Road Trip DL from Texas: Special Revelation, Natural Revelation, and Some Inseparable Operations

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Covered a bunch of topics suggested by social media interactions, including a discussion of special and general revelation, natural theology, and all that area of discussion, and then a brief look at Thomistic "inseparable operations" and its (unnecessary) complication of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Will plan to continue that topic tomorrow, Lord willing.

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line, another road trip Dividing Line. I'm in Abilene, Texas, and it's funny, as I pulled in,
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I said, I've been here before. In fact, I was here on my last trip. But to be honest with you,
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I can't remember how I got here on my last trip. When I pulled in,
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I was like, yep, yep, seen this one before, seen this one before. And that's sort of a nice feeling, you know, to be somewhat familiar.
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I'm in the exact same slot I was in last time. So there you go. And the song of the
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KOA campground in the background, an interstate highway. It's just, it just becomes what you're used to.
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It's, it's perfectly fine with me. It's, it's interesting. Anyway, not sure how much stuff we'll get to today.
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And we need, we need to pray for Ridge. You know, I, like I said, when
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I was in Tullahoma, you know, the last thing one guy said to me as he was going outdoor was be nicer to Rich.
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And so I'm sure there are some people out there that probably blame me, that Rich is under the weather, and he is.
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And, but I just point out that unless this stuff has the incubation period of over two and a half weeks, I'm not responsible.
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I, not only do I not have it to give, but I could not have passed it on because we haven't seen each other for a long time.
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And that's just sort of how that works. So anyway, so pray for Rich, because look,
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I get home, he's gonna be busy. So we have much, much to do. So, you know, we may be getting older, but we gotta, gotta push through.
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Gotta show that we're from that earlier generation, that's not a bunch of wimps.
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I remembered to grab, let me see if I can, ah yes, see how the
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Cairo glows there? Yeah, there's, oh, there's the name, it glows there too. So yeah, I grabbed my
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LSB, my Jeffrey Rice LSB, and what's really cool,
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I don't know if you'll be able to see, it's gold when you do this, but then when you turn it sideways, it turns red.
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I'm not sure, it really didn't show up the same way. But yeah, it's glorious.
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It's wonderful. And it still smells wonderful. Post -anniversary locks, survival rebinding, there you go.
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There's my LSB. We figured that's my ninth personal project.
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I think we counted the 1550 Stephanos in that, so maybe that's not really, that was sort of for the ministry,
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I guess. But I wasn't counting like projects we've done for other people.
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We've given them to other people, so it's been more than 10 that way. But anyway, he has another project in with the new leather he has discovered for something for G3 in September.
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So if you are thinking about G3, we will be there. Rich will be there.
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Everyone who's ever gone to G3 when Rich was there knows that I am perfectly nice to Rich.
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In fact, I told Rich, and he will have to verify this, that I said to him, you know,
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I know you're not feeling good and everything. Why don't you set an alarm? Go lay down.
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We'll just do the program. Get back up when the alarm goes off, and that way you don't even have to listen to the program.
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So I don't know if he'll do that or not, but there you go. But if you come to G3, we have our not overly fancy, but pretty cool looking little booth that we do.
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And, you know, other folks come along. I'm not sure how many this time.
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But sometimes we've, you know, over the past couple years, it passed twice. Well, no, we had one at ReformCon.
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And I'm trying to remember when we started doing the shirts and hoodies and stuff like that along with all that kind of stuff.
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But anyway, we'll be there. And I'll be happy to meet folks and meet and greet and talk to folks and things like that.
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And I will be speaking at some point. I'm not sure when, but at some point during the conference.
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And we're looking at other churches in the area and on the way to and from.
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And in fact, I need to get back with my dear brother, Bruce, up in Colorado, because he was talking about various dates for doing something for the church there and stuff like that.
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So finding a way to make it all work and getting plugged in is a challenge.
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No toys about it. And this year, Lord willing, and this could all fall apart real easy.
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But Lord willing, my wife will be attending for the first time. And a lot of people are, you know, who's that mysterious woman?
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And you'll find out that she's very quiet and well, normally. Though recently, when we've been having political discussions, she's been anything but quiet.
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And I just don't think Joe Biden would want to be in the same room with her.
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She may seem like a quiet, nanny, grandma type person.
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But no, he wouldn't. She's not happy with him. Anyway, so if you are thinking about G3, we are going to be there,
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Lord willing. Oh, look, it's a KOA cat. Many of those heading straight for me.
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Hello. Bye -bye, kitty. Lots of these parks have KOA cats.
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They're all over the place. I need to start carrying kitty treats. I really do. Because I keep telling myself
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I'm going to do that. And I keep forgetting. So I can befriend them. And then they'll probably try to get in and go with me.
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And I can't do that. My cats would not be happy about that if I brought strays home from various places across the
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United States. I'm not sure my wife would be happy about that either. Anyway, we're on our way back.
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Next big thing, as you know, the debate up in Salt Lake City. I was listening to one of my opponents.
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Jason Wallace got me into this. That's all I can say, is the troublemaker from Salt Lake City has gotten us into this.
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I don't know how the two guys we're debating are even on the same planet, continent, anything like that.
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So I don't know how they're going to make a meaningful presentation.
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I just don't. I know how Jeff and I are going to do it. For Jeff and I, it's just simply a matter of,
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OK, divide up the time. You do that part. I'll do this part. We're on the exact same page.
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We're going to have the exact same set of arguments and the exact same way of approaching it.
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And we'll work hand in glove. And I just don't see how these guys.
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Well, think about the last debate, the antifreeze debate. Those two guys were on the same page either.
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I mean, other than being atheists, they weren't on the same page either as far as their approach to argumentation, their responses to questions, nothing.
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So I have no idea how the cross -section is going to go. But one of the two guys, the main guy,
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I think is a retired professor there from the University of Utah. So could have a pretty decent group of people showing up.
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As long as we don't have a blizzard like we had last year the same weekend, we will see.
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I don't know. But that's coming up really, really fast, faster than I would like it to come up.
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And then I'm only going to be home a matter of weeks. And then we head off into May with the conference in Georgetown in Texas, going all the way back.
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And I need to post this. I apologize to Joe Boot and Ezra Institute and everybody else. But I will be speaking at the
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Renner Academy in North, North. I mean, it is so North Georgia.
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It smells like Tennessee, OK? It is way up in that upper, upper, upper corner of Georgia.
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We will be always speaking at the Renner Academy up there. And so go to Ezra Institute.
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Google it. I don't have it in front of me right now. And if you've got some young folks that you really would like to expose them to some solid, challenging worldview training,
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Joe Boot, Ezra Institute, Renner Academy, check it out. See what the possibilities will be there.
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I'm only going to be there like two days. Some of the guys will be there much longer than that. But it's a lengthy, lengthy program.
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And it should be very, very useful. But as I said, all sorts of stuff going back and forth across Texas again.
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I know the 40, the 30, the 20, and the 10.
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I now have the interstate numbering system figured out. And which states those roads are rough in and which states those roads are smooth in.
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Today, Texas, hardly a, yeah, OK, every time you get into a city, things get a little bit bumpy.
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But generally, today was probably one of the smoothest driving days here in Texas. Little windy, but nothing major at all today.
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It was a pretty, pretty smooth trip. So that'll be May. And then we've got a big trip in July.
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And then September is G3. And so, yeah, it's going to be a big travel year.
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And, you know, we used to have big travel years. But they always meant that I was going to be in some other country, on some other continent, sometimes on the other side of the world.
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That's not how it works now. So been seeing some, see the bouncy, bouncy.
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Sorry about that. Wow, it really bouncy, bouncy. That's why we need to get a a studio built in the front of the other
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RV. And so just a reminder, we need your help to do that so that we don't have earthquake.
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Wow, the whole thing. There we go. It's really a $19 webcam thingy that has, unfortunately, fallen off the back seat way too many times.
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In fact, if I showed you the plug on it and how much tape it has on it, just trying to hold it together, you'd chuckle.
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But anyway, hey, as long as it's working, that's all that matters.
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That's the important part. Lots of stuff that I would like to comment on.
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And I'm not sure, honestly, the direction that I want to go here.
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I guess I should go with the stuff that I had already saved and go from there. I am not certain, to be honest with you, exactly where all of this stuff came from.
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There have been extensive discussions over the past couple of years. They keep coming up in reform circles concerning the relationship of general and special revelation, natural theology versus natural revelation, what the extent of natural theology is.
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For example, a book was published recently with, if I recall correctly, an early essay from Voss on natural theology, with an almost longer preface from J .V.
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Fesco, who, of course, very much in the—I don't like the fact that they've taken the name classical theology, because all that classical theology is actually a phrase developed by open theists.
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And so on all the issues that open theists would be concerned about, we're all classical theists.
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We all affirm God's immutability and exhaustive knowledge of future events and divine decrees and all that kind of stuff.
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Unfortunately, now classical theology has become narrowed down to particular, primarily
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Thomistic formulations in regards to simplicity and separable operations, processions, and everything else that goes along with that, which really does not do justice whatsoever to the actual core of what is appropriately called classical theology.
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Anyway, somewhere along the line I've seen Jacob Brunton saying that I've accused him of heresy about something.
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I'm sorry, I don't pay attention to he or Cody Leibel anymore, to be honest with you.
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Especially when the guys who started the new Christian intellectuals say they're not claiming to be
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Christian intellectuals. But Jacob Brunton did a debate a couple years ago in Romans 1, and I'll just be honest with you, that's where his main problem is.
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That's where the problem with the entirety of his theology lies, is in a really clear misunderstanding of Paul's purposes and intentions in Romans chapter 1.
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So I don't even know what he's talking about when he's saying that I somehow was kicking him out of the kingdom or something.
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I don't know what he was referring to. But he makes the statement, let me see if I can find the order in which these came.
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There was an earlier screenshot, maybe I didn't find it, where he said that he takes the position of R .C.
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Sproul that general revelation is just as authoritative as special revelation.
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Well, obviously, if it is revelation and it comes from God, then it has
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God's authority. So on a really basic level, that's sort of a duh type of statement, to be perfectly honest with you.
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But when we think about what general revelation contains and how it contains it, this is where I think we just simply have to start with special revelation.
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Why? Because if you don't start there, you end up in the never ending circle, being trapped in the circle of human philosophy and not having a proper starting place.
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The starting place has to be God has spoken. And if you don't start with God speaking and you start with fallen man interpreting the world around him, you end up with all of man's religions, man's religions, man's philosophies.
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There's no way of saying one is better than the other. And given that the content of general revelation is very, very limited, we are not told about the cross.
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We're not told about the Trinity. Romans chapter one basically tells us that the essence of general revelation gets through.
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It is communicated to all so that they are without excuse. And what is that revelation?
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That God exists and we are to be thankful to him for all that he has given to us.
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Everything else, when I look out here and there are a bunch of dead trees.
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Well, they're not dead. It's winter. And so they're not overly green or anything right now.
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But I've studied enough botany. That was my least favorite biology course.
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But anyway, I had to take it. I'll say enough botany to see that there is a tree that still has leaves.
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It's sort of an evergreen type thing. And I know that the chemical process going on those leaves converting sunlight is absolutely,
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I mean, chlorophyll, all of the related biomechanical and chemical processes that lead to cellular respiration and everything else that takes place in plants and animals and everything else.
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Incredibly complex. Incredibly complex. As a
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Christian, I look at that and I look at it within the context of the Bible. I look at it in the context of a worldview that is predicated upon special revelation.
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An unbeliever whose eyes are not open to spiritual realities may know much more about chlorophyll and the entire process of photosynthesis than I do.
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Though I've studied it a lot. They may know much more about than I do. But they cannot place it in the proper context of creation if they're in rebellion against the creator who made it.
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Because that's out there and it's a separate reality from who I am and where I am in this world.
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And so there's going to be a disconnection. And that doesn't mean that the person doesn't have accurate knowledge about the process, but they can't have an accurate knowledge about the place of that process in all of creation.
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It's just knowledge. And the problem of a non -Christian worldview is it always ends up either in destroying the possibility of knowledge or in putting mankind in the center to autonomously determine what is and what is not true knowledge.
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And mankind is insufficient to fill that role. And so it leads to skepticism and anarchy, philosophically speaking, as the history of the
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West would demonstrate. So as a believer,
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I think there is tremendous benefit in looking at creation and contemplating creation.
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And you can learn from creation, but you're bringing a regenerate mind to the analysis of that revelation of God's glory in his creation.
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And how did you get that regenerate mind? Well, you're born again by the word of God. Holy Spirit bringing the word of God to bear.
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And so what's prior to what? I mean, prior as interpretationally, scripture is, obviously.
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And that's exactly where there are differences now. Well, there've always been differences. Obviously, Thomas wouldn't agree with everything
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I just said, especially the idea of the natural revelation actually getting through so that man knows that God exists.
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That is a reality that we can deal with them in apologetics, that they know
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God exists and they're suppressing that knowledge. And that's because Thomas does not have a biblical anthropology, doesn't have a biblical view of man, because as a
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Roman Catholic, he has imbibed, even as an
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Augustinian Dominican, he still has imbibed fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of sin, the nature of Adam at creation that are unbiblical.
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They're traditional rather than biblical. And so there's issues with Thomas at that point, and that's why you can't follow him there and in so many other places as well.
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So all of that is a background to some statements that Jacob made.
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He says at one point, I don't claim the general revelation is superior in authority to special revelation, though.
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And I don't know of anyone who does. General revelation, but then the next, well, not the next tweet, but the next tweet in this screenshot, which was obviously at some different point, said general revelation gives us valuable information about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, which is necessary for properly understanding the
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Bible and truth about reality in general. Now, ponder that for a moment.
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General revelation gives us valuable information about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, which is necessary for properly understanding the
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Bible and truth about reality in general. So what comes first? What determines what scripture can even say?
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What it can even address? How broad its scope can even be? If metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics are derived from general revelation, and that then is necessary for properly understanding special revelation, then which one is superior to which?
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Seems pretty obvious. Just as in Roman Catholicism, you'll be told that you need the magisterium to properly identify and utilize tradition to create the lens and matrix through which scripture is to be understood.
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And most of us, anyways, have come to recognize the vicious circle there and the fact that that subjugates that which is theanistos, that which is not theanistos.
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And that's how you can see Rome taking a passage like, do this remembrance of me, and turning that into Jesus ordaining the apostles as priests and giving them the power to work the miracle of transnation.
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Or looking at the woman in Revelation 12, which the early church did not view as Mary, and now finding it as Mary.
