that is uh that's something I think um Kant would have applauded. And by the way, I think something could have helped refine Charlie's argument in this sense.

Although in this format, he does a remarkably good job at explaining the relationship between morality and God. All right. Well, we have here this Contean connection, this making room for faith in the moral enterprise that we see in Charlie Kirk's argument. Um, that you can pretend to be, you know, a Christian conservative and so forth and and sort of join the movement, but you can't do so unless you're morally an objectivist and you're a theist. And I think Charlie was resolute in that position.

And importantly so um I never had that chance to finish that conversation with Charlie because I would have loved to have shared with him K's moral philosophy understood um the way we understand it today even other Christian apologists agree with that uh assessment by the way uh you know the Biola school you know the William Lane Craigs and the um and and the uh you Craig Hazens and and uh JP Morland's I I think agree with the moral objectivity and the moral law and the moral lawgiver uh element of Kant's philosophy. Clip number three is the uh emphasis that Charlie makes in the creation and in the resurrection. These two points of indisputable Christian truth that ground his apologetic convictions. So, let's go ahead and roll the tape uh of Charlie talking about the uh the these matters with college students. Are you a Christian by any chance?

Very very much so. And I want to ask like why is that exactly? Oh, Jesus saved my life. I'm a sinner. Fall short of the glory of God. Gave my life to Christ. Most important decision I ever made. So, you believe the Bible is real? Yes, I believe the Bible is true and real. Why is that? Um, well, I could give you the technical answer. There's never been an archaeological discovery that has contradicted the truth of the Bible.

Um, we know everything the Bible as far as the kings, as far as the succession of Israeli rulers to the Jewish people being put in exile to be put back into uh the land of Jerusalem to the destruction of the temple in AD70, all that checks out. There's never been a discovery that's contradicted it. From King Hezekiah to King Cyrus to Nehemiah to Zerubbabel to this destruction of the creation of the second temple. Um, and then of course the wisdom. There is not a truth of the Bible that if you apply to your life, your life does not improve dramatically.

And then finally, uh, we have the most accurate and transparent, um, the most historically robust account, I should say, uh, that one can have of the most important figure ever to live in the history of the world, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus of Nazareth, who was born a virgin birth, what we believe is the incarnation, um, performed miracles all throughout Judea and Samaria, eventually uh, you know, confronted Pharisees, led to a death that he did not deserve, uh, was in the grave for three days, and then rose from the dead. And the resurrection is the is the pinpoint of my belief that Jesus did rise from the grave so that we may live.

All right. Well, that is Charlie Kirk talking to someone who is asking him why he's a Christian. And he immediately zeros in on the owner's manual, the Bible. But more than that, he gives us a kind of litany of reasons that emerged from the biblical witness and other sources for the truth of the Christian worldview and the trajectory of Israel leading right up to Jesus Christ. Now, that is significant because that is where the faith stands or falls is on the resurrection uh the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Charlie understands that and he makes a quick cumulative case. Well, it's more of an a historical case um for the resurrection.

And so I think what we have here is Charlie appealing to this important point as the anchor for the Christian worldview. And in that clip, we don't get his focus in on creation. But um I think in the previous clip we hit we we get that you know the fine-tuning argument in the fact that the world exists at all um that that uh that that we would have the cosmological argument on the front end of that for the creation and for uh the original singularity that gave rise to this universe. And then on the back end of that we have the resurrection. And this bookended approach is an empirical, historical, and uh, you know, testimonial argument for the Christian position.

And he makes that right there on the spot in about 60 seconds, which is truly remarkable. Okay. Well, that that's uh that's that one. Um, and so we see in his focus on God, we see the four superpowers in play. We see the importance of the moral argument for grounding his entire apologetic method. And then of course the importance of creation and the resurrection as scientific really points of uh uh pillars or or or grounds for Christian truth. All of that makes up what I'm calling a cumulative case argument with a rhetorical flourish that is just astounding.

