What Reformed Baptists Actually Believe, Abdullah Kunde, and Calls

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

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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 or toll free across the

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

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to Dividing Line, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number for friends or enemies, though we will be detecting the enemies fairly quickly,

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I'm sure. It's been pretty weird, man, I just, you know, I went away for two weeks and, you know, the blog was active, but it pretty well, it wasn't me.

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Do you think some of these people think that I'm slam? Maybe they're all angry with him, they don't read the byline,

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I don't think, or something like that. No, I get plenty of email for him too. Yes, yes, I know you do.

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I am well aware of that. Yeah, anyway, it's weird out there, but we're just here to make everyone even more angry with us.

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I have two audio sections to play today, and on very, very different topics, and then we'll take your phone calls as well, and your

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Skype calls at dividing .line, and 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

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I received a link to a follow -up sermon by Martin Gale down in Brisbane, you may recall a couple months ago.

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We did a Radio Free Geneva, where I worked through a sermon, they have very short sermons down there.

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It's not like up here, or at least certain places, very, very short, but went through a sermon, and basically demonstrated that Pastor Gale had misunderstood the positions that he was saying were in error.

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Well, he launches into a discussion in this sermon about certain young men who have been questioning about what they believe.

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Later in the sermon, he reads from the American Baptist Statement of Faith, which I found very strange.

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He doesn't seem to recognize the American Baptists are as liberal as the day is long. And I get the feeling he's not liberal at all, but denying original sin.

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And I thought, well, that's interesting, the Plagians are back, not overly surprising.

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But the only section I wanted to play of this was a description of us Reformed Baptists.

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And I wanted to point out that the description of Reformed Baptists was significantly less than accurate in its formulation.

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So here is from, let's see, is this January 30th? It looks, yes, this looks like January 30th.

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Baptist Core Beliefs, Pastor Martin Gale down in Brisbane.

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And here is what he had to say about, well,

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I'll just let you sort of figure out why I'm playing this as we get to it. And I think the first, no,

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I'm jumping the gun. Reformed Baptists, and I'll explain the difference.

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Reformed Baptists believe that God chose only some of his created people to end up with him in heaven, and chose to allow others to stay caught up in their sin, and ultimately go to hell.

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Reformed Baptists believe that this election occurred during the lifetime of the recipient. Now that's important.

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But I need to stress that their beliefs did not include hyper -Calvinism, which, where God is supposed to make the decision to send people to hell even prior to their being conceived.

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Now, that is hyper -Calvinism, that is more than what Calvinism wanted to teach.

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But the Reformed Baptists believe that during someone's lifetime, God would look down and say, well,

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I'm afraid you're going to hell, and you're going to heaven, so I'm choosing you, and I'm rejecting you.

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But at least God had a chance to see what their lives were like, and how they behaved, and that sort of thing, in their mind.

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The other one just doesn't even bear thinking about. So, there you go.

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The difference between the Reformed Baptists' understanding of procrastination and the hyper -Calvinist view is that the

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Reformed Baptists think that God makes his decree of election based upon not just what he foresees—no, no, no, this is not even conditional election.

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This is conditional election where the decree of salvation takes place in time during the person's life, based upon God being able to see what kind of life they lived.

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There you go. There's the difference between that and hyper -Calvinism, which is where you choose who's going to go to hell even before they're born, which, of course, is the error of equal ultimacy, which we corrected last time, but it doesn't seem that Pastor Gil was listening.

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Since I happen to know that that program was listened to down there in Brisbane, the world is a smaller place than it once was.

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Anything you say can and will be used against you in the internet, frequently edited.

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I didn't mention this at the end of the last program, but remember about, oh,

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I don't know, 10 months ago, nine months ago, something like that, when a certain lumpy person took one of my videos and then completely changed the words that I used?

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Remember? I mean, that's the level of dishonesty that goes on out there. So it doesn't matter what you say, it will be used against you.

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And even if you don't say it, it will be used against you in the internet. That's just the way things are out there.

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But anyhow, we had addressed the problems here.

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And let me just mention to Brother Gail that that, I don't know where you got your information, but that's about as wrong as you can get.

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First of all, as we corrected last time, you seem to continue to make the error of equal ultimacy in the sense that you put an equal mark between the divine call of salvation and the extension of divine power and grace in predestination and what has been classically called reprobation and the justice of God in bringing judgment to bear against sinners.

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And there is no equal mark there. They're not the same thing. They're both absolutely certain.

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They're both a part of God's decree, but so is everything else. And so if you don't recognize the difference between those two,

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I would just strongly recommend you go back over what was said on this program in response to that.

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There's a video on YouTube. This past Sunday evening in London, preaching at the

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Trinity Road Chapel in Romans 9, I, from the text, addressed the error of equal ultimacy.

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So we need to get that taken care of, because I know you want to be accurate in what you're saying.

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Secondly, if I may basically point out that all Reformed people believe that God's decree pre -exists time.

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It pre -exists our birth in time. And the whole point of unconditional election, which is what all

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Reformed people believe in, if they don't, they're really not Reformed one way or the other. The point of unconditional election is that it's unconditional.

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It's not conditioned upon God foreseeing that there would be something in us that would be worthy of His election or that we'd be better than someone else.

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I mean, I don't know how anyone could avoid hearing what was just said and coming to the conclusion that the people in heaven are in heaven because they were better than the people in hell.