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And finding in Solomon's bringing the throne from the interim for his mother to sit on some foundation for some other
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Marian dogma. I mean, once you have said that God cannot speak directly without us getting to determine the mechanism whereby his speech is to be interpreted.
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I'm not sure how in the world Adam and Eve were held accountable for what they did. They didn't have
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Aristotle. They didn't. I mean, they didn't. How could they have any knowledge about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics in the garden?
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Hadn't had time to do the general revelation studies to come up with the proper ways of understanding these things. So I'm not sure how
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God held all of humanity accountable for that, but somehow it happened.
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Anyway, and so then at some other point, I'm not seeing the date here.
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He also says, there are many things to which general revelation speaks, which special revelation does not.
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They are equally authoritative in all to which they speak. What does general revelation speak to that special revelation doesn't?
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Because again, Romans 1 is our biggest, clearest.
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When we're talking about general revelation, Romans 1 tells us that men are held, they have no excuse because of the clarity of the revelation.
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And what does that revelation say to men? Well, it's not like we haven't spent a tremendous amount of time in Romans 1 before, but just to remind us,
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Romans 1, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them, for since the creation of the world is invisible attributes, both his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so they are unapologetic, they are without excuse.
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For even though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible
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God for an image and likeness of corruptible man, of birds and four -footed animals and crawling creatures.
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Okay, so here we have general revelation, since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are unapologetic, they are without excuse.
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Okay, so is that saying that by contemplating the tree over there, and now
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I'm going to figure out what kind of tree that is, because maybe I have to get one of those apps, you can get the app for your phone, just shoot it at a leaf and it'll tell you what the tree is.
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It's pretty cool when you think about it. Anyway, if I contemplate that tree long enough out there, will
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I come to understand God's invisible attributes? Will I come to understand his omniscience, his omnipotence, his grace, his mercy, his love, his holiness?
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Is that sufficient to communicate to me what is found in scripture?
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Or is the phrase in Romans 1 20, both his eternal power and divine nature, in apposition to his invisible attributes?
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In other words, is both his eternal power and divine nature Paul's definition of the extent of what his invisible attributes are?
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That's the question, and it seems pretty clear that it is in apposition, it's defining it.
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What has been revealed so clearly and gets through to us is the fact that God has eternal power and there is the divine nature, the existence of God, and therefore, even though they knew
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God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks. So natural revelation holds men accountable and is sufficient to hold men accountable, to recognize the existence of God, to glorify him as God, and to be thankful, to give thanks to him.
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That's what natural revelation is able to do. It does not give us metaphysics, it does not give us epistemology, and if as a
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Christian, with the word of God in our mind, we then begin contemplating the creation around us, that's no longer general revelation.
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That's the act of a regenerate mind looking at God's creation that has been set free from slavery to sin, but been set free from professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, set free from, they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened.
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So a person who's had the heart of stone taken out, they've been given a heart of flesh, and then they contemplate
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God's beautiful creation, yes, can bring to bear those spiritual eyes, excuse me, and learn much from the order and the beauty of the creation that I see in that tree right over there.
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I'm going to have to take a picture of that tree. I should go out and take a picture of that tree and post it with this device.
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It's not the prettiest tree ever, but you know, it's there. So, but that's not natural theology.
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See, people confuse general revelation or natural revelation, what happens when
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God creates, and he creates not only purposefully in creating the tree, but then creating man and man's eyes and senses and mind to be able to contemplate said tree.
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When a Christian brings their redeemed mind to bear upon the examination of what's around us, that's not, we have to differentiate the conclusions of examining the natural realm within the context of the
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Christian worldview, and what can be understood by an unregenerate man looking at the natural realm, and the limitations that would be necessary in their experience.
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And so, there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of utilization of language that bleeds over because we're not being super accurate.
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So, like when we talk about inspiration, when there's a very technical, biblical way in which that one term is used, but we use a
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Latin phrase that has a much less specific type of application to it, and as a result, you get levels of confusion.
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And so, when someone says, um, there are many things to which general revelation speaks, which special revelation does not,
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I'm wondering about what that is supposed to mean. So, there is, there is revelational content in general revelation that is not found in special revelation, because Romans 1, um, is
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God's divine nature and power revealed in special revelation? Yeah. Is, um, the necessity of man to be thankful toward God, is that found in special revelation?
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Yeah. So, what, what isn't found in special revelation? Um, I'd be really, really interested in knowing exactly where that comes from, um, and how man will be held accountable to it.
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It's just one of many conversations going on, uh, right now that I think are somewhat important, important along those lines.
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I, uh, as most of you know, was going to try to get to Salt Lake City, was not able to do so.
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Um, someone even sent me a picture, they're stuck in a hotel in Salt Lake City because their flights were canceled because of all the snow.
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It's gonna clear up, and I'm, I'm pretty hopeful that the debate's gonna take place on the 24th, as it was, uh, scheduled to.
