The Dividing Line August 5, 2008

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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

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

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

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For toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341.

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And now with today's topic, here is James White. Hey, good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a

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Tuesday morning or whenever you happen to be listening. We know a lot of people listen on the podcast and sometimes people are listening, you know, months and even years later and they'll pop in the channel and say, hey, what did you mean when you said this?

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And I'm like, when I said what? I said that? Really?

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Oh, okay, that's interesting. It's fresh on their mind but not exactly fresh on mine.

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So, you know, who knows. But anyway, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, 877 -753 -3341.

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Saw some interesting stuff on YouTube earlier today. And some of those folks may be calling in.

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I don't know, hard to see. We did have one caller or one individual who was, in essence, saying he's over in the

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London area. He was, in essence, saying that no one before Augustine ever mentioned anything about election or anything like that.

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And I just immediately popped in the channel some citations from Clement of Rome, one of the earliest post -New

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Testament writings, referring to the elect. And I think he actually just called a few minutes ago but didn't want to go on the air.

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So, oh well, maybe at some other point that will take place. Who knows.

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But we do have a number of phone calls already. And once we clear them, we may have,

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I remember last time I mentioned listening to Tim Staples talking about Islam and we never got to Tim Staples talking about Islam.

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So maybe we'll get to that. Who knows. But let's go ahead and I'm assuming this is the first one up.

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I don't see anything changing. The little green light is flashing, so I'm hoping that's the right one. Rich is looking rather confused in there.

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Yeah, there's two people. They're both ready to go. Only one of them is flashing, though, for some reason.

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I don't know why. So let's talk with Rob. Hi, Rob. Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing today? Doing good. Good. Glad to hear it.

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My question today is about Romans Chapter 13. And I know two or three weeks ago you were talking to a caller about this in a different vein.

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And I went back and I hadn't studied this particular chapter in a while and I was talking about it to some people.

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And my question is, we were all wondering, 13, as far as Christians' submission to governmental authorities, wherever they happen to be, what are the limits to that?

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Because throughout human history there's been a lot of unjust throughout the world today, probably more than not.

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But a person living under that, limits are because throughout the

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Cold War, especially the Cold War, a lot of politically conservative Christians in America supported behind the

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Iron Curtain and sometimes monetarily supported even. Yeah.

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Well, I'll confess that's an area that I claim absolutely no special expertise in whatsoever.

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There are entire books and schools of thought and everything else on the subject that I have not read and hence don't have any particular expertise upon which to speak.

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I think that all I can say in answer to a question like that is that it seems that the division that is offered by Scripture is that unless one is commanded to do that which is against his faith, his confession of faith, if he is commanded to engage in activities that are opposed to his faith, he is commanded to renounce

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Christ or to not obey God in some way, shape, or form, that one is to be focused upon one's

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Christian faith rather than upon the overthrow of that government. I mean, clearly during the days of the apostles there were all sorts of things that the

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Roman government was doing that I think would be considered unjust on the basis of all sorts of political theories,

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I would assume. But the fact of the matter is that I see nothing in the

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New Testament where the apostles instructed people to in some way, shape, or form overthrow that government.

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At the same time, you do have to slaves, if you can become free, become free.

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There's all sorts of questions about what can a Christian person do within the context of having public office or whatever.

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And there seems to have been some Christians who had public office, but most did not. I mean, the

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Christian movement was very much amongst slavery. But outside of those general comments,

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I don't have anything specific, anything more than that that I could offer that's so really useful, I would imagine. Apart from that,

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I guess maybe you might have an answer to this as well, but the question came up, and I realize this is going worldwide, but for those of us who live in the

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U .S., what about, for example, not long ago in this country we celebrated, people brought up, well, the governmental authorities, even in 1776,

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George III, the colonial authorities, even though unjust, though they may have been, wouldn't that also have been an act of rebellion or lawlessness?

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Things like the Boston Tea Party. I know Christians who have said exactly that.

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But again, it's not an area of my study. I don't have anything. Are there any sources you could recommend?

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I apologize, not an area of my study. It has nothing to do with Islam or Arabic right now.

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I mean, because the question came up, if that would be an act of, would have been lawlessness,

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I mean, should Christians be on the 4th of July?

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Well, but the 4th of July was in reference to a claim in regards to the necessity of a government to be responsive to its people.

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That wasn't the Boston Tea Party or something. So I think a person can be thankful for what

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God has done through the United States, the blessings that he's placed upon the United States, but I'm not one of those folks that believes that somehow the

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United States is a Christian nation that somehow, you know, is almost like Israel or something, you know.

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There does seem to be among some people the same kind of language you find in the Old Testament, where the temple, the temple, the

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Lord would never allow the destruction of the temple, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the fact of the matter is this nation will be destroyed if it continues to spit in the face of God and to coddle those who hate his ways and so on and so forth.

