Presuppositional Apologetics

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

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

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

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line on a

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Thursday afternoon, totally caller -driven program today.

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Someone just kicked Resby out of the channel right as I was going to do that. Why did we do that?

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I wanted to do that. I'm going to do it again right there. There. I got to kick him out of the channel. Okay, anyway, totally caller -driven program today, 1 -877 -753 -3341, dividing .line

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on Skype. There has been a Twitter question that has been asked,

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I think twice, and I forgot to bring Twitter up last time, so I didn't see it, and it had been asked previous to that, so I thought

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I might as well start off with that. And it basically has to do with the defenses that people like Catholic Answers and others have produced in regards to the use of the term father being used of a priest.

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And I think, you know, they go to like 1 Corinthians 4 where Paul says that you have not many fathers in the gospel, but I begot you by the gospel.

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Some translations actually say, I fathered you. That's really not what the verb says, but be it as it may.

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There are ways of coming up with, you know, ways around Jesus's prohibition.

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If you ignore what it was he was talking about and the kind of attitude that he was speaking to, he was speaking to people who desired religious followers.

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And the question is, is that what the Roman Catholic priest desires when he is called father?

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Well, I can guarantee you, I've met plenty of them, that that is an exact representation of exactly what they want and exactly where they're going.

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But I think the focus shouldn't be on arguing those things where you can just go back and forth and not accomplish anything.

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I think the focus needs to be on the fact that there is no such thing as a New Testament sacramental priesthood, period, end of discussion.

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I mean, that is not a losable debate if you know anything about the New Testament and early church history.

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And I would recommend that you track down the debate that I did with Mitchell Pacwa on that very subject, and I think you will find that to be helpful.

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Let me just remind you of the words of James Cardinal Gibbons from back in 1876.

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Just turn something on, because I know how to have a high -pitched squeal, and it was right before that, because I'm not using the computer today, and I saw you hit something, and right after you went boink, right, thank you.

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Whatever that was, there's a high -pitched squeal on it. I'm not sure what he's doing in there.

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Sometimes I'm not sure he's sure what he's doing in there, but there are many buttons to press. Anyway, the words of James Cardinal Gibbons from 1876, the

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Apostles were clothed with the powers of Jesus Christ. The priest, as the successor of the

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Apostles, is clothed with their power. This fact reveals to us the eminent dignity of the priestly character.

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The exalted dignity of the priest is derived not from the personal merits for which he may be conspicuous, but from the sublime functions which he is charged to perform.

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To the carnal eye, the priest looks like other men, but to the eye of faith, he is exalted above the angels because he exercises powers not given even to angels.

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James Cardinal Gibbons, Faith of Our Fathers, Tann, 1980, page 317, and I have read it many times before, but that's because it is so incredibly clear in what it says.

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When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from his throne, and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man.

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It is a power greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the

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Virgin Mary, while the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time. The priest brings

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Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once, but a thousand times.

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The priest speaks, and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.

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Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest, who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and vicegerent of Christ on earth.

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He continues the essential ministry of Christ. He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ.

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He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of Alter Christus, for the priest is and should be another

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Christ. O 'Brien, The Faith of Millions, pages 255 -256. Now, post -Vatican

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II Catholicism recognizes how massively offensive that is, but if you listen to EWTN, that viewpoint remains.

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It's still out there, and you see it practiced, and that's what they need to be held accountable to.

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That's what you need to press them on in regards to the New Testament. Why is it that Paul could twice give us the necessary qualifications of the elders, discuss with us the qualifications of deacons, and never once say a word about a

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Christian sacramental priest? Not once. It's no wonder Rome doesn't believe in sola scriptura, because if you believe in sola scriptura, you will not believe a large portion of that which the

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Roman Catholic Church itself teaches, and I think that's where the focus needs to be.

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Let's go to the phone calls, and let's start off by going off to Florida and talking with Peter.

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Hi, Peter. Hey, how's it going, man? Doing good. I got a couple of questions on sovereignty, but first I just want to ask if you can recommend any books for learning

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Greek, like an introduction to it, Biblical Greek? Are you talking about doing this on your own or in a class?

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Yeah, on my own. Well, I will be straight up front with you. I have known two people who have actually learned

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Greek properly on their own. They were very disciplined. One of them ended up going to master's seminary and doing two master's degrees in a time that most people do one, and I told him,

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I gave him the same information I'll give you, but I've probably given 300 people the same information, and I know two people who survived it.

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In other words, it really, really helps to have a class or to have someone you're working through it with or something along those lines because, look, life is busy, and it's constantly putting pressure on us, and there has to be accountability and regularity in your study of a foreign language.

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That's just the facts. But the most useful, easiest to use resource to learn

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Greek on your own is Basics of Biblical Grammar by William Mounce, published by Zondervan.

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There is a workbook that comes with it that is an absolute necessity, and then Dr. Mounce himself has posted online the audio of his lecturing through the material in the book as well as has posted computer programs to allow you to study the vocabulary, practice parsing, stuff like that.

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That's as close... What website would that be on? The last time I knew, it was technia .com,

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T -E -K -N -I -A .com is the last time I knew, but obviously if you just Google William Mounce, that should come up.

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That's as close as you're going to get to a class, basically, but that's the best material you're going to go with.

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Okay, you said you use TextSpeech Pro, how would I use that to convert a tangible book like, say, Potter's Freedom into a

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WAV file? The only way you could do that is if you had the electronic version of Potter's Freedom. You have that?

