Trinity vs. Oneness Debate Part 2

Opening Appeal for Charity and the Debate Setup

I want to greet you all tonight in the name of Jesus. I'm very happy to be here. I have appreciated the manner and the way that Dr. White has spoken tonight and in fact I would tell you that I read his book several times.

I respect him as a Christian. I do not believe that whatever he may believe about God would in any way keep him from salvation because none of us really understands nor comprehends totally what God is really like.

A little younger in my ministry when I studied this subject I always would reach a point where I'd say this is the final understanding. Now I know and I had a young man that worked with me and helped me and he'd say yeah but you know tomorrow you're gonna say you found something else.

That turned out to be true. It's every time we reach what we think is a horizon there's another horizon out there and I would like to say something here in honesty that I would be willing to lose this discussion if I could learn something new about Jesus.

I that much want to really know him as he is much more than I would want to win this discussion. I want to say my appreciation to Pastor Carino who spoke with me on the phone today very kindly very courteously and has treated us very well.

I also want to express my appreciation to Chris Arnson that I have spoken with several times over the telephone and trying to understand just what was going to happen here and how the thing would become what it's supposed to be.

I also want to thank some of my brethren who traveled all this way from Minnesota at their own expense as I did just because we're that much interested in learning more about the Lord and I want to say also that I'm grateful to this audience who have gathered here tonight to listen to two speakers talking about something that a lot of people would say is just bookish and technical and not of any importance.

May I say that the plan for this discussion tonight is not the ordinary plan for a discussion such as this. There is no opportunity for me to present any affirmative arguments on what I believe. Now that's all right.

I intend to do so to say some things along the way about what I believe but I really don't have to. Dr. White is the affirmative speaker. He's affirming the proposition that the New Testament or the Bible teaches the doctrine of the Trinity and he has to affirm that position and prove it beyond all doubt and because of that he has allowed himself to be the first speaker and the last speaker which those who deal with debates say it's an advantage if you can speak first, if you can speak last, you can wrap it all up and the audience will remember what they heard last.

So he must, he must do what he did. He must prove his point beyond all doubt that the Bible teaches the doctrine of the Trinity and there can't be any loose ends left over when he's done because he's the affirmative speaker.

Now I don't, I'm not disagreeing or arguing with the form of the debate but I want you to know that I really don't have to prove what I believe. I have to disprove what he believes but I intend to take some time to tell you what I believe because I think it's that important.

Michael Servetus and the Persecution of Anti-Trinitarians

The date was October 31st, 1553. Ironically it was All Saints Day and the skies were heavy and overcast in Geneva, Switzerland. At the outskirts of the city there was a and you could hear shrill voices rising and saying he's a heretic.

He doesn't believe in the Trinity. Do away with him. Burn him. In the middle of this mob was a disheveled figure. You could tell that he hadn't washed for over a month and that he had been eating bread and water and he was dirty and his clothing was dirty and there was wrapped around his neck a heavy chain and along with the crowd was a very wild-eyed prophetic type of man who was screaming out this is a heretic.

This is what happens to heretics. This is what happens to anybody who denies the doctrine of the Trinity. The scene was not unlike one that had taken place 15 centuries earlier in what is today called the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem where another pathetic figure was being dragged along forced to carry a cross showing the marks of beating upon him.

Who was this pitiful figure? Well he'd been born to quite a good family in Spain. His name was Miguel Servito and he received a good education. He was taken under the wing of a Roman Catholic cardinal and perhaps thereby learned of course his native Spanish.

He learned French. He learned Hebrew. He learned Latin. He learned Greek and he studied the classical literature of the day. It is pretty well known that he had made a trip at least to Rome so he had become acquainted with some of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church but this young man loved to study and as he studied the Christian doctrine he became somewhat disenchanted with the doctrine of the Trinity and ultimately he wrote a book.

