Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

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

Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 4602 or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

James white Dear Dave and TA if Calvinism is true biblically then how does it reconcile its belief that God?

predestined some to hell before they were born with Romans 5 12 and 5 18

Dave let me read Romans 5 12 and 5 18 Romans 5 12

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned and 5 18 therefore as by the offense of one

Judgment came upon all men to condemnation Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life

David see all in here that all men. Mm -hmm. Yeah, all men that would make those verses

I would think problematic for Calvinist, but how do they respond is as you know Well Tom first of all

And whoever wrote wrote this in said that how they reconciled

God predestined some to hell before they were even born Now the

Calvinist some would accept that but many Calvinist would deny that They in fact some

Calvinist would say God didn't predestine anybody to hell. He just let him go Well Christ didn't die for them so they couldn't possibly escape hell could they you don't even have a gospel for them to believe

Well, yeah, but God didn't predestine them there. He just let them go. He's not providing salvation for them but Dave this verse says wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and So death passed upon all men

That all have sinned in that isn't this a condition necessary to be predestined to hell

Or let's say even if they don't isn't that a condition that needed to take place in other words

This wasn't something that God did before the beginning of time, which a Calvinist would tell you that's the way it works

Yeah, but all have sinned so all By by nature of sinners and because of that all are headed for for hell

Okay, let me find this verse that we're looking at let's look at verse 18 again because I think that would be the toughest one for the

Calvinist Romans 5 18 therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation

Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life

Well, how does the Calvinist get around that same way I get around John 3 16 for God so loved the world

He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believe in him We have it to understand that means the world of the elect.

So when it says The free gift came upon all men unto justification.

Well, no, wait a minute. That doesn't mean all men Actually, it means all of the elect you see but whoever wrote this question

David what about just before that? As by the offense of one judgment came upon all men.

Did it only come upon you? No, see you've got a parallelism here.

You've got a tip for tat or whatever It's the same as you have an Isaiah 53

All we like sheep have gone astray We've turned everyone to his own way and the

Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all now

Who went astray all? Mankind all have sinned Well, then all the ones who sinned their iniquity was laid upon Christ and it does say

John the Baptist to say behold the Lamb of God Who beareth away the sins of the world

But the Calvinist gets around it by saying when it's talking about those who have sinned, that's everybody

But when it's talking about those from whom Christ died No, no, that's only the elect that could only be the election then they can argue

Well, wait a minute, then that would mean that some of Christ's blood was shed It was shed in vain.

It's not everybody gets saved, but he dies for everybody But it says he came to save sinners

Well, but if he doesn't save some of the sinners that he came to save Then the

Bible isn't true. So they have all kinds of arguments Tom But what do we come down to but there are some tough verses

There are so many verses that are very clear. This is one of them All men unto condemnation

All men unto life. It's very clear or if we went to first Timothy 2 verse 4

He would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth Well, how do they get around that?

Well, all that means all of the elect some Calvinists would say others like John MacArthur if you look in his

MacArthur study Bible, he says no God has two wills They will desire and a will of decree

He really desires all to be saved, but he doesn't decree for all to be saved

So now we have a God who what I thought he could do anything He wanted to do and he really desires for all to be saved

But then he stopped short of bringing them to salvation Tom Calvinism is

And do I dare to say I think It maligns God The Bible says

God is love and we title the book. What love is this? You say

God loves everybody, but he doesn't want everybody to be saved or he wants them to be saved

But he doesn't say what love is this? Well, that's just a great way to start the program, isn't it

I I Was sent that clip and I immediately asked now, is there a date provided because It said had been posted just very recently in the within the past few weeks

Obviously a lot of my comments will be based upon assuming that this is a fairly recent Clip I mean the the number on it indicated

March of this year But if it was just posted a few weeks ago, you know, I don't know but it's

I'm going to have to assume that this is after our Encounters after the writing of the book and so the comments that would have go from there you'll notice a few things, of course that is

TA McMahon and Dave Hunt on the Bree and call and Just a few things.

Do you notice I wrote an open letter to Dave Hunt what? 2002 Somewhere around in there forget what the date was

I suppose I could pull it up and look at it, but I wrote an open letter to Dave Hunt years ago in which

I Explained to him the fact that we're not talking about the world of the elect in John 3

That there is no word whosoever in John 3. It is all the believing ones in John 3 and Has any of that registered

No, because Dave is still making the same mistakes on the text that he made when we did our first radio program on Kpxq many many years ago

He cannot accept correction and and does not show a whole lot of understanding of even the issues that are raised to him

It reminds me of his comments about John Piper's book on the justification of God Well, there's just a whole lot of Greek and other languages in there and that's just you know you just don't need all that stuff and For his followers that you know that works that sort of ends all meaningful exegesis in the

