Cultic KJVOism, then a Deep Dive into Theological Method

Greetings and welcome to the Divine Line. We're in the big studio today because we have a lot to get to and we are going to be using the big board today so that we will be able to, well, I was going to say draw things.

I'm pretty much just on a stick figure level there, but got a little bit of an echo there from the speaker in the back. We can turn that down a bit. That'll help. Appreciate it. I do want to start, I want to go from the ridiculous to the sublime.

How does that sound? Ridiculous to the sublime. Today on the program, I was just attempting once again, and you would think after all these years that I would know that this is not a possibility. I was just attempting to reason with a cultic King James only-ist.

Cultic King James Onlyism and the Psalm 12 Debate

Now, what is the difference between a cultic King James only-ist and just a King James only-ist? The cultic King James only-ist literally turns his commitment to King James only-ism into the defining aspect of his religious experience.

And so the Rachmanites, that whole realm of people, the crazy guy who does the whiteboard thing with the PhD in chemistry or physics or whatever it is, these are your cultic King James only-ists. And it becomes definitional of them for the entirety of their religious faith.

It becomes part of the gospel itself. A guy named Cody Zorn down in Georgia, evidently because, I don't know, what, about a month ago or so, we did a section on the program where we walked through the text of Psalm 12.

And we did so in the way, ironically, that the King James translators would have told us to do and the way they would have done it. Remember, King James translators would roll over in their graves if they ever encountered any of these people.

They would just be shocked. They would be horrified that anyone could take the work that they did and pervert it in the way that they have done so. But anyway, we walked through Psalm 12 because the cultic King James only-ist will quote Psalm 12 just over and over and over and over and over again as if it has something to do with the King James Version of the Bible, which of course it does not.

But it talks about God's Word being preserved. And so, well, that means the King James Version of the Bible. So this has something to do with something that was written, you know, over 2 ,000 years after these words were written.

It didn't-no one who read Psalm 12 when it was first written would have had any idea what it was talking about and wouldn't until after 1611. But we walked through it and demonstrated that when you actually use the same method of hermeneutics that we use to defend the deity of Christ, the trinity of the resurrection, or justification by faith, whatever else it might be, the text is not talking about what they think it is talking about.

And so, I noticed this morning some gentleman, some other gentleman who hasn't chimed in is Tommy McMurtry II. It's up there on the screen. That's why I know who it is. Tommy McMurtry II had commented on his program on-I'm sorry-on his Twitter feed that just no matter how hard he tried, he could not possibly see how Psalm 12 was not about the preservation of the King James Version of the Bible.

And I can understand that. Look, if you've been raised in a religious context, and these churches tend to be very, very closed. They're independent fundamentals, Baptist, King James only, and they're built upon fear.

The entire methodology of these churches is fear, fear, fear. You are afraid to think a thought other than what you've been told to think. You have to put on airs. You have to dress in a certain way. You even talk in the same way.

You try to make it look like when you're in the group that you're right in there. And everybody knows that outside of that, you know, that's not really where you are. But the whole point is keeping up the appearances.

And you're afraid to be exposed. And you're afraid of the shaming and the attacks. And so, it's just all fear-based. You're afraid of listening to any other perspectives. It's just a horrible, horrible thing.

And it's never been something we were aiming at doing. But I'm so thankful that over the years, especially over the past 10 years, I cannot tell you how many people have come up to me, especially at the G3 Conference and other places, especially when I'm traveling the South, that myself, my brother Jeff, Apologia Studios, we've been involved in helping so many of these people to come out of this kind of fear-based, narrow expression of Christianity and find the truth and find sound churches.

And they've now started to come to understand the gospel and its application to all of life. And it's exciting. It's great. And so, I'm very, very thankful that especially since 1995, when the King James Only Controversy came out, we've put a huge dent in this movement.

They still cannot in any way, shape, or form defend this position, as was demonstrated just today. So, I responded to this Tommy McMurtry, and Cody Zorn responded to him and attempted to say, oh yeah, just look at the context of Psalm 12.