What was the title of the book? The title of the book was On the Errors of the Trinity. Now he could have written about many other things. He could have written about elements of the Protestant Reformation, about justification by faith.

He could have written some of the things that later were put in Kelvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and perhaps not been so persecuted but because he chose to challenge this topic the errors of the Trinity he was immediately greeted with such animosity that he realized it wasn't safe for him to live anyplace as Michael Servetus.

So he went to France. He changed his name. He became Dr. Villanueva and he posed there as a Spanish physician. He had studied medicine along with classical literature and he was a very intelligent man and believe it or not his practice of medicine led him to discover the pulmonary circulation of the blood.

If you read any medical dictionary today you'll find that Miguel Servetus is credited with the discovery of the pulmonary circulation of the blood but he could not forget this passion that was in him.

The doctrine of the Trinity was so abstruse it was not clearly taught in any single portion of Scripture, not in the Old Testament, not in the New Testament. Not only was the word not mentioned which was not of great importance but the concepts of it were not mentioned.

It wasn't mentioned that something could be in the Godhead. There was no scripture that said God the Son. No scripture that said God the Holy Ghost. And while the doctrine had said the persons of the Trinity love each other and you could read that the Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father.

The doctrine of the Trinity said the Father and Son together love the Holy Ghost. But you know there was no scripture that said they loved the Holy Ghost and there was no scripture that said the Holy Ghost loved them.

So there was this absence of clear testimony as to how three persons could share one divine essence. You can't find that in the Bible. There was nothing in there about sharing the essence of God. In fact there was nothing in the scripture about what God is like inside of his being.

What is his mode and manner of existence inside of himself. Those who believed in the doctrine of the Trinity actually went further than what the Bible had revealed. They thought they understood things that God hadn't even said.

They actually invaded the Holy of Holies, God's internal manner of existence and said we know how he exists inside. There are three persons inside of him that share the divine essence. Well those ideas ate at Miguel Servito or alias Dr. Villanueva until he started to write a second book.

And the second book he said I'm going to send that someplace where it will be appreciated. Where someone will have a heart open to receive it. Because I know that the first time I presented it, it was not well received.

So he sent this book chapter by chapter to Geneva, Switzerland. One chapter at a time to a man that he felt was a champion of free thought. John Calvin, the man who had had to leave France himself after making a speech and flee France and flee to Geneva, Switzerland in order to save himself from the Inquisitor in France.

So I'll send it to Calvin and then someday if I get out of France and can once again be Miguel Servito, Michael Servitus, I'll go to where Calvin is and and we'll sit down and have some long discussions about who Jesus really is.

What Servitus didn't know was that Calvin was indeed a great reformer. But nobody, nobody dare challenge any idea so sacrosanct as the idea that God is eternally existed in three persons. In fact even Calvin was not about Servitus by approving of this book even though he only had the gathered chapters.

Well it wasn't just that Calvin wouldn't support him but Calvin actually did something that's almost unconscionable. He contacted Matthew Ory, the Inquisitor in France and said you've got somebody there who is a heretic.

He's the worst kind of a heretic. He denies the doctrine of the Trinity. Now we want you to know that we Protestants believe many things that you Catholics call heresy. But we're not about to take sides with somebody who denies the doctrine of the Trinity.

Who is this person? He's posing as Miguel or as Dr. Villanueva but he really is Miguel Servito or Michael Servitus. Calvin informed the Inquisitor on Servitus. Well the outcome was that Servitus had to flee across the rooftops of Paris and escape and he made his way immediately to the very place where he thought he would be safe.

Away from Roman Catholicism in a country which was espousing the new doctrines of the Reformation to a man who had to flee the Inquisition himself in order to be able to speak the way he wanted to speak.

And so he made his way immediately to the church where John Calvin was speaking on a Sabbath morning. He was so hungry to hear somebody who could preach the word of God without fear and he wanted to be there.