And you know, the students are on their heels and they're trying to figure out how do we deal with a guy with so many good arguments and who's our age, you know, effectively and making such a compelling case for the importance of Christian faith. Okay, so that's the first move. Now the second movement is going to be uh regarding man or what we might call the mind, the life of the mind. And in K's language, this would be u you know the medicine that the culture needs.

And so we're going to go ahead and look here at Charlie's arguments outside of arguments for the existence of God and the foundational importance of those arguments, but for their application in culture in um in spaces that are outside of the academy. And so let's take a look at this first clip in that section in movement number two. The second pillar I'm calling it of his, you know, of his approach. This is uh clip four, the separation of church and state argument that he makes. Let's go ahead and roll that one.

What do you think about separation of church and state? Um doesn't exist or shouldn't exist. Shouldn't exist. Yeah. So you should have church in the state. Well, first where in the constitution does it say that? We can't first amendment where uh it's about the religion, right? So there's no such or provision. There's no such. It doesn't say that. Yes, it does. Says congress shall make no law establishing religion or prohibiting the exercise thereof. Where does it say church and state? Religion. Well, hold on. It says that Congress shall make no official religion or prohibiting the exercise thereof. Where does it say that the church can't get involved in the state?

It could be involved, but it can't be the religion established. Hold on. We're talking about two different things then, right? No. See, like, because what you're saying is that, oh, you can be a Christian and be in the government. And that's true. That's how it works right now. You can be a Christian be in the government, right? But you cannot establish Christianity as the basis of Well, no, that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that Christians should be in the government and the church should be actively involved. Where do we get that phrase separation of church and state from the First Amendment? No, we don't. No, it's Thomas Jefferson writing to the Danbury Baptist Convention in Massachusetts assuring them that the church would not come after the state. So, let me ask you a question. Let's pretend that church and state is the law of the land, right?

That the war in court and the burger court argued in the 1950s and 1960s. Then why on earth did we put up with the government going around and shutting down churches during the pandemic? I thought we need separation of church and state. Why is it that the government can go and shut down churches? Okay. So, aren't they supposed to be separate? All right. Well, in this brief clip, we see Charlie taking on this whole notion of separation in church of church and state. And this is a much malign concept. We use it like a mantra in society.

I was I was uh out on the campaign trail with pres with mayoral candidate Eric Capacy and uh had a guy drive up with his car and he stops cuz we're putting out signs and he said, "Hey, preacher, stay in your own lane." in implicitly um arguing that politics and religion must remain totally separate. You know, church and state, separate church, separate church and state. Well, nowhere in the constitution does it say that one has to check their faith at the door when they're in politics and um that government admit officials can't go to church, stuff like that.

um that these things are common practice and that's not what it means in in the um Thomas Jefferson really was just reiterating the fact that um churches will have no authority to uh to supersede the government and government would have no authority to step in on the churches. And yet he shows in this quick uh in this quick clip how that was transcended where the where the state came in and shut down churches. So clearly there's some kind of overlap here. Um at least something that's being assumed. But if that young man's theory is right, then they ought not to have done that. So that's a kind of an interesting juaposition of arguments.

But he's making application here of his Christian worldview to culture. So that's fascinating. All right. Well, the next clip I want to take a quick look at is going to be science becoming religion. that somehow science in arguing that it transcends religion or it circumvents it or it is non-religious or a religious that Charlie says no that's not right. Science itself can become and often does become religious in its in it in the way it's practiced. So let's go ahead and roll this tape. Charlie interacting with culture on the question of the relationship between science and religion. So, you seem rather fired up. How are you? I'm fine. What's your name? I'm Opel. Okay. How are you? I'm fine. What do you want to talk about? What do you believe? I don't know. What do you believe in? Uh Jesus Christ. OKAY.

Genuine question. Yeah. Do you expect when for you to say that that I'm going to disrespect you because of your religion? No. No. I just I don't know your religious views. I could guess, but I don't know. I'm not religious. I don't haven't found a religion yet. Okay. Unless you want to recommend something to me. I recommend Christianity. It's pretty awesome. You have like pamphlet or something? Uh, a Bible. Uh, you could download the Bible app. No, but I want it from you. You know, sorry. I want from you. You know, I know very little, but you got this big ass heart. I I do have a big head.

Do you have a Bible? No. You don't have anything to tell me? Where do you think you go when you die? Um, nowhere. Like nothing else. Why do you believe that? Because science. Science tells you you go nowhere when you die. Okay. Well, can you explain if you have this? What do you think happens? How do you think that works when we die? The science behind it. Well, actually, neuroscience has over 25,000 different pieces of evidence to show people have afterlife experiences in just the last decade. Every every civilization in the history of the world has believed in an afterlife or a god. Why is science right now when everyone else is wrong because they didn't have this science and the modern technologies that we have now.

So what discovery has disproven the afterlife? Um probably scientific but no one can actually confirm because unless you're coming back to life then nobody can confirm that yet. So you can't disprove it. And you can't prove it either. So it takes faith. Yeah. I have faith. Yeah. And I don't And you know what? If you think that that's going to happen, then that's fine. Okay, I'm not mad at you for So, how did the world come into existence? The big bang. So, the Big Bang. So, so, so who So, the Big Bang made space, time, and matter. What started the Big Bang? Everyone knows, not God.

Well, but the laws of physics mean that there must be a God get there. I'm confused. That's a genuine like everybody. But God came first. But God always is. But how did it get there? That's my question. That's a good question. So, so Christianity would argue that it is is the alpha and omega. It always is. But the universe had a starting point. So therefore, whatever made the universe predated the universe, that's God, isn't it? All right. Here we see Charlie with his hair down. He's kind She's right in his face. There a lot of students around. He's under his tent. It's not really a microphone, but it's just a conversation with a person that he's never met before.

But she is being um confrontative and you know just kind of flippant. And Charlie listens to her and he begins to ask her questions. And one of the key questions he asks her is about the afterlife. What do you believe about the afterlife? And she demonstrates that her worldview is founded on what she calls science. And he says, "Well, what scientific discovery has disproven the afterlife? and she's like, "Uh, I'm not really sure." This is very much a contean point that there is no proof that is that takes away our freedom or our thinking or our faith that proves the existence of God to every rational person, you know, that that come what may.

And yet the flip side of cont flip side of that same argument is an inclination or an intuition that Charlie has that just as science can't prove unequivocally the existence of God to all rational agents, it can't disprove it either. And so it's in that space that we create by science that our knowledge bumps its head against certain questions about the afterlife, about God, about the soul that we find space for faith and for the testimony of revelation.

You know, the this this is I think part of the point and this is a contean point and this is one that Charlie apparently agrees with because he tries to show her that science really is when it when it starts making proclamations about God and about um the afterlife and the soul. It's become religious. It's speaking about things it has no knowledge of um in the strict sort of contient sense of knowledge. And so that's fascinating. I think that's a point that Charlie would have benefited from knowing that Kant was on his same page.

Not only in moral objectivity, not only in the superpowers that testify to the existence of God, but don't prove it in the strict sense of syllogistic proof, but also in limiting what the skeptic can say about these deeply important metaphysical matters that maybe there's a better testimony, a scriptural testimony, testimony from God and God's people, God's word that might be more authoritative. ative in these realms. All right. Well, that I think is a fascinating u overlap that Charlie has here. And uh and so we've seen a number of these connection points, connective tissues between Kant and Charlie Kirk.

All right. Well, there are a lot more cultural manifestations of Charlie Kirk's worldview that we could that we could jump into. there are comp, you know, complex issues like uh transgenderism, you know, men and women's sports. Um, we uh we we we could talk about all sorts of, you know, immigration and uh things having to do with national and international matters and social matters and the family. I mean, there's just issue after issue that Charlie took on, but this is just a a quick uh sampling, if you will, of his second movement. Remember the first movement was God. The second movement was culture or the mind and getting people to think more critically, more reasonably about the world.

By the way, I just this is just a little aside. This word critical, this word critical comes from the philosophy of Emanuel Kant. And we see critical race theory, for example, um permeating our universities now. and Kant would roll over in his grave because that word doesn't mean what it meant for Kant. It has been transformed and re reconstituted almost like a revisionist history on this word that somehow it reveals secret truths that we can't see but that are permeating systemically society and culture. Kant would have no time for this. critical in Kant's way of looking at it had to do with a method of understanding where we take two disparit truths, bring them together into a higher order truth.

Now, you might say that higher order truth is systemic racism or one of these other uh types of issues, but that's a matter of ongoing dispute and uh and discussion, not a religious theory to be indoctrinated in our youth. Um, this is I think Charlie's great contribution here is recognizing that the word critical has gone off the rails. And it, if I had the opportunity to talk with Charlie about this, I'd say, let's go back to Kant's actual definition of of critical as the essence of thought as it brings together disparit truths into higher order positions. That's precisely what the uh founding fathers did with in the US Constitution.

The US Constitution wasn't uh given to us. It was thought through by synthesizing biblical truth with the Western intellectual tradition into a higher level synthesis called the founding documents. And that is truly critical in the contean sense. And so if I had the opportunity to share something with Charlie, I probably would have shared that. Okay. Well, let's move on to the third movement. We've looked at two pillars now. God and and and you know, the soul and we've looked at the mind and culture. And now we're looking at uh the body or the body politic, the world um and uh and how this worldview might apply to it. So the first clip I want to show you is Charlie's response to a question about socialism. Let's go ahead and roll the tape here on Charlie interacting with socialism. What is your definition of socialism?

Well, in the theoretical, the abstract, or the practical, uh, take your pick. So, socialism as written by Markx is when the workers own the means of production. Exactly. In the actual practical, it's when a small group of very powerful, pernicious people are able to control the rest of the population under the guise of helping the many. When in reality, it helps the few. And you get dictatorship, murder, and slaughter. And the revolution never actually comes. It ends in a 100 million people dead over the last 100 years. What about American companies that function as worker cooperatives which are effectively socialism in practice? That that that is partially the some of the tenants of Marks.

Of course it is. Like Publix grocery stores in Florida. Okay. So you're in favor of worker cooperatives then. Yeah. If it's done voluntarily. That's the key. Exactly. Voluntary. For example, in a church, if you go to a church and everyone says we're going to go share this meal, that's a voluntary cooperation. But socialism is not hinge on volunteerism. It's using a gun. It's by force you must be part of this. By force you must give us your money. By force you're going to be part of our cooperative. Volunteerism is something we all support. It's when you start to use the heavy hand of the state that we start to object it.

All right. Well, Charlie feels a direct question about his definition of socialism. And Charlie immediately says, "Do you mean a theoretical, a practical?" You know, he went through a various ways. What kind of definition are you looking for? He goes, "Yeah, all kind of all of them, I guess." So Charlie starts out with the owners owning the means of production, Karl Marx. And yet this often times in the way it actually plays out is a kind of authoritarianism where the state uses a gun rather than volunteerism to implement this thing. And so this young man in the video utilizes um the the uh the example of a cooperative.

And Charlie very rightly and very quickly says, "Well, hold on a second. These are voluntary uh resemblances of socialism." I have no problem with that. You know, if people can opt in or opt out of this cooperative, uh well then, you know, there might be something good that we can learn from this. The problem with socialism historically is that it is authoritarian. It's using a force. It's inherently ideological and it inherently reduces liberty. And it doesn't just reduce it a little bit. It reduces it in total. It has this sort of comprehensive negativity associated with it that has historically worked itself out.

