Road Trip DL from Salt Lake City: A Little Riddle, a Little Muller

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:36

Greetings. Welcome to the Dividing Line. We're going to try to sneak a program in here. I'm not sure how well it's going to go.

00:43

And if Rich starts waving at me and says, yeah, that ain't going to work, we apologize.

00:49

But we've worked. I've done programs from this location before.

00:56

And Rich says it's all right for the moment. I'm in Salt Lake City right now, just on the way home. In case people think that we have a big, huge staff of folks that take care of all these things,

01:12

I do all the driving, all the planning, all the reservations, everything for these trips.

01:20

And I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I wasn't thinking. But I had six and a half hours on the road yesterday, six hours today.

01:29

And I just looked at the planner that I use, really good planner.

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And seven and a half hours tomorrow, I'm like, what was I thinking? That's not fun.

01:43

That's not enjoyable. And it's not overly safe. We're done here. I'm going to see if I can maybe split that up, just simply for safety reasons.

01:51

The weather's been fine. Well, this morning, it wasn't. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you a weird thing happened this morning. I didn't tell

01:57

Rich about this. I just started out from Boise. It was raining. And I just got into the freeway.

02:03

And I just gotten up to speed, which takes a little while. And this guy in a truck comes along next to me.

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And he he's going and he's pointing at at my unit.

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And I can't tell what he's yelling or screaming or whatever. But I'm like, Okay, I just got on the freeway.

02:23

So did I forget something? I need to look it up some years ago, long before I ever thought about getting an

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RV. I saw this video of this guy getting on the freeway, and he left his awning out.

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And it's blowing and getting wrapped, hitting other vehicles.

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And somehow he didn't know what was what was going on. So I've got bad thinking going on.

02:51

So thankfully, it was really wide, like five lane freeway with a big honking shoulder.

02:58

And so I, I pulled off and, you know, I get out and I'm looking all over the place.

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And I, I, my theory is, and this bothers a lot of people, my unit has struts behind the back wheels and up the front.

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And that's how it levels itself and stuff like that. And the back struts don't come up that far.

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Because you'd have to like pop a wheelie, which you're not going to do, you know, to hit anything is right behind your tires.

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So they're only like four or five, maybe four inches off the ground. And so I think, I think he was concerned that my struts were still down or something.

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I don't know. But there was there was nothing else. I mean, sort of weird. You're that or you just want to be.

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It'd be really sad if he drove down the road. Just because that poor guy's gonna pull over and wonder what in the world is going on.

03:57

Weird stuff like that does happen on the road. It really does. Anyway, as you can tell, I am a little tired.

04:03

Apologies. But that's the way things are. Okay, so I I just got a notification on my

04:09

Canon plus app on my phone, that the debate is maybe a bug got in.

04:17

I don't know that the debate is up on the Canon plus app. I don't have any information about when it'll be outside the

04:29

Canon plus app or anything like that. I didn't ask. I didn't expect it quite that fast anyways.

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And I'll be interested in seeing if it has the post debate thing, which was shot right here. I mean, we,

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Doug was sitting here. And I was sitting across the way and Jared was sitting right there. And the two cameras were set over there.

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And that's how we did it. And so that's out.

04:56

So I was going to actually give a brief summary, because the first time we've done the program since Friday.

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I said when it was all done, I said, I'm my prediction is that for a lot of people, they're gonna be really upset that there wasn't a lot of blood on the floor.

05:21

On either side. Clearly, you know, Doug didn't try to slaughter me and I didn't try to slaughter him.

05:28

This is much more of a pastoral discussion. I think I think it's a bother some people. I mean, in my presentation, obviously,

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I really it was short debate, 90 minutes. And it had to fit into basically the class time for new

05:46

St. Andrews. And then we took a five minute break. And then we took audience questions for like 2025 minutes at the most.

05:55

And so it's fairly short. And that means we couldn't go deeply into stuff. And secondly, we wanted we we knew that we were dealing with the covenantal issues that are foundational to pedo baptism being applied to pedo communion.

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But we want to try to stay focused upon that particular sacrament ordinance, whatever term you want to use, we use the term sacrament because of the context

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I was in. And so we didn't get into those things either.

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And in my presentation, what I did is I emphasize First Corinthians chapter 11, made some common about 10, because that's where Doug starts.

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And really the emphasis upon proclaiming the Lord's death, discerning the body, examining yourself, that these are actions of the new covenants own definition of the

07:00

Lord's Supper. And hence, in reality, what you what you have, from the other side, and I believe it's also what you have in regards to pedo baptism, is defining new covenant ordinances based upon old covenant parameters.