And so, I chimed in, wrote a thread. It was about, what, five, six tweets long or so. And I asked some very direct questions. I provided important data from the text. And here's the thing. I actually went to what the psalmist wrote rather than what was written later in a text that exists when the psalmist wrote Psalm 12.

How dare I do so? Because in cultic King James Onlyism, the King James Version is more important than whatever that dusty old psalmist wrote in Hebrew, right? I mean, who knows that? Wow. You know, and so, I asked direct questions.

I'm like, well, have you noticed, for example, that the very phrase you use in Psalm 12, and in fact, let me show you here for a second. Get rid of this here. Come on. There we go. Here in Psalm 12, and we will see if we can bring things up here.

There we are. So, what I point out, and I know we've done this before. So, you know, you probably know all of this really, really well now. That's great. That's fine. It's wonderful. But it's helpful to folks to see this kind of thing.

In Psalm 12, the text, and I will need to scroll this up a little bit here. All right. There we go. The primary text, the King James Onlyist use, of course, is Psalm 12 .6. The words of Yahweh are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace on earth refined seven times.

Now, some actually, believe it or not, will say that because you had the five versions of Erasmus, and then one of Stephanos and one of Beza, that's seven, and so those are the Greek New Testaments that were used for the Texas Receptus, the King James Version of the Bible.

I've actually heard people say that. Now, that shows an amazing ignorance of the fact that Stephanos did more than one edition, Beza did more than one edition, et cetera, et cetera. But anyways, they've actually gone to that point saying, this is about the King James Version of the Bible.

Now, 99 .9999 of all Christians down through the ages recognize that is as absurd as it could possibly be, but that's where they are. The point they say is the words of the Lord are pure words. This is a promise of special preservation that's seen primarily only in the King James Version of the Bible.

And one of the things that I pointed out is in this section, in these very words, now it's verse seven in the Hebrew, here is the phrase, well, actually, all right, let's break it up into two proper phrases.

So here's the words of the Lord, words of Yahweh. And then over here, you have our pure words, okay? This is the only place right here, that is a hapax. A hapaxogamona is a unique word normally, or it could be a unique phrase.

That is a unique phrase in the Hebrew Old Testament. It's never used anywhere else in Scripture. It's never used anywhere else at all, which is interesting. And so I asked, why do you think that might be?

I mean, if this is supposed to just be just simply and easily recognized as the King James Version of the Bible, why is this the only place where this is used? And then I had pointed out on the dividing line that, and we had made this connection back then, here is Yahweh says, I will now arise, I will set him to safety for which he desires.

He's talking about those people who have been abandoned, those people being persecuted, the needy. This is the promise. And you'll notice, even if you can't read Hebrew, you can see these are connected right there.

This is what's being referred to is the promise that Yahweh has given to deliver the needy. And so I pointed these things out and asked Mr. Zorn to engage in this particular subject. This is what you do when you do exegesis, and it's also what you do when you're confident in the truth.

And the results were, well, what you would expect from someone who is in cultic King James-onlyism. And I'll take the notes off here because that's not exactly relevant any longer. So, wow. So I can't ever read a verse in context in my English Bible without consulting the Greek Hebrew first.

And I explained to the people, lol, you, sir, are the reason why we have a King James Bible. So the plow boy can understand the words of God without high-minded egotistical fools like yourself. Now, it's only going to get worse.

It's going to get more abusive, childish. I mean, this is a sixth grade playground level person that we're dealing with here. This is all they know. Now, you need to understand, why would you do this?

You've just been challenged to answer meaningful questions based upon the original words of the psalmist himself. You've just been challenged. And the first thought across your mind is to become an abusive schoolyard bully.

Why? There are two reasons. One is obvious. One is not so obvious. And the second one is what I really want to make sure people understand today. The first obvious reason is he has no answer. He can't read the original languages.