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Not available online, no. Well, wait a minute, is Potter's Freedom on Kindle yet?

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I'm sorry? If it's on Kindle, you can convert it with that software? No, if it's on Kindle, your

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Kindle could read it to you, and then what I do, any of my books that are on Kindle, you can just plug it into your computer and it's a real -time recording, so it's not fast.

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Can't do it with the iPad, though? I've not tried doing anything with the iPad along those lines.

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I don't believe that the software for Kindle in the iPad will read it to you. At least the last time

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I checked, it couldn't. It's only the Kindle itself that can do that. But you have to be able to get hold of the book in electronic format, either

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PDF, Word format, something like that, and then you can drop it into TextSpeech Pro, and you can export as a

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WAV file, MP3 file, whatever you want, and it normally does it very, very quickly. In other words, while Kindle is real -time and hence takes all night to record a single book,

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TextSpeech Pro will do large blocks of text in three or four minutes and then export it for you.

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All right, well, here's the stuff I'm struggling with. My question is, the amount of obedience that we as believers can put forth, is that directly proportional to the amount of grace that we have been given by God?

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Is that directly proportional to the amount of... I'm very uncomfortable with terminology where you sort of put a number or an amount on grace.

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The obedience that we show is a representation of our level of sanctification and our love for God.

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And that is the result of God working

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His will in our life and bringing us through those trials and tribulations that cause us to be conformed to the image of Christ.

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And so, the obedience, how much I wish to obey Christ is directly related to how much

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I wish to glorify Him, and I recognize that my obedience is my means of glorifying

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Him. Now, is that synergistic on your part as well? The term synergism and monergism should be limited to the discussion of the beginning of salvation.

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The idea of applying them to sanctification creates all sorts of confusion.

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They're two completely different things. So when you're dealing with the issue of synergism... But the concept of working together with God in a sanctification process, wouldn't that be a technical, proper use of the word, synergism?

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Like I just said, if you want to create lots of confusion, sure.

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I just don't want to create lots of confusion, and therefore there needs to be a recognition that those terms, monergism and synergism, already have established areas of meaning in regards to how salvation is brought about.

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And if we import them into the subject of sanctification, as I've heard a lot of people do, you're dealing with a completely different area there.

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You're not dealing with a dead rebel sinner who hates God, and how a rebel sinner, a

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God -hater, is turned into a God -lover. Now you're talking about the work of the Holy Spirit conforming us to the image of Christ.

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And on the quote -unquote technical level, since we have been made alive in Christ, that new nature desires to be conformed to the image of Christ, desires to hate sin, desires to give obedience, to glorify

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God, etc., etc. And as a result, you will have that cooperation, because that's the nature of the regenerate person.

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It's not the nature of the unregenerate person to be able to do that. So that's why I think it's best to differentiate and usage those words.

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Okay, and so with regeneration, would you say that makes exercising faith possible to the believer?

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Saving faith, yes. Does it only make it possible, or does it actually shove genuine words of praise into that person's mouth?

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I would never use terms like shove genuine words of praise into a person's mouth, because obviously we're talking about the miracle of resurrecting a dead sinner to spiritual life.

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And so I don't even know where shoving words in someone's mouth would come from, because faith is the natural result of the reborn person who is shown who

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Jesus Christ is. Once we are freed from slavery to sin and we are given eyes to see, we see the

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Lord of glory, and it is the nature of the work of regeneration to create in that new person that desire for Christ.

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It's natural. But you would say that the faith has to be exercised, correct? Well, faith isn't faith if it's not exercised.

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Right, but would you say that that faith is exercised autonomously, or is it still somehow...

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Nothing, I don't believe anything is done autonomously except by God. We are His creatures and we live under His control and His power.

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But it is something that I do, if that's what you mean. God isn't believing for me, but it is the natural result of the work of God in me in the freedom of my soul from slavery to sin and the reforming of my being into one who loves

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God and believes in Jesus Christ. Okay, and the last thing is about the whole potter and the clay thing.

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If I were to mold something in my art class, and I were to mold something obscene, I mean, I think

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I would get in trouble for it. How is that different when it comes to God? It's basically said that God...

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How can you say to your maker, why did you make me this way? Is that directly attributing to God what He has made in reference to Pharaoh?

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Well, the use of the term obscene, again, I don't know where in the world that's coming from.

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The context is talking about vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. That is, vessels specifically made to glorify

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God and to find His glory. To find a place in His home versus vessels of wrath that demonstrate

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His justice and His wrath against sin, which are for common use, not obscene use.

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So the point of the potter's illustration is God's sovereignty and His right to do with His own creation as He sees fit.

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I don't think that there is a direct correlation to someone creating something obscene in an art class. So when he says in Romans 9 .20,

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why have you made me this way? Yes, someone who... Do you think God made Pharaoh the way he is, a wicked sinner?

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The actual objection there is found in Romans 9 .20 where it says for who resists

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His will. The objection is to the sovereignty of God and the fact that He chooses to extend

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His grace and to free certain people and He does not extend that grace to others.

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Pharaoh was exactly what God intended him to be and exactly what Pharaoh wanted to be. In fact,

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God had to restrain Pharaoh from being worse than he was. And so there was actually an extent of what could be called in some ways a restraining grace or a common grace that kept

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Pharaoh from being as bad as he was. As he could have been, let's put it that way.