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And what's interesting thing is, you can find lots and lots and lots of Presbyterians who reject pedo communion, who will make the argument that I did.

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And that argument is that when it comes to this sacrament, that you should allow the new covenant documents to define this, the new covenant sacrament, which clearly they're not going to be doing with baptism.

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So there's an inconsistency there. Anyway. Now, the challenging thing in this conversation is that I even brought up that Greg Strawbridge, in 2021,

08:00

I believe it was 2020 or 2021. He did a interview with I think it's called

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Awakening Reformation. I may have been on their program at some point, too. I'm not sure.

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Anyway. And he made the statement that he doesn't view

08:18

Doug Wilson as holding to pedo communion. And Doug basically said,

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I hold to a soft pedo communion position. He said, I would rather it be called child communion, to be honest with you.

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Because a hardline pedo communionist position would normally involve intinction.

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Most people don't know what intinction is. I didn't know what intinction was until a few years ago. Which is the dipping of the bread and the wine.

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And taking that as one thing. And so in Eastern Orthodoxy, and the hardline pedo communionists, you would literally have infants taking this tiny little fragment of bread that has been soaked in the wine as infants in the arms at a month, at two months, something along those lines.

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And my understanding is that in some situations, you know, that's done along with the infant baptism.

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And Doug just basically said, I think that'd be superstition.

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So that isn't a hardline position. Instead, and listen to the debate, you can listen and determine for yourself.

09:52

Doug basically, see, my big concern is faithless sacraments.

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I believe I can make a very strong case that if you believe that the

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New Testament sacraments are defined by the New Testament scriptures, the New Testament scriptures would say that faith is fundamental, the exercise of faith is fundamental to both sacraments.

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And Doug emphasized the need for evangelical faith, calling your children to faith and repentance, all those things that make me feel good about that.

10:37

But then, in essence, would say it and we only unfortunately got to this right at the end, it always happens.

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I mentioned that that happened in the William Lane Craig Paul Helm debate on Molinism, it was the last couple of minutes when you really got to the key.

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And in the last few minutes of my cross examination, really is last 90 seconds, my cross examination of Doug, we really got to the key issue.

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And that was, you know, Doug was saying that that if a child can reach out toward the bread, which and of course, they all do, but that it's in the context of wanting to be a part of the community.

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And from his perspective, having been baptized, that baby is a part of the church, you see, that that is when the child should be allowed to partake.

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He told the story of, I think, one of his grandsons that communicated with sign language that he was baptized, and that mommy was baptized, and I'm baptized, and, and he's reaching for the bread.

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And therefore, this is a kind of faith and Doug made reference to, you know, john the baptist in the womb and saw for the little children and all these texts that I just don't believe are relevant to a formed faith by the

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Holy Spirit that comes from regeneration. And obviously, Doug would say that that's that that's possible.

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But then what's interesting, and again, I didn't have time to look, I only I literally got the notification my phone like three minutes before we started.

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When we were in here, Doug gave his illustration that I've heard before, which is quite interesting, and separates his position out from a lot of other people.

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And that is he said, he likened it to if you had a reformed

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Baptist nightclub, which I laughed that there was a lot of laughter.

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That's another thing people are going to be, I'm sure angry about that want blood. If you're looking by the way, if you're looking for a pastoral discussion of this,

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I think it's really, really super useful. But I'm just thinking about other people.

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I'm thinking about the people who talk a lot, not that not the people that I'm actually trying to provide information to.

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Anyway, if the Reformed Baptists have a nightclub, the Presbyterians have a nightclub. The difference between a

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Reformed Baptist nightclub and a Presbyterian nightclub is that the Reformed Baptists have their bouncers at the door checking

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IDs. And the Presbyterians have their bouncers at the bar, kicking out people that are misbehaving.

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The idea being we guard both the table and the baptistry.

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And you are looking for that profession of faith. And I that's what the New Testament does.

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And the Presbyterians have the bouncers at the bar. And so what

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Doug said was, you can have a healthy Baptist church or a healthy Presbyterian church, as long as they both practice discipline, which, you know, my response was, and how many people do that?

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Very, very few on both sides. Reformed Baptists do.

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But still, so we got into some other things.

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But I think it was very, very clear that, in essence, you know,

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I brought up more than once, the fact that at Apologia, you will see families coming forward.