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So I am concerned about those who do come up seemingly with the idea that nothing could ever happen here because this is the great

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United States and that's just simply not the case. Well, it's interesting you brought up the issue about Christian nation, because I know in some circles that's very controversial about, you know, are we a

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Christian nation, are we not? And it seems to me from the reading I was doing that consistently in the

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Old and New Testament, you know, a lot of churches will post Psalm 33,

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I think it's verse 12, where it says, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And they think, well, that's a political entity, but it seems to me, you know, you are a holy nation.

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The nation is a spiritual entity, not a political one. Well, you know, I don't think there's any question that a nation, as in a political state, will be blessed when it recognizes

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God's law and seeks to govern in light of God's law, and it will not be when it seeks to do otherwise.

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So I think there's a direct relationship there, and clearly this nation has in the past been willing to openly acknowledge biblical parameters.

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Many presidents up until this time period were willing to quote from the Bible and so on and so forth openly.

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Now that's just simply not allowed. Now that's considered to be a terrible, horrible thing. Right. And so, but does that mean that it was, quote, unquote, a

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Christian nation back then? Well, there's all sorts of different answers to that, and I'm afraid I make no claims to expertise in that area.

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But hey, thanks for your phone call, Rob. I appreciate it. Let's, we've got lots of callers here for some reason this morning.

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Sometimes Tuesdays, nothing, and then sometimes there's lots of stuff. I don't know. Let's talk to Tim.

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Hi, Tim. Hello, Tim. Hello. How are you? Hi. I'm very good, thanks. First, I just want to thank you for your ministry.

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Well, good. Good to hear. Thank you. Well, so I am a persuaded five -point caliber.

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Yeah, I think that's fairly fair to say. The reason that there is no boasting is that it's uk ex ergo, ergo, and it's not from works.

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It's not something that we have done. It is all in God's initiative. It is all God's work. And hence, any boasting cannot be in any accomplishment of our own, but only in the accomplishments of Christ.

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Right. Three and four, especially

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Romans 3, 27 to 28, where Paul's justification is by faith, we have no grounds to boast.

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And so when I look at what you're concluding from where we say that we do...

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I lost you when you said we have grounds of boasting in Ephesians 2. Where does it say that?

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If we conclude that in Ephesians 2 that faith would be a ground to boast, if our faith, that there would be something in faith that we could boast about.

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Well, but see it doesn't say that. All he says in Ephesians chapter 2 is that all of this comes from God.

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When he says not by works, that's the human aspect. Since all of this comes from God, then there is no ground of boasting outside of boasting in God.

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I mean we do boast in God. That's 1 Corinthians chapter 1 says our boasting is in God.

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So in both texts you're being told that there is nothing in and of ourselves that provides us with a ground of saying,

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I somehow have done something that other people have not done. As I've said many times, in heaven itself someday, when we see the final decision, the final judgment of God, those who are in places of punishment and those who are in places of glory, the only thing that will differentiate those two is the work of God.

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It is that 5 letter word called grace. And so there's nothing about, well, faith gives you somehow, since you can have it and somebody else doesn't have it, it gives you a ground of boasting.

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That's not the point that is being made. In each one of these texts, the point is this is all of God.

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It is not of man. And it is not something we have done that causes us to differ from somebody else.

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It's God who has made us to differ, and therefore all the boasting has to be in what he has done. So I don't see that the hypothesis from Ephesians 2 actually stands.

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Well, actually, I mean, the point, the part where I'm having trouble is when we criticize a synergistic or Arminian view of faith, where faith is something that in some way comes, and we say that that would be a ground for both

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Arminians, or say that one reason we should reject Arminianism is that it would give us a ground to boast in our faith.

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If everyone had that capability and we somehow were better than someone else, yeah. Right. Well, so then when

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I'm looking at Romans 3, it seems to even deny the idea that faith could, because if it's by work, if salvation is by faith apart from work, it seems to deny even the idea that faith would be an accomplishment that we could boast in, under any view.

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Well, there's, again, all that's being said in each text, and you're trying to make the two texts address the same issue, and that's where the error is coming in.

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You're confusing context. Paul is not addressing the same issue in both contexts.

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He's not using the terms in exactly the same way. You're assuming that, making an assumption on one, and then creating a contradiction that just doesn't exist.

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His assertion in Ephesians 2 is that everything in salvation comes from God, not from works, therefore no one can boast.

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In Romans 3, especially talking about Jews, who would have reason to say they have a special relationship with God, instead he says boasting is excluded not by what kind of law, by what kind of law of works, no, but by a law of faith.

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Faith has nothing in of itself that it can boast of. So the two aren't addressing the same issue, and only by sort of trying to bring them together and force them to address the same issue do you create any kind of issue.