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But the objection of Romans 9 is not so much to why am

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I a sinner? As it is to why would one person be given grace and another person not given grace?

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As if grace could be something that was demanded. Not the idea that well, we're all sinners and God somehow forced us to be that way.

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No, God didn't force Pharaoh to be a sinner. He kept Pharaoh from being a worse sinner than he actually was. But he did have a purpose in Pharaoh's life and he had a purpose in putting him in the position that he did and that was to demonstrate his power and his majesty.

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What is proper for Richard Dawkins according to Romans 1 .20

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is to recognize that he has a Creator and therefore he should thank Him for the life that he has been given. Dawkins has no grounds upon which to question

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God on any other level because he is only held accountable for giving thanks and recognizing the

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Creator of the heavens above him. Now whether Dawkins will go out and scream that is another issue but he certainly would not have any grounds for doing so because the reality is that he is not owed anything by God and that if it were not for God's restraint he would be a whole lot worse of a person than he is.

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So he actually should be thanking God that God has been so patient with him because Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins if God wanted to just simply exercise

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His justice at one fell swoop He could call either one of them out of existence at any moment and do so completely justly.

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But He has not. He has extended to them life and health and slowly taking that away from both of them since they are both aging and Christopher Hitchens has cancer and they both are continuing in their hatred of him despite all those things.

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Okay, so what would be a practical example of what a dishonorable use or a vessel for dishonorable use?

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Is that like something evil? Is that a reference to an evil use? Dishonorable use in Romans 9 is in contrast to honorable use.

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So in other words, the difference between the beautiful piece of pottery that is in the king's house and the trash can that is in the servant's house.

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In other words, the potter has a right at his own wheel to make whatever he chooses to make.

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That is his kingly right. And that's God's right to do as He chooses with His creation, which brings about His greatest glory.

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And the point that Paul is making is what if he chose to be patient with vessels of wrath?

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Vessels that he is having to restrain. That he is having to hold his power back from punishing.

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That experience great things in this life from his hand even though they do not deserve any of it and they hate him and they spit in his face and they live their lives in direct rebellion to him.

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What if he does that so that he might demonstrate his wrath and his power in their eventual judgment and in the glorification of those vessels of honor that in this world seem so despised by the world but in that final judgment will be shown to be the heirs of grace.

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So in Romans 9 .22, the what if, is that a hypothetical or is that actually what

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God does? No, that's just simply demonstrating in Romans 9 .22 the fact that He's...

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Well, let's read it for folks because... Because what if God, yeah, desiring to show

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His wrath to make known His power has endured with much patience. It sounds like it's hypothetical by the what if, right?

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Well, not... No, that's his whole point. On the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God the thing molded will not say, the molder, why'd you make me like this, will it?

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Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

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There's the usage things that I was talking about. What if God, although willing to demonstrate

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His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which

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He prepared beforehand for glory even us. And so Paul is saying this is what

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God has done and here is the reason that He has done so. So that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy.

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So is that basically saying if He didn't endure with much patience for those vessels that His riches and His glory wouldn't be able to be made known?

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Well, it wasn't... The point is that it would not be what He has determined to do. The reason

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He has chosen to do the things that He has done in the way that He has done it is so that the entirety of His attributes might be demonstrated.

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That is, if there was no demonstration of wrath and justice, if everybody was saved, then you would not have a full revelation of God's justice,

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His wrath against sin, etc. If nobody was saved, then you wouldn't see His mercy and His love. But the fact that you have

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Him patiently enduring vessels of wrath allows for those of us who, by His grace, are vessels of mercy to not only praise and worship

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Him for what He has done for us, but in the final judgment His justice is seen in how patient and enduring

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He was with them and then in the final judgment of them that glory is revealed to those of us who will see this in its entirety, who will surround the throne and worship

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Him forever. I might say, Peter, I think you now hold the record for the most questions asked on any single

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Dividing Line program. You have to go back and count them, but I think you now hold the record.

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I think we ought to send him something. What should we send, Peter? We need to send Peter... I think you should give me a 15 -minute segment on every

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Dividing Line just so I could ask you questions. You know, there's a lot of people who want to do that, I can guarantee you something.

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But honestly, Peter, for coming up with so many good questions at one time,

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I'm going to put you on hold. We're done here. And I'm going to have Rich send you a copy of the debate that I did with David Silverman on Is the

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New Testament Evil? How's that? I love you even more now. All right, I'm going to put you on hold,

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Peter. Thanks for calling today. All right, thanks. Thanks. All right, I think I got him on hold there.

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Did Algo count the number of questions there? I mean, Algo, since he's sort of like Google, should be able to just do that and tell me exactly how many questions were just asked.

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But that is definitely the record. I'm certain of that. Now, I think I'm making

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Rich multitask here, but I want to get to Landon in Orlando. So, Landon, are you there?

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Hi, Dr. White. Can you hear me okay? I can hear you just fine. All right, thanks for taking the call, brother.

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I really appreciate it. Yes, sir. I had a quick question. I don't have any extensive formal education or degree or anything.

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Which probably means you think more clearly than most people do. Yeah, I don't know about that. But I had the opportunity to go to the

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International Academy of Apologetics in Strasbourg, led by Dr. John Work Montgomery. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

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Oh, yeah, sure I am. Okay. Well, one of the things that they taught us was the primary goal of the apologists is to get the pagan to the cross as quickly and efficiently as possible.

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So we took the idea of a Christ -centric view with the positive affirming evidence of life, death, burial, resurrection of Christ.