But again unbeknownst to Servitus, the authorities were made known of who he was and before he could get out of the place he was arrested and he was placed in the common prison and he was kept on the bread of affliction.

He was to be allowed no amenities at all. He was not to have the use of his books or of his pamphlets or of his Bible and he was not to be able to take a shower or cleanse himself or put on any clean clothing.

Several weeks he asked if he could at least have a clean shirt and he was allowed one clean shirt. But daily he was brought before the council in Geneva where Calvin was the prior and Calvin acting as prosecutor and judge would question Servitus about his views.

Naturally not having access to his books, not eating properly, not being able to be clean, he was not able to respond in the way that he would have liked to. But daily he was questioned, daily he was sent back to the jail, questioned some more, sent back to the jail again, brought back again, questioned some more, sent back to the jail again and ultimately the judges, the council in Geneva found him guilty of heresy and judgment was pronounced.

Now it wasn't unusual for even the Protestants of Geneva to punish heretics. They had burned about 40. But there was a special reason to pass judgment against this man because he had questioned that doctrine which both Catholics and Protestants at least since 325 have said is really what God is like.

He is one being, three persons who live internally in that being and share the essence. Now there are all kinds of questions about are there three minds, are there three centers of consciousness, are there three wills and how is it that we can believe this and not somehow come up with the idea of one God.

What has helped by our just making a verbal affirmation that we believe in one God and making a disclaimer we do not believe in three Gods, we believe in one God. He is one being, we believe in one God.

But there are three persons that share this essence. Well, judgment was pronounced and Servetus was scheduled to be burned. He had tried to argue that the doctrine of the Trinity did not spring from scripture.

He tried to argue that it was a product of Christian philosophers who had studied the philosophers like Aristotle who gave us the idea of different categories of being, that there are beings and there are persons.

It came from Aristotle. So God is a being and he's like, you know, a rock is a being, a tree is a being, but there are persons. And Dr. White in his book, which I'm digressing a little bit, says that you can tell by the use of personal pronouns regarding the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit is a person.

But I don't know if he's overlooked it or there are maybe somebody has noticed there are 7 ,000 personal pronouns that relate to God. The being of God. 7 ,000 personal pronouns that says he's not a what, he's a he.

Hank Hanegraaff says there's one what and three who's. But this what is not a what. He's a he. He's Almighty God. He's the I am. He's Jehovah. Servetus had argued that the doctrine was against logic, that it was vague, that it introduced ideas in terms that were unbiblical, such as eternal generation, eternal procession, eternal son, shared essence, one God, three persons, that its claim of monotheism was just a verbal claim, a mere disclaimer to avoid polytheism that was protected by a mystery of human creation.

The Bible is really pretty plain in telling us that there is one God. Very plain. And the Bible is also very plain in telling us that this God is personal by calling him he 7 ,000 times or using other terms that show that he's personal.

Servetus argued that this doctrine really wouldn't have become a doctrine if it hadn't been through the imperial forces of Rome and Constantine who was trying to make himself sole Roman emperor and he needed the Christian church and he didn't care what they said about God but he wanted them to heal the dispute that was dividing the church.

He said that an intestine quarrel within the church is worse than a quarrel in an empire and it's got to be settled. He called them to settle it in 325 at his summer palace. Servetus argued that it was the Roman patriarch really who sought preeminence, who was behind really what the Christians did at this council of Nicaea.

He wanted to march first in the processions of the church. And so this idea about the Trinity was as good a reason to argue as anything and when they did meet at Nicaea they actually vied for opportunities to speak without really caring what they were saying because they wanted to put forth their own personal agenda.

Love of preeminence and if I have time tonight I'll show you that you cannot have revelation in the midst of the love of preeminence. I'll try to show you tonight that only Jesus can reveal who the father really is.

Revelation has to come directly from him that it doesn't come through consensus. God does not give consensus to a council that has been called by a Roman emperor and which is sought by Christian leaders who want to be preeminent.