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Okay. So in just the context of Ephesians 2, you would be asserting that faith would be something that we could consider a work?

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We have to be very careful. Again, I have often asserted that everything in Ephesians 2 comes from God, including the faith.

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But that does not mean that Paul's specific intention in those words is to be addressing all the conflicts that we want to try to address.

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We can look at what he's saying, but you can only hold Paul to be consistent for what

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Paul is speaking about. You can draw conclusions from what he's saying, and if you have other basis for putting that all together, that's great, fine, wonderful.

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But he's not trying to talk about that. He's simply saying everything that brings us into salvation, the grace, the faith, everything comes from God.

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It's a gift of God. It's not of works. It's not something we merited. It's not something that makes us better than somebody else, lest anyone should boast.

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That's all he's saying. So to try to go beyond that and say, well, you know, maybe

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Paul's also addressing this. No, you've got to allow everything to stay in context. You can't necessarily be trying to go beyond that.

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And I think that's what I'm hearing us doing here is trying to make application beyond that.

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I don't see any conflict whatsoever between what Paul says in Romans 3 and Ephesians 2. Okay. I'll continue thinking about that in light of those comments.

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Okay, thanks, Tim. Thanks very much. All right, let's move on and talk with Richard.

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Hi, Richard. Hey, Dr. Lloyd, how are you? I'm doing all right. Good. I used to be a reformed person.

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Actually, I've followed you since I was in high school, but I've come across a lot of middle -knowledge literature, and I know that you have quite a bit of disagreement with that system.

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So I wanted to get your thoughts on a few things and maybe discuss some of it. I don't claim to have enough knowledge to debate or anything like that, but I would appreciate your advice.

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Are you aware of Bruce Ware's work on that? He's a guy, I believe, at Southern Baptist University in Kentucky.

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Yeah, Southern Baptist Seminary, actually. Seminary, yes. And he holds to middle -knowledge but from a reformed perspective.

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And before I do anything else, I just want your thoughts on that first, if you have any. Well, that would be the first time

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I've ever heard Bruce Ware called a Molinist. That would be deeply disappointing to me if that were the case because I think for the listeners, we need to define

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Molinism. Molinism is a Jesuit theology developed specifically in response to the

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Reformation. It's an anti -Reformation philosophy that was created by the

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Jesuit theologian Molina de Molina in response to the call by the founder of the

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Jesuits to find a way to blunt and to deal with the proclamation of the

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Gospel by the reformed churches. And he developed this philosophy, and it is primarily a philosophy.

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It is interesting to note that as, you know, I'm not sure if you're the one who wrote this, but I had a note on my screen.

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I think someone had sent this in to the website. It specifically says,

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Molinism isn't a parlor trick. I believe it's the clear teaching of Scripture. Well, evidently, the first person to come up with that didn't come up with that until the late 1500s, and so 1500 years' worth of Christians had missed the clear teaching of Scripture.

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I believe that Molinism and the attendant theologies attached to it is an external philosophy forced upon Scripture.

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It was never derived from the exegesis of the text of Scripture in any way, shape, or form.

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It is a philosophy that is meant to find a way to maintain the necessary assertion of free will so that the

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Roman Catholic sacramental system can remain the Roman Catholic sacramental system. That was the great problem that Rome had with the proclamation of the sovereignty of God and salvation is that if that is the case, then

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Rome's entire religious authority is based upon the sacramental system and the control that that gives her over the grace of God and hence over the people who come to her to obtain that grace of God.

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And so there was a deep necessity to find some way to reestablish this kind of libertarianism so that the sacramental system could survive.

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Now, the irony is that Molinism has primarily died out in Roman Catholicism and has primarily been reputed within Roman Catholicism, but it has now been picked up by Arminianism and turned into an entire system bereft of its historical connection to the historical context out of which it arose.

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But now it has become the darling of the Arminians as a means to try to hold together the concept of libertarianism as well as a concept of God's sovereignty through this promulgation of a theory of a kind of knowledge that God has and a very meticulous control that, in essence,

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God has some type of ability to know what men will do given certain circumstances and so he works the circumstances so that they do what they desire to do freely but the result is still what

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God wants to do, etc., etc. And so that's, mainly for the listeners,

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I would imagine that you're aware of its historical background and its origination and the essence of its assertions.

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Yeah, I'm aware of the historical background of it, but, and I don't mean this as an attack on Calvinism, I have a deep respect for it, but, for example,

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P .E., I'm not aware of anyone in the church teaching clearly on P .E.

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before Calvin, and so I don't have a problem with it as long as it's part of the scripture.

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I'm assuming you're referring to Perseverance of the Saints and you would be, of course, incorrect about that because anyone who is familiar with Augustine knows that Augustine did believe in the perseverance of the elect, not of those who were non -elect, and many in the early church did not even address the issue, but there's no question, there's absolutely no question that the vast majority of writers throughout church history have exceptionally sub -biblical theologies on all sorts of things.