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And you're kind of instructed in the legal aspect of it where we deal in probability, as they illustrated.

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We're not really certain of anything. So you orchestrate the data and you create probability based upon beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Yeah, that's John Montgomery and William Lane Craig and the classical evidentialist perspective is that the greater preponderance of the evidence points to the greater possibility of the existence of a god.

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Right, okay. Now my question is, and I'm not anti -presuppositional by any stretch.

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I'm trying to grow in my knowledge of all the perspectives. I listened to your podcast a couple months ago.

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You referenced Greg Bonson and R .C. Sproul debating. I actually purchased that debate and listened to it.

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And there was one thing that Dr. Bonson said that I've had trouble wrestling with and that is he kept stating that we need to be certain.

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We need to be certain of the things in Scripture. And I think the thing

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I'm having trouble reconciling is since we're leaving probability and dealing with certainty, would that force us to be either a

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King James only advocate or some form of TR advocate in that we have to be certain of every single yacht or tittle?

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Meaning if the Holy Spirit commissioned and moved along a rider, we need to be certain of every single thing written, or how can you be certain of something that we're only probabilistically possessing?

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No, no. I think you're missing the point that Bonson was making because Bonson certainly wasn't a

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TR or King James onlyist. And of course, a claimed certainty that has no historical foundation is not a certainty at all.

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The certainty that Greg Bonson or Vantill or Fram or anybody else would refer to is the certainty that God has in fact spoken in Jesus Christ first and foremost and that He has spoken in the

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Word of God. It is not a textual certainty of I'm absolutely certain that the original reading of Romans 5 .1

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was ecumen versus ecumen. That's not what

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Bonson's referring to. If you were to ask Bonson, I think, and he's in glory now so can't answer these things, but I did know him and I would assume that his response to that question would be that no, the certainty of which he was speaking is the certainty that God has indeed spoken and that there are absolutely non -negotiable truths that have been revealed by God that are absolutely necessary for us to stand upon and that it's not merely probably true that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again.

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It is absolutely true. It is necessarily true. And it is not just probable that a

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God exists, but it is absolutely necessary that the triune God exists for without that triune God there would be no basis upon which we could even be having this conversation, no basis for the regularity of nature, the laws of nature, the laws of logic or anything else.

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That's the certainty that he's talking about. He's not talking about a textual certainty regarding any minor variant that one might pull out of the

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NTTS apparatus or something like that. He's talking about the absolute certainty that comes from the fact that God has testified that he is the creator and that he has spoken with absolute assurance in Jesus Christ and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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And there's no question that God as creator, Jesus as God, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, none of that is in any way, shape, or form dependent upon any textual variant.

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So that doesn't even enter in at that point. I'm sorry, if I could ask real quick before you keep going.

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How can we be certain that he spoke through Christ if we don't have a certain written record detailing explicitly everything he fulfilled and everything he lived?

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Well, the epistemology of that assertion is something you really need to consider very, very carefully because what you're saying is, unless you have a photocopy of the original, you can't know that God has done anything.

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That's Bart Ehrman's position. You just enunciated Bart Ehrman's position that if there is a single variant anywhere that we cannot have any certainty whatsoever.

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And that would basically mean that God could not speak in a written format before 1949 because in 1949 the photocopier was invented.

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Until then, even printing, I mean, if you go out right now to your local

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Christian bookstore and buy three or four Thomas Nelson published King James versions or New King James versions of the

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Bible, I will be able to guarantee you that you will find variant readings between those

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Bibles published, same translation, published by the same publisher. I can guarantee you you'll find variations between them.

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Same thing in the King James. You have the Cambridge King James. You've got the Oxford King James. There are variants between those two as well.

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So printed edition can't do it. The only way that you could possibly have absolute fidelity in reproduction is photographically.

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And that technology did not develop until 1949. So in essence, you'd be saying

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God could not reveal himself in a scriptural fashion until 1949. But doesn't the necessity of certainty demand that kind of...

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No, it does not, as I just said. Reconciling is, you know, being instructed,

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I guess, in all this probabilistic. We live, you know, I go sit down in this chair.

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I'm 99 % probably sure it's going to hold my weight, but I'm not 100 % certain. I don't go up and check all the screws and things like that.

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And I think... Well, I've got a simple question for you, Landon. Where did the apostles ever present the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a probability?

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No, right, okay. No, see, I agree with that aspect of it. I guess I'm just having trouble with... Okay, did the apostles,

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Landon, did the apostles have a single perfect text that had no variations in it?

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The ones that they handwritten, I would assume, were perfect. Well, wait a minute. The fact of the matter is the apostles, the vast majority of citations of the

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Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Greek Septuagint. And the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ quoted textual variants from the

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Greek Septuagint where it varied from the Hebrew. Did you know that? No, I didn't know that extensively, no.

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Yeah, so if you work through the book of Hebrews, for example, Hebrews chapter 8, key text, and there is a fascinating textual variant where, in the book of Hebrews, it says,

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I did not care for them. And the Hebrew, it says, I was not a husband to them. Now, the apostle quoted the textual variant from the

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Greek Septuagint. And we believe that that was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So, what is the logical result from that?

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That the assumption that's being made that you have to have some type of mechanically photocopied original is not something that the apostles functioned on.