New Testament or of the Old Testament or any meaningful apologetics against anyone who would provide an in -depth critique of Christian belief, but That's just sort of the way it is then you heard

The argument from Isaiah 53 all we like sheep have gone astray. Well who went astray? Well, everybody did therefore all of everyone's sins has been laid on Christ, but Who is saying this who is making this confession of being sinners

Do all people make that confession of being sinners? No all we like sheep have gone astray look at Isaiah 53

He will see his seed He will justify the many intercede for Transgressors and is this anything new have

I not brought these things up to Dave Hunt's attention before of course I have Does he show any any knowledge of having worked through these things no because again for people who are in that form of fundamentalism their tradition and the

Word of God are the same thing and Therefore to even consider that their tradition could be wrong is to question the

Word of God itself and so while it's perfectly consistent to read Isaiah 53 and to recognize the confession of the people of God there and to see the consistency in the text

That escapes mr. Hunt's attention and mr. McMahon for that matter But did you see what happened with with the text?

I I started off without any introduction so you could just listen That was was heads or tails made out of Romans chapter 5 was anything in the context mentioned

Was was the the obvious fact what do any of these do either of these men show any knowledge?

of having taken the time to find out what godly men of the past have said about Romans chapter 5 and and And availed themselves of their wisdom and insight.

I Saw no evidence of it myself Do they they seem to have any idea that what you have here is two?

Humanities those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ and that all who are in Adam received death from Adam and All who are in Christ receive life from him, but did you catch what

Dave Hunt ended up doing? if you follow his argumentation on 518 that is the argumentation of universalism if You do not see the distinction between Adam and Christ and recognize that there is a that while all are in Adam Not all are in Christ and that the all's are

Limited by the person to whom they are referred to all in Adam all in Christ if you don't see that you are

Preaching universalism now Dave Hunt doesn't like systematic theology And he doesn't do systematic theology, and he thinks that you know if you do that that you know

You know he just wants to be biblical see But what he does in the process is he ends up preaching systematic theology out of his ignorance of systematic theology

That's the problem with that kind of anti intellectualist mindset That says you know it's a little bit similar to George Bryson and some of the comments

He made when we played his mp3s. You know we just don't do that systematic theology stuff Well, you're gonna one way or the other or you're gonna make mincemeat out of the text itself

And what it allegedly is teaching and what he does in 518 Is he says this is a simple tax?

This is this is straightforward this must cause the Calvinist all sorts of problems has he ever even read a reformed exegesis has he read

Calvin or Murray or Moo or any of these people no of course not of course not and and doesn't have any interest in doing that whatsoever

So he's talking to the top of his head at this point, but be it as it may he says well

Hey, this is this is straightforward. This is this is simple stuff So then let's do one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men and all men of course

Means every single human being therefore even so through one act of righteousness Their result of justification of life to all men so there you go

All we got to do is just make this theoretical. Oh wait wait a minute, so is the condemnation theoretical

You see if you don't see that the all men is all men and Adam all men in Christ if you don't see the two

Humanities here you can't escape universalism here Because if the if the all men of the first phrase

Transgression resulted combination condemnation to all men that is not a hypothetical condemnation.

That is a real condemnation and Therefore the second phrase if you're gonna ignore what's come before if you're gonna ignore

Great Christ and Adam if you're gonna ignore that the the free gift is not like the transgression if you're just gonna

Skip from 12 to 18 like they did show no understanding of the text

Nothing about exegesis, you're just gonna manhandle this text show no respect for it you respect your traditions born you respect the

Bible The result is Dave hunt just taught universalism now would he deny that of course he would but that's the problem is what he says and what he does are two different things because there's no desire to be consistent and So you have all this stuff about well

You know the Calvinists have this argument they have that argument and in the process you end up massacring

Romans chapter 5 and then accusing Calvinist of course of maligning God and blobby blah blah blah blah blah

So there you have there you have a you know we haven't haven't played anything by Dave hunt a long time and that was

Sent over to me an email, and I thought well, okay That was that was definitely worth a little a little attention, and then

I want to play something else for you We're gonna be covering a number of topics today on the program before we get back to the

Bible answer man And maybe even talk a little about Steve Ray but I want to cover some other stuff first because be honest with you,

I'm sick and tired of Romanist apologists and I use that term specifically for those who their ultimate authority is nothing but Service to Rome and that definitely is descriptive of Steve Ray and Phil provost making people like that but I'm sick and tired of the of the hypocrisy the double standards the

The insults the dishonesty and all the rest that stuff You know you can only document things so clearly and so forcefully so many times you know when everybody's putting the same black and white figures up on the screen and Somebody you know wants to try to hold me accountable

For the gay and homosexual tradition the Mormons of Jehovah's Witnesses and the

Sweden borg enists As if that's all due to solo scriptura folks hey buy my newest