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That doesn't change the fact that when it came to this issue, which was an issue that had been discussed many times, this particular concept is not exegetically driven.

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You can't possibly be asserting that you read Isaiah and you come up with Middle Knowledge.

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You read John and you come up with Middle Knowledge. This is a concept that has to be created outside the text of Scripture and then certain texts are read in its light and then those very strong texts on Providence are then subsumed under this overarching system, but you're never going to come to that simply by the exegesis of the text of Scripture.

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You have to create that externally and then it has to become your guiding parameters of interpretation.

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That's certainly been my experience with all the Mullahs with whom I've had conversation is when

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I say, okay, I see you applying it to a text here, applying it to a text there.

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Where do you derive it from? And it's always driven from philosophical considerations.

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It is not derived from any kind of biblical presentation at all.

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Okay, well, if you could for me, and I know you're probably aware of this, but if you could just give me an example, in 1

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Samuel 23, 6 -10, in that general text area, that would be one example where Mullahs derive the idea of Middle Knowledge.

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Right, and that's the point immediately. Any overarching doctrine of God that has to start in 1

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Samuel, doesn't that immediately ring bells? I mean, we're immediately skipping past all the huge number of texts.

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Historically, Christians have derived their theology from the texts of the Bible that are specifically teaching it.

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In other words, I have often used the analogy that if you want to know about the lights in your car, you get out the owner's manual and the first thing you do is you look up lights.

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Now, the lights may be mentioned in all sorts of sections. It might be mentioned in the electrical section, it might be mentioned in battery maintenance, it might be mentioned in the safety section.

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That's fine, but you start with the section on the lights and then you interpret everything else in light of that.

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And what I see happening here is that those who promote Middle Knowledge, what they do, is they'll go to specific historical incidences and they'll take this external thing, which again,

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I keep going, and where did we get that from the Bible? But it's actually been created outside the Bible, they bring it in and say, see, this might work in this historical text where there might be some questions about what someone might have done.

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Rather than going historically, as Christians have done up until the Jesuit creation of this concept, and that is, they've gone to those texts where God is demonstrating that He is

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God. And He is demonstrating that He is God over against false gods, and thereby He's saying, here's what the true

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God is like, and this is what false gods can't do. And so you go to the chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter of discussion of the nature of God found in the prophet

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Isaiah, and where he is contrasting the true God versus the false gods.

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And that's where you find God saying, tell me what's going to happen in the future. And tell me what happened in the past and why it happened.

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And so we can look at that, and we can then encounter those texts and talk about how

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God interacts with Cyrus, and how Cyrus is going to let the people go.

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And you have the whole concept of prophecy, and the fact that God says, I know what's going to happen in the future,

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I can tell you what's going to happen in the future, and if it doesn't happen to them, that proves that the person claiming this isn't a true prophet.

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And so the future becomes something that is fully and completely known to God, and that reveals the accomplishment of his purposes, not merely a cooperative effort, etc.

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etc. And so that's where you go first, and you derive your theology of God, and then apply it to historical situations that are not specifically written to address those things.

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But again, if you start with an external system, and bring it in, then you can apply it to anything, and make pretty much almost any type of system work that way.

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The problem is, I challenge someone to demonstrate that this system was derived from the exegesis of the text of Scripture, and not the other way around.

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If it's external, then go ahead and admit it, and say, well, you know what? No one really had a clue what was going on in any of these texts, until the

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Jesuits figured it out as a response to Reformation in the 16th century. And if someone wants to be straight up front and say that, cool!

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Then they can go ahead and say that. And I think that most people will immediately go, well, wait a minute, that doesn't make a lick of sense.

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But, you know, do you really think Molinism derived its origination from someone coming to the

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Word of God, saying, this is the inspired utterances of God, and I am going to be limited to its revelation for what

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I conclude about the nature of God. Is that how you think Molina got that? No, not necessarily, but I would be hesitant to throw out the baby with the glass of water just because, you know, he's

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Catholic, or might have come with the wrong approach. I think no matter who it is, if they come up with something that is valid scripturally and does not go against what the

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Word of God says, then we should be at least open to its precepts. But do you see the difference? Do you see the difference there?

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Because, you see, there's a vast chasm between, well, something that's valuable scripturally and doesn't go against scripture is a very different thing from saying something that was derived from scripture.

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This was not derived from scripture. You asked specifically about Molina, correct? Not Molinists in general.

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Well, he is the originator of it. And I don't care. Okay, let's forget about Molina.

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William Lake Craig. It's still an external concept that is being used as the interpretive grid over scripture, but it itself does not derive from scripture.

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That is, to me, the great danger, because that's not the only external philosophical system that people have developed to smooth out the things that they don't like about what the scriptures state.

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You know, the open theists do the exact same thing. He talks a little bit about that in Ian Moreland's book,

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The Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. But I was curious, what would you classify the knowledge of God that you wouldn't classify as a middle knowledge, where he states, you know, if this would have happened, if I had these circumstances, you would have done this.

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It was not actual, I mean, this happened, so how would you classify that knowledge?

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Well, I don't know what terminology to use. You know, God can interact with us and deal with us in such a way as to accomplish his purposes.

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I like to try to stay biblical on these things, because once you start going down that road of trying to create all sorts of categories for hypotheticals that you then apply to scripture,

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I just haven't found the people who do that to be overly committed to the authority of the text, or the knowledge of the text, or the defense of the text, just hasn't been my experience.

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And so, I am very, very concerned that when people start going down that road, the functional result is that the clear statements where God says,

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I accomplish all of my will, and I change the hearts, and I take out hearts of stone, and I put in hearts of flesh, and I, the

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Lord, do all these things, become completely transmuted into an assertion that in essence, well,

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I do what I'm allowed to do, and I micromanage events so that like rats in a cage, you do what

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I want you to do, but it's only because I micromanage the physical world so that you're placed within particular contexts that you will do these particular things.

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I don't even begin to profess to understand how that could possibly work, and it would seem to...

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Well, from my understanding... Oh, sorry. That's all right. From my understanding, I'm always going to teach you that God decreed it from point of creation onward, and that it's not necessarily micromanaging, but it's a decree in a similar vein to what

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Reformed theology would say. It's just that the basis of that decree is different than a

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Reformed system, but it's the same exact decree. Nothing can happen without God's decree or will.

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Does that make sense? Well, yeah. I understand that it is a philosophical attempt to avoid the recognition of the slavery of man's will to sin.

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Yeah, I recognize that. I just simply say it is a philosophical system derived from outside of scripture that I see absolutely no reason to believe that the scriptural writers themselves would have said,

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Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what we were all talking about. I think they all would have looked at Melina or Wayland Craig or any of the modern proponents of the system and gone,

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What? Are you seriously thinking that someone would have to have that level of in -depth philosophical knowledge to have some remote concept of what

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I have been about in this world, which would mean that the vast majority of humanity would never be able to really understand any of this stuff.

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I just don't see any reason to believe biblically in this system.

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Every attempt that I've seen to establish it involves the utilization of texts that are clearly not even starting to address that.

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It's just, well, notice it says this, so maybe if this were the case, then possibly we could extrapolate this and et cetera, et cetera, again showing its external nature.

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And I don't see those texts that are specifically on this subject, that are specifically on the nature of God, in any way, shape, or form, pushing us this direction, and evidently nobody did during church history either, even those who would have had reason to try to come up with that kind of a thing.

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So, I just... I did read somewhere, and I'll have to get back to you on this, because unfortunately

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I didn't have time to prepare this before I called, but in Augustine's On the Gifts of Perseverance, apparently there is a section that touches on this idea, and I can't verify that again,

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I don't want to say that paragraph, but that would be something that if I could find, I'd love to call back and interact with, as well as I just got this sort of book on his, again, it's called

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God's Greater Glory, and it specifically touches on the Reformed Middle Knowledge perspective, and so perhaps

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I can give you a call back. Well, I'm familiar with that book, I'm just not familiar with an identification of it as being

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Molinism in that context, but maybe I need to take a look at it.

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The difference between just the idea of Middle Knowledge and with the entire system of Molinism, I think

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Molinism is generally associated with the Arminian approach, and I certainly would disagree with calling himself a

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Molinist, but I think his point is that he says, okay, well, in Scripture it says that God knows that if these people were in these circumstances, that they would do this, that didn't happen, yet God's knowledge is not a false knowledge, and so we must classify this as something, it's not simply this way of speaking, but it is an actual knowledge of God, so how do we classify that as knowledge?

37:13

Well, and again, we can speculate about how to classify elements of God's knowledge, but historically, the utilization of this system has been to blunt the reality of God's freedom to act as he will, and to establish man's ability to have a, quote -unquote, libertarian free will, even though some would argue, and I think effectively, that to micromanage the context around the free will, so it always does what you want it to, so that your system holds together, is in some ways more offensive to the libertarian

37:54

Arminian than even the sovereignty of God would be in a reformed sense, but be that as it may, the functional result of all this has been to reaffirm the fact that man's will is not in slavery to sin, and that to me is the greatest danger, and anyone can see the vast difference in the apologetic result of the application of these systems.