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It's not something that the New Testament writers functioned on. And it misses the connection between what

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I said earlier, and that is there is absolutely, positively, no probability, there is absolute certainty that the

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Scriptures, in any version, in any translation thereof, that it isn't a cultic translation,

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I'm not talking about the New World translation or some silliness like that, or Reverend Moon, or something like that, but they teach that God is the creator of all things in hundreds, if not thousands of passages.

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That Jesus Christ came from the Father, that Jesus Christ died, buried, and was risen again.

32:56

In other words, the aspects of the faith that are non -negotiable, and that we must press upon the unbeliever, and that we cannot pretend are matters of probability, are not subject to textual variation for their foundation in any way, shape, or form.

33:16

I mean, name me one of those things where it's based on only one text and there's a variant there. Well, what is the, let me ask the question this way, what is the textual command that we are only to have certainty in that and not have certainty in every yod or tittle?

33:33

Well again, every yod and tittle, as God inspired it, is going to be fulfilled.

33:38

That is not the same thing as some type of promise that every scribe who copies the

33:46

Scriptures is going to be perfect in his copying. And that's not promised in Scripture anywhere, correct?

33:52

No, it is not, and the reality of history is very clear testimony to the fact that the early

34:00

Christians, for example, tended to be from the poorer classes. And even when persecution wasn't taking place, many of the papyri manuscripts we've found are not by scribes that were overly well trained, if they were trained at all.

34:14

And yet Christians wanted their Scriptures to go out to everybody. So you have a choice.

34:20

I mean, if they took the perspective of well, we have to have absolute certainty, we have to have the best scribes in the world doing this, then you wouldn't have had the

34:27

Gospel going out to all the known world. And yet that's exactly what we find out happened, and I'm awful glad that it did, because the

34:35

Roman Empire then persecuted the Christians and destroyed thousands of copies of the New Testament and the

34:40

Bible as a whole as well. And if there had not been this massive copying enterprise going by people who loved the

34:46

Word of God, would we even have it today? Now obviously I believe in the sovereignty of God, we would, but that was the mechanism he used to preserve it.

34:54

But part of the preservation involves the wide distribution of it, which involves the minor textual variants.

35:01

But that's where the actual preservation takes place, Landon, is that when people come along and say, well, you don't know that the original writers actually believed in the deity of Christ, maybe that's been inserted.

35:12

We can absolutely prove that that's not the case, because we have such a wide distribution of the

35:18

New Testament over such a wide area, no one ever controlled it, no one could ever edit it. Now the minor textual variation, and in comparison to any other ancient work, it has the least amount, it's the purest text we have from antiquity, but that minor textual variation is the result of the methodology that God used to actually preserve the text.

35:38

You might want to go on my YouTube channel and go back to November of 08, as far as the date goes, and I posted up there my presentation at a church in, as I recall,

35:51

North Carolina, where I went through the transmission of the New Testament text and why we can trust the

35:58

New Testament and stuff like that. That might be something that would be really helpful to you. Right, right. And again, I didn't have any contention with our understanding of textual criticism.

36:07

This just threw me for a curveball, this one aspect of the certainty. It was a great conviction. I needed to be challenged on it, but these were things

36:13

I was wrestling in my mind. I fully understand. I'm not trying to get on you, Landon. I'm just trying to point out that I really do think that some of the thinking of that evidentialist school sometimes is really hard to get around, and it really concerns me, because fundamentally it is an apologetic system that leads you to only being able to argue for the greater probability of existence of a

36:40

God rather than to proclaim with power the existence of the triune God of Scripture, who will judge every man at the coming of Jesus Christ by his death, burial, and resurrection.

36:48

There isn't the authority in that kind of apologetic proclamation that there is in the apostolic proclamation, and that's what concerns me.

36:58

Right, right. Well, and just real quick, I had even asked in class Dr. Montgomery on the spot, and that's why

37:04

I'm thankful for your ministry, brother. I referenced your debate with John Dominic Crossan, and I asked him that John Dominic Crossan said,

37:12

In a post -enlightened world we cannot accept miracles. And in that understanding, all the evidence that he was showing us about a miracle was thrown out the window because his presupposition would not allow him, and I was so thankful you kept illustrating that in the debate, and all

37:26

Dr. Montgomery could say was, Well, Einstein proved in an open universe you have to give to the possibility.

37:32

I mean, that's not an adequate answer, so you can see where a heart and worldview matters. Oh, very much so, and I'm glad you noticed, because a lot of people do not notice, why some of the very first questions

37:44

I asked Dr. Crossan was to get him to illustrate, and get him to confess the presuppositional nature of his own commitment to his worldview, which led to the very foundation of his conclusions.

37:57

Yeah, he was reluctant, but you did a good job. I'm very thankful for that, bro. All righty. Well, Landon, thank you very much for, again, two excellent conversations so far today, so thank you very much.

38:07

Thank you, brother. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. Wow, 877 -753 -3341. We are covering the gamut today.

38:16

Do I go phone or Skype here? Go up, okay? Let's talk to Dan in Maine.

38:23

Hi, Dan. Hey, Dr. White. How are you doing? Doing good. Good. Let me just tell you that the first two callers have set a pretty high bar here, so have you done some deep breathing exercises, a little warm -up, getting ready to go?

38:38

Yeah, and I'm just thinking a free book would actually help me all the more. For Christmas, I could give it to someone.

38:46

It's all about others. Yes, oh, sure, yeah, right. Yeah, so, okay, with ETS over with,

38:55

Mike Whitmer, he's a professor of theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and on his blog he had a couple of quotes, well, he had a lot of quotes, actually several responses to N .T.