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Um, I hope so anyways, I'm just not gonna be able to be there. And so,
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I headed south, in fact, I'm looking across the way here at a couple that's parked in their
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RV right next to where I am, and we were both setting up at the same time and started chatting, as most people do.
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And, uh, they're doing the exact same thing I did. Yeah, we were headed, we headed south.
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We, we, we decided to get out of the way of that storm. I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. And, um, so that gave me the opportunity to, uh, call
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Tom Buck. I texted him on Monday, and I said, uh, you in town?
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And he's like, yeah, what's up? I'm like, well, I could come through Lindale, um, on my way home, uh, if you'd like to do something.
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And that's on Monday, okay, so I'd be there Tuesday and Wednesday. Uh, so putting anything together that fast is really, really tough.
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And, uh, so we did something on Tuesday night where I spoke on Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, and then last night
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I role -played a Mormon, uh, with the youth minister, uh, at, uh, with the young people's group, and everybody enjoyed that.
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Well, the ladies did not enjoy my description of Mormonism's view of how women function, um, as eternal baby -making machines, but, uh, other than that, uh, and so it worked out really wonderfully.
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It was, it was great to have that opportunity. So last night after I spoke, uh,
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Tom and I went out, uh, to a, you know, when you're, when you're a bigwig speaker, you go to the fancy restaurants.
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Now, I happen to know some bigwig speakers that do go to really fancy restaurants. So where did, where did
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Tom Buck and I go? Well, there's a place called Pasadas. It's a little
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Mexican place right off the freeway that we've gone to a bunch of times, but last night after I spoke at, uh,
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First Baptist Lindale, um, we, we did the Texan thing and ate at Whataburger as a bit did a bunch of the young people.
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So we were, it was sort of, we sort of took the place over, and, uh, so while we were, uh, eating at Whataburger, uh, last night,
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Tom mentioned to me that he said, did you see the Layton Flowers video? And I'm like, which of the many, many
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Layton Flowers videos are you making reference to? And, you know,
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I, I unblocked, uh, Soteriology 101 because he said he wouldn't respond to a question if I didn't.
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So, fine. And the stuff that I'm seeing reminds me of why
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I blocked it in the first place. It was more for me. It was more just so I wouldn't have to see this stuff and be constantly tempted, um, to go back over stuff that we've, we've done 10 ,000 times before.
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But, you know, they do their graphic stuff. And, um, so here, here's a, well, let me read the graphic first.
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It's a meme type thing. And then the tweet that went with it. Non -Calvinists aren't arguing that God can't control everything.
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We are arguing that He doesn't have to in order to be considered sovereign. Well, I will just point out that any useful, meaningful, historical definition of the term sovereign is talking about a king who has total authority to act as he pleases in his own realm.
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And I don't think that open theists or provisionists would actually defend the idea that God has that kind of sovereign power to act within his own realm as he sees fit.
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I really don't think that that is actually what they're arguing. But the specific application in the
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Twitter, the tweet, sorry, was Calvary. At least they said
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Calvary. It's not Calvary. Ever caught anybody doing that?
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I know they sound a lot alike, but they're very different things. They really are. Calvary, the most climactic event in all human history, which
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I would agree, but I would say that it was so because God sovereignly decreed it to be, displayed not
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God's meticulous control of His enemies, but His merciful love for His enemies.
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Therefore, the central theme of our message needs to highlight not His ability to control, but His choice to love.
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Now, this is, of course, a grossly false dichotomy, but let me just ask you to think with me for a moment.
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Everything that had to be a part of God's sovereign decree for Calvary to take place, because it would be very easy for me to go to Acts 4, 27 to 28 and walk through it and once again demonstrate that in all of the people that were involved in the crucifixion, the
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Romans, Herod, Pontius Pilate, Jews, all of them had different motivations.
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Herod's motivations, he was nuts. Pilate, he was a political opportunist and a coward.
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The Roman soldiers doing what Roman soldiers do. The Jews hated
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Jesus. Jewish leadership, he had been exposing them for years. All completely different motivations, and yet the crucifixion takes place at the exact time, in the exact place, with the exact people there that God intended from the beginning.
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Now, I suppose if you're an open theist, you can say, no, it was supposed to happen 500 years earlier, but it took that long to finally get people in place.
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I suppose there are lots of people that could come up with ways, but I think the vast majority of Christians who read their
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Bible know that Jesus said, my hour has not yet come, and then he said, my hour has come.
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And that hour was fixed by the free and sovereign decree of God and eternity passed.
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So you've got all those people involved with it, but the reality is the emphasis of the
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New Testament is not just them, but that's one of the functions of the genealogies in Matthew and Luke is that this is going all the way back.