I even said to him, you, unlike the King James translators, have been too lazy to take the time to learn to do what they themselves did. So don't go touting them and their scholarship when you disrespect them by not even doing what they are able to do.

That's the first thing. But he has no response. He can't answer those questions. He can't interact with the material. The arguments are too much for him. And so what do you do? What happens when you are in an argument and you're losing?

Well, you get angry. You start yelling. You start throwing things. You start making accusations. And most importantly, you stop arguing in any rational fashion. You start using all the different forms of argumentation that are meant to increase emotion and hope that you can make an escape because the other side is going to get all angry and explode and everything else.

That's what's going on there. That's obvious. And I've experienced that now for many, many years. 26 years, something like that now, somewhere along those lines. Over a quarter of a century, I have seen the King James only meltdown take place over and over and over and over again.

Nothing new there, but that's just one aspect of it. Here's what hopefully will be helpful to other people because I want to reach out to the people that are in these types of churches. You know, you feel in your heart, there's something not right here.

There's an imbalance. There's an emphasis upon things you don't find when you read your King James version of the Bible. And you're wondering what it is. And yet you're afraid to listen to anything else.

You're afraid to look outside. Why are you afraid? Because you've been told that that's ungodly. You've been told that you're going to be questioning the man of God and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

And you're also afraid that you're going to be the one being called a high-minded, egotistical fool like yourself and all the other raging stuff. Let me tell you something right now. It has no meaning.

This is for everybody. Give the weight to someone's criticism and opinion that the work of their life and the validity of their arguments demands. In that case, it's a big goose egg. Nothing. There's nothing here.

There's absolutely no reason why anyone should fear someone making that kind of comment about them. Who cares? I mean, honestly, the last time I cared something like about this was, I think it was on the playground in the sixth grade.

But we were playing marbles, you know, and you're trying to get the steelies and remember all that kind of stuff? Yeah, I remember that in sixth grade. That was the last time it had any meaning to me.

And so evidently in these groups, it's still a big thing. But for the rest of us, all you got to do is grow out of it. So that's the other aspect, is that he does this. These people are not trying to convert someone like myself.

They're not even going to bother with someone who's read the King James Only Convert or something like that, because they know there is no way there's anything they can do about any of this stuff. So they're not going to go there.

What they're doing is they are hoping that other people, because he knows he has his followers. It's a small group, but he has a small group of followers. And what he's doing is he's saying to them, if you dare go this direction, this is what's going to happen to you.

This is what's going to happen to you. That's the idea with this kind of stuff. So it went from there. And this is just the first round. And it's gotten much hotter since then, when I said I was going to be talking about it on the program.

Then he says, imagine if people like yourself put as much time into defending scripture instead of creating doubt and confusion. Just think about that for a second. Just think, over the past 30 years, how much time we have put into the defense of the scriptures.

Now, from these guys' perspectives, we don't even believe you. They say, you don't even believe you have the scriptures, because they have this little, you know, I only speak English. I don't know anything about translation.

I don't know anything about other languages. And so you've got to give it to me in English. And if it's not in English, then... And so at one point, I said to him, and I didn't keep this one. He said, you don't believe you have the scriptures.

And I said, I have the same scriptures Athanasius had during the period of darkness after the Council of Nicaea. Now think about that for a second. That was an utter refutation of King James Only-ism.

I don't know that he knows enough about church history to even recognize it. But Athanasius stood alone. Athanasius contramundum. Athanasius stands alone during the Arian Resurgency after the Council of Nicaea.

And what scriptures does he have? Well, he doesn't have a King James Version of the Bible. Okay? He does not have the King James Version of the Bible. And yet he stands alone in defense of the deity of Christ.

For any rational person, that's all you need. The elevation of a 17th century Anglican translation that has gone through numerous revisions since then, to the position of the final authority over the texts that Athanasius used to defend the deity of Christ back then, is an absurdity that any Christian should disavow and say, we do not believe such foolishness as that.