39:05

Wright and the like and Tom Schreiner, but he had a couple of quotes. Let me just mention something,

39:11

Dan, let me just mention something for the audience, because not everybody knows what ETS is or what happened at ETS, but the

39:16

Ecumenical, oh, I'm sorry, Evangelical Theological Society had its recent meetings back in November, and the big discussion in the plenary sessions was justification by faith.

39:27

It was primarily a discussion between N .T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham, I'm not sure where he is right now, but former

39:34

Bishop of Durham in the UK, and Thomas Schreiner from Southern Seminary on the nature of justification and things like that, and so that's the background of what

39:44

Dan is mentioning here. Okay. Yeah, there's two quotes, but they're somewhat long, but I'll read the first one, and I think you'll get the gist from there.

39:54

I can read the second one if needed, but in reference to people,

40:00

Jews or Roman Catholics, earning their salvation, he says this. He says, there is simply no way that human beings can make themselves fit for the presence or salvation of God, which, okay, we all agree.

40:11

Good. Then he goes on, he says, what is more, I know of no serious theologian, Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, who thinks otherwise.

40:22

Now, are we quoting Wright here? Yes. This is a

40:27

Tom Wright quote, a quotation here. He goes on to say that one of the best expositions of Augustinian or Lutheran or Calvinist doctrine of justification that he's ever heard was by a

40:39

Jesuit, Father Edward Yarnold. Anyway, he goes on to make another statement that says, the doctrine of justification, in other words, is not merely a doctrine which

40:50

Catholic and Protestant might just be able to agree on as a result of hard ecumenical endeavor.

40:58

He goes on to say, what matters is believing in Jesus and detailed agreement on justification itself.

41:06

Properly conceived isn't the thing which should determine Eucharistic fellowship. Yeah. He hasn't changed his position as far as that goes

41:15

That was in his What the Apostle Paul Really Said or whatever the title of that little book was, which sort of laid these things out a number of years ago, which is what

41:24

I've based a lot of my comments on N .T. Wright on over the years, and people have asked me to address that. And I close in that presentation with a quote from him, where he basically says that the

41:36

Judaizers in Galatia were Christians. They just had a different viewpoint. And I immediately cite

41:44

Galatians chapter 5. You have been severed from Christ, fallen from grace, and all the rest of this stuff.

41:51

And as D .A. Carson put it, N .T.

41:57

Wright's a brilliant guy, but you do not want to listen to what N .T. Wright has to say, especially about the theology of the

42:03

Reformation, the Reformers, or anything else, because he just doesn't know it. That's just all there is to it. He just doesn't know it and seems to be a little bit beyond correction at that point.

42:13

But the first statement that you read, if you bought

42:19

Wright's redefinition of justification to where it's no longer a soteriological issue, it's an ecclesiology issue, it is a matter of fellowship and not one standing with God, then you could at least understand what he's saying when he says,

42:34

I don't know any theologian who actually says this. Unless you're talking about a diehard

42:39

Pelagian. I think there's some guy on YouTube, I forget what his name is, that is an open

42:46

Pelagius was right, everybody else was wrong type guy. Okay, he might fit into that category if you're a complete

42:53

Pelagian. But even Joseph Smith said you at least had to do 100 % then grace would meet you.

43:01

So I can interpret it in that way and understand that, but that's not really addressing the issue of the

43:09

Reformation because from Tom Wright's perspective, the issue of the Reformation was a big mistake. The whole

43:14

Reformation was a big mistake. And it was a mistake on both sides. From his perspective, it wasn't a mistake on one side or the other side, it was both sides.

43:24

And if we'd all just listened to N .T. Wright, we'd all be able to have a one world church again. I mean, when's he going to be on TBN?

43:31

I often wonder, because a lot of his bringing up Ecumenical and Ecclesiological in his books, they've reminded me of,

43:43

I think it's Timothy George who said really the main difference right now between Roman Catholic and Evangelical is

43:50

Ecclesiological. And I'm starting to see these things connect together.

43:55

Oh yeah, yeah. Wow. Frank Beckwith and Timothy George and whose prison fellowship?

44:02

Chuck Olson. All these guys have adopted the perspective that the Gospel is not definitional of what the faith is anymore.

44:10

You can have completely different doctrines of justification and it's okay. We don't have to worry about that anymore.

44:17

And I've been warning about that on this program over and over and over again, but I am but a small voice in the wilderness, shall we say.

44:28

Small and loud in the state of Maine, though. Even here. Well, of course, there are only 12 Christians in the state of Maine by Constitutional law.

44:36

That's right. It is sad to look at the Northeast sometimes. I mean, I know there's still some outposts there, but man, if you want to see, it's almost like you guys are the closest to Europe and so you get infected first.

44:49

It's very true. I mean, honestly, I think I'm a pastor myself right now. Honestly, if I hear people that want to go to Europe, I say, well, you come try to start a church in New England.

45:02

It's a decent... Now, I've heard, and you would know better, that Europe is actually much colder, even than New England, which is still blowing me away.

45:09

Well, and Australia as well. I mean, talk with our friends down there. It's one person at a time type thing.

45:15

But look, that's pretty much the whole world right now and that's where we're called to faithfulness. So, Dan, keep preaching the

45:21

Word up there and don't let N .T. Wright convince you that you need to stop preaching imputation. Thanks, Dr.