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This is something that has been part of God's intention from the beginning, and so you think about all of the three choice events that are encompassed in the history of Israel, that are encompassed in those genealogies, and the generations and generations, and unless that sovereign decree was actually bringing about what
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God intended, there would be no way in hindsight to go back, here's what
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God intended all along, this person, this person. No, it would just be, yeah, well, that line fell apart, so God came up with plan
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B, and here's B1, and there's C1, and he's been just trying to cobble this thing together and finally got around to making it work, but it of course ended up with completely different people than he intended, and it's not what the
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Bible teaches at all. So Calvary is the most climactic event in all of history because God sovereignly is determined that it will be, and it does display
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God's meticulous control, not simply of his enemies, but of all things.
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He works all things after the counsel of his will, and that includes the actions of free creatures, that includes the actions of free creatures, or you cannot have the genealogies, and the prophecies, and everything else that comes along with it.
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So it does display God's meticulous control of all things, his enemies, his friends, people that have no idea whatsoever that they're being used by God to bring something about.
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You could show all sorts of examples down through the history of Israel where things like that happen, and so to set up a false dichotomy here between meticulous control of his enemies versus merciful love for his enemies, well are you saying that all of the
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Roman soldiers that crucified Jesus were saved? I would love to think at least a few were, and if God saved all of them, more power to everybody, praise be to God, but do you have any, you know
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Herod wasn't saved, so you don't see a meticulous control of his enemy
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Herod, and then a judgment of Herod? How about Pilate?
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You don't see eventually in only 40 years later the destruction of Jerusalem as having some connection between Matthew 23 and Matthew 24?
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Sort of obvious. And so his merciful love for his enemies, how was redemptive love shown for Herod?
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I mean, all of us are the recipients of God's redemptive love in the cross even 2 ,000 years later, but at that particular time, is there some type of undifferentiated merciful love that is displayed there?
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Well, I suppose some people might think that, but good luck figuring out exactly what that is biblically speaking.
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And so the central theme of our message needs to highlight not his ability to control, but his choice to love.
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How about both? How about just allowing all of scripture to speak rather than just creating these false dichotomies?
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That might be the good way to do that kind of stuff.
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So I think the video that Tom was talking about when we were leaving our fancy dinner at Whataburger, it was a very good burger by the way, it's very good.
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I suppose that I think I saw the video, I think it did pop up, and I think it was actually aimed at John MacArthur if I recall correctly, but the reality is if something were to happen to me,
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Brother Flowers would become a very sad and lonely man. And so in a sense,
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I'm very thankful to provide to so many people these days, from so many different perspectives, something to be doing each and every day.
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And that's why I do not have any type of search set up in Google for what are people saying about James White today?
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I've never done that and never will, because I'd rather be a surprise, you know, someone will send something like that.
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Really? Someone's actually taking time to talk about that, huh? Okay, all right, fine, whatever.
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So there it goes. All right, I have
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Kindle open, and I have two different books open, and I'm looking at the time, and obviously
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I can't get both of them. I think I will leave the ultra complicated one.
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There's conversation going on, maybe we'll let it develop a little bit more. I think at some point, and I'm not sure that doing it on the road is the best way to do it, but why not?
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I need to read through with you all important sections from Adonis Vidu's book,
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The Same God Who Works All Things. I think this book is important in providing us a, well, see, now that I've announced it.
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So what I'll do the next time, and right now especially, I literally said to Rich, hey, if you're not feeling up to it, whatever, just gotta let me know.
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It's sort of up to him as to how he's recovering and stuff like that. Sometimes this stuff tricks you and makes you feel like you're getting better, and so maybe we can continue it tomorrow.
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The two things I want to do is I want to start looking at, at some point, because the book's been out for a while now.
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The book called Why I Preach from the Received Text came out, I think, last year, and there isn't a lot new in it.
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I mean, we've pretty well covered this topic one way or the other, but Brett Malin, if that's the pronunciation,
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I don't know Brett personally, as far as having talked with him to my knowledge. It could be
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Malin, but it's probably Malin. Brett Malin, Chapter 13,
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Hank, James, and Me, My Journey to the Received Text. The majority of references to yours truly in this book are found in this chapter, and so from the time
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I got the book, I was like, yeah, at some point we'll walk through that,
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I'll respond to Brett, and give the other side of the story, and go, well,
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Brett, if you had listened to what I had said here, then you wouldn't come to this conclusion, and so on and so forth. Because he starts off talking about the
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King James Only program, the three -day, it was actually one day, but three hours, on the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast, where we about melted the phone lines.
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I mean, that's the description they used. It was the most response they had ever gotten up to that point in time, and I think probably all time, as far as interesting calls, and stuff like that, and Brett was listening to that, and he mentions it right at the beginning of the chapter.
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So I want to look at that, and I want to respond to that, and have discussion, but at the same time, there are discussions taking place about the
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Doctrine of the Trinity, and I mentioned that just a matter of days ago, when
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I was in Louisiana, I addressed the Doctrine of the Trinity in a small
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Baptist church with fellow believers who care about their community, and the people around them, and invited
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Oneness Pentecostals to come and listen, because that's very heavily prevalent in their area.
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And my goal, of course, was to edify the saints, root them ever deep, more deeply, in a biblical understanding of the
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Doctrine of the Trinity, which was not a controversial thing to do until only a few years ago.
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It would never have even crossed my mind to think there could be a controversy about grounding believers in a biblical
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Doctrine of the Trinity, but there is now. And as I listen to certain people, again, in my own cohort,
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I'm not sure they consider me to be part of that cohort any longer, and that's fine. I'm less and less and less interested in membership in certain clubs these days.
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But as I listen to people speaking, I am absolutely convinced that if they were in the same situation
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I was in, in that church, that they would be limited by their commitments to Thomistic metaphysics in such a fashion as they could not have been of any benefit whatsoever to the people to whom
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I was speaking, whether Christians or especially to the Oneness Pentecostals.
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I don't believe that what they would have said, if they remained consistent with their commitments, would have even been understandable to Christians or non -Christians in that context at all, and that concerns me greatly.
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Let me just give you an example. This was posted on Twitter, and so I brought it up in the book itself.
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And so I'm going to read for a few minutes from The Same God Who Works All Things and Several Operations in Trinitarian Theology.
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In Kindle, anyways, this is page 194 of 502. I've noticed that I know
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Kindle's trying to do pages, but they don't correspond to the printed books at all. Don't even bother trying.
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Location 2926. It's almost easier if you have it in Kindle. The notion the divine person is nothing but the divine essence under a particular relational aspect leads us to the logic of ad extra inseparability.
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If a person is nothing but a relation within the unity of the divine essence, it is inconceivable for two reasons that one such person might have a separate action in the economy.
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Either this person has this operation under its aspect of essence or under its aspect of relation.
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The first option entails that it would have a different substance not shared with the other persons.
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The second option would entail that created realities would enter into its constitution given that a person is a subsistent relation.
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For this reason also classical Trinitarianism argues that separable operations add extra compromise the creator creation distinction.
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The conclusion is that whatever action the persons have in the created world is in virtue of their essence.
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This is not the whole story however. It was suggested that even though the efficient causality of the persons add extra is one, the persons nonetheless have a causality.
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As such we have insisted that the triune causality is not a monadic simplex causality but rather a differentiated one.
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On this score the tradition of inseparable operations especially in its
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Thomistic elaboration clarifies that the creative and economic work of the trinity is grounded in the processions.
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It was shown that this causality pertains to the different modes of action of the persons just as the persons are different modes of existence of the divine substance so they have different modes within the self -same operation of God.
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It is this differentiated operative modality that enables us to find the persons despite the fact that they act inseparably.
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In the process a particular way of conceiving personal action needed to be uprooted against modern personalism which anchors will in the person we have sided with diothelite orthodoxy by grounding will in nature.
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The modern quest for personal identity by detaching will from nature was shown to be a dead end.
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True personal identity is to be found in the enactment of one's nature. The triune persons too act on the basis of a common will and power of nature yet they enact this will in three irreducible modalities.
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It thus appears that we will be getting close to their proper identities not by drifting away from the natural will and power of the trinity.
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The identity of the persons is not revealed by separable acts and wills but precisely in the unity of the divine will and action since the persons are nothing but this will and power under a particular relational inflection.
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The doctrine of appropriation has its justification at this point. To know the persons we pull the common toward what is proper yet without leaving sight of the unity.
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Since the persons do not act separably we cannot individuate the persons on the basis of exclusive actions but importantly this does not mean there is no knowledge of persons precisely in their propria.
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Once it is understood that this propria is not to be sought away from substance but precisely as a modality within the substance it will be recognized that the way of appropriation is not a mere consolation prize something we need to put up with hoping for our eyes to be finally opened.
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In a sense that is true of course but there is a real contemplation of the divine persons precisely by learning to discern within the unity of their operation the only place any person may be found the modal trace of each person end quote.
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Is that what you get when you read the key biblical texts that reveal to us the existence of the divine persons?
01:00:27
Is that what you get when you look at the baptism of Jesus? Is that what you look at the mount of transfiguration?
01:00:32
Is that what you see? How about the carmen christi? How about colossians 1? Hebrews 1?
01:00:41
These are the key texts. Revelation 4 and 5. Are any of those texts clarified made more understandable to the sheep of Christ by the complex development of tertiary language necessary to hold together to mystic metaphysics when applied to the existence of divine persons?
01:01:18
Propria, ad extra, processions. What was the especially there was very very concerning to me.
01:01:29
Just as the persons are different modes of existence of the divine substance so they have different modes within the self -same operation.
01:01:37
We've got a lot about modes, modalities. The triune persons too act on the basis of a common will and power of nature and yet they enact this will in three irreducible modalities.
01:01:53
The identity of persons is not revealed by separable acts and wills but precisely in the unity of the divine will and actions since the persons are nothing.
01:02:00
The persons are nothing but this will and power under a particular relational inflection.
01:02:14
Where's that language come from? On what level can we call this biblical, apostolic?
01:02:30
What's the connection to the apostles? Would the apostles have understood any of this?
01:02:37
When the young man fell asleep and fell out the window was that when
01:02:45
Paul was getting this part? Maybe? Relational inflections, appropriations, propria are all language that takes us each time because they're building on each other each time farther and farther and farther and farther away from the essence of divine revelation.
01:03:16
Forgive me but I truly believe that Christ's sheep and Christ's people are grounded in biblical
01:03:28
Trinitarian belief by looking at that which is theanoustos.
01:03:38
These are words that have been developed to answer particular questions which may or may not be really relevant to apostolic teaching.
01:03:52
They're relevant to certain philosophical speculative theology but can they seriously be said to be something that comes from apostolic teaching an apostolic example.
01:04:17
I just wanted you to hear that because most people are not going to buy this book but you're starting to hear people say
01:04:25
I saw a video clip from a well -known evangelical seminary that used to proudly view itself as being biblicist and a professor was saying that without the doctrine of inseparable operations which
01:04:45
I can assure you had never been taught at that seminary prior to probably 2019 without the doctrine of inseparable operations you will inevitably lose doctrine trinity become a tritheist.
01:05:02
That was in essence what was being said I could get the exact words so you've evidently got to have an understanding of relational inflection.
01:05:20
I don't think any of that's apostolic and I didn't have to use any of that language in talking to the one who was
01:05:28
Pentecostals. It was enough properly interpreted exegetically handled properly.
01:05:43
I walked through John 1 1 John 17 5 Philippians 2 and I demonstrated that oneness teaching on the nature of God cannot stand the test of this and I did not have to use any of that language to do that and my suggestion to you is if you think you've got to use that language
01:06:08
I would love to see you why aren't you all out doing it? Why aren't you talking to people that need to know this stuff?
01:06:23
My hope is you're not even doing it in your churches because the vast majority of believers.
01:06:30
I think you could it reminds me a little bit of trying to explain the ontological argument.
01:06:39
You can do it. I've done it. There's an entire we actually re -recorded it because the recording didn't work out in my church history class at PRBC years ago.
01:06:49
We went through the ontological argument. If you work hard enough at it take some
01:06:55
Advil before you come to class or maybe imbibe some spirits before so you just you expand your mind.
01:07:06
You can figure it out by the end of the class. Now the next day you probably won't be able to repeat it to anybody but you can figure it out.
01:07:14
You can go okay all right I think I see it. That's sort of what a lot of this stuff is and I don't see that that's how you ground the sheep of Christ with what
01:07:33
Christ actually says. His voice. His speech. I don't see it working that way.
01:07:41
We'll have more to say about that but I've gone over time and I especially today should not do that because poor
01:07:49
Rich may be laying flat on the floor. I don't know.
01:07:56
Did you set an alarm and then just you know get up after you know at six o 'clock? Been here the whole time.
01:08:03
Good good. Did you did my reading of that extensive section make you feel better or worse?
01:08:16
He said he was riveted. Okay all right. See I don't think they can hear you. Can they?
01:08:24
Okay good. All right all right so yeah Rich says they can't. I think it's so I think it's sort of like the the the teacher in PNAS in the background somewhere because it's got to it's got to come through my microphone somehow.
01:08:38
So I think they can hear something but anyways Rich said he was riveted. So that means that means
01:08:45
Rich wants me to do more of that in the future. So we will we will do that.
01:08:52
Anyhow all right well thank you Rich for making this happen. As we're traveling across Texas this the great nation of Texas maybe we'll have some more opportunities to do that as we're going along.
01:09:06
And prayer for traveling mercy is appreciated. And prayer for the debate coming up on Friday night.
01:09:13
I'm looking forward to the recordings of that anyways. Wish I could be there. And for Jeff and I's preparation for the debate
01:09:20
April 1st in Salt Lake City as well. Jeff's a very very busy man as am
01:09:28
I. And so as I'm driving I'm doing that preparation and things like that.
01:09:34
So and once again anyone who can be of assistance to us and many many thanks to all those who already have.
01:09:42
But go to donate the donate link at almin .org. Look at the pull down menu.
01:09:48
You see down at the bottom there's the mobile AL Mobile Studio Fund. That's how we will continue to make this possible and then improve it.
01:10:00
See that real quickly in the future once we get that built.
01:10:08
When I'm sitting right here in the same I'll probably start stop at the same park again in the future.
01:10:14
The difference will be not just a background and none of that and all that stuff not happening.
01:10:24
But the neat thing will be I don't know if it'll be here. I don't know if it'll be here because we haven't figured this part out yet until we get into it and start measuring things.
01:10:35
We don't have any way of knowing. But I will have a touch screen and I will have these quotes up there and I will be able to highlight them and point the things and not only play video and everything else.
01:10:51
But yeah it'll be great. And so if you want to help us to make that possible donate almin .org.
01:11:01
Drop the drop the little menu down and you'll see it down there. And that's much much appreciated.