DVD and go with me on a pilgrimage You know after a while you just you just want to go oh come on, please is there somebody serious out there

Is there is there somebody who's who's I please you know so I want to try to deal with some actually serious stuff and Leave that stuff a little bit too later because it's just it's just so silly here is a section of a

Presentation made by my opponent almost next month. It's almost September The the crews and the debate are coming up fast, and if you have been sitting on the fence folks get off those fences quickly

Because there's not much time left. I'll be debating Shabir Ali on the issue of the atonement

October 19th in Seattle and Part of this presentation he was giving a presentation on the divine proofs of the prophethood of Muhammad and He focused in upon a surah that I likewise have focused in upon surah 112

Ali class the purity the sincerity and I think he rightly

Since he is the head of the the dawah Center up there in Toronto Toronto and dawah is

Basically giving an answer an apologetic a defense An invitation to Islam since he's the head of that he views surah 112 is sort of laying out the means by which dawah is to be is to be offered and So he mentioned surah 112 we've talked about surah 112 before on on the program

Let me just give you a brief run -through of it again and say he is Allah the one and only all of the eternal absolute he begetteth not nor is he begotten and There is none like unto him.

I have mentioned that third ayah Kulhu Allah ahad.

I'm sorry. That's that's the first one not that's the first ayah not the the third ayah the third ayah talks about begetting and that begettal

Use the term Yalad which is very parallel to Hebrew usage for Yellid Yulid to give birth a young child.

I remember Hebrew and Arabic are both Semitic languages and The assertion is that he begetteth not nor is he begotten and This is where Islam, you know really, we have to understand what

Islam is saying and did Muhammad understand what it means to say Jesus the Son of God and What is the

Islamic the the Quranic understanding of the Trinity and all these things related to it and So it's important stuff and He addresses this now, obviously this is not a discussion of the whole story

But what he's doing is he's presenting surah 112 as an evidence of the divine nature of the

Quran But in the process says some interesting things So I wanted to listen to what he had to say respond to some of it and then we'll move on to other topics

Here's here's Shabir Ali on surah 112 a simple example that you can appreciate very easily

Think of this to have surah to the class It is a very simple surah it expresses the core beliefs of Islam and you can find that there is a

Constant rhythm a rhyme a beat throughout it and everything is in place

No word extra and nothing short of what needs to be said So cool starting with that say it is a directive to the

Muslim how to give dawah to the to the Christian Stay cool. Oh Allah who

I had he is Allah the one that is our first statement of belief shared by Muslims and shared by Christians we start with what is common and we see where that leads us a lot of somewhat

Allah is eternal They will agree with that just as we will Now, let me just stop right there just for a moment because I do want to respond to some of these things

I mentioned I have written about this in the blog. I went through surah 112 and I mentioned that when we say

Allah the one and only ahad is related linguistically to a had in the

In the shema shema. Yes, right. Oh, yeah way Elohim. Yahweh a had he is one but but The assumption the overriding presuppositional assumption of the

Muslim and the oneness Pentecostal As well as the Jehovah's Witness is that a had?

That oneness in the shema of Deuteronomy That that is a oneness of person that is

Unitarianism that this is a Unitarian presupposition and of course the

Trinitarian Christian says there's a oneness of being there is only one being that is God But that being is is unlimited eternal

And is shared by three divine persons the Father the Son the Holy Spirit that's a had does not demand of us

Unitarianism and I've mentioned many times that you have to you know Be aware of the fact that people are going to assume that Jehovah's Witnesses one is

Pentecostals whoever and that this is a common issue that we need to deal with now up To this point then as long as we do not insert these

Unitarian presuppositions Certainly there are all sorts of biblical passages that parallel this and in fact.

I would say parallel this with considerably more beauty Than you find it in the

Quran again beauty is a subjective thing and that's one of the reasons I find this particular means of trying to prove the divine origin of the

Quran to be less than convincing, but Allah We say Yahweh is the one and only

Yahweh the eternal absolute There's no problem there you can find all sorts of texts in Jeremiah and Jeremiah chapter 10 and in Isaiah 40 through 48 that would parallel these things and go beyond these things as long as that that oneness

That is asserted in ahad and in Samad the eternal absolute though You don't read into those

Arabic terms some kind of Unitarianism which later Islam of course does But as far as just the overarching concept of God's Absoluteness sure no problem, and what what

Shabir is basically saying is of this point. We don't have a divisions well Maybe maybe not depends on whether those

Unitarian presuppositions are being snuck in It follows by logical necessity that if Allah is only one and if he is a summer

Then he does not beget nor is he begotten because look if he begets then he will have a child and the child would have to be godlike so you would have two of them and since there is only one you cannot have two and If he was you led if he himself was given birth to that means he would have a father

If he has a father the father would be older than him Why doesn't him more eternal than he is and you cannot have one who is more a summer than a summer?

