Apologetic Methodology and a Report

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:13

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

00:20

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

00:28

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

00:35

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

00:44

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

00:51

James White. You know, when I sat down behind this microphone for the first time today, it was completely pitch black outside.

00:57

And while I was on the air, I saw the sun coming up.

01:03

And now it's on the other side of where the cars are parked. That's because I sat down behind this microphone 11 and a half hours ago, approximately 4 .30

01:15

a .m. And some of you know, if you follow my

01:21

Twitter account, I may have mentioned on the blog, I don't know. But if you just have resisted

01:27

Twitter, it's the way a lot of us put quick announcements out now. Rather than making people read something on a blog and RSS feeds and all that stuff, that's for longer stuff.

01:37

That's for stuff where you've got to go more than 140 characters. You just want to let people know what's going on. You know, my

01:42

Twitter stuff goes to my Facebook account and blah, blah, blah. It's Skynet. But who knew?

01:48

I mean, could we have ever done the Terminator movies if the computer program wasn't called

01:54

Skynet, but it was called Google? I mean, you really can't see

01:59

Google nuking all of humanity. It's a Google Terminator. What? I can't hear you.

02:05

You're not on. Can you imagine? The one next to it,

02:10

I saw that. How are those glasses doing there, big guy? The Terminator named

02:16

Tweet? The Terminator named Tweet. Yeah, anyway. So I sat down here this morning, and why was

02:27

I here at 4 .30 in the morning? Because at 5 .05, the phone rang, and Justin Brierley of the unbelievable radio broadcast in lovely

02:37

London there in the United Kingdom called me, and for about an hour, we had a little program.

02:46

We record a program which will air this Saturday on Unbelievable.

02:52

They're on the premier radio network, or as they say, premier Christian, Christian. It sounds like Christian to us, but then again, he calls it

03:01

Alpha and Omega. So it's just the differences across the pond.

03:08

If you're listening, Justin, it's Alpha and Omega, actually. I don't know what Omega is. What? You keep putting that thing over there.

03:14

Are they doing something this week over there? Oh, yeah. They got something going on on Friday.

03:19

I don't know. I don't know what it is. Actually, to be honest with you, Kelly got up back right after we were married for the royal wedding at I don't know what time, because back then, they said 4 a .m.

03:31

Eastern time, so that's like 1 a .m. out here, and now it's just like, eh, DVR it. But when was that?

03:39

82? Yeah. Was that 1982, I think? Yeah, she got up. I got a kick out of one of the talking heads yesterday,

03:45

I'm watching him, and the guy's just rolling his eyes. He's like, you know what? Just get on with it. Get them married so we can start the scandals.

03:54

Well, let's hope not. Let's hope that doesn't happen. But anyway, this morning there in London, we had a very, very interesting program wherein

04:08

I had a, now we need to use the right terminology, a dialogue, a discussion, a talk with Brian McLaren.

04:17

Brian McLaren, the granddaddy of the emergent church movement. When Justin contacted me,

04:23

I believe last Thursday, and said, would you do this? I was just like, oh, man, dude,

04:29

I'm already falling behind here. But I felt that it was a very worthwhile invitation, and so I've sort of been on the outside.

04:45

Emergent church has no impact on Reformed Baptists in general, so it's not something that I'm really focused upon, but I've spoken on relevant subjects to it.

04:55

I've listened to D .A. Carson talking about it, and stuff like that. So again,

05:03

I don't think I could have done this, or certainly not as easily, if it were not for technology.

05:11

Not only the fact that I'll be on a radio program in London, and I was sitting right where I'm sitting right now, here in Phoenix, but due to the fact that I was able to immediately purchase three of Brian McLaren's books.

05:29

That night went home, plugged my Kindle into my Mac, and recorded A New Kind of Christianity, and started listening to it the very next day on a lengthy ride.

05:40

And also got through a generous orthodoxy on another lengthy ride. And that would have been very difficult to do.

05:48

You have to find a bookstore, go out, find the book. I couldn't have done it on rides, that's for sure. And so we got prepared.

05:54

And some people would go, man, you really invest a lot of time in that type of stuff. It helped.

06:01

It really, really did help. Did we get to talk about everything

06:06

I would like to have talked about? No. For example, we never got to talk about homosexuality. And I think that's extremely relevant.

06:12

There were all sorts of quotes from his books I would like to have brought up, would like to have mentioned. Didn't get to those.

06:20

But I think as far as actually covering the important stuff, the foundational issues, why we differ,

06:31

I couldn't have been more pleased. I really couldn't have. I was concerned about it.

06:36

I didn't know exactly how Brian McLaren would dialogue. I'll be honest with you folks.

06:45

Some of you who are my good dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, one of the reasons that these emergent folks respond the way they do to those of us who are conservatives,

06:57

A, they're almost all formerly conservative folks themselves. That's first thing. But B, they get knee -jerk reactions from us.

07:06

And remember the Bob Price debate? Why was

07:11

Bob Price so willing to dialogue with me? And why did that go so well? Because I spent stinking months learning what he believed.

07:21

And I accurately represented him. Now, I didn't spend stinking months on Brian McLaren.

07:27

I didn't need to. I went to Fuller. Okay, so the language and stuff and that whole shtick,

07:34

I already understood it. But I took the time to obtain his books, listen to what he said, quoted him in context, and demonstrated that I did understand what he was saying.

07:48

And I think it took him aback. I think that there were a number of times he was stuttering a little bit because either

07:57

I didn't, don't drink coffee, but I've been getting up really early in the morning to ride anyway. So it wasn't like it was,

08:02

I mean, I had been riding for over half an hour the day before when this started. So it wasn't that difficult for me to get going that time of the morning.

08:10

But I'm used to doing radio. I know you have to get your points in. You need to have a certain cadence to what you're saying.

08:17

And at the same time, I had taken the time to really think through what it is they're saying.

