The Ludicrous, Yet Fully Accurate, Charge of Marcionism, and Austin Fischer's Opening

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00:35

And welcome to The Dividing Line on, let's see, it's Tuesday isn't it, yes, but we're doing it in the afternoon and I don't know what's going to happen the rest of the week because I'm heading out of town tomorrow morning,

00:47

Thursday night, Friday night, and Sunday morning we'll be speaking on Church History, Doctrines, Dates, and Dead Guys is the title of the...

01:01

That'll just pack the place out, let me tell you, if you just want to have, you know,

01:07

I'm in it for the money folks and I just, you know, the big crowds, you know, we almost, we had to try to find some place as big as Joel Osteen's place because we're talking about early

01:20

Church history and I, if we might, we might have two dozen people, we might get two dozen people.

01:27

Wait a minute, was that Joe Osteen or Joel? Yeah, Joe Osteen, who, the lesser known younger brother of Joel, but yeah, we're out there going for the big bucks, anyway,

01:48

I hope if you take the time up there in Boulder to come out on Thursday night and Friday night to make it worth your while and to keep your interest because, obviously,

02:01

I think Church history is rather important and it's nice to know where we came from and I'm obviously convinced that you can't really make heads or tails out of the weirdness going on in the world today if you don't know something about how we got to where we are and that is a real problem, a real problem with most of the people in our nation today is they don't know anything about history, but anyways, so that means

02:30

I will not be here on Thursday and I don't know what's going to be going on on Thursday, have you, you don't know what's going on either, okay, so maybe something, maybe not, have to watch the blog,

02:41

Facebook, Twitter, stuff like that, but I don't know, I don't know, but we'll be back next week and, wow,

02:52

I didn't have my calendar up here, but the trusty computer should bring it up fairly quickly, yeah, we got two weeks after that, pretty much straightforward and then, whoop, then

03:06

I'm actually going to be doing my first non -stop flight from Phoenix to Heathrow, never done that before,

03:21

I've always done the bleep, bleep thing and sometimes bleep and then bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, like we did back in February, like get to the airport, land at the airport, airport close, get to another airport, have the plane, have hydraulic fluid shooting all over the place when it lands, oh, that was, this trip should go nice and smooth because that one was just, that was ugly, that was just ugly, so the camera's working so I can say hi to the

04:01

Westcott kids, hi kids, how you doing, the Westcott and Hort kids, actually, yeah,

04:09

I don't think Westcott and Hort were married, no, that was, they were Anglicans, but that was a different century, thankfully, so there wasn't any problem there, anyway, so anyways, two weeks, so the 15th to the 19th, the 22nd to the 26th, we're good and then the next week we head for South Africa and so, obviously, we continue to ask, especially for your prayers, support for us,

04:40

Alphanumeric Ministry of South Africa, there's lots to be done,

04:45

I don't think I'm there as long this time and that's good because I think

04:50

Rudolph said that I've got like five debates, seven lectures in six days, so however that works out, there you go.

05:03

Okay, this morning, this morning, this morning, this morning, I've started using Evernote now and it's really cool and you can just throw everything into one thing and thanks to the person who a couple weeks ago said,

05:16

I expect to see this on your ministry resources, yeah, I got the new and I've discovered the new pen that I got will record mp3,

05:27

I didn't think that it would, so I've got a backup now, I'm still going to use the other one for the mp3 because it's got a little bit more opening for really doing the recording part but this one will do it too and so that's pretty cool, so I'll have two different ways of getting that during debates and stuff but this is the pen that allows me to be writing in a journal and it goes straight to my iPad and then

05:51

I got this working real fast, you just select these snippets and then just swipe on your iPad and it converts it to text immediately and it did not miss a single word in my test, in the test writing that I did, converting my handwriting, of course,

06:07

I print, I don't hand write, so that's sort of how that works anyways but it does a good job converting it and that's really neat because I've got some projects where it would actually be easier for me to be writing notes than typing notes just simply because the sources that I'm working on, so that's going to be really, really neat but I don't even know how

06:28

I got on that. Oh, I was just thanking somebody from Twitter for directing me to that.

06:34

For all the abuse I take on Twitter and all the people I've had to block, there have been some good things that have come through there.