38:20

The Molinists, if you look at, I don't remember when I did this last in the program, but it wasn't that long ago, just a couple weeks ago, where I presented

38:30

William Lane Craig's presentation on the subject of what you prove in a debate with an atheist, and that is that there is a preponderance, the preponderance of evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of God, and that of the reformed perspective that says you cannot even begin to explain the existence of the world outside of the

39:01

Christian God, not just a God, not a bare theism, but Christian theism itself. The two systems have very, very, very different results, and I think a lot of that goes back to this resulting denial of the true slavery of man to sin.

39:17

So it has a lot of ramifications, and I think those ramifications, again, are primarily biblical in nature.

39:25

Unfortunately, what we see in the academy today is a massive distinction between the two areas, and very few of those who live their lives in philosophy ever become serious exegetes, and vice versa.

39:41

I think the biggest problem for me is the fallen nature of man and how modernism reconciles that within their system, and that's one of the reasons that I'm not fully committed to it.

39:53

I do think philosophically it is sound, but like you point out, philosophy doesn't necessarily equal good biblical exegesis.

40:03

Yeah, and think about this, too, as well. I wonder how, within a

40:08

Molinistic universe, within that kind of a construct, when it is asserted that man is free and yet fallen, if man is a rebel against God, then will not man even be self -destructive and go against what would be best considering his circumstances to maintain his rebellion?

40:33

I think there's an unbiblical optimism that I don't think that Craig and the others have been able to rid

40:41

Molinism of its Jesuit roots, because there's a fundamental flaw in Roman Catholicism regarding the depth of the depravity of man.

40:53

I think that's one issue that needs to be very seriously considered and thought about. From what I understand, they would use,

40:59

I believe it's Titus 2 .11, and claim that all men are at least given the ability to be,

41:05

I don't know if they would call it enabling grace, but I think they would at least say that all men are elevated from their depravity such that they're able to have these free choices, and that God's grace starts at that point, and then for what they might call the elect, he gives further grace, but no one is below that after God gives them that grace, and that they all start dead, and they would affirm that, but that God elevates all men.

41:36

That would be the only way I can foresee. I haven't read enough on their response to that, but that's what I would imagine.

41:42

Yeah, that certainly would be a text they use. The problem is, again, it's so rather grossly eisegetical at that point, because it says the grace of God as a peer brings salvation for all people, and then what?

41:58

Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and live self -controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age.

42:04

The idea that this is a peanut butter grace that is just sort of a general enlightenment that releases from the depravity of sin or something like that is not even close to the context of what we're talking about here, and that, again, is the kind of stuff that Melina would do, and that Roman Catholics continue to do to this day.

42:29

Read the encyclicals of the popes and the various statements of the cardinals, and they will constantly not only be repeating very similar themes, but also be treating

42:39

Scripture in that way, where its original context and original meaning doesn't really matter very much. It's that, well, there's an overarching theme here, and we, the infallible church, can see it.

42:49

Well, that works for Roman Catholics. It doesn't work nearly as well for Arminians, because they don't have the associated infallibility of the church to fall back on at that point.

42:59

But I think it's one of the main issues there is that it always has to be a system that is seeking to make man something that biblically he is not.

43:12

And I know all of the reasons why people want to go there, because the biblical teaching about the depravity of man will never, ever be popular.

43:24

But I really would point out to folks that before the apostle Paul said a word about the good news, he spent quite some time talking about the bad news.

43:34

And it is just there that we can trust the Holy Spirit of God to bring those words to come alive in people's hearts.

43:40

And so, yeah. Actually, I have asked one of our bloggers on the team of Paul Aguillon.

43:51

He's already been working on a, basically taking Francis Turretin's discussion of Molinism and Middle Knowledge, which is very difficult, very in -depth, gave me a headache the first time

44:05

I worked through it, there's no question about it, in his Institutes of Atlantic Theology. And I've sort of given him the very high task, and it is a high task, it's a difficult task, of not so much translating it, but making it understandable in our modern context.

44:21

And I know he's already begun work on that, so it should be on the blog before too long. And I don't know if...

44:27

And portions of that are available online, too, because I read something by Turretin in response to that. Maybe it was in a response by another apologist against Molinism.

44:37

But I was wondering if I could either email you or another one of the staff there at the

44:42

Ministry the portion from Augustin, if I can find it, and if you have time, if you could address that on your blog.

44:51

I don't want to monopolize your time right now, but it would be interesting. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, sure, we'll see.

44:57

I mean, again, I don't... Even if there is philosophical speculation concerning God's knowledge of things that don't take place, that's not the same thing as a fully developed system such as Molina presented.

45:09

I just don't think anyone before Molina... It's not that anyone before him had not speculated about such issues.

45:15

It is the creation of a system with a specific intention of using this as the means of dissipating the tension between the sovereignty of God and the will of man that is unique to him and is unique to that particular system.

