Young Mormon Speaks With A Calvinist

Please try to recognize the difference between call in the sense of the salvific call that raises a person from spiritual life to spiritual death.

I mean, we both agree from your perspective. That hasn't happened with me yet, given my status.

Well, not in the sense of the spirit making you to become a lover of truth, no, no. But that doesn't change the fact that the only call that I can know about is the call that has been given to me to deliver to everyone.

Yeah, that's true.

And that's a general call.

Yeah.

And I can't, I can't go beyond that. That's all he's given me the ability to do.

Yeah.

But I can simply say for you, I, I pray that in light of the amount of light that you receive.

I know, it's crazy, right? I'm just, I'm just waiting, you know.

You're satisfied with where you are?

Well, yeah, I feel both spiritually and rationally that, you know, so a little bit of backstory. My mom left Mormonism when I was 12. She became a born-again Christian. And so from, you know, age 12 to now, I've been attending both churches, born-again Christian church with the LDS church, you know.

And that's why I'm different than, you know, a lot of other high school seniors. You might see is just, you know, I have an understanding of these different theologies, the ontological differences and, you know, our different views of deity and things like that.

You're standing in two different worlds.

Well, yeah. But, you know, I feel culturally and spiritually and rationally bound to one of them. You know, I do have a great love for the other, that's my born-again Christian friends and things like that.

The Call to Truth Over Attachment

But the only thing that you should feel bound to, and the only thing, the only binding that is going to survive the next seven years of your life, because I would say for most people, most of your maturing takes place from where you are now over the next seven years.

And you're going to be faced with tremendous challenges. The only thing you need to be bound to during that time is what is really true, not what you just, not what you're attached to.

Well, I know that, right, and that's why I'm not, if I was so attached to Mormonism that I wasn't ready to talk about it or examine it critically, I wouldn't be here tonight. I would have read your book, you know, and so that, it's a very different, it's a very different approach to the world for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a very different approach than a lot of people out there may say.

But what I'm saying is, it also makes me really worried, it makes me very concerned for anyone who can have so much light, and yet not act upon it. Don't, don't, don't.

Well, I mean, there's bright people in every faith, right, you know, and I hope you don't.

Think brightness has anything to do with, well, there's intelligence and understanding,.

Right?

I mean, I just listened to a kind of radio debate between you, Bill Hamblin, and Dan Peterson.

Oh, goodness.

You know, that was interesting.

Oh, it was.

Was that like seven or ten years ago?

No, no, that was much longer than that.

Oh, really?

That was, KTKK, I think that was, wow, that was sometime in the 90s. It was sometime after Farms put out that wild idea, but you heard the discussion. I don't know if you heard the follow-up afterwards, but you heard the discussion where we were talking about swords, and scalping people, and that Hamblin's idea was that was a war club with obsidian rocks embedded in the wood.

Try scalping somebody with an obsidian war club.

Yeah.

Doesn't work. When you talk about the hilts and gleaming with blood, everybody knows what the Book.

Of Mormon would say.

And then they've come up with the idea that, well, okay, maybe these were obsidian war.

Clubs. Wow.

But that was at the time when Farms, back then, was starting to try to desperately come up with...

Engage in apologetics.

Engage, and the church has pretty much shut that down.

Well, yeah, it transitioned into the Maxwell Institute, Dan Peterson was released.

And they've...

Distanced themselves.

Why do you think they did that?

Well, I mean, for one, they don't consider themselves, like, their mission isn't to engage in apologetics. That's a different approach than they have, than a lot of other Christian churches do.

And it wasn't what Joseph Smith did, is it?

Well, I mean...

Documented history of the church. How many times, when the Apostles went out, would they challenge people to engage in debate? They did.

A lot.

Can you think of any debates that Joseph Smith ever publicly had?

Not Joseph Smith, but the Apostles did, especially in England and places like that.

Yeah, it's been very interesting. You don't see very many Latter-day Saints in England.

What is it, Section 83? That challenges people to give an answer, and if you're faithful, that God will refute them. I think it's, like, Section 83, if I recall. It's been a little while.

I don't remember that either.

It's probably...

Might be in the book somewhere. But there was a history of that, but you're right, in the modern day. And that, again, says something to me. Because I've certainly seen... I was out here before you were born.

Well, yeah, I know that.

18.

And the kids at 13 back then knew the eternal law of progression.

We already talked about this, yeah.

But you talked to 30-year-olds today. Something's changed. So how do you know what the Church is going to be like when you are 40?

Frankly, I don't, right? I'm excited for it. I kind of love the directions that Mormonism takes, just because it doesn't consider itself a theological monolith, right? It leaves room for a lot of other believers.

The one true Church?

Well, I mean, you know, you have the one true faith, which you would say is Christianity.

The one true priesthood?

Yeah.

So you're not the monolithic Church, but you have the only valid priesthood?

See, I take a very nuanced approach to that, personally.

How far can you nuance that?

Well, I mean, granted, let's hope not as far as the Community of Christ or some other denominations like that.

Why not?

Well, you know, if individuals want to go that way, they're more than welcome to. Personally, I don't find that credible for me, just because...

Do you find the claim to priesthood credible in light of what the New Testament teaches?

I would say so. I do believe that there is a power, right, that God has given to man. I've seen that manifested in my own life, you know. But I do believe that that priesthood, if not degrees of it, are available to other people as well.

So I don't invalidate...

You mean outside the Church?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really?

So I don't invalidate, you know, miracle healings or, you know, spiritual experiences. So when you say you're born again, you know, I would say, yeah, I validate that. I do believe that.

Do you think Joseph Smith would have validated that?

I'm not sure. I can't speak for him.

I don't think he would.

But let me just ask you this. So you believe that you hold the priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek?

Well, no, I don't.

Oh, you're not an elder yet?

Yeah, I'm not an elder yet.

Okay, just the Aaronic?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

All right.

I thought... So are you going to pursue that?

Yeah, I would say so. After I graduate high school, that's when they extend the priesthood. So I'll be going to the temple. I'll be serving a mission in a few months.

The Priesthood Claim and Hebrews 7

Well, I don't have it with me right now. It's I think online somewhere, but we have a little tract I would love to give to you.

I'd love to have it.

Specifically on the subject of priesthood, because other than the issue of the fact there's only one true God, I think one of the weakest LDS positions is the claim on the priesthood. According to the book of Hebrews, if you hold the Melchizedek priesthood, you have no father and mother, no genealogy.

You hold the priesthood on the basis of an indestructible life. And it says that Jesus holds that priesthood, according to Hebrews 7 .24, aporabiton is the.

Greek term.

Every Greek manuscript ever discovered in the book of Hebrews has the same word. There's no textual variance there.

Well, don't worry. I'm not going to pull the, oh, it's corrupted.

I don't blame you.

Yes, yes, yes.

Well, I'm glad, but believe me, standing on this very street corner, I've had a thousand LDS people do that.

I find that kind of a weak position to take.

But aporabiton means without successor. So what do you, here's, here's, I hope, I hope these words will stay in your mind.

Oh, I'm sure they will.

I really do. If you pursue that in light of what you already know, please recognize claiming to hold a priesthood that only Jesus Christ himself holds is a very weighty thing.

Yeah, well, I imagine.

Especially if it's not true.

It's a big claim.

Yeah.

Especially if it's not true. You've got to dig into that, man.

Yeah, I will.

I've got to, I'll get you that track.

Hey, if you guys, whatever, whatever sources or materials you guys want to give me, I'd say as far as most of the people you'll talk here tonight with, I'm in the prime place to be receiving it, you know?

And uh.

Except for that fact that it just keeps making me worried every time I keep giving you all that stuff that, you see, the problem is you become accountable for it.

Uh, what?

You become accountable for it.

Accountability for Light and the Unpardonable Sin

Yeah, I don't know. I just find that so interesting. I really want to understand from the Calvinistic perspective just how that makes sense. So I understand that, you know, um, from that perspective, I'm, I'm a creature of God, right?

You know? And I'm going to be always in a natural state of rebellion against God.

Um.

As a fallen son of Adam.

Yeah.

Until, until he calls out to me in a salvific way.

Until your heart is changed?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um.

I don't know.

It.

Does that, does that. And I, I understand the argument that, you know, obviously it doesn't sit right with.

Me.

But, you know, perhaps the response.

Okay.

Let me ask you this. Genesis brothers. Were they accountable for the sin of selling him into slavery? And then deceiving their father. And yet what does Genesis 50 20 say? You intended this for evil. God intended for good.

Yeah.

To save many people alive today. The same act is in view. And yet the intentions of the brothers were evil. So they are accountable for it. The intentions of God are holy and just.

Yeah.

So he's glorified for it.

One act.

Two different intentions.

I don't know.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

And that's how God's able to glorify himself even through the sinfulness of other people.

Crucifixion of Christ.

Yeah.

Same issue. So when I say you're going to be held accountable, everyone's going to be held accountable.

Yeah.

If the revelation has been given to them. And that's all I'm talking about is that I'll give you any information you could possibly.

Ever want.

Hey, I'm totally down for it.

But especially on the subject of priesthood, I hope you'll really, really think before you do that. Because from my perspective, knowing what you know, to go there and do that is almost sort of a final wave.

You're saying, I don't care about everything that I've seen. I don't have answers, but I'm still going to do this anyway. Because to claim to hold the priesthood that Jesus himself only holds, it's a weighty thing,.

Man.

Or going through the temple. Or I'm going to be serving a mission in a couple of months, too.

There you go.

Those are all big things. I mean, granted, I wouldn't still be beyond salvation.

No, God has saved many. A former LDS missionary.

Me and Paul can be considered the cheapest sinners in that way.

But the amount of light, let me mention one other thing. What do you think the unpardonable sin is when Jesus talks about the Gospel of Matthew?

Well, I mean, that one is the blaspheming against the Holy Ghost.

And who committed it?

Would that be Judas?

Pharisees.

Pharisees, okay.

Why was that an unpardonable sin? Because they were attributing to the Holy Spirit the activities of Beelzebub, Satan himself. So, what made it unpardonable is the Spirit's the one that draws you to Christ, therefore to identify the Spirit as Satan.

But how did they do that? They did that by doing what you see in Isaiah chapter 5. Woe to those who call light darkness and darkness light, white black and black white. These were people that had a tremendous amount of light.

They had the Word of God in their very hands.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, granted, they couldn't act on that, though, until God acts on them, right?

Again, you're assuming something that we don't know. We don't know who the elect of God are.

That's true.

They are only held accountable for what God's law actually commands them to do. And so the reality is they possess the law. They use the law to put other people under their control. And then their hearts do not follow after God.

And so the point is they committed the unpardonable sin because they had so much light. I think that only people who have a tremendous amount of light can commit the unpardonable sin.

So, I mean, in that respect, would I almost be better off and not like engaging in any of this at all?

You'd be better off repenting and believing in the true gospel of Jesus Christ and following the true God.

I can't do that until that grace acts in, though.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do nothing.

Otherwise, isn't it synergistic?

No, sir. You are using an excuse that is never given to you in Scripture. And it's dangerous because you understand what the Bible says about the prior nature of God's grace. But that's not a part of the proclamation.

The proclamation is never sit around and wait for grace. The proclamation is repent and believe. Because you do not know if you're going to have another opportunity after this evening. You do not know.

Yeah, I could get hit by a car and then, you know, be turned around.

As could any one of us.

As could any one of us.

Yeah.

Got some folks there behind you, you know. The little kids with their rolling wheels. Good evening, sir.

What's up?

Sorry to...

A New Listener Responds to the Conversation

I'm so glad to see you here. I pulled up and I was like, Dr. White!

Yes!

It's actually great that you came, too.

Yeah, of course.

It was great to see you.

Yeah.

Really appreciate just your spirit and...

Well, I try and be as open as I can, you know. And, I mean, you know, weighing both sides and seeing it and just... I trust in God. I trust in God. And it'll all work out, so...

Well, we've been as clear as we can be there. That's for sure.

Well, I know that. I mean, I still have a ways to go. I'm only 18, so...

Why do you think that?

Well, I mean, granted, when James White was 18, you know, I imagine he wasn't as learned or...

I was 19 when I talked to my first Mormon missionaries, so...

Oh, cool.

Well, as far as going through, like, you know, the academic portion of it, really weighing out those kind of New Testament and biblical arguments, you know, against the original languages themselves, that's something I'd love to do one day.

You know, I'd love to get into that original Hebrew, that original Greek, you know, and look at those manuscripts for myself.

Well, I'll point one thing out to you. If you want to find awesome commentaries on books like Romans, you're not going to find them at the LDS bookstore.

I found a few.

Full commentaries?

Yeah.

Exegetical commentaries?

Well, I mean, we probably can't compare with anything within the Protestant tradition.

That's the problem.

Yeah, I know. We've got a lot to cover.

Well, I'll just be honest with you.

We've got a lot to cover. You can't build an edifice without a foundation. And when you believe the scriptures have been corrupted, and you have scriptures that come after that, and the author of those scriptures did not understand what was actually contained in the New Testament itself, you can't build a foundation on that.

You just can't.

I did not, by the way, I did not come out here to take over your role or anything else.

I have no role. I'm hanging out.

I was actually just going to pop out and try to sneak up behind you and go, hey, you, quit picking on the Mormons, you mean ninja person.

That's okay. Some of us like them.

Yeah.