so here's here's the assumption on the part of a

You know I've heard Shabir referred to as an imam. I've heard him referred to as a sheikh

I Confess some level of ignorance of exactly how those terms are officially defined and how they vary from location to location but Here here you have someone who clearly is very knowledgeable Demonstrating that it it seems that the

Muslim cannot break out of the limitations of the

Quranic categories and actually listen to what it is that Christians are saying when they say that there is a relationship of father and son between the father and Jesus between the first and second persons of the

Trinity That this relationship is an eternal relationship. It did not take place in time

Hence one is not quote -unquote older than the other that this is not a physical relationship

Of a parent and a child with a mother which seems to be how

Muhammad understood What he had heard second and third hand from Christians in his travels and as they would sit around the campfire at night and talk and so though Certainly this information is available

To Shabir Ali it is very difficult for the believing Muslim to break out of the limiting categories of the

Quran especially when those limiting categories simply are insufficient to express the issues that they allegedly are addressing which specifically would include the

Christian doctrine of the Trinity and So the the criticism that was just leveled at the

Christian doctrine the Trinity doesn't actually address what? Christians believed at the time of the writing of the

Quran and before them it doesn't address the eternal nature of the relationship of the

Father the Son the Spirit and So it is limited in its understanding of these terms

Both to beget and to be begotten Yaludin Yolad those two terms

Obviously we would not say that God's being is begotten in any way

But the relationship between the persons is one that is revealed to us of Father Son and Spirit we can we have to be given a way to distinguish between Father Son and Spirit and So they take that because of Muhammad's misunderstandings

They take that to be a physical relationship a derivation

Forcing the Sun therefore while a godlike being to be a second God who is not as old as the first God and hence the repetitive charges of polytheism on the part of Islamic apologists toward Christianity It follows by logical necessity

Lamia lid well, I'm you lad and also it follows well I'm yet another who could for one ahead and there is none

Comparable unto him this that last phrase there is none comparable unto him

Many texts in the Bible say the exact same things to whom will you liken me?

Yahweh demands of his people in the demonstration of his uniqueness as God, but it does not follow

That that uniqueness is tied to presupposition Lee a unitarian assumption

I'm like him you see we can compare two human beings one is stronger than the other But there is nothing to compare

God to because he is that I had and he is a summit a short Surah that rhymes for all coho

No, I had a lot of summit. Let me edit well I'm you lad well Before one

I had there's a constant rhyme and beat throughout it and everything is in place nothing excess nothing short

And that is just an example of the literary masterpiece that the Quran is just looking at a short surah like that Okay, well

That allowed us to discuss some of the most important things in regards the doctrine of God But is it really valid to say wow look isn't isn't that isn't that such a wonderful surah, and it's so Beautiful and balanced and and this demonstrates the divine nature of the

Quran well Let's go to a little bit earlier surah, that's about the same length surah 105 and It's a five ayahs long instead of the four ayahs of Ali class what sir 112 this

I'll feel the Well I'll just read it for you. Here's here's

Let's see if if you find this just compellingly beautiful So that you can just automatically see that it's divine in origin

Here's here's what it says seest thou not how thy Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant

Did he not make their treacherous plan go astray and he sent against them flights of birds

Striking them with stones of baked clay Then did he make them like an empty field of stocks and straw of which the corn has been eaten up There it is there's there's surah 105 and It has a historical background that the vast majority of humanity would have no idea what on earth it was the historical background has to do with story about Abraha the

Abyssinian and an army coming against Mecca that had elephants and you know elephants well

We've all seen we've all seen Lord the Rings. We know that elephants are tough to stop You know

I mean that they start swinging things around and white people off of horses and everything else and of course they weren't quite that big an elephant, but hey whatever and As the army was approaching

Mecca flights of birds dropped Stones of baked clay on them and and and Mecca was saved see now the vast majority of humanity has never heard

Of this particular story about the Abyssinian army coming toward Mecca and birds dropping

Baked clay on them and driving them away, but that's what surah 105 is is it's all about Now when

I read that I go. You know I know lots of texts. I mean,

I'm sorry, but I Think I could make a pretty good argument That there is nothing in surah 105 that comes even close to the

Carmen Christie and Philippians 2 5 through 11, okay? There ain't nothing there, okay, and so You know if the challenge is will you all produce just one surah like the

Quran well? I don't think that would be overly difficult to do actually Now of course someone's gonna say well you need to read it in Arabic well, okay?

But I don't think that's gonna change much because we can you know read the

Carmen Christie in Arabic and it'll be pretty too because it's Rhythmic and so on and so forth and that's why this particular alleged proof of the

Quran just doesn't work It just doesn't carry any water and since it is an alleged proof found in the

Quran itself That does make you wonder just a little bit at the standards of the author of the

Quran who would think that this would in fact provide a meaningful Argument in regards to the divine nature of the

Quran so there you have a little discussion of so what are we covered so far? We have we've covered

Romans 5 with with Dave Hunt and found him to be teaching universalism without meaning to because he doesn't follow the context and doesn't do exegesis and forgetting about the corrections that have been offered to him in the past in regards to various texts and now we've looked at the

Shabir Ali talking about Ali class surah 112 and What it means and how to avoid the presuppositions that they read into the text of Unitarianism And so the last section will will deal of course with the

Bible answer man broadcast as we have been doing But before we get to that Yesterday I posted on the blog a number of things the blog sort of exploded for a few days as as it tends to do once in a while and I Don't know

I as I saw the post coming from Steve Ray and Steve has now gone off on a pilgrimage and and We know the pilgrimages are just wonderfully holy things and so we can't expect much in the way of Interaction from from Steve while he's on the pilgrimages

But he's been he's been doing that and as he was packing up and leaving

Even though I Am nothing, but a a petty Pope and likened unto a rabid dog and so predictable

I'm sure all this thing just said very charitably I mean I we realize I've gotten the lesson if it's in defense of Rome.

It's always charitable and If it is ever against Rome then

Then It's it's by nature not not sure

I have a clue what that means I I don't a creek a what I Can't hear a word.

You're saying the pilgrimage in Denver. Oh Okay, you know everybody was walking by the creek well.

I mean he's gonna go for a walk by a creek Really should have gone with your first instinct on that one

All right That's called edit that one out of the cool edit file

Cuz now I gotta stop and explain all this stuff see what he's talking about is when we were up in Denver in 1993 during World Youth Day Everybody had to walk to Cherry Creek State Park for the papal mass

And they called it a pilgrimage Sort of was because it was so stinging hot and people were really unhappy about having to walk so far and they walked along this

Creek bed to get to the mass site, and we stood alongside the creek Wasn't a creek.

It was just sort of a depression in the ground. I guess but All these people walking by and that's where we stood to pass out our tracks, and so that's what that was all about I think

I need to get a button in here that cuts off your microphone because that that's just the only way to Put a little yeah

So anyway When even wonky and channel says the netcast has rolled off the tracks that that's

When wonky says we've lost it. That's that's about as bad as it gets so anyway In fact now now

I'm noticing someone talking about watching the lunar eclipse that you know is the lunar eclipse last night Full lunar eclipse last night.

I even got believe it or not in the middle of night I was still just barely awake enough to hold the camera still long enough

I actually got some interesting shots of it given how dark it was so After running outside to turn off the car alarm on the car at 12 -something at night, which was fun, too

Anyway, boy, we did really lose it. So what in the world was that it was which which religion am

I on now? Oh, yeah, Steve, right, okay We I guess before Steve left he you know tossed out his his replies and In essence, what was his reply?

Well, I think I captured the essence of it at the end of the blog article that I put out and the blog article

Gave an argument. I Gave a little graphic That described who has killed the most

Christians over the course of the history of the church and the fifth largest group Killing Christians is the

Roman Catholic Church almost five Million martyrs on her her hands pretty close to the

Muslims at that point and I Made the argument.

What if I just constantly over and over again? started off my Discussions with people by saying oh, you're a

Catholic apologist. So you you defend the group that is murdered 18 million martyrs

Now see Steve Ray did that you Kevin Johnson was trying to talk to him on his blog last week and What was one of the very first things that he said to Kevin Johnson?

Oh, are you one of those thirty three thousand Protestant denominations that come from the Reformation? So the parallels perfect here because the actual number of denominations listed by the source is less than nine thousand and what

I did is I took the numbers and the Percentages and I can actually do percentages. I can tell the difference between five point six and point zero five six percent and Eighteen million is right around the same increase

That Ray and Staples and these others have been pulling out of this resource for a very very very long time and so I Gave the presentation

You know, what if you went to the source and discovered that I had been inflating this number and and if I responded by saying oh

So you think you think that four point nine million martyrs is okay That's an absurd response.

That is so clearly Avoiding the weight of the issue. You're not avoiding you're not answering the issue.

And so when Steve Ray Replies both in PDF and I was blogged to me and says

Oh James White thinks at 9 ,000 denominations is okay Well, I've pointed out it's not 9 ,000 isn't even a meaningful number either at least in the context in which this is being used

Because you can't blame The 9 ,000. I mean they're including for example oneness

Pentecostals In that list that's not because of solo script Torah In fact as I have said many many times the reason for divisions and I have decried divisions many times

I have in my published writings Defended the importance of the local church I have spoken against church shopping and church hopping and I wrote a book against Harold camping because he was attacking the church and I've talked

About the church and in pulpit crimes and and of course Steve Ray doesn't read any of those things because he's above Worrying about what rabid dogs have to say