If you want to have any connection to, you know, all the way back to, you know, I'm going to build my church, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, so here you go. We are not as many which corrupt the word of God.

Oh, I'm so, oh, I'm sorry. Didn't consult the original languages on that verse. Please tell me why it doesn't mean what it says. Is this an answer to anything that I had said to you about Psalm 12? Of course not.

He didn't, he couldn't, he cannot touch the arguments and he knows it. He is well aware of that. So this is part self-defense and partly, because remember, he's a quote unquote pastor in a King James only church.

You've got to keep your people under control. And so you've got to bluster and sound like you know what you're talking about and hope that this kind of rhetoric will keep them from going, yeah, but we quote Psalm 12 all the time.

Shouldn't we have a really humdinger response? I mean, shouldn't it be based on the text itself? Because it sounds like what you're saying makes sense. Yeah, well, that's because it does make sense. That's the reality.

Let me see here. Oops. Now, how did that happen? How did, how did we get that small like that? Well, I don't know out there. I had said toward the end of the thread, you need to honestly admit that you, that there are at least equally good, if not better ways of understanding Psalm 12.

And so he said, honesty, you of all people are going to talk about honesty. What a laugh. Okay. Honesty dictates that you acknowledge that the entire, what the entire chapter is about verses two, three, four, five, and six are all about words and speech.

You couldn't miss it unless you tried, which you obviously, which obviously you did. So that was the, that was about the only response. I don't know what happened though. That was about the only response he had was, well, there's a lot of talk about speech in here.

Okay. There is, there is a lot about speech and there is a lot about the words of Yahweh, but they're defined in the context as the promise to deliver the needy. You can't deal with that. You know, you can't deal with that.

So your argument isn't an argument. It's an observation, but it doesn't overflow. It doesn't override the actual flow of the text itself. Anyway, there was one more here and I'm not, hopefully it will not just, it did.

What is that? Well, I'll skip it then. No reason to go back over there. So anyways, it has now gotten crazier since then. And I didn't bother to save all those because I had said to him, you know, we keep looking for somebody on your side to come out and to, to do a meaningful debate.

And you can now see why it is that no matter how hard you try, these folks won't do it. And there's a reason they won't do it is because in a debate, you actually have to make arguments. And when you, when you make arguments like that, everything is going to absolutely fall apart.

All right. From the ridiculous to the sublime, this just came in the mail for me. I was very happy. This is a Brandon Ellis's Calvin Classical Trinitarianism and the Aseity of the Sun. I am really looking forward to digging into this.

Thankfully, it's not overly long, but reading through it, it's going to be a very, very, very, very slow read. I wish I had it electronically, not just to read, but that is definitely one that I'm going to be diving into.

We had mentioned a few weeks ago. This is going to be, from this point on, all, all the King—and by the way, just, just one thing. If you are a member, if you, if you're a member of one of these churches and you've been told to obey and to, you know, not question the, the mog, the man of God, so on and so forth.

Any man who stands behind a pulpit, who has to behave like a sixth grader when his obvious lack of ability to handle the Word of God is challenged, is not a man of God, and you are under absolutely, positively no scriptural commands to remain under that person's ministry.

Get out of there. Find a church that honors and believes all of the Word of God in such a way that they recognize that the Word of God has been the possession of God's people all along, not just since 1611.

Okay? You'll discover that there are many of us out here who have an extremely high view of Scripture, and we consistently apply that, and you'll discover there's a whole lot more to what God's Word commands, and a whole lot more freedom in Christ than anything you have been taught by these particular individuals.

Definitional Christian Beliefs and the Adiaphora

All right. Now, like I said, uh, drawing. Let's see here. All right. How do I even introduce this? In the Christian faith, we have, at the center of our faith, we have absolute, core, definitional beliefs at the center of our faith.

They cannot, they define the faith. Every Christian must believe these particular things. Okay? And then, outside of those, we have the next set of beliefs that are extremely important, that the denial of these, they are so closely related, that a denial of any one of these would probably indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of something in the center, but they're not the definitional doctrines.