He is not going to give revelation there but all of this was to no avail and Servetus found himself out on this road leading out of the city on the way to his execution. They treated him roughly. When they reached the place they bound him with chains to a stake, put them around his neck and then somebody thought it would be a great idea to put wet straw on his head because this would retard the flames.

It would allow him to suffer a little longer. And then somebody else thought let's put some sulfur on his head because that will make it burn hotter. Make no mistake about it, Dr. White did not burn Servetus and I'm not blaming him for it.

And this church has been very kind to me. I'm the heretic here tonight but you have treated me well and given me every consideration. Pharrell, the fire-breathing prophet, cohort of John Calvin, looked Servetus in the eye as everything was prepared and said if you'll say one phrase we'll call this all off.

We'll take off the chains, we'll let you go. You only have to say one phrase. If you'll say these words, Jesus is the eternal son of God. That's all you have to say. Say the second point that Dr. White brought to you tonight when he said Jesus is the eternal son.

Servetus, if you'll just say Jesus is the eternal son of God, we'll relieve you from these chains and this obligation to die. He looked at Pharrell and he said words that were close but were yet very different.

He said I believe that Jesus is the son of the eternal God. And with that they set him on fire. And pretty soon the only sound that was heard was his shrieks and his screams. And then there came silence.

Another dissenting voice, dissenting from a doctrine that was drawn from inferences, made into formulations. The formulations were canonized, made holy and to be believed. They were canonized, then they were imposed, you must believe it, and then those who didn't believe it were demonized.

That's gone on folks for 17 centuries and Servetus couldn't believe it. And I can't believe it. And with the sounds of Servetus' shrieks, another dissenting voice of the reformation to the doctrine of the Trinity was silenced.

But it really wasn't silenced. You can still read Servetus' writings on the errors of the Trinity. It never allowed the second book to be translated so it's very difficult to get but I've been able to obtain the first one from Harvard University and it's an excellent book.

Everybody ought to read it. If Servetus was here tonight he would win this debate hands down. But as I said I'm not really concerned with that. Well it's May 15th, 1999 and that's where we are tonight.

And I've got 15 minutes yet. May 15th, 1999, Boltsville, New York. Here we are. Now I said I'm the heretic here tonight. I know I am. But I appreciate the courtesy of this church that has not said we're not going to let anything be said here that's opposite to what we believe.

Your door has been opened to someone to come and speak his mind. You've allowed me to do that. There haven't been any constraints put upon me except the constraints of time. I did call and say I hope we could have more time to present a positive presentation of what we believe and some adjustments were made and I'm grateful for that but we'll try to work with what we have here tonight.

The terms of our discussion, I'll go quickly through these. Does the New Testament teach the Trinity? Dr. James R. White affirms, Robert A. Sabin denies. According to the rules for the public discussion the burden of proof is placed upon the affirmative speaker.

We don't necessarily have to go by those rules but I did have the opportunity to teach debate in the college for a short while and this is what is said. The advantage is given to the affirmative for the first speech and the last speech and so he must prove beyond doubt that his proposition is true.

No time has been allowed for an affirmative speech for me so I'll have to rob a little time from this speech in which I'm supposed to be denying what Dr. White has said and I am denying it but we'll have to hurry through.

Jesus Reveals the Father and the Limits of Human Formulations

I want you to notice this scripture. Very important verse overlooked. Hardly ever does anybody who talks about God, the Father, ever read this verse. Jesus said all things are delivered unto me. Translator's Handbook of the Gospel of Luke says all knowledge is delivered unto me.

Jesus is still here tonight. He still reveals. It doesn't say that you know a council that's based upon consensus can tell you who the Father is. It says it must come as a revelation right from Jesus.

Two questions are going to dominate this discussion tonight. The first is can we really trust the words of Jesus as to the real identity of Jesus and the Father and I'm going to show you that Jesus really tells us who the Father is and he tells us exactly in plain English.

Greek will be mentioned. I've studied some Greek. I am not as Dr. White said. Dr. White is a teacher of Greek at a college or university but I have studied some Greek but I would suggest to you that in the plain English of the Bible that we can find the answers to most of our questions.

I'm not disparaging Greek scholarship. I appreciate Greek scholarship. I certainly do pay attention to it. Is it safer than depending upon the revelation that Jesus gives or the word of Jesus to trust the formulations of 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 11th and 12th century speculative theologians?

Now Dr. White has already made a disclaimer. He has said we do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity because it is taught by the theologians or councils. I accept that by the way. I accept what he says and I accept the things that he said in his book and I won't argue about those things.

For his beliefs about the Father and Jesus, Robert A. Sabin will mainly base his case upon the subtle words of Jesus and I was very happy to see that Dr. White also believes that there are subtle words about Jesus in the Gospel of John.

For his beliefs about the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Dr. White will look to the scriptural testimony. TFT represents the forgotten Trinity, page 190 plus. He also says Nicaea's authority then is derived from its faithfulness to the scriptural testimony.

It has validity today because what was true about Christ in AD 325 is true today too. Without saying that I believe in the Trinity because of what is said in the Council of Nicaea, he does say that he trusts the results of Nicaea because it is biblically true.

The so-called Athanasian Creed, an expansion of the Nicaea Creed, Dr. White says recognizes the elements of the doctrine that must be kept in balance with one another. You've got to keep these ideas in balance.

The idea of the Father, the idea of the Son, the idea of the Holy Ghost. But one wonders about all of those one God ideas in the Old Testament, literally thousands of them, that God is one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one.

How they balance with these ideas that he is really three persons who share the essence of the one God when you can't find that, in those words at least, in the scriptures at all. But for the belief about the internal mode of God's being, all who believe that we can know this are dependent upon the formulations of the speculative theologians of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 11th, and 12th centuries.

And I'm going to show you that it's Trinitarians that have said this, it's not me. The one living and true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost has revealed himself to man in different capacities and relations for the work of redemption.

That you can believe. Whether revealed as the Father, as God in Christ, or as the Holy Spirit, he is the same unchangeable Jehovah. Now you're going to find that Dr. White and I have a lot of things that we agree upon.

I wish I could have the time to sit down with him and talk privately. Talking in front of an audience is a little different, but could talk privately with him, we might find that we would have a lot of points in common.

There's no point in contending for those beliefs which we hold in common. Rather let us try to see the point of view about which we disagree. Dr. White believes Jesus is God, Jesus is the I Am, Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega.

John 8 .58 presents Jesus speaking as God, before Abraham was, I Am, and I believe that. Jesus is the I Am, Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, Jesus does indeed speak as God in John 8 .58. Now we both there agree with what the Bible has revealed.

It isn't a question of he speaks and I speak, but we are both speaking where the Bible speaks. We agree. Jesus is God's only begotten or God's unique son. I don't really want to argue whether he's only begotten or unique.

He is both only begotten and unique. We both agree. Jesus is both God and man. Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus is God's only begotten or God's unique son. Jesus is both God and man. Jesus is Jehovah. We agree.

Truth concerning Jesus must be revealed. Dr. White believes this. It is Jesus Christ who is the great God and our Savior. Titus 2 and 13. I believe that. Truth concerning Jesus must be revealed. It is Jesus Christ who is the great God and our Savior.

I believe that too. Both Dr. White and I have argued with Jehovah's Witnesses about this. We both take the same position. They're wrong. We believe that we're right. Jesus is indeed divine. He is God.

Both Dr. White and I have argued with Mormons. I've written a book about Mormonism. I've spoken twice at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah in front of a huge crowd containing many, many Mormons.

I taught for several weeks at the Hotel Utah to groups of Mormon businessmen. I have converts from among the Mormons. So we agree. We're both the same kind of guys in a way in that we don't like error and we want to root it out and we want to stand for truth wherever we can.

So we have a lot in common. We agree. Christ is overall God-blessed forever. Romans 9 .5. Eternal life is the possession of those who know the one true God. John 17 .3. He mentions it in his book, I Believe It.

Christ is overall God-blessed forever. Eternal life is the possession of those who know the one true God. We believe. We are in agreement. Christ is identified by John in 12 .37 -41 as the being on the throne in Isaiah 6 .1 -4.

I believe it. Jesus is the eternal God in human flesh. We both agree on these points. We're not far apart, Dr. White. These conclusions which we hold in common are based upon solid fact from the words of Jesus.

So where Jesus has spoken solidly about something, he agrees with it, I agree with it. We both agree that these are facts, not formulations. Now, again, let me say this for emphasis. What do you do when you are studying a doctrine that is not specifically spelled out in scripture?

We all do it. I do it. Dr. White does it. The theologians did it. You read what the scripture says and then you take an inference from that. Now your inference may be true, it may be false. Mormons take inferences from scripture like John chapter 9 where a blind man was healed who was blind from birth and Jesus' disciples said who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind and the Mormons grab this scripture and they say this shows you that this man pre-existed in another world before he came into this world and in that other world he must have sinned to some degree because he was born blind.

Jesus said you're erring, you don't know the power of God and you don't know the scripture. So the Mormons draw the wrong inference. We have to be careful when we teach something that's drawn from inferences.

But when an inference is drawn, the next step is to make a formulation. The formulation is to decide what this means and formulate a doctrine from it where the scripture has not really spoken. Now I make formulations, Dr. White makes formulations, Pastor Carino makes formulations, your church makes formulations, your church organization makes formulations, mine did.

And the problem comes when those formulations are canonized. What do I mean by canonized? Canonization has to do with people who are canonized and made saints by the Roman Catholic churches. But doctrines can be canonized and when they are canonized it means they're made official.

This is what is true, this is what is right and then when you go further and say you must believe this in order to be saved, which the Athanasian Creed does, it says unless you think like this you cannot be saved.

Unless you think like this you're going to be lost and perish eternally. The Athanasian Creed says that. Those are the anathema clauses in the Creed. The Creed in part at least is printed in Dr. White's book.

What happens then is you enforce this, you use your power to enforce it. Now I may not get time to say all that I need to say, but right after the Creed of Nicaea was written there was great uproar. Athanasius who took the part of Trinitarians at that council lived for 40 years after the Council of Nicaea and he spent half that time in exile.

Because the imperial government exiled anybody that didn't believe in the Doctrine of Nicaea and then later on when Constantine's son became emperor he exiled those who did believe in the Creed of Nicaea.

So it would certainly tell you that there was not a universal belief in the Doctrine of the Trinity at the time of the Council of Nicaea nor afterward. And in fact you will learn from history that within 60 years of the Creed of Nicaea, 60 years, the church that formulated that Creed assented to the murder, the execution of anybody who did not believe in the Creed.

In 385, Priscillian and six others including some women had their heads chopped off. Now the church had been persecuted by pagans prior to 325, prior to 312 for sure, but the church now did the persecuting and they caused those people to be named heresies, turned them over to the secular arm, their heads were chopped off.

So the doctrine must not have been very easy to believe for the Christians in the time of the Council of Nicaea because it had to be enforced not only by demonizing people but by physical persecution.

Well, let's go on a little bit. We agree on this. Much else that we will discuss is not based upon scriptural fact but is based upon inferences formed into formulations, canonized formulations, doctrines and then imposed upon people at pain of punishment or death.

The points upon which we will disagree are based solely upon inferences drawn from scripture. Inference equals the process of deriving from assumed premises either the strict logical conclusion or one that may to some degree be probable.

All of my formulations are not true. Nobody's formulations are all true. We have to leave our formulations open. If we don't leave them open, we'll never know the truth. These inferences are developed into formulations.

Formulations may not be taken as fact but scholars often canonize their formulations. Formulations are interpretations. While formulations may be believed and taught, they should never be canonized or imposed.

I recently had to separate from people I love very much on this one point. I'll tell you about it later. Thank you.

Dr. White's Rebuttal on the Trinity, Nicaea, and the Deity of Christ

Dr. James White now will issue a 12-minute rebuttal.

Regarding why I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, let me read you what I did say on page 190 of my book. Do Christians today believe in the Trinity and the deity of Christ just because the Council of Nicaea said so?

Some might. I do not. I believe in the Trinity and the deity of Christ because it is a teaching of the scriptures as we have seen throughout this work. I accept the use of the term homoousion because it accurately reflects the teaching that there is one God and that both the Father and the Son are described as being fully God, fully deity.

Nicaea's authority then, if we wish to use that term, is derived from its faithfulness to the scriptural testimony. It has validity today because what was true about Christ in A .D. 325 is true today too.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 8. Now, there are only a few statements that were made that I can rebut. There are only a few statements that were made that interacted with the presentation that I made.

And I'm certain that Pastor Sabin has encountered many a Trinitarian that argued primarily on the foundation of the authority of the Church or councils or creeds. However, as he said, he has read my book more than once, and so therefore he knows that my presentation is very much a biblical presentation.

And I believe that is what we need to focus on this evening. He did make the statement that there is nothing in the scripture about how the persons can share the divine being. That is a true statement.

There is also nothing in any biblical passage that explains how God can be eternal and unchanging, nor is there any biblical explanation of the mechanics of how the logos, the eternal word, became sarks, flesh.

But just because there is no mechanical description does not in any way, shape, or form lessen the truth of those biblical teachings. And so we cannot allow the idea to be presented this evening that unless we have some sort of mechanical explanation for exactly how everything works that we must reject what the scripture teaches.

I can't begin to imagine that God would so love me that he would send his only begotten son so that he would die upon a cross in my place, take my sin upon him, impute his righteousness to me so that I might live eternally in his presence.

I can't begin to figure that out. But thank God, that's what the scriptures actually teach, and I accept that. It was said that there are 7 ,000 pronouns that refer to God and that he's not a what, he's a he.

Well, there is no question that God is personal. I have not presented to you an impersonal God. The question is, is God unipersonal, or is God tripersonal? As we have seen, and I believe without question, the scriptures present to us the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and that is why I spent the vast majority of my presentation presenting to you those concepts from those passages, and we will have to focus upon those particular things.

Now, much was said, and I teach church history once in a while, and so I was somewhat antsy because I, in fact, at one point went to the Phoenix Public Library and read every book in the library that made any mention whatsoever to Miguel Cervantes.

So the story that you heard, I am very, very, very familiar with. I'd just like to mention briefly a few things that didn't get mentioned. For example, the fact that John Calvin risked his life to meet Cervantes in Paris many years before the events described to you, Cervantes didn't show up.

Also not mentioned was the fact that Calvin tried to reason with Cervantes in the correspondence once he figured out that Villanueva was actually Cervantes. It was not mentioned that Cervantes sent Calvin's institutes, which Calvin had sent to him, back to him with rude insults written in the margins.

Neither was it mentioned that it took Calvin's friends a long time to coerce him into giving the information to the Roman Catholic authorities as to who Villanueva actually was. It did not mention that Cervantes was condemned by the Inquisition and escaped only the night before his execution by burning by the Roman Catholic Inquisition.

In fact, they burned him in effigy the next day. Neither was it mentioned that Cervantes tried to get Calvin himself charged with heresy and that Cervantes aligned himself with Calvin's political foes in Geneva.

And neither was it mentioned that the ministers, including Calvin, pled that Cervantes be executed in a humane manner and not the way in which it was described and that their pleas were rejected by the council.