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And I think, you know, I preached at both

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Christ Church and King's Cross on Sunday. And they have the

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Lord's Supper as part of the service, just like we do at Apologia. The difference being, and it does take much more time to do it this way.

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No doubt about it. It's much more efficient to have the people seated and have people pass the elements around.

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There's no question about it. It takes us quite some time to do the Lord's Supper. But one of the things that you will see at Apologia is a family coming forward.

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And very often, they will get the elements, and then they'll go over to the side, and the father will instruct the family as to the meaning.

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I mean, if I'm doing the supper, I've already talked about these things, obviously, but specifically for the children.

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And so there is a calling to faith. But in our instance, the children who commune are those who've already been baptized.

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And you would have a similar situation, and with about a three or four year difference, fundamentally, between the youngest that you'd see at Apologia and the youngest partaking at Christchurch.

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But it all comes down to, again, the issue of what defines the

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New Testament sacraments. And that's what lies behind all of it. And I think that was illustrated.

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And that's the only people in a pastoral situation where I'm debating someone for whom

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I have tremendous respect. Doug and I record a bunch of stuff. We did two sweater vest dialogues, including one called

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Doubting Thomas. See, I never would have come up with that. I'm not a titles person.

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Doubting Thomas, we did two sweater vest dialogues, and we did Man Rampant on apologetics.

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And then we did the debate, we did the thing afterwards. I did cross politic, some of you have seen that.

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I thought about queuing that up, because it was fun.

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And it's already aired, so you've probably already seen it. And I got to read copy for the first time in a long time, do a commercial for them.

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Pastor Toby says he's lost his job, and now I have to read all the commercials for cross politic, which I really didn't agree to do.

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Anyway, did a lot of stuff up there. And so we even had a

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Sabbath dinner Saturday night. About 50 people,

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I would say, were there. And then afterwards, Doug and I ended up in a long, very interesting discussion about textual critical matters and Greek New Testaments and all sorts of stuff like that.

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And we still need to do that debate sometime in the future. But if you're looking for a pastoral discussion of a pastoral subject, rather than some kind of knockdown drag out, then

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I think you'll find it to be very, very useful. And if you're looking for two guys trying to work the other one out, that's just not what happened.

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Sorry. But that's probably best for the serious folks. All right.

18:26

So with that, let's see what we can get to here of the stuff that I've put together.

18:32

Real quickly, I'll try not to spend too much time on this. But Dr.

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Riddle, Jeffrey Riddle, put out a audio response, sort of, to one of the many, many things

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I've done on this trip. Man, I should go back and just count up the number of hours

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I've spent on this trip, teaching on various subjects. You remember, on the

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Saturday, Friday, Saturday, something like that, of the first week at Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna, Jason Wallace and I did a discussion on the reliability of the text of the

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New Testament, transmission of the text over time, things like that. And Jeff Riddle gave a response.

19:43

Now, we've, we have thoroughly refuted this position so many times.

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And I'll just be honest with you, I don't, I don't see the other side even trying to respond.

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Maybe they do secretly, in their little Facebook groups that they've taken private. But publicly,

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I don't, I don't see any response being offered to the historical realities of the fact that you have men here defending a text that was a restorationist text.

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But they now believe that anyone as a restorationist text is wrong, even though they're defending a restorationist text.

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When I say restorationist, that was restored. Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, that's, that's what they were all doing.

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And when that process got done, from their perspective, boom, that's it.

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We don't have to worry about the consistency of Erasmus, because his, he made 99 % of the textual decisions.

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We don't have to worry about any of that. We simply need to hold this text.

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And there's no more textual criticism, doesn't matter what manuscripts are found. We've just established this as our text, even though our text actually was created by a few men with a few manuscripts.

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But we're sticking with it. Anyway, so Riddle responded.

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And I, like I said, I'm not going to bother with the stuff. His criticism was that I was asked the question at the beginning.

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And it took me so long. I gave such a nuanced answer. So that's like looking at all these conferences that Riddle does.

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And going, why, why did you do six sessions? Why can't you just answer the question yes or no and be done with it?

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Well, because there's more to be said, there's a history and there's a background, there's a context and, and everything else.

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It was just absurd that some of them would go, well, it sure did take you a long time to answer a simple question.

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It's like, what hypocrisy? My goodness, really? Seriously? I mean, how?

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And so I want to, but then a couple of comments were made in the midst of all that.

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And I think that is, that's really what

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I want to focus on that we can get some use out of that. Like I said, we've, we've listened to all the rest of this stuff over and over and over again.