45:27

Wright. You have a good one. Thanks, Dan. Bye -bye. All right, great call so far. Okay, Pierce in the

45:34

UK, it's all up to you, brother, because we have had really good calls so far, so the pressure is really big on you right now.

45:43

Cool, not a problem. I've got a couple of good questions for you. Are you talking quietly because it's so late there?

45:52

Yeah. It sounds like you're leaning over your computer, trying not to wake the rest of everybody up.

46:01

Yeah, well done. The first question

46:07

I've got for you is how do you determine a reliable Hadith? And I ask this because when

46:12

I've talked to other Muslims about Aisha and things, they say that even in the more reliable Hadiths, such as Bukhari and the

46:22

Muslim one or something, in there, that there are certain sections of it which are not reliable, where what's been recorded has been second - or third -hand information, and the stuff with Aisha and the

46:37

Prophet line were examples of that or something. Okay. First, realize the vast majority of Muslims who tell you that a certain

46:49

Hadith is unreliable themselves know next to nothing about the sciences of Hadith.

46:55

Secondly, even the people who do, if you look very, very carefully, the system,

47:03

I think, is just a little bit rigged, okay? If you have a Hadith that is in both

47:08

Bukhari and Muslim, anybody who would question that is obviously just seeking to try to avoid somebody dealing with what's actually there.

47:17

If you want to really know the answer to this question,

47:23

I'm not in a position right now, without writing out notes, to go through much of this, but if you really want to know,

47:31

I think Sheikh Yasser Qadhi, Abu Amr Yasser Qadhi's lectures on Hadith sciences are understandable.

47:39

They're not easy to work through. I mean, I listened to, I don't know, four or five hours once straight on about a 75 -mile bike ride.

47:49

It's not easy. I'd like to sit back down and do it again, but they are available online for free, and I'm trying to remember where I found them, but there was this

48:02

Islamic site. Maybe you could drop us a line. I might be able to look it up for you so you can track it down, but at least when you listen to someone like Yasser Qadhi, you have a very clear outline as to what the standards are, and, for example, he's one of them that says when you have a

48:22

Hadith that is narrated in both collections, both Sahih al -Bukhari and Sahih al -Muslim, that is the highest level of authority that a

48:35

Hadith can have when it's found in both those collections, when it's narrated by both of them. That makes it extremely strong, but sometimes people go, well, that's an

48:43

Ahad Hadith. There's only one person that narrated it. They'll try to find ways around it, but he really lays out five criteria by which you can examine these things, and one of them to me is a little bit iffy in the sense that it sort of establishes an orthodox understanding as the criterion, but all the

49:05

Hadith stuff, that's a huge, huge area, and my experience that seemingly is what you're experiencing is that when you raise issues like that, like I quoted a

49:17

Hadith from Sahih al -Muslim where a Christian or a Jew was given in the place of Muslims so that they might get out of the hellfire.

49:27

Well, only one person narrated that. Well, but its chain is strong and the narration is strong, and you can go toe -to -toe on those things if you sort of learn what the background is, but it normally takes a fair amount of work.

49:40

Okay, that's cool. Well, I'll do that. The other thing is, is something

49:45

I've realized with the Qur 'an is that on the resurrection narrative, if you put it side -by -side with the

49:55

New Testament documents, the New Testament documents are going to be much more superior because they're closer to the actual time, and so I'm just wondering how you'd go about putting a good comparison of those documents together.

50:15

What kind of criteria would you look at? Okay, I'm a little bit confused. When you said comparing the accounts of the what in the

50:22

Qur 'an? Of the resurrection of Jesus. Well, there is no resurrection of Jesus in the

50:29

Qur 'an. Yeah, I know, but I'm on that topic. Sorry.

50:35

Well, okay, I'm a little confused because Surah 4, verse 157 denies the crucifixion, so that's not in the

50:41

Qur 'an, so I'm confused as to what you're asking. I apologize. Okay, what

50:47

I'm asking is how to go about actually explaining the criteria for actually analyzing them side -by -side so that you can say, well, the

51:04

Qur 'an is saying one thing about the resurrection, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John say another, and so what's more reliable, and like that?

51:13

Well, two things. I mean, just simply on a historical basis, on a historical level, you have to point out that you have first -century documents that are contemporaneous with the events, versus a single document that has absolutely no direct literary or historical connection to the events whatsoever.

51:29

That's why, historically, no one takes the Qur 'an as having any historical relevance to the testimony concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ at all.

51:38

I mean, it's only a theological conclusion that the Muslim draws based upon their belief that the Qur 'an is the word of God, but the idea that there's any historical relevance to Surah 4, verse 157 in regards to the

51:48

Qur 'an is bogus, it's ridiculous. But what you can do, that I have found to be interesting, and has caught a few people up short, is if they want to try to make the argument that because there are differences in narration as far as order of events and things like that between the synoptic

52:07

Gospels on the resurrection and things like that, there are parallel passages in the Qur 'an as well.

52:13

And the problem that they have is this. I can explain differences between the synoptic

52:20

Gospels based upon the fact that we have different authors writing at different times to different audiences, and they might telescope events, or summarize events, or put events in different orders for various purposes, because I have different authors.

52:32

I have Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And my doctrine of inspiration doesn't mean that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are just automatic typewriters.

52:39

They're individuals, and God uses them as individuals in the writing of His word. The Muslim doesn't have that.

52:46

The Muslim has a single document that is not even mediated via Muhammad.

52:51

They can't even say that this is Muhammad's understanding. Muhammad is simply reciting what has been spoken to him.

52:58

And so when you come up with parallel passages in the Qur 'an, but they're different, they use different words, and they have different orders of events, and things like that, how do you explain that?

53:10

Any answer they're going to have to come up with is going to allow me full latitude in the synoptic Gospels if they just allow the same standard to be used, but the vast majority of Muslims have never even seen.

53:21

For example, look up the number of times, and the Qur 'an does it I think four times, the number of times that the fact that Iblis, Satan, would not bow down to Adam.

53:32

Look up the number of times the Qur 'an narrates that event, and how many differences there are between the narrations of that same event.

53:39

This is supposed to be just one author, and yet using different words, different order, etc., etc. They have to engage in some type of synoptic parallelism at that point on their own part, but they won't allow that for us, and so I found that to be extremely useful to go that direction.

53:56

Oh, okay. From what I've looked into, I thought that there are quite a few authors of the

54:04

Qur 'an because Muhammad preached to his followers. Certainly not from their perspective.

54:10

I mean, there are scholars today who theorize a compilation period of the

54:16

Qur 'an so that you have different people involved in editing and things like that, but the Islamic perspective is that the

54:23

Qur 'an is solely given by Muhammad, and that the collection of the

54:30

Qur 'an under Uthman about 20 years after Muhammad's death is solely bringing together the memories and the scraps of portions of the

54:40

Qur 'an to produce a single mushaf, a single manuscript. But the idea of multiple authors would be rejected by all

54:49

Orthodox Muslims. Okay, sweet. I have one more question for you here.

54:58

How does the Qur 'an slash Hadith define a true prophet? And I ask this because with Islam, their idea of prophethood must be quite a bit different to ours, and if you can show an inconsistency with the prophethood, certainly in the

55:19

Qur 'an anyway, you can show that the Qur 'an is wrong. Well, first of all,

55:26

Qur 'an slash Hadith, two different things there, but the Islamic understanding of a prophet is one chosen by God who is particularly pure.

55:35

That's why they have such a problem with the Bible talking about Solomon's many wives or David's sin with Bathsheba.

55:43

It's funny, the Qur 'an, if you've read it, will mention Nathan's coming to David and Nathan's preaching to David and David's repentance, but it won't talk about Bathsheba and it won't talk about Uriah and it won't talk about what the sin was.

55:57

So the author of the Qur 'an knew what the story was, but cleaned it up because they can't have a prophet who would engage in murder or adultery.

56:07

That's just not possible. So Noah doesn't get drunk and all that stuff is taken away because from the

56:12

Islamic perspective that's not what a prophet could ever be. So the standard of what a prophet is really is in Allah's choice of that prophet and the one thing that joins all the prophets together is their consistent testimony to la ilaha illallah, to that statement of monotheism.

56:33

All the prophets brought that message. So there is a different understanding of what a prophet was in the

56:42

Old Testament, but remember that the Muslim is going to be reading the Old Testament prophethood through the lens of the

56:48

Qur 'an rather than the other way around. Even though his own book recognizes the existence of the Torah and the Injil, he's still going to be reinterpreting those things through the lens of the

56:57

Qur 'an and it's really difficult to try to take the Old Testament context of what a prophet was and then say did

57:04

Muhammad live up to that. That's very difficult for the Muslim mind to wrap around.

57:09

You have to try to get it thinking independently of its own traditions at that point to get there. So it's a little bit difficult to do.

57:17

But, hey Pierce, thank you very much for your phone call this late or early in the morning there. Hopefully if you're in the

57:23

London area I'll maybe get to see you in February. If not, well, thanks for calling.

57:29

Cool, thanks Dr. White. God bless. Okay, thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. Hey Matt, sorry about that, but I need to be running right at the end of the program today and the end of the program is upon us.

57:40

Wow, talk about covering a wide range of topics today. I love programs like that.

57:50

They go by so very, very fast. And I very much appreciate the great calls that we got today and the wide range of topics.

57:58

I hope you like programs like this because we like doing them. Were you going to say something there,

58:03

Mr. Pierce? Well, you're a minute early by the way, but hey, we'll kick the closer in now. That's fine. I did want to remind folks that Sir Brass here has been working very hard lately in getting the old dividing lines from 2002, 2001, 2000 up in the shopping cart.

58:26

And he's gotten a bunch of them up there. So for you dividing line junkies that just absolutely have to have your fix,

58:33

Algo has a challenge now because he's got to get caught back up in those early years. And he's actually now starting to work.

58:40

He just completed, I believe, 2000 and is now going to start working his way back to 99, 98.

58:46

And I think there's some gaps in there in 2000, 2001 that still have to be discovered. That's frightening and sad. But we're digging them up right and left.

58:53

All right, so those are in the store at aomin .org. Well, if anybody's listening right now, they know about aomin .org

59:00

anyways. All right, excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm going to be in St.

59:07

Charles tomorrow evening, Lord willing, over the weekend, talking about the New Testament.

59:13

And then I will be on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network Monday through Wednesday of next week on the

59:18

Jesus or Muhammad Marathon. Please feel free to tune in. We're going to try to do a dividing line via Skype on Tuesday and maybe, maybe a guest host on Thursday of next week.

59:31

We'll see if we can work it out. We'll try. Thanks for listening. God bless. God bless.

01:00:33

God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless.