Geisler's Farmer Example on the Dividing Line

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:01

Uh, let's talk to, uh, to Denver.

00:13

Hello, Denver. Hey. Hey. I appreciate you getting me in. I actually was calling for something else and didn't realize the dividing line was going on.

00:21

But you had, you had covered the parable of the farmer with Norman Geisler just recently.

00:28

And it's funny because what you just said is exactly where I think the heart of the issue is. It's the character of God.

00:34

And when you change the analogy that he's giving, it sounds like he's still blind to how sub -biblical the nature of our sin and our rebellion against God is.

00:46

And I wondered if a better way to hold the mirror up and see the man -centeredness of their thinking is if you just simply change who's in the pond and one of those boys represents the fallen angels.

01:01

Because God never sent salvation or a savior to the fallen angels. And Geisler's analogy folded his arms and just watched him drown.

01:10

That's true. Yeah, that's true. I don't, I wish there was some way to get

01:16

Norm to listen to the corrections that we've attempted to offer, but as you can tell by the response that was given,

01:25

I do honestly believe that from Dr. Geisler's perspective, to even merit my response with him reading it himself or seriously interacting with it is to give me way too much respect.

01:39

You need to understand that part of this is simply to disrespect me. Part of his defense of Eric and Cantor has been simply to disrespect me as well.

01:48

So I don't know what it would take. It would take someone older than him with a bigger name than him to, but even then he has defended this for so long now that I don't know that whatever you put in the pond or whatever illustration, you know,

02:00

I tried to, I tried to, to, to make the change to, you know, the king and, and, and instead of just the good old boy farmer and, and so on and so forth.

02:08

That was great. Yeah. He, he, when you've defended the almighty nature of man's autonomy for as long as Norm Geisler has,

02:18

I don't know that there's any hearing a correction of it after a while. I, I, I, that's a scary thing to say.

02:26

When you talk about the character of God, according to Geisler's perspective, it's not all loving if he doesn't try to save all of his creatures equally or man, but does it ever occur to them that he never extended salvation to the angels?

02:40

And so what does that speak to his character? Maybe somebody will ask. I would, uh, I think that's an excellent question to ask.

02:47

Uh, I could, I could guess a response, but the problem is response would have to borrow from my own response.

02:54

In other words, I guess his response would be that there is a difference between God's love for the angelic

03:00

Rome and that of the human realm. But that immediately introduces a distinction in God's love, which his view of omnibenevolence denies to begin with.

03:07

So I don't know. I don't know how he'd respond to it. Good question. Very good, Denver. I appreciate that.

03:12

Could you recommend, um, I'm only a three year old Christian in December and... I love your work.

03:18

I cannot thank you enough for what you've put out. What, what books could you point me to, uh, for presuppositional understanding of apologetics?

03:27

Uh, well, uh, I, our, uh, uh, we make available a book called Always Ready, uh, which is really, really good on that subject.

03:35

Um, and, uh, if you look at Jamin Huebner's blog, he's one of my bloggers.

03:41

Uh, you'll, if you just put in his, his, uh, his name, pull up his blog. I think he has a pretty extensive bibliography, uh, listed either in his blog or, or on the website itself, uh, on that particular subject.

03:54

But, uh, if you start with Always Ready and, uh, and move, move up from there, I wouldn't suggest starting with Van Til, um, for example, because he just wasn't a good writer in English.

04:06

It wasn't his native language and a lot of people find it very difficult to follow. But there have been a number of people who've interpreted

04:11

Van Til and Always Ready, I think, as one of the, one of the friendliest introductions. Get your feet wet, get you a foundation, then you can move on from there to start looking at Monson and Frame and, and people like that and, and move up to Van Til from there.