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And yes, I'm at a RV park. So it's that time of the day, I've noticed every

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RV park has its own little routine. But right now, well, a little bit earlier than this, everybody was out with their dogs doing their dog walks.

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Now we're doing probably doing dinner and stuff. If I went outside, I could probably smell stuff cooking here, there and everywhere.

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But lots and lots of dog fights. You hear that all the time.

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So, but let's just listen a little bit of this from, oh, it un -cued itself.

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Great. All right. That's not overly unusual, is it? Let's listen to a little bit from, oh,

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I'm gonna have to do this. And hopefully this will work. Oh, I forgot to test this, but all right, let's.

23:29

Greetings and welcome to, it's sort of mostly pure. Part of the presentation, it's a kind of a question and answer format where there's a pastor who poses what should have been,

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I think, a pretty simple and straightforward question to James White.

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And it's very interesting how he responded to this question. Kind of his response is something that I think might be part of what is his normal sort of stump talk when he travels about churches and addresses this topic.

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And it's his own understanding of what the providential preservation of scripture is.

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Not that God has kept his word pure in all ages, but he's kept it sort of mostly pure.

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Okay, rhetoric, rhetoric alert. Confessional statement is pure in all ages.

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There is no manuscript in any age that reads like the Texas Receptus. So Riddle doesn't believe this unless he's going to make up the fantasy, and it would be a fantasy, that the

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TR did exist. In the past, we just don't have any evidence of it. So this is not what the framers meant.

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Well, they're responding to the Counter -Reformation. They fully recognize the existence of sexual variations, but it has nothing to do with sexual variation.

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It has to do with purity of the text in the sense of no massive corruption, loss, books being replaced with fraudulent books.

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That's what the purity is talking about. It's not talking about, well, what we have right now, word for word, letter for letter, is what they had at Nicaea, which self -evidently was not the

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TR, clearly. And so this is rhetoric that is meant to confuse.

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It's meant to create followers, but it's not meant to create light or truth. So I just think we need to start calling these things out for what they are, because it's just not a proper thing to do.

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All right, I continue on. And it can possibly be reconstructed by modern scholars.

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Or in the case of Textus Septus, by not so modern scholars, because that's what the

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TR is. It is a reconstructed text, reconstructed from a small and imbalanced sample of manuscripts in comparison to what we have today.

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And that's what he is saying, should no longer be examined. There should be no there should be no more analysis, there should be no more looking at these things.

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It's done, it's finished, the process of textual criticism is over. That's, that's just all there is, all there is to it, because we now have the preserved text.

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Anyway, so this pastor, you know, I think sort of serves up a softball for James White.

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Where he asked him a question about has God preserved all of his word and rather than giving a straightforward yes, he has to give a very nuanced response that lasts some 15 or more minutes.

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Now, for those of us who do this all time in the real world. I could have done the cheeky thing.

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And when Jason asked the question, I just go, well, of course, yes, and then stop and then force

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Jason to tease out all the other issues that he and I both know have to be addressed to meaningfully give an answer that's going to have any type of helpfulness to the church.

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Instead, what I decided to do was I just went ahead and launched into it. Let's, let's give the background.

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Let's talk about what this this question is actually asking and what you need to address to answer it fully in our day in a way that's edifying to people.

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And so this isn't some quote unquote nuanced. It was okay, let's, let's lay out what we need to talk about.

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Let's try to get some of the most basic stuff out first, just in case we don't get to it. And then what

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I don't cover now. Jason can come back and revisit as we have the time to do it.

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I mean, we went a little bit longer than I expected, even as it was. It's a big, it's a big topic and Riddle knows it.

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Because Riddle does six, eight session conferences on this stuff and doesn't realize the hypocrisy of criticizing me for giving a 15 minute answer right at the top, and we're only doing one session.

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It's just like, really, are you listening to yourself? Amazing. And so I just want to play this and I'm going to offer some commentary along the way.

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So this is from a YouTube video. Again, it was posted April 12 of 2022 on the

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Ancient Paths TV channel. And when

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I post this issue of Word Magazine, I will also post some notes on my blog at jeffriddle .net

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and I'll have a link to the original video if you want to watch the original in its entirety, and maybe we'll have some links to some other things if I happen to mention them in the midst of this response.

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I'm mainly doing this, this podcast today, because it's Saturday. Today is

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Saturday, April 16 of 2022. And I made a sort of a pledge that or a hope, express the hope that I would try to do one of these podcasts per week, or at least average one per week.

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And I didn't get a chance to get one done earlier this week. And so I said, you know, let me just at least play part of James White doing some kind of presentation and offering a response to it.

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I do think that this conversation about preservation is a very important one.

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I think the doctrine of preservation, the providential preservation of God's Word is a neglected doctrine in the church today.

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And it's a doctrine that has been, I think, change. I was listening recently to some conversation.

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Okay, so here's, this is actually the only thing I found overly relevant or helpful. That's why

30:18

I wanted to get get to it was this section right here. Among some Reformed Baptists, and they were pointing out that the term

30:27

Semper Reformanda, always reforming, is actually not an old statement.

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It doesn't go back to the Reformation. It's really a statement or a motto that was created,

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I think, in the in the late 19th or even in the 20th century. And it was it was put forward in order to justify making changes.

30:52

And what's happened is we had a standard Protestant definition of the providential preservation of scripture as expressed in Chapter One, and Paragraph Eight of the

31:04

Westminster Confession of Faith, and the confessions that came from that, like the

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Civil War Declaration and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And in the name of Semper Reformanda, a novel concept, a novel slogan, persons have attempted to change the definition of preservation.

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And I think White's response here is a kind of a classic example of that. All right.

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Now, I was really surprised. I guess I shouldn't have been, but I was, I was really surprised that Riddle went here.

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We know what he's talking about, obviously. And we certainly have been defending the necessity of Semper Reformanda on this program over the past number of weeks over against a movement that is,

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I think, just grossly, erroneously saying that, well, this, this is

32:05

BART, and this is just as was just said here. This is for people who just want to change the old ways, which is absolutely baloney.

32:16

Baloney. I have never used Semper Reformanda in that way. Not once. I have yet to see a single one of my critics, any one of these

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Reform Thomas, any one of these classical theists, Riddle himself, actually engage with what

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I have said in regards to the necessity of Semper Reformanda to have a coherent doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

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I've not heard a bit. I don't even try. I have defended this concept in debate with Roman Catholics.

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None of them have. None of them ever touched it. And I suggest you not do so.

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You will have your head handed to you on a platter. But this, this is, it just made me smile ruefully at the idea, because the reality is, people like Beza were fully aware of the process that, that he was undertaking, the process that Erasmus had undertook, the challenges that are there, and the fact that they're dealing with limited textual resources.

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The idea that they believed that a printed text that they were creating at that particular point in time was to be the be -all and end -all of all things.

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We know, we know Erasmus wasn't even close to believing that. So to, once again, anachronistically abuse the

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Westminster Confession and the London Advance Confession, so as to force them to be making specific textual statements at a time when nobody at that time had any idea what was in the textual tradition itself.

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We've, we've, again, we've documented this over and over again. Riddle has never refuted any of it, hasn't even tried to, because he can't.

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Erasmus's comments are right there. His annotations are right there. The facts are the facts.

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And it seems right now we have a lot of people who prefer theological statements,

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Latin phrases, and confessional statements to biblical facts and historical facts. On all sorts of topics.

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And here's a good example of one. So, they're responding to the elevation of the textus receptus to a position of the autographs has nothing to do with semper referenda.

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It has everything to do with just simply pointing out that the arguments being made are incoherent and untenable.

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They simply cannot be defended in any meaningful fashion. So, it's interesting that the person that he would so easily accept this assertion that the vitally important element, the theological element of semper referenda that is necessarily inherent in sola scriptura.

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I mean, think about it. You cannot believe in sola scriptura if you don't believe in semper referenda. You can't.

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Why? Because semper referenda is a fundamental assertion saying that the only voice, the only infallible authority we have is that which is in scripture.

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Once you make confessions, creeds, the church, an authority that cannot be reformed, you can no longer have sola scriptura.

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So, semper referenda, as I've always understood, I didn't get it from Barth. I didn't get it from Barth.

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I got it from reading those people who are responding to Rome. And so, it is definitional to sola scriptura.

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If you don't believe it, you will not be able to defend sola scriptura. You will not be able to maintain a coherent doctrine of sola scriptura because you will eventually allow some kind of external authority to become a controlling authority over what scripture itself teaches.

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There always has to be a recognition that the church is the bride who submits herself to the voice of her husband.

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One of the great tragedies of Rome is that once Rome declared the church infallible, the church is left in a monologue with herself.

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There can be no reformation. How can there be reformation when the church is infallible? What are you supposed to reform?

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The church can't make a mistake. How could you even find some source of authority by which to identify a mistake?

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You can't. That's the great tragedy. And so, my rejection of the circularity and irrationality of tiaronism has nothing to do with semper reformanda, actually.

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But it's fascinating that Riddle would so easily accept this definition that is being put out by the classical theists, reformed

37:56

Thomists, and others, and repeating it over and over again. So, he even later on complains that I sighed deeply when

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Jason asked me the question because obviously what I was doing is I was thinking, okay, let's lay the foundation.

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So, let's get started as if my sigh meant something. Yeah, well, okay.

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So, interesting to see that kind of thing taking place in that context.

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I'm going to go over to a tweet that I was sent,

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I believe, yesterday. Yes, yesterday. And I had seriously thought about responding to it and decided not to decide to respond to it in this way.

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I thought it would be more edifying for everybody concerned. Richard Barcellos tweeted this.

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There's a bunch of numbers. He does what Steve Camp does to try to get more in where you have, you know, two say, number two say,

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R is just an R. It makes it a little bit interesting to read. Four starters, number four.

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Read each entry three times, repeat as needed. Now, the first thought across my mind was not that there's something wrong with having

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Muller's Dictionary or Muller's works. I have them in Logos. But that, sadly,

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I think I just get more and more evidence every single day that what we really see taking place with a relatively small number of people, we have to keep that in mind.

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The relatively small number of people is the idea of the development of a

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Baptist scholasticism or reformed Baptist scholasticism. And as a professor at a reformed

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Baptist seminary, I believe that scholarship is important, but I believe that the only

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God glorifying scholarship is a scholarship that edifies the church.

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And I've told the story many times of my one visit to the

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Evangelical Theological Society and annual meeting and the deep troubling experience that was for me.

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Because as a churchman, I realized very clearly and quickly that the attitude in that place was not of service to the church and subjection to the church, but of leadership over us.

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Because if we are the, you know, the church is the benighted masses and we are the shepherds that will lead them into the light, it turned my stomach.

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I've seen what that's done down through church history. And in fact, on Man Rampant with Doug Wilson, one of the things

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I brought up, we were talking about apologetics. Apologetics with a spine is what it's called. And I mentioned at that time to him that I think one of the most important elements of being in apologetics is to be a churchman.

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Well, same thing with being in scholarship. Grace Bible Theological Seminary is rooted in a local church, and I think that's very important and very, very helpful.

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So I look at this, and the thought across my mind was to do something like, if you're interested in what some of us are trying to say about things transferring incarnation, get and read your

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Bible. Look up Isaiah 40 through 48, John 1, Colossians 1,

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Philippians 2, and Hebrews 1 for starters. Read each three times.

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Repeat as needed. That was the thought that crossed my mind somewhere between Moscow and Boise, I think, which is an interesting drive.

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But I decided to do it differently. I decided to go, okay, let's do that.

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I have a Logos Bible software. Muller's Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, drawn principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology.

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So in other words, I don't want to criticize

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Muller for the fact that there really isn't much in the way of an attempt to connect these concepts to biblical revelation, but that's what you're going to get.

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Actus purus. Now, here's what he writes, and I will have a word of criticism afterwards.

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Actus purus, pure or perfect actualization or actuality, sometimes actus purissimus, most pure actuality.

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A term applied to God as the fully actualized being, the only being not in potency.

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God is, in other words, absolutely perfect and the eternally perfect fulfillment of himself.

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It is of the essence of God to be actus purus or purissimus insofar as God, self -existent being, is in actu, in the state of actualization and never in potentia, in the state of potency or complete realization, incomplete realization.

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This view of God as fully actualized being lies at the heart of the Scholastic exposition of the doctrine of divine immutability.

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Immutability does not indicate inactivity or unrelatedness, but the fulfillment of being.

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In addition, the full actualization of divine being relates strictly to the discussion of God's being or essence ad intra, and in no way argues against the exercise of divine potentia ad extra, potency or power toward externals.

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In other words, God in himself, considered essentially or personally, is not in potentia, because the divine essence and persons are eternally perfect.

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And the inward life of the Godhead is eternally complete and fully realized. E .g.,

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the generation of the Son does not imply the ontological movement of the second person of the

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Trinity from a state of incomplete realization to a state of perfect actualization. Nonetheless, the relationships of God as a created order to the individual objects of the divine will ad extra, which would be all of us, for example, can be considered in potentia, insofar as all such relations depend upon the free exercise of the divine will toward an order of contingent beings drawn toward perfection.

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I admit I don't get the drawn towards perfection part at the end, but everything else made pretty decent sense.

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Now, once again, Muller's task is to define this as it is drawn principally from Protestant scholastic theology, not any other context.

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The problem is that Actus Puris doesn't come from Protestant scholastic theology. It comes from Roman Catholic scholastic theology.

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And it doesn't come from Roman Catholic scholastic theology to start with, it comes from Aristotle.

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And the real issue is how much of Aristotle is left after it goes through the medieval period, specifically

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Thomas Aquinas, and then into Protestant scholastic theology from there.

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So you would not expect in this particular resource for there to be any discussion of biblical foundations for such a concept.

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Or a discussion of, are there elements in Aristotle's utilization of this language that have snuck in that are incompatible with, incoherent with biblical realities and revelations?

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Because if you know almost anything about Aristotle's God, you want nothing to do with him.

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Aristotle's God and Yahweh are not, not, not, not, not the same

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God. And the logical conclusions of Aristotle's commitment to certain foundational principles, which, and here's where a part of the argument is, are found in Aquinas as well, led to a

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God that is really the negation of the biblical God. And so Aquinas is well aware of this,

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Aquinas tries to, as it has been said, baptize Aristotle.

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But the real issue is when push comes to shove, how are these sources functioning and what's going to determine what?

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You know, everyone wants to say that we're talking about philosophy as the handmaiden of theology, but everybody knows that over and over and over again down through church history, that handmaiden has taken the place of the queen.

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Has resulted in fundamental disturbance of biblical teaching.

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Just look at Clement of Alexandria. You want to see it? Look at Clement of Alexandria. Wow. A real mess.

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But a real mess primarily because of the handmaiden of theology called Greek philosophy.

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So for me, actus purus should be read in the light of, and this is, okay.

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If any of you knew Thomists, you've got your tonsure cut gone and you actually have brown robes in your closet.

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You haven't let your wife see those yet, but you're thinking about putting them on and doing your

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Thomas thing. If you're driving down the road, please turn this off because I don't want to be responsible for any accidents or anything like that.

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But the primary lens through which

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I would want to look at the utility of the phrase actus purus would be the

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Bible. I know, I know, I know. I just, some of you just threw up a little bit in your mouth and it's rough.

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I understand. But yeah, that's why I don't,

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I'm not going to get the invitations to the conferences and stuff anymore. There's going to be one right close to my house actually in June.

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But anyway, yeah, I know guys. I'll wave as I drive by.

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Anyway, I would want to interpret everything that is read from Muller about the full actualization of divine being only as that is commensurate with, or gives enlightenment to, meaningfully, something like Isaiah 40 -48, the trial of the false gods.

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Some of the tremendous statements of Jeremiah, Hebrews 1. And insofar as that can be used, obviously completely disengaged from its

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Aristotelian roots, then we could use it.

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But it has to be subjugated to a, I would much rather that my people at my church have a deep biblical doctrine of the glory of the being of God that you can then use these outside terms to illustrate aspects of, than to have this become the controlling filter through which

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Isaiah is then read. That's what's dangerous. That's what's dangerous. Example, the

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Father loves the Son. Direct biblical statement used twice.

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Filtered through a Thomistic lens, you have to go, well, that's in reference to the incarnate nature.

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And that's not an eternity between the Father and the Son, as we've seen people say.

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Thankfully, I think most people would reject that. Hopefully, someone has corrected that young man about that. But that's what happens.

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When that becomes the lens, then the text of Scripture becomes distorted to keep the consistency of the philosophical system.

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That's when the philosophy is no longer a handmaiden. It's something a whole lot worse that you don't really want to mess with.

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So there's actus purus. And, you know, looking at the time,

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I think I'll just keep this and we'll flesh this out some more.

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But I just want to comment that it's possible.

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I've been busy. I've been really, really busy. So I've not kept up with everything.

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But I have not seen any effort so far to actually engage with the exegesis that I offered from John 17, from Philippians 2.

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Everything that I have seen, and again, maybe I missed it. Maybe somebody didn't point it out to me. I don't know. I've had very limited time.

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But all the responses have been to quote this person or that person rather than to actually engage with the biblical text.

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One of those, real quickly, Jacob Trotter listed a bunch of Baptists on this issue of inseparable operations.

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And once again, this is a situation where you can take this phrase.

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If you leave it in its Aristotelian to mystic context, it makes absolute mincemeat out of the text of the

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New Testament. It just makes it incomprehensible. But if you subject it to the higher authority of biblical parameters, then sure.

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John 5 says very clearly that there is perfect harmony between the

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Father and the Son. That the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. John 5 isn't saying this, but you can add 14 and 16 in later if you want.

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Father, Son, and Spirit do everything in perfect harmony in the completion of the decree that flows from the triune

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God. And so there is perfect harmony.

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You cannot separate, as in place in contrast or disharmony or anything else, any of the actions of the divine persons.

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But what I'm hearing people doing is saying, well, actually, you cannot distinguish between the actions of the persons.

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And that's why people are saying, well, you can't say the Father loves the

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Son because that means the Son is missing something he's getting from the Father. And the prayers of Jesus.

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The prayers of Jesus have to be the human side, the human nature, praying to divinity.

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Even when John 17 and 5 utterly refutes it. Utterly refutes that assertion.

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It just stands refuted. I've never seen it. No one's tried. And I don't think anybody will. Nobody is going to try to deal with John 17 and 5 and refute what it says there.

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Because you can't. And if you try, I will take your attempt and shred it in the service of our

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Lord. Okay? Because the text is plain. It's clear. It's right there. No way around it.

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So there is an illustration of where you can have a biblically submissive utilization of a philosophical claim.

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But it has to be biblically submissive. It has to speak to biblical truths.

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It can't bring something in from the outside. It can't create a lens that's then going to distort what's actually found in Scripture itself.

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That's backwards and it's dangerous. And I'll call it out every time I see it. You have to. It's necessary.

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It's how you serve, really. And we will do our best to do that.

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But once you put – if you push inseparable operations to the point where you no longer have divine persons, where you no longer have any rich relationship between the

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Father and the Son, where it's – you can no longer – if you are now uncomfortable saying what we've said forever, it wasn't the

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Son – it wasn't the Father who became incarnate. It wasn't the Spirit who became incarnate. It was the

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Son who became incarnate. The Father sent the Son. The Father and the

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Son send the Spirit. These are – I mean, what happens to the economic trinity?

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What happens to any kind of meaningful relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit?

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I just keep saying to people, you know, we dare not say more than Scripture says, but we cannot say less than what

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Scripture says. There was one quote. I'm sorry. I was going to wrap up there.

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But there was one quote that, again, the troublemaker in Phoenix pointed out, and I want to close this because I want to close something positive.

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When Calvin was addressing the issue of angels in Book I of the

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Institutes, he laid out a general – I see the sun's going to – there we go.

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Don't want the sun hitting the camera there. It would cause a mess. He lays out a general rule that I think is absolutely central, and I will live and die for it.

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Here's what he says. As not to dwell on this, let us here remember that on the whole subject of religion, one rule of modesty and soberness is to be observed, and it is this.

01:00:06

In obscure matters, not to speak or think or even long to know more than the

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Word of God has delivered. A second rule is that in reading the Scriptures, we should constantly direct our inquiries and meditations to those things which tend to edification, not indulge in curiosity or in studying things of no use.

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It seems to me that we have folks today who are so focused upon speculative conclusions about the internal operations of God that are not revealed to us in Scripture on a first, second, or third level that no one can look you seriously in the eye and say, yep, that's exactly what

01:00:57

Paul was trying to communicate. No. And those are becoming the central elements of theology itself.

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That's dangerous. That is just dangerous. And I hope that balance will be recovered for those that are experiencing those things.

01:01:18

So I'm actually going to try to modify my travel plans.

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And so hopefully, it depends on if I can get a slot.

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We'll see. Otherwise, I'm going to have to really drive for a long time tomorrow, and I'm tired.

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I was really feeling it today toward the end. So I'm going to try to modify my travel plans if I can, then that opens up some time for some more programs possibly.

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And there's all sorts of stuff we can talk about. Leftist heads exploding right and left as Elon Musk buys

01:02:02

Twitter. Oh, what days we live in. What days we live in.

01:02:08

But we'll see. We'll see. So keep an eye on the app and enjoy the debate.

01:02:14

It's on Canon Plus. And hopefully, if you go into it with the attitude that I had and that Doug had, you will enjoy it.

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It's pastoral. It's a discussion that needs to take place and that we need to continue thinking about.

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Because this kind of discussion amongst Christians, sadly, doesn't take place all that often.

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And it's important stuff. It really is. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed that.

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Rich, thanks for rushing home and letting this happen. And Lord willing, maybe, possibly, we might even see you tomorrow.

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We'll see how the travel goes and making reservations and stuff like that. Pray for safety.