A Little Skillet, A Lot of Aquinas

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. I start off with something a little bit fun today before we get to all the serious stuff.

We do have a fair amount of serious stuff to get to as seems to be normal these days.

I had thought maybe about doing open phones or something today and then, yeah, lots of stuff happened.

So we're going to do the best we can to once again provide you with important information.

What was it? A couple days ago, someone took a shot at John Cooper on Twitter and I came to my friend's defense.

Most of you know that I am not making things up when I call myself

Skillet's official theologian because I really am. And John and I are good friends and we communicate a lot and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.

But he's not the only person in the band I know. I mean, obviously, if you know

John, you know Corey and know that Corey is scary smart and scary strong and scary little.

But pound for pound, don't take that lady on. But so sweet. She's Auntie Corey to my grandkids who got to meet her last year.

And we have all sorts of fun stories about that and pictures and things like that. And of course,

Jen is so sweet and so talented. And then there's the quiet guy.

He's the quiet guy, Seth, who shreds the guitar. If you've not seen

Seth do his guitar playthrough on Dominion, put

Seth Morrison, Dominion, Skillet, whatever in YouTube and it'll come up.

And that's a whole lot fun to watch, especially the guitar solo halfway through Dominion.

It's really neat. Anyway, I knew about the album coming out long before it came out, of course.

And John had mentioned to me months and months ago that he was writing a song that was sort of dedicated to Joe Boot and myself.

Joe Boot, the author of the Mission of God, as well as do

I have it over there? Yeah, but I can't reach it. Ruler of Kings, which I've talked about. Actually, I've got two copies there.

Oh, anyway, still can't get either one of them piled under the books. And so I knew a little bit about what was going on with Dominion, the album and stuff like that.

Well, at some point, Seth contacted me and he says, you know, I work with, you know, he's a guitarist.

And look, the only instrument I've actually been trained on is a guitar, but it was an acoustic standard.

Might have cost $65. Well, in the 1980s, that was not a bad guitar.

And I think I took a year in high school, might have been two, but I think it was just one. I think was my senior year. I know

I was sitting in guitar class. When the vice principal came on and told us that Reagan had been shot.

I do remember that clearly. It's amazing how that that works. So that was 1981, wasn't it?

I think it was. Yeah, 81. Yes, that would have been my final semester. So, yeah, it's my senior year.

I was in guitar class when that happened. But that's all I that's all

I ever played. I only played it for a little while afterwards. It did not have a plug for anything.

And there was nothing electrical about it. And so I don't know about pedals and distortion and stuff like that.

I that's that's beyond me. I've noticed recently that Elliot at church.

During, I think, the Lord's the instrumental before while we're doing the Lord's Supper, because it takes us a long time to the

Lord's Supper at Apologia, because we do it differently, a lot faster if you have a bunch of guys running down the aisles, passing stuff out, a lot slower when you got people coming forward.

He's been doing something, I think, with a pedal type thing that sort of keeps the same.

It's like a hum, but it's a it's a certain key or something to what he's playing or something.

I don't know. I don't know how any of it works. But Seth contacted me and he said, Hey. What about the text in Revelation chapter one?

I think it's Revelation chapter one that uses the term Dominion. It was

Revelation chapter one. I should have brought it up. I've got so much stuff on my screen right now, I can't keep track of all of it. Anyway, he asked me to look up a passage in Revelation and to provide him with what the

Greek text looked like. And I said, Well, you know what? You know where it looks really neat is when it's in unsealed text.

The Magistule text is more technically correct, but the all caps form of the

Greek text, especially in like Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus.

And I think I even sent him initially maybe some of the papyri, what it would have looked like in the papyri.

I don't think we have a papyri of that particular text, but I have those on my on my unit on my system.

Anyways, I helped him. I said, Here's here's where Dominion appears. And here's the what's in front of it and below it as far as they're in the text in Revelation.

And I provide that to him. Well, I've sort of been watching. You'll notice you can't really see it.

So you've got Westminster Effects. That's the group he's working with. And well, yeah, you can see it.

But but see, if you look behind it, can you see the Greek right there?

See, there's there's Greek in the background. OK. And so they sent me a pedal.

Now, I don't know what these things cost. Those those guys, those you guys out there that do this kind of stuff.

You you will recognize what this is and does. It's got gain, presence, volume, bass, middle, treble.

And it's got two things. And I suppose that's use your foot to do that,

I guess. I don't know. And there's another thing over here is probably power, I would assume. But anyway,

I don't you can't. OK, right there. Wait a minute. No, I had there.

See what's all in the front behind the behind the buttons and everything is the unsealed

Greek text that includes the phrase dominion in regards to Christ from the book of Revelation.

And it's I can tell you, I'm touching it. It's raised. You can you can feel it on the on the metal.

It really, really looks cool. And so they came out with this working with Seth.

There you go. So if you're what? Then the other camera.

Yeah, you see, I can I can get the light to reflect off of it. So you can see in the background right there.

There you go. See, there's the and I can assure you the

Greek text is correct. I don't know how many guitar players know the

Greek text is correct. But yeah, I'm actually

I'm actually looking at it right there. There's there's a glory right there.

And yeah, it's really cool. So thank you, Seth, for sending me one of these.

Chris says, send it over to him. He'll put it to work. I was gonna say, I'm we're probably gonna have a bunch of people offering to help me.

Yeah, I'll show you how to use it. Just send it on to me. You don't get the

T -shirt. I get to keep T -shirt. But yeah, I will. I will probably find someone who can actually press it into service and utilize it to the glory of God.

But I'll probably talk to Elliot about that first, see what Elliot thinks, because he's our music guy or Mike, Mike Hendrickson.

Oh, that's what I've got to do. That's what I've got to do. Because see, Mike Hendrickson's kids, they're the ones that do those incredible covers of Skillet songs.

He's the he's the incredible drummer and she's the guitarist. And I'll have to.

Yeah, there's the thought.

I'll let I'll let her and Elliot thumb battle. That's what we do on that one.

I'm getting texts from people who are getting in line. They're getting in line. Me first. Me, me, me.

I only got the one. Come on. Look up Westminster Effects. Get your own.

If you want the coolest one out there, then then go for it. So so there you go.

I, I told, you know, I said months ago, I said,

Seth, you know, you get if this all works out for you, let me know. Well, we'll let folks know that it's out there.

And so that's free advertising. We charge nothing for it, except I get the shirt. So there you go.

And and Rich, Rich is sitting there going, you got nothing.

Got nothing, man. Got nothing. You didn't even know I was going to do that.

So what are you talking about? Did you did you find any Greek text for them? Huh? No, I don't tell you this.

Yes. Well, anyway. Look, one of the biggest stories that I've seen in a long time broke on the 29th, and we haven't even talked about it.

And other stuff has gotten in the way. And I apologize for that. And maybe I just haven't been prioritizing things appropriately.

But it didn't get much, much play. We don't have much in the way of media any longer.

We don't have a press. We don't have very many who do serious journalism anymore.

It's a it's a sad thing. But let me see if if you even heard of this, because I'm not sure

I even mentioned it to you or put it in the in anything where you would have seen it. But did you know that Nancy Pelosi went to the

Vatican last week? OK, so I did tweet about OK. Because I said because because I tweeted it, yeah, yeah, that's that's the sad thing.

Nancy Pelosi went to the Vatican. And. You need to remember that Pelosi's bishop.

Has excluded her from receiving the mass, the

Eucharist in the mass. Because of her. Unrepentance, she will not repent.

Of promoting specifically the murder of unborn children.

Now, the reality is that she won't repent of promoting the profaning of marriage, homosexuality, transgenderism.

And any other host of. Rapidly anti -Christian beliefs and actions that she is completely committed to.

She will not repent of these things. And so someone finally had the courage. To stand up and say you're excluded, you're you're you're not a

Roman Catholic and she's not. Obviously, I mean. This should have been done 30 years ago.

I can I can guarantee every Roman Catholic in the audience that if there was a individual in our church fellowship.

That was involved in publicly promoting. The murder of unborn children up to the point of death, transgenderism, homosexuality, the profaning of marriage.

It would not take us 30 years to deal with it. It might take 30 minutes for us to deal with it.

No question about it. But there have been multiple popes and multiple bishops and multiple archbishops and multiple cardinals and everybody else.

Who has been well aware of Pelosi's public promotion of these types of things have done absolutely positively nothing about it.

And so finally, somebody had the guts to stand up and say no more.

So she goes to the Vatican. Quote, U .S.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received Holy Communion during a Wednesday mass at the

Vatican, despite her unwavering support for abortion rights. Pope Francis presided over the morning mass, which marked the feast of St.

Peter and St. Paul, both of whom would have a cow. Francis bestowed the woollen pallium stole on several newly consecrated archbishops.

Pelosi was seated in a VIP diplomatic section where she joined in communion with the other congregants, two witnesses.

The mass said, according to the Associated Press, Pelosi also met with Francis that same day. Pelosi was previously barred from receiving communion by Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Carleone due to her stance on abortion.

In a letter published in May, Carleone wrote that Pelosi should not present herself at mass and said that priests would not allow her to receive communion if she did attend.

So, first of all, how do you absolutely cut this bishop off at the knees?

Well, you wait until he publicly says she can't have mass there in San Francisco and you give it to her at the

Vatican. I mean, talk about a slap in the face.

Talk about a slap in the face. But here is the ostensibly infallible vicar of Christ.

Evidently, in Roman Catholicism, actions do not speak louder than words. Because as long as he doesn't say,

I define and pronounce and so on and so forth, then he can do whatever he wants.

His actions can communicate anything. He can put the little kid on his knee and tell him his atheist daddy is going to heaven, but as long as he doesn't say that with the certain magic words, then you can still believe in papal infallibility.

I've said over and over again, when Rome gets serious about getting rid of the myriad of heretics in its leadership, in its schools, the myriad of heretics on the papal biblical commission that were put there by the papal guy, then we can start talking seriously about something.

But until then, it's just like, why even bother? You don't take this stuff seriously. Why should

I take your claims seriously when you don't take them seriously at all? That does not make a lick of sense.

And with such a wicked woman, this woman is unrepentant. Have you seen her?

Do you listen to her? Do you know what she has done? Do you know how many innocent human lives have been snuffed out directly because this woman has been given power?

I cannot imagine the judgment. I cannot imagine the judgment. I just can't.

It's just, but there you go. I think

Francis's actions speak much more loudly than his words and tell us all we need to know about where he is theologically.

And once again, we just, you look back in history and you see what happened to Honorius based on a letter that he wrote to his counterpart in the

East, which led to his being anathematized by every single person who took this chair of Peter for 400 years as a heretic.

But they're still infallible. And you wonder why people who are serious about history and deep in history just look at your claims and go, you really don't believe that.

And the vast majority of the Roman leadership doesn't, but they pretend like they do.

So pretty amazing, pretty amazing stuff. A lot of stuff has been appearing on the web that is very relevant.

If you have read over the years, The Forgotten Trinity, you know that I addressed the issue of John chapter 14, verse 28 in that book.

You can't address the doctrine of the Trinity without dealing with many of the texts that are utilized by those who deny the doctrine of the

Trinity. And you know that Jehovah's Witnesses and to a somewhat lesser extent

Mormons have the last one, two, three, four, five, six, last six words in Greek of John 14, 28 memorized.

I have a few times asked someone if they could tell me what the rest of the verse says and no one ever could.

So that is a, I think, cogent observation when speaking with people.

But you've heard it said, the Father is greater than I am. The Father is greater than I am. Now that's the end of a sentence.

And I hope no one in this audience who's listened for any period of time at all would ever let anyone, myself included, get away with making a point based upon the last few words of a sentence without looking at the context of what that sentence actually is.

But it is a well -known text and it obviously requires anyone to think seriously about what it's saying.

I have, again, emphasized since the day it was drilled in my head,

I remember which room it was. I don't think the room exists anymore. I think they finally tore that building down. I don't think there are any single story buildings left on the campus of Grand Canyon University.

They're all, you know, multi -story things now, yeah. But I remember exactly what room

I was sitting in, in the Fleming, not Fleming, Talscience building. And I was reading

Son of God, Lord of Glory. No, no, just Lord of Glory. I think it's just Lord of Glory by B .B.

Warfield. And I remember the page.

I'm sure if I went in the other room, found the book, there would be a very yellowed, faded marking of that specific page in my old, old version, paperback version of that little book.

I still highly recommend it to people. And it's where Warfield made the argument that we very often fail to see the breadth of the testimony of the

New Testament to the deity of Christ. And instead, we allow ourselves to be always put on the defensive, rather than demanding of the other side, whether it's

Jehovah's Witness, or a Oneness person, or a Mormon, or any type of Unitarian, or whatever.

Demanding that they make an account for everything that the

New Testament says about Jesus. Because there's just so much that if Jesus is what they say he is, makes no sense at all.

I often use Jehovah's Witnesses in Matthew 28, 19 -20.

Baptizing them in the name of Jehovah God, Michael the Archangel, and an impersonal act of force.

That's how they understand that text. They are rarely forced to think through that.

We've got to do that. But we let everybody force us to always be giving an answer for every text they bring up.

But we don't turn that around and do what

Warfield did. And said, look at all these other areas of evidence of the deity of Christ that almost never get discussed.

He says all these things that could never be said by a mere creature.

And we don't see it because we already know who Jesus is. So when we read

Jesus speaking, we're plugging what he's saying into a greater biblical context.

And so, because of that, when I wrote The Forgotten Trinity, and I got to John 14 -28, I pointed out that in reality,

John 14 -28 is on our side. As you would expect it to be.

What do I mean? It's in the context of Jesus having announced that he's going back to the

Father. He's going back to the Father. So that right in that language, you have, this is the

Son who has been sent forth from the Father. This is the Logos who has taken on flesh.

This is the Logos who has become present amongst us and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only

God and the Father. But he's going to go back, which means a transition from his humiliated state here amongst us, constantly dealing with the

Jews trying to trip him up and false accusations and healing till late at night and walking the dusty roads of Galilee.

So he's in his humiliated state, but he's going to go back into the presence of the

Father. And he has announced this, and this is part of John 14, 15, 16, the announcement of the coming of the

Holy Spirit. And we get so much information about Father, Son, and Spirit from this particular portion of the

Gospel of John. But the rest of the verse says, You heard that I said to you,

I go away and I will come to you. If you loved me, if you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the

Father because the Father is greater than I am. You see what's being said? I just said to you,

I go away and I will come to you. So there's going to be a change in their relationship.

He's going to go away, but he's going to come to them, but by the presence of the Holy Spirit. This is going to be Father and I will make our abode with them when the

Spirit comes and dwells within them. And so there is a subtle rebuke in these words.

If you loved me, if you weren't so focused upon what are we going to do without Jesus?

No, we don't. And of course, all of their expectations of what the

Messianic Kingdom is supposed to look like and how they're going to reign with Jesus and all the rest of that kind of stuff is probably in the back of their minds.

If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father because the

Father is greater than I am. So if you loved me, you know that I am in my humiliated state and I'm going back into the presence of the

Father, the presence that I had with him before the world was. And we're going to see in just a matter of paragraphs in John 17 what that looks like in John 17, 5.

That description that Jesus himself gives of having been glorious in the presence of the

Father before the world was. So the whole point that is being brought out here and presented is not that the

Father is greater than I am. I am ontologically inferior to the

Father. The Father is superior to me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That's not what he's saying. He's going back to the Father. The Father is not incarnate.

The Father is not walking the dusty roads of Jerusalem. He's not constantly being people trying to trip him up.

He's not being falsely accused of things. He is in heaven.

And that means if the Son goes back there, he's going back to where he was before, the place where he is worshipped and honored, as John 5 had said, honoring the

Son even as you honor the Father. So the statement at the end of verse 28 is transparently in light of what it says in the same sentence about the incarnate state of the

Son. If you love me, you will rejoice.

I'm going back to the Father. So the text is clear.

And you don't have to make appeal to other stuff.

You don't have to get into philosophy and councils.

The text is right there. And most people know that when you are dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, that's where you have to be.

That's the only thing that's going to communicate to them. They really don't care what

Athanasius said. Now, I care about what Athanasius said. It causes my heart joy.

I've said this many times, that reading Athanasius against the

Arians is enjoyable and encouraging to me for the simple reason that here

I see someone from the middle of the 4th century utilizing the same texts in defense of the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the

Trinity as I use today. I sort of wonder if, in fact, there was some continuous necessary development that didn't end until the 13th century.

How that even fits with this, I'll be honest with you. Because Athanasius is way too early.

There's still a whole lot of stuff to be developed, right? But, anyway. So, Michael Haken had posted this.

Let me take this, stop. There. Michael Haken had posted, and it was sent to me, on interpreting texts like John 14, 28 and listening to the fathers.

One of the reasons why we evangelicals need the fathers of the ancient church is their exegetical defense of the true and living

God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Over the course of 350 years, yes, a century longer than the entire history of the

United States as a nation, from Ignatius of Antioch to the Chalcedonian fathers, these authors hammered out a grammar of how to understand all that God has said in his word regarding himself.

It seems to me like Haken is saying that that development pretty much concluded with Chalcedon.

That's certainly been how I've viewed it. When I say development,

I mean development of the language to answer a certain set of questions within a certain context.

The questions asked of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the East. The questions asked of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the East, East, East.

So you've got the East, historically, and then, and most people just don't even know about this, there was a church to the

East of the East for a while, flourished, disappeared suddenly, and it's a mystery as to why.

But the things that they would have been facing, the challenges they would have been facing, and the questions they would have been facing would be very different.

And unfortunately, we in the West, we have tunnel vision and it's only the issues that we are used to debating about that we think much about.

And I, again, I recognize that in myself, and I think everybody needs to recognize that that's reality.

But it sounds like that's what's being said, what I've said. They literally gave their lives to this endeavor for they knew that God was worth every minute of their reflection and every ounce of their sacrifice.

And certainly, when you think about the council fathers at Nicaea, that's one of the reasons

I've always laughed at the idea that the count, the bishops who met at Nicaea would have just been so awed by Constantine that they just would have done, you know, some people say, well,

Constantine came up with this term, homoousius, and they just simply did whatever Constantine said. It had only been 12 years since those men had been willing to die for their faith.

The most intense period of imperial persecution was 303 to 313.