So while we will read their materials and respond to their published materials They don't have any reason to read we have to say because we're just not bright enough

For them to even consider that we might have something to say So so I understand he's never read any of those things, but that of course leads to his misrepresenting me

But then again, it's okay to misrepresent petty popes and rabid dogs because they don't really have the rights to be represented in a charitable fashion

But but you can misrepresent them charitably because you're first Roman Catholic so anyway, I Have a long history of speaking the truth here, but I have also said this the same thing over and over again and that is the reason for the divisions between believing

Christians is not Because of solo scriptura it is because of not practicing solo scriptura

It is because of allowing your traditions to influence and determine your conclusions

Now the large portion of people that are called Protestants they don't even know what solo scriptura is

They just the idea that oh, they're just dedicated to solo scriptura and so they're applying it and please

We just listen to Dave Hunt. Here's a perfect example. Here's a guy who does know what solo scriptura is

He would say he believes it and yet when I point out to him his traditions

What did he say so long ago and what would he continue to say to this day James I have no traditions and So if you think you have no traditions, you can't practice solo scriptura, can you?

Because there's no way you're gonna be able to test your traditions by the higher authority of Scripture if you are so blind their existence

You don't think they're there So the whole idea to blame

These numbers these divisions on Solo scriptura the very starting point of the comparison the very starting point of the argument that has been used

By these Catholic apologists over and over I documented my first blog article I gave you quotes from the all these people who have used this argument over and over again.

The very starting presupposition is absurd It's wrong. It's invalid. It's illogical.

It's irrational and they should flee from it They should apologize for ever having used it.

Will they I can guarantee you they will not They will not but then even with that aside

Then when you go to the source when the source doesn't say what they

Think it says and and after posting the pages himself when

Steve Reagan's a I was only 31 ,000 but that was back in 2000. It's probably about 39 ,000 now,

I'll apologize. Ha ha ha ha ha and Yet in the process

Try to hold us accountable for Vietnamese radio groups and the

Sweden Borgin is and the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the oneness Pentecostals and the gay homosexual tradition and You know

Caribbean oneness Pentecostals To try to hold us accountable for those and call them

Protestant denominations Well, they're not Catholic. Oh and the old Catholics And the

Latin rights and these are all listed They're right on the stuff that he's even posting on his website.

You can go read it for yourself. It's right there Well, you got to blow them up big enough to see but You can do that Though just put that stuff out there at the same time that you are in a mocking non -serious ago,

I apologize It just if that doesn't give you an insight into how these men handle facts

That means how they handle Greek grammar how they handle Hebrew words how they handle

Church fathers how they handle church history. I remember I remember when when

Scott Butler After the Papacy debate at Boston College started trying to use the

Arabic canons of Nicaea to substantiate a point

They're fraudulent. They're made up centuries later. They're not even the original language in which the the canons it accrues with These are folks who are defending a religion that used fraudulent documents for hundreds of years

To substantiate their claims of ultimacy the donation of Constantine the pseudo is a

Dorian decretals These are all things that Rome used over her history and you know what her defenders today are no different Even though there's much more availability of information

Yet they still don't get it. I mean Obviously Steve Ray has very little concern that the people who buy his

DVDs and go on his pilgrimages Have enough discernment to listen and to read and to analyze

The factual data that's been put before them. I Mean, I just gotta say not only does he clearly have no respect whatsoever

For myself or anyone like me or anyone who would be concerned about these things on our side of the aisle

But I would like to submit he doesn't show much respect for his own side by arguing like this I mean the the disrespect may be aimed primarily at me

But I suggest to you that when you treat those who are reading your material with such disrespect. You don't have much respect for them either

You certainly don't have much concern about what God thinks about truth That's for certain and that's why

I put the post up that paralleled Dave Hunt and Steve Ray Because when it when you know when

I read Steve Ray stuff, I see no evidence that he has a clue What has been said in response to the very arguments?

He is presenting and he doesn't care as long as those arguments keep getting results

That result in DVD sales and pilgrimage bookings then it doesn't matter that they have been refuted

It doesn't matter that they have been refuted for decades or hundreds of years as long as There's enough people who don't know what the answers are that everything's okay

And I don't understand that mindset outside of just going. Well, that's what false religion does false religions false religion and and The Bible describes people like that they fill their own bellies

That's what that's what motivates them. That's what drives them They're always gonna be talking a good a good game But I'm sure all those people that Paul identified and writing to Timothy talked a good game, too

But they're their ultimate Priority and ultimate purpose was not truth

You know, I was mentioning to my wife last night at dinner I Was saying, you know, what's

I got admits a little bit depressing. It's a little it's it's not so much depressing. It's frustrating You know,

I know that that 30 page document which I'm working on responding to from Steve Ray is pretty much just cobbled together from various sources that are already pre -existing and You have at least two authors involved with it

Steve Raven said Gary Machuta was involved with it too Has said that that he's seen there is these responses and blah blah blah blah

So multiple people are involved in these things and there's there's nothing new here. It's very facile very shallow nothing beyond what you'd see in Catholicism and fundamentalism the same types of Very surface of responses, but it will take me a long time to respond to it.