45:31

So, but anyways, feel free to send it along. That would be fun. Okay, and one last thing.

45:37

Could you recommend some resources for both me and whoever else is listening that may have been exposed to monism from any, you know, any apologists for that, whether it be

45:49

Wayland Craig, Plantinga, Moreland, whoever. Well... Just any good stuff that's out there, not necessarily on monism itself, but maybe perhaps on different elements that you feel are most at odds with that system.

46:04

Well, I'll be perfectly honest with you. My biggest criticism of all the big names you just mentioned is real simple, and this is why

46:12

I'll never be one of the big guys and I'll never be one of those top dogs at the big conferences.

46:19

And it's because I'm far too simple to get past a rather basic thing.

46:27

And that is, as I, this past Lord's Day morning, was preaching at our little

46:33

Reformed Baptist church, I was preaching through the 17th chapter of John. I wasn't, obviously, attempting to cover the entirety of it because it's so deep you couldn't even begin to do that in that context.

46:44

But there is this statement about halfway through where the Lord says,

46:50

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. And my primary criticism of the philosophers of the world, even those who call themselves

47:01

Christians, is that I do not find that their work demonstrates a recognition of the primacy of the exegesis of the inspired word over the application of philosophical categories.

47:15

My biggest problem, and again, it just makes me sort of backwards and stuff, and that's okay,

47:21

I'm quite happy being backwards, is that I read the text and it talks to me about the fact that what is found in God's word is ultimately so different than the thinking, theories, and words of men.

47:38

It is Theanostos, it is God breathed, it is life. We are to be sanctified in these words.

47:46

And men spoke these words, they're carried along by the Holy Spirit. And the fact of the matter is most of these folks are not exegetes.

47:54

And they certainly will cite the text, but very few of them are actually overly conversant in the biblical languages and in the issues related to that.

48:07

And the sad thing is many others then will combine a far less than conservative view of scripture, and hence its consistency with itself, with their philosophical speculations.

48:18

And so, honestly for me, it's not so much finding philosophical criticisms like Turretin offers, as it is just simply stating the first question that I challenged you with, and that is, and exactly where does scripture come up with this?

48:36

Because when someone calls in here and says to me, they challenge me on the Trinity, or predestination, or issues like that, and says, where do you derive that from scripture?

48:48

Katie, bar the door. I'm going to have all sorts of responses to that kind of thing, because that to me is the very essence of meaningful biblical theology and meaningful biblical apologetics as well.

49:02

I don't see apologetics as being separated off in the philosophical realm. And in fact, when it becomes separated off from the biblical text at that point, that's when

49:12

I find it to become reduced to the, well, I think we have a greater probability type of argument than you do.

49:18

Which is not what I see as apostolic proclamation. That's not what Paul said on Mars Hill. He didn't say, we have a really darn good chance of being right.

49:27

That's not what he said. He didn't place it in those categories. And if the apostolic truth of the gospel still abides with us, then we shouldn't be stuck in that position yet.

49:38

There are many people that say, well yeah, they were the apostles, they had access to truth we don't have. And that opens up an entire

49:45

Pandora's box that we don't have time to address today. But I simply reject that. So my problem with it is biblical.

49:53

And so my issues would be, let's get into the text, let's actually deal with the text, and let's go to the text that actually presents the sovereignty of God and presents

50:03

His creatorship and things like that and the depravity of man, the nature of that depravity and things like that.

50:10

And at that point, I will be able to derive my beliefs from the text and I think the nature, the external nature of monism will always be coming up because the interpretation will be done in light of this external concept which will never be found to be derived from a biblical view of man himself.

50:29

That would be my goal, Chris. Thank you so much for having me and I just want to wish you luck when you debate

50:36

Dr. Ehrman. Of course, I don't believe in luck. But that's okay. Well, yeah. You did very well in that debate,

50:42

I should say. All right. Thanks, Richard. I look forward to it. Thanks a lot, Richard. All right. Bye -bye. All right.

50:48

So, hey, we've still got callers. Can you believe it? We've only got about five minutes left but we will grab

50:54

Jamie as well. Hi, Jamie. Hi, there. Thank you for taking my call.

51:00

Yes, sir. So this will follow a little bit with what you just discussed. We had a discussion with friends about Pascal's phrase, oft -used phrase, a

51:09

God -shaped hole in the heart. This came up in a discussion we were reading through Richard Pratt's Every Thought Captive and John Frames' essay on pre -suppositional apologetics sort of as an introduction to the topic.

51:26

And we were talking about the nature of conversion and someone brought up this phrase, you know,

51:34

Pascal's God -shaped hole in the heart. And I sort of challenged that.

51:40

I said, you know, it doesn't seem like we were created with nothing, like a hole in the heart.

51:46

Certainly we've been accused that we were creating God's image. And you had...

51:54

And in Ecclesiastes, it says, you know, God's planted eternity in the heart and operationally, you know, it seems like, you know,

52:04

God gives us a new heart, a new heart of flesh, and we use our heart of stone. You mentioned that first in Ezekiel.

52:11

So I'm wondering if you have a comment on it. You know, words have meanings and it seems to imply something that I disagree with, but I don't know...

52:21

Well, my understanding of Pascal's use of the term, and the last time I read

52:26

Pascal seriously was in seminary, not for disrespect of him, but it's just been that long.

52:33

But my recollection is that Pascal was using this terminology in a way that I would find to be acceptable, and that is that since we are created in the image of God, rebellion skews our reality.

52:47

It makes us less than human in one sense. And my understanding was that he was using that in the sense that there can be no completedness, there can be no true, full humanity outside of regeneration and the restoration of the relationship that should exist between the creature and its creator.

53:10

That a pot, a kettle, a cup that denies its creator will always be in a position that is inappropriate, improper, and incomplete.

53:21

And that it is that relationship with God that then completes the original created intention for the creation itself.

53:31

And so, my understanding of him was along those lines, and I would certainly accept that kind of terminology because I think it does describe the condition of the lost man rebellion.

53:44

We once stood outside the American Atheist Convention in Scottsdale with signs that said,

53:50

Atheist creatures denying their own creator. And they didn't like that. We even had one card swerve to try to swing closely to us.

53:58

They were very offended at that. But I think that's what he was saying. Now, if there's some utilization of that phraseology that would imply that the unregenerate man is experiencing, is not in active rebellion against God, but is simply missing something, then there'd be a problem.

54:22

Okay? That's right. And that's what I was challenging. You know, I've heard Brett John Frame repeat something that Courtney and Sam said, and that is, man's problem is not metaphysical, it's ethical.

54:33

Yes. So, at a point of immersion, there's a wholesale change, not some piece that was missing before it sort of comes in and completes the picture.

54:45

Yeah. I mean, any analogy is subject to misuse. That is the very nature of analogies.

54:52

And so, if the analogy is being used to say that man's sinful state and his rebellion against God is due to merely a lack of something, and you could make the argumentation that that is what

55:07

Rome says, in essence, a deprivation of a sustaining or keeping type of grace or something like that, rather than the active suppression of the knowledge of God, Romans 1, holding down that knowledge.

55:20

If the illustration comes to the point where you start rejecting the biblical parameters elsewhere, then it becomes a problem.

55:28

But if it's just in the context of my understanding, again, it's just my recollection, but as I read

55:34

Pascal, I didn't see him viewing it in that way, and of course the whole Chansenist movement was condemned because it had far too high a view of grace, in essence.

55:46

So, I think at that point I would be willing to give our friend

55:52

Blaise Pascal the pass on that one and try to interpret him in a positive light.

55:58

Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much for your phone call. Bye -bye. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. How many calls did we do?

56:04

Did we do four today? And for a Tuesday morning, what on earth? Where did that come from?

56:12

I mean, there have been some times on Tuesday mornings I've come in here going, oh, please, phones, light up.

56:19

I'm going to have to squeeze blood out of a turnip here to, you know, just to tired or to distracted or other things going on.

56:27

And then this Tuesday morning, the phone lines just go crazy.

56:33

And here sits, well, it's a waveform. But, you know, after a while, it's sort of like remember in the matrix, you know, you just see the matrix on the screen and you learn how to see what's going on.

56:48

I can sort of look at waveforms and that's a Tim Staples waveform right there. People, people, people, listen to me now, people.

56:59

Folks, folks, I'm telling you now, folks, folks. Yeah, that's the term, folks, not people, folks. I can't believe it's been eight years now since we last were there.

57:10

But we really would need to get Tim to come out and debate again, you know. We keep trying and he's just a busy, busy man.

57:18

But we need to get him. But I had to queue up his discussion of Staples and the

57:24

Muslims because that could lead into all sorts of different areas of discussion and things like that.

57:30

Just real quickly, I only have about 30 seconds left in the program. Still seeking to raise funds for London.

57:39

It's expensive to travel across the pond these days and to do the things we want to do 10 days there.

57:46

And so still letting the people of God know that that need still exists and a number of people are stepping up.

57:53

That's great. But it's still a long ways to go over there and we're looking now at three debates, not just two.

58:00

And so getting the recordings done and things like that. Need to have redundancy.

58:06

Make sure they are recorded properly. Things like that. So need opportunities, but need to be able to get over there.

58:13

So make that need known to you and appreciate your prayerful consideration of it.

58:18

And boy, if we got this many calls on Tuesday, what's Thursday going to be like? Well, probably no bill to call.

58:25

That's how it's worked in the past. But we have lots of other things to be talking about and doing here on the dividing line.