They are very important, uh, there's great clarity, but not as much centrality as what you have in the center. These are concentric circles. And so, then you have the next set outside of that, and obviously, we can just keep on going here.

How many of these do you want? And obviously, there are going to be disagreements between people as to exactly what doctrine fits in what circle. But what happens eventually, what happens eventually, is that you get to a range out here that would be called the adiaphora.

The adiaphora. Now, what does adiaphora mean? The adiaphora. The things that do not make a difference. They aren't definitional, and they should be things upon which Christians are able to extend freedom about.

And to have differences of opinion. Now, we all know that what happens is, we get out here, and you know, your tradition, your experience, your upbringing, tells you that there's things in here that are really actually in the second level.

And so, you're extremely reluctant to extend any kind of allowance for disagreement. And of course, one of the most important things, this is really important to think about, we will, you will hear all the time, people talking about gospel issues.

What is a gospel issue? All right, well, and what'll happen is, someone, let me give you an example. The subject, on January 16th, we're all doing, hopefully, I invite all of us to be doing sermons. I, Lord willing, as long as I'm going to be there, and my plan is to be there, I will be preaching on God's law in regards to God's creative decree regarding human sexuality at Apologia Church on January 16th, in solidarity with our Canadian brothers, because that'll be the first Sunday where it is literally illegal in Canada to say anything negatively in regards to transgenderism, homosexuality, sexual orientation, all the rest of that kind of stuff.

And so, I have said for decades that the issue of homosexuality is a gospel issue. Now, many people say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. G has never said anything about it. So, how could it be a gospel issue?

And my response has been, because you have to be able to define what sin is to be able to explain the very necessity and nature of the gospel. Why does Christ have to die on a cross? Why does he have to give his life?

Because God's law has been broken, and so a substitute is needed. But God's law, the breaking of God's law, is what drives this, you see. And so, if you can't define what sin is, and the Bible clearly defines homosexuality as a violation of God's law, then you have no way of defining the gospel.

So, that is a gospel issue. And so, it's not out here in the adiaphora, but others, but Independent Fundamentalist Baptists, for example, have no adiaphora. Everything is a gospel issue. All these circles are just one circle.

It's just, you have to be this. We draw a solid circle here, and you got to be in there, and outside there's nothing. Well, that means everything is a gospel issue. Now, what we have to think about is lines that go inward and lines that go outward.

What do I mean by that? When you have a central doctrine that then has not just implications but necessary application going outward, that's what makes it a gospel issue. If you don't believe this, you can no longer believe what's in here.

But the line doesn't necessarily go the other direction. Everybody wants to have a Christian worldview that will make all of this consistent with our Christian confession. We want to do that. But we have to be very careful to think clearly about which direction the line is going.

So, eschatology. I have brothers who believe in pretty much all of the orthodox eschatologies. Now, I see that here, you better believe that if I'm trying to be consistent here, it's going to have an impact on my eschatology.

But are you going to make it a gospel issue to say, if you don't agree with my eschatology, that means you are not saved? That's what the Independent Fundamentalist Baptists do, but hopefully we all recognize most of them have no earthly idea what any of the other views are.

It's just arrogance based upon ignorance. You've heard it over and over again. So, I want to have a Christian worldview that's going to hold all this stuff together. But when I do, I recognize I need to extend grace to others who will have a different emphasis.

And very frequently, that emphasis will be found in what each of these inner lines are all about. Where you're placing, you know, this one's a little bit farther out than this one. And so, well, no, I think that doctrine, that's where a lot of this is coming from, is from the differing emphases that we have.

We're going to see that later on. I'll be getting into some of this stuff later on, if I remember to get into all the stuff later on that I have, which is probably not going to be the case. But in fact, I was just digging in a little bit to the Ellis book over there, and immediately ran into a portion of the discussion and went, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Because I was listening to a really in-depth conversation between current theologians on the subject of divine simplicity. And I would say 99 .8 of Protestant Christians, who actually really make a credible profession of faith, they're actually serious about the faith, would not have been able to follow that conversation.

It was highly technical. And it's not that what was being said could not have been said in such a way for them to follow, but these are theologians talking to the theologians, and so they're using all of the technical terminology to make that easier.

And so, it makes it sound so much more complicated than it is. But the point was, I could listen to them, and I had also listened to some of them talking to other theologians that they were now disagreeing with, but they were agreeing with them before on other things.

And what's the difference between them? Emphasis. Emphasis. And one of the things that struck me was, in the Ellis book, was a discussion of the development. Well, here, I'm going to come back to this, but got to grab these things while I'm thinking about them.

Here is an interesting discussion. This is from Mueller. Everyone thinks, for some reason, that all you got to do is just pull out post-reformation reform dogmatics, and that answers all the questions, though very frequently there aren't a lot of quotations from it.

So, there's a discussion under, it's 6 .1, Natural and Supernatural Theology. The problem of natural theology, natural theology and the reformers. This massive work is on the development of reformed orthodoxy from the time of the modern period, and so there's all sorts of things that go into that.

But there is a, let me just read a few things for you here, so you can follow along. This revised understanding of Calvin, that is, the understanding of his thought without reference to the neo-orthodox paradigm grafted into it by the Barth-Brunner debate.

Don't get me started on Barth, I had to go to Fuller, so I don't even want to talk about Barth anymore. In turn, indicates a greater affinity between Calvin's teaching and that of the reformed orthodox, notice Calvin's teaching, and that of the reformed orthodox.

So, you've got Calvin at the beginning, and then there is a recognition, and it's a true recognition, that there is a development over time into the reformed orthodox. That means it's not necessarily what Calvin would believe.

That's really not disputable. At the same time that recognizes in Calvin, as will also be found in the later reformed, a firm distinction between pagan natural reason, or fallen reason, and a Christian application of reason to the examination of the created order.

By the way, just in passing, I hope you hear that. That's very relevant to what quote-unquote natural theology is. A regenerate mind and an unregenerate mind are going to deal with natural revelation and scriptural revelation in different ways.

Fundamentally, has to be. The right application of reason to the natural order, moreover, would issue in a cogent natural philosophy in the outlines of which Calvin concurred with his contemporaries. The latter point stands directly counter to, let me skip.

Okay, several formal observations are in order. First, Calvin, Bollinger, Vemigli, and Musculus all discuss a naturally available knowledge of God, but they nowhere construct a natural theology, and nowhere discuss either the advisability or inadvisability of constructing one.

Calvin and Verret proposed a two-fold knowledge of God as creator and redeemer, while Musculus addressed the issue of natural and revealed knowledge with a three-fold division of the subject in the general revelation in nature, the special revelation in scripture, and the gracious witness of the spirit that renders scripture authoritative.

Bollinger, like Calvin, appears to have distinguished between the reception of natural revelation by pagans or unbelievers and the reception of natural revelation by way of the testimony of scripture.

That's interesting. Bollinger also, again like Calvin, had a well-developed view of the conscience of having an innate or implanted knowledge of the natural law, albeit one that could not motivate the unregenerate sinner to do good.

It was the Thomas-trained Vemigli, though, who of all the early-formed codifiers of doctrine produced the most extended treatment of the problem of the natural knowledge of God in relation to theology.

Oh, I wonder why. Second, the Reformed Orthodox do use the term natural theology, and several of the Reformed Orthodox writers, notably Alsted at the beginning and Van Til at the end of the era, wrote works entitled Theologia Naturalis, Natural Theology.

Alsted ultimately included his natural theology with the outline of his larger Methodist. The Orthodox writers do not typically mingle natural theology with the theology based on biblical or supernatural revelation.

Their systems of catechetical, scholastic, or positive theology remain expositions of the supernaturally grounded body of Christian doctrine that rests on scripture. Once, however, natural theology had been admitted to the encyclopedia of theological study.

Differences did arise among the Reformed Orthodox concerning its purpose and its relationship to the other forms of theological discourse. In the 18th century, moreover, natural theology was used as a preliminary step towards supernatural theology, particularly by Wolfian theologians like Weidenbach and Stopfer, as well as by less philosophical writers like Klinkenberg.

This development, however, proves the point by contrast. It was not at all the Reformed approach in the early or high Orthodox areas to build supernatural theology on a rational, natural foundation. I think there's a lot of people who really need to hear that.

Anyway, recent studies have shown, moreover, that the natural theology and metaphysics of the early Orthodox were not dogmatically framed by constant warnings concerning the radical limitation of fallen human reason, but rather argued that given the problem of the fall, the proper study of philosophy was an exercise intrinsic to the reparation of the image of God and human beings.

Arguably, it was one of the academic burdens of early Orthodox writers like Kekerman, Alsted, Herbord, and Burgersdijk to develop a philosophical curriculum including metaphysics and natural theology in the Reformed academies and universities.

Please notice, this is happening long after Calvin, long after even the second generation is when this is happening. And that in so doing, they broadened not only the curricular interest of the Reformed, but also Reformed interest in the ability of the rational faculties to discern truth in their examination of the rational and logical orders.

According to Alsted, natural theology could have both a propageutic and an apologetic function. On the one hand, it might lead toward the higher truths of revealed theology. On the other, it might be the basis for debate with pagans and atheists.

Interestingly enough, that would be not as much of an interest in Calvin's day. Pagans and atheists were not the people that he was encountering. This perspective may clash with the impression given by the introductory chapters of Calvin's Institutes, albeit not with the broader view of Calvin's thought to be gleaned from the Institutes in conjunction with the commentaries and sermons.

While in the broader context of the thought of the Reformers, notably writers like Vermigli and Hyperius, there are also a series of significant antecedents. In addition, and more importantly, here we go, this is finally what we finally get into it.

The context of the early Orthodox writers was different from that of the Reformers. Why? Whereas Calvin arguably understood the debate over reason, natural revelation, and philosophy as a battle against the causes of excesses and mistakes of what?

In the theology of the later Middle Ages. Keckerman, Alsted, and their contemporaries surely saw the issue in the context of the establishment of a Protestant Reform theology in the institutional context of academies and universities, specifically the academies and universities in lands where the Reformation had been successful and the abuses for the most part set aside.

And certainly the institutionalization Reform thought implied the appropriation in a more thorough and overt manner of the best of the older Christian tradition, both patristic and medieval. In brief, we shall be able here, as on the other topics investigated, to identify continuities and discontinuities in the development of the Reform teaching.

Here's the issue. Calvin is in a different battle. He is in the battle with Rome primarily, but he's also battling on the issues of God's sovereignty, divine election. He's battling with Servetus on the Trinity, and this is reflected in the what?

What was the term we were looking at before we got sidetracked there? The emphases that he would bring to this same diagram. The emphases he would have. Vitally important. And the later Reformed are all of a sudden developing this interest in these other things because now, well, they're in academic settings.

And unlike Calvin, who knew that if he traveled alone, he was in grave danger of being killed by Roman Catholic assassins, but also Protestant assassins for that matter. He knew he was in grave danger.

That tends to focus your theology. But now when the only thing you have to worry about is getting your papers graded in the academic setting, all of a sudden your attention can wander to other things and it's going to impact your emphasis.

And that's what we've got here. That's what ends up doing these things. Now, let's look at something like this. Let's say, let's think of some foundational biblical doctrines in Revelation. So let's start off with monotheism, okay?

There is only one true God. If you're going to make that affirmation, there are certain inevitable things that flow from this. If there is only one true God, and he is the creator of all things, all right?

Then to believe both of these will inevitably require you to believe that God is, for example, eternal. Because there's only one God, he's the creator of all things, so anything that exists comes from him.