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It's not grace. Grace is important, but it's not grace. It's us.

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We are better than the people in hell. We're going to be able to look down on them and say, we were better. Because God made His choice based upon looking at us, you guys are better.

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That is the very thing that Reformed people are saying is absolutely, positively unbiblical.

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It's untrue. It's false, patently false.

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And so all Reformed people, and that is not what hyper -Calvinism is by any stretch of the imagination, because that would make all

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Calvinists hyper -Calvinists, which of course would make the term utterly useless, though I'm sure there's a lot of folks that wouldn't mind if it was utterly useless anyway.

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So let me just read to you from the Baptist Confession of Faith, which

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Pastor Gale mentioned in his presentation. Let me just read to you from chapter 3, from all eternity,

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God decreed all that should happen in time. And this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only

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His own wise and holy will. Number two, God's decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge.

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Number three, by His decree for the manifestation of His glory, God has predestined or foreordained certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ, thus revealing

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His grace. Others whom He left to perish in their sins show the terrors of His justice. Please notice that that was before time itself.

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This decree is in all of eternity. Number four, the angels and men who are the subjects of God's predestination are clearly and irreversibly designated, and their number is unalterably fixed.

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Before the world was made, number five, God's eternal immutable purpose, which originated in the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, moved

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Him to choose or to elect in Christ certain of mankind everlasting glory. Out of His mere free grace and love,

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He predestined those chosen ones to life, although there was nothing in them to cause Him to choose them.

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That's about as opposite of the presentation that Pastor Gell made as you could get, but this is the 1689

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London Confession in modern language. Not only has number six, not only has God appointed the elect to glory in accordance with the eternal and free purpose of His will, but He has also foreordained the means by which

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His purpose will be effected, since His elect are children of Adam, and therefore among those ruined by Adam's fall into sin,

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He willed that they should be redeemed by Christ and effectually called to faith in Christ. Furthermore, by the working of His Spirit in due season, they are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation.

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None but the elect partake of any of these great benefits. And so you have there, in the words of the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith, the exact opposite of what Pastor Gell said,

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Reformed Baptists believe, where he said that we put the actual decree of salvation in time based upon what

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God sees in us, that is not in any way, shape, or form what we believe. So I wanted to offer that correction.

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You can listen to the rest of this particular sermon, which also even goes so far as, like I said, to deny original sin by citing

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Romans 5. You can listen to that at your leisure and at your pleasure, and we won't be playing all of that on the program today because we have other things that we want to get to.

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Specifically, I was, once again, doing what I do very frequently, trying to catch up after 19 days, not getting to do so.

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And I was out this morning, and the iPod, that little iPod

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Nano has certainly got, I've gotten my money's worth out of that, to be certain. And I was listening, first of all, to some

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Bilal Phillips, who is a Muslim scholar. And then, for some reason,

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I'm not sure, I didn't expect this. Sometimes my playlists aren't quite organized the way that I want them to be or something.

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I don't know. It's sometimes mysterious. But it started playing a debate that I had seen it on my iPod before, but I thought it was a previous debate

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I'd already listened to. And lo and behold, I discover I had not listened to this one, which is good. It was a fairly recent debate between Samuel Green and Abdullah Kunda down in Sydney.

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I believe it took place in Sydney. I've not heard of Abdullah Kunda debating outside of Sydney, so I'm just going to assume that. Certainly, Samuel Green has the quintessential

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Australian accent, which

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I will not attempt to, in any way, shape, or form, reproduce for you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Studio audience just broke into loud applause. Oh, it's nice to have friends.

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That's all I can say. I'm going to tell you something. Yay! Yay! What sound effects, even.

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Thank you very much. Anyway, I would like to play some... David down in Sydney just said, don't go there.

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Even the Aussies are begging. Even the Aussies. He's not an Aussie. He's one of those other things.

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He's... There's a certain phraseology that I can't use of him, but that's what he is.

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He's an Englishman currently in exile in Australia, is what he is.

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See, he just... Now he's mad at you. He's not mad... Take him outside. See, now he's mad at you, not me. I didn't say it,

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David. I did not say it. I recognize the difference between an English accent and an

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Australian accent, even though you must admit you've been down there long enough that it's starting to get a little dodgy, a wee bit dodgy.

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You're starting to pick up a little bit of that Australian rules football type thing.

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It's getting into your accent. That's just all there is to it. I'm sorry. But anyway, I'm going to be seeing him in October, so I need to be very, very careful about that.

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So anyhow, what was I saying? I have no idea what I was saying. It's Samuel Green, Abdullah Kunda, on what is savior of the world,

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Jesus or the Quran? That's an interesting topic. And so what

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I want to do is I want to go through Abdullah's comments because it really covers a wide variety of apologetic issues.

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It is fascinating to hear some of the interplay. I found

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Abdullah using some of the same arguments that I have responded to in regards to Bassam.

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I remember I was playing some of Bassam Zawadi's comments from something, I believe,

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I think he said it was in 2008 in Dubai or something like that. And I responded to some of his biblical arguments.

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And lo and behold, here's Abdullah using the exact same arguments. And I found that interesting.

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And so we'll be listening to that and taking your phone calls. I'll watch the phones, which are currently very quiet, and there's no one.

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I'm sorry, that one? And Skype, dividing that line. There's nothing there either, but they're both quiet then, is what you're saying.

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877 -753 -3341. I'll keep an eye on that as to how far and how deeply we go into Abdullah's comments here.

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And leave that up to you and to the amount of caller participation that we have on the program today.

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So I believe this debate took place, like I said, within the past couple of months. It hasn't been very long. Down in Sydney.

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I'm just going to pick up with Abdullah Kunda's comments and respond to them like we do here on the program fairly regularly.

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It can't be of God, therefore it can't be from God. I'll explain that point in a little bit more detail as we go on.

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Secondly, the method must be able to be understood by a human of sound intellect. Now, I don't mean a rocket scientist.

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I don't mean a person who knows specific Semitic language, grammar, et cetera.

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I mean an average individual like you or me can pick up whatever the message has been conveyed through and understand that this is an option for salvation.

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Thirdly, I think... Now, I'm going to hold on just a second. I just did that wrong because I hit the wrong button, and I'm going to have to fast forward to it, but I'm going to pick up on that a little bit later.

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He's going to be making the argument that basically the Christian gospel is utterly illogical, doesn't make a whit of sense, and that it's just too complicated for anyone to really understand.

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Now, let me just fast forward a moment because I found this to be rather not humorous, but I think instructive.

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Once we got to the end of the debate, he made this interesting comment about how God can be the creator without ever creating, and so immediately somebody challenged him on that, and I want you to listen to his response and then remember that he's already said that it needs to be simple and straightforward.

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There can't be any complexity to it. It just needs to be really simple, and yet listen to how he answered this question from a person in the audience.

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Just getting lazy and wanted to sit down.

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How can someone... Okay, I didn't say that you can be called a creator and not create something.

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God. We're talking about God. Now remember, come back to my initial point in terms of if God is eternal, he cannot have undergone any change.

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Likewise, if God is the necessary existent, okay, he is self -sufficient.

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We rely totally on him. Everything that exists relies totally upon him. Then he does not need to do something to manifest an attribute that he has.

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Okay, now you're asking, well, hang on, that doesn't quite make sense. Let me go a step further, and if I lose you in the details,

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I apologize, but as I'm sure you can appreciate, it's a complex theological issue. Oh, wait a minute.

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As soon as I heard that, I started chuckling because, you know, I've said this many times, and this is a hard standard to try to live up to, but I do try to my best to live up to it, but I keep looking for that consistent

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Muslim apologist. And so here's Abdullah Kunda. I like Abdullah Kunda.

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He's a nice guy. We've had nice conversations. I'm sure we'll have a great debate in October. When I come down there, but Abdullah, you, in this debate, really disappointed me.

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You really did. I know he'll listen to this, or if he's not listening, somebody will direct him to it.

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But you really disappointed me in this debate because I expect more from you. I expect a higher standard from you.

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I mean, I'm never disappointed in Osama Abdullah's debates because that's just what I expect.

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Osama Abdullah, he just, that's just Osama. He will never disappoint me because I just don't expect anything more than what

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Osama produces. But someone like Abdullah Kunda or Abdullah Andalusi or Bassam Zawadi, I hold them to a higher standard.

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Shabir Ali, you know, I hold him to the highest standard. So my disappointment in someone is normally reflective of just how much respect

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I have for them in that what they've demonstrated themselves capable of doing in the past.

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And especially for me, anyways, I listen for an ability of my opponent to hear what

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I am saying and to not just respond with your standard platitudes, no matter whether it's a

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Roman Catholic or a Muslim or a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness or an atheist or whatever. I'm, you know, one of the reasons that I have such great respect for John Dominic Crossan as an individual, not as a theologian.

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I mean, you know, when you don't really believe in an afterlife, you know, we are a million miles away there.

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But I really enjoyed my debate with him and respect him as an individual is because I am absolutely convinced that during the course of that debate, he was expending every effort that he could to try to understand and to engage what

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I was saying. And if from my perspective, that is the greatest respect you can show for the other side.

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I try to do that. You know, I was listening carefully to what Bassam was saying just last

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Saturday evening to try to understand what his position is, to try to, you know, interact meaningfully with it.

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That's what debate is all about. And I think one of the greatest ways you can show respect for this side is going that direction.

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And so I was disappointed in this debate because the level of argumentation that Abdullah was using just did not demonstrate a really even an attempt to apply the same standards to the

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Christian gospel, to the New Testament, to the Old Testament, to the Bible as a whole, that clearly he demands be applied for his own side.

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And so, Abdullah, that concerned me. And this was just one example of it.

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Because the main thing that really bothered me was the constant assertion that there is not a shred of logic.

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I have completely demonstrated. You made it sound like nobody with a...

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In fact, I think at one point you almost even made the statement somewhat close to no one with a brain could understand this or something along those lines.

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It was rather, you know, over the top there. But, you know, we'll listen to it here.

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But that's what sort of surprised me about this was there's no effort on your part to respond to the best that we have rather than just simply go, you know, you believe

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God became a man, therefore God changed. Abdullah, we've discussed, our theologians have discussed this for almost 2000 years.

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There were entire tomes written on this before your religion came into existence. Have you looked at any of that?

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Or are you just basically saying, well, yeah, I've looked at all of it and none of it makes any sense? Really?

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Can you really make that statement? That concerned me. But anyways,

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I'm not going to get very far if we don't allow him to do the talk.

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By the average person on the street, well, then there's not too much point in it. So on we go.

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Why do I think that salvation is found in the Qur 'an and not with Jesus? Well, in short, because it follows the practices of the prophets.

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And by the prophets, I mean the practices of the people in your Old Testament. In the

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Hebrew Bible. And I'll be quoting some evidences for that. Also, because it offers real, practical and beneficial advice for this life in working towards the next and therefore deriving the benefit in the next.

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So we're not just focusing on one over the other. That would be extremely silly and it would deny the human being one of their lives.

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And also because it allows for different levels, depending on the different individual's experience, capacity and endowment from God.

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I'll talk about what all of those things mean. So I said to you that it follows the practices of the prophets.

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Well, I'd say that in the Hebrew Bible, God forgives through personal repentance, prayer and fasting.

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The evidence that I'm presenting for that is here in Proverbs. We've got he who conceals his sins will not succeed.

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But he who confesses obviously to God. Let me stop right there. I would just simply point out that, once again, if you're going to present—and

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Samuel had already done a good job. He had already pointed out the prophecies of the coming Messiah, the specific text like Isaiah 53.

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And I don't know that he got into Psalm 22 or Psalm 2 or any of those others. But there are these themes. And if you're going to misrepresent

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Christianity, what you're going to do is you're going to pick and choose what you want from the Old Testament. Proverbs is not the first place that I would go to create a balanced, pan -canonical view of what forgiveness is.

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There are all sorts of texts. I do not desire the sacrifice of a broken spirit of contrite heart.

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We know all those things. But the fact of the matter is that there was an entire sacrificial system established under the

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Old Covenant that the book of Hebrews picks up and makes a picture, a shadow, types and shadows of the coming of the

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Messiah. And you've got to deal with that. Now, Abdullah is just simply going to say, well, the

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New Testament fulfillment of these things is just bogus. Just bogus. Now, the fact of the matter is that there's all sorts of ways to argue that point, but that's where he's going to be coming from as far as that goes.

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But you at least have to allow the full -orbed message to be presented, the full -orbed message of what it is we believe and why we believe these things and so on and so forth.

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And unfortunately, that's just so rarely the case. And it would be a whole lot easier to do that with the

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Bible than it is with the Koran. I mean, it wasn't one of the things we learned from the debate Saturday night.

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In that debate, I tried to establish threads of teaching through the

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Koran. Specifically, I started off, if you recall, talking about Allah has no son.

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Allah has no wife, has no partner, has no son. And I put them in chronological order, in the order of writing, or at least the best guess that we can come up for that, tracing it from the

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Meccan period in the Medinan period. And it was almost like, yeah, but you can't do that.

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I mean, if you can't trace a thread of teaching from the

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Meccan period into the Medinan period in the Koran, remember, Muhammad is a minority prophet in the first approximately two -thirds.

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I mean, it's not really size -wise, but numbers -wise, but about two -thirds of the suras, he's a minority prophet in Mecca.

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Then you have the Hijra, 622. And now he's in Medina. You have three, which is renamed

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Medina. And now he's, over time, becomes the prophet who's the head of an army, and the battles, and the

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Battle of the Trench, and Battle of Badr, and all these things. And things change as these new suras come in.

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But the point being, you have this change in his life, and yet you can trace this. It sounded to me like what

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Bassam was saying is you can't do that. You can't even do it in Surah 5. Within Surah 5, you can have a complete shift of topic within two verses.

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And so if you can't do it within one surah, you certainly can't do it across the context of the

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Koran. And maybe that's exactly what he's saying, and that you make up for that via the

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Hadith and the consensus of Islamic scholarship, which would really become a really interesting parallel to Roman Catholicism and its sacred traditions, especially as held by certain people to Council of Trent.

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Would be really, really, really interesting along those lines. But anyhow.

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"...and abandons them will obtain mercy. But he who confesses and abandons, he confesses his sins and abandons them never to return to them.

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Fortunate is the man who is always afraid of God, but he who hardens his heart will fall into evil."

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Proverbs 28, 13, and 14. 2 Samuel 12, 16. David pleaded with God for the child.

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He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying on the ground in prayer. Evidence 3 from Joel 2, 13.

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"...and purify your heart and not your garments and turn to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and he will turn away from sending evil."

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And number 4. "...let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him."

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"...and to our God, for he will freely pardon." Isaiah 55, 7. What's the salvation method in the

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Qur 'an? Precisely the same. "...yet he who does evil..." I just, I just have to stop.

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How can those four or five texts be said to be a summary of everything that the

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Old Testament says about salvation? How? Everything else.

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And just, and just say, ah, see here it is. God just simply forgives. And there's nothing about sacrifice. And there's nothing about a coming

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Messiah. And there's nothing about iniquities. How can you just cobble together a few verses like that?

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Don't even attempt to establish a common context between them or a common audience. At least when

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I gathered the text that I used in the debate Saturday night, I think I tried to pay some level of attention to the context when you could even determine what the context is.

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It's one of the major problems in chronic exegesis, as you can't always tell. But I paid attention to the order in which they were written, the chronological order and the flow and so on and so forth.

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I don't see any evidence that Abdullah has done this in this particular situation. "...sins against himself, and thereafter prays to God to forgive him, shall find

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God much forgiving, the dispenser of grace." Chapter 4, verse 110. Will they then not turn towards God in repentance and ask his forgiveness?

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"...for God is much forgiving, the dispenser of grace." 574. "...except they who repent and turn to belief and do righteous deeds, for it is they whose form of bad deeds

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God will transform into good ones." Seeing that God is indeed much forgiving, the dispenser of grace.

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"...and he who cannot meet either of these options for repentance." Sorry, I've omitted a bit from this verse because it's quite a long one.

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The point is the verse goes through a whole range of options that poorer people or sick people may not be able to meet.

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And so God says right at the end of it. "...and he who cannot meet these options due to limitation shall fast for two consecutive months.

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This is the atonement ordained by God, and God is indeed all -knowing, wise." 492.

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Now if we compare praying, fasting, turning to God with your heart and in sincere repentance to what we have here in the earlier prophets.

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So Proverbs, I guess most Christians would assume was written by Solomon. Second Samuel, depending on the individual,

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I guess you assume that that's written by Joel. I'd assume you think it's written by Joel. I'd assume you think it's written by the prophet

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Isaiah. They're prescribing exactly the same method as what we see in the Qur 'an, just in certain places almost word for word.

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So on we'll go. Not only that, the Qur 'an itself keeps this consistent.

33:02

I was trying to stop it and hit one of those things where everything disappears off your screen. Where'd it go?

33:08

You know, I would like to bring up just briefly in passing the Qur 'anic text that says that the promise of Allah to those who die in jihad to receive paradise, according to the

33:24

Qur 'an, is promised in the Torah and the Injil. And I would love to ask

33:30

Abdullah, where is that found? Because again, it wouldn't have made any sense for Muhammad to have said, the promise of paradise, the law promises to those who die in jihad, used to be in the

33:46

Torah and Injil, but it's been taken out. That would be the end of the discussion of whether tarif means that the corruption of the text, tampering the text, actually means the text would change or just that there was a misunderstanding of the text.

34:00

That would end that debate right then and there. But that's not what it says. It says the promise is still there.

34:09

And I wonder, it didn't come up in this debate. I wish it had, because I think it would be a good question to ask.

34:15

Persistent message, which is found in the Hebrew scriptures. Okay, worship God as he is and be good. It's pretty simple.

34:21

Worship God as he is and be good. Now, if we want to consider Isaiah 53, which I'll talk about a little bit more in my rebuttal.

34:28

But the whole point of that is that the people of Israel rebelled against God.

34:35

They were then, because of that, sent in exile to Babylon. See, the whole point of the

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Hebrew scriptures is that Israel gets a law. They sin. They're then put into some sort of exile and they return to God.

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Now, they don't return through men being hung on crosses. Isn't actually there something more to it than that?

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Uh, isn't there a remnant that God reserves unto himself?

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And isn't it God who always brings them back? Not they themselves.

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They return through turning to God. What does the Quran say? It is not conceivable that those that have been on denying the truth, be they from among the followers of earlier revelation or from among those who ascribe divinity to others beside God, should ever be abandoned by him.

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Until there comes unto them a full evidence of the truth, an apostle from God conveying to them revelations, blessed with purity wherein there are ordinances of ever true soundness and clarity.

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Now those who claim to follow the former revelations broke from their observance after such an evidence of the truth had come to them.

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And yet they were not asked anything but that they should worship God, sincere in their faith to him alone, turning away from all that is false, and that they should be constant in prayer, and that they should spend in charity, for this is a moral law endowed with ever true soundness and clarity.

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So this is all you're asked to do in the Quran. Very simple. Worship God. Turn away from falsehood.

36:07

Be constant in prayer. Spend in charity. Yeah, does anyone even do that?

36:14

I mean, does anyone even worship, correct? Does anyone ever, you know, turn away from? I mean, there is just a huge, massive difference in anthropology between Islam and Christianity.

36:26

There really, really is. It's very, very simple. And that's the method to salvation. What about salvation in?

36:35

I guess that's where the simplicity comes from. Salvation in Jesus. Here we go. Well, from the perspective of the practices of the prophets, i .e.,

36:40

the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, it's absolutely nonsensical. Unless you want to say that the

36:47

New Testament God is fundamentally different to the God that was described by the prophets in the

36:53

Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament, which has been concluded by Christians in the past, or I guess you'd call them heretical

36:59

Christians. It was certainly the conclusion of Marcion and all of his followers. Why does anyone call

37:05

Marcion a Christian? Because he says Jesus? I am going to someday, I'm going to put together an entire list of all the aberrant

37:14

Islamic sects, like the Druze and people like that. I mean, did y 'all see that horrific video on YouTube of the

37:22

Muslims in Indonesia two weeks ago attacking the Ahmadi Muslims there and killing them?

37:27

I mean, it's always just bloody and disgusting and horrible, but it happened, and that's what goes on, especially on Friday.

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The scariest day in places like that is Friday. After the Imams get them all revved up in prayers, they go out and kill people.

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It's a great testimony to the religion. But I'm just going to come up with a list someday, and I'm going to start walking down the list.

37:50

The Ahmadis, they have a prophet after Muhammad, and the Druze, and their different views, and things like that, and say, are these

37:57

Muslims? Well, they're not Muslims. Why aren't they Muslims? Because they don't believe that. Then why on earth do you call people like Marcion a

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Christian? The most fundamental affirmation of the Christian faith is there is one true and eternal

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God that's created all things. And Gnostics identify that God as an evil demiurge.

38:17

What part of double standard is not communicating here? It is a gross double standard.

38:22

It's grossly unfair to use that kind of terminology. It's just, again,

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I continue looking for that consistent Islamic apologist. For a number of centuries.

38:34

You also need to accept that it's acceptable for God to send theologically contradicting messages that are not likely to be understood by most of humanity.

38:42

Now, I was quite interested to see... Now, again, remember what we already played? How many people would follow what he was saying about God being the creator, but he didn't have to create?

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And would the majority of humanity be able to understand that? And yet now he's saying, well, the majority of humanity has to be really simple.

39:00

I'm just wondering, again, looking for that consistency thing. And what was it that the rookie out there was saying right before the program?

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Consistency is a good character trait, unless you're a screw -up or something like that. That's when you don't want to have consistency.

39:15

But we're looking for consistency here. Samuel quote the Great Commission from the Gospel according to Matthew.

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Now, those of you that have it with you, turn to it right now, Matthew 28. And you'll see that as Jesus says to them, just before actually, sorry,

39:31

Jesus says to them, I've been given all power and dominion. It says that some of them did not believe.

39:37

Now, who was with him at the time? 11 of his apostles, all of them except for Judas. And some of them did not believe.

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Well, how many? Three, four, five? Slight correction here.

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There's no reason to believe that there are only 11 people there. In fact, this is probably where the 500 gathered that Paul mentions in 1

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Corinthians. And again, if you just let the entirety of the Bible speak, don't we have recorded for us the apostles saying, now we have believed that you are from God.

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And yeah, there you go, cutting up the Bible into little pieces again and ignoring everything that it says.

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That's a pretty big percentage out of 11. So even they did not understand it.

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And throughout the gospel, we find that. No, no, wait a minute. Where does it say they don't understand it? I mean, there were people, some of the 500 who came, they see

40:33

Jesus, but they also knew Jesus was dead. And so it says some of them doubted and Jesus ministered to their doubt.

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What does that have to do with understanding? Where is it saying, this is just so complex for them. They couldn't understand the

40:45

Nicene Creed. Therefore, they doubted. A little bit of a category issue here. Jesus followers are told several times they don't understand.

40:54

You don't understand. It's even reported that they didn't understand. Understand what? You mean the specific parables that he specifically used to keep those outside from understanding?

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Is that the same thing as the gospel? Of course not. Major category errors.

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And again, Abdullah talks a lot about logic and rationality and things like that.

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Well, then you need to be logical enough to not make category errors. So it's no surprise, really, that the message is so difficult to comprehend when even those that were with Jesus did not comprehend it and believe it themselves.

41:33

If we are to believe the narratives that are presented in the New Testament. We also need to accept that it implies a limited

41:40

God, a God that cannot hold the attributes of eternalness, being all -powerful, and also a unified

41:47

God. Why? When we say that God is one in opposition to the Trinity, we don't mean one in terms of a numerical one, that zero can come before it and two can come after it.

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We mean in an absolute unity that is not describable in mathematical terms. Now, when we consider the

42:04

Trinity, that actually applies a created aspect to God. You're saying three. The number three in that two comes before it and four comes after it.

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There's no way around this. It's not a complex number. For those of you that are doing mathematics or science, you'll know it's even within the real number system, three.

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So you're applying a created aspect to God. So think about this for just a moment.

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We just, by fiat, say one is not really a number. One is an absolute unity.

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But three is a number. So even though we reject the fact that you say that there is only one true

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God and that the divine persons are absolutely unified in their sharing of the divine nature and there is no division and God's being cannot be divided, we ignore all of that if we even know that you teach that.

42:50

And we define that our number is not a number, but your number is a number, and therefore you're saying

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God's created. There was the essence of that argument. So if God, the one true and eternal

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God, happens to exist eternally as three divine persons, that must be something about creation. Why?

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Where does that come from? What's the grounding of this? What's the logic in this?

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I don't see it. We're just gonna do one more of these, and then we'll go to our calls because we gotta get them in before the end of the hour.

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And there can absolutely be no such divine unity in that concept. Even if...

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Why? This is what bothered me. There absolutely cannot be. What, given your misunderstanding of what we believe and misrepresentation of what we believe, or just simply you have the authority to define these things?

43:39

Where's the authority coming from here? If somebody came to you and said God is one in the sense of the number one, that zero can come before it and two can come after it, that in itself is not even a proper unity in terms of a godly unity.

43:52

Okay, it's very important to understand that point. Or powerful. Well, if I can just ask the Christians here in the room to give me a quick show of hands, who think...

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Now, listen to this, and then we'll make this the last one, and then we'll pick up with this, Lord willing, next week.

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Who thinks through the sacrifice of Jesus you're guaranteed entry into heaven? Okay. So are you going to stand before God on the day of judgment and say, you now need to let me into heaven because I've believed in something?

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So God's going to be forced to let you into heaven? So you have a God that's not all -powerful, because you as a human being are now forcing him to do something?

44:29

I'm sorry, but... That has got to be one of the worst arguments

44:34

I've ever heard. Wow. So when Allah promises people paradise for dying in jihad, that means

44:44

Allah isn't all -powerful? I mean, I just... I'm sorry, but I don't even know how this works.

44:51

God makes a promise. God does something to glorify himself. He unites the elect to Christ.

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The elect are not standing before God saying, you've got to do something because I did something, because I believe something. Again, full misunderstanding of why anyone would be standing before God in the first place and what they'd be saying before God.

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But the point is, you've been united with Christ, your sins have been forgiven, and the promise of the triune

45:16

God is that he is going to glorify himself through the salvation of the elect people. And this somehow means that God is not all -powerful?

45:24

You see, fundamentally, this would mean God cannot even act in time. God can't do anything in time, which you might say in some ways is descriptive of Allah, but in many other ways is not.

45:37

877 -753 -3341. I would have much more to say about that, but we need to get to our phone callers.

45:45

And yes, let's start off and talk to Ryan. Hi, Ryan.

45:52

Hi, Dr. White. Hi. My question is, originally

45:57

I was phrasing it to whoever was the operator as Credo Pedo Baptism, but it's more of a different issue related to that.

46:06

I recently talked to a pastor of a Presbyterian Reformed Church, and they're really the only

46:14

Reformed Church around here. There's no Baptist one. And I was talking to him about different things, and he kept using the words that there's a different perspective between...

46:25

I think what he was saying is between Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians on the

46:31

New Covenant that we have. And my understanding from your debate was it wasn't a different perspective.

46:37

It was just that they have the same perspective, but one went one direction on the

46:42

Baptism issue, and the other went another way. Or one was the belief version of another. And I guess that's my main question.

46:48

Between the different denominations, regarding the New Covenant issue, what are the differences?

46:55

Well, this is pretty much a discussion between Reformed Baptists and our Presbyterian brothers.

47:02

Most Baptists hardly even touch the issue of the nature of the

47:07

New Covenant when it comes to the issue of Baptism. When you read a lot of the non -Reformed defenses of Credo Baptism, it's focused almost completely upon text relating to who the objects of Baptism were and the immersion versus sprinkling and things like that.

47:27

Reformed Baptists talk with their Presbyterian brothers about the nature of the New Covenant because, obviously, from our perspective,

47:35

Hebrews 8 and the relationship of the New Covenant and the concept of the Church, and hence the ordinances,

47:42

Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are New Covenant ordinances, or as they would say, sacraments. But they are related to the

47:49

New Covenant. And therefore, what the nature of the New Covenant is and who is in the New Covenant and how a person enters the New Covenant, all extremely important.

47:57

And the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is extremely important as well, whether you're talking about—then you get into discussions of the

48:04

Sinaitic Covenant and the Abrahamic. And as a covenant theologian, I believe in the covenant of grace, which goes all the way back to Adam and is then seen in the

48:15

Abrahamic and so on and so forth. But in answer to your question, actually, there are different views.

48:21

And I would say to you that you're not going to find almost any difference amongst

48:27

Reformed Baptists, at least who are familiar with the subject, as to our view of the New Covenant. But I have detected a pretty wide range of different views amongst my

48:37

Presbyterian brothers as to the nature of the New Covenant. And a clear illustration of this would be found in Infant Baptism and the—I think it's

48:49

Covenant of Grace. Greg Strawbridge edited it. Maybe somebody can throw this in the channel so I can see the specific title.

48:57

I think that's what the name of it was. Very cute little baby on the front. I'm not sure who got to have their little baby on the front of the cover.

49:03

Within that one book, you had two, and I would say three, pretty clearly differentiated perspectives on the nature of the

49:18

New Covenant enunciated that were not consistent or in harmony with one another.

49:23

And so, in other words, I wrote a fairly lengthy response to one of the chapters in that book and was focused upon Hebrews chapter 8.

49:34

But I had to note that the perspective that I responded to was completely contradicted by someone else in the book.

49:45

One perspective was that the only thing that's new about the New Covenant is that there is no longer a priestly aspect, because this was the role the priest was to teach.

49:55

And since no one will be teaching anyone anymore, nor the Lord, all that means is the covenantal case for infant baptism.

50:04

Strawbridge, thank you. That means that the only thing that's new about the

50:10

New Covenant is there's no priestly ministry. Then, later on, you go to another scholar, and that scholar is saying that the

50:17

New Covenant, in essence, is something that is coming into its own, and it's growing, and it's becoming more and more an element of, from a postmillennial perspective, in that later period, the fullness of the

50:35

New Covenant comes in, and that's when that perspective basically views it as a matter of degree between the

50:43

Old and New Covenant. There is such a continuity that it's just a matter of degree, and that degree is getting better and better over time.

50:49

So, two completely different views right there. And I don't know that you can say that any one view amongst my

50:57

Presbyterian brethren is the only view, because I've seen arguments between them on the nature of it.

51:04

So, I guess, Ryan, the best thing that I can do is you have to find out in a conversation with whom you're speaking with what their understanding of the

51:15

New Covenant is, and focus upon that. There isn't any given, because, like I said,

51:21

I keep running into differing views, even between the folks I talk to. Right. Okay, that does help.

51:28

One final question associated with that. Real quick. Do these

51:34

New Covenant perspectives have any influence upon the Pado -Baptist issue, or is it just the

51:40

New Covenant perspective and the Pado -Baptist issues? Obviously, they have some influence, but...

51:46

I mean, obviously, the influence, at least if you're still talking about the debate between Reformed Credo -Baptists and Pado -Baptists, is what is the fulfillment of...

51:58

A, does there have to be a fulfillment of circumcision? And B, what is it in the New Covenant? I would say it's regeneration, not baptism.

52:06

And so, the impact that it would have is an impact of how we see the

52:14

Church and whether, for example, we are to protect the ordinances. You know, one of the points that I've argued is that, you know, if you protect the baptistry...

52:26

I mean, sorry, if you protect the Lord's Table and recognize that there is a need for a profession of faith to partake in the

52:31

Lord's Table, then why not protect the baptistry? I think you're being inconsistent if you only protect one and not the other.

52:37

And that's where some Pado -Baptists are also Pado -Communionists. They will give the Lord's Supper to children, because they're trying to be consistent at that point.

52:45

Well, I think it ends up running smack dab into what Paul said about what you're doing in the Lord's Supper in the same way

52:51

I think it does in regards to baptism. So, you know, that's one of the issues.

52:56

But yeah, it definitely impacts it along those lines. Okay, Ryan? Yes, sir. Thank you. Thanks, Colin. God bless.

53:01

Bye -bye. All right. Let's take our Skype caller and talk with Rodrigo in Guatemala.

53:07

Hi, Rodrigo. Hi, Dr. Wright. Hello. How are you doing? Good, good. Okay, I had a question about the classical traditional story of Satan.

53:19

I heard it from many pastors that he was an angel from heaven, and he fell against God, and therefore he became

53:29

Satan. Right. And, well, when I read these passages, it's quite confusing, because it seems in the passage in Ezekiel 28, it seems to be talking to—it's a lament over the king of Tyre.

53:44

And, well, I don't know how this became Satan, although the description seems to fit the story.

53:51

But I don't know. I never—I don't know. I just took the story for granted. Right, right. Well, in both

53:58

Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, you do have immediate fulfillment that you can make application to in both instances in regards to particular leaders at that time.

54:07

But the reason that both are seen as type, anti -type fulfillments, where you have a lesser fulfillment in a historical figure that is actually pointing to a greater spiritual fulfillment— which, by the way, is exactly what you have in most

54:23

Messianic prophecies. I mean, there's an immediate fulfillment in regards to Isaiah 7, and then a greater fulfillment in the person of Christ.

54:30

If you don't see that, then no prophecy of the Old Testament makes any sense at all. The idea is that the language of these texts is purposefully drawn out by New Testament writers, and specifically by Jesus in his own teaching when he talks about seeing

54:46

Lucifer falling from heaven and so on and so forth. And therefore, the warrant for seeing greater fulfillments in those texts is found in the

54:56

New Testament revelation itself. And that's where that comes from. So, that's where you're sort of looking at the

55:04

Old Testament with New Testament eyes at that point. And you're allowing the light of the New to shine into the

55:10

Old on areas that were not a central focus of the Old Testament revelation.

55:17

Okay, so you think it's accurate to say that that's the origin of Satan? Well, yeah,

55:22

I think that's a fair reading of Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 in light of Jesus' teaching.

55:30

As a fulfillment motif, basically, yeah. Okay, that was pretty much my question.

55:37

Okay, thank you very much for listening down there in Guatemala. I bet you it's nice and warm and humid there. Well, right now it's kind of rainy.

55:46

It's kind of crazy. It's not raining right now. Okay. All right, thank you, Rodrigo. Have a good day. All right,

55:51

God bless. Bye -bye. All right, let's try to get one more call in here, and we might squeeze everything in.

55:57

Let's talk with Brian. Hi, Brian. Hi, how are you doing, Dr. Wyatt? Doing good. My question has to do with Biblical compatibilism, and I just would want to propose a possible paradigm.

56:12

In my understanding, as I understand Reformed faith, I know the Westminster Confession of Faith talks about how

56:19

God deals or uses or appoints or decrees evil in ordaining certain causes as the means.

56:26

Right. Would it be accurate to say that God is the direct first cause of all good things, back in accordance with James 117, and that He is the indirect first cause of all evil?

56:43

And then on the flip side, that man would be the direct first cause of all evil, or,

56:50

I guess, creatures in that sense. Not all evil, but the evil that we practice. And that man would be the indirect second cause, or man is the direct second cause of evil, and that man would also be the indirect second cause of all good.

57:05

Well, that's an interesting question. I think it's trying to accurately recognize the nature of man in his fallen state.

57:18

I would want to limit that to the fallen state. I don't know what kind of assertions we can make, meaningful assertions anyways, outside of a very limited range of them in regards to Adam, because we just aren't given enough biblical information to do so without falling into all sorts of contradiction.

57:35

But at least in the fallen state, the grace of God must be the initial cause of our good, and certainly is not required in any way for evil.

57:49

So, yeah, I think there's some truth in that. That might be an accurate way of expressing it, yeah.

57:58

I'm thinking of texts like Genesis 20, dealing with Abimelech, and how the

58:03

Lord kept him from touching Sarah, sorry. Well, yeah,

58:11

I definitely—you have to fit in there someplace, the fact that there is a restraining element of God's activity as well.

58:20

And I'm not sure how we'd fit that in directly. But yeah, I think you're on the right track there,

58:26

Brian, unfortunately. That's also Steve Camp singing in the background. So thank you for your phone call today, brother.

58:32

And thanks to everybody for listening to the program today. Lord willing, we will be back on Tuesday morning at our regular time.

58:40

You're stuck with me for a while, as far as I can see. We've got weeks of dividing lines just at the regular old time before I get kicked out of here again.

58:49

So sorry about that, but hey, that's the way it goes. So you just have to put up with it, and we'll see you on Tuesday.

58:55

God bless. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

59:47

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59:52

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59:58

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