March 15, 2012

Opening Announcements and Tonight’s Live Debate

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 9 7 3 4 6 0 2 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white. And welcome to the dividing line on a Thursday afternoon half an hour early.

We're gonna have come people coming in later going. You're not supposed to start then you don't start at the half hour well, as I explained last time the the reason that we are doing that is that at Eight o 'clock Eastern Daylight Time five o 'clock Pacific Daylight Time.

Which is of course irrelevant time. Because we don't need it anymore and it needs to be done away with but anyway I'll be doing a live debate on abnsat .com the you've seen some of those debates for for example Abdullah Kunda and I the last time I was on a BN via Skype was Abdullah and I debating and I will be debating Sheikh jawad jawad.

I'll answer II this evening from the Detroit area on surah 4157, which is of course rather appropriate in light of our release last evening 40 40 Arabic words indeed. I hope if you have not seen 40 Arabic words You will jump on the blog take a look at it.

You'll share the link with friends with your Muslim friends, etc, etc. It is the second cooperation between myself and Ivy Connerly and Marcus Pittman at crown rights media and so on and so forth and that yes.

There is a third in the works. I'm not gonna tell you anything more than that. You just get to sort of Guess about that for a while. It's oh, it's available on Facebook too. Yes. Yes. It is available on Facebook.

Anyway, um, and So it's ironic that we would be having a debate this evening on surah 4 1 2 7 and the very same 40 Arabic words, but. That was not a 70s funky shirt Carla it was a Hawaiian shirt. Actually, that's not even the proper terminology either.

It's Aloha shirt. It's called what? Speaking of shirts. Do you know that we're getting requests? We're getting a lot of requests a lot of requests for Ivy's shirt. Yeah, we need we need Carla to to come up with Ivy shirt.

Yeah, we need well. We need to do is we need to come up with Ivy shirt. But we need to put the 33 Greek words above it and the 40 Arabic words below it. That'd be a crowded shirt. No, no, not if not if you made that's the right size.

Okay, I make sure. Sure, I mean the graphics. Silly. Anyway. Yeah, I've seen I want that shirt. 33 is greater than 40 anyway, it's not an Aloha shirt. I it is Aloha shirt, not a Hawaiian shirt or a why'd she call it 70s funky shirt?

I was in I you know how I did that. I'll tell you how I did that I was on my way out to I was the day before I left. They contacted me and said we want to have an introduction to this This video and I'm like I'm packing to leave.

Okay, I'll try to find some way of doing it in Hawaii which was odd and so I borrowed a video camera from someone in the church in Hilo and I literally took the the cross in the front of the church and took it off of its stand and took it out back and Stuck it on some volcanic rocks and I set up a tripod and I did all that myself and You're supposed to wear Aloha shirts when you when you do stuff like that.

And so I was doing I did that all myself and then provided that to Marcus and he put it in there and oh Man, someone just said it's a Rick Warren shirt. Now. I really feel badly. I should have worn anything other than that.

So Anyway, that's how that all go put the gut put together. But anyways this evening right after the program. That's why we're starting early. Because I need some time to sort of get set up and and ready for that debate.

So that's why we're getting started early. What I want to do on the program today is I want to continue with some of the questions that were asked William Lane Craig we get a lot of feedback mainly positive feedback actually when we deal with apologetic issues in the sense of dealing with what the foundational issues are methodologies and things like that and So I want to continue.

It seems to help folks to hear how Craig would answer a question how I would answer a question then you can go. Oh, okay. I see how Your your foundational starting point will impact how you give an answer and I want to be consistent in the answers I give to those who would ask me a reason for the hope that's within me.

So that's useful to me so we'll look at a few more of those and then I want to jump into normally I'd cue up the Radio free Damascus music, but we'll skip that today because we're only doing an hour and I do want to start jumping into the Adnan Rashid Jay Smith debate.

In fact, someone told me just a while ago That man someone said I almost look like a Methodist in that shirt. Wow, man. People are cruel. That is cruel that hurts. I may have I may have to stop the program right now.

I really might yeah, I'm reaching I'm It's so far down the back and so deep I'm not sure I can get that one out it's it's rough. I Shouldn't be looking at the channel. I mean Presbyterian maybe but Methodist.

Okay. No Presbyterians would never know Presbyterian would be caught dead in that shirt. No way not even not even and not even in Hilo. No, that's that's not happening. What was I saying, I don't know what I was saying, I Would normally start the radio free Damascus music, but we're not gonna do that today.

I do however want to get started in responding to Adnan Rashid's comments. I mentioned this a few weeks ago I'm starting to get a backlog of stuff that I want to deal with and that's not good. That means I'm not getting we're not doing enough jumbos and Megas to get through everything and I'm sure Ralph is going.

That's right. You need to be doing Two jumbos a day one morning one the evening every day and that's that that's that would not be enough for for Ralph actually. But anyways, we're gonna jump into the Jay Smith versus Adnan Rashid.

Oh, I was saying someone who's telling me that Jay Smith's actually gonna also be doing an a BN Skype debate sometime this week. Or maybe next week something like that. So looks like a BN is getting really busy again doing stuff like this.

So This evening. Don't forget a BN sat comm for the hopefully this time last time. My video lasted like three minutes and then dropped and they never told me about it. And so I was never able to reestablish it or anything so just put a some goofy picture of me up from.

Well, they've got enough goofy pictures of me because I've been on it long enough time so That that's probably will end up I'll probably go through all the trouble I'm going through today to get set up.

Yeah. To do this thing live and it'll it'll disappear and that's that's that's a that's terrible. Anyway, let's jump back into the William Lane Craig presentation here and Hopefully we've got it all queued up and ready to go and and I'll probably end up playing a few questions or at least the Starts questions that we've already listened to but and that's life.

This is This is live Webcasting. It's not radio, but it could be. All right, let's dive back into this is from the University of Florida as I recall and Well, we introduced the last time or a simple question and I'm kind of loaded.

Why Christianity Claims to Be True Over Against Other Religions

Why is Christianity more right than any other religion that has ever existed or will exist.

Christianity shares many doctrines with other religions particularly with regard to the existence of God. The great monotheistic faiths like Judaism Christianity and Islam all share belief in the idea of a personal Creator and designer of the universe who is the source of moral value and who holds us responsible.

But the reason I believe that Christian theism in particular is true is because of Jesus of Nazareth. I think that we have very good historical grounds for thinking that this man claimed to be the absolute revelation of God and son of God and Remarkably God raised him from the dead in attestation of these radical Blasphemous allegedly blasphemous claims for which he was crucified.

Now I know at first blush that sounds crazy. I mean what? Historical evidence could there be for an event like Jesus resurrection? But this was a subject of my doctoral research my doctoral dissertation in Germany at the University of Munich and what I found is that That the central facts undergirding an inference to the resurrection of Jesus are Accepted by the wide majority of New Testament historians today, and these would include things like Jesus crucifixion at the hands of the Roman authorities in Jerusalem his Burial in a tomb by a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

We even know his name Joseph of Arimathea. The discovery of that tomb being empty on the first day of the following week by a group of his Jesus women followers. Then various individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive after his death and then finally the Original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead Despite every predisposition to the contrary now Let me just stop right there for a moment.

Anyone who has listened to William Lane Craig speak could have given all those arguments. Then you just throw in at the end and you too can experience God directly outside of arguments and you've got the standard WLC presentation the There's no question that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is absolutely central to the demonstration of the uniqueness of Christian claims to truth.

I Would not have started out by. I Would not have started out answering a question as was asked. Why is Christianity? The only true religion over against all other religions. I would not have started out by well You know actually we share a lot of things with other religions, and we have a lot.

You know the great monotheistic religions. I would not have started out in essence muting The uniqueness of Christianity that was part and parcel of the question itself. I would have taken that and I would have used that as part of my answer.

I would have said you know you're you're exactly right that Christianity does make a rather startling claim that many other religions especially the ancient world did not make in Fact it was one of the things that was offensive to the Romans was both in Judaism and Christianity you had this exclusivistic element.

That it wasn't well. I've got my God, and I prefer my God over your God. Or I just you know this this God makes me feel better than your God does and so I'm going to stick with this. That that's not what you had you had an exclusive claim that said my God is true and and your God actually isn't true and We're right back to that same way of pagan thinking.

Honestly in our society where the offense is to say this is actually true for me and for you. Back then that was the offense. That's the offense now again. If you if you want to say something's true for you.

But it's not necessarily true for somebody else then you can get away with it as long as you will blaspheme the very meaning of the word truth all will be well, but anyways I diverge from my intention here.

But I would have used the uniqueness To immediately jump the fact that well Christianity is making an amazing claim. But I wouldn't. I would not have divorced it seems to me in in a sense. That to go immediately to the resurrection well, I guess you could say crucifixion and resurrection because he did mention that as part of the issue is I think to miss part of the the very force of what we're saying because We're not just talking about any old person who is crucified and then is resurrected.

Let's let's go whole hog. Let's let's let's be let's admit what we're really saying. We're saying that the creator of all things invaded His own creation so the one who was hung upon the cross engaged in that activity Voluntarily.

See now you can tie everything together. I Am concerned and there have been people who have emphasized this I am concerned that sometimes in West the Western be called Western Christendom. I hate those terms but Non-eastern Orthodox, let's put it that way.

That's Not only can it be somewhat rightly said that that many people in the West are primarily monotheistic and only secondarily Trinitarian if they're Trinitarian at all and That Eastern Orthodoxy has one claim and that is that it's thoroughly Trinitarian or at least Claims to be and certainly in its liturgy emphasizes such things but There's also a commensurate emphasis sometimes and an out-of-balance emphasis because it's pulling the opposite direction as the West on the incarnation and in fact Some have argued that there's so much emphasis upon the incarnation in Orthodoxy That the atonement becomes de-emphasized.

I Think you have to have both and I think sometimes we speaking as in just a real general term of the West we Look at the cross Outside of the necessary light of the incarnation We consider it separately from The real nature of the person who is giving his life on the cross.

I Think all biblical truth has to be balanced biblical truth. And when we do not Balance things we end up and it's it's a natural thing. Unfortunately to overemphasize one thing at the cost of another thing therefore to really see the cross and to see how it is the center point of history and and everything else requires a Recognition of the tremendous reality of the incarnation.

But if you don't have at the same time The focus of the purpose of the incarnation is the cross then You end up with some of the imbalances you have in in Eastern Orthodoxy and especially in its soteriology so I would have gone just whole hog with the whole thing and said why is Christianity true and all of the religions aren't true is because God has chosen to reveal himself in one Particular fashion to the exclusion of all others.

Jesus wasn't just one revelation amongst many revelations of Muhammad or Buddha or Buddha or whoever else but If Jesus is who the Bible says he is if the incarnation is true How could there be any other way to God if the incarnation is to can you imagine God going through? the incarnation and Saying well, that's just one way If you don't happen to like what I did there, I'll provide you some other ways.

The world seems to demand that the world wants that but you put the incarnation in its context and then in light of that what's going on at the cross and you really see obviously if God himself has entered into his own creation and then Given his life upon Calvary's tree.

There can be no other way I mean if God has has given himself Then there can be no other way to have peace with him and therefore Christianity must be true in of its essence so that's Certainly where I would have gone In in responding to the to the question or a simple question.

Evolution, Genesis, and the Catholic Accommodation to Darwinism

Oh drat I forgot that when I use this function, it doesn't allow me to continue all object.

It's not as though the number two. Just yeah.

Let's see if I can find it in here somewhere and continue on with it. All right. Well, I was wondering if you could talk about how the so-called a and B theories of time. Oh, no, we do we are not Doing the a B.

Here you have time because Craig has. Don't ask don't ask turn it off. Do not ask. You will not ask that question. Not in the a theory of time or the B theory of time. Will you have that ask that question?

Actually, I was thinking is that something akin to back to the future? No, you know, it's not the space-time continuum and rupturing it and no. What 1 .21 gigawatts? No, stop that. What do you have in that cup?

Is that is that caffeinated coffee? Oh Dr. Pepper, well that explains that. Okay. All right, never mind. We're just gonna skip that Dr. Craig waxed long shall we say on the a and B theory of time because he's written on the subject and it's really Really exciting which is why I could go on to the next question right here.

I.

Had a question in regards to evolution and there seems to be a disparity between Church and the theory of evolution and I wanted to know whether the same disparity exists between Faith and evolution and if so, whether or not it can be reconciled.

Yeah, I I think that the majority of Christians have come to terms with the Darwinian theory of evolution and that it's only among certain conservatives that they still see a Conflict between the Bible and evolution the Roman Catholic Church, for example.

The the main their main position is that God used evolution to evolve The human body to the point that it was ready to receive a soul From God and that humans didn't become fully human until the soul was breathed into this hominid body.

So the Catholic Church at least has come fully to terms with evolution. So I think once you get past the view that Genesis teaches the creation of the world in six consecutive 24-hour days Then it's wide open for interpretation.

There are all kinds of Interpretations of Genesis 1 that are available to the Bible-believing Christian in addition to six-day literal creationism and and so I Guess I I think that this is not really much of an issue anymore except in certain limited circles.

So, there you go folks. Utter and total capitulation, you know, you don't need to worry about that that intelligent design stuff and and and you just we've just all accepted that that that's that's how it works and Biologos come on in all as well.

Everything's cool so. You know, I was I was not overly surprised at that particular point when I heard that but that's um, that's that's that's where he's coming from and What can I say I'm sorry. What?

Oh Yes yeah, Rich was suggesting that we have angel do a a Caribris Caribris, I'm sorry the three-headed dog thing with the three heads of William Lane Craig on it and. That would be interesting, but anyway, though somewhat modalistic, but we won't even get into that right now.

All the intelligent design stuff and and you know the tons of stuff coming out I mean we've never ever ever had more information about the complexity of life and and the failure of neo-darwinianism, but hey.

The Catholics believe in it. Allegedly. So why can't we so we've it's just a few fringe people out there that still have issues with that stuff. We all know that it's all it's all great. So there you go.

I just thought I would you might find that interesting opted to accommodate.

Fearless Evangelism, Fear and Trembling, and the Need for Regeneration

How. Yeah, I hear you Jason and I think that is a risk. One of the things that I feel Badly about frankly is it in the debates that I participate in all the students here is an intellectual defense of the propositional content of Christian truth but they don't really hear anything about how to become a Christian or what it means to know God as a Reality in your life today.

It's all up here. It's all cerebral and and I do think that there's a danger of just reducing Christian faith to a sort of set of propositions, which is it's more so much more than that, but I rationalize into my own mind by saying that the Pendulum has been on the other side so long the purely Experiential and the emotional that if I swing the pendulum a little too far to the other side.

Well, maybe that will help to redress the balance but at least in a forum like this tonight, I want to go absolutely on record in saying that There's much much more to Christian faith than just the intellectual content of it.

I'm curious which. Apologist. Well, I guess I'll stop that one there. I I guess the reason I put a marker there is I Most people have recognized that in most of my debates when the debate is long enough.

And I'll probably try to do it this evening as well at some point. I attempt to make a presentation of the gospel and I I don't want my debates to be merely a Intellectual exercise and. So, I guess I was I was in a level of agreement with that particular section of the presentation because it did Emphasize the fact that what you see in debates Needs to be balanced with Quote-unquote real life.

I mean allegedly in a debate you should have a very narrow range of information being presented. It doesn't always work that way, unfortunately, but It should be and it's just one question and As valuable as that can be there there does need to be balance and that's why I'm glad I don't just do debates.

I not only do presentations. I preach in the church and so on and so forth. So I I guess in essence I was agreeing with a part of what?

Craig was saying there in his presentation found training and apologetics is one of the keys to fearless evangelism. Philippians 2 12 speaks of working out one's faith in fear and trembling. How can one simultaneously work out one's salvation in fear and trembling while evangelizing about that salvation fearlessly?

Yeah, not a two-round. Well, all right.

It's the existence. Yeah, right, right. I hear you and When he taught when Paul talks about work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Don't you think I'm sure Paul met Not in fear and trembling that this may be false that you might be on the wrong track but he's probably talking there about human frailty and Fallibility and he says I don't even assume that I have attained it, right?

He he talks about how he presses on to the goal But he says I don't consider that even I've attained it. Paul Knew that even he could he could fall away and betray Christ and so working out your salvation with fear and trembling is I think to Say, I know I could be like a Peter who said I will die for you But that night he denied Christ three times.

It's it's understanding your own weakness and fallibility and and relying upon the fullness of the Holy Spirit To help you to live a life that is pleasing to God and faithful to him. But when we talk about fearless evangelism, I mean, this is what the same man Paul.

Exhibited this man stood in the face. Now. I think the reason I chose that one is because the The danger with dr. Craig is when you get him into the Bible. When you get him out of a and B theories of time.

And out of philosophy and and out of a narrow range of topics get him in the Bible. It can get a little scary. And Philippians chapter 2 isn't about any of that stuff. So that my beloved just as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence.

Worker to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you Both to will and to work for his good pleasure. What is the reason that there is fear and trembling? It's in light of the recognition of the fact that it's the Holy God who is at work within you in bringing about your salvation.

It's not about well, I'm fearful and trembling that I might be wrong about what I'm saying or Has nothing to do with that. It is a recognition that salvation is a divine action and that is the sovereign God.

It is the the Holy God who is at work within you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So I mean Philippians 2 12 is often misused by people. They think work out your salvation means work for your salvation it does not but you work it out in Light of the one who is working in you and you do so with fear and trembling not because you're afraid you're not going to make It not because you have no confidence in God or anything else.

But because you recognize that it is the Holy God who is at work within you. That's where the fear and trembling comes from as you recognize that it is the work of God and I May once again just be completely out of the mainstream.

Here and out in the boonies somewhere, but I personally think that if you're gonna be involved in apologetics. First and foremost you need to know your Bible and you need to know how to handle it and you need to know how to Rightly address texts even on the fly without actually sitting down and necessarily I mean and there are difficult passages in the Bible.

I'm not saying you have to be an expert and everything, but it should be your foremost focus. To handle the Word of God a right. I think that is as a fair statement art three-person God.

Where he. Here's the poem for you as yet, but knock breathe shine and seek to mend that I may rise and stand. Overthrow me and bend your force to break blow burn and make me new. I like a usurped town to another do Labor to admit you but oh to no end.

Reason your viceroy in me me should defend but is captive and proves weak or untrue. Yeah, how does one whose reason is captive and weak in the way that John Donne describes in this poem? How does one whose reason is captive we practice a reasonable?

Yeah, this is an interesting question done in this poem.

Notice how he characterizes reason not as something that's antithetical to God or against God. He says reason is God's viceroy in me. It is a God-given gift to work in me that ought to lead me to defend God, but he said instead it's fallen and captive and corrupted.

So I think what that implies is as as John Wesley saw that we need the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit so that reason can then become a proper tool of God's Spirit in Defending and articulating the Christian faith as God intended.

So the problem now, I don't know about you.

But if dr. Craig were consistent with what he just said He'd be a monergist. But That's not what he's saying. It sounds like what he's saying is we need regeneration for reason to be To be soundly used in the defense of God's truth.

That's true but what he's not saying is that regeneration is required for a person to exercise true saving faith in Jesus Christ or to use his reason to properly evaluate the arguments for the existence of God or Anything else along those lines.

I just found that very very interesting that he will confess the necessity of Regeneration and the work of the Spirit for us to use reason properly in the defense of the faith. But the unregenerate person the unregenerate person without a renewed mind without a new nature without the removal of the noetic effects of sin is Capable of analyzing the five primary arguments that William Lane Craig will present and Without any of that other stuff happening without regeneration with any any of that is able to evaluate those arguments and come to the proper conclusion that I should put my faith in Jesus Christ and I just simply say ain't gonna happen.

That's no ain't gonna happen. If you you really think that that heart of stone is going to fairly evaluate The evidences that point to the necessity of that heart of stone being replaced by heart of flesh.

Sorry not not gonna happen, but I found that fascinating. That he would say well, yeah, you know, you need to be born again to accurately present God's truth. He's right. But what he doesn't see if you just follow that through is that if he were to be consistent That he'd have to be a monergist rather than the synergist that he is.

Just another example of how we need to go there. It is about two minutes after Four o 'clock and so we've we're about halfway through the program a little bit over halfway through the program. So I'm going to shift gears.

Once again, this will also help me a little bit to shift gears get my mind into the Islamic area before the debate this evening With Sheikh Jawad Al-Ansari from Detroit on the subject of surah 4157 and whether Jesus Christ was Substituted or in fact was crucified will be the subject we'll be addressing this day.

This debate took place on February 23rd of this year. I was briefly in the loop as Possibly traveling to Dublin to engage in this debate, but that didn't happen. Unfortunately, I would have very much enjoyed it we I certainly hope to arrange something in the Later part of this year for the same venue, that would be wonderful.

But anyways, it was a debate between Jay Smith and Adnan Rashid. Now I have debated Adnan a couple times. We debated in London. We've been on the unbelievable radio broadcast together. Adnan is an interesting fellow and in this particular debate on who is Jesus Adnan decided to take the well We have to default back to what the Quran says about Jesus because we can't trust anything in the New Testament because of textual variation argumentation and so upon hearing that I is like, oh, oh, oh, oh, I I Want to discuss this I would I would very much like to engage Adnan Rashid on issues of textual criticism because The the gentleman just does not understand Even what he's reading.

For example, we will hear during the course of this program. We will hear him quote the title of Metzger's work the New Testament and The the the use by Metzger. It's corruption it's it's transmission corruption and Restoration and he takes that term corruption and he assigns a particular meaning to it that Dr. Metzger would never assign to it he needs to understand that in in in in a scholarly textual critical context corruption refers to any Variation in the transmission of the text whatsoever even if that has nothing to do with Causing a problem about what the original was so if a 15th century Scribe were to Have a problem one day in the transmission of the text and create a reading that no one has ever seen before That would be corruption but It would not have any possibility of being the original reading Because it has no support in the earlier manuscripts in the versions etc, etc.

So corruption does not mean Destroyed so that we cannot know what it originally said. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Adnan assumes that it means. What I'm not needs to understand and I'm sort of getting ahead of myself here.

But I'm just sort of summarizing why we're gonna spend some time looking at this. What Adnan needs to understand is that if he applies the same standard to the Quran then he has to talk about the corruption of the Quran and Even if he doesn't accept any of the readings he has to accept the reality of the fact that the early Tafsir literature of the Muslim people themselves Indicates that there were variations in reading and it wasn't just Pronunciation It had to do with the consonantal text and even if he says yeah, but Uthman is the is the ultimate authority and this wasn't even if he Makes that assertion.

It doesn't matter Using the term as Metzger was using it would require him to refer to the corruption of The text of the Quran because it simply refers. It's a technical term. It's a term in textual critical scholarship that has to do with the existence of any variation Even if the variation does not in any way Impact our knowledge of the original even if even if the variation has no possibility of being the original.

That still would introduce the concept of Corruption and So this this comes up over and over again in the debate. It's a little bit frustrating to me. But that's one of the reasons we'll be taking a look at so I I skipped the first few moments of Adnan's opening mainly because you know, he was just the introduction stuff and go immediately to the first argument and I had a good friend of mine.

I sort of gave him a heads-up about this debate and so he was able to attend the debate and This is one of the very first things he mentioned to me even before I heard the debate That Adnan had brought up which would be a place where Jay and I would respond differently to the argumentation.

Jay is a wonderful debater. He's a great speaker. He knows Islam very very well. But he's also comes from sort of a Mennonite, Nazarene, Anabaptist, pacifist Synergistic background stuff and it impacts Discussions of soteriology as it will impact here how he responds to Adnan's argument about the death of Christ and it also impacts how he views the Old Testament and the Old Testament theocratic laws and Nationalistic laws and and issues like that the battles that the people of Israel did and things like that so we we answer certain areas in the same way and certain other areas in different ways and That will come up as we listen to this.

So let's let's pick up with the first part of the argumentation from.

The Atonement and the Muslim Objection to Christ’s Death

Adnan Rashid. My sins and the sins of Humanity all together. Interesting questions which can be raised from this very Notion of Jesus dying for our sins is that if he died for my sins And I'm a Muslim and according to Christians being a Muslim is blasphemy and a sin.

Then if he has already paid for my sin for being a Muslim Then I have the salvation. I Don't have to be a Christian. Being a Muslim is a sin According to the Christian view and if that's the case then he has already died for my sin on the cross.

He knew I am going to be a Muslim and he knew I'm going to be debating against his divinity and his crucifixion today. So these sins I'm committing right now. He has already paid for them. So I don't even have to be a Christian because he has paid for my sins already.

Coming back to the point. Oh.

Now there's there's the argument and it's it's not the first time I've heard this one. And how you respond to it will depend on how you view the atonement now taking even a Non-reformed perspective because one of the audience questioners attempts to do this later on one of the audience questions specifically focused upon this and Attempted to give a non-reformed response.

Obviously, I think everybody in the audience knows I would challenge and would argue against the assumption of universal substitutionary atonement as Was the foundation of Adnan's entire? Presentation.

Well, Jesus died for me died for all of mankind's sins. Then my sins are already atoned for the non-reformed person basically argues well, but that's only his death is only in potentiality for your sins and The receipt of the effect of That atonement is based upon your repentance and faith.

But what that then leaves Adnan capable of saying is so what you're saying is Jesus didn't really die for my sins in the sense of actually bringing about redemption for sins. He didn't die to actually save anyone.

He died to make men savable. Which of course is what our minions are actually arguing and So to be consistent at this point, I would have to respond very differently to Adnan Rashid than a Synergist would a person who? Basically has to agree that the death of Christ in of itself Does not accomplish the redemption of anyone now clearly I am I am not presenting the idea That I was saved from eternity or eternally justified or these views that some people have gotten into in the past because he as Ephesians chapter 2 says all of us Were at one point at time in time enemies of God.