Now we're talking 325. It was only 12 years earlier. You really think that in that 12 years they all just became marshmallows?

And whatever Constantine said, that's what I'm going to believe? Baloney. So, when they read

John 14, 28, the father is greater than I. Exegesis of the ancient church, like Athanasius, Didymus sublime,

Epiphanius of Salamis, Hilary of Poitiers, Poitiers, I love that one, Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, the great

Cappadocian fathers, he goes on through, all the way up through Augustine, knew that the referent of this text had to be the incarnate son, not the divine word.

For the word, who was homoousios to patriae, eternally homoousious, of the same substance, with the father, could never make such an assertion.

Indeed, it was the homoians and anemoians, who employed this verse to argue for the fact that the son, the second person of Godhead, was a creature, albeit a perfect one.

Following the lead of Athanasius, these Greek, Latin, and Syriac authors knew that the skapos, scope, range, of scriptures, allowed for no other interpretation, evangelicals would be wise to take such men as their mentors.

Again, I'm going to be the last person in the world,

I haven't been teaching church history since 1990, to say to people, you should ignore the early church fathers, never said anything of the kind.

There are, I don't know how many hours of this program have been dedicated to reading from early church fathers, or reading from early church heretics,

Gnostic stuff, and things like that, just so much, we've been criticized, it's amazing today, the straw men,

I'm not saying Dr. Hagen is talking about me, or anything, but the straw men that are being tossed our direction, about just ignoring church history, and stuff, we've been criticized for years, for wasting too much time on such things, you can't win for trying, and so, there's an element of truth to what's said here, but, the truth of John 1428, can be established in the context of John 1428, it was true, that John 1428, was specifically about the incarnate stay of the sun, from the moment that John penned the words, that was true in the days of Ignatius, even if Ignatius didn't cite the text and explain it, it was still, that truth was already there, in the text, it does not require, and did not require, the development of a traditional interpretation, now, is there value in recognizing the consistency, of all of those men that are listed, sure, but that's simply a consistent recognition of a truth that is just as directly available to you with your

English Bible in your hands, as it was to any of them with Greek manuscripts in their hands, and so you can see where my concern is, it's not just, hey, when you're talking to a

Jehovah's Witness, a list of those names is going to mean nothing to them, if anything, it's going to make it more difficult for you, to communicate with them, but if you are able to go to the text with them, show that you've already thought this through, that you understand what's being said, what the context is, and then point out to them the problem with their own interpretation of that text, and then show them what the consistent interpretation is, and then use that as a means for going to another text, go from there to John 17.

Or if you're really thinking ahead or prepared, you could go to the

Holy Spirit from there, because I'm going to tell you something, Jehovah's Witnesses are really struggling with the

Spirit, because they just think impersonal act of force, and there are so few

Christians who can take them over to Corinthians, the

Spirit gives the gifts as He wills, the action of a divine person, giving divine gifts to the body.

John 14, John 16, how the Father and the Son make their presence with the people by the

Holy Spirit of God, there's so many directions you could go from there, and that's exactly what

Jehovah's Witnesses need, they need Christians who can do that. I remember just a couple years ago, before they moved out to Hawaii, before they came back, one of our dear brothers at Apologia, Zach Conover, his wife,

I think, started recording when the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, and all it is is a shadow of Zach, and he has this big old beard, so you can sort of see the beard moving, but you can hear the conversation really well, and I was just so proud of him, just how prepared he was.

And man, if Jehovah's Witnesses found, now they're not going door to door as much these days, which really sadly is a curse upon them, it really is a curse upon them.

Now, it's a blessing upon people that aren't going to be deceived by them, but it's a curse upon them, because that's one of the main ways we've reached these folks in the past.

But man, when they're going door to door, if they're running into prepared Christians right, left, and center, awesome stuff.

Awesome stuff. But the point is, John 14, 28 means that, not because from Athanasius onward, there is a broad traditional interpretation of the text that says the same thing.

The text says it. That broad tradition is encouraging, and is testimony of the continuing work of the

Spirit of God, but that's not why the text means that. The text says that directly, and it said that the moment it was written.

That's, I think, a very important thing to keep in mind. Very, very important aspect of things to keep in mind.

Okay. Not sure which one to do first here, but it all flows together.

An article was published, evidently, on June 23rd in Credo Magazine.

Now, you need to understand, Credo Magazine, the

Davenant Institute, these are names that you need to become familiar with. These are not unbiased sources of information.

These are organizations that have as their stated goals the promotion of a particular theological perspective.

In our current context, it is the theological perspective of Thomism. All things

Thomist. And so the most recent issue of the magazine was all about that.

All the reasons why Protestants should be this should be sitting

Ouch. Now, this is a good brother gave this to me in El Paso.

I can't read that. Not without getting my old man glasses out. No way. Okay, now

I can see it now. Yeah.

It is still bigger than the Edwards volumes. But I would say that's probably five or six point font,

I would say. So I just happened to open up here. Whether gratuitous grace is rightly divided by the apostle, objection one, it would seem that gratuitous grace is not rightly divided by the apostle for every gift vouchsafed to us by God may be called a gratuitous grace.

Now there are an infinite number of gifts freely bestowed on us by God as regards both the good of the soul and the good of the body and yet they do not make us pleasing to God.

Hence, gratuitous grace cannot be contained under any certain division. Objection number two further gratuitous grace, and it goes on you got objection number three, objection number four, and then he responds to each of those objections.

This is the the essence of the Summa Theologica and it goes on forever.

It's huge. It's massive. It is big, but you need to have yours. If you're going to be, look today, if you're going to be amongst the cool kids

I would imagine that there are Baptists right now who are spending money getting their

Aquinas library set up that never imagined only a few years ago they were going to be doing that, but they are because that's that's how you be cool today is you need to be plowing through medieval scholasticism and so an article maybe

I, well I don't follow credo, but maybe it just didn't come out until recently or something, but I didn't see it until this morning from June 23rd.

Why Protestants have always stood on the shoulders of Thomas Aquinas and still do? David Van Drunen answers misconceptions today.

Dr. Van Drunen Westminster Seminary in California PhD from Loyola University, which

I think is also where Geisler one of the places that Geisler went.

I think he may have taught there for a while too. Anyway, yeah um David Van Drunen answers misconceptions today now one of the things that struck me is

I used Evernote's clipping material to put this into my library and what's interesting is what that does is they have a click to tweet function in their articles and so you can tweet out these insights that you're getting.

Now by the way this is Credo editor

Lance English joined David Van Drunen to deal with these issues

I felt that the article would better be described as an advertisement it would have been better if this article sponsored by and then you had one of the many many many many

Dominican Thomas Aquinas centers because they're everywhere they're all across the world, not just English speaking world

I think it would have been better if you just said this is a sponsored advertisement because this is not an article answering questions this is an advertisement seeking to get you to believe something this is a set of arguments based against a pile of burning straw men now here's my little straw man

I think I yeah I put it in the other room so he's safe today

I don't have my lighter in here, I moved it to the other room so I normally have a lighter that I put right next to his head makes

Rich nervous but who sent this to us? You don't think there was a return address on it?

Well I'm going to tell you something he's getting a workout like I have never seen recently,

I've never seen there's an army of these guys and in this article three divisions of these guys full of flame are in the background they, the burning straw men everywhere it's amazing and I can prove it

I can document it he needs to oh hmm you know the warp core might light him up so we'll put him up there and see if the warp core does its job you know how to I can prove this like I said it's got the click to tweet things so what do they want you tweeting out what do they want you promoting to your readers, to the people who read your tweets let me just run through them because what's neat is in Evernote you see they're all underlined in blue they're underlined in blue because they're links so here are the click to tweet statements from this article

Thomas was undeniably one of the most brilliant and influential theologians of the entire history of the church they want you to tweet that out

Thomas was undeniably one of the most brilliant and influential theologians of the entire history of the church next click to tweet most

Protestants even those with theological training have read little or none of Thomas they actually want you to tweet out to people that most

Protestants even those with theological training have read little or none of Thomas what's the point of that well we've seen it for months now haven't we if you dare say anything about Thomas Aquinas it's because you are ignorant of you can't possibly have read

I mean this is only this isn't even finished and this is only one of his books he wrote millions of words he died before he reached age 50 he didn't even have a word processor it's astonishing but unless you've read all of this and all of contra gentiles you've got to read his commentary on Romans and his commentary on Lombard's sentences and that's just minimally and yeah vast majority of us have not done that and may

I just say in passing I highly recommend that you do not life is precious and wasting it in that pursuit would be a real shame

I feel for those who have already done that but there is a there is an argument there if you disagree it's because you're just you're uneducated you're unedumicated uh next one, collect a tweet many early protestant theologians studied

Thomas engaged his work respectfully and often embraced the very positions

Thomas defended you see these are arguments these are what they want you to hear these are what they want you to believe and to then repeat to others this is an advertisement it's a

Thomas Aquinas advertisement in the pages of Credo Magazine because that's what

Credo Magazine is next one Kant played an important role in the development of anti -Thomas

Protestantism now you need to understand uh central to the new

Thomistic revival is the assertion that uh

Van Til and Schaeffer to a much lesser extent but still same that's where Schaeffer got it

Van Til that this anti anti Thomas Protestantism think about what that means think about what you're doing with Thomas when you can refer to anti -Thomas

Protestantism you are so elevating Thomas that there is a

Protestantism that is simply anti him he is a dividing line he is the greatest theologian in the entire history of the

Christian Church I've already said that but Kant played an important role in the development of Thomas Protestantism and of course they will accuse

Van Til of just simply being repeating Kant's stuff he didn't but the accusation is constant um and there is a strong anti presuppositionalism and anti -Van

Tilian bent and all this stuff Fesco has an article in the same same magazine and of course

Fesco anti Van Tilian as well next one next click to tweet on some on some occasions reformed theologians agreed with Thomas over against Roman Catholics I did have to um chuckle a little bit that one but you can see what what the argument is about there and what was trying to be established next one unless we want to say that the church began in the 16th century which we don't then we reformation

Christians need to claim the medieval church as our history so there is an entire historiography and hence an entire understanding of what the reformation was and was not that is being presented even by the click to tweets in this article next one regarded

Thomas as an important eminent theologian of the Christian church worthy of engagement and didn't just dismiss him as a

Roman Catholic um we're going to see what the article says about the article is literally going to say there was no

Roman Catholic church until the reformation so Thomas couldn't have been a Roman Catholic um but the straw man particularly burning bright in the background of the article is that that's what anyone who is opposing this new

Thomistic wave uh well you just dismiss Thomas Christ because he was Roman Catholic that's all it's just simplicity we don't read anything from him we don't quote from him or anything like that have you noticed by the way at least

I've noticed every time I've quoted from Thomas every time I have gotten into the summa and you know put quotes and stuff like that none of those who are constantly subtweeting and responding to this program have ever ever not once tried to engage what

I said not once I've never seen anything haven't even tried haven't even acknowledged they did it really weird and it's really weird for someone who just dismisses him as Roman Catholic hey it's just Roman Catholic so hey don't have to worry about it um click to tweet our own protestant theologians who learned so much from patristic and medieval theologians and built their work standing on their shoulders that's an argument that's an argument about the nature of the reformation and that's an argument about where we should be today and it is part of the argument that has been used to view the reformation as an unfortunate event in church history that is completed and can now be reevaluated and I think this is the last one yes last click to tweet

Thomas was a defender of Christian orthodoxy it's the same orthodoxy that the reformers taught and the great protestant confessions and catechisms expressed do you hear that let me repeat it for you

Thomas was a defender of Christian orthodoxy now by the way just in passing

Thomas engaged in numerous disputations that was very common in the scholastic period sometimes taking the minority position but he did so as a dominican there were all sorts of battles going on internally as well as externally the dominicans were the heresy hunters they were the ones going after the heretics albigensians, waldensians, so on and so forth um and he had disputes in his own day so what is behind this is the idea that christian orthodoxy is only in reference to trinitarian theology because some of Aquinas' most important works were his works on the subject for example of the eucharist the sacrifice of the mass um you know he wrote in defense of papal authority and all the things associated therewith and so christian orthodoxy according to this does not include the gospel the gospel is not included so Thomas was a defender of christian orthodoxy it's the same orthodoxy that the reformers taught and the great protestant confessions and catechisms expressed sans the gospel which was the reason for the reformation those are just the click to tweets those are just the click to tweets first question i need to bring him down here he needs to read this because first question i assume from lance english so here's lance this is in honor of you david no doubt you have heard a zealous protestant say to you

Aquinas is not only irrelevant to protestantism but dangerous threatening everything the reformation stood for you are a reformed theologian so let's set the record straight why is that popular angry rant so misguided and misinformed i'm sorry it's hard to say with a straight face because it's just whoo you know i i imagine that lance could have found somebody over at chick publications that would say those type of things you know but they're not reformed and they don't want to be reformed and they hate reformed theology and stuff like that so who says this type of stuff i don't know but the whole point is um and i've been dealing with this with our brothers from sacramento who for the past couple of days have been lighting up the straw man and just there is a desperately dishonest misrepresentation that's not what we're saying that's not how i've ever approached thomas aquinas and so when i see people and i've done this a few times in my life when i do debates you can tell when someone's misrepresenting you that's why you have to have cross examination and how many times in cross examination have i unmasked straw man argumentation and left a person just sitting there going i died i died i because that's that's what the value of a debate is and by the way aquinas was incredibly gifted at looking at any possibly disputed point and thinking of every possible objection to his own position you could ever imagine incredibly gifted now to be honest with you after about the 4th or 5th time you go through objection 1 objection 2 objection 3 objection 4 and then answer to objection 1 about after 4th 5th time it starts getting a little repetitious but it didn't get repetitious for him because that's what most of this is but while he was i mean that is a that is a skill you need to have in disputation you need to be able to see it from the other guys perspective and go ok he might argue this he might argue that done that many times done that many times um so i know when someone has a weak argument when they have to trot out the straw man and that is all we be getting from the other side i mean it is just constant and you'll see it on twitter people on twitter will go who says that who is even suggesting that and they get all huffy puffy and just make it up a point by sarcasm and blah blah no you're not that's your whole argument that's what you've been doing from the start you don't want to you don't want to drag this out and start quoting the original stuff there's too much stuff in there to be quoting back at you you don't want to do that and so that's what this entire article is it's astonishing it sets up this idea of popular angry misguided misinformed rants that's how it starts that's not the conclusion of the article that's what the article has to say at the start that is pathetic how did this get past any beginning editing i don't know i mean somebody well he's he's the credo editor that's how it got past it that's what happens when your editor is compromised when your editor is prejudiced then you're going to get this kind of ridiculously prejudiced material but it starts with the worst possible conclusion that should be the conclusion you come to after honestly analyzing the arguments no examples given it's just thrown out there popular angry rant

Aquinas is not only irrelevant to protestantism but dangerous threatening everything the reformation stood for who said it where is it at did they provide some argumentation was there a specific issue that they were dealing with were they saying that Aquinas' metaphysics used in defining and defending the doctrine of mass is in opposition to reformed theology's understanding of the lord's supper something less ranting than that um so you start off and Vandroon's response

Vandroon's response should have been that is really a bad way to start this interview it's really not going to be possible to give a meaningful balanced and fair presentation of even my side he's written a book

Aquinas Among the Protestants well did you straw man all the

Protestants in the process that should have been the response but there's a lot one could say here but I'll mention a few points briefly one is that Thomas whatever we think of his theology was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant and influential theologians of the entire history of the church whatever we think of his theology doesn't your theology define who you are as a theologian

I thought so was undeniably one of the most brilliant and influential theologians of the entire history of the church he made enormous contributions to the shape of western theology no one can really understand the reformation without knowledge of the 1500 years of church history preceding it stop wait a that's true and it's irrelevant to what was just said

Aquinas is a part of that and no one is suggesting that the reformation just happened no one says any of these things

I have what is it 65 lessons

I think they're still available sermon audio church history somebody else had taken my church history lessons from way before that in Sunday school and it posted them and I think there were 57 of that one did we just skip over that did we go from Augustine to Luther no we didn't huh did

I emphasize the importance of recognizing you can't understand Erasmus without the

Renaissance you've got to talk about Advantis and you've got to talk about how the reformers responded against the schoolmen there's a reason when when when exergei domine the papal excommunication arise in Wittenberg that Luther and his students go to the great oak and they burn the schoolmen in a bonfire yeah that's we do talk about all this stuff no one can really understand the

Reformation without knowledge of 1500 years preceding it and Thomas is one of the most important figures in that history well he is

Thomas really was the best of the schoolmen in fact I was

Saturday I forced myself out of out of bed quite early used to do this all the time the older I get the hardest do it that alarm goes off at like 3 .15

in the morning it's just like oh man what what am I doing and it used to be easier to get out there in the dark but anyways

I did and I was again I was climbing up to the

Sears K Indian ruins out near what we call end of pavement

EOP on Cave Creek Road I had already gone down to Bartlett Lake and climbed back out again so if you know where that is

I was doing some hard riding a lot of climbing out there anyways

I was listening to books on Thomas Aquinas that did not help me go faster at all

I will admit that did not keep the heart rate up in any

Skillet's much better for getting down the road than Thomas Aquinas anyway

I bet you Skillet never thought they'd ever be brought up with the context of a discussion of Thomas Aquinas but anyway and I discovered much to my pleasure that Aquinas took the same view on the words of dereliction

Father why Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani why have you forsaken me he took the same view on the words of dereliction that I do you know

I've said for years most of the sermons on that I think miss it it's a quotation of Psalm 22 it's a fulfillment passage it's not at the very point where the son is giving his ultimate obedience to the father, the father turns his back on the son

I know it's in our songs and stuff like that but that's not what the text is talking about and lo and behold that was

Thomas' view yay! am I stunned? am I hurt? oh no!

I agree with Thomas no! duh! why should

I? it's irrelevant it's an interesting factoid but um okay so he did okay so there are other things that we would have firmly agreed about but let me mark that point and given how long this is going and we're probably going to have to because there's more stuff that I want to look at in here um and it's primarily

English's questions that are just straw man, misleading and I recognize them as a debater first and foremost and as a professor of church history second um but I want to I want, especially the students there are students at these seminaries who are getting hit with this stuff that never expected that when they went to the seminary in the first place that's what's important about this type of stuff the fact that Dr.

Barrett has announced that he's completely reworking the PhD program at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary which used to be known with its emphasis upon Spurgeon but now classical theism and Thomas and central to all that kind of stuff the emphases are changing and there are a lot of students who are observing this and there are those who have used certain channels to contact yours truly and to say please don't stop you're our lifeline this is what we're getting we're not accepting it but we need to know why we need to be able to see why to be able to end up, this is not the first time we have functioned this way

I just it's just sad that it's seminaries that you would never have expected this to be taking place at it's one thing when students would come up to me as I traveled around the world and their universities which were havens of secular liberalism the dividing line helped them in those contexts that's one thing, this is a different context and so I think it's important because the straw man misrepresentations inherent in English's questions need to be doused we need to take that boy back there and stick him in a big old tub of water put those flames out and so we'll continue that process but I want

I want to do something that will drive my opponents batty to wrap things up and that is this is the thing you all can't respond to and you know it, every one of you knows it

I'm going to go to Aquinas I'm going to go to your sources and I'm going to expose your sources and I'm going to do it accurately

I'm going to do it in a scholarly fashion and if you sit there and say well you can't do that because you haven't read everything in Aquinas no and I'm not going to, at my age

I refuse to invest any more of the maybe at the outside 30 more trips around the sun that I might have in my life in that kind of activity

I'm already investing too many in things similar you can't do that because you're not a scholar of Thomas Aquinas you realize how

Gnostic that is you telling me that I can't read his own commentary and test it by the word of God what does that tell us about you and where you already are so let's yeah it does it does so let's look at a key text a key text

I would invite you it is available for purchase on Kindle, that's what

I have in front of me get Aquinas' commentary on Romans Aquinas' commentary on Romans and look at some of the key texts key texts what do you mean key texts well when we deal with Thomas' descendants or at least claimed descendants within the

Roman Catholic Church we will see that article actually says Roman Catholicism did not exist until after the

Reformation, that's interesting that is definitely something I want to discuss because when did

Roman Catholicism begin, well I've given you my understanding of that 4th Lateran Council 1215 the establishment of Eucharistic sacrifice as the central aspect of Roman Catholic worship, you already have the papacy in place but Dr.

Van Drunen puts it past the Reformation that really presents some really complicated questions as to what the

Reformation was about, whether it's still relevant, things like that, but we'll get to that we'll get to that, but relevant questions from Romans chapter 4

Romans chapter 4 let's remind everybody of this text,

Romans chapter 4 just as David also speaks the blessing on the man to whom

God credits righteousness apart from works, then the quotation Psalm 32, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered blesses man whose sin the

Lord will not take into account there's a variant there, but who may strong will not impute sin, the

Lord will not impute sin is what the Septuagint reads at that point so most of you will recognize this is the foundation of the question

I ask Roman Catholics all the time, who's the blessed man? there is no non -imputation in Roman Catholic theology, so there is no blessed man and I would recommend, read

Calvin's commentary on the text, and you'll see how he brings these things out here is

Aquinas then when he says blessed are they he presents

David's words containing the previous judgment and says that those whose sins are forgiven are blessed, consequently they had not previously have good works from which they obtained justice or happiness but sin is divided into three classes original actual mortal and actual venial first in regard to original sin he says blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven here it should be noted that original sin is called iniquity because it is the lack of that original justice by which in equity man's reason was subject to God, the lower powers to reason and the body to the soul, this equity is removed by original sin because after reason ceased to be subject to God the lower powers rebel against reason and the body is withdrawn from obedience to the soul and subjected to decay and death hence

I was brought forth in iniquities Psalm 51 5 in both texts original sin is presented in the plural either because the multitude of men in whom original sin is multiplied or better because it virtually contains within itself all sins in some way such original sin is said to be forgiven because the state of guilt passes with the coming of grace but the effect remains in the form of fomas or concupiscence which is not entirely taken away in this life but is remitted or mitigated second in regard to actual mortal sin he says and whose sins are covered for sins are said to be covered from the divine gaze and as much as you do not look upon them to be punished you covered all their sins

Psalm 84 3 third in regard to venial sin he says blesses the man to whom the

Lord has not imputed sin where sin refers to venial sins which although light if they be many man is separate and distant from God the good

Lord will pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God even though not according to the sanctuary's rule of cleanness 2nd

Chronicles 30 18 these three can be distinguished in another way for in sin are three things one of which is offense against God in regard to this he says blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven the way man is said to remit an offense committed against him her iniquity is pardoned

Isaiah 40 verse 2 the second thing is the fact that this order deed has been done and cannot be said not to have occurred once it has been perpetrated but it is covered over by the hand of God's mercy and is held as if not committed the third is the debt of punishment in regard to which he says blesses the man to whom the

Lord is not imputed sin ie undue punishment okay did you follow any of that hopefully what you saw is two interpretations the second interpretation is about again still uses the three categories of sin that are completely unbiblical they are traditional they're not driving and by the way most of the text recited the good the good lord will pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek

God even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness second chronicles 30 18 is said to have something to do with venial sins in verse 8 this is great tradition exegesis it is similarity of words without similarity of context and meaning in the original context so you cite it has nothing to do with it but you cite it but that's the second interpretation the first interpretation is that what you have blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven that's original sin whose sins have been covered that's mortal sin blessed is the man whose sin the lord will not take into account is venial sin now can i point something out to you thomas aquinas wrote in latin and that is his focus and so he is dependent upon the latin text the greek term whose sins have been covered is hamartia and whose sin the lord will not take into account is hamartia there is no difference one is plural one is singular the point here is somehow aquinas looks at psalm 32 as cited by paul completely and this is the greatest theologian in the history of the church and completely misses the central aspect of justification by faith that's right there in the text in front of him misses it gone not even there nothing there it becomes arbitrarily without anything in the context without any exegesis a discussion of the three different kinds of sin which is a unbiblical innovation original mortal and venial as a result the whole question who is the blessed man which would be so relevant to his own theology never touched never thought about never considered it's just not even there i just read you his own words you can look them up you can buy the kindle book on amazon okay this is section three go back to the i started reading at 334 alright i didn't skip over anything i'm not misrepresenting him this is how we saw the text this is great tradition exegesis so what do we do with this how do you sit there and say that thomas aquinas is one of the greatest and i know r .c.

sproul did the same thing i would have to say the exact same thing to him how do you say he's one of the greatest theologians that the church has ever experienced when he's looking at the situation he is in he doesn't see the gross horrific twisting of the gospel that is the papacy that is the entire sacramental system as it's growing right that he has a part in developing and this is one of the greatest theologians of the church and when he sees biblical texts that are making a vital and important argument the traditions that have been building up over the past 800 years blind him to the meaning of the text now like i said he was one of the he's the best of the schoolmen but i thought we believed in post tenebrous looks after darkness light what was the tenebrous what was the darkness if he was the best we've got and the reformation takes place 250 years after him did that darkness just come in the 250 years after him there was this blinding flash of light in the middle of the 13th century and then it's gone is that what's being said i don't know i don't know but you see we won't get a response to Aquinas' Aquinas is missing the point of the citation of Psalm 32 by Paul the illustration that he makes this is central to the entire theme of Romans isn't it ask

Luther ask Calvin yeah it is but the greatest theologian misses it well that doesn't mean he's wrong about everything no one said anything i just pointed out hey he was right about Elohim even though some of you would disagree with him and me no it doesn't follow that he's wrong about everything what does mean is that when you take his metaphysics and demand that the doctrine of the trinity be based upon it you need to defend it by something other than simply saying he was such a great theologian you need to base that on scripture not on his great fame and authority and that's what you're not doing because you can't and you know it you know it some of you have had confabs, get togethers meetings about me about me?

huh how weird because on all of this i started off looking at john 1428 i didn't bother to open it up but i could have quoted you what i said straight out of what forgotten trinity which was written between 1996 and 1997 a quarter century ago i'm not the one that's changed and i'm sorry if i seem bullheaded to you but you've not given me any reasons to reconsider what i've taught all these years and all you can light these babies up and hide behind the smoke all you want this is not going to cause me to change my views shouldn't cause anybody else to do it either really appreciate that strawman okie dokie there you go hour and a half yay yay and i didn't get through the article so i will keep that one in line because like i said the questions should have been objected to i would have objected to those questions and i would hope that if the roles were reversed and you had just these horrific strawman misrepresentations on the other side i would have said no no no that's not what they're saying that's not what they're saying but anyway there it is alright thanks for watching the program today i think it's thursday yes it is thursday see you know what my concern is so much will happen over this weekend that how do you ever continue on that's the hard part but we'll try we'll do our best one last thing wait wait wait don't hit it fade it out if you did had you started it i forgot this won't make any sense if i try to tag it on later one last thing i have a tweet here from matthew barrett and it's a quotation of peter sammons who teaches at masters seminary it should greatly concern you if the trinity you espouse would be unrecognizable or even worse condemned by a standard of historic orthodoxy now let me stop for a second because you can't see it so it should greatly concern you if the trinity you espouse would be unrecognizable or even worse condemned by a standard of historic orthodoxy evidently dr barrett is now the standard of historic orthodoxy because he somehow would be able to know exactly what that would look like we don't know exactly what he's referring to here but we can guess because the next line is

Aquinas can help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity i'm sorry sorry i said dr barrett this is peter sammons professor at the masters seminary it should greatly concern you this is being quoted by barrett but this is peter sammons saying it from credo magazine it should greatly concern you if the trinity you espouse would be unrecognizable or even worse condemned by a standard of historic orthodoxy

Aquinas can help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity it took 30 seconds to go he's already signed off he's done an hour and a half and he's finished don't mess with the guy who's got the controls listen

Aquinas can help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity this is important i thought about this this morning that's why we need to do this don't fade out or you either

Aquinas can help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity what would you naturally expect to actually be the terminology that's used what should be able to help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity if this isn't the first thing you think of i've got problems with you and if your doctrine of the orthodox trinity is not clear enough from this then we've got serious problems can

Aquinas help you do it this is a question that every student should be asking their professors is there anything that is biblically mandated of christian belief that Aquinas was the first person to enunciate is there anything mandated by biblical christian belief believing everything that this word says having the highest view of its nature as the anustos revelation is there anything that is biblically revealed that Aquinas explains to us better than anyone else ever has is there anything we need to believe from scripture that only

Aquinas is able to familiarize us with so anything that's being promoted are we saying that in all the early church fathers there wasn't anyone that could do it like Aquinas they all missed it they didn't have as deep an understanding or how about post

Aquinas since the reformation think of the greatest theologians in the reformed tradition do they say it in a way that Aquinas eclipses he's better at so how is it that Aquinas can help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity and I had a conversation that was quite interesting

I asked could Cardinal Ratzinger help us to stay faithful to the orthodox trinity and now you need to understand something

Joseph Ratzinger was the premier of the orthodox of the congregation of the faith congregation of the faith is that what it's called anyway that's the modern term

Joseph Ratzinger was the premier, the head of what used to be known as the inquisition

Ratzinger was a major theologian a major theologian wrote many books from a

Roman Catholic perspective top flight level theologian if you don't know who

Ratzinger was or still is he's still alive he was

Pope Benedict XVI who resigned and gave us

Francis and whose theology is very different from Francis very very different but the point is

I asked a fellow reformed Baptist pastor would you say that the

Pope can help us stay faithful to the orthodox trinity why not we can learn from anybody that's what he said we can learn from anybody

I think you see the issue I think you see the issue this isn't a matter of humility are you seriously going to suggest there's something that this reveals that has been most clearly expressed in the history of the church by Pope Benedict XVI that we need to know there's nobody in our tradition that's up to that task to say that with that level of clarity then shouldn't we be reading all of Benedict's stuff too it's a lot of books a lot of books see the point now

I hope so I hope so for those of you in Bible colleges and seminaries where you're getting hit with this stuff stay the course listen to the lectures, take good notes pass the test doesn't mean you have to believe it

I survived Fuller I survived

Fuller you can survive where you are if you feel that's where God has you to be there you go alright glad I remember that needed to throw that in there so this time

Rich we can go ahead and start the closing theme we're rolling thanks for watching program today we'll see you next time