And so Charlie's taking the Bible, taking the Western intellectual tradition, and showing how it doesn't give us the results that the American system gives us. And this young man, bless his heart, he's all in with communism. He's all in with um authoritarianism. He's all in with forced forms of socialism as if we could somehow create a utopian state by uh just putting people in handcuffs. So interesting that Charlie would do that.

Now Kant of course is going to agree with Charlie on this and he's going to agree with him because common wealths when they're properly functioning enhance liberty. They are voluntarily brought together with people of like mind who value freedom, who know freedom when they experience it, who are obedient to the moral law or at least striving to be obedient to the moral law. Where the sanctions or the the laws and sanctions associated with them are meant to be uh h um you know redeeming of people. that they're they're meant to foster a society where freedom flourishes. And Charlie is all over this concept really.

He understands that uh this this great experiment called the United States of America that we have has successfully created this playing field of freedom that is so attractive. this beacon on a hill, this light on a hill, so attractive to so many people because so many other societies try to force it upon their people or force something upon their people that they think will ultimately be good for them. And yet we in a sort of via negativa way by creating space with the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the associate uh associated documents and and legal history of the United States has successfully created this space for human flourishing. Charlie's all over that. He's totally right about that. And by the way, Kant's going to agree with his essential thesis on this thing. So there you have it. Okay. So that's socialism. Then there's uh um you know the body politic is challenged by the electoral college.

So let's go ahead and roll the tape on the electoral college which is so fundamental to the kind of united states that we are this collection of different entities under one unity. Okay, let's roll on the electoral college and I will I will push back. Look at the current battleground states. the the the blackest state in the country is getting a lot of attention because of the electoral college. Georgia, one of the most black states in the country, North Carolina is getting a lot of attention. Atlanta is one of the biggest metro areas in the country. It would get attention whether or not they had the 16 electoral college votes.

Well, the Republican party has a cushion. They have states like Wyoming that nobody lives there. Let's be consistent. Well, first of all, 700,000 Americans live there. So, let's not talk down to our fellow citizens. Okay, but why does their vote, right? Why does their vote go farther than mine who's from Texas? Hold on a second. Um, Rhode Island and Hawaii are small and that helps Democrats, right? Yeah, I think that's bad, too. Okay, got it. But it doesn't just help Republicans. What it does is it requires candidates, as Vive aptly put it, to have a preference on states. We are not a national project first and foremost.

We are a collection of sovereign states that come together as a national project. And the founders wanted a decentralized way of doing elections. And I think it's actually a really good thing that this state, which is incredibly diverse, very difficult to be able to win, will determine the entire election. I think Pennsylvania is a great picture of the country, and you guys get a lot of attention because of it. Now, you might you say in Texas? Well, in Texas, it actually might become a battleground state one day. The thing about the electoral college is that certain battleground states rise and certain fall. Ohio used to be a battleground state.

Now, Arizona is a battleground state. Georgia never used to be a battleground state. Now, it is. Florida used to be. And so what the electoral college does is it forces candidates to go into places outside of the coastal corridor and win over voters of the people that actually make the country work, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Michigan.

All right. Well, here we see a student coming forward to try to make the case for a direct democracy, that America would be more fair or better off or some combination of these things if it were a direct democracy where every vote mattered exactly the same way. Um, and Vivc Ramos Swami in this clip does a a great job of of of of explaining the American government, but then Charlie jumps in. That's the clip that we showed you here. Charlie jumps in to make the case for the significance of the balance that's created where every citizen matters no matter where they're from. And that candidates need to win over all types of voters and not just win the majority.

you know, win the majority, win the crowd, win your freedom. You know, that's one thing. It's another thing to govern an entire nation of that is a collection of 50 states. That requires that we take each state seriously. Now, in the House of Representatives, we have a direct democracy in play. We have representation, the representatives of the most voices, as it were, uh, in play. But in the Senate, we have two from each state. And this creates a kind of balance between individual autonomy between the states and the direct democracy which she so uh vitally wants to defend in her own in her own way.

