First Program on Odysee: Omicron Variants, Scotus Case, TROnlyism Again, Responding to Tim Stratton

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:31

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line, a new era for our webcast.

00:38

We started back in the days of real audio and then were forced, dragged me kicking and screaming into video.

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I still don't really know why. I mean, I'm going to show you some cool stuff today, but you don't need to see this ugly aging mug to be honest with you.

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But anyway, so now we are on Odyssey today rather than YouTube.

01:09

Not sure exactly what the future is going to hold there. We want to have a presence on YouTube for other reasons, to be honest with you.

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But you just simply can't say all sorts of things on YouTube anymore. And you will be censored.

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You will be silenced. If you talk about what's actually going on in the world and do so with any kind of honesty, they are a part of it.

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And so if eventually we are just simply removed forever, well, it's frozen in space.

01:44

So, oh, you hit pause. Well, that. OK. Well, OK.

01:51

Rich is showing me on the laptop that it's actually working, which I assumed that it would or it wouldn't be doing it.

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Yeah, well, no, I assume we're going to we're going to be doing what we're going to be doing. So it's been a while since I've had the opportunity of saying anything about this, because when

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I last did YouTube deleted the program, which is still available, of course, we had already set up.

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And I'm thankful to all those who worked on doing this. We had already set up a backup to this service.

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And then we had to figure out how to do live streaming. And and there you go. And so.

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What will the future look like? How long will there be freedom for other services like this?

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I don't know. But you all remember that years ago I was saying that it's the left's intention to push us into a ghetto to marginalize us.

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And that's exactly what they're seeking to do. And so, if, you know, folks who maybe don't keep up with us all the time, let them know how they can keep listening and and encourage them to do so.

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And we'll go from there. So on. On my screen right now,

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I just just noticed, by the way, a question from Pravda.

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The folks at the at the White House or the regime where reporters go each day to get lied to repeatedly over and over again, and everybody knows it.

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And so it just becomes that's how it always was in the Soviet Union. That's how it is in China. That's how it is now.

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You have your state run media where you get the lies that you are then supposed to repeat.

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And woe to the nation where that is what takes place. But that's where we are.

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And Pravda today, with their red haired peppermint patty representative in front of the cameras, said that nothing is off the table in regards to a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel.

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And we've all been expecting that there will be a lot of pushback, but these folks don't care about pushback.

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Leftists don't care about pushback. These people, it's one of two things or a combination of both.

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They're acting as if they will never lose another election and maybe they won't.

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Or it's just we've got it now. We've got to get everything we can.

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And so we're going to get trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars into our coffers, into our pockets.

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We'll be able to run on this forever. And if that means that a bunch of people lose and the

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House and the Senate are lost for two years. Hey, we got what we could and we'll win the big one again in 2024 the same way we want it in 2020.

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That seems to be the way they're behaving. We will see.

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I was chatting a little bit with one of my first and best

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Greek students from years and years and years ago. I mean, decades ago.

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And she said, so have you pulled the last of your hair out listening to all the mispronunciations of Omicron recently?

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Omicron! Tucker Carlson was Omicroning it too. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah.

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But, you know, the funny thing was I was thinking about saying something on YouTube.

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And I realized that is an easy word to have your algorithms going after is

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Omicron, even though it's going to be pronounced all sorts of different ways. The Omicron is the short letter.

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Omega is the long. It's a short vowel. Omega is the long vowel. And so, yeah, we know the vast majority of people in the

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United States don't know anything about Greek. And so and modern pronunciation blurs the distinctions anyway.

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So that's that's probably how it's all what's going on there. But the Omicron variant, about which so far we know almost nothing.

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I saw something I was reaching to save it, do a screenshot, do something.

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And I didn't do it. I got distracted or something. I don't know. But I saw someplace I saw someone saying that they had something talking about Omicron variant in November of last year.

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And I would love to be able to find that again and see if that's documentably the case. We don't know almost anything about this right now.

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And the problem anymore is I don't know that we ever will. I do not trust a word that comes out of Anthony Fauci's mouth.

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He is an inveterate liar. I think he should change his name to Mengele.

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Because he has been willing to absolutely devalue human life right, left and center.

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It is it is we are we are living in a day where we have people doing the same things that they were doing in the past that we have identified as crimes against humanity.

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But now we sit around going, hey, how are the Patriots doing? You know, we don't we don't seem to care.

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It's it's an astonishing thing to observe. But on the on the screen right now.

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Is the key to so many things. That, my friends.

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Now, why is that not down in the corner or is there something I'm not understanding about the picture there?

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I'm just not not sure if there's I mean, no one really needs to see my my doodad here.

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That's where. No, no. You know,

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I thought you were good at this. I thought you were good at this. You're clearly demonstrating to us that you're not.

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Anyway, what you are seeing on the screen right now and my wife is asking me what my schedule today is,

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I'll tell her after we get done. Is the spike protein.

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Now, obviously, all images of molecules and things like that.

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Are somewhat fake. This is a a protein structure with lots of sugars bound to it and and there are vitally important aspects to it.

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It has been analyzed right, left and center. These are the little nodules that you see in the the pictorial depictions of the

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SARS -CoV -2 COVID -19 molecule. These are

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I think it's an average 26 around the outside. And so these are the things that grab onto your cells and allow the injection of the viral materials into your cells, which causes the infection and the reproduction of the of the virus.

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And it's fascinating stuff. And mankind hasn't known anything about it until past 50 years or so.

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And now we know all sorts of these things. And unfortunately, because we do, we think that we can now play

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God as to how we deal with this stuff, which is why in 2019, there's a video of Anthony Fauci complaining about how long it takes to get things approved.

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And that's why he found a way to get things approved outside the normal channels.

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The entire relationship of the FDA, CDC, all the big drug companies is the biggest incestuous mess of billions of dollars of corruption that has ever existed in the

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Western world. Ever existed in the Western world. And that's why who can trust almost anything coming from these people anymore?

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They are all in bed with each other. People who used to work for the CDC or the drug companies, people, drug companies, the

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CDC. It's just they're all one big, happy, really filthy, rich and powerful family now.

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And everybody knows it. That's the sad part. But that's the baby right there.

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And here's the issue. We developed these mRNA vaccines in starting in the summer of 2020.

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So 18 months ago. Now, the reason we've never the reason we have done influenza shots on a regular basis over the years is because these critters mutate.

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It's really part of how they're designed. And therefore, as we

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I just wish we had had better memories. And I say that as a person just about to turn 59.

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I wish I had better memories. Because up until 2019, all of us could remember situations where CDC places like that put out a prognosis, a prediction as to what the flavor of the year was going to be for the flu.

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And put out inoculations, flu shot based on what they expected.

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And we can all remember that there were specific years where they whiffed it.

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They weren't even close. The flu shot did nada. A different strain was there.

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And we need to remember. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people died.

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They would have died one way or the other. People just do not understand mortality numbers. They do not understand death numbers at all.

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And the regime has taken advantage of this and scared people to death.

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If people had any idea how many people die every day from coronary disease,

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McDonald's would shut down tomorrow. If they had any idea. But they don't.

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And so you can take advantage of their ignorance to panic them about something that is a tiny, minor part of the numbers of mortality for mankind.

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But it's worked. It's worked. It's worked really, really well. Congratulations to them.

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It's evil. They will be judged for it. That's coming.

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But anyway, just seeing. I just got a picture.

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I got to do this. I got to do this. Let me see if I can pull this out here.

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Here. Hold on.

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I'm a grandpa. And I'm doing my program. And this comes across Signal.

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And that's my youngest. And she just had a tooth come out. There you go.

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So congratulations, Jenny. It's like, look.

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So, yeah, there you go. Isn't she beautiful? My my grandkids are just are just.

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Oh, don't take that down. There you go. Sorry. Got to get that back down to there.

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There we go. All right. What kind of things distracted Spurgeon while preaching?

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Well, it wasn't that. But there you go. So Jenny, you'll get to see yourself.

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20 years from now, Jenny will be looking at that going, oh, wow, that's what you get. Anyways, what are we talking about?

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Oh, yeah. So back to the Omicron variant. Sorry. What we've done is we have created, starting in 2020, mRNA vaccines that instead of taking a dead vaccine or a diminished vaccine and culturing it and then injecting that because that takes time, we decided to start playing with our own genetic mechanisms.

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And what these vaccines do is they produce that thing that we had up on the not

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Jenny, the spike protein. They produce that. And now the problem is we've discovered that this is pathogenic.

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This actually is the primary thing that causes the heart inflammation.

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People have died all over the world. No one will admit it. And the drug companies are completely free from any issues regarding that.

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But this is what causes the inflammation, the heart lining. And we don't know what the long term impact of that booger is on five year old developing bodies.

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And now they want to get down to where you get this shot when you're born, basically. And eventually they'll force that.

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They will say you can't take a kid out of the hospital. That's what these people are all about.

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And it has nothing to do with saving lives. They don't care. They have zero interest in saving lives.

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These people do. They have 100 % interest in controlling any lives that happen to survive.

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And having a mechanism of tracking them and well here.

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That's a musical interlude. We have special music going on there. Here is.

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We don't need the we don't need the sound there, but there was sound here.

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Here we have in France in a restaurant. I've been in restaurants like this.

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This looks like a your standard European restaurant, especially like a hotel. And what do we have?

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We have the cops and they're going table to table asking for your vaccine passport and you have to pull up your papers, please.

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And this is this is the cost of living in Europe. Now, this is what's coming for us.

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And it'll it'll be here before long. And you just need to recognize that's what these these people want.

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And it's all about control. So remember,

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I don't know how long it was ago. About a month and a half ago,

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Anthony Fauci, a .k .a. Modern Mengele, was on with perky

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Katie Couric. A lot of people I'm dating myself and I say perky Katie Couric, but was doing an interview with Katie Couric and Katie says, so are these new variants coming from the unvaccinated?

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Those terrible, horrible, selfish people. I was even writing. I do most of my writing inside now.

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There are these world there are these programs you can use and they are extremely realistic and you can climb mountains

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I'll never, ever get to climb in real life. And it's a lot of fun. You race people around the world and it's it's great.

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It's great workout. And I don't have to worry about people running over me because they're texting. And when you see how many people, how many how many man hours have we lost sitting at stoplights because the guy in the front won't go because he's on Facebook?

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Ever thought about that? How much gas have we burned? Because you have to wait and then you have to honk and then you see the head pop up because the guy in front of you was on the phone, right?

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Seeing it over and over again. Okay, they're doing the same thing while driving. So I don't like being on roads.

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And you know what the sad thing is? I have the Arizona Canal near me and I used to ride miles and miles and miles on it.

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You know why I can't do that anymore? Because all the underpasses are now clogged with drug addled homeless people and they will no longer be cleared out.

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And so it smells like a sewer down there. There are syringes everywhere. And I can't go that direction either.

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So I'm glad we can ride online. You know what happened when I was riding online just two days ago? I had the chat on, you know, people can message things.

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And here they come. You selfish people who aren't getting the vaccine.

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Stop thinking about just yourself and about all the rest of us. I'm just like, I wonder how long until you have to provide your vax papers to ride online.

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That's insane. It is insane. All of it is. All of it is. So Katie Couric asks

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Fauci, aka Mengele, you know, it's coming from the unvaccinated.

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And he says, yes, of course. Now, no one who understands what selection pressure is would answer that way.

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And Fauci does know. He was just lying through his teeth. The man can lie while smiling.

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He has no soul. There's just there's nothing there. It's astonishing. And since he does know, the

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Omicron variant has 23 mutations in the thing that I just showed you a few moments ago.

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23 mutations in the spike protein. Which is why there is concern that it will evade the vaccines for the simple reason that this that we are.

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And I've said this for a long time. And it was that doctor up in Idaho that said at first that I heard we are vaccinating for last year's virus.

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And we are. So everybody knows in the scientific community that eventually the spike protein will have enough mutations on it to evade the antibodies that are produced by the original vaccine.

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And so the Pfizer, Moderna, they're all gearing up for new vaccines.

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So not only do you have to get the third and the fourth, and now with the

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Johnson & Johnson every two months, now you're going to have new vaccines with new health questions.

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What will these do? We don't know. And we're not going to test to find out. Because now the idea is it is all absolutely about the regime having the right to say to you, sit down, roll your sleeve up, and don't ask us what we're putting in you.

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Do not ask for safety data. Do not ask for anything. Do it or starve. That's the power that they want.

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And that we are giving to them. That's what we're doing. So the

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Omicron variant, it may have been around for a long time.

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It might evade. It may not. They want, you must understand,

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Moderna and Pfizer are praying for a full evasion variant.

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Think of the money they will get. Think of the power they will get.

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The left wants full evasion variants as quickly as possible, because then they can absolutely maintain complete control and continue the largest wealth transfer in history, as well as power transfer and the utter dismantling of Western democracies.

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And the establishment of a totalitarian state. That's what they want, because they think they are wiser than all the rest of us.

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And that's how they're going to get all their climate stuff through. And that's why you're not going to be driving a car in 10 years. And you're going to be dependent upon public transportation.

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And remember something, if you go, well, you know, those cars aren't all that bad. They're getting pretty interesting.

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Do you think they're going to allow those cars to go to your church? Yeah. You see, the freedom of movement is dangerous to totalitarianism.

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And so, so much of this stuff is to end every aspect of your freedom, because totalitarians are afraid of people who have freedom, because then they can think the wrong thoughts.

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Oh, that was part of what got us bounced when I played the woman talking about,

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I'm stressed. I'll bet you anything that's what got us. I'll bet you anything. I just realized it.

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I just sitting here right now. I played that video. And that video was of a woman who's been advocating against this stuff for years, even before COVID, talking about how these vaccine passports have nothing to do with health.

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They were being talked about years beforehand by the World Economic Forum, the

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World Health Organization, and all the global elites that are behind all this stuff. And that's what got us.

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I just realized. It wasn't anything I said. That's what got us. They set up an algorithm that searched for that and nailed us.

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That was it. That was it. Should have thought of it. Should have thought of it. What she said was true and remains true to this day.

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That's what these folks are about. And you're just going to continue to see this over and over and over again, because this is the battlefield of our time.

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This is what we're facing. These people detest the Christian worldview, and this is their mechanism for seeking to stamp it out.

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Now, very quickly, yesterday, I'm not going to anything right now.

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I'm going to wait till a little bit more comes out that I can read and have documentation on. But it was fascinating to listen to some of the statements from the

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SCOTUS presentation of the Dodd case. And the

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Supreme Court is a broken reed. It will not support any weight.

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Roe v. Wade could be overturned, and the left will give its last ounce of blood to then have it.

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That's why the left is trying to get Roe v. Wade. Through Congress.

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They need to have the House and the Senate. There are so many utterly compromised

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Republicans that I can see it happening. Certainly see it happening. Conservatism that is not based upon a sound worldview that recognizes what humanity is, is just slow moving leftism.

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That's all. And so while we can pray that that horrific, absurd, unscientific, ahistorical, illogical, irrational, immoral decision be overturned, we need to realize that even if it is, we are still facing the reality that looking at the comments that were being made before, people celebrating, really worshipping, absolutely worshipping at the altar of abortion, tells us that what our society needs is not a

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Supreme Court decision, but for the Supreme Court of the universe to issue a writ of mercy to change hearts and minds in this culture.

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That is the only hope that we have. The only hope that we have.

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By any stretch of the imagination, it is truly astonishing to listen to what people were saying.

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It looks like Sotomayor was the one that was chosen to do the leftist, wild eyed, crazy person stuff, and she did, and she fulfilled her role.

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There were good questions being asked by others, but I will be perfectly honest,

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I am skeptical. I am skeptical.

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I could see another, what was the

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Pennsylvania case in the 90s that had the opportunity of overturning

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Roe and they upheld it? Casey, yeah, Casey. If I were a betting man and I'm not,

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I would Casey this one. I hope not, but I'm just, there's so much behind the scenes, there's so much,

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I mean that was such a horrific decision that the fact that anyone could even defend it, what can you say?

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It's the day we live in. It really is the day we live in. So, anyhow. Alright, let me see here.

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Just looking at some stuff here. Yeah, Kofi said something to me,

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Samuel said something to me, all about the same thing. Let me just mention this before we get to the

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Molinism stuff. Evidently, as we announced a couple weeks ago,

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Dr. Jeff Riddle went over to Metropolitan Tabernacle in London and presented, as far as I can tell,

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I haven't listened to it yet, I've downloaded it. How many times do you have to listen to the exact same thing over and over again?

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But the titles seem to be the same titles that he gave in his talks at the conference they did in late 2019.

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And you'll recall that we rather fully reviewed, played portions of, and have demonstrated the utter circularity of the

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TR -only position, the debates also demonstrated the utter circularity of the position, the incoherence of the position.

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The fact that they will admit, yes, we use one form of argumentation for this variant, and then we throw all the standards, all the standards we hold you to for this variant, we throw them out and we use a new set of standards for this variant.

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That's how you defend a defensible reading, like The Long Riding of Mark, which is defensible, it has antiquity, over against an indefensible reading like Visions 3 .9,

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or Revelation 16 .5, or Revelation 14 .1, or Kamiohadeum, against the indefensible ones.

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So there are defensible readings in the TR, there are indefensible readings in the TR, and you have to use completely different standards for the two.

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And they'll do whatever they have to do. And smile while doing it. It's funny,

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I was going back and forth with Tim Stratton on Twitter earlier today, and the issue of philosophy versus theology, sources of Christian belief, and the role of logic kept coming up, as if I don't believe you should do logic.

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When I wrote The God Who Justifies, I never did consistent hermeneutics in the original languages, because I don't evidently believe in logic.

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No, what I said was, you can come up with all the cute little logical syllogisms you want, if they're not based in a

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Christian worldview, they will have no relevance to the truth. Well, here's a situation where I have pressed the necessity of being consistent and logical for years.

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But it's within the realm of Christian theology.

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It's based upon dealing with history as history. We're dealing with written documents, and how later written documents came into existence.

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And they cannot refute this. As I've said over and over again, you could not take the manuscript tradition today, examine the manuscripts and come up with the

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TR. Jeffrey Riddle, none of those guys could give you a mechanism whereby you could examine the manuscripts today and come up with the

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TR, because it was inconsistent. Erasmus had extremely limited resources, as did

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Stephanus, as did Beza, in comparison to what we have today. And so they cannot develop a textual critical theory.

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And if you listen to them carefully, they don't want to, and in fact think that it's wrong. You should never believe that there has been corruption of the text, because, well, the

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Confession says it's been kept pure, so there's never been any corruption. And we all know that as far back in history as we want to go, into the second century itself, there are discussions of textual variance.

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And so they disconnect the text from history, establish the

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TR as the final authority, will not discuss the sources, will not in any meaningful fashion discuss how that came into existence.

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They'll simply say, that's the standard, and if you don't go there, you do not have the

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Word of God. It is an irrational, circular system that was already demonstrated in the debates that we did.

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And we've gone over this over and over again. So if I respond to the

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MetTab stuff, it's not gonna be anything different than what I've already responded to. I'm gonna have to say the same things repeatedly.

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I'm gonna have to go back and get the graphics and say, okay, we've already said this, but here it is again.

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And maybe, since this is the MetTab, maybe it's worth doing it and making that available so that people can grab that as a single resource.

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I don't know. It would be a whole lot easier to just go back to all the programs and the hours and hours and hours and hours we've already done and put all that together and say, look, this has been refuted over and over and over again.

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Here's the information again. But yeah, I know it's sad that this stuff is going on and such a distraction from important things.

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But anyway. So, like I said, I responded to Samuel this morning and even linked to the first blog article

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I did responding to the conference they did. I think it was November of 2019, something like that.

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It was right before we were plunged into darkness. And I forget how many hours we did in response to that stuff.

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But we've done a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And maybe we could put our volunteer on to creating a time index playlist.

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That would be really valuable. Otherwise, I've got to do it all over again. And there could be some people in the audience going,

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I'm not going through all that again. I'm just not going to do so. Yes, richpierce14 on Twitter, some guy, you know who that guy is.

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Weird picture. So we are about 15 minutes in on the live show. Pretty sure it won't get posted to YouTube.

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Yeah, well, as I said, this is why we need to get hold of, hey, and I actually made a comment.

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And maybe I don't even know how to get the response back. But dividing line highlights, guys.

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Whoever you are, we'd like to hear from you. We appreciate what you do. Really, really do.

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And now I need to talk to you. Maybe you could help us with this. Maybe you will be.

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Would you like your channel to blow up? Maybe you could be.

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Very helpful. For example, I'm going to transition here into a discussion of the

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Molenism issue. And the

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YouTube censors are going to be wondering who Mole is. Who's Mole?

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So they don't care. That's not going to get flagged or anything. And so we'd like to talk with you about what you do and stuff like that.

38:40

Yes, sir. You know, do you know this richpierce14 guy? He's me.

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It's I, him. We're all about that these days, right? No, not so much.

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So the plan here, Odyssey is going to work different since you're taking a moment here.

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And after the show's over, we will upload the backup recording.

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Odyssey is still, we're still in beta mode for live streaming. So they're still in the process of developing this.

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There's more and more and more they're going to unfold next year. So hopefully we're going to get to a point where we're close to how, where YouTube is at.

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Or they're going to be purchased by Facebook and it's all dead. Yeah, there you go. So, but in the meantime, it's a very, from what

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I'm learning, a very libertarian place. And I read their terms of service and it's pretty much if you don't do anything gross, violent or illegal, you're good.

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So that's my, uh, you know, rich pierce version of it, but, uh, it's, it's going pretty well over here.

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Okay. So it's all good. Good. All right. Well, yeah, we'll just keep doing what we wanted.

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We're going to keep trying to get stuff done. Okay. Uh, so tomorrow, tomorrow the, um, recording of the, uh, dialogue discussion debate with William Lane Craig will drop probably early in the morning.

40:19

I assume. I'm not sure what the timeframe is, but London's five hours ahead of Eastern four or five right now.

40:27

Anyways. Um, so it should be early in the day. Um, I expect just all sorts of, cause we're already getting all sorts of stuff, uh, from, well, to use

40:42

Dr. Stratton's terminology, the Molinist community. I didn't know there was a Molinist community, but I guess there is.

40:48

Um, which is a small group of folks, uh, pretty, um, radically committed to their unique, um, perspectives.

40:59

Um, but, uh, that's gonna drop tomorrow and I hope you enjoy listening to it.

41:07

Hopefully we have given you enough heads up for what the issues are to be listening to it carefully.

41:16

I did the, uh, program right after he did it primarily because as I said, word had gotten out.

41:24

I had, I had wanted to, I wanted to make sure it happened. I didn't want to get, get fires going beforehand.

41:33

And I knew it was, you know, people are going to say, well, why didn't you say it was going to be happening and blah, blah, blah.

41:39

It's like, okay, let's just explain why it was. And I took the time to sort of say, okay, here's, here's what the issue is.

41:49

Here's what the key, this is why I was as focused upon this as I was, because the fact of the matter is, um, 99 % of people have no earthly idea what

42:01

Molinism is, despite the fact that we've addressed it for years and years and years. And so why, given everything else that's going on, would you be investing your time in a subject like this?

42:17

And I, in that, uh, in the, in the weeks leading up to it had been reviewing

42:26

The Only Wise God. We were looking specifically at what

42:31

William Lane Craig says in his own words and responding to it. Uh, part of that was for his own benefit, by the way.

42:39

Uh, someone associated, not kidding about names, someone associated with Unbelievable had asked for, could you provide stuff that you've done?

42:48

And I said, well, you know, here's program we just did. I'm gonna be doing more programs. And, you know, this is a chapter in my book on the subject of evil.

42:56

And, and so part of that was so that Bill Craig would have more information as to where I'd be coming from.

43:04

So you'll notice, for example, when I got to my key objection, and the more

43:11

I make the objection, the more I'm realizing, I don't think there's an answer to this. Um, when

43:18

I got to that objection, he was ready. He knew. And that's helpful. That's a good thing. That's not a negative thing.

43:24

It's a good thing that he knew I was going to raise the grounding objection. And I raised the grounding objection within the context of my assertion that the

43:34

Christian worldview is a truth making worldview. I didn't say that in the program, because I let him bring up the truth making stuff.

43:43

But, um, since that has come up, and since I dealt with it on the last program in the big studio,

43:50

I do not see how anyone can look at the doctrine of creation in Scripture, especially as that doctrine of creation interfaces with Christology.

44:05

That is, Jesus Christ is the creator of all things. All things, they hold together in him.

44:13

If it exists in this universe, it holds together in Christ. There is nothing that exists in this universe that Jesus didn't define.

44:24

There is nothing true in this universe. The Jesus does not make true. There is no fact in this universe.

44:32

The Jesus does not make a fact. That's radical, but I've been teaching that in seminary for decades, decades.

44:41

I can point you to people who graduated from Golden Gate Seminary, and they attended my classes in the 1990s.

44:51

And they will tell you, I was teaching that then. And so, my objection, specifically, is to the idea, which, and when you have these conversations, the other side becomes even more clear in what it's saying.

45:12

And so, the 2014 statement from Bill Craig, that the truth value of subjunctive conditionals, which is what makes up the essence of middle knowledge, is not under God's control.

45:29

In our conversation, he says, does not arise from his will. It's not based upon his will. I can give you the exact quote if I wanted to fire up my notes here.

45:37

And so, the more we press on that, the more clarity we get on that. And if that's the one useful thing that comes out of it, great, fine, wonderful.

45:46

But that is my point, that if you allow this to form the foundation of your epistemology, the radical claims of this book, that the maker entered into his own creation, that it is in Jesus Christ that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

46:19

If you believe that, first and foremost, and then practice philosophy on the basis of that, you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever come to Molinism.

46:33

Because Molinism is saying that there is something that has existence, not material existence, but an existence so inviolable, and it's not based upon God's will, it's not a part of his creation, he does not define it, but it's so inviolable, it determines what worlds are feasible for God to create.

47:01

That, I find to be an absolutely fatal objection for a

47:07

Christian. Now, if you're just a philosopher, and you like to come up with arguments about epistemology and trans -world theories, have fun.

47:26

But don't call it Christianity. Don't call it biblical. Don't call it consistent with what the apostles taught.

47:37

Admit it is a philosophical system that is derived long later that you are forcing on scripture.

47:43

And when it changes the meaning of scripture, then it's a real problem. So, anyway, I did the follow -up video, and Dr.

47:59

Stratton decided to do a live video in response to a portion of what he said.

48:05

Now, what was amazing was he had somebody write to him an email and say, hey, he thinks he has a fatal objection to Molinism.

48:14

Toward the end of my comments, in passing, it was not my primary point at all.

48:21

And I don't know how anybody could watch my video and come to the thinking that that was the essence of my argument.

48:27

But that's what he responded to, as if it was the essence of my argument. I made the statement about, because of the existence of the truth value of these subjunctive conditions, that there are people that God can never save.

48:49

And I just asked people to think about what that would mean. Because that means the definition of those individuals is inviolable, but God didn't create it that way.

48:57

So, it is a reality that God cannot change, but he did not determine it.

49:08

You see, one of the major differences is, my focus is on what this says about God.

49:14

Molinism's focus is upon man. Man's nature, even though not decreed to be created, and I argue this is meaningless drivel.

49:28

There is no such thing as the essence of any individual that can be known before God decrees to create him, because God's decree to create is what brings that individual into existence, defines that individual, defines their gifts, defines when they're going to live, defines who they are.

49:45

Molinism has human beings who are defined by something other than God. The only thing that's defined by God in Molinism for human beings is when and where they live.

49:53

And then his micromanagement of everything they experience. Which, again, that's a whole other area that I just find, that's not autonomy, that's not true libertarian freedom, that's made up.

50:09

But, be it as it may, the point is that man is the center definitional issue when it comes to creation in that system.

50:21

And so, I was saying, hey, look, think about what this means as to the limitations upon God.

50:30

There are people that ostensibly, I guess, God loves, does

50:37

God love uncreated people? I don't know. We are so far beyond anything that any prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ ever even dreamed about, that I don't know.

50:48

Does God love uncreated people? Well, biblically, he loves uncreated people, his elect, with a special love, yes.

50:57

And there's even a providential, preservational love that you could talk about for all people.

51:04

But, especially, specifically, before I formed in the womb, I knew you, chose you.

51:11

So, in that sense of divine election, but that's a part of God's decree.

51:19

That's completely different than this other realm where human beings don't exist yet.

51:26

They haven't been decreed to exist yet, but somehow, they are so defined that it is inviolable, even for God, to change them.

51:41

And so, that's what I was saying was a real issue, a real problem.

51:47

So, let's listen to some of these things. I can't cover all of it, and as it is, it's nine minutes before the hour, which means we're going to be going a long time.

52:04

What's the limit on Odyssey? Four? Oh, okay. Oh, man.

52:13

Should have done that before we started the program, don't you think? Output.

52:24

I think it's that one. I'll keep that up just in case.

52:30

Yeah, I think it's that one. Okay, so let's start, and I'm going to need to listen myself here, obviously, again.

52:40

And let's get started here. This is a whole lot easier. It's not as fun as the big studio, but it's a whole lot easier to get the mouse to where you want it to go.

52:51

So, anyway, I want to talk about this fatal objection that Dr. White speaks of.

52:59

So, he suggests that it's a major problem for Molinism. Indeed, he seems to think it's kind of a deal breaker, that some

53:07

Molinists are open to the possibility of the trans world damned.

53:12

Okay, now let me make sure you catch this, because, again, this is not language that has ever been used by Christians until the modern era.

53:26

Trans world damned. Trans world damned. I would be interested, how many people, put up your hands, how many people in the listening audience have ever heard the phraseology trans world damned before?

53:45

Anyone? Rich? Anybody else in the listening audience? Nope. Rich says no.

53:51

There's nobody out there. Trans world damned is a person who, in any feasible world, would always be damned.

54:04

Would never accept the offer of salvation. Now, sit back a second, because this is going to come up.

54:14

What does that mean? Well, theology, it's always in there someplace, right?

54:22

Theology matters, and we have been saying that for a long, long time. We've got t -shirts to prove we've been saying that for a long, long time.

54:31

And in this instance, the theology of regeneration matters.

54:39

The biblical teaching of resurrecting a person to spiritual life. Spiritually dead, being made spiritual life.

54:48

Being freed from slavery to sin. The taking out of a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh.

54:57

These are radical, divine acts that are acts of mercy.

55:05

This is not where Dr. Stratton is coming from as to what the nature of regeneration is. As we're going to see later on, he uses one of the classic canards on this subject.

55:16

But what I was saying is, if the

55:22

Molinus position is true, then God cannot, there are certain people, God can't change their heart?

55:30

And from their perspective, no, because that's forcing him to do something. So if you free a slave, you're forcing them to be free.

55:39

If you raise someone from the dead, Jesus forced Lazarus into life.

55:47

That's the mindset. Because there isn't a biblical anthropology here either.

55:52

There is no understanding of total depravity, deadness, and sin. There's no biblical anthropology to balance these things.

56:00

So, trans world damned. That's the language, that's why this is not a subject that you can deal with forever for a simple reason that it's never going to be in the pages of Scripture you'll be dealing with it.

56:17

Because there's no such concept. And no one believes there's any such concept in Scripture.

56:24

Let me just make it clear, that's not an essential ingredient of Molinism. You don't have to affirm the trans world damned if you are a

56:33

Molinist. I'm open to it. In fact, I discussed that in my paper in Texas just a few days ago.

56:43

But although it seems impossible to prove the truth of the trans world damned, I think the concept seems coherent, and that's why

56:51

I'm open to it. I mean, it seems possible. Now, here is language that you will hear

56:58

Craig using all the time. Dr. Stratton uses it all the time. It is coherent and possible.

57:07

And so, so many things will be raised not from the text of Scripture, not from going, okay, here is where this says this, and this is consistent with what

57:20

Paul says over here, and therefore there seems to be a consistency and coherence in biblical revelation.

57:27

No, you'll have things brought up from a syllogistic discussion of something out in philosophy.

57:34

And as long as it's coherent, therefore it's possible, and you can just plug these things in here, here, here, here, and that's how you come up with something.

57:43

And this is where we're never going to come to a unified conclusion on this, because from my perspective, if that's your thing, fine, but don't call it

57:56

Christian theology. That's not how you do Christian theology. And one of the issues is what is more definitional, that which is based upon divine revelation or that which is based upon human philosophical speculation.

58:17

And for a Christian, that shouldn't really be a question, but it ends up being a question.

58:23

And it's a concerning question. So, like I said,

58:31

I didn't, I'm not responding to everything. I'm just trying to get to a few things, because toward the end, a person wrote in and actually asked a question that forced him to deal with what my actual focus had been.

58:45

It took a very small portion of the program, but I just wanted to cover a couple of these things without going for a mega -length program today as well at the same time.

58:54

The person who is endowed with libertarian freedom, right? So this is a person that God has created in his supernatural image, and thus, this person has the supernatural.

59:04

I do think libertarian freedom is a supernatural power, right? Okay, I apologize.

59:10

My list was scrolled back, was scrolled down.

59:16

So I'm going to mark that one I already looked at. I'm going backwards.

59:23

I apologize. My list is scrolled down when I moved it from one screen to another. This program does not like having screens on different screens, but anyways,

59:32

I'm working with it. Let me back up to this, because these were things that I had marked. Apologies. My mistake.

59:38

Brandman, he pointed out some things about White's video.

59:44

It says that White complained that Molinism came 1 ,500 years after Christ, but fails to mention that Calvinism did as well.

59:52

They're both from the same era. Now, let me—I was digging around through my office.

01:00:01

I've been doing some straightening and some cleaning and stuff like that. A friend of mine years ago gave me one of these.

01:00:09

This is a coin. Now, obviously, it's in a cover, but it is a coin from Diocletian.

01:00:21

Now, Diocletian was one of the great—he's there on the front. He's in armor on the back, sort of hard to see.

01:00:29

Diocletian was one of the great persecuting emperors right before the great, great persecution started in 303 of the

01:00:37

Christian people. More than 170 years before this coin was minted.

01:00:53

Someone that we call today Clement—we don't—that's not part of the documentation, but someone named

01:01:00

Clement, the church at Rome, or representing the church at Rome, wrote to the church Corinth, and somehow that entire letter is filled with references to God's grace and to the elect.

01:01:18

I don't know anybody who knows church history who would say that Calvinism simply appeared in the 16th century.

01:01:27

I don't know who this Cranman fellow is, but it is historically naive at its best to compare

01:01:36

Reformed theology with Molinism in its historical pedigree. And Dr.

01:01:43

Stratton, evidently—and

01:01:53

I forgot to look it up, but I had looked— In 2015, someone sent me an article from Dr.

01:02:03

Stratton. He wasn't Dr. Stratton back then, I don't think. I remember what it was about. I looked up Stratton on our blog and found one reference from back in 2015.

01:02:14

I had not heard anything about him or read anything about him until about three months ago.

01:02:25

And that's when I got the book, and I listened to an interview he did.

01:02:31

I think it was with Allie Beth Stuckey. I'm not sure. It was a lady interviewer, and this was before he finished his book.

01:02:37

He was talking about coming out. And as I listened to the interview, he starts off talking about how he was a

01:02:50

Calvinist, a five -point Calvinist. He would argue five -point Calvinism with anybody. He was a five -point Calvinist.

01:02:56

And then he listened to William Lane Craig's debate with Christopher Hitchens.

01:03:02

And when Hitchens asked Craig, What Christians do you disagree with?

01:03:07

He said, Calvinists. And Dr. Stratton said,

01:03:13

I had assumed he was a Calvinist. And that's when—at that point,

01:03:19

I had not gone back. I didn't know about the 2015 thing. But back in 2015, according to Dr.

01:03:24

Stratton, I said in my response to him, this man was never a Calvinist. And as soon as I heard him say that about Hitchens and William Lane Craig, I said,

01:03:35

I was right in 2015. And I stand by it.

01:03:43

Now, there is a difference, Dr. Stratton, between being a Calvinist and being Reformed. So you may have been a

01:03:49

Calvinist in the sense that you held to five points. But that does not mean you're

01:03:55

Reformed. It does not mean you understood how each of those five points is directly related to and necessitated by a theology of God's freedom.

01:04:09

And so if you, as a Calvinist, had ever read this, then you would know that the person that is cited more often in this than anyone else is who?

01:04:25

Augustine. And so to even play the historical game that the never -before -enunciated, absolutely unique, made up by a

01:04:44

Jesuit who is specifically seeking to fight the Reformation concept of Molinism.

01:04:51

So we can put it within a year of its first enunciation in the 16th century, that that's parallel to what you can find in Clement, what you can find in the

01:05:07

Epistle to Diognetus, what you find laid out by Augustine in his later writings especially.

01:05:15

Parallel those two? Um, no. That's embarrassingly bad.

01:05:23

Um, embarrassingly bad. There is not a parallel between the two at all. And by the way, how come everything

01:05:30

I say is a complaint? What if I were to do the same thing? Ah, Stratton complains that I said this, and Stratton complains that I said that.

01:05:39

Everything was a complaint. That's odd. I'm not sure why that is.

01:05:45

Um, okay. Pressing on. It's also noted that White complains that Molinism kind of becomes an interpretive grid over the entire

01:05:57

Bible. You know, an interpretive grid, kind of like a hermeneutic that allows one to interpret different Bible verses, you know, the ones that come to mind, you know, you think about verses.

01:06:09

Okay, so, yes, that is a complaint if you want to make it a complaint.

01:06:17

And he's going to say, well, you do the same thing with Reformed theology. The difference being that I can walk through John chapter 6 and you cannot.

01:06:24

But I can walk through Ephesians chapter 1 and you cannot. Consistently. I can use the exact same hermeneutic system that I use to defend the deity of Christ in those passages.

01:06:35

And I do not believe you can do so. That would be a good substance of a future debate. I haven't found a lot of people on the other side that are willing to do that kind of a debate.

01:06:46

You know, um, one of your co -teachers at your school. I've said,

01:06:52

I'll walk in with this. This is the New Testament Tyndale. Just happens to be convenient.

01:06:58

It's pretty and it's Jeffrey Rice -bounded. Anyways, I'll walk in with this. We'll do

01:07:04

John 6. And, well, no, we need to be able to go outside of John 6.

01:07:12

The point is, I can walk through it and my beliefs will flow out of it.

01:07:22

You can't do that. I'm sorry. I've been at this for a while. We can certainly look to do it.

01:07:30

If you think you can. And I've read your book. And I've read what you think is the exegesis section.

01:07:38

Which is nothing more than listing Bible verses. And at most, at most having a few sentences afterwards where you're quoting from a commentary.

01:07:48

That's not exegesis. That's not even close to exegesis. I would honestly ask you,

01:07:55

Dr. Stratton, pick it up.

01:08:03

If you don't have it, pick it up. Go to the

01:08:09

Romans 1 section. And work through it. And tell me that you do, in defense of Molinism, what

01:08:20

I did in this. That would be my invitation.

01:08:27

Or you can go to Forgotten Trinity. Go into the chapter on John 1.

01:08:35

The materials on Granville Sharp Construction, Titus 2 .13, 2 Peter 1 .1. Anything like that.

01:08:42

There wasn't anything like that in your book. There really wasn't. So, I have looked.

01:08:50

And it's important to see. Then we have some texts come up that illustrate this.

01:08:56

1 Timothy 2 .4. God loves everybody and desires everyone to come to a knowledge of the truth.

01:09:04

Desires everybody to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. 2 Peter 3 .9. Okay, so.

01:09:09

Have you looked at the chapter on the

01:09:15

Big Three? 1 Timothy 2 .4. 2 Peter 3 .9. Matthew 23 .37. Do you have a calendar exegesis that goes into the depth that is found here?

01:09:31

You were doing this on the fly. And I get that. I'm going to have to take that down just a second,

01:09:38

Rich, because I've got to pull Accordance up. At least get it over onto the other screen so I can look at it over there before I bring that back up.

01:09:49

But, I'm not holding you accountable for the non -memorization of it in context.

01:10:02

But, 1 Timothy 2. After talking about kinds of men.

01:10:10

First of all, then, I'm not going to go too deep. I've done this how many times over the years?

01:10:17

Rich could do this in his sleep now because he's heard it so many times. But, first of all, then,

01:10:23

I urge that in trees and prayers, petitions, thanksgiving be made on behalf of all men. For kings and all who are in authority. Kinds of men.

01:10:29

In order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all God's dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our

01:10:35

Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. There wasn't anything about love. You're assuming that all men there is individualistic rather than generic, which is what the context was.

01:10:49

And you didn't go on to, for there is one God and one mediator also between God and men. The man

01:10:54

Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all. The testimony born at the proper time. And, hence, the serious question being, do you believe that Jesus intercedes?

01:11:03

Because that's what this is saying. In context, do you believe that Jesus is interceding for the lost today?

01:11:15

Because if you're going to say all men and you're going to make it universalistic, then this is what exegesis forces you to do.

01:11:25

So, when the Reformed person comes to this, there is to be prayers made for all kinds of men.

01:11:35

God desires all kinds of men to be saved. We can never, ever limit. We can promiscuously proclaim the gospel because God calls men everywhere to repent.

01:11:46

All kinds of men. There's never, ever a basis for the hyper -Calvinistic perspectives or any of that type of stuff.

01:11:55

But at the same time, being saved means coming to a knowledge of the truth.

01:12:02

And that truth, there's one God and one mediator also in God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So, you have the fact that Jesus is the

01:12:10

God -man. You have his position as mediator between God and men. But you better have consistency and understanding that this same author wrote

01:12:23

Romans chapter 8. And to have that mediator between man and God, that mediator succeeds in interceding for a specific group of people.

01:12:32

I can have Paul speaking consistently across Scripture.

01:12:40

And what's being said there is not what your use was. It's not what your use was.

01:12:47

And then you went to 2 Peter 3 .9. And again, same chapter.

01:12:54

I'd invite you to look it up. What's being spoken of in 2 Peter 3 .9, again, is not some just universal type of a situation.

01:13:04

But there's a context to it. A context that greatly informs our understanding of what it's actually saying.

01:13:13

But then this weird thing happened. And I'll be brief.

01:13:22

Doesn't desire anybody. And they start going, well, based on Calvinism, that can't be true. So, yeah,

01:13:28

God does desire not all people to be saved, but all kinds of people.

01:13:35

Okay, so you know that. Can you refute the fact that it's talking about kings and those in authority?

01:13:42

Are those kinds of people? So if that's in the context, explain why it's wrong.

01:13:51

In light of that being consistent with Paul's entire teaching of who Jesus intercedes for.

01:13:56

Unless you're going to come out and say, yes, Jesus is interceding for all those people who are currently under the wrath of God.

01:14:02

Let me ask you this. Is Jesus interceding for the trans world damned? Asking biblical questions of philosophical stuff like that is...

01:14:16

Talk about critical race theory. That gets us into critical race theory issues very quickly. When we start categorizing groups into different people groups.

01:14:24

No, no, no, no, that's not biblical. God loves everybody, desires everybody to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

01:14:33

Wow, critical race theory. So, Dr. Stratton, one of my favorite movies is

01:14:43

The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. Charlton Heston, a man's man.

01:14:54

I love the scene when the

01:15:00

Pharaoh returns after his army is destroyed at the Red Sea. He says, his God is

01:15:06

God. But I want you to think about something. For CGI, that was the greatest

01:15:15

CGI that ever. They were so far ahead. I still love it to this day.

01:15:20

I really do. It's great stuff, but God killed the firstborn of Egypt.

01:15:29

Babies, young men, little children. There is a baby nursing at his mother's breast and it died.

01:15:39

Breathed its last and died. An entire army of men went into that sea and were drowned, killed.

01:15:59

God despoiled Egypt. God punished Egypt for its idolatry. Was it because in his middle knowledge he knew the

01:16:10

Jews were so much better? How many nations did

01:16:19

God allow to exist within 500 miles of the borders of Israel and never sent a prophet to them?

01:16:28

You're going to tell me the biblical message that God has an elect people results in critical race theory when the

01:16:38

Bible teaches us plainly that God has had a chosen people from the beginning?

01:16:47

That has nothing to do with critical race theory. That was a throwaway comment that was absolutely unworthy of you.

01:16:54

Completely unworthy of you. And I think most of the best responses to the explosion of the woke church have been from reformed people.

01:17:07

But, unworthy of you. What was it they said in Peter Pan?

01:17:13

Bad form, Peter. Bad form. So, continued on.

01:17:23

You know, in a lot of the reviews that people have written about this book, most of them have been extremely positive.

01:17:29

And one common theme is Stratton is not scared of scripture. And I take that as a compliment.

01:17:37

I wanted to back everything up biblically. Okay. I really appreciate that.

01:17:47

But, I didn't find that. Again, citing a text of scripture and then giving a short paragraph of a commentary or maybe two commentaries.

01:18:08

That's not exegesis. That's not backing stuff up. There was nothing. I'm sorry.

01:18:14

Point me to the page number. Tweet it to me. Even right now. Point me to the page number in your book.

01:18:22

Where you provide biblical foundation for the existence of the truth value of subjunctive conditionals outside the exercise of the will of God.

01:18:39

Now, Bill Craig laughed at that. As well anyone should.

01:18:48

The idea that any apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, any prophet of Yahweh, believed anything like that is something worth laughing at.

01:19:01

So, if you're going to say you're going to substantiate it, there is a vast difference between walking through entire biblical passages.

01:19:12

And let's use something that's not even, that shouldn't, I hope, be controversial. I can walk through Romans 3, 4, and 5 and demonstrate that the

01:19:27

Apostle Paul taught justification by faith apart from works of the law. Not in the

01:19:35

N .T. Wright concept, but in a specific concept that would tell us that faith, and you may disagree with this.

01:19:47

Faith is a gift of God. It brings nothing in His hand. And only that empty hand of faith can grasp the hand of God's grace.

01:19:58

If you try to bring anything with you, anything that's on your own part, gets in the way. The blessing is upon the one who does not work, but believes.

01:20:08

Romans chapter 4. So, I can walk through those texts, verse by verse, in the original language, and draw that doctrine out.

01:20:20

That's exactly what I did right here. It's also exactly what

01:20:25

I did right here in regards to God's sovereignty, election, and elect people, deadness of man and sin, whatever it might be.

01:20:39

So, there is a huge difference between saying, see,

01:20:47

I cited all these texts of Scripture, and I've created these arguments based on maximal being ontology.

01:21:00

And I claim they are consistent with an overarching understanding of the

01:21:10

Bible. That's not the same thing as saying what

01:21:16

I am teaching you flows out of the necessary conclusions you come from when you apply the same hermeneutical system to all of Scripture.

01:21:27

It's not the same thing. It's a vastly different thing. And that's why we're never really going to come to any closure on this.

01:21:35

It's because I think that's the fundamental difference. Right there. Is that I got, y 'all listen tomorrow,

01:21:44

Bill Craig does not believe that anyone's beliefs are actually derived from Scripture.

01:21:51

They're all systems that we're just testing. And that's how you do philosophy.

01:21:57

When you apply it to theology, the result is a disaster. And I say, dude, that's not what you do with the

01:22:05

Trinity of the deity of Christ. And every time you don't do it that way, I pray

01:22:10

God convicts you. It's just you're stealing from a system that isn't yours.

01:22:16

So, don't do that. Now, so this is where we are scrolled to. Sorry. So then we listen to the thing about some

01:22:27

Molinists and the trans world damned and so on and so forth. And then we come to here.

01:22:34

The person who is endowed with libertarian freedom. So this is a person that God has created in his supernatural image.

01:22:43

And thus, this person has the supernatural. I do think libertarian freedom is a supernatural power.

01:22:48

And we have this because we are created in the likeness and image of God. And God is supernatural by definition.

01:22:54

And so it just makes sense. Now, I asked Dr. Stratton, and he answered quickly and I appreciate it.

01:23:05

I asked Dr. Stratton, I said, do you believe?

01:23:11

Because in his response, he used Satan as his example of a trans world damned individual.

01:23:22

And so I asked, do you believe Satan bears the image of God? And he says, yes. Because the image of God for him is basically any type of intellect.

01:23:30

That's not the image of God, not biblically. We're not told that angels have the image of God.

01:23:36

Only man's created in the image of God. And how do we know this? Because, well,

01:23:41

I suppose, I keep assuming things. The vast majority of Christians don't believe that Jesus's atoning death is for anyone other than human beings.

01:23:55

How could it be substitutionary otherwise? So Jesus did not substitute for angels. Right? So there could be no redemption for angels.

01:24:07

So man is said to be in the image of God. Christ comes as a second Adam, not as a second angel.

01:24:14

So how could his redeeming death have any type of redemptive application?

01:24:19

But it does for those who have the imago Dei, the image of God. So we are made in the image of God. And so the issue of a trans world damned person, again, takes us back to the key issue.

01:24:36

And that is in Molinism, what a person will do is determined by someone other than the man or God.

01:24:46

God doesn't determine it. Man doesn't determine it. Because God already knows what that is.

01:24:53

And that's why he puts man in certain situations. So it's not determined by anyone because we're not truth makers.

01:25:00

Well, yes, we are. Have to be. Have to be. You're making a positive assertion there is something that absolutely delimits

01:25:08

God's abilities. And so there are people that even, are you going to say that even if God did what

01:25:15

Scripture describes as removing a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, God cannot raise them from spiritual life.

01:25:24

Can't do it. Because of what? Because of middle knowledge. Now, the problem is you don't use that terminology.

01:25:33

You use term of force. So if you, if you remove a heart of stone, give a heart of flesh, you have forced that person to life.

01:25:42

So God forced Lazarus out of the grave. And I obviously say that is an absurd use of the language.

01:25:52

It's not like grossly unfair, but it's like for someone who has been the recipient of this gracious act on God's part.

01:26:04

Yeah. There you go. That's certainly an issue.

01:26:11

So here's where the rubber meets the road.

01:26:18

Really, I think in what the differences are. So this is a person who would freely choose to reject, continually reject

01:26:27

God's love and grace in any freedom permitting circumstance that God can place them in. So although it's possible for the person to not reject

01:26:37

God's love and grace, it's not feasible for God to create a world in which this person does not freely choose to reject

01:26:45

God's love and grace. If they always freely choose continually to reject God's love and grace, then

01:26:52

God cannot create a world where they don't freely choose to do so. God could take their freedom away.

01:26:58

He can force them, but that doesn't seem to be love. It seems to be,

01:27:06

I mean, I hate to say it, but it seems to be closer to rape. I don't think that's what God wants.

01:27:12

I think he wants a true love relationship. Okay, so this is central to Dr. Stratton. He says in his book, he defines salvation as this love relationship.

01:27:21

And again, I'm not for a second going to deny the love of God or our love for God or the work of the

01:27:30

Spirit in our hearts that causes us to love God or any of those things. Those are all beautiful truths, but they are not the only truths in Scripture.

01:27:38

And again, it is a focus upon man rather than the demonstration of God's mercy,

01:27:47

God's grace, God's love, God's justice, God's wrath. It's all about God.

01:27:53

And when you allow all of Scripture to speak instead of just picking what fits into your philosophical system, you have to deal with that messy stuff about vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

01:28:10

But notice, prepared for destruction. Oh, well, they prepared themselves for destruction.

01:28:16

But it's the potter who prepared them. It's the one who molded them, molded them for a purpose.

01:28:25

The middle knowledge says, no, they molded themselves. No, they didn't. That's simply not, again, this is why it took 1 ,500 years before someone ever came up with this because this is just simply not what the apostles of Jesus Christ taught.

01:28:41

Plainly, clearly, unalterably. But, Dr. Strapp, like I said earlier, you claim to have been a

01:28:53

Calvinist. Like I said, I do not dispute that you held the five points.

01:28:59

You were not Reformed. No one who has ever Reformed could say that what we believe about regeneration is rape.

01:29:08

That's a canard. It's dishonest. It's evil. You need to repent of it. I know you're not the only one.

01:29:13

Norman Geisler did it all the time. But I can remember looking in Norman Geisler's eyes, and as soon as you would say anything about Reformed theology, they just glassed over.

01:29:23

Wouldn't even listen to a word that you said. It's just not possible. There are illustrations that simply should never be used because they are simply grossly dishonest.

01:29:38

Grossly dishonest. Jesus raped Lazarus? Really? You've been born again?

01:29:48

That's rape? It's one thing for people who've never been

01:29:57

Reformed to, in ignorance, burn a straw man like that.

01:30:02

Someone who claims to have been Reformed, there is no excuse for that. There is none. It is an absolute credibility destroyer.

01:30:11

So I exhort you. You even hesitated. Yeah, you shouldn't have.

01:30:18

Because it's a lie. It is absolutely a lie. And if you try to defend it, it's only going to demonstrate more fully the nature of the lie.

01:30:29

So please don't. So, want to do. Okay, so finally, here's the final form of his response, and then last thing is where he actually got to, my real objection, and then we'll wrap it up, because we've already gone jumbo length now, and Rich is looking like he's hungry.

01:30:53

Let's think about this fatal objection that Dr. White thinks he's got here. White's concern, it seems to me, about the fact that it's logically impossible to force another person into a genuine love relationship is akin to thinking it's a major theological problem that Jesus can't draw a triangle with four corners.

01:31:17

Okay, did you hear that? Because you need to understand, everybody, because Rich missed it, so let me explain this to you.

01:31:24

Dr. Stratton is saying, you don't understand what I'm saying. I do. I do.

01:31:29

I'm sorry, sir. I do. I do understand what you're saying. I just don't accept the foundations of your entire system.

01:31:37

It's foreign to scripture. It did not come from here. As a Christian, I do not submit myself to philosophical systems that do not come from here.

01:31:46

Okay? And I say that as a church historian. I've seen what happens as a result over and over and over again.

01:31:56

Jesus could not draw a triangle with four corners because there is no such thing. And so what he's saying is that the trans world damned, it is logically impossible for God to force someone into a love relationship.

01:32:17

And so since that's logically impossible, then what I'm objecting to is just simply that God cannot do what is logically impossible.

01:32:26

And my response is, go deeper and ask the question, why is the

01:32:34

Molinist saying that there are people that God could never save because of an inviolable definition of who they are that did not come from God's will, does not arise from themselves either.

01:32:52

Where did it come from? We're back to the grounding objection. The fundamental fatal error.

01:32:59

For a Christian, again, if you want to do Molinism and keep it out there someplace and do your philosophy, have fun.

01:33:07

Don't try to drag it in here and say it has anything to do with this. That's where it becomes dangerous and must be exposed for what it is.

01:33:17

This is not just a, oh, well, you know, that's an interesting view over there. This is a divide.

01:33:25

It's a big one. And it was meant to be. Molina designed it to be.

01:33:33

That's why when you hear Bill Craig describing Molina in the way that he does and you hear

01:33:39

Molinist talking about Molina as this theological giant, you might go, what?

01:33:47

Yeah. I mean, the Catholics have given this stuff up. The Jesuits are like, what?

01:33:52

Huh? Who? I have no idea. They're not even fighting this battle anymore, but the battle is still real.

01:33:59

This is still a fundamental mechanism for undercutting the gospel of grace.

01:34:04

And it worked in various places, not all places, obviously. But the Counter -Reformation, there are places today that are in, have been in the deep darkness of Roman Catholicism.

01:34:13

And it's thanks to this theory because they used it and undid the work of the

01:34:18

Reformation in certain areas. So it's still the enemy of being reformed. I would say anyone who's a

01:34:24

Molinist, you should not celebrate October 31st. You can celebrate

01:34:30

Halloween if you want. I don't care. But you should not celebrate Reformation Day because you celebrate a person whose entire work was to destroy the work of the

01:34:39

Reformation. Oh, but he got in trouble with Roman Catholics. Yeah, it was political stuff. It was the Dominicans and the

01:34:45

Jesuits. He went to mass like everybody else. He was

01:34:51

Orthodox. All right, so here is the only place. This is what just amazed me.

01:34:57

When someone told me there had been a response, and then that it was to an offhand comment, rather than to the fact that I sat here and I said, look, remember,

01:35:07

I talked about this before the debate. I talked about it during the debate. I'm telling you again afterwards, this is what came from 2014.

01:35:13

This is the issue. There's no way around it. And the truth -making defense,

01:35:22

I am more than happy to sit back and let people go, okay, so you're really telling me that you're making a positive assertion that this stuff exists, and it determines what

01:35:34

God can and cannot do in His degree, what's feasible and what is not feasible. And it's the way around theodicy and everything else.

01:35:41

But if I ask you, where does it come from? I'm asking an invalid question because I'm now engaging in truth -making maximalism.

01:35:52

So what you're literally telling me is, in the universe that this book tells me God created, there's stuff

01:35:59

He didn't create, doesn't define, yet determines what He can do. And the Christian goes, wrong.

01:36:07

You got to answer that question. And there is no answer. There can be no answer. Okay, so here's where I got to what

01:36:18

I was actually saying. So here we go. Can you maybe explain some of the logical implications, quite asserted, about middle knowledge prior to the creative decree?

01:36:33

Okay, let me think about that. See, that was the whole point.

01:36:39

That was the whole point. That was why

01:36:45

I did the whole thing. It's like, okay, let me think about that. I've done all this response, but now think about what the main point was.

01:36:53

It's a little frustrating, honestly, at that point. So he, yeah,

01:36:59

I think White has, yeah, he was referencing the grounding objection, if I remember, from his video.

01:37:06

So he's saying that there's some things that God can't know. Okay, there are some things that God can't know.

01:37:15

No, I'm not saying that. See, I've heard others try to get you to address this, and they experience the same frustration.

01:37:27

And today, on Twitter, you're saying, oh, so you agree with open theist. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no again.

01:37:34

What I'm saying is, if it exists, Jesus made it.

01:37:40

Jesus defined it. If it is a true conditional subjunctive, it's true because Jesus made it that way.

01:37:50

I am a creational maximalist because the Bible makes me a creational maximalist.

01:38:00

So no, there's nothing God doesn't know. All true conditional subjunctives are true because God decreed to make them so.

01:38:10

Because that's the universe he made. He's the origin and source of all of it, maximally.

01:38:18

Maximus, maximal, maximally. Okay? I'm not saying there's something he doesn't know.

01:38:26

I mean, can you hear me? I want you to hear what's being said.

01:38:32

You've got to step outside that little box of the philosophy of Molinism and look at it from the outside for just a moment to see.

01:38:44

And this is what should allow you and me to stand on this.

01:38:51

There is absolutely no neutral ground in this universe. No neutral ground because Jesus created all of it.

01:38:57

Therefore, if it is, he made it. But as professing believers, this should allow us to have the vantage point to look at this.

01:39:09

Are you willing to do that? But like the open theist, probably means, well, these things just aren't knowable.

01:39:17

I think that's kind of problematic. And really, then it comes down to, does

01:39:24

God possess the power? Does an omnipotent God possess the power to create a creature who is not always causally determined in thought or action?

01:39:39

Okay, so this is always the response that he gives. Well, does God have the ability to create a creature with libertarian free will?

01:39:47

And as has been demonstrated by others far more philosophically inclined than I am, the whole definition of libertarian free will, soft libertarianism, hard libertarianism, soft determinism, hard determinism, determinism of this kind, determinism of that kind.

01:40:07

It's a wild mess. It's a hot mess, especially when it's not, first of all, defined on the basis of Romans 1.

01:40:21

For the Christian, the question should be, did God create

01:40:27

Adam in state A, and there is very little divine revelation on the nature of Adam's will prior to the fall?

01:40:37

Two chapters, that's it. There is next to nothing. B, what is the nature of man after the fall?

01:40:48

That's all we can deal with. Everything else is pure speculation, and to create stuff out of speculation that you then make a lens over scripture is not a

01:40:58

Christian perspective, not a direction to go. So, to simply say, well, could

01:41:05

God have made a creature with libertarian free will? We do what we desire to do.

01:41:12

That does not mean we are autonomous. That does not mean there is not an eternal decree of God. And this is where, and I'll, I have not heard anyone even, well, okay,

01:41:24

Dr. Stratton was the one that I was referring to. I'll admit this now. Dr.

01:41:29

Stratton was the one who was, that when talking about when I, when I in a, on another program was asked about an element of Molinism.

01:41:45

One of the things I said was the reality of the created world and time being important to God and being real is demonstrated by the incarnation.

01:41:56

And Dr. Stratton goes, what does Christmas have to do with this? And again, I'm like, as a

01:42:03

Christian theologian, you start with certain foundational principles. And if our creator entered into his creation as the

01:42:15

God man, then it follows that what happens in time is determined by God to have eternal consequence.

01:42:28

Jesus wasn't a puppet. So anyone who uses the analogy of a puppet is again doing the same straw man foolishness as the rape comet.

01:42:40

And by the way, I'll ask Dr. Stratton, did middle knowledge include the

01:42:48

God man? I'd be interested to know if Dr.

01:42:54

Stratton holds to Dr. Craig's Neo -Apollinarianism because that would be really interesting here, but maybe too far afield for our particular thing.

01:43:02

But the point again, for Christian theology, if you're making an assertion that absolutely delimits

01:43:13

God's freedom, what is feasible for God to do, you cannot simply say, don't need to tell you where it comes from, but God knew it anyways.

01:43:27

That is an insufficient answer. Anyone who offers it, anybody,

01:43:32

I don't care what your background, what your degrees are, you should say that does not fly. Don't tell me while holding this book in your hand and calling it the word of God, that asking that question is invalid.

01:43:46

It is perfectly valid. Absolutely perfect. Now, if middle knowledge was in here, if God said

01:43:54

I used this, but it's part of my, it's something that I'm not going to reveal to you, that's totally different, but they don't say that.

01:44:03

That's not what they're saying. They admit that's where it came from.

01:44:08

Came from philosophy. So anyway, okay. All right. I'm sorry.

01:44:14

We've gone one hour and 45 minutes and I apologize for as rich has never held up a laptop before.

01:44:26

Look, look, it's you. Your mouth's still moving. Yeah. Okay.

01:44:34

All right. Anyway, tomorrow's going to be really, really interesting.

01:44:41

Unless something really wild happens tomorrow on world news that just quashes all of that. But we'll be interested in seeing what the responses are.

01:44:51

And by the way, I'm not saying for a second that, that a debate dialogue discussion with Dr.

01:44:57

Stratton's or Dr. McGregor's that no, but I will tell you right now, let me give me a moment to say this.

01:45:05

Any debate I'm going to do, that's what it's going to be based on. I'm not,

01:45:10

I have no interest. I have zero interest in, well, you know, there was a paper presented and oh, by the way,

01:45:19

Dr. Stratton, I've presented papers at ETS. I went once. It was the most troubling experience of my life at that point in the church.

01:45:31

I've never gone back and I'll tell you why I've never gone back. I mean, I had, I've told the story before. Had a great time with people there.

01:45:41

You've talked about how you met this and it is a great time to glad hand and shake hands.

01:45:46

I'm not sure these days with masks and all the rest of that stuff, I just don't travel and fly anymore. I'm not going to submit myself to that kind of stuff.

01:45:53

But I had, I've told the story of standing at the

01:45:59

NET booth with Dan Wallace and arguing the Carmen Christie from the Greek texts by memory with Dan Wallace.

01:46:07

And it was great. It was wonderful. That part was great. The attitude that I saw on the part of Christian academics toward the church broke my heart.

01:46:20

It broke my heart. I'm a churchman. I have no interest in the academic table whatsoever.

01:46:27

I do scholarship, but I do it in the service of the church and I don't care.

01:46:34

I do not give a flip about what the academy thinks of me where I went to school or anything else.

01:46:44

I produce Christian scholarship for the service of the church. I am looking 50 years down the road and I want what

01:46:53

I do to be valuable there. That's why I have the standards I do. And so the point being, just an answer to you, you talked a lot about you're reading a paper and I don't write papers and stuff like that.

01:47:08

And I would, Tim, I would much rather preach a sermon, an apology to church than write a paper for a bunch of folks who just sit around and analyze it, not for the value it has for Christ's body, but on some other standard, just so you know where I'm coming from.

01:47:35

But if there's going to be a debate, there's going to be a discussion, it's going to be based on this.

01:47:41

We are living in days. I only have so many years left in my life.

01:47:47

I'm not going to waste them. And we are, the church is facing incredible challenges right now.

01:47:56

And so Isaiah 820 says, if they speak not according to this word, it's because there is no light in them.

01:48:04

So I will do Christian debate. I'm not going to do some ostensibly neutral, philosophical, read this paper, silliness, not interested, not interested.

01:48:19

It's not going to take up my time at all. So anyway, added a few moments to that.

01:48:26

Sorry about that. But it's still running anyways, huh? Still going. Rich is very happy about, very pleased about this.

01:48:34

So I hope this means that we can talk about everything we need to talk about in the future.

01:48:40

But then again, I still do not want to, we need to be removed from that other place by force.

01:48:49

I want to stay there as long as I can as light. That's what we're going to try to balance here.

01:48:55

So pray for us to have wisdom to do that in the appropriate way. Thanks for watching the program today. Dr. Stratton, praying for you.

01:49:04

Hopefully, I had to say some strong things. You said strong things too. Thank you for what it's worth.