Lengthy E-mail Response

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Thank you, boy, and welcome to the Dividing Line. It's going to be a special program today, 90 minutes in length, and Lord willing, tomorrow

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I was going to do it in the morning. I just realized I have something tomorrow morning, so we'll have to do it either early afternoon or at the same time as the

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Thursday evening one. And then on Thursday, each one of these will be 90 minutes.

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So that's four and a half hours in one week. What would cause that? Well, I have a lot to cover, and some of this is very important,

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I think. In the second half of the program today, we're going to take a break at 45 minutes because I'm going to need a break, and you probably will, too.

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In the second half of the program today, I will begin reviewing the Phil Fernandez -Chris

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Comas debate that took place recently on Calvinism. I think that it will be a very useful review because, well,

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I have criticisms for both sides, because the reformed advocate seems to be a federal visionist, and I think we will be able to learn that this position is important.

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And it materially impacts your presentation of the defense of the reformed faith because it materially alters,

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I believe, the reformed faith, as well as many things to say in response to Phil Fernandez's criticisms of what he thinks

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Calvinism is, but it isn't. And so we'll take a look at that in the second half of the program.

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But in the first half of the program, I wish to begin providing a response to a very lengthy message

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I was sent. I am not going to identify the person who sent the message. This is a person who has been raised in a

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Christian home, and I think once I read the entirety of it to you, and it is long, you will understand why

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I am going to be taking time to respond to it for 45 minutes today and 45 minutes tomorrow, if I need be, until I finish up the response.

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I would call this pastoral apologetics, in essence, because as you listen,

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I think you will be able to see why we need to respond to it and why

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I would challenge you, the listener, to, as you listen to this, ask yourself the question, how would

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I respond? How would I respond if this was a member of my church, a member of my family, asking me these questions?

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How would I respond? We are going to need to think considerably more deeply than we would if we, for example, had to respond to Brother Jack from last week.

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This is on a completely different level. And so listen with me to these questions.

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When considering the beginning of humanity, it is extremely difficult to comprehend why anyone would refrain from believing in or obeying

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God if belief and obedience were a rational position in accord with evidence. It seems clear that they would not.

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It is claimed that unbelief or rebellion is a result of some arrogant desire to sin over desire to obey.

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Simply put, we want to do what we want to do. A side issue here involves this very notion

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Christians like to use the fact that religions emerge in all cultures as evidence for our

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God's existence. The problem is that many of these religions we deem as false also have notions of punishment and reward with similar traits given to the deity or deities of their choice.

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It does not make any sense for us to have this innate desire to worship and obey a God if that is the very desire we have suppressed since the

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Fall. It is certainly unclear why we would create various deities whom we fear and worship to avoid some other deity we are supposed to fear and worship, especially if that deity is purported to be merciful in response to nothing other than faith.

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This irrationality will emerge later. Sinful passions, it is said, cause us to reject

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God. It is obvious that certain actions prohibited by the Bible are enjoyable to humans.

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There are certain prohibited ways of living that are easy in relation to abstaining from them.

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This is primarily because of our animal instinct. Sexual desire is caused directly by the way our bodies are made.

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They are no different in force than the animal, which can willfully engage in as much rape as they want and never have to get married, disregarding very infrequent instances of animal social sexual monogamy.

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Other side issues here involve the specifics of the Fall, which is never satisfactorily mentioned in the

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Bible at all. It is obvious that the entire nature of physical reality must have changed, which you would think might emerge in the story.

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Storms, earthquakes, geological formations, the dietary system, venomous animals, sharp teeth, and an enormous variety of species, light somehow traveling faster than itself, and all manner of difficulties that clearly suggest something completely different about the origin of the universe, no matter what your presuppositions are.

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As Christians, we struggle desperately to come up with answers that strain all scientific and probabilistic credulity.

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The other cause of most sin is the desire to preserve one's life, which is an offshoot of the sexual act, the desire to preserve one's race or group.

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The desire to preserve our lives causes us to lie, steal, cheat, etc. In society today, there are obviously occasions when life is not in jeopardy, when some sinful act is committed, yet this could be nothing more than an evolutionary hangover, an unfortunate residual headache from darker times.

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Today, we engage in this life preservation behavior in analog form. We struggle against other people and the accumulation of wealth, since need is minimal, with a general surplus of safety and basic necessities in a privileged

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West. We were not always in civil society, most people outside the West still aren't, and life preservation was the main goal of every animal, including humans.

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These propensities are innate, even if evolution is false. This innate disposition is, of course, claimed to be a result of a fall in the human race.

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Adam and Eve willfully engaged in sin, thus forever solidifying this default position in subsequent humans, even if they would perhaps have liked it otherwise, though even desiring it is apparently excluded from our determined nature.

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This notion of a fallen nature does not help the story. Given proper information about God and an originally unbroken nature, obedience in rational beings is certain, though a propensity to desire rebellion being present initially suggests brokenness from the beginning anyway.

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No matter how strong a natural passion, it is always the rational choice to mortify the body in the way

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Jesus prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount. Cut off your hands and pluck out your eyes, do whatever is necessary to keep yourself from going against a deity who must have given you this ability to desire what one ought not desire.

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No rational being, when given a certain amount of information requisite for some future culpability in action, would ever deny a supreme infinite being.

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This is not to claim that we are completely rational beings. It is clear that we are not. We engage in all sorts of nonsensical behavior.

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Yet, how in our perfect pre -fallen state could we ever engage in this most irrational of all acts?

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Adam and Eve must have been borderline retarded to believe in a talking snake's wily suggestions.

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They could never have properly understood their position in relation to God. Adam supposedly named all creatures, so they knew all the animals and were aware that God created them.

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What is this ridiculous subordinate snake saying? What does he know? Perhaps we should check with that incredibly enormous being who made all this appear from nowhere, including this tree and us.

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We know he purposely put it here and told us not to touch it. Why would he create a tree that somehow made us become like him?

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Something is amiss. The snake said, you will not surely die, as a means of enticing them after God told them that they would.

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What in the world is death to them? It's an absurd notion. They had never witnessed it, and a full explanation must have been required.

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Wait, says Eve, you mean we will no longer exist like, um, we did not exist a few days ago, okay?

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What would that matter? But if threatened with more than death, it would again be ludicrous to go against the knowledge they must have possessed.

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They were given one command, do not eat from the tree. So they already had within themselves an understanding of what to do and what not to do, a direct knowledge of good and evil.

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They were allowed to do whatever they wanted except this one thing. If a snake talked to you, aside from merely seeking psychiatric attention, it might be a good idea to check his facts, if it went against that one command.

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This act of disobedience, if rationality is to be saved, eliminates the possibility that they possess the necessary knowledge to make a decision for which they could be condemned.

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It will be objected that ignorance does not preclude us from obedience, but that is only in societal law of a purely human construction, which is developed in response to imperfect information.

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A legal system could not function without that stipulation, as everyone would obviously claim that they did not know a certain action was illegal.

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With God this is not valid. He knows what they know and has perfect information. The Roman church must have seen all this ridiculousness and tried to save it early on by claiming we have free will, along with some proper knowledge necessary for culpability.

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This was a valiant but futile effort. Free will for these purposes broadly means we have the ability to do what we want within certain physical or spiritual restraints.

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Originally we must also have had the freedom to do what we ought. But why would the want ever be in discord with the ought when full knowledge of the incredible power of God is clearly seen, not only seen generally, but with a special certainty of its origin?

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No one in the entire world has been more certain of the existence of God than Adam and Eve must have been.

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It even says God walked with them in the Garden of Eden. If they were not fully aware of God's power or position in relation to them, this must be a function of God keeping it from them purposefully, or their own mental faculties were of an extremely inferior constitution, which was obviously also a design of God.

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They must have been completely capable of irrationality, the most contrary trait imaginable in the classical deity.

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Therefore that deity must have constructed the existence of irrationality in humans. Even if some open -ended ability of freedom were granted without the clear logical necessity of having been created with this flaw, which permitted their excursion into unreason, what caused the emergence of irrationality in the serpent?

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Unreason must permeate reality, a reality that God created. If we are to save the literal veracity of this story, something in Christian belief has to give.

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Either God is not of the omnipotent sort, which logically leads to everything being determined, or human suffering, not to mention enormous amounts of animal suffering, which many very confused people claim does not really exist without human levels of consciousness, does not actually matter in any humanly conceivable sense of the word.

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To us, love cannot exist, or be defined, in any remotely transcendentally factual way.

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Neither can judgment. It is claimed that those without the knowledge of Christ, or their need of redemption, will be judged less harshly than those with greater knowledge of the law and redemptive plan.

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It is uncertain what this differing judgment could mean, though I tremble to venture at the difference between one infinite horror in comparison to double that horror.

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These people, apart from the knowledge of Christ, are said to disobey the law within them, and will be condemned according to their refusal of conscience.

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But they are incapable of performing in accordance with this conscience. How can somebody be condemned for something they are absolutely incapable of accomplishing by the very constitution given them by the condemner?

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The pat answer is that this is all part of a pure and unknowable plan, a demonstration of infinite wisdom, mercy, and judgment.

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What terror and feverish sorrow I feel for any creature subjected to the negative side of this determination. Could there not be any way to complete this plan by saving just one of those people in the hills of the

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Himalayas by preventing their birth? Or just one Aborigine? Or just one poor child off the streets of Compton?

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How supposedly precious is an eternal human soul, and how terrible these tortures which are effected against them!

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Oh, that just one be prevented from being born! How this would save them from immeasurable pain!

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To me, this is the most important idea in all of Christian thought, yet even Paul did little more than completely ignore it.

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When he said, Who are you, O man, to bring a charge against God? And then simply states, God can do what he wants. He can create people whose sole purpose is eternal destruction, and people who get eternal bliss.

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All these people had sin projected on them from oblivion and a complete inability to obey. It is insanely difficult, if not completely impossible, to understand how anyone is culpable in any humanly definable sense of the word.

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I have no problem with what Paul said. An infinite being can obviously do whatever he wants. There is no doubt about it.

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My contention is there is no possible way for humans to define characteristics of a God who creates feeling dreadfully minuscule beings simply to destroy them.

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Not just a few either. It is highly likely that the roughly 30 % of the world that claims to be

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Christian actually have what we describe as saving faith. It is highly unlikely the roughly 30 % of the world that claims to be

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Christian actually have what we describe as saving faith. That means billions upon billions of people are going to incur infinite misery simply because they live with no possibility of anything else.

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At least 70 % of humanity is created to be torn limb from limb, tortured in indescribably brutal ways for all of eternity.

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This is obviously an enormous problem for any human being with even a modicum of empathy or feeling. It is obvious why most

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Christians don't believe what the Bible clearly teaches about predestination and is really, whether in scripture or not, nothing but a logical consequence of an omniscient

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God. I would even say most people that do believe in predestination never really think about what it really means.

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It is unbelievably unsatisfying to hear Paul's response. Like I said, not because an omnipotent deity could not do as he wishes, but simply because due to the fact our entire faith is based upon words like love, sacrifice, mercy, goodness, righteousness, evil, judgment, etc.

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And none of these can be properly understood or defined in any meaningful sense with what we know about eternal predestination and culpability from conception.

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Our foundation of belief simply cannot be laid without understanding this incredibly important question. Everything is based on it alone.

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And then there were a few comments afterwards about recognizing it was a long email and did not expect me to answer immediately.

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I got this just a few days ago and as I listened to it, as I read it,

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I actually listened to it on my ride today. I mp3'd it so I could have it fresh in my mind, listened to it a couple times.

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But when I read it, I had some choices to make. It would be a long process to respond to everything in writing and only one person would benefit from that.

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We have heard many of these objections before in different contexts, but this seemed to me a unique context again because we're talking about a person who has been raised in a

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Christian family is asking these questions. Now, I am operating on the assumption that all of these words are this individual's words, that these aren't quotes, this is an argument from an atheist webpage or something like that.

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And I'm going to function on that basis in attempting to provide a response and to do so within the context of, like I said, what

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I guess would be described as pastoral apologetics. The issue in this email, in this series of objections, is fundamentally an objection against the idea that God can hold anyone accountable if he truly is the sovereign creator of all things.

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It is based upon what I believe would be some highly questionable conclusions drawn from speculative thinking about the nature of Adam and Eve that I think goes against what we know and certainly against scriptural teaching.

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But it is a fundamental attack upon not just the concept of predestination because, quite honestly, though many of our

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Arminian friends seek to avoid these very questions by constructing systems like Molinism and all their ways of avoiding the tough questions, they don't actually succeed in doing so, as we will see as we examine the debate later on in the program.

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One of the issues that comes up is the position of Molinism, and it's just a way to try to get around these difficult questions.

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These are difficult questions for the concept of God as God. It just so happens that the Reformed understanding of these things is just up front and being consistent with what the

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Bible says. And so I'd like to go back through this and seek to provide some kind of meaningful response.

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But again, I would ask you as you listen to that, I hope you listened to it and asked yourself the question, if I was sitting on a plane, a bus, a train, and reading my

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Bible and someone with these issues, these questions, maybe someone who sat down next to you said, you know,

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I used to believe like you. And then I started thinking about these things and no one could answer my questions.

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How comfortable would you feel in giving a response? That is a question that I would ask you to consider, because I do believe that we should think through these things, as difficult as it may be, as uncomfortable as it may be.

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I do believe that we should think through these things and face them straight up.

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That's what we try to do here on this program, as challenging as it might be. When considering the beginning of humanity, it is extremely difficult to comprehend why anyone would refrain from believing and obeying

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God if belief or obedience were a rational position in accord with evidence. It seems clear they would not.

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It is claimed that unbelief rebellion is a result of some arrogant desire to sin over a desire to obey. Simply put, we want to do what we want to do.

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Here's the ground of the objection is this. The ground of the objection is, no one had better evidence of the existence of God than Adam and Eve, our first parents.

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And therefore, it would be irrational for them to act in any way that would be in opposition to God, because they knew that God exists.

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So therefore, the idea basically is that there is a corollary, there's a direct connection between the more certain your knowledge of the existence of God and evidently your obedience to Him.

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Now, many things need to be addressed immediately. First of all, we have very little knowledge of the nature of Adam and Eve, their conversations with God, the time frames in which they lived as far as how long was it from the creation until the fall.

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We have two and a half chapters, and very little of it narrates for us the precious information we would like to have to be able to answer all the speculative questions that we might have concerning Adam and Eve.

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What we can tell from that initial record and then from the assumptions made by Scripture throughout in regards to the culpability of Adam and Eve and our relationship to Adam and Eve, it really forms the basis of our theology concerning who they were and what their capacities were.

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The whole concept seems to be that Adam and Eve were either stupid or created in such a way they could not be held accountable because they just weren't smart enough to figure out that it's really dumb to sin against God.

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Well, you're not going to get me to argue that it's not really dumb to sin against God. It is.

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Sin is stupid. There's no question about that. But the question, of course, brings us to recognizing that we live in a fallen state, and they did not.

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There's no one that we can look to other than there's only been one unfallen person since Adam and Eve initially, and that, of course, is

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Jesus, and he was rather unique. We're not Pelagians. Pelagianism clearly is not a biblical position.

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And so we have to be very, very careful in extrapolating from our experience back before the fall because we have really no means to do that.

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The information becomes quite tenuous at that point, and we can assume certain things.

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We can assume that Adam was a perfectly rational being, but human beings are not merely rational beings.

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We have the ability to be rational, but it is all of our experience that there are certain people who are more and certain people who are less dedicated to the pursuit of rationality, the application of the laws of logic.

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There are many people who are extremely emotional and considerably less rational than others of us, and they tend to drive those of us who seek to be somewhat rational right up a tree.

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But the argument here basically is that if they had sufficient knowledge of God's existence, it seems to be that they would never have sinned because if you really knew that the real

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God exists, you would never do something that would result in your being separated from him.

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Now, some of the questions we'll get into as we read them, but some of them were how could they have known what death was, and God would have to explain all these things, and it's not explained.

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Well, we aren't given that information, but there are a lot of assumptions that have been stuck into these objections.

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The fact that God said, You shall surely die, and Adam and Eve's response is not,

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What? would indicate to us that if we're going to err on one side or the other, we might want to err on the side that Adam and Eve knew a whole lot more than we might want to give them credit for.

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Nothing is recorded about an objection. Nothing is recorded about a question. I think we're pretty safe in recognizing that they knew that the penalty for breaking this one rule, this one law expressed by God's Holy Word to them directly, was extremely significant.

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Did they need to understand the entire ramification of spiritual death, physical death, their offspring, and so on and so forth?

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I question that. I don't know what basis would be given for saying that they had to have a full and complete knowledge of all of the possible ramifications so as to be able to make a fully informed decision for the rest of their posterity and everything else.

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But this is the argument, and that is, it is extremely difficult to comprehend why anyone would refrain from believing in or obeying

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God if belief and obedience were a rational position in accord with evidence. There's the argument, and I simply say to you as is noted by the writer himself, men do not simply function as logic machines.

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Men do not, I mean, even in looking at the fall itself, is not Eve's intentions and purposes fundamentally different than Adam's?

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They are. You have the dynamic of Adam and Eve, and you immediately see

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Adam trying to shluff it off on Eve immediately. Does that not reflect a difference in how both of them approach this particular act?

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It seems almost mechanistic of our writer to reduce Adam and Eve to a calculator that goes, well,

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I am perfectly rational, and here are the facts, and therefore you run the computations, and this is what you do.

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I don't believe man has ever been created in that way. I don't believe that even

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Adam and Eve were created in that way, because there would have been differences between Adam and Eve, between man and woman, even pre -fall.

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Not just physical differences, but I would imagine that what we see today in the fundamental differences that exist in outlook between men and women is not something that developed after the fall.

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And so, keeping those things in mind, a side issue that is then introduced in the next paragraph,

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Christians like to use the fact that religions emerge in all cultures as evidence for our God's existence. Okay, I've heard it said that the universal religiosity of man needs to be explained.

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I would not say that the existence of religions in all cultures is evidence of God's existence.

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It is consistent with what God has said in Scripture, because God has created man in His image.

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He is a worshiping creature, and therefore if he refuses to worship the one true God, he will find other outlets for his worship, which includes the creation of false gods, gods that he can control.

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Gods that are not sovereign, gods that man's religions creates mechanisms, sacramentalism, whether it be a high church sacramentalism or the gross, simplistic sacramentalism of animism, it's all the same thing.

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Religion exists to provide you with means by which you control God's grace. And so all forms of idolatry, whether it be atheism, whether it be secular humanism, whether it be false religions, all of it is a mechanism whereby the worshiping man twists the creator -creation relationship, defines what he is going to allow his worship, and redefines the object of his worship in accordance with his own desires.

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And so this paragraph I did not find to be founded rationally or biblically, because it says,

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The problem is that many of these religions we deem as false also have notions of punishment and reward with similar traits given to the deity or deities of their choice.

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It does not make any sense for us to have this innate desire to worship and obey a God if that is the very desire we have suppressed since the

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Fall. Well, of course, the desire, that's not a desire that we have suppressed. That's not what

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Romans 1 says, is it? We don't suppress a desire. We suppress the knowledge of the one true

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God and twist that into the worship of false gods.

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And so it's not a desire that is suppressed. It is the knowledge of the one true God that is suppressed.

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It is certain and clear why we would create various deities whom we fear and worship to avoid some other deity we are supposed to fear and worship.

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No, it makes perfect sense. As long as you get to control the access, you get to define things, you get to—I've said many, many times— people desire the benefits of God without dealing with the one true and holy

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God. It's always easy to create an edited version. And so when it says this irrationality will emerge later, well, we haven't found an irrationality.

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We have found an error in understanding in our writer about what is suppressed and things like that, but we have not yet found any of this irrationality.

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Continue on. Sinful passions, it is said, cause us to reject God. It is obvious that certain actions prohibited by the

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Bible are enjoyable to humans. By the way, sinful passions, it is said, cause us to reject

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God. I'm not sure I understand what that means. Our rejection of the one true God is part and parcel of our fallen nature.

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It is the nature of the person. What was Jesus' teaching? What is fundamentally descriptive of a person who is not in right relationship with God?

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He does not like the light. He craves darkness. He wants to be away from the probing, searching sight of God.

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And so sinful passions are the result of our rejection of God, not the foundation of our rejection of God.

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It is obvious that certain actions prohibited by the Bible are enjoyable to humans.

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Well, enjoyable in the short term, but it's also painfully obvious that those actions prohibited by the

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Bible that are briefly enjoyable to humans frequently bring massive pain and suffering as well and separate us from life and often lead to death itself.

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There are certain prohibited ways of living that are easy in relation to abstaining from them. This is primarily because of our animal instinct.

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Well, I don't happen to believe in something called animal instinct.

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I think that while we are created to live in this world and therefore must be able to respond to the universe around us, the created world around us, it does seem that some of the statements in this letter indicate a rather complete embracing of a secular viewpoint as to man's nature, which

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I do not share. Sexual desire is caused directly by the way our bodies are made.

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Well, on a certain level. On a certain level. It's sad, though, that someone raised in a

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Christian family would not see that that is a woeful limitation of a biblical view of sexual desire.

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Especially between a husband and a wife as they are united together in Christ.

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They are no different in force than the animal, which can willfully engage in as much rape as they want and never have to get married, disregarding very infrequent instances of animal, social, sexual monogamy.

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Well, they are very different in force. They are very different in force. Again, you can identify, if you wish, the hormonal foundations of some of these things.

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Ah, see, it's similar over in this animal here or something over there. But again, that is confusing the fact that as we have learned more about our physical creation, we see the connections that we have with the physical creation and the mechanisms that God has instituted.

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But that does not mean that that is the extent, the limit of these things, and the very fact that we have sexual morality in Scripture and that when we follow that sexual morality, we experience fulfillment that an animal can never even begin to think of is demonstration of that fact.

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And so, I completely reject the phrase they are no different in force than the animal.

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If what that means is they're just the same thing. No, they're not. They may have similar foundations physically, but we transcend the mere physicality that is ours, and we go far beyond that.

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Other side issues here involve the specifics of the Fall, which is never satisfactorily mentioned in the

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Bible at all. Well, satisfactorily. Hmm. Satisfactorily to whom?

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Evidently, it's satisfactory to God. How exactly? Let's say we had 20 chapters narrating for us the specifics of pre -Fall man.

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How could we even understand some of these things? What kind of language would be used to describe pre -Fall man when we don't have any experience with it?

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Would 20 chapters be enough or would someone be saying, well, that's not enough, that's not satisfactory?

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I become concerned when someone says, well, that just doesn't satisfy me. Well, why? Who gets to determine what's satisfactory?

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I mean, I have lots of people who, well, the Bible's just not clear enough for me on this or the other thing.

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It is obvious that the entire nature of physical reality must have changed, which you would think might emerge in the story.

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Possibly. I can certainly see that.

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The argument goes on. Storms, earthquakes, geological formations, a dietary system, venomous animals, sharp teeth, an enormous variety of species, light somehow traveling faster than itself, and all manner of difficulties that clearly suggest something completely different about the origin of the universe no matter what your presuppositions are.

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So, in other words, there is a result of the Fall in regards to death. I don't buy into this light traveling faster than itself thing.

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I assume that that is some reference to one of the mechanisms of explaining the age of the earth stuff.

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I think it's significantly simpler to simply ask the question, does

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Scripture describe creation as having been made functional with a purpose, the demonstration of the glory of God, and functional in regards to the story of redemption played out upon this little speck of dust called planet earth?

35:45

The answer is yes. It very clearly presents it in that way. Therefore, it had to be created in such a way that it was functional.

35:53

If you reject that assumption, then the results of your examination of the universe are going to be completely disconnected from reality because you're going to start with assumptions of chaos, disorder, and end up with completely different conclusions than you would need to have if you actually looked at the universe and said, wow, there's order here.

36:17

It must be a purpose. And yes, God has communicated His purpose. I have a feeling that's what's being spoken of there.

36:23

But evidently, there needs to, on our writer's part, be some extensive discussion of the nature of the

36:32

Fall outside of its spiritual ramifications on a mechanical and scientific level.

36:39

Problem being, that really wouldn't be able to be done until modern times because we wouldn't have the language to actually express it, would we?

36:49

And so if it's God's purpose to bring about redemption at an earlier period of time, to bring about the coming of the

36:57

Messiah and things like that before there could be a meaningful discussion of plate tectonics or anything else in regards to the nature of the

37:04

Fall and a switch from a peaceful coexistence of animals, if that's what the assumption is.

37:09

I don't even know why that has to be a necessary assumption. How would anybody have understood any of that would be the question.

37:20

As Christians, we struggle desperately to come up with answers that strain all scientific and probabilistic credulity. May I challenge my writer back?

37:30

If you want to see straining all scientific and probabilistic credulity, pick up any major biological textbook today and listen to them attempt to explain something like the

37:42

F1 ATPase mechanism in the mitochondria of living cells and listen to them use creation language.

37:50

They cannot avoid doing it. They cannot avoid doing it. And then turn around saying, but we all know this wasn't created.

37:57

This is just random. You want to hear scientific and probabilistic credulity strained?

38:04

Listen to someone try to explain the clear evidence of design without mentioning the designer.

38:12

I would say that's a whole lot more along those lines. The other cause of most sin, and we

38:20

I guess the preceding one, we've already challenged that one. The other cause of most sin is a desire to preserve one's life, which is an offshoot of the sexual act, the desire to preserve one's race or group.

38:33

I don't believe that for a moment. I don't even really understand what it's saying.

38:40

The desire to preserve our lives cause us to lie, steal, cheat, etc. Really? No examples were given and I would go,

38:49

I don't think so. Most of the times I've lied and I did steal something once when

39:00

I was in first grade because it was very colorful. It had nothing to do with keeping myself alive.

39:07

I just don't see the connection here at all. In society today, there are obviously occasions when life is not in jeopardy when some sinful act is committed.

39:15

I would say, yeah, about 99 .998 % of the time. Yet this could be nothing more than an evolutionary hangover, an unfortunate residual headache from darker times.

39:26

Or it could be exactly what the Bible describes it as, that we have a sinful nature and we are selfish and we are willing to use others and so on and so forth.

39:35

Today we engage in this life preservation behavior in analog form. We struggle against other people and the accumulation of wealth since need is minimal with a general surplus of safety and basic necessities and a privileged west.

39:46

I have never thought of my life as a struggle against others for the accumulation of wealth. I don't even begin to understand that.

39:53

It doesn't enter into my thinking, my experience. I don't even understand it. We were not always in civil society.

40:00

Most people outside the west still aren't. And life preservation was the main goal of every animal, including humans.

40:09

Well, again, from a good Darwinist perspective, yes, but I'm not a Darwinist and I don't see any reason to look back at history and see all the self -sacrifice and all the things that people did that had no sense in a

40:21

Darwinian evolutionary perspective as if that's somehow not relevant. These propensities are innate even if evolution is false.

40:30

No, I would say that what is innate is we're creating the image of God and therefore by the grace of God, the common grace of God, capable of doing many things that go against this very kind of paradigm that is being promoted here.

40:44

And we see that often in history. This innate disposition is, of course, claimed to be a result of a fall in the human race.

40:53

Now, we haven't agreed about what this innate disposition actually is as yet. That's going to come up later on, I think.

40:59

But the perspective of mankind and the behavior of mankind is the result of a fall.

41:08

And what is really the target really in this email is the concept of federal headship.

41:18

The ability or freedom of God to treat Adam and his posterity as one group and have one person representing the other.

41:28

We know this is what Jesus does with his people. This is what Adam does with those who are in him. And this is the fundamental objection.

41:35

God, that's not right. God can't do that. That's not fair. That's the fundamental objection.

41:43

Adam and Eve willfully engaged in sin, thus forever solidifying this result position in subsequent humans, who

41:50

I might add likewise willfully engage in sin and love sin and love selfishness and do not by nature love to do what is good for others.

42:06

Even if they would perhaps have liked it otherwise, though even desiring it is apparently excluded from our determined nature.

42:13

From our determined nature. Here's where you start really again getting into the main issue.

42:22

And that is, well, if God determined this to be my nature then he can't condemn me for that.

42:28

Even if it's what I love. He made me to love it, see. You always have in the back of this, this idea of this poor innocent creature with this big nasty

42:41

God behind him with a gun in his hand saying be evil, be evil rather than the reality of this rebel creature who has to be constantly restrained by God to not do more evil than he does.

42:59

That's normative in my experience in reading these kinds of objections and questions.

43:07

This notion of a fallen nature does not help the story. Given proper information about God and an originally unbroken nature obedience in rational beings is certain.

43:19

I reject that. This is where we part company. Because this assumes that God created mankind as a calculator.

43:28

It's a computer. If you put in the right data, out comes the right response. It works every time because it's just a mechanism.

43:36

That's what rationality is. Is good data in, good data out, junk in, junk out.

43:44

This is too low and mechanistic a view of man. I'm sorry, it is. Because it says though a propensity to desire rebellion being present initially suggests brokenness from the beginning anyway.

43:58

Why? Why? This is where you've got to catch hidden presuppositions and assumptions.

44:06

The assumption here is God should have created Adam and Eve in such a way that they could not fall.

44:11

It cannot be a part of God's purpose that a fall take place because, you know, this idea of God glorifying himself, the demonstration of all of his attributes and the incarnation.

44:20

No, no, God doesn't have the freedom to do any of that stuff. If he's going to be judged by us, and that's what this is all about, is judging him in this matter.

44:28

If he's going to be judged by us, then his judgment have to have been in such a fashion that he could have created mankind and a perfect creation would not have fallen.

44:40

And could not have fallen because he has perfect knowledge and therefore the perfect computer will spit out always the perfect thing as a result.

44:49

Let me just finish this paragraph then we'll take a break. We'll pick up with this one tomorrow.

44:55

Whenever it is we end up doing, I'll blog the information. No matter how strong a natural passion, it is always the rational choice to mortify the body in the way

45:05

Jesus prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount. Cut off your hands and pluck out your eyes, do whatever is necessary to keep yourself from going against a deity who must have given you this ability to desire what one ought not desire.

45:18

And so the idea is if God gave you these desires, then God cannot condemn you for following through these desires.

45:26

And if you are truly rational, the only rational choice would be to do whatever you can to not sin.

45:34

There is the statement. Now how would you respond to that? I mean, again, it's being put back upon Adam and Eve.

45:44

It's not really dealing with where we are today, but sometimes it is applied to where we are today. I agree it is irrational to sin against God.

45:54

But I do not agree that that makes God unrighteous if he condemns us for acting upon our desires.

46:02

And I do not believe that mankind's activities can be limited simply down to a calculator.

46:09

And well, if we're perfectly rational, then we'll always do the right thing. And the less rational we are, that's where problems come in.

46:16

And therefore there must have been a problem with Adam and Eve. We'll pick up with that particular point.

46:23

We're, I'd say, a quarter of the way through looking at the bar over on the side.

46:28

We'll pick up with that tomorrow. And we'll be right back to start looking at the debate between Phil Fernandes and Chris Comas.

46:53

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

46:59

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

47:05

Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

47:12

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

47:22

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

47:32

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality.

47:37

Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMN .org. Hello everyone, this is

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Rich Pierce. In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program, the need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater.

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Alpha Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner, making no excuses.

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48:26

Support Alpha and Omega Ministries, and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

48:32

Thank you. Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God. James White, in his book,

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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true

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48:59

You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin

49:08

.org. Alrighty, welcome back to Dividing Line, a special extended edition.

49:21

Today, tomorrow, as far as time goes tomorrow, I have an interview at 10 o 'clock. It's supposed to only last for an hour.

49:27

It might go a little bit longer than that. So, I'm going to be right here in the studio, so I think what we'll just do is we'll have

49:36

Rich just sort of pop onto the feed once in a while and say we're going to be starting in like 10 minutes or something like that.

49:43

And sometime between 11 and 12 we'll get started, basically, is what we'll do. And then on Thursday, our regular

49:49

Thursday afternoon time period, four and a half hours. Then again, now with Wayback Machine, we actually have 24 -7 anyways, so it doesn't really matter, but four and a half live hours on the

50:03

Dividing Line today. I hope you can see why we're doing that in light of, I think, the importance of the questions just here.

50:12

The Wayback actually has, we've calculated, almost, actually a little over a month of shows 24 -7.

50:19

So, it won't repeat for a month. So, how many, like 900 -something? Right now we're at,

50:25

I think, 913. We're still rounding up little stray shows that we've lost track of here and there, and we're hoping to actually hit 1 ,000.

50:36

And you know what's amazing? In 900 shows, and almost all of those are mine. I mean, there are a couple where there are people other than myself.

50:43

But let's say, because a lot of them were 90 minutes to start, let's say that's 900 hours of me talking.

50:51

In all that time, I never got confused as to where I was born. I never decided that I could actually debate people in Arabic in mosques.

51:01

How in the world did I get through 900 hours when certain other people can't get through 100 hours without coming up with all these?

51:08

It's amazing. Of course, when you did the Eschatology show, that did get a little silly. Don't let him on here.

51:16

You actually do. It's coming. It's coming? I'm going to be born in Sweden soon?

51:23

Okay, alright. Okay, anyways, back to important things.

51:29

I had the opportunity, I've now listened to it twice, yesterday morning and this morning, while writing.

51:38

I listened to the debate that took place a little over a month ago now, I guess, between Dr.

51:45

Phil Fernandez and Chris Comas, who is a student at Reform Theological Seminary in Orlando.

51:53

And I think it is important that we address this for a number of reasons.

52:01

It's not that the objections that were raised are new. They're not. And what is interesting is eventually

52:10

Dr. Fernandez did present a classical Molinist understanding of God's knowledge of future events and God's relationship to time.

52:19

And I think that would be an excellent thing to debate, personally. And I can't find, you know, we've challenged

52:28

William Lane Craig to address that one for a long, long time and that ain't going to be happening anytime soon. But what was especially important from my perspective concerning the debate had to do with the fact that the

52:46

Reformed representative is a federal visionist, a student of Douglas Wilson, and it struck me that there was a fundamentally different mechanism of defense of the five points of Calvinism as a result.

53:04

And unfortunately, I doubt anything but a small percentage of the people at that debate had any idea of how different federal visionism is from what

53:15

I would view the historic Reform perspective. They claim it's theirs, but I don't think that's the case.

53:21

And it really came out over and over and over again. And so I'm concerned about this.

53:28

In fact, I'll have to admit that I have heard two debates over the past month.

53:40

Jamin Hubner posted a link to his debate with an

53:45

RTS student by the last name of Bean on infant baptism. And I am very convinced from listening to the comments that he made that he too is a federal visionist.

53:58

So it could just be a complete anomaly. It could be just a complete chance that over the past month or so I've heard two

54:07

RTS students and both of them were federal visionists. Maybe they're the only federal visionists at the school.

54:13

Or maybe there's a whole lot more federal visionism going on out there than some people would like to think.

54:23

We will hear, especially in the audience questions of this debate, just how often this comes up.

54:35

I'm going to start with some criticisms of Brother Comus because obviously most of my criticisms are going to be for Dr.

54:42

Fernandez because that's primarily what we're going to listen to is his comments and respond to his comments on Calvinism.

54:51

But a few things, you know, I need to be fair and I did feel aside from the federal visionism there were some other issues.

54:59

As I listened to Mr. Comus' opening statement, here's my advice to all of Doug Wilson's students.

55:11

Do not attempt to impersonate Doug Wilson unless you're Doug Wilson. It requires a big burly presence with lots of facial hair and a deadpan delivery to get away with being

55:26

Doug Wilson. Doug Wilson can pull it off. When I debated

55:32

Doug on federal visionism, I expected him to be witty and to be funny and he was.

55:42

Generally, however, when people try to do that themselves, it doesn't work.

55:48

And given the context here, Chris spent the first five minutes. He's only got 20 minutes. And by the way, my biggest criticism right off the bat of the whole thing, a debate, the five points of Calvinism, what is more biblical, a whole 20 minute open statement that gives you four minutes per point without any introduction?

56:11

I might be able to define meaningfully and communicatively each of the five points in about two minutes.

56:18

That gives me two minutes to give biblical evidence? That's hardly time to read a text, let alone an exegete one.

56:28

I was very disappointed at the broad breadth of the debate, which resulted unfortunately, especially in Phil Fernandez's presentation of make claim, list five verses, say the list goes on.

56:45

Zero exegesis. Zero. None. It was like reading a

56:51

Dave Hunt book again. There's dozens of verses that say this and every one of them, including misquoting

56:59

Matthew 23, 37 twice. You know, if they tried in the future to recreate the text of New Testament on the basis of its citations by modern evangelicals,

57:14

Matthew 23, 37 would have to be fundamentally changed because nobody can quote it right. It's amazing.

57:22

We'll hear that. We'll hear that. But anyways, going back to the issue here,

57:27

I felt that Mr. Comis tried to do Doug Wilson for the first five minutes and it didn't work.

57:34

When he talked about getting up in the morning and counting all five fingers just to remind him of the five points. Folks, you need to realize that's exactly what

57:40

Armenians think we do. They think we are nutcase cultists. So you don't start off affirming to them that you're a nutcase cultist.

57:49

I mean, I knew that this was facetious. I knew that. The problem is you haven't even made your case yet and you've got people in front of you, and the audience questions bore this out, who really think you're off base.

58:03

If you've only got 20 minutes, boy, how did you need to be focused? And I just,

58:08

I was very, very concerned about how that went. The opening statement was very polished.

58:15

It wasn't timed right. Had to rush at the end. You've got to make sure you can get your material in in the time period that you've got to present it.

58:23

But there was a fundamental difference between Mr. Comis when reading his presentation and Mr. Comis when doing interaction.

58:30

And I think the audience very much picked up on that. So I was, I sort of wondered, clearly

58:39

I think people have asked, well, who is this guy and why was he the one that was chosen to do this?

58:46

It's because there was some kind of personal relationship between Phil Fernandez and Chris Comis before this. I don't know what the background was.

58:52

I haven't bothered to ask. When I was told that the debate was going to be taking place because Rick Walston at Columbia Seminary did the moderating,

59:02

I said to Rick in an email, I said, hey, let Phil know if he wants to do any more debates on this subject, be glad to do it.

59:11

And if it had been something we could have fit in the schedule or something like that, I would have been happy to have

59:17

And even this topic, even though it would not be the way, I mean, what I would love to do is to debate

59:23

Phil on Molinism, debate Phil on Calvinism or Molinism, which is more biblical?

59:29

At least that's focused and you can focus upon text, you can get into some exegesis, you can do something meaningful there.

59:34

Well, I would argue a Molinist will never get into exegesis when it comes to Molinism because as William Lane Craig has pretty much admitted, there really isn't a biblical basis for it.

59:44

So it would be sort of hard to do that, but at least it would be more focused. And then we could look at maybe one or two points.

59:52

We could look at unconditional election or something like that as a single subject. But be that as it may, that was some of the problems.

01:00:02

That will come out as we listen to it. I want to play you just one section of Chris Kompas' opening to illustrate and this is what

01:00:10

I hope is going to be new and unique. We didn't play the Radio Free Geneva thing, but let's face it, we're pretty much discussing

01:00:17

Reform Theology at this point. I want to play one section as an illustration of hopefully what we can learn from this and Chris himself more than once talked about the debates going on amongst the

01:00:33

Reform for the past 10 years. Well, this is 2011, that takes us back to about 2001 and we have this thing called the

01:00:40

Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church Conference and we have federal visionism and that's what's being referred to.

01:00:49

That came up over and over again. There were two things in this debate. I lost count this morning unfortunately.

01:00:57

Sometimes when you're going around a corner, going down a hill, doing a dissent or something you don't have time to necessarily be listening to everything exactly as carefully as you'd like to and I lost track.

01:01:06

I was trying to count them. There were two phrases in this debate that were used constantly and never meaningfully defined, let alone challenged by the other side.

01:01:17

And that was covenantal election. I know what he means. I've debated Doug Wilson. I've debated his mentor.

01:01:23

I know what it means, but I can guarantee you almost nobody in the audience did. And prevenient grace.

01:01:31

I can't tell you how many times Phil Fernandez used the term prevenient grace. He was never once challenged to show this biblically.

01:01:38

Not once. In fact, I was asking folks beforehand, I said, um, folks, how many times does prevenient grace appear in the

01:01:47

Westminster Confession? I got the word back, um, it doesn't. And yet Chris Comas said, oh, there's lots in the

01:01:54

Westminster Confession about prevenient grace. And the problem was he was talking about God's grace that leads to regeneration and that is not anywhere near what

01:02:02

Phil Fernandez was talking about. He's talking about this grace is given to everybody. It frees their will. It doesn't regenerate them.

01:02:08

It's not salvific, but it's this, this, this mythical grace that's given to everybody.

01:02:14

It frees their will, makes them a neutral moral creature as they can make a choice, um, but it frees you from slavery to sin, but it doesn't regenerate you.

01:02:24

And it was, I did recall it was used six times by Phil in his opening statement. I don't know how many times after that.

01:02:32

It had to have been used at least 20 times in the debate. Never once challenged.

01:02:38

Not once. Uh, we will challenge it as we listen to the debate, but I want to play this section.

01:02:45

This is Chris Comas' comments on limited atonement. Now, those of you who listen to the program regularly know that when

01:02:56

I present limited atonement, I focus upon what? A biblical presentation of what the

01:03:05

Bible itself says atonement is and what Christ intended to do and what he accomplished in his death.

01:03:14

I go to Hebrews, I talk about what Christ accomplishes, the perfection of those for whom his offering is made, uh, and I connect this, because this is the

01:03:26

Hebrews argument, I connect it to his role as a high priest. For whom does he intercede?

01:03:33

Um, this is nothing new. This is John Owen. It's been going on a long, long, long time.

01:03:39

This is really how reformed people do it. At least those that I think have taken the time to, you know, do some reading.

01:03:49

And Chris Comas is a smart guy, so it's interesting to contrast the presentation here, and as you listen, you'll hear why.

01:04:00

It's because of federal visionism. So, uh, if we're ready, got the computer ready to go here, let's listen to what

01:04:07

Chris Comas had to say about limited atonement. There needs to be a second

01:04:13

Adam who can endure the flaming sword of God's wrath on our behalf. And that's exactly where Christ comes in. This is where the

01:04:19

L in tulip fits in nicely into the system. L is all about Jesus. So how are we going to make it back into the garden where the tree of life and the river of life and the very presence of God himself is found?

01:04:30

Well, as I think we've seen from the first two points of Calvinism, there's nothing we can offer to God, nothing we can bring to him, nothing we can do for him, nothing that would satisfy his unwillingness to let us into his presence dressed in the stinky, filthy rags that we've inherited from our first covenant head,

01:04:45

Adam. So we need a second covenant head, along with a second set of new, clean clothing. And this second covenant head is

01:04:50

Jesus Christ, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 -47. And the new clothing he gives us is the clothing we receive in baptism, as Paul says in Galatians 3 -27.

01:04:59

Jesus Christ was the only one who actually endured the fiery sword of God's judgment, and not only endured the fiery judgment of God, but did so in a way that made him triumphant and victorious over the judgment and wrath of God.

01:05:13

This is why James can say in the book of James that mercy triumphs over judgment. James 1 -13.

01:05:18

In the death of Christ, the mercy of God triumphed over the judgment of God. So Jesus is the second Adam, and as the second

01:05:24

Adam, he is the one who had to endure the fiery sword of God's judgment and wrath against us and against sin.

01:05:30

In other words, unlike the first Adam, who could not pass under the fiery judgment in order to get back into God's holy dwelling place, the second

01:05:38

Adam did. After Christ triumphed over sin and death on the cross, he proved that he was victorious by being resurrected and ascending to the right hand of the

01:05:47

Father in the highest heavens. So now Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is back now in the inner sanctuary and has total and complete access to all the power and glory and authority of his

01:05:58

Father. This is why Christ could tell his disciples at the Great Commission all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

01:06:05

In Matthew 28 -18. So what does this mean for the rest of the elect of God? What does this mean for the rest of us?

01:06:11

All those who have been called by the Father are now seated with Christ in the heavenly places. This is what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 1 -3 -6.

01:06:19

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

01:06:27

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he has made us accepted in the beloved.

01:06:44

So all those who have been chosen and called by the Father are also seated with Christ in the new garden of Eden at the

01:06:49

Father's right hand. So what does all this have to do with limiting or particularizing the atonement?

01:06:55

The atonement is limited in the sense that not all who are covenantally chosen are eternally chosen.

01:07:01

Not all who are covenantally called are eternally called. Or as Paul puts it in Romans 9 -6, they are not all

01:07:06

Israel who are of Israel. So although the atonement is unlimited in its power and efficacy to save all those whom the

01:07:13

Father has chosen in a son, it is not unlimited in how the Father applies this efficacy to all men.

01:07:19

In other words, the Father only applies the saving effects of the atonement to all those whom he has predestined to eternal life in a son.

01:07:27

But this should not be taken to mean that there is no application of the same death on the cross to those whom he has predestined to eternal death in his son.

01:07:35

Now let me stop right there because it's going by so fast that you may not catch what was just said.

01:07:42

I didn't catch it the first time through. Thankfully I caught it the second time through.

01:07:48

But I want you to hear this. Again, let me back it up just...

01:07:55

Okay, so there's those whom he has predestined to eternal life in his son.

01:08:11

And then... To those whom he has predestined to eternal death in his son.

01:08:20

To those whom he has predestined to eternal death in his son.

01:08:29

What does that mean? Was that a misstatement? I don't know if it was a misstatement because I remember asking in the midst of some arguments created by PadoBaptism in our chat channel a number of years ago.

01:08:48

I was asking about... We're talking about the nature of the New Covenant. And we're talking about the fact that Christ is the mediator of the

01:08:56

New Covenant. And what does Christ mediate to the members of the New Covenant?

01:09:03

Now, I cannot find anywhere in Scripture where Christ's work of mediation is anything other than salvific.

01:09:15

He is sin bearer. He is high priest. He is intercessor. He brings life. He perfects the whole nine yards.

01:09:23

Because I see a glorious consistency between the teaching of Hebrews 8 from the least of the greatest, their sins are forgiven.

01:09:31

That's the nature of the New Covenant. Just what it is. You have to absolutely violate the apologetic argument of Hebrews to get around that.

01:09:38

But given Christ's role then as mediator I was told...

01:09:46

I asked a question. If you believe that someone is in this covenant but is not one of the elect, their sins are not forgiven.

01:09:55

They do not know the Lord. Then what does Christ mediate for them? And I was told wrath. Christ mediates wrath.

01:10:06

And there's going to be an audience question on Hebrews 6. And neither of the answers given to the

01:10:13

Hebrews 6 passage would be anyone that I could possibly give. Because the one from the

01:10:19

Arminian perspective clearly is not going to be... well, interestingly enough on that subject,

01:10:26

Dr. Fernandez believes in eternal security. And I'm going to question why, given many of the statements that he makes, and especially in regards to certainty of the exegetical comments that he made

01:10:40

I just don't see how you can possibly do that. But be that as it may, we'll get to that later. But the response from Chris Comas, as a federal visionist was, oh yeah, these are people who are in the covenant.

01:10:54

And they're getting wrath. These are what the warning passages are all about. And so I had to ask myself the question, is that really was that a misstatement, predestined to wrath in his son?

01:11:14

I understand how Christ mediates salvation, forgiveness, redemption, grace, because of what he's done.

01:11:26

And I understand how he can be judge in the final day. But it's a massive confusion of categories to speak of Christ mediating wrath against covenant members.

01:11:44

But anyway, I just found that very And this is the place where I would disagree a bit with some of my

01:11:51

Calvinistic comrades. I do believe that the atonement has a dual effect and application.

01:11:57

The same God and Father uses the same death and resurrection of a son to affect both the salvation of the decreedly elect and the damnation of the decreedly reprobate.

01:12:07

In other words, I want to argue that the atonement has both a limited application and an unlimited application.

01:12:12

But regardless of which... Well, I have to ask a question. So, outside the death of Christ, the damned could not have been damned?

01:12:21

Is that what's being said? Because it sounded like that's what was being said. Outside the death of Christ, the elect could not have been saved.

01:12:27

I don't think anybody would argue with that. But it almost sounded like what was just being said was the damned could not be damned.

01:12:34

Now, I understand that the demonstration of God's condescension and kindness in Christ has universal aspects to it, but that's a whole different thing than talking about the specific satirological intention of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is what limited atonement,

01:12:55

I thought, was about. There was general agreement by both debaters that Calvin didn't believe any of this stuff, which

01:13:02

I will get into later on. But, now that I just started thinking about RTS, I went, oh, okay,

01:13:12

I see the connection there. All right, got that one. But anyway. In the case we make use of, the atonement always has particular application to each and every individual who has ever lived.

01:13:21

That is, the atonement will either give us eternal life or eternal death, just as the resurrection of Christ will be applied to all men without exception.

01:13:29

So, the sacrifice of Christ will either give us eternal life or eternal death.

01:13:36

I just want to go, really? Where scripturally do we ever see flowing from the death of Christ eternal death?

01:13:48

Isn't that what was already there from the Fall? Wasn't that already...

01:13:56

Anyway, I think you can see from just this amount of presentation, it's important to think about these things.

01:14:07

At least I'm willing to throw these things out here and get various people mad at me and talk about these things.

01:14:17

I think it helps in a discussion of the consistency issue as to who is being biblically consistent and recognizing that even

01:14:32

Reformed folks can have their traditions, and that the term Reformed needs to be defined functionally by where we're going and what we're saying.

01:14:42

Now, one of the problems is I didn't get to... I didn't get to, I just didn't get around to getting to cue up things here.

01:14:51

So you get to hear that. There we go.

01:14:59

So let's dive into Phil Fernandes, listen to his presentation, and go through the...

01:15:07

There wasn't a cross -examination either, which, again, and there was way too much audience questions, and as normal, people reading long texts of scriptures, and you know how audience questions are.

01:15:17

Audiences do not know what a question mark is. It's just the way it works, but let's listen to what

01:15:25

Phil Fernandes has to say. My good friend and brother in Christ, Chris Comus, for agreeing to debate me.

01:15:32

I'd also like to thank Grace Community Church for hosting this debate, and I pray that this debate will be educational rather than confrontational.

01:15:41

Tonight we are here to debate the question is five -point Calvinism biblical? My opponent would say yes.

01:15:48

I say yes. I actually accept total depravity, but with prevenient grace.

01:15:55

Let's start counting, okay? Can someone out there... Where's Algo? We need

01:16:01

Algo to count. Let's start counting the number of times prevenient grace is used in this debate, because we need to understand what it is and what its alleged biblical basis is, and of course my question all along is going to be, could you show me anyone in scripture that has been freed from the effects of sin?

01:16:29

They're no longer a slave to sin, and yet they don't believe in Christ.

01:16:35

They have not been regenerated. Show me these people. It must be, because evidently everybody gets prevenient grace.

01:16:42

It is universal. Everybody gets prevenient grace. Everyone's at a moral neutral point, and so I'm not sure who

01:16:49

Jesus is talking to in John 8 when he talks about slaves of sin, because these people would have had prevenient grace too, and therefore they're no longer slaves to sin.

01:16:57

Anyways, just to start the count, there's the first use of prevenient grace.

01:17:03

And then I say yes to the fifth point, perseverance of the saints. We will talk about that when it comes up, because I will try to remember,

01:17:12

I certainly on the ride numerous times thought to myself, what was just said would clearly militate against perseverance of the saints.

01:17:21

Oh, by the way, Chris Comus himself, in his opening, said that it was

01:17:28

Phil Fernandez who introduced him to Molinism. And so I'm not just coming up with something here that Phil Fernandez is a

01:17:36

Molinist. He will give a Molinistic perspective. He'll talk about God actuating certain worlds, and he'll use classical language, even though he sounds more like a classical

01:17:48

Arminian. Classical Arminians are not Molinists. That's a more modern thing, and we'll probably end up having to talk about Molinism a little bit more in defining it.

01:17:56

We've done it many times in the past, but we'll need to do it again, because it's becoming the real chic thing to turn

01:18:04

God into the great cosmic calculator, because that's what Molinism does. Molinism is a Roman Catholic lie.

01:18:11

Period. End of discussion. And we have discussed that many times.

01:18:17

We'll do it again. We can prove it historically. You can go on YouTube, go to my video channel, listen to the entire presentation

01:18:26

I did over in Southern California, right next to Biola on the errors of William Lane Craig's Molinism.

01:18:33

And I will quote extensively from Craig right in there, and you can find out that Molinism reduces

01:18:40

God to the great giant cosmic calculator, where he runs the possible worlds out there, and he comes up with the best he can.

01:18:51

And my, it's so easy to challenge that. But very, very few people do. It's becoming so chic.

01:18:56

I run into people all the time, well, I just sort of believe in middle knowledge. And I just want to go, really?

01:19:02

And how do you ground that? What? What's your grounding of middle knowledge?

01:19:07

Because the grounding objection is really one of the most serious objections. And most people, well,

01:19:12

I just heard William Lane Craig talk, yeah, but the grounding objection. How does God have knowledge of what any free creature would do, given certain circumstances, if God hasn't yet decreed to create the creature?

01:19:26

Because you see, it's God's decree that forms the creature that gives you, that makes the creature what the creature is until the creature is what the creature is, how can you know how the creature will act?