Why? Because I don't respond to things like that the way that Steve Ray does and so what

I've done is I've already got a file that's that's already quite long and what it has is it has quotations and citations and that includes

Hebrew lexical material on gibbera and the meaning of the the

Queen Mother and what the Queen Mother position was in in the Old Testament and the fact that the

Queen Mother was frequently a source of idolatry and Leading the the nation astray

Jezebel was in that position at one point discussions of how Bath Sheba does not not only does not receive

From Solomon what she requests from him, but even more so than that It results in the death of the man who made the request through her

All to try to say, okay, you want to start drawing parallels? You want to start doing this kind of of interpretation?

Okay, let's see how consistent you are Let's look at these types of things and then his 30 page thing throws all this.

It's a scattergun effect. It's it's shotgun effect It's put a footnote in that makes this big long assertion.

That's been refuted for ages, but there it is again. So, what do you do? You have to refute it and obviously it takes far more time to in a meaningful fashion

Refute falsehood than it does to state it you can state a lie in 10 seconds that takes 10 minutes to thoroughly and properly refute and so that's what

I'm doing and I wish I was doing other stuff, but I'm gonna do that because here's an opportunity.

Some people say I just let it go No, here's an opportunity Here you have people who've put their put themselves out there and they said here's yeah

I'll never be able to even see Ray went so far as to accuse me of trying to Distract attention from his response with this 33 ,000 denominations thing.

So hey, you're you're distracting people by pointing out That I'm a liar The brilliance of it at times makes me makes me just just shake my head, but here's an opportunity that's been given to us to Examine the kind of stuff that's on Catholic answers all the time.

Steve Ray was on Catholic answers last week and This is what's on EWTN and this is what's on the the journey home

And this is the popular form of Roman Catholic apologetics. Now, there will be other

Roman Catholics We'll say yeah, but actually it that's Really not, you know, the you know, the best we have to offer.

Well, then why is it the most popular stuff and If you don't like this stuff as a Roman Catholic and if you recognize that the argumentation

But the 33 ,000 nominations is utterly bogus, which it is then why aren't you out there saying something?

Why do I have to do it? I'm consistent. I criticize Dave Hunt. I criticize

Norm Geisler. I apply the same standards to my side why don't you do it on your side and Until you start doing that you got nothing to say to me at all zip zero nada

We've been saying the same things and using the same standards Coming up next year

The next year. Yeah 80. Yeah coming up next year for 25 years

Alpha Omega Ministries October October 83 so October of next year and Somebody's got to remind us of it because we let 20 just go flying by and realize that a few months.

There's a hey Those 20 years just went by we were busy. We're busy.

That's that's the whole point. We stay busy We're just doing our thing and someone's gonna have to remind us at 25 years, you know coming up We've been doing the same thing all along.

So I've got a track record, you know, Steve Ray has a zero record He has no record as being as being able to engage in meaningful scholarly debate on these subjects none zero

So he can call me a rabid dog and a petty Pope and all the rest of this stuff all he wants

But the fact the matter is one of us has about three dozen Examples of how to engage

Roman Catholic apologists and meaningful debate and he has zilch To my knowledge. I certainly

I'd love to see it and I would certainly love to invite him to debate these issues Because I would really enjoy the cross -examination period with Steve Ray, but he's never gonna do it

He's not gonna expose himself to that they know they've got nothing to gain everything to lose because Hey is doing a debate like that going to increase the number of people going on his pilgrimages.

He knows it won't So he's got nothing gain everything to lose ain't gonna happen. You have to do it, but it ain't gonna happen so There you go

If you want to say hey, you're picking on the low branches low -hanging fruit, you know here But picking on people like Steve Ray Well, why aren't if you're

Roman Catholic and you're saying that then you show me where in your publications You're putting your neck on the line and you're saying these things and saying hey

These these folks aren't really the best we have to offer, you know, it's funny Why is it that the most that the people

I see most often? Defending Roman Catholicism or converts Jimmy Akin used to be a follower of Gene Scott Robert St.

Genes Was in the Boston Church of Christ. I Mean these guys were not exactly sterling examples of Protestantism, okay, and Why are these

I mean Steve Ray admits he was an ignorant fundamentalist Baptist who had no idea of his own traditions

Tim Staples, what was his what's his great claim to fame as a

Protestant and Assemblies of God youth minister folks. Hello and do little staples there folks folks youth ministers

God bless them, but that's where that's that's youth minister and and You the one you know what you're doing before you're a youth minister in most

Baptist churches. You are the janitor Okay Youth minister is the purgatory you have to go through to find out if you're actually ever going to get a real staff position

Okay, because when they stick you in with the junior high schoolers, that's when you find out if you have a calling to the ministry all right, so being an assemblies of God youth minister is not exactly real big credentials that demonstrate that you had a real solid knowledge of of process theology and so It reminds me.

Are you you're gonna tell the story about the debate? No, actually, I was gonna chime in on the low -hanging fruit thing

Yes, the question is is if anyone did object to our quote -unquote picking the low -hanging fruit

Why is the low -hanging fruit so popular on their side because that's where all of the attention is going

Well, I mean how much honestly how much does dr. Pacwa?

Get in the way of this kind of attention But see he's on EWTN all the time. So he is he is the exception to the rule

He's on EWTN all the time because he basically took over for Mother Angelica, right? but it's these converts who are the ones who are constantly on and they're getting

I mean the percentage is Totally way off. It's totally screwed. It's it's skewed over toward those who are are the the submit that the vast majority of the

Catholics who even follow this As a even a monthly event in their lives

Their focus is over on Catholic answers Jimmy Akin and all the things are going on over here.

Very few of them I would think that are actually bothering to watch EWTN TN no, no, they watch it.

That's where that's where the coming home Is it stuff like it? No, they watch EWTN. But the point is these converts are the ones who are out there and as you had said you were listening to during the the

Staples debate and Here's these Catholics and after Staples get done gets done this one Catholic leans over to the other in front of you and says that guy may believe is a

Catholic now, but he still sounds like a fundamentalist and And it's true they they still have the same kind of argumentation the same kind of Mindset certainly

Steve Ray does he has the exact same mindset as your most closed -minded fundamentalist has anywhere else today

He's just changed what the content of his traditions are that's all He's just as enslaved to them and is and is just as dismissive

As as any of the others you run into for example in the in the King James only movement

He would have made a great King James only guy very same mindset You know very you know Just you see on the page what you want to see on the page and this thing of 33 ,000 denominations has illustrated this and I'm gonna have to illustrate over and over again in his citations of early church fathers

And his citations this out of the other thing I will be demonstrating that when Steve Ray looks at a page of print

He sees only what his traditions allow him to see in The same way that Dave Hunt when he looks at a page of print when he looks at my own writings

Only sees what his traditions allow him to see now. There's a difference between Dave Hunt and Steve Ray, thankfully but the mindsets the same and the mindsets wrong for both and The mindset may well keep one from ever knowing the gospel and not the other one

Okay So I recognize the difference I've had some people are well You know you shouldn't make them the the parallel is there the mindset is the same between the two

When your traditions do not allow you to even see what's on the page in front of you or to twist

What's on the page in front of you into something that it's not that's not a good thing

You're not quite in a position to where you're really showing that you understand that you need to honor the truth

Your traditions are still pretty much the only thing you've got going and there's no way you're ever gonna be able to test them and that's dangerous folks because Look at look at the

Mormon in the same situation Everybody would agree that the Mormon who only sees on the page

What Mormonism allows him to see is in grave danger, right? Well that applies to everybody

That applies to everybody you can't you can't just say oh, well, you know about that Mormonism. That's bad thing

You know, but we don't want to bring it into discussion. No, we need to bring in discussion here. That's an illustration that is a very valid illustration, so I Will be working on that I've Finished the response to the the one convert

I found another Catholic convert someone has given me a link to another Catholic convert who has responded

To my top 10 list as well not as fully so I'll be a little bit briefer with that But I've already got one of those done.

I'll get the other the second one done And as I said working on the Steve Ray thing, I can't guarantee you when

I'm gonna start posting it But it's gonna take a while to post all of it Because it's well, it's rather extensive

He's done the scattergun thing and I'm going to demonstrate that Steve Ray's apologetics

Cannot stand up to meaningful scrutiny now, do I do I hold any

Delusions That his wide -eyed followers who just follow him and his safari cap from place to place in the

Holy Lands Just going. Oh, he's so great are ever going to look at what I have to say. No No, not not concerned about that my point is an answer needs to be given and That answer is going to be there and anyone who honestly wants to know is their response

This will be able to find the response. They'll be able to see that. Yes These things have been responded to and they've been responded to in a way that clearly

Steve Ray and his and his compatriots cannot respond to they have to keep repeating the same exploded lame arguments over and over and over again, so that's what we'll be doing and We'll be continuing that here on the dividing line

Thursday afternoon. See you then. God bless I believe we're standing at the crossroads

Let this moment of suffering flow away We must contend for the future

We need a new Reformation day It's a sign of the times

The truth is being trampled in I stand up for the truth

And won't you live for the Lord The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602

Or write us at P .O. Box 3103 You can also find us on the world wide web at AOMIN .org

That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks