Dave Hunt's book "What Love is This?" Examined Pt. 2

Alpha & Omega Ministries

10 views

May 11, 2002

Comments are disabled.

Response to Zakir Naik on the Deen Show Pt. 3

00:00: Good afternoon and welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is James White and we are live this week.
00:06: Last week I had made some reference to the fact that possibly we wouldn't be live this week but my trip out of town was cancelled and so we are here and will be for the foreseeable future at least until a long time when we're gone during the month of July.
00:24: So we've got some ideas as to what we're going to be doing the next number of weeks and we will be live here on the
00:32: Dividing Line. Now two things today, I've got well a couple of different topics that we could address but two things we will be addressing and we'll be listening to some comments from Roman Catholic apologist
00:46: Tim Staples on the program today and responding to those. And yes
00:51: I have continued looking at Dave Hunt's new book called What Love Is This?
00:56: In fact it's been difficult not to. I had received it, the actual copy of it,
01:02: I'd actually seen it first in St. Louis at the Personal Freedom Outreach Conference on Discernment.
01:09: Mr. Hunt had a single copy on his table and had a sign up sheet for people who would pay for it then and then have it shipped to them.
01:18: And I had leafed through that one, only had a few moments, I looked up some specific passages.
01:24: I had had it on order for quite some time, had ordered it in fact in December of last year and it finally arrived last week.
01:33: Didn't have a lot of time before the program to look up more things other than just many of the comments that he made concerning me.
01:41: There are many references to the Potter's Freedom in the book and so I was working at grabbing those and so last week when we were looking at passages that was based on a very brief review of the book.
01:51: I've now had more time and absolutely amazing the things that I have discovered.
01:59: For example, in looking through the materials I found on page 306, those of you who have the book, these words.
02:09: The gospel of God's grace which seemingly is offered to whosoever will believe must be imposed and that only upon those who
02:16: God has elected. As White explains, this is why irresistible grace is an absolute necessity.
02:22: Then he quotes from the Potter's Freedom, unregenerate man is fully capable of understanding the facts of the gospel.
02:29: He is simply incapable due to his corruption and enmity to submit himself to that gospel.
02:36: To which Mr. Hunt then responds, it's on page 306, this is a terrible attack upon the gospel, rendering powerless what
02:45: Paul declares is the power of God and the salvation, Romans 116. And this is what
02:50: White calls the reformed position. Now I must admit if I had run into the numerous assertions that I engage not only in scripture twisting but in isogetical insertion of foreign elements into the
03:04: Bible and then here that I engage in a terrible attack upon the gospel, that I render powerless the gospel of Jesus Christ, I'm not sure that the conversations that I had with Mr.
03:16: Hunt would have been quite as quiet as they turned out to be. In fact,
03:22: I have a hard time thinking about the fact that we sat at a dinner and there was not a word of warning.
03:31: I mean if I had written stuff like this about somebody, I think I would have raised those issues and talked about them. But those things didn't happen and so later in the program today we're going to continue looking at what love is this,
03:44: Calvinism's misrepresentation of God, specifically looking at two things and that is Dave Hunt's misrepresentation of Calvinism and specifically of Charles Haddon's Spurge and I think you'll find that most interesting.
03:54: I mentioned it last week but now I have the full quotes to read to you as well as the fact that there is an entire chapter found in the, toward the back of what love is this, an entire chapter, chapter 20, which is
04:11: Dave Hunt's, and I'm not trying to be unkind here, but desperate attempt to deal with John chapter 6 and I say it's desperate because once you read it you will see it's filled with special pleading, it's filled with emotionalism, and it's filled with rank errors on the meanings of words, the grammar of the
04:31: Greek text and everything else. It is truly an astounding example of how very, very poor
04:38: Dave Hunt is as far as his ability to engage in exegetical research and in his study of history and in argumentation in total.
04:50: It's truly amazing, we'll try to spend some time looking at that and if you don't catch all of it or if we don't have time to look at everything today, then
04:59: I will be posting on the website an open letter to Dave Hunt and I will be discussing in that letter these issues in significantly more detail than I have opportunity to do here on the program and I provide references and all sorts of things like that.
05:23: I would like to have that open letter done this weekend if I can, but I simply cannot promise that I will do so because generally what's going on is as I look more and more at the book and provide further responses to the book,
05:40: I find more and more things that need to have response and I'm trying to resist the temptation, but I'm only human.
05:46: So anyways, we will be looking at that. But before we do that, since we talked about it last week, the book last week,
05:53: I want to address some other subjects and in essence, we got a,
05:59: I don't remember if it was a phone call, I think it was a phone call, maybe it was an email, one of the two, we were contacted by someone who noted that in the
06:05: May 7th program of Catholic Answers Live, an announcement was made and so I went to the, it was an email, okay thank you,
06:14: I went to the Catholic Answers Live website and began listening and lo and behold, who was the guest apologist on that particular date but Tim Staples.
06:29: Now those of you who do not know Tim Staples, I have debated Mr. Staples twice, once in I believe it was 1998, both of these were in Fullerton, California, that was on the subject of soul scripture the second time, in 2000 on the subject of the papacy and specifically papal infallibility.
06:52: We have those debates available, if you would like to avail yourself of them, one of those is on straightgate .com
07:00: as well if you want to go over there and listen to that. Anyways, Mr. Staples and I have also done the
07:05: Bible Answer Man many, many times, actually only twice but we did multiple hours each time and so we know each other pretty well.
07:15: During the course of listening to the program, the first thing that I found very interesting was Mr. Staples addressing the subject of predestination and election and the reason
07:28: I'm raising this is I know that one of our favorite callers, who let me see here is not in channel at the moment anyways, maybe he's dispensing burgers and fries somewhere if you know what
07:41: I mean. Yes, I think you're correct Spencer, I think it was 1996, I was wondering, it was about four years between the two of them, so probably 1996.
07:52: Anyways, this particular caller has raised the possibility of Mr. Staples and I debating again in the
07:59: Southern California area. I had said after the last debate, I'm just not going to do it again because Mr.
08:06: Staples cannot be trusted to behave properly and it is very clear that St.
08:13: Joseph Catholic Communications cannot be trusted if they are in charge of the recording of the event.
08:22: The reasons for this are listed on our website but in essence, we were promised if videotapes were made, we'd receive copies, videotapes were made, we refused the copies,
08:32: I imagine they've probably been destroyed for all I know of the last debate and also Mr.
08:37: Staples simply refused to follow the rules and the moderator of the debate,
08:43: Jerry Usher, who is the host of Catholic Answers Live, seemed utterly powerless to stop
08:48: Mr. Staples or do anything about it. In fact, I was thinking this morning, every time there has been a debate that went
08:54: South in the sense of people misbehaving, it was due to the fact that a
09:02: Roman Catholic moderator refused to do anything. As I thought back,
09:09: I remember the very first debate I did with Jerry Matitix. He did not mention the subject of the debate for the first 14 of his 20 minutes.
09:18: And who was the moderator of that debate? Patrick Madrid. Art Sippo. I get up to give my presentation,
09:25: Art Sippo leaves and goes and gets a Coke. Because Art Sippo doesn't need to hear what any Protestant has to say because he knows much more about anything than a
09:32: Protestant could ever know anyhow. And therefore, his behavior was never rebuked either. And who was the moderator of that one?
09:38: Patrick Madrid. And Tim Staples gets up during the question and answer time in Fullerton in 2000 and takes the first few minutes of his time to be asking questions to respond to what
09:52: I had said at the previous part of the debate. And there stands Mr. Usher doing nothing. So what
09:58: I'm getting to is what I would like to have take place is, here's my idea.
10:07: Our caller, Zorro, as we call him affectionately in Channel Johnny, has said he would like to try to arrange another debate with Mr.
10:16: Staples, possibly a two -on -two debate between myself and Eric Stenson versus Mr. Staples and somebody else, and that's fine.
10:26: And in the process, though, these are the things I'd like to lay down as the issues.
10:32: First of all, we would not have a Roman Catholic moderator, we would have a moderator who actually moderates and would be empowered to enforce the rules of debate,
10:40: A. B, St. Joseph's Communications has nothing to do with this. They will not be there.
10:46: They will not have any control over anything that happens because they cannot be trusted. They have lost all credibility as an organization because they will say one thing and do something else.
10:56: We've documented that. There's no question about that. Therefore they cannot have anything to do with it. If they'd like to have the tapes and distribute them later, we would be more than happy to provide them to them because, unlike St.
11:06: Joseph's, we do provide tapes to those people that we promise to provide them to. So, with those caveats, that is, a moderator who is instructed beforehand that Mr.
11:20: Staples likes to break the rules of debate, therefore he needs to be held in check, and St. Joseph's Communications is, you know, they can come and sit in the audience they'd like, but they have nothing to do with the debate, there's two topics that I would be more than happy to debate
11:34: Mr. Staples on in Southern California. One is predestination election. And I'm going to play you a clip here in a moment with his comments about this subject, and you'll see why.
11:46: One of the reasons why is back when I was preparing for the last debate with him, in a tape series entitled
11:57: Infallibility vs. Impeccability, which is published by St. Joseph's Communications, tape one, second side, you can go and look at this yourself.
12:08: You will hear Mr. Staples say the following, now remember, and a lot of folks on the channel love to imitate
12:14: Tim Staples, because they'll say, folks, folks, folks, listen to me folks, because Mr.
12:20: Staples says that a lot, but anyways, you can go and listen to this, and he's talking to the quote -unquote hometown crowd, so Tim gets very, very animated in regards to having these kinds of conversations when he's talking to the home crowd.
12:34: And so here's, I'm just going to read you exactly what he said. I typed this out at the time,
12:39: I didn't have time to go find it on the tape and then digitize it and do all the rest of the stuff, but you can find it. Here's what he said.
12:46: On the second side, tape one, you do have some Protestants who tend toward that sort of schizophrenic understanding of the human person, you know, it's not me that sins, it's my body.
12:56: If you have ever heard of the hyper -Calvinist movement, or the once -saved -always -saved people that will say, oh,
13:03: I'm saved, my body over there just messes up, but I'm fine. Then he laughs and says, you know, that's not biblical, folks.
13:11: There's no biblical thing for that. It's a misinterpretation of Romans chapter 7, but that's another story.
13:17: So there's Mr. Staples, and as you're going to hear, he just finished writing an article for Envoy magazine on the subject of predestination, which
13:28: I, remember, Tim's a graduate of the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College, so that will explain something about why he would come up with the hyper -Calvinists, or once -saved -always -saved people, they're the same ones, and I mean,
13:45: I just, anyways. It would be enjoyable to debate the subject of predestination and election, and I will be glad to defend the thesis that God, from eternity past, has elected a specific group known as the elect unto salvation, and so I would be glad to do that.
14:05: The other thing would be the Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption of Mary.
14:11: Mr. Staples likes to speak much upon the Marian doctrines, and so I would be very happy to engage him on that, too.
14:19: So I would be defending in one, and he would be defending in the other, and so I would be more than happy to do that if, however, we have a moderator who will actually moderate the debate, and if we can control
14:37: Mr. Staples, and also if St. Joseph Communications is not involved. Without that, then it's not going to happen, because we can't trust
14:45: St. Joseph, and if we have a moderator who cannot control Mr. Staples, then we're going to have the same problems we had before.
14:52: So those are the suggestions. Now, here is the first call that got me thinking about this, and of course we've been thinking about it ever since Johnny suggested,
15:01: I haven't heard anything back from him, but anyways, here's the call. And this ties in right into James Akin's book, so I guess
15:11: I should get that next, and I don't mean to sound pretentious when I ask this, but what is, it's kind of like a theology final, can you compare and contrast the
15:19: Thomist versus the Molinist plans of predestination?
15:25: Sure, and that's in two minutes or less, right? I guess, I don't know. Well, basically
15:31: I think the key is in this discussion on predestination, in fact I just wrote an article for Envoy Magazine about predestination, and I looked into this quite a bit.
15:41: I think the Catechism in paragraph 600, just 600 through 604 right there, does a tremendous job at giving us a synopsis of the truth concerning predestination.
15:53: There is no doubt a certain mystery to predestination, but basically what the
16:00: Church has said, no matter which position you hold to, be it the Molinist or Thomistic or the position of Suarez, the
16:08: Franciscan, and there are some basic differences here, we cannot deny, we cannot go too far in one direction to where we would deny the free will of man in this process of salvation that we're in, and we cannot go too far the other way and deny the necessity of grace.
16:28: And historically this has been, if you read the writings of St. Augustine, where the Church has always been doing the balancing act between the heresies of, for example, the
16:38: Manichaeans who taught, and Augustine deals with them, who taught a strict sort of fatalism or predestination, to the other end of the spectrum that Augustine dealt with, the
16:49: Pelagians who taught that grace is not necessary. Both are heresies.
16:54: What we believe as Catholics is that God gives sufficient grace, as Titus 2 .11
16:59: says in Sacred Scripture, the grace of God that brings salvation at the pier to all men, all men have received and will receive sufficient grace to be saved, we must, and here's where we get into the disagreement with our
17:15: Calvinist friends, that we must cooperate actively with the grace of God that God gives to us, and if we choose to cooperate with that grace, we will be saved.
17:27: If not, we will be damned. Now, the Thomas, now if you've ever read, and I recommend it,
17:36: The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Luther Gott, he gives a pretty good little synopsis here on page 243 of his book
17:44: Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, and basically without reading his words would say that the Thomas position emphasizes the idea of efficacious grace, that God gives efficacious grace to men before their cooperation with that grace.
18:04: The Molinists emphasize the fact that God sees beforehand how men would freely react to various orders of grace, and it's in light of that knowledge that he communicates graces.
18:20: He knows infallibly, we would say in advance, what use the individual will make of the grace bestowed on him, and therefore he gives graces accordingly.
18:33: Now both positions can be held by Catholics. I believe that there's a danger in both positions if you go too far in the
18:43: Molinist position to exclude grace and the necessity of, or then there are those who use
18:50: St. Thomas Aquinas and go too far, and I don't believe St. Thomas did this, but they go too far and have
18:57: God choosing arbitrarily, okay, I'm going to give you efficacious grace, and I'm not going to give you efficacious grace.
19:04: There has to be, in order for it to be orthodox, there has to be a sense in which we say that man, as St.
19:12: Augustine says, he will not save us without us, without our cooperation, and I think that's the real key for us.
19:21: Does that help, Eric? Kind of, I guess. If you want to take a look at this,
19:27: Fr. William Most has a book where he goes into great detail on this issue of predestination.
19:32: If you want a shorter synopsis, I would say Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott does a good job, and again, get a hold of the
19:41: Catechism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church does just a fantastic job. Now is the book by Garrigou -Lagrange too thick for somebody without a degree or not?
19:52: I'm sorry, can you speak up? He asked if there's a book by Fr. Garrigou -Lagrange, if that would be perhaps too thick for someone
20:00: What did you say, Eric, without a degree in Theology? Yeah, actually, I think that Fr. William Most's book is really thick as well.
20:08: I really believe that in the wisdom of the Church, when the battle was heated between the
20:15: Jesuits, of course, that teach the Marlinist position, and the Dominicans, basically the
20:20: Pope told both sides to shut up, and the Church has given us the parameters of Orthodoxy that we have to acknowledge free will, and we have to acknowledge the necessity of God's grace.
20:35: I believe that both sides, when you read the Dominican position, you see grace, you see the glory of God's grace, and His power, and the necessity of, and our complete impotence to get ourselves to Heaven apart from God's grace.
20:49: When you read the Marlinist position, you see the glory of man, and the glory of our free will, and the dignity we have as human beings, human persons created in the image and likeness of God, we must freely choose to cooperate.
21:05: With the Marlinist position as well, you see, you know, sometimes, I've heard it explained this way before, that the
21:11: Marlinist position kind of has us kind of like a football being kicked around on a field, that God moves masterfully all the pieces into place, though we're absolutely free to choose one way or the other,
21:25: God, you know, at some point gives us an offer we can't refuse. Gives us an offer we can't refuse, the glory of the free will of man, etc.,
21:35: etc., etc. I hope you listen to that, because, you know, this whole emphasis that we just heard in Tim Staples and his
21:44: Roman Catholic response, which, you know, there's a bunch of things that immediately strike the mind that you want to address, but the whole emphasis is found there, is the very same emphasis that is found in Dave Hunt's book.
21:57: And that's what I tried to explain to Mr. Hunt almost two years ago now, is that on the issue of the nature of grace and the will of man, he and Rome stand side by side against the
22:10: Reformers. He just absolutely refused to accept that, he simply would not allow that point to stand, but he had nothing he could say to refuse, to refute what
22:20: I had said. When you hear, you kept hearing Mr. Staples say, to be
22:26: Orthodox, that is Roman Catholic Orthodox, you must affirm the necessity of grace.
22:32: And how many times have those of you who've listened to The Dividing Line over the years heard me say, the issue has never ever been the necessity of grace, the issue has always been the sufficiency of grace.
22:47: And when it comes to that issue, the non -Reformed Protestant who rejects the electing grace of God, the deadness of man and sin, the doctrines of grace as we call them, that individual stands shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with the
23:06: Roman Catholic. Because the issue is the sufficiency of grace.
23:13: And you just heard it, you just heard it very clearly, well we have to be Orthodox, we have to say that grace is necessary, but we then, to be
23:21: Orthodox, must limit that grace to being able to accomplish only what the will of man allows it to accomplish.
23:31: We must limit God's grace to that which man will allow it to be.
23:40: It cannot be free, it cannot be sovereign, it has to be given to everybody, and then man chooses what he's going to do with it.
23:50: We just heard Mr. Staples saying that, but is that not exactly what many quote -unquote
23:55: Protestants say today? And then we wonder why that section of Protestantism cannot produce a meaningful and challenging apologetic against Roman Catholicism?
24:09: It's because on the very issue of the Gospel, they are standing side by side with them.
24:18: That becomes the issue. Now it's fascinating as well, it's hard to not chuckle just a little bit.
24:27: Think with me just for a moment. Roman Catholic apologists are constantly asserting the unity that is theirs because the clarity of the teachings of the
24:39: Magisterium, the Magisterium can explain God's truth, and that's why we don't believe in Sola Scriptura, as the
24:47: Bible alone can't do that, and we have the clarity of the Magisterium, and that's why we have such unity, is that we're not like you
24:55: Protestants, we're not left with just a man and the Bible, the paper
25:00: Pope out in the woods, etc., etc., etc., I mean, we've all heard it over and over again, if we've ever tried to talk with Roman Catholics to any extent of time at all.
25:09: Just last night I was waiting for someone to come in on another network so I could discuss something with them, and there was a fellow with the nick of Pius XII in Channel 1, oh my goodness, it was just the same canned statements over and over and over again, just unbelievable.
25:27: But anyways, in talking to this guy, same thing, well,
25:34: Sola Scriptura was not the only thing, it was never heard of before, Luther, and you people have no idea what you can possibly believe because no one can agree without the teaching
25:43: Magisterium, etc., etc., etc., etc. Well, here you can certainly find unanimity amongst
25:52: Roman Catholics on certain issues. I mean, it's pretty clear what a Roman Catholic has to believe about such tremendously central issues as the bodily assumption of Mary, or the immaculate conception.
26:06: I mean, you can get right down to the exact level of exactly how the grace of Christ was applied to Mary in a way before her, so she does not contract the stain of original sin, it's a preemptive application,
26:30: I mean, you can get really specific, I mean, the Magisterium can get very, very specific when it wants to.
26:37: But did you notice something in listening to that entire section from Mr.
26:43: Staples? For some reason, while Rome can get very specific on things about Mary, all the
26:51: Roman Pope can do is tell the Jesuits and the Dominicans to shut up! On what?
26:58: On the very nature of grace! I mean, Roman Catholics can believe absolutely positively contradictory things.
27:07: You can be a Mullinist and believe that God has middle knowledge, and don't ask me how in the world, maybe
27:13: I missed it, but did he manage to go through a whole discussion of Mullinism without mentioning middle knowledge?
27:19: But God can have middle knowledge, and God can absolutely micromanage the entirety of time while allegedly doing the whole thing just so he can preserve quote -unquote free will, or you can completely reject that, you can believe something almost 180 degrees different.
27:37: And Rome can't tell you what the truth is. Now folks, think about it. How much more of scriptural revelation is on the subject of the nature of God's grace and His sovereignty over time than on the
27:48: Immaculate Conception? That should tell you a little something about Roman Catholic epistemology and how it just doesn't work.
27:58: Well, we've got another clip to play, but we're going to take our break first, and when we come back, we will listen a little bit more about Tim Staples, respond to something he said, and then move on with What Love Is This?
28:10: by Dave Hunt. Calvinism's misrepresentation of God? Well then why is Dave Hunt misrepresenting
28:15: Charles Haddon Spurgeon and myself? We'll find out right after this. And welcome back to The Budding Line.
28:28: My name is James White, and we are talking about a bunch of different things today. We were listening to a little section from the
28:34: May 7th Catholic Answers Live program. The reason I was listening to the program was not, however, because of a caller talking about Mullinism and middle knowledge and predestination or things like that.
28:47: Instead, it was about a caller later on, and some comments were made there, and here is that caller.
28:54: Next up would be Diane from Michigan. Hi, Diane. Hi, how are you guys doing tonight? Great. That's good.
29:00: I have a quick question. I've been really touched this Easter season by the Holy Spirit deeper than ever before, and I'm worried about my husband and how he believes in faith.
29:14: He's very open to let me believe what I want to believe, and we're raising the kids Catholic and doing everything.
29:20: They're four and six. Yes. But I'm really worried about him and his salvation, and how do
29:27: I get it across to him what he needs to believe, but without evangelizing to him and turning it off?
29:36: Do I just need to pray the rosary to Mary for that, and to God? Not pray to Mary, but pray with Mary?
29:43: Absolutely. I tell you, I have so many friends that are in your position.
29:51: In fact, you remind me of a very good friend, Jerry. I think you know her. Her name is Patty Bonds. Oh, yes.
29:57: She's going to be on the program in July. That's right. She told me about that. I just talked with her the other day, and when you hear her story, what a blessing it is.
30:06: It so much reminded me of mine. When I converted, I want to tell you, my family thought
30:13: I was nuts. They thought I was just demonized, and now my whole family, my three older brothers are
30:21: Catholic, my one brother is a priest, my mother, my father, my sister -in -law, my nephews.
30:27: It's just been incredible. Patty Bonds tells her story of how, when she converted, and her brother is a very famous anti -Catholic apologist,
30:36: James White, who was, let's just say, beside himself when
30:42: Patty converted, and Patty experienced incredible persecution from her husband, from her children, and everything.
30:50: Well, God has just done a miracle in her family. In a matter of a year, her husband now has come in the church, and two of her three children have come in the church.
31:01: It's just a miracle, and I'll tell you, she attributes it to adoration of the
31:06: Blessed Sacrament. She even invited one of her children to come and sit in the presence of our
31:12: Lord. We cannot underestimate the power of prayer, offering rosaries, offering masses, and God will do the work.
31:22: Well, there you have the assertion from Mr. Staples, and I found it absolutely fascinating.
31:28: This is the first time I had heard that Patty Bonds is going to be on Catholic Answers Live. And of course, it makes me sit back and think, why would that be?
31:37: Now, I understand the coming home network and things like that.
31:43: I understand, I guess, that. But I thought Catholic Answers Live was a Catholic apologetics program.
31:50: What would someone who has never been involved in apologetics, someone who was not involved with this ministry, of course, or really did not have any knowledge of apologetic issues on this subject prior to her conversion, why do you think they would like to have
32:06: Patty Bonds on their program? Well, I think all of you know exactly why.
32:13: Let's think about it. Who is with Catholic Answers? Well, we have Carl Keating.
32:19: Carl Keating, the man who, back in the 80s, published tracts that encouraged Catholics to challenge, quote -unquote, anti -Catholics.
32:27: That's the term that they use. It's a term of disrespect. They refuse to respect those on the other side. As you heard,
32:33: Mr. Staples refuses to do so. I refer to him, of course, as a Catholic apologist,
32:38: Roman Catholic apologist, and he refers to me as an anti -Catholic apologist. I'm not a Protestant apologist or Reformed apologist, and of course we've discussed that before, but they continue.
32:47: They aren't concerned about issues of respect. But anyways, Mr. Keating would encourage, in his published tracts from Catholic Answers, which he started,
32:58: Catholics to challenge anyone who would speak out against the Roman Catholic Church and their community to engage in debates.
33:06: Except Mr. Keating himself will no longer do that, at least against me. He's had a standing challenge since August of 1990, and that's about, what, almost 12 years ago now, to engage in debates, and he will not do so.
33:24: Then we have James Aiken, who has at least twice said that he would debate, and then backed out of those debates.
33:34: And we have Jerry Usher, who was the moderator of the debate with Tim Staples. Now why would
33:41: Catholic Answers, which, who will not do what they challenged people to do before, and engage in debates on these subjects, why do you think they would have my older sister, with whom
33:53: I've had very little contact for quite some time, have not seen physically for a number of years, actually, why do you think they'd have her on the program?
34:02: Now those of you who've listened to the program over the past number of months know that back when, back in February, when
34:10: Mrs. Bonds appeared on the Coming Home Network, we did a program, there's an article on our website that talks about that whole situation, and it's a sad situation, that is sad that people would, in essence, be using her in this way.
34:28: There's no reason for them to do so, and the very fact that they would do so demonstrates the bankruptcy of their apologetic to begin with.
34:34: But now, now going to Catholic Answers Live, fascinating, fascinating indeed.
34:41: Now Mr. Staples said that I was beside myself. Actually, if you would talk to the first few people that I talked to, when
34:49: I was informed of this, I was informed of this while I was in Florida, my wife called me, and later that evening
34:56: I called my parents. And I'll tell you the same thing. They were surprised that I wasn't.
35:04: That is, my wife will tell you and my parents will tell you, I said, look, I'm not surprised this at all.
35:10: What do you mean you're not surprised? Look, Patty's gone through all sorts of these new religious insights.
35:17: It's been four or five years since the last one, so I'm not surprised by this. I am, to describe me as beside myself is simply ridiculous.
35:28: You could never document that, either from the way I responded to it. I wrote to her in email, and that's when
35:35: I found out that she had anonymously contacted me, but she had never talked to me about these things, didn't pick up the phone, anything like that.
35:42: And so a lot of people were surprised. Those who, you know, in my family and those close to me were surprised that I was like, yeah, well, you know, it's exactly, you know, it doesn't surprise me a whole lot.
35:54: And in fact, I'll tell you right now, I won't be surprised when it happens again. I'm not gonna be surprised in the future when it happens again.
36:03: So to describe myself as beside myself is simply a lie. It's inaccurate. Of course, Tim Stables wouldn't know.
36:11: And so he's going on second hand information. He doesn't verify his sources. And obviously, given that they are going to have
36:19: Patty Bonds on the program, they don't care. This is just a way without having to face me in public and give me equal time.
36:26: This is a way that they can take shots at me, which Catholic Answers does all the time anyways.
36:32: They've done it for a long time. This is the same organization, folks, that has quoted Tex Mars as being accurate, as long as he attacks me.
36:40: Okay, there's no integrity here at all. There never has been. But shouldn't be surprising now.
36:47: I hate to say I told you so, but I did tell you so. That is, I said to my sister, there is a period of time.
36:57: And again, we haven't spoken. We've only exchanged emails and that always gets end up ends up being cut off from her side.
37:03: When I challenge her, when I when I show her things, you know, you're just so angry. You know, in other words, if you show her anything, you're angry.
37:09: That happens very, very often with people who've converted to a religion and they don't know how to defend that religion and have to depend upon others to do so.
37:19: But I had said in one of my emails, and I've kept all of them, all this stuff is is far too easy to document if the need exists to do so.
37:29: But I said to her, I said, your handlers are not going to allow you to remain in anonymity.
37:36: They simply are not going to allow it. Initially, she said, look, I don't want to I don't want to be out front.
37:41: I don't want to do stuff. I said, they're not going to allow it. They're going to want to utilize your name, your connection, and they're going to put pressure upon you to tell your story and to enhance that story and to allegedly know more and more and more when you converted than you actually did.
38:02: And they're simply not going to allow you to be quiet. And once they're done with you and once there is there's no longer any value to be derived, whether the story becomes old, they'll discard you just as quickly as they picked you up.
38:19: That's all there is to it. And it seems that that's exactly what's going on.
38:26: So coming in July, I find it interesting is July. I don't know why that is.
38:31: Maybe it's connected to the fact that we've got a major debate in July on Long Island where I will be debating
38:38: Patrick Madrid on the subject of the veneration of saints, but the communion of saints, as Roman Catholics like to call it.
38:46: But maybe that's a connection. Maybe there's no connection at all. Do not know. Not really relevant.
38:51: But it is very sad that an organization which has consistently turned down challenges to debate, which calls itself an apologetics organization, including debates in San Diego, where they would not even have to have to travel whatsoever, that that organization would be, in essence, using someone who has nothing to say in the field of apologetics at all.
39:14: It's sad. I think it says much about those who would allow that kind of thing to take place.
39:19: But it's pretty much what we expected. And we'll respond to it when that takes place.
39:27: Now, back to the subject of what love is this? Calvinism's misrepresentation of God.
39:35: It is interesting. Last weekend, last Saturday, Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Seminary debated
39:42: Dave Hunt on the subject of particular redemption. I asked Dr. Piper's assistant to give me a review of the debate, and it was, in his words, exactly what
39:53: I would expect it to be. It was basically what we saw in the radio program that we did with Mr.
39:59: Hunt, and that is, the Reformed side gives an exegetical presentation explaining the necessity of particular redemption, the finished work of Christ, etc.,
40:10: and Mr. Hunt has a canned anti -Calvinist speech, and basically relies upon shock factor, that being the idea, oh, my goodness, listen to what
40:21: Calvin said. This violates our traditions. Now, of course, he'd never say traditions, because as we played last week,
40:29: Mr. Hunt doesn't believe he has any. Mr. Hunt said on the radio with me,
40:39: I do not have any traditions, and as I said to him,
40:44: Dave, the person who is the most enslaved to his traditions is the person who thinks he doesn't have any, and that's the case here, and I haven't gotten to hear the debate yet.
40:57: The tapes are going to be made available, and I'm looking forward to hearing it.
41:02: Of course, I'm looking forward to hearing the tapes of my own debate with George Bryson on that subject. I haven't arrived yet.
41:08: I'm getting a little bit concerned about that, but hopefully we'll get to see them this week.
41:14: But anyways, as I mentioned at the beginning of the program, as I started going through this book,
41:19: I discovered that it was considerably more ad hominem filled than I had realized.
41:25: It's 436 pages long, at least, let's give them benefit of one thing, there's a lot of writing in here.
41:32: Now, there's a lot of repetition, too, and I'm thankful for that. I do not believe that my editors at Bethany House would have ever allowed the kind of rhetoric and the kind of gross misrepresentation that appears on the pages of What Love Is This into print.
41:56: Evidently, the editors at Loyal are not as loyal to the truth as the editors that I would have working on my material.
42:06: It just simply wouldn't end up in print. It wouldn't end up in print because of the level of ad hominem, and it would not end up in print because the level of misrepresentation.
42:19: Now, let me give you an example. Last week, I mentioned this to you, but I did not have the quotes that I needed to have to give you the full flavor, shall we say, of the misrepresentation that Mr.
42:38: Hunt provides in regards to Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Specifically, if you have the book, you will notice that there is the assertion on page 19.
42:51: Now, listen to what is said, and I did read this, but let me give you the whole thing here. Spurgeon himself, so often quoted by Calvinists to support their views, this is page 19, rejected limited atonement, though it lies at the very heart of Calvinism and follows inevitably from its other points, and he did so in unequivocal language.
43:13: Now, here's what he did. I will read you what Hunt has, but then
43:20: I'll stop and say, here's what isn't included, okay? I know there are some, this is quoting
43:26: Spurgeon's biography, I know there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to limit the merit to the blood of Jesus.
43:34: If my theological system needed such limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not, allow the thought to find lodging in my mind.
43:41: It seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ's finished work, I see an ocean of merit. My plummet finds no bottom.
43:47: My eye discerns no shore. Stop. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Now, let me give you what was removed in the dot, dot, dot, dot.
43:56: Quote, there must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their maker's law.
44:13: Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the question. Then back to what
44:19: Mr. Hunt said. Having a divine person for an offering is not consistent to, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value.
44:29: Bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the divine sacrifice. Stop. End of Dave Hunt's citation.
44:37: However, the very next line says, the intent of the divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite work.
44:51: Now, what does that mean, folks? Anyone who knows the reformed doctrine of limited atonement knows that's what we're talking about.
44:58: What was the intention of the divine purpose? Was it God's intention to redeem all people?
45:09: Well, what does Spurgeon say? The intent of the divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not change into a finite work.
45:18: The very next sentence expresses particular redemption, but let me just continue on with what
45:24: Calvin, Spurgeon continued on to say. Listen to this. This is on the same page and the next page from the section that Dave Hunt quotes and says that Spurgeon unequivocally denied particular redemption.
45:41: Listen to this. I begin my quote now. Blessed be God. His elect on earth are to be counted by millions,
45:48: I believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the
45:53: Savior and to rejoice in him. Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, it is so beautiful.
46:00: It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men. It commends itself, they say, to the instincts of humanity.
46:07: There is something in it full of joy and beauty. I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood.
46:14: There is much which I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show that the supposition necessarily involves.
46:22: If Christ on his cross intended to save every man, then he intended to save those who were lost before he died.
46:29: If the doctrine be true that he died for all men, then he died for some who were in hell before he came into this world.
46:35: For doubtless, there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins.
46:41: Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has he been disappointed?
46:47: For we have seen his own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with his blood.
47:00: That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the
47:11: Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption.
47:18: That's not in a different book. That's not in a different sermon. By the way, I finished my quote there. That's not a different book. That's not a different sermon.
47:25: It's on the next page. That tells us something, folks.
47:33: When Dave Hunt quotes something, you better go look at the original. You better find out.
47:41: Dave Hunt tells us Spurgeon unequivocally denied limited atonement.
47:48: And what we read here, that seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with what?
48:02: What does he associate them with? The Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption.
48:11: What did Calvin say about particular redemption? It's Christian doctrine. Christian doctrine.
48:22: This will explain something. It will explain why
48:29: Dave Hunt can write chapters, chapters about John Calvin, and yet not once come close to giving you an even semi accurate picture of who
48:51: John Calvin actually was, because he doesn't intend to. He doesn't intend to. It is not
49:00: Dave Hunt's purpose to accurately represent his sources. It is only Dave Hunt's purpose to find within his sources, those citations and quotes that can be used to substantiate his tradition.
49:20: And I believe, as my fine friends in the channel are producing their responses, and as others will undoubtedly be producing their responses, because this isn't a difficult book to refute.
49:40: It is so poor in all of its historical research, in all of its historical conclusions.
49:47: There is not enough exegesis in this book to fill a thimble. It will garner many refutations, all of them demonstrating the same thing.
50:00: That when Dave Hunt uses sources, Dave is simply looking for quotes that he can use. And that has been the case in all of the subjects that he's addressed.
50:09: It's not just this one. Calvinists can, you know, take some comfort in that it's not just us that have gotten shot like this.
50:24: This is just simply his modus operandi. And that's a shame. It should not be. It should not be.
50:30: Sadly, when you're willing to admit, when you are willing to misrepresent Spurgeon, then you're willing to misrepresent
50:38: Calvin, you're willing to misrepresent Luther and Augustine, then you don't mind about misrepresenting living people, too. And that's what he's done with me.
50:45: But even more than that, that's what he has done with the text of Scripture.
50:52: And that's what I'd like to look at. I'd like to look at Chapter 20 in the last half hour. I'll go ahead and take phone calls, though, if you'd like to call.
50:59: We have a different number today. I would like to I'm thinking about mentioning the company that somehow our phone stopped working.
51:08: We tried to get it back and after two days it said, we can't do it. We need to give you another one.
51:15: Gracious. Here's the number. 877. This is toll free, isn't it? I would assume that's toll free.
51:21: It better be toll free. I hope it's toll free. I've got too much stuff on my screen here.
51:26: Yes, it's toll free. Good. 877 -753 -3341.
51:31: 877 -753 -3341. Used to have it on the topic line, but we've been having problems in the channel and C -Star reset our topic line.
51:41: 877 -753 -877 -753 -3341.
51:47: There. I put in the channel for those of you that are in there. There's a number if you'd like to call. Otherwise, we will
51:54: I will be looking at John chapter six, the entire 20th chapter of What Love Is This by Dave Hunt, which
52:04: I can tell you, I know exactly where this this chapter came from.
52:10: I listened, I played my conversation with Dave Hunt from KPXQ. I played it for my high school
52:16: Bible classes on Thursday and Friday. And I know where chapter 20 came from.
52:23: Because we discussed it, I pressed the the issue with Dave Hunt very strongly at that particular point in time.
52:32: And it's very clear that the reason that I'm the main person who was quoted in this particular chapter is because of what happened that day.
52:44: There's no question in my mind about it all. But in the process, we have a demonstration of the very poor nature, not only of Mr.
52:54: Hunt's arguments, because they're circular, because they are doing they assume not only the conclusion, but then they bring in all sorts of emotionalism and things like that.
53:08: Because of that, but the biblical exegesis is absolutely horrific.
53:13: It's not exegesis, it's eisegesis committed in the context of accusing all
53:18: Calvinists of engaging in eisegesis. It's truly, truly amazing. What is what is in that and that's we're gonna be looking at.
53:27: And by the way, I'm only gonna be able to touch on it. I have finished the section responding to this chapter.
53:34: And what I may just go ahead and do is is go ahead and post the first part of this open letter, and then just put a thing down at the bottom, announcing that the letter will end in a day or two once I get around to it, because there's so many people asking questions about it.
53:49: It's already 27 pages in length. And I go into a great deal of detail in analyzing and refuting a
53:57: Dave Hunt's fallacious arguments against John chapter six. And I think it really does help to see where this entire book is coming from.
54:06: So maybe I'll be able to get that up even this evening on the website as our main page article for those of you who want to take a look at it 877 -753 -3341.
54:16: We'll be taking our break and continuing on with Dave Hunt and his new book right after this. What is duck?
54:38: And welcome back to the dividing line. My name is James White, and we are reviewing Dave Hunt's newest book.
54:45: Probably I don't know, it's 30 some odd of them so far. But for some reason, Mr. Hunt has decided to attempt to undo the
54:53: Reformation. And it's a sad thing. I really,
55:00: Dave Hunt is a nice guy to sit around and talk to. And he frequently says a lot of good things.
55:05: But he has, and really some of you saying, why are you picking on Dave Hunt? In fact, there's a guy in one of the theology lists here that just fell by a name of Donald Metzger, that's been ripping on me.
55:22: And he's accusing me of all sorts of, yeah, here's, let me just give you an example.
55:30: I have not yet read his book, but after just having listened to James White's completely incompetent replies to Dave, I look forward to it.
55:37: I would not myself be afraid to argue against JW's stereotypical and canned and unresponsive claims.
55:44: By the way, Mr. Metzger, if you're listening, the number is 877 -753 -3341.
55:50: Maybe you'd like to come on, since we are having trouble getting Mr. Hunt to set a date. Dave Hunt blew
55:56: JW away. For example, JW claimed, when a Reformed person talks about irresistible grace, he's talking about regeneration.
56:03: Too bad, James. No scriptural support. To neglect to give something means that you have to give something.
56:09: Too bad, James. It doesn't mean that you have to, only that you would not really be you if you did not. And God is
56:15: God. He wills. This is the kind of stuff that is being thrown around.
56:21: And he says, let's see here. Oh, yeah, this is interesting. Go, Dave.
56:27: Dave is a prophet. He is not attacked as much as I, but much more publicly, of course.
56:33: White wanted to override a debate on KJV -ism against Hunt because of Calvinism, though Hunt wanted to debate merely against KJV -ism.
56:41: I have no idea what he's talking about there. Hunt doesn't debate against KJV -ism. He just spoke at a church that's all
56:48: KJV -only. White is mistaken in an ungodly focus against Hunt on the basis of Calvinism.
56:54: There's the line I was looking for. White is mistaken in an ungodly focus against Hunt on the basis of Calvinism. Well, folks, there is a matter of simple honesty here.
57:05: The book is grossly misrepresentational, but a lot of folks will say, well, look, maybe
57:11: Dave just doesn't know. No, Dave knows. He does know.
57:17: Last night, I posted a section of commentary that I had written in the open letter on John chapter 6, verse 65, and then a section after that.
57:28: And as soon as I got done posting it, a fellow who's in channel right now, has the nick Vivid Blue, who is a friend of Dave Hunt's, who helped to review the book, tried to warn him, quoted the letter that he sent back to Mr.
57:43: Hunt while the book was still being written. And the amazing thing was that even though I had never seen this man's letter, we're both responding to the same argument from the same author, without any contact with one another, and yet our response to Mr.
58:05: Hunt on the very same issue was incredibly consistent.
58:11: I mean, we were using the same words and the same phraseology.
58:18: It was absolutely amazing. In fact, I think I'm going to ask Vivid Blue to probably send me that material, and I'm going to insert it in here just to show that, you see, before this book ever came out, what
58:30: I'm saying in response to it had already been said to him beforehand. This isn't just some
58:36: Calvinistic conspiracy or something. Here are two people responding to the same issue.
58:42: We don't even go to the same church. I mean, he and I happen to know one guy. I mean, our connection is that we both know
58:49: Brick. And you're all going, what? Fellow at our church, we both know Brick. That's what makes us both famous, is we know
58:56: Brick, and everybody knows Brick. So that's the only connection we've had, and yet we respond in the exact same way.
59:02: Why? Because we both recognize the exact same error in Mr. Hunt's thinking. So, Mr.
59:11: Hunt does know. He is aware. And that's why some of you may have noticed that on the
59:19: Berean Call website, what was it, about two weeks maybe prior to the release of the book,
59:26: I saw damage control taking place. I don't know if any of the rest of you did. But the material placed on the website was in essence saying, we're expecting to really be attacked here.
59:39: We need your support. This is going to be bigger than, we're going to be attacked more than when
59:45: The Seduction of Christianity came out. We really need your support. Why do you think they think they're going to be attacked?
59:52: Could it be because they know that their position is simply incapable of defense?
59:59: And by the way, if anyone directs anyone from the
01:00:05: Berean Call, Mr. McMahon, Mr. Hunt, this Mr. Metzger fellow, I don't know if you're with him, but you certainly think
01:00:12: Dave's a prophet. So, if you guys like, especially Mr. Hunt and Mr.
01:00:17: McMahon, and we can talk with Mr. Metzger, if you'd like to come on the program, you're welcome to.
01:00:24: Tim Staples, if you'd like to come on our program, you're welcome to, too. But we'd love to have
01:00:35: Dave on. I'd love to hear Dave's explanation for where he got that quote from Spurgeon.
01:00:45: I'd like to hear the explanation. And there's a lot of other things I'd like to hear an explanation about as well. But you're welcome on the program.
01:00:53: Give us a call. We'll have you on. I invited you on this program a long time ago, when we did the program on KPXQ.
01:01:00: I invited you on the program then. Come on along. I would like to be able to talk to you about these things. I'd like to be able to get some of these folks who argue as Mr.
01:01:07: Hunt onto the program, and let's have some dialogue. Let's really look at the text and find out who's really engaging in eisegesis.
01:01:15: That's what I'd like to do. Well, before I go back to looking at the text, I see a little red blinking light over there.
01:01:23: And as I do my Johnny Carson hold the envelope up to my head type of thing,
01:01:31: I look at that little red light blinking, and I'm getting a picture of a large coffee cup.
01:01:45: The amazing thing about it is it's in a car.
01:01:52: It's a very slow -moving car. It's a car that barely moves, but it's on the dashboard.
01:01:59: And amazingly enough, it doesn't fall off. Because in my panic, I reach for it and grab it, so it doesn't.
01:02:07: Oh, is that you, Java Man? Yes, it is
01:02:13: I, the Java Man. The Java Man. You know how Moe is recommending that you write books?
01:02:24: Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the new theme song for the Java Man, and I just wanted to bring that up there.
01:02:31: Thank you very much. Well, I have another suggestion for you. This one will be titled,
01:02:36: Will the Real Charles Spurgeon Please Stand Up? No kidding, yes. I know that Ian Murray wrote
01:02:43: The Forgotten Spurgeon, but I think that something, even a brief thing, needs to be written to clearly document the
01:02:50: Calvinistic beliefs, the strong Calvinistic beliefs of Charles Spurgeon, and refutation primarily of Arminian fundamentalists, because this is just getting out of hand.
01:03:00: I mean, so many people take their heroes like they've haunted face value and will never bother to check, will never bother to look at Spurgeon's writings before they've been edited by people like John R.
01:03:15: Rice. And one thing that you might find interesting is that I know a
01:03:20: Calvinistic pastor who wrote to John R. Rice back in the 70s, I believe, and John R.
01:03:28: Rice would take the sermons of Spurgeon and edit them and decalvinize them and put them in his paper.
01:03:36: And when this pastor called him on the carpet, he said, well, now that Charles Spurgeon is in heaven, he would agree with what
01:03:44: I've done to his writing. So I think that's the kind of thing that you're getting from people like Dave Hunt.
01:03:54: What exactly is Dave Hunt's background anyway? I'm not claiming that you have to be a seminarian or anything like that to be an apologist, but what is his background?
01:04:05: Well, my understanding anyways is that it's a Plymouth Brethren background, but I sort of kicked myself.
01:04:13: I just didn't feel comfortable in light of even some of the things I had read in the book to be asking him specific questions like, well, you know, where do you go on, you know, what church do you attend?
01:04:25: And I did get the feeling from one section of conversation, well, it wasn't really a conversation, but Dave was just talking about something in the car at one point, that he does go, he is a member of a church somewhere, but I didn't ask the specifics.
01:04:41: So I'm afraid I can't really give you a whole lot of information as to what his specific background is.
01:04:46: I know that he was trained, he took half the CPA examination and passed it. He was trained, he's basically a mathematician, a person who does accounting and things like that.
01:04:59: That's his primary area of expertise, and he has publicly eschewed knowledge of the biblical languages, of course.
01:05:08: But as to what his specific denominational background is, I had been told anyways that it was
01:05:14: Plymouth Brethren. Well, I am very happy to inform you that a mutual friend of both of ours is a
01:05:22: Calvinist pastor who was a very, very strong supporter of Dave Hunt and would praise his name every time it was mentioned, has now said,
01:05:33: I can no longer support this man. And I mean, I'd say that with a bit of sadness, too, because of the fact that it's a shame that that has to happen.
01:05:41: There are many things that he agrees with us on, but he is actually, I think, thwarting our cause because if Roman Catholics know that he can't even get what
01:05:52: Protestants believe right, how on earth is he going to get what Catholics believe? Exactly. That is the whole point.
01:05:57: Unfortunately, you can document a fairly consistent pattern of this kind of misuse of sources where instead of allowing the source to speak within its own context, you only pull those things from it that support your particular slant.
01:06:13: This isn't the first time it's happened, and I hope it's the last, obviously, but this particular book draws our attention because of the fact that it addresses those very central issues.
01:06:24: I mean, I'm sure you've listened to the dialogue that I had with Dave, and when I mentioned the fact that he was arguing, as Robert St.
01:06:32: Genes argued in the debate on Long Island against justification by faith regarding the nature of grace and man's will, he didn't like that at all.
01:06:41: But the fact of the matter is, if you go right now to our website and read what
01:06:48: Robert St. Genes says in the huge dialogue that we had on John chapter 6, and then go read
01:06:54: Dave Hunt, they may not say the exact same thing, but they're both trying to get to the exact same point, and that is this passage does not teach that all who are drawn are raised up on the last day.
01:07:06: And this passage does not teach that there is a specific number who is given by the Father to the Son, that the Son will infallibly save.
01:07:12: They both have to try to safeguard this concept of the autonomy of man. And so, you know,
01:07:19: I'm sorry that he didn't like the comparison, but the comparison is valid whether he likes it or not.
01:07:29: Well, one last thing I recommend you do is, I would actually request a public apology on behalf of the memory of Charles Spurgeon from this man, because he slandered him.
01:07:43: And you very rarely, I know, will get people to do that kind of thing, but I know that I had a similar situation once when
01:07:50: I failed miserably trying to get somebody to publicly apologize, even though his own friends who believed exactly the way he does theologically said,
01:07:58: Oh, come on, you know that Spurgeon is a Calvinist, don't you? I mean, even I know that. So I would just at least put it out there to at least see if he makes some kind of retraction.
01:08:12: Well, I specifically say, in fact, as brought up on my screen here, in the open letter that I'll be posting on our website, after giving the material that he didn't quote,
01:08:23: I then quote another section from Spurgeon, which I pulled from. Let me just read this portion of the thing.
01:08:33: Yes, Spurgeon was unequivocal, all right, only he said the exact opposite of what you indicated. A quick scan of the relevant materials at www .spurgeon
01:08:40: .org reveals just how completely in error your assertion is and how many sermons affirm Spurgeon's belief in particular redemption.
01:08:46: Here is one of them that I give the URL, and then I quote from it, and it says, We hold, we are not afraid to say that we believe that Christ came into this world with the intention of saving a multitude which no man can number, and we believe that as the result of this, every person for whom he died must, beyond the shadow of a doubt, be cleansed from sin and stand washed in blood before the
01:09:06: Father's throne. We do not believe that Christ made any effectual atonement for those who are forever damned.
01:09:11: We dare not think that the blood of Christ was ever shed with the intention of saving those whom God foreknew never could be saved, and some of whom were even in hell when
01:09:19: Christ, according to some men's account, died to save them. And then this is what I said as a result. I said, You really should hasten to retract this grossly errant assertion concerning Spurgeon.
01:09:29: For those of us who have even a passing familiarity with the great English preacher, your comments about him were outrageous.
01:09:35: However, the misuse of the quote from Spurgeon's biography is simply indefensible, Dave. Do you not think that we have these sources at hand?
01:09:42: Will you instruct your publisher to retract this statement in the next printing of the book, along with a note apologizing for such an error?
01:09:49: Or will you ignore this word of corrective advice, as you have ignored so many others that have been provided to you?
01:09:56: So that's what I have in there. Well, one last thing that you might want to remind Dave Hunt of is that Charles Spurgeon is the one that revived the use of the 1689
01:10:05: Confession in England after it fell out of use. And he had that as an official confession of the
01:10:11: Metropolitan Tabernacle, which it still remains today. It never was dropped as their confession.
01:10:17: And Benjamin Keech's catechism, as well as the 1689 Confession, is entombed in the cornerstone of the building.
01:10:27: Well, that is so far beyond the area of research that Mr.
01:10:33: Hunt was doing that obviously he never should have even addressed the subject. He should not have even raised the subject.
01:10:38: But he chose to do so, and now he's responsible for it.
01:10:45: What he'll do with it, I do not know. Well, thanks for the show. Thank you very much, sir. Thanks for calling. Bye -bye.
01:10:54: The number you're calling is the phone number, and it is quite true. You might say, okay, so he messed up a
01:11:01: Spurgeon quote. In fact, I'll give you even more than that. I will say probably what happened is some supporter of his sent him a note, sent him an email, and said, hey, look at this.
01:11:15: See, even Spurgeon didn't believe in this. And it probably ended up in the book directly from that.
01:11:23: I don't think he went and read the source. In fact, as I said to him in, let me see if I can find the section here.
01:11:30: I even said to him, I hope you did not look this up.
01:11:36: Because if you did, then you are really responsible for simple dishonesty to a tremendous degree.
01:11:49: But be that as it may, why even take the time to look at it? It's real simple. When we get into the actual meat of the book, which should be exegetical.
01:12:00: It should be focused upon the exegesis of scripture. In chapter 20, let me use it as an example.
01:12:08: As Mr. Hunt is rather haltingly attempting to deal with John chapter 6.
01:12:14: And what I mean by that is that the chapter defies organization. It basically starts off, says a little bit about John 6, 37, then maybe something about verse 44.
01:12:25: And then it goes into a long anti -Calvinistic tirade. Calvinists are bad about this, and they're bad about that.
01:12:31: And then it says a little bit more about John 6. And then there's a whole section about how bad Calvin was. About how he was mean, and terrible, and nasty.
01:12:39: And anyone who could possibly even quote him, obviously just doesn't know what they're talking about. And all the rest of the stuff.
01:12:45: And then it'll go on to some other subject. Then it'll come back to John chapter 6 a little bit. I mean, it's extremely difficult to follow.
01:12:53: Just to give you an example. He finally comes back to John 6, 44 to ask what drawing means.
01:13:00: And then he misrepresents me. He says, yet Christ, this is page 339. Yet Christ clearly said, no man can come to me except the
01:13:07: Father draw him. What does that mean? White claims that draw indicates a total incapacity on man's part.
01:13:14: Know it? I never said that. I said the phrase udunatai refers to a total incapacity on man's part to come to Christ outside of the drawing of the
01:13:24: Father. I didn't say the drawing did. I mean, that's just simple misrepresentation. But then, when he gets to telling us what it allegedly means.
01:13:35: Under the subtitle, Isagetical Illusion. The first paragraph reads as follows.
01:13:42: Now, think about this as a kind of argument. See if this is a logical, rational argument.
01:13:47: This is an argument that should be used by a Christian leader. To support his assertions, White quotes
01:13:53: Calvin, to whom he refers with great admiration. Apparently, as far as White is concerned, Calvin's tyrannical rule of Geneva, where he exhibited much pride and patience and lack of love and sympathy toward those who dared to disagree with him, even resorting to torture in order to persuade, gives no cause for suspecting
01:14:07: Calvin's understanding of and fidelity to scripture. That's the whole paragraph. That's the whole paragraph.
01:14:14: Now, anyone who's read my book, I did quote Calvin in The Potter's Freedom at one point in discussion on John 6.
01:14:20: Anyone who thinks that I based my presentation on quoting Calvin is simply
01:14:25: Fruit Loops. I noticed there's someone on the channel with that nick, Fruit Loop, and so it just sort of sticks in your mind.
01:14:32: Anyways, it's impossible. That's obviously not what I did. But beyond that, let's say that I did.
01:14:41: Let's say that I quoted him and I showed great deference to him, which I did in that particular point. What kind of response is that?
01:14:49: Is that argumentation? If so, what kind?
01:14:57: I mean, not only is it grossly unfair to Calvin. I mean, the only person that I've heard use that kind of description of Calvin was
01:15:07: Jimmy Swaggart. That's how Jimmy Swaggart would express his absolute hatred for John Calvin.
01:15:14: But if anyone goes and picks up, for example, John McNeil's book,
01:15:20: The History and Character of Calvinism, which has an excellent section of biography on Calvin. If anyone actually goes and gets a scholarly work that's semi -fair, they're going to realize that Hunt is unfair to the point of simple gross dishonesty.
01:15:36: And then that's going to completely and totally destroy any credibility that Mr. Hunt would like to have.
01:15:43: I don't understand that kind of argumentation. And then, when he doesn't provide any meaningful exegetical rebuttal of anything that I say, and seemingly just thinking that, well, you know,
01:15:55: I've gotten people so angry at this point that I'm certain that they won't listen to what James White has to say.
01:16:01: What kind of argumentation is that? It is not worthy of a person who calls himself a
01:16:07: Christian. Truly an incredible... I mean, it's all through this entire section.
01:16:14: And again, if you have the book, take a look at it yourself. And sometimes,
01:16:21: I'll be honest with you, I don't even know what he's saying. I can't even follow it. Let me just read you one paragraph and see if it makes any sense to you.
01:16:31: Okay, here's... He quotes from John 6, 37. He quotes from Shriner and Ware.
01:16:38: It talks about how the coming to Christ is the same as believing in Christ, which is true. Here's the paragraph.
01:16:44: That fact indicates, once again, that faith comes first and is the condition of the new birth and salvation.
01:16:50: Believing is synonymous with coming to Christ, not something that is bestowed after one has been regenerated.
01:16:55: Surely coming to Christ results in regeneration through the gospel. The fact that coming is the same as believing also contradicts unconditional election and irresistible grace, for which coming must be without faith and is like a dead man being carried.
01:17:08: Yes, the Father draws men to Christ, but unless they truly believe in Him, they have not come all the way, but have drawn back into perdition.
01:17:15: There's the paragraph. I don't know what that says. I don't see what it has to do with what came before or after.
01:17:23: I mean, I hear certain sentences in there make sense. I know he denies that faith is a gift and he made the exact same mistake as Norm Geisler on misquoting
01:17:32: John Calvin in Ephesians 2, and so on and so forth. But I didn't understand a word that that said.
01:17:39: It just did not make any sense to me whatsoever. And so as you try to work through this book, you know, some people say, oh, this is terrible and it's going to create all this confusion.
01:17:51: You know, a couple years ago I thought the same thing about another book called
01:17:57: Chosen But Free. And I have now in hindsight realized yet once again that God is sovereign and God is in control.
01:18:10: And I think of the young man that came up to me at the table after the George Bryson debate, and I really want to be able to announce next week that we have the tapes available.
01:18:20: And he said to me, you know, I hated Calvinism until I read
01:18:28: The Potter's Freedom. And Romans 9 just blew me away. And so here's the situation.
01:18:36: I know it was not Norm Geisler's intention to aid in the progress of Reformed theology amongst evangelicals in the
01:18:50: United States. That was not his intention. I realize that. But you see, God overrules all this stuff.
01:18:57: And I just, you know, even when reading just nasty comments about me, accusations of eisegesis, which
01:19:03: I take very seriously, which I then have to painstakingly demonstrate are completely and totally without merit.
01:19:15: I could get upset about things like that, but I'm really trying to recognize, you know what? God is sovereign over all this, and I am just so blessed to have the health in my physical body to be able to respond to this stuff and to have the opportunity right now.
01:19:33: The folks that are listening right now, I'm sitting here watching the chat room, Theophorus and Mfibbo and everybody who's in the channel right now, these cyber friends, most of which
01:19:47: I've only met once or twice, and the fact that they want to respond and they've learned about these things.
01:19:56: I'm a blessed man. I mean, there was a time last year I wasn't even certain I was going to be able to see to be able to do stuff like this anymore because I had complications with my surgery, but I can see beautifully now.
01:20:06: In fact, my eyesight's getting better every day. Just a blessed man. So I really try to have the proper attitude about this and realize, you know what?
01:20:13: Here's just another opportunity, and yeah, it's frustrating sometimes to read some of the stuff like those notes that I read earlier.
01:20:23: Oh, Dave Hunt wiped JW out. You sort of just want to go, what have you been listening to?
01:20:30: Did you turn down the sound every time I started talking? I'm reminded of the guy who converted to Roman Catholicism and then attended the debate in Fullerton with Tim Staples, and every time
01:20:44: Tim Staples would speak, he'd come in and listen, and when
01:20:50: I'd stand up, he'd leave. And then he had the gall to say, I lost the debate. I mean, that kind of mindset, yeah, it's frustrating.
01:20:57: It'll always be frustrating to me, but I can't worry about folks like that.
01:21:04: Instead, you've got to focus upon the folks that are really serious about the truth, and when you focus upon those individuals, well, then this stuff,
01:21:17: God will take care of it, and he will bring glory to himself. So folks, watch for the main page article.
01:21:24: If you're listening to this by archive, months later, it'll be in the Reformed Theology section of the website.
01:21:30: My open letter will be posted there. It won't be short, but it'll be posted there, and as folks in the chat channel start giving me their submissions, then we'll have more and more to be posting on the website in response to Dave Hunt's book,
01:21:42: What Love Is This? God's still sovereign. He's still on his throne. Let's thank him for it, and we'll be back with you next week here on The Dividing Line.
01:21:49: God bless. A listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.