01:19:40

So what's your grounding in this middle knowledge? And I'm finding Reformed folks that are going, yeah, I sort of like that idea, you know, and I'm just like, um, okay.

01:19:49

Though I do not believe that a true Christian can lose their salvation, I reject the way the

01:19:54

Calvinists spell out the first four points if you take prevenient grace from total depravity.

01:20:00

Second time, prevenient grace. And I reject it as contrary to biblical teaching. As I said,

01:20:06

I do accept total depravity, but believe God frees our will through prevenient enabling grace.

01:20:12

Now, did you catch that? Because he's defining his terms here, I appreciate that. Prevenient grace is the freeing of the human will.

01:20:22

And so if, as far as I can understand it, and I've contacted

01:20:27

Dr. Fernandez, so I haven't heard back from him yet, let him know that I'm doing this, invite him on the program if you'd like to clarify these things,

01:20:32

I'll be fine, be happy to do that. It sounds like what he's saying is prevenient grace is universal.

01:20:38

Now, I would immediately ask the question, did he give prevenient grace to the

01:20:44

Amorites? I mean, he didn't send a prophet to them to tell them what they needed to do, but did he free their wills anyway, even though they then wouldn't know what to do with his free will?

01:20:53

Does everybody have prevenient grace? Is prevenient grace equally given to every person? These would have been some of the very first questions

01:21:03

I would have asked. They didn't get asked in this particular debate, which made it somewhat frustrating. I recognize

01:21:09

Calvinists as my brothers in Christ, but I believe the Bible teaches that Jesus desires all mankind to be saved, and that he died for every person.

01:21:18

However, God will not regenerate people against their will. God will not regenerate people against their will.

01:21:26

Their will, which has been freed by prevenient grace,

01:21:32

I would assume, because he does seemingly accept the necessity of prevenient grace, because after then the will is enslaved to sin.

01:21:42

So, now you have this non -enslaved will, but the will makes decisions based upon our nature, and what our nature presents to it.

01:21:55

And if the nature hasn't been changed, or hasn't been regeneration, then how can it be free? Is, again, a question that I would have asked.

01:22:04

God enables sinners to believe, but we sinners retain the ability to reject God's grace and remain lost.

01:22:12

I believe God chose the elect because he foreknew that we would believe given prevenient enabling grace.

01:22:30

He did not choose us to believe. I stand with non -Calvinists like Jacob Arminius, who did not oppose

01:22:39

Calvinism to promote or exalt human free will. Instead, he opposed

01:22:45

Calvinism to defend the goodness and justice of God. Arminius opposed the notion of an arbitrary

01:22:53

God who unconditionally elects some to be saved and unconditionally passes over others, leading them to suffer eternal damnation.

01:23:02

Now, of course, arbitrary is a loaded term. When used of mankind, it means there is no guiding principle.

01:23:10

I'm not sure how an ultimate being who created all things for his purpose and glory could ever be arbitrary at all, so I would object to that terminology.

01:23:20

Without ever having any chance of salvation. Now, the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity teaches that...

01:23:27

Now, let me stop. Without any chance for salvation, remember, from the Reformed perspective, there is no one who, outside of the grace of God, ever desires salvation to begin with.

01:23:39

Salvation is not a chance. It is not something God owes to give us a chance.

01:23:46

Alright? Grace and chance are two different concepts and things. Man has been so corrupted by the fall that no one would ever accept he is the

01:23:55

Savior. I agree that all humans are sinful and cannot save themselves, and I believe we are totally depraved.

01:24:02

I don't believe that Dr. Fernandez believes we're totally depraved. Because total depravity likewise includes total inability.

01:24:12

No one, you know, John 6, 44, no one is able to come to me unless the

01:24:17

Father sent me draws him. Now, he's going to quote John 12, 32. He's not going to ever attempt to make an exegetical connection or explain going backwards in John or any of the rest of that stuff, but he will quote it.

01:24:29

But he'll never explain how it is that the cross, which the Bible teaches is repulsive to the natural man, actually draws all men individually to Jesus.

01:24:40

But I also believe that through prevenient grace, that's number five, enables sinners to trust in Jesus for salvation.

01:24:50

Is that all sinners or just some sinners? Is it sinners only if other people are praying for it? These are questions that should have needed to be asked.

01:24:58

I do not believe in free will. Jesus said without him we can do nothing. John 15, 5.

01:25:04

John 15, 5 is specifically about the Christian life and abiding in Christ as a disciple. I don't think that's a proper application to a general statement of human will.

01:25:14

There are much clearer statements regarding human will, such as Romans chapter 8, that those who are in the flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God, which would mean prevenient grace has to take you out of being in the flesh, which would mean being the spirit, which is regeneration, but that's the very thing that he denies actually takes place.

01:25:31

But I believe that God sets the human will free to accept his salvation offer.

01:25:37

Still, man retains the ability to resist God's grace. The Calvinist doctrine of total depravity teaches that fallen man is so corrupt that God must regenerate, make a person born again, must regenerate a person first before a person can believe.

01:25:55

As Romans chapter 8, just quoted it, says, those who are in the flesh, what are their capacities?

01:26:01

Are they able to do what is pleasing to God, yes or no? The answer is no. Is faith and repentance toward Christ pleasing to God?

01:26:08

Of course it is. So something has to change. Their nature has to be changed. Something radical has to take place.

01:26:15

A heart of stone has to be taken out, a heart of flesh given. That's what saving faith is. And that's one of the main problems that I have with Dr.

01:26:20

Fernandez's position at this point, is because he's going to tell us he believes once saved, always saved. But the problem is, you see, the only meaningful foundation for believing that saving faith will abide is that saving faith is the work of the

01:26:34

Holy Spirit in the heart of Christ elect. I mean, when Jesus said, I will in no wise cast out the one coming to me in John 6 .37,

01:26:42

what's the first part of the verse? All that the Father gives me will come to me. That's election. Result?

01:26:48

Eternal security. Perseverance of the saints. But there is simply no way to say that, well,

01:26:53

I'm the one that came up with this faith. I'm the one that created this faith, that everyone has the capability of coming up with this faith.

01:27:01

But it's not a divine work, but it will never fail. Because that becomes the basis then upon which salvation is based, is this humanly derived faith, rather than the work of the

01:27:13

Holy Spirit that brings regeneration. And now it is the natural outflowing of the changed creature to cling to Jesus Christ.

01:27:19

And that's why the saints persevere. This regeneration precedes faith, defines true

01:27:26

Calvinism. I would agree with that. The problem is, and I know that the music should be coming up any second now, right?

01:27:35

We're winging it here. We normally don't do a 90 -minute program. I agree with that, but one of the things that concerns me, and we'll pick up at this point when we continue tomorrow on the program, one of the things that concerns me is that none of the texts that Reformed authors have used to present the concept of regeneration preceding faith will be addressed in this debate.

01:28:00

None. Not a one of them. First John 5? Nope. No mention of it. And the classical errors documented, as I did, in the

01:28:09

Potter's Freedom in regards to Norman Geisler, the classical errors of confusing different elements of salvation, justification, sanctification, adoption, salvation as a general thing, with regeneration itself, will be repeated many, many times in the course of this debate.

01:28:28

So, there's the start to that. Started two things. Got to continue them on. 90 minutes.

01:28:35

We'll do another 90 minutes tomorrow as well. We'll continue responding to our email correspondence.

01:28:43

And I'm not sure if we'll be continuing this or something else in the second half. We'll see tomorrow how it goes. But it's going to be lots of stuff this week.

01:28:51

Hopefully very important stuff. Useful stuff to you. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll blog the exact time.

01:28:56

Rich will help you on the live stream as well. We'll see you then. God bless. God bless. God bless.

01:29:56

God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. You can also find us on the world wide web at AOMin .org.

01:30:03

That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.