08:25

And instead of just saying, well, that's different from what we believe, so you're a heretic. Yeah, what he's saying is heresy.

08:32

But when you demonstrate that you've heard what they're saying, I learned this at Fuller. You know, I graduated with honors, magna cum laude from Fuller.

08:43

And rarely did I have a professor who was anywhere near as conservative as me. Why did

08:49

I get normally the highest grades in the class? Because they could tell I had taken the time to listen to what they were saying.

08:57

Even in my disagreement, my disagreement was respectful and had a foundation to it. And that's what

09:02

I tried to do there. And as a result, I think those of you who were banging your heads on desks with the

09:10

Rob Bell interview will not be banging your heads on your desks nearly as much with this one.

09:15

And that wasn't Adrian Warnock's fault. Um, Brian McLaren is a considerably deeper thinker than Rob Bell is, and he's a much better writer.

09:26

I mean, you know, Rob Bell's Twitter book just just drove me insane. Uh, Brian McLaren taught

09:32

English. His degrees are in literature. So he's he's not a dummy. And that doesn't mean he's not completely wrong, but he's not a dummy.

09:42

And he tried to at least hear what I was saying and respond to it. And Rob Bell didn't bother doing that.

09:48

I mean, what was the primary Rob Bell response on Unbelievable? Well, do you? Well, do you?

09:55

I mean, it was just it was just it was worse than nailing jello to a wall. It was it was it's just simply impossible.

10:02

But yeah, there are a couple of times McLaren went off on a tangent. That's just the nature of being a postmodernist and the nature of of his beliefs.

10:11

But I really do think that we we really discuss some important stuff, some really, really important stuff on that.

10:20

And so I was really pleased with with the interview and the dialogue that took place.

10:27

And I think it really laid out the issues very clearly. So I'm looking forward to Saturday.

10:32

We will, of course, link to it as soon as it is posted, which will probably be first because I think it airs in the afternoon over there.

10:42

Yeah, it'll probably be around. Let's see if it's four o 'clock. There'll probably be around eight o 'clock here when it airs.

10:49

And I think it goes live after that. So no, Rob Bell didn't dialogue with me. We're talking about the program the week before.

10:56

Somebody in the channel is confused. But very thankful to Justin Brierley for the invite.

11:03

And and hope that I also hope that the quality of the signal that we provided was enough that might get a chance to do that again in the future with other relevant topics, especially, you know, it's sort of like, you know,

11:17

I used to write a lot for the CRI Journal. And one of the reasons I did is they knew that they could contact me in an emergency and I would provide them with something that was quite usable in a short period of time.

11:28

It's not hard to do that anymore. But hopefully we'll have that kind of opportunity again.

11:34

Speaking of the unbelievable radio program, we have been listening to the unbelievable radio program, specifically the

11:41

Bart Ehrman, Mike Licona encounter. We still have approximately 12 and a half minutes left to listen to. Once we finish this up,

11:48

I'd like to hear what you think about what we have said. I have been critical of both

11:56

Mike and Bart. Bart because he's a good naturalist and Mike because he's a good evidentialist and hopefully respectful to both men.

12:06

And I have hopefully emphasized the fact I believe Mike Licona is my brother in the

12:11

Lord and that I hope that he takes my criticism for what it is. We have fundamental theological and methodological differences as to how we do apologetics, and therefore we have to speak the truth.

12:25

And I would like to say, I would like to think, that the criticisms that I've offered need to be learned from and listened to.

12:36

Because I think that we're going to get to the end here. And once again, Mike's going to make a statement. He's going to end this debate on a statement.

12:42

And just on a simple basis here, personal word to Mike Licona, don't end your debates the way you do.

12:49

I've heard this two or three times now with a statement that instead of making a point and being memorable in people's minds and wrapping things up, it's when we at Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church sing the

13:05

Amen really badly, which is generally what we do. But there are some times it's really bad.

13:12

I mean, no two of us are on the same note or in the same register or the same key. And it just, the whole song may have been great, but the last thing you hear is...

13:23

And it's just, that's not how you do it. And I keep hearing Mike Licona ending debates with statements that just leave everybody sitting there.

13:33

I remember so clearly Peter Stravinskis. Remember Peter Stravinskis' closing statement in our debate on Purgatory?

13:40

It was debate suicide. It was debate Harry Carey is what it was. It was

13:45

Japanese ritual suicide where you cut your guts out. I mean, that's what it was. It had no connection to what had come before.

13:53

And it was just completely lame. And you could just see the Catholics in the audience sitting on the edge of their chairs going, please give us something to be happy about here.

14:00

And nothing there at all. And it was bad. So that's what's going to happen here too, unfortunately.

14:07

So hey, we'll take your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341. Do we have Skype up today?

14:14

Skype at dividing .line at Skype. And like I said, we've got 12 minutes here. Time is at 14 after.

14:20

We might have the last 15 minutes or so as long as I don't talk too much. But anyways, let's dive back into right where we finished off last time with the

14:30

Barterman Mike Lycona dialogue. It's not kind of totally coming on board with the idea that the resurrection appearances to groups and to individuals is something we can kind of nail down in the way that you say we can.

14:43

And you said, Mike, that, well, the majority of biblical scholars would say that that's uncontroversial.

14:50

Bart says, yeah, but they're Christians. It says to me, Bart wonders if there's obviously a bias going on there, that you're willing to look at the facts in a certain way if you've got a kind of Christian preconception.

15:03

And we had a little discussion about, well, whether they really are Christian. That would obviously depend on our definition of Christian to some extent.

15:12

But what I'm getting from you, Mike, is that most people don't have a kind of particular, if you like, bias.

15:22

It isn't necessarily the case that people are going to be very conservative, if you like, in their take, but they still see this as not particularly a controversial claim to make when it comes to biblical scholarship.

15:34

Yeah, and I do want to clarify that one statement I made toward the end there. I do not believe that one needs to be an evangelical to be a

15:41

Christian. I do not hold that they have to be an evangelical to be a Christian. I just wanted to clarify that. Sure.

15:47

In terms of the bias, would that mean that since the majority of Jewish scholars believe that the

15:55

Holocaust occurred, that we should discount the Holocaust? Well, of course not, because the evidence is strong.

16:02

So even if a majority of scholars believe that Jesus rose from the dead, I don't think that's the case.

16:08

But even if that is the case... It's this kind of thing you get stuck with when you have made your case based upon, quote -unquote, scholarly consensus.

16:17

Scholarly consensus changes. And it is subject to bias. Just look at the massive amount of evidence for intelligent design that just smacks you upside the head.

16:29

And yet, what is the scholarly consensus? Scholarly consensus is not evidence of anything but the current political popularity within a certain realm.

16:41

That's all it is. And that the majority of Christian scholars believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and they argue such.

16:47

The issue isn't whether they believe because they're biased. We're all biased in different ways.

16:53

The issue is, are the arguments, is the evidence, is the methodology that's being used sound to show that Jesus rose from the dead?

17:02

Yes. That's what it really comes down to. So let me respond to that. It's a good point, Mike. But you're taking an incident, the

17:09

Holocaust, that virtually everybody agrees on. If you had an event that only

17:15

Jews believed, for example, suppose... It's not true. But suppose that only Jews believe that Elijah was taken up into heaven by a chariot, that he never died.

17:27

And the only people who believe this were Jews. Wouldn't you wonder if the historical evidence was very good, if the only people who believe this were

17:35

Jews? Yeah. Good point. I think the Holocaust example was not a good one.

17:42

And the issue here should be to challenge Barth's naturalistic methodology. Because that's where the bias is.

17:49

But you see, you can't really do that within the academy very well. Because if you challenge naturalism, well, you're going to look like you're...

17:56

You're one of those crazed Christians. And you're not. You're not one of those people who talks about the lordship of Christ, even over epistemology and things like that.

18:03

And that's where the problem is. That's what you have on the resurrection. The only people who believe it are

18:08

Christians. I know, but it doesn't... My point is that if there's no bias involved, why is it that only

18:13

Christians believe it? Well, I guess it's a game changer in terms of one's worldview.

18:20

If you believe in the resurrection, the next step is you should be a Christian. And that requires a change.

18:27

That you do have stories of people who didn't believe in the resurrection, came to believe in the resurrection. Well, the natural next step was they became a

18:33

Christian. It's not just a... It's a correlation, but it makes a lot of sense as far as it being a correlation. Yeah, well, it goes the other direction, too.

18:40

A lot of people who were Christian stopped believing in it, because they don't see the historical evidence for it. Well, in a sense, that's your story.

18:46

You know, that you'd... In a sense, you'd stopped believing in God. That obviously discounted a miraculous event.

18:53

You were happy up to... Now, did you catch that? Justin's a presupposition list. Well, he's not, but he should be.

19:02

And he thinks that way, because he just saw the presupp... The role of presuppositions in Bart Ehrman's thinking.

19:10

And really, Justin... And I'm going to suggest that you listen to... I don't know if he does or doesn't. He may be too busy, too.

19:16

But that's what a presupposition list is saying. You just recognize the naturalistic presuppositions in the argument that Bart is presenting.

19:25

And you really have to wonder if Bart can, in any fair way, analyze evidence for the supernatural, given his philosophical presuppositions.

19:35

And that's part and parcel of the presuppositional approach. That point... Well, a point, at least in the past, for this to be a historical fact, the resurrection.

19:44

My point is that it's not... It's not unconnected to one's bias. And you shouldn't pretend that the historical evidence can be looked at without a bias.

19:52

And I never have. Well, so mounting a historical case... But isn't your bias just as much a bias?

19:59

The problem is you don't believe in God. And therefore, the resurrection will never be a satisfactory... Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

20:04

And yet he will sit here and, to the end of the program, saying, miracles are not allowed in history.

20:10

Why? Because my bias says they don't exist. Because my definition of history is a naturalistic one.

20:17

And there's no place for God in it. It can't be there. So God could not have done anything in history. If he exists, he's excluded from history.

20:23

And any evidence you bring up will automatically be dismissed as a result. That's a wonderful epistemological...

20:29

My bias is just as much... The question has to do whether history can be done on purely historiographic grounds without bias.

20:38

And the answer is absolutely not. And I agree with Mark. Then the question is, if that's the case, can miracle be a category that can be applied in historiographic research?

20:50

Well, if you can't do miracle because of bias, then you can't do anything, because there's always bias involved in any investigation.

20:57

Yes, but miracle is a special category, because unlike the Holocaust, it's invoking something outside of our natural experience to explain what happened in the past.

21:07

Okay, so the real issue, then, isn't bias. It's because it's invoking something outside of our experience.

21:14

Well, that's the problem. Outside of Bart's experience. I mean, Bart is not that much older than I am, and therefore, his range of experiences do not exhaust the human experience.

21:26

I'm with miracle. I've moved from talking about bias to talking about the problem of miracle. That miracle cannot be something that is encapsulated within historiographic method.

21:34

We simply don't have historiographic tools to deal with miracle, even if miracles do happen.

21:39

This is what I thought before I was an agnostic. Historiographic tools. Okay, if all he's saying here is that the historian, who's only dealing with facts and will not address reasons why things took place in the past, okay, fine.

21:57

But you see, the whole issue of the Resurrection goes beyond that. The whole issue of the Resurrection, even

22:05

Bart recognizes that to say something like, Yeah, Jesus rose from the dead. Don't have the foggiest idea why, but hey, you know.

22:15

But that's not what he's saying. And everybody knows that's not what he's saying. And he knows that's not what he's saying, too.

22:20

Agnostic, by the way, when I was a Christian, I thought that you cannot apply historiographic methods in order to explain that a miracle happened.

22:28

I think what we do is we look at the evidence and we try to let the facts speak for themselves in a manner that's worldview independent.

22:36

In other words, we don't presuppose God's existence. We don't a priori exclude it.

22:42

We try to adopt the position of hope. Which is absolutely, positively impossible.

22:48

Can't be done. It's not Christian. And that's the big problem right here.

22:54

Right there, you have Christians abandoning the Lordship of Christ in the field of epistemology and saying, well, but this is the only way we can fit into the academy.

23:05

There you go. And the results are, well, it's more probable that the evidence points to the greater possibility of the existence of a

23:16

God. And you have all this sub -biblical apologetics because of these foundational starting issues.

23:24

It just reminds me slightly of an argument we've had on here in a different field, which is the intelligent design argument.

23:31

And that there are certain scientists who are Christians who believe that the origin of life can only be explained by divine means.

23:40

But there are others who say that's not allowed in science. So your conclusion is invalid because you can't draw a divine conclusion in a scientific sphere.

23:49

You're saying a similar thing for history here. You can't draw a divine conclusion in a historical setting.

23:56

But I suppose the question is, why is that out of bounds? Well, let me ask this. Let me ask this. Suppose we bracket the resurrection and just ask about miracle in general.

24:06

So, Mike, you and I are both located in the United States, where most historians, research historians, teach at major research universities.

24:14

By the way, there, right there, if you want to know, is Bart Ehrman's ultimate authority. What people say who teach at major research universities, like him, there is your ultimate authority.

24:26

And so can you think of any instance in which secular or Christian historians teaching at major research universities in the

24:37

United States agree on any event in the past that they would label a miracle? No, I can't.

24:44

Right. And it doesn't matter whether they're Christian or non -Christian. They don't invoke miracle because they can't.

24:51

And there you go. You might as well quote Genesis 1 -1. Because for Bart Ehrman, that's it.

24:58

That's it. Now, the fact that 100 years ago, that would have been different.

25:04

And 100 years from now, it might be different. And the fact that these consensuses, consensi, will change, that's irrelevant.

25:14

Right now, that's the way it is. That's the ultimate authority. How would that be? Because you would have to have pretty much a consensus of people who would acknowledge that God exists.

25:23

And we don't have that. So I think you'd have some folks who would say, well, this is a really interesting thing.

25:29

It's an anomaly, perhaps. We don't know the cause. But whoa, can't think of a naturalistic explanation for that.

25:35

It'd be a matter of faith. It's not a matter of history. And that's the point of the Resurrection. No, I think it's a matter of worldview. No, you have to have faith for it to be a miracle.

25:43

And so the Resurrection is not subject to historiographic proof. Why do you have to have faith for it to be a miracle?

25:51

If it existed, if it took place in the past, it took place in the past before I was born or had faith in it or didn't have faith in it.

25:59

What? It's a matter of faith. It's not a matter of history. So let's suppose, let's just assume, just for a moment here, that there was no doubt whatsoever

26:09

Jesus rose from the dead. Would you acknowledge that that's a miracle?

26:16

I think that would be the question I would ask. I don't know what you mean by rose from the dead. You mean raised from the dead and never died again?

26:22

Yeah, let's say that Jesus is certainly dead and then he's raised bodily from the dead.

26:29

And that he ascended to heaven? Well, forget that part. We'll just say he's still alive today.

26:35

Yes, he's still alive today. He was risen from the dead. Right. And you could show that he had been.

26:40

I mean, let's suppose you have a decapitated person and then you see them come back to life and they're walking again.

26:47

Is that a miracle? What do you mean by miracle? Is it a divine act?

26:52

What does is mean, anyways? I don't know what it is. It's weird. Is it a supernatural cause?

27:01

Do you see why presuppositionalism is required of us? I remember Greg Bonson many, many years ago in one of those horribly recorded tapes talking about a guy,

27:13

I think it was USC or UCLA, I think it was UCLA, atheist, looks at the evidence, says, yeah, it looks like Jesus rose from the dead.

27:21

Weird things happen. Because you see, he takes that fact, fits it into his worldview and voila, weird things happen.

27:32

And now you just heard Bart Ehrman. That's pretty weird. Pretty weird. But doesn't really mean anything.

27:38

Because if you don't have the foundations in your worldview for things to have meaning, it's just a really weird thing.

27:44

Put it that way. I don't know what it is. It's weird. I mean, of course, it never happens. But I mean,

27:50

I've never seen a decapitated person. But you're asking if I saw a decapitated person have his head reattached and he lived then for another 2000 years, what would

28:00

I call that? I would call it very, very strange. There you go.

28:05

Well, let's put it this way. If the historical evidence is good enough to show that Jesus rose from the dead, we'll just not call it a miracle.

28:13

We'll just say, well, we don't know how he was raised. We don't know the nature of this body in which he was in.

28:19

All you're showing is that people claim they saw him alive afterwards. I think the evidence is there to show that not only did they claim it, they actually believed it.

28:29

And the best explanation for that is that he actually rose from the dead. Well, now you want to leave the cause of the resurrection as a question mark.

28:36

I'm fine with that. No, you've moved from history to faith. So you can show his story. You've moved from the facts of history to an explanation of what history is telling us that is not based upon naturalistic materialism.

28:48

That's what you have moved to, which Bart, just his worldview isn't big enough to embrace that.

28:54

People claim they saw him alive afterward. You can draw the conclusion that they probably believed it.

29:00

But if you yourself agree that Jesus was raised from the dead, you're saying that is an act of God in history.

29:05

And you've already agreed that historians don't invoke God when they come up with their explanations.

29:11

Did he? Did he agree to that? I guess in a way he may have because he agreed that nobody in the

29:18

United States in research universities has referred to miracle. But so what you're doing is not history anymore.