And so Charlie did an amazing job here of showing the genius, if you will, of the great synthesis that makes the US Constitution enduring and effective and the making America the most soughta country in the world uh by immigrants. All of those things are precisely because we don't have what she wants. We have what our founders gave us. And so that's a fascinating application I think of Charlie's apologetic and his biblical and western thought synthesis. All right. Well, let's see here. We are really arriving here at um at the end of our time together. I hope that you've enjoyed what we've done here with Charlie trying to show the content underpinnings here of of uh of his philosophy and what I would have said to him on some of the major issues that he deals with in these three categories that we've been talking about.

Let me go ahead and roll the footage of Charlie Kirk. I shot this myself. I was uh walking with Charlie through the uh through the corridors getting to the educator summit and then Charlie of course going forward. I wish I would have taped more because as I was taping I I I closed the tape off and he and he uh and he calls me out from the stage. That would have been a fun way to end. But as it as it is, you'll see uh Charlie Kirk in some raw footage that I shot myself uh at the educator summit. And um I think it's just fascinating to have a look at that.

So join me in welcoming our hero Charlie. Thank you everybody. Please take a seat. Well, as you can see, Charlie Kirk was a a man of the people. He was uh intent upon using Turning Point to change our culture, to change the uh the minds and hearts of our young people to help them to remember that uh they live in a privileged place here that has been around for a long time that has been immensely influential around the world. and uh they ought not to give this up so readily um as many of our universities seem to be implying with their core curriculums. And so Charlie was all about the Bible, the western intellectual tradition and the founding documents.

And uh he was intent upon helping these young people to realize the immense gift that we've been given there. And so he told me that he was going to call me back and uh you know took my phone number and he never did. I wish I would have got his phone number. I would have pestered him until he did call me back. I'm suppose that was a pretty hard ask to get. Um but I didn't. I waited for his call which did not come in a timely fashion. And he was, I think, looking forward to meeting with me in the classroom, you know, in the lysum that we had talked about on the phone so many months earlier. But, uh, that never happened. His life was snatched from us all. And, uh, September came, September 10th of 2025, and it changed everything forever.

And it's changed the Firestone Files. And uh even here today, I'm talking about this great man. And uh I think one thing Charlie and I maybe foundationally shared with one another was that we didn't have to worry about rushing that conversation. He had other things on his plate. I had other things on my plate. It never happened. We had hoped to get together at some future time. Um, as I mentioned, he was scheduled to come to my class um, in October. That never came because he was his life was cut short. But we shared something in common, and that is that one day we will have this conversation.

We will be in heaven together. We will be at the banquet table with our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll have a chance to share all my content, insights with him. and how they would have helped to reframe and adjust and and even make more compelling his already compelling message to young people here in the United States. And that's something we look forward to. We'll have to defer our conversation to that later time, but I hope that you've gotten at least a sense of where I might have gone with this if I had that opportunity to share this with Charlie.

Um later on this year, as I mentioned at the outset, I'll be talking about the philosophy of Emanuel Khan. And perhaps we'll make more of those connections together. But for now, September 10th is coming, the anniversary of a very sad moment in US history and in my own personal history, the death of Charlie Kirk. I hope this has helped you to understand his thought a little bit more. Charlie, I've got you here in the background. You probably have noticed that. I kind of feel like you're looking over my shoulder um since you've passed. Anyway, Charlie, God bless you. I look forward to having this conversation with you some point in the future.

But for now, that's it for the Firestone Files. Take care. Thanks for stopping by to spend some time with me here on the Firestone Files. I hope today's reflections offered you some new insights and perspective on life. If you enjoyed the episode or found it valuable, I'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to like, subscribe, and share it with someone you care about. I'd also love to hear your thoughts. What resonated with you? What challenged you? Or what would you like to hear more about in future episodes? Drop a comment below or send in your suggestions to the email in the description. Your input helps shape where we go next. This has been Dr. Chris Firestone. Until next time, keep asking the big questions and remember, the kingdom journey is always best with your friends. Further up and further in. Bye for now.