29:25

It's faith. Now, I think you misunderstand a little what I'm saying there. We look for inferences to the best explanation in history.

29:34

Now, if I can conclude that I look at the evidence, say I know some people in some of Jesus friends and at least one of his foes had a sincere belief that they that Jesus had been raised and had appeared to them.

29:46

And now I go through and I weigh different hypotheses such as resurrection, hallucinations, metaphor, apparent death theory, theft, all this kind of stuff.

29:57

And when I apply the criteria for the best explanation and the resurrection hypothesis wins by a significant margin,

30:05

I'm I am justified as a historian. I'm warranted in concluding that the resurrection hypothesis is most what why?

30:11

Now, you know, I was a little surprised and it may just have been to the form of the program. When you're in the studio,

30:17

Bart was in the studio. I've been in the studio a number of times. You can see Justin and you can you can sort of tell when he's going to be interrupting.

30:25

You know, he leans into the microphone and you know, your time's running out. And and Bart's been on Unbelievable before. So he has an idea about how long it goes, stuff like that.

30:33

Maybe that's why. But Ehrman presented in a debate, I believe with William Lane Craig on this subject, some interesting hypotheses, some hypothetical possibilities for why the historical data would appear the way that it does.

30:51

And I think that would have helped his case a lot here, because I think it would have substantially broadened the field for his his discussion.

31:02

I'm not sure why he didn't do it. Like I said, it's probably just time. I don't know. But we discussed that when we reviewed that debate quite some time ago on The Dividing Line.

31:11

But it did add an interesting dimension to it. Why is it? Why is it that historians, unlike you, do not invoke divine causality?

31:22

Maybe they don't believe in divine causality. What about Christian historians? You would say, I don't believe God exists. No, no, no.

31:27

Because we just agreed that every historian in every research university in North America would refuse to invoke miracle or refuse to talk about divine causality.

31:39

And yet you're saying that in this one instance, we're going to make an exception. Actually, and if you've agreed to his ultimate authority, you're pretty stuck there.

31:50

Should never agree to it. Should challenge it from the start. But again, that makes you look like you're not in the inside.

31:56

That just a moment ago that we could say Jesus was raised and leave a question mark pertaining to the cause of his resurrection.

32:04

But historians do this on a regular basis. Really? Yeah. Give me another instance when they do that.

32:10

When they talk about the death of Carloman. We don't know whether Charlemagne had him killed or whether he died of natural causes in the eighth century.

32:19

How about the death of Scipio Africanus, the famous general who defeated Hannibal? And historians say it was a miracle? No, I'm saying we leave the cause of how they died or of a certain event.

32:29

A question. I think you would agree that everybody dies. So there's no there's nothing particular weird about that.

32:35

But not everybody's raised from the dead to the cause, right? I see that when we look and look what

32:42

I'm doing here, too. Let's suppose I'm fine with leaving a question mark in the practice of history that God raised

32:49

Jesus from the dead. And that's why I think we would both admit it's not that he's the best candidate, wouldn't you? Exactly.

32:55

That's my point. It's a matter of faith. It's not a matter of history. Now, that's an important section of this interaction.

33:03

So important. I'm going to I'm going to back it up here. I want you to hear this again, because even

33:08

Bart's right at this point, Bart's right. Because what Mike's saying is we can leave it.

33:14

We can leave a question mark. We don't we don't have to deal with, you know, we can fit in with the research universities and say, well, we don't know why.

33:24

No, that's not that's not Christian proclamation. And I don't think it's Christian historiography.

33:31

It is a capitulation. And so listen to this again. This is

33:36

I think this is nothing particular weird about that. OK, but not everybody's raised from the dead to the cause, right?

33:42

I see that when we look and look what I'm doing here, too. Let's suppose I'm fine with leaving a question mark in the practice of history that God raised

33:52

Jesus from the dead. And that's why I think we would say it's not that he's the best candidate, wouldn't you? It's exactly that's my point.

33:59

It's a matter of faith. It's not a matter of history. OK, so what I think the thing you're struggling with is the theological implications of a historical conclusion.

34:09

This is not a historical conclusion. What you don't understand is that what you're doing theology, you're not doing history.

34:15

There's isn't all of this real simple, you know, on one side,

34:21

Bart Ehrman is a naturalistic materialist. And because his naturalistic materialistic world has not the worldview has not been challenged, then the foundations are are completely wrong here.

34:34

Now, I would say Mike Licona is not consistent here either, but it's still got a different foundation.

34:39

But they're up here and they're just passing, swinging around, passing each other in the night and zoom, zoom in there.

34:45

This could go on forever. It goes on for one minute more, but it could go on forever and never get anything done because the foundations have not been addressed and can't be addressed when you're making your argument from the consensus of scholarship.

35:03

No historians. There's no historical implications that if Jesus was no, there's no historian in the country that would agree that the resurrection of Jesus is historically demonstrable.

35:13

The only people who would say that are evangelical Christians who happen to have the faith that Jesus was raised from the dead.

35:20

So you're you're you're doing a I think you're you're saying this is what historians do.

35:26

Historians demonstrate what probably happened in the past and no historian on the planet claims that you can invoke a miracle as saying that it's a historical event demonstrated on historiographic grounds.

35:38

What I am saying and arguing contending, Bart, is that when you take the facts that virtually every scholar who studies the subject agrees upon and you do you hear this?

35:49

Do you hear this? The one side, no scholar says this. Every scholar who studies the field says this.

35:56

No scholar who teaches at a research university says this. But every scholar who's written on this subject, it's ultimate authorities and they're both wrong ultimate authorities.

36:08

And that's why. Well, it's it's the scholars that I get to choose. Well, it's the scholars I get to choose. Well, I get to choose the scholars.

36:14

No, I get to choose a star. And you wonder why people are left going, I employ the inference to the best explanation using the criteria generally employed by professional historians outside the community of biblical scholars.

36:26

And you weigh different hypotheses. The resurrection hypothesis is the best hypothesis.

36:32

And what probably occurred in what probably occurred.

36:38

And then here it is, folks. This is the end of the conversation. It's coming up right here.

36:44

This is I would contend that Jesus was raised from the dead and be very happy to leave the cause as a question mark.

36:51

We're going to have to. And I would be very happy to leave the cause as a question mark.

36:58

In other words, I'm very happy to say weird things happen. Now, what he's going to say is, well,

37:04

OK, I'll leave the cause as a question mark for now. But then once you've accepted that that's happened, then we need to have a discussion about why do weird things happen?

37:13

And and maybe we could have you over for coffee and we could talk about we could have a

37:19

Bible study and we could talk about prophecy or something. It's this incremental approach. And I just look at the apostles and go, that ain't how they did it.

37:28

Now, you can argue, well, we shouldn't do it the way the apostles did it. If you want to come out and say we should not do it the way the apostles did it because the apostles weren't living in a postmodern society, then you need to make that argument and you need to then explain to us the relevance of Scripture today and how you drive your apologetic methodology, how you avoid merely.

37:47

Well, our numbers work. Well, actually, our numbers aren't working in our society. Does that mean something?

37:53

Is that our fault? Is that the fault of the apologetic methodology or does that have something to do with God's purposes in the world?

37:59

Is there something transcendent about Christianity that's actually the same from generation to generation and culture to culture? I'm starting to sound like I was having my argument with Brian McLaren this morning, but and that's what comes out in that.

38:10

Well, there you go. I'd like to know what you all think. 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, dividing .line

38:21

by Skype. We have not taken a phone call in two weeks on the dividing line, something like that.

38:28

We were getting absolutely hammered with calls. We would have a full board of calls. And then as soon as I start doing something like this,

38:36

I know people enjoy it because we get a lot of positive feedback and people say, yeah, I really like when you do that.

38:41

But then the calls just dry up and people are like, oh, I'm not going to call because I don't want to say anything about that.

38:47

But there's got to be people in this audience that are fans of this approach of apologetics, the

38:54

William Lane Craig group, because they're the ones who got all the money.

39:00

It ain't the rest of us, that's for sure. So they got to be real popular out there. But did you hear what

39:07

I was hearing? How would you have done it differently? 877 -753 -3341, yes, sir?

39:13

Well, I kind of choked on Bart's point regarding the fact that miracles don't happen in history.

39:20

And back to the naturalistic, materialistic perspective that he's coming at, because he's saying somebody has to experience the miracle and nobody's experienced a miracle.

39:31

Right. According to him. According to him. But what he's really saying is, I've not experienced a miracle.

39:38

Nobody that I know has experienced a miracle. But somebody then experienced the miracle and they told somebody else about it and it eventually got written down.

39:56

I'm curious. I don't know the answer to this. Does Bart Ehrman believe that Jesus walked on water? No. But there were witnesses who testified to that.

40:06

They, by his standard, experienced that miracle. Yeah, I hesitate at times to speak, though I've certainly listened enough,

40:18

Bart Ehrman, I think I could speak fairly accurately to how he would respond. He would view the miracle stories of the

40:25

Gospels the way he would view the miracle stories associated with all sorts of other people of that time period.

40:34

And he would say that they grew up over the decades after the time of Christ. He doesn't believe that the authors of the

40:41

Gospels are the individuals who are named. They were literate

40:47

Greek -speaking Jews of the 7th and 8th decades of the 1st century. These are stories that have been passed down to them.

40:54

They are not eyewitness accounts. And so all he would say is, well, people writing toward the end of the 1st century record that people decades before them said they experienced things like this.

41:08

But that's as far as a historian can possibly go. So this really isn't about whether or not he or he thinks miracles happen because somebody experienced it.

41:17

We have the story saying that somebody experienced it. So now he has to expand his dismissal of the matter by...

41:27

There's always a naturalistic way of getting around anything. But that's certainly how

41:33

Bart Ehrman does it, is he questions the entire concept of revelation, because that's where he starts.

41:41

If God had revealed himself, there would be no variations in manuscripts, and there are variations, therefore

41:46

God hasn't revealed himself. So he's bought the entire Bauer thesis that the early church was just this mishmash of whackoids, and the proto -evangelicals eventually won out over time.

41:57

But hey, it could have been somebody else. That's why he could say so boldly earlier in this dialogue with Michael Icona that Jesus and the apostles would never have recognized an evangelical as a

42:08

Christian. Well, back to your point that it wasn't just one side who's biased.

42:14

Oh, no, of course not. Because his whole apologetics seems to be, I'm the neutral guy in the room. I'm the one who's truly objective.

42:21

No, he says that. Brian McLaren said that this morning.

42:26

Everybody wants to say that. But the reality is his ultimate authority came out very clearly at the end.

42:34

And that is, look, research universities, people teaching in research universities, writing for peer -reviewed journals, that is our final authority.

42:46

And once you have based, and what was the very first element of Michael Icona's argument? The broad consensus of scholars agree that.

42:57

He gave the ground. There's the ground. There's the ground. And I don't want to offend anybody by the example, but I'm a bit of a

43:07

War of Northern Aggression fan. Don't want to get my friends in the

43:14

South. The folks in the North, they're pretty calm. The folks in the South, I've told people many times

43:20

I walked out of a church in Dallas on the back of a pickup truck. There was a big old bumper sticker. It said, North 1,

43:26

South 0, halftime. So you got to be really careful how you address these things.

43:33

Anyway, you know, Robert E. Lee kept beating larger and larger armies in those first few years because the war was all in the

43:44

South and on land that he knew. When they invaded the North and his cavalrymen ran off and didn't give him good info about the ground, that resulted in Gettysburg.

43:59

And why did the South lose at Gettysburg? The South lost Gettysburg because of Pickett's Charge and because the

44:05

North was entrenched in the high ground. So in other words, the North had the ground, which is exactly what Lee had done at Fredericksburg and all these other places.

44:15

And so when you've got the ground, you've got the battle. Well, philosophically speaking, theologically speaking, historically speaking, all the rest of that stuff, what you just listened to was what happens when we concede the ground.

44:28

And what do you gain by that? You gain by that, well, you clearly desire to be accepted by the academy and we'll invite you to our luncheons and we'll have discussions.

44:44

But what's the end result? It's a capitulation of the only ground upon which you can stand to proclaim the

44:52

Lordship of Christ. That, to me, is the real issue here. Well, what was interesting to me was that Ehrman made it very clear he wasn't having any.

45:00

Well, I'm not going to meet you halfway. The fact of the matter is you say you'll give me this much, but it's not enough.

45:06

I'm going to take every bit of it. Why haven't we learned the other side is never going to concede anything? When you compromise, they're just dragging you farther their direction.

45:14

You got him nowhere. Exactly right. That's just how it works. 877 -753 -3341.

45:21

You know what? We did move the time. It's not the standard time for the dividing line on Tuesday, so maybe that's the issue.

45:29

I don't know. But we have wide open phone lines today.

45:34

I could start calling people. You could start calling people? I could get Turt and Fan on the phone in no time. I don't know if you could.

45:40

He hasn't been very active in channel today, so he may not be available. And Carla said she's going to call someday, but not today.

45:47

So there's lots of people in channel that are sitting there going, hey. And now what I've done is

45:52

I have started a discussion of the Stonewall Jackson, Lee Hooker, the

46:00

Wilderness Battle. It's great. Isn't that wonderful that we now have a discussion in channel about the

46:08

War of Northern Aggression and stuff like that? But don't even want to go there.

46:13

Do not want to go there. That starts all sorts of really, really, really bad things. I suppose I could move on from here.

46:21

And by the way, if you want to see some great movies, Gods and Generals in Gettysburg. And those were good.

46:27

I remember seeing Gods and Generals when it first came out in San Antonio. And there were like five of us in the theater.

46:37

And it was like four and a half hours long or something like that. But it was just so good.

46:44

They don't make movies like that very often. And anyhow, it was not technologically advanced and all that stuff.

46:51

But it told an awesome story. And I wish they made more movies like that. I am having to make decisions right now concerning just how far

47:05

I am going to go in this series I'm doing in response to Daniel McClellan on the blog.

47:12

It has been a while since I've written a blog series. I have blog articles through Friday.

47:19

So one will post tomorrow morning. And then we'll post on Friday. And I'm only just now getting into the argumentation part.

47:27

I would assume that if I keep going at the clip that I'm going, this will be at least a 10 -parter.

47:35

And Mr. McClellan has now begun responding to my articles.

47:40

And of course, this becomes an exponential thing. And I've experienced this for a long, long time.

47:47

This goes back to the BBS days where you invest time.

47:54

You respond. Well, once they respond, my responses to his original article are going to be 10 times longer than his original article.

48:02

So his responses to mine are 10 times longer. And eventually, you either have to give up eating and drinking and quit your job, or someone has to say,

48:13

I've said my piece, basically. And so I'm just not sure how far

48:19

I'm going to go. I haven't written on this subject since 2008. Some of you may recall the series we did in light of the

48:27

Mitt Romney candidacy, which will probably be an issue again next year. But it has been very interesting to me to see the evolution.

48:41

And Mr. McClellan may want to deny that evolution or whatever. I will pick up on some of his responses over time.

48:48

I have a publisher who would like me to get some things done, obviously, and I need to really start being focused upon that.

48:55

But it has been fascinating to me to listen to the incredible evolution that has taken place in how

49:06

Mormons defend Mormonism. And to me, it is so radical.

49:14

Whether Mr. McClellan ever hears what I'm saying or not doesn't really matter. My hope is there are other people reading this and listening who are seeing and it just makes me think there's got to be a number of people within the

49:31

Mormon Church that are seeing just how much has changed and are asking the question, can

49:38

Mormonism survive this? What is going to be the nature of Mormonism in the future?

49:46

I really honestly don't know. I really, really don't know. Um, we had two calls there.

49:53

Lost one of them, unfortunately. And I think I know who the other call was and I was about to just pick it up anyways.

50:00

But we'll go ahead and jump on here and let's talk with Patrick.

50:06

Hi, Patrick. How are you doing, Dr. White? Doing good. Yeah, I have a question about presuppositionalism.

50:14

Um, when you're talking to an atheist that's a naturalist, they really pull you hard into the sort of scientific consensus area.

50:29

Is it wrong to even dabble with introducing, I don't know, factoids, with even appealing to scholarly consensus at all?

50:42

Well, um, yes. But let me explain that.

50:50

First of all, there is no scholarly consensus on almost anything. I mean, you can find a scholar who has an accredited

50:56

PhD from someplace who will say anything. So the whole idea of scholarly consensus requires you to get to define who your scholars are.

51:04

And once you do that, we just listen to what the result of that is. I get to choose my scholars. You get to choose your scholars. My scholars are better than your scholars.

51:10

And it accomplishes nothing. Did you see my debate with Dan Barker on the existence of God?

51:18

I did. Did I use, did I talk about scientific evidence?

51:24

I did. I talked about, yeah, I did F1 ATPase. I did present it.

51:31

And I did present evidence from other things. But I did not do so as if this proves the existence of God.

51:38

And here's my scientific evidence. Now you marshal yours, and we'll not have a scientific argument, because you've got your scholars to interpret this way, and I've got my scholars to interpret that way.

51:47

I didn't present it that way. And in fact, before I even opened my mouth to do this,

51:52

I said, I am not presenting this. I am not giving you, the audience, the right to sit in judgment of God.

51:57

And I'm not presenting this as some kind of neutral evidence that you can sit back and go, well, maybe I'll weigh it this way, I'll weigh it that way.

52:02

I presented it as evidence that Dan Barker, from his worldview, cannot give a meaningful interpretation of what this evidence tells all of us.

52:14

And so I had laid a foundation where I had already challenged the kind of naturalistic worldview that begins the presupposition that there can be no evidence for the existence of God, and therefore there is no evidence for the existence of God.

52:28

I had already challenged that. And now what I was doing was providing an internal critique of his worldview that demonstrates the inconsistency and incoherence of his worldview in light of acknowledged scientific fact.

52:40

I wasn't talking about theories. I wasn't talking about how to interpret historical evidence. F1 ATPase, there isn't a question of its existence or its function or anything else.

52:52

The only question is, is this designed or not? And that's basically on the same level of looking at a watch and going, is this designed or not?

53:00

And even they will admit the watch is designed. So that, to me, is the role, is not to appeal to it and say, here is an external authority that verifies the truthfulness of my truth claims, because that elevates that external authority above the level of your own truth claim.

53:18

When we swear by God, we're saying, he's a higher authority than me. So when I make an appeal to something else,

53:24

I'm making that a higher level. I didn't do that with scientific evidence. I used that as an internal critique of his own worldview.

53:31

Okay, so just so I'm understanding you correctly, you're using evidence primarily to show inconsistencies in his argumentation and deconstruct his positive presentation?

53:43

Yes, and I'm only doing so from an openly Christian use of my worldview.

53:49

So I was straight up front. I'm not pretending to be standing on a neutral ground with you, because to do that is to abandon the whole aim of what

54:01

I'm doing the debate for, that there is no neutral ground to begin with. So I laid out my cards, so to speak, and got rid of the wrong assumptions right from the start.

54:15

Can I ask you a question that sort of builds upon this? Okay. To draw from your experience. When you're dealing with atheists, from your experience, that are naturalists, you've probably ran into atheists that are completely disinterested with the theological side of things.

54:32

They don't want to hear the Gospel. What's the best way to try to give somebody—do you just preach the

54:42

Gospel whether they're completely disinterested or not? Well, it depends on what you mean by disinterested.

54:48

If they're only going to allow you to speak for 30 seconds or they start using foul language or something like that,

54:55

I don't bother. I mean, if the Spirit's not providing any kind of—what was

55:01

Jesus's common term in the Gospels? He who has ears to hear, let him hear. I cannot be the

55:06

Holy Spirit of God. There are some people, the Romans 1 says, have been given over, and I'm not going to beat my head to a bloody pulp with someone who's been given over.

55:15

But I will challenge their naturalistic materialism. I will challenge their anti -Christian worldview and demonstrate they are stealing from mine and then present the

55:26

Gospel to them to explain why they're stealing from my worldview. But if they become abusive or they just—I just don't want to hear about it.

55:33

Okay, I'm not going to shove anything down anybody's throat if they don't have ears to hear. There are, you know, six and a half billion other people to be talking to.

55:41

So you've made yourself available, but if there's no evidence of the

55:47

Spirit of God working in someone's life to even bring them to a point of having enough patience to last for three minutes, there's nothing you can do about that.

55:57

Okay, great, great. If I could ask you just one last question, if you have time. Have you ever ran into the assertion that atheism is a naturally default position?

56:10

I've heard that said, and I just sort of wonder, have these folks looked around the world?

56:18

I mean, any meaningful survey of the world's cultures would tell you that atheism is always an extremely small expression and, in fact, can only become a majority with governmental enforcement.

56:35

So I just don't understand that. And, in fact, even atheists, even someone like a

56:42

Dawkins is going to argue that the reason theism is so predominant is because of our desire to see pattern in nature.

56:49

So, yeah, I've heard it said, but that's wishful thinking at its best. All right,

56:55

Dr. White, thank you. That was very, very helpful. I appreciate it. Okay, thanks, Patrick. Thanks for calling.

57:01

Bye. You're the best. Bye -bye. Well, we had two callers, and I was going to go to Chris. I was going to go, we're going to go a couple minutes long here.

57:07

We'll answer the question. But where's the patience? Where's the attention span? Or where's the battery on the cell phone?

57:14

One of those possibilities. We just don't know. But, hey, you know,

57:21

I was just appreciative of getting the phone calls, but that's okay. So on Thursday, plan to be at the regular time.

57:29

We're not switching it backwards and forwards. I only did this because, quite honestly, having done the

57:35

McLaren debate, I wanted to be able to go home, get cleaned up. I got a quick ride in and stuff like that and push this a little bit later in the day.

57:42

And I was just on with Paul Edwards up in Detroit in light of the

57:47

Koran -burning Terry Jones stuff. And the fact, you know, it's only in Dearbornistan that you could make

57:56

Terry Jones a symbol of freedom, because that's what he's become now. Stick the guy in jail for thought crime.

58:03

This is great. The Constitution no longer exists in Dearborn, Michigan.

58:09

The place has gone nuts. It's no longer part of the United States. It is our first no -go zone.

58:15

France has 700 of them. We now have one, and it's Dearborn, Michigan, folks. It's coming.

58:21

It's coming because naturalistic materialism cannot deal with radical Islam. It doesn't know what to do.

58:28

It appeases and becomes a dhimmi as a result. That's just how it works. Well, anyway, more on that maybe on Thursday.

58:35

We'll see what happens, because he's going back up there to protest. So we'll find out what happens if they stick the whole lot of them in jail.

58:41

I don't know. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again on Thursday. God bless. It's a sign of the times.

59:15

The truth is being trampled in and away in paradigms. Won't you lift up your voice?

59:22

Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. I don't think that's right.

59:28

Oh, Wittenberg. I don't think that's right. I stand up for the truth.

59:34

Won't you live for the Lord? Because we're pounding, pounding on Wittenberg.

59:40

The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

59:49

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

59:54

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.