06:40

It's easy to get cynical and negative, I think, sometimes and just, yeah,

06:46

I just want to turn it all off because of all the stupidity. And sometimes Facebook is okay. Yeah, well,

06:53

I know what's going on in my kids' lives now. I told you, you know,

06:58

Facebook's all right. And I should put up on Facebook that I'm completely pixelated on my monitor up there and I see an arrow going around up there.

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Anyway, it was on Facebook this morning.

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No, no, no, no, no, no. It was on my Feedly. I have a Feedly feed and I saw

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Roger Olson's response. And what is

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Martianism? My response to a ludicrous... Now, remember, we're not talking about warp speed, we're talking about ludicrous speed.

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My response to a, oh no, we'll get somebody to complain about that too. Did you know we had somebody complain that I've mentioned

07:46

Star Trek? Oh no, he doesn't live in a monastery.

07:56

Wow. Okay. Well, anyway, no, we never did get the Borg Cube. I'm a little bummed about that.

08:03

I'm hoping that the folks that said they were gonna do that didn't have problems or, you know, their car got totaled or, you know, things like that happen.

08:10

But I'm gonna have to look for that link because I'm gonna have to go wash a few cars or something because that Borg Cube would still just be really, really cool right there.

08:19

That's where it's gotta go is because the Tribble's holding the spot down right there. See the Tribble? Anyhow, Roger Olson responded to the ludicrous accusation that he's a

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Martianite. And here's what he had to say. It has recently come to my attention that some critics are accusing me of Martianism.

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A few commentators have thrown that wild accusation at me based on my questioning the literal interpretation of some

08:57

Old Testament text of tarot. Once again, I don't understand why

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Dr. Olson won't just come clean here. Let's just be honest. This isn't about interpretation.

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It's about the nature of the text. Hello? We haven't been clear upon this?

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This isn't a matter of interpretation. This isn't a matter of, well, you take it literally and I take it less than literally.

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What you're saying is, what you said in the comm box comments back and forth that we read rather extensively last time,

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Dr. Olson, is that the Hebrews accurately recorded their thoughts about God.

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Now, that's real obvious what you're saying. What you're saying is that the nature of the text is not

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Theanoustas. It's not God breathed. It's men's thoughts about God, which is why you can go, well, you know, my

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God would never do that. And if you look at these through the lens of Jesus, which you pretend you can create out of whole cloth.

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I mean, I say to you, there is no lens of Jesus without the God breathed

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Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the Ketuvim. None of the New Testament writers would have had any concept of what you're talking about.

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Not a one of them. You show me one, Dr. Olson, one that viewed the

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Old Testament scriptures the way you do. Just one. Show me some evidence. Give me some evidence from the

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New Testament, Dr. Olson, that the New Testament writers said, well, you know, you know, that Old Testament stuff, you know, they were just accurately recording what they were thinking about God.

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That's how Matthew viewed it, right? You know, when he quotes Jesus saying, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying this?

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And that's certainly what Peter meant when he said men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. Oh no, you're saying they weren't speaking from God, but that they were accurately reflecting their thoughts about God.

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But you're saying that their thoughts were inaccurate because God didn't ever tell them to be the instrument of punishment against these nations.

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So just be straight up about this. And that's one of the things that, you know,

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I wanted to point out here and we will get to Austin Fisher. We have, we have the technology.

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We have the time. We don't have $6 million, but we have the technology. Oh no, I did it again.

11:45

Oh man. Ah, well, you got to answer all these emails. I don't,

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I don't have that. You don't even send them to me. If you didn't mention them in channel or something like that, I'd never even know. So I'm just going to,

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I'm not even going to worry myself. Anyway, I'm going to get to Austin Fisher, but look folks on one, on one level,

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I, I sort of, I sort of feel badly for Roger Olson.

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I do. Um, the reality is that in the, the spectrum of, well this shirt is really, um, all frumply.

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I just looked up and the thing went, wow, have you ever, ever even met an iron? Uh, just, just the way it's going.

12:38

That's a little bit better. Yeah. Uh, that's, that's slightly better. Uh, but anyway, um, in the broad spectrum of the theological realm,

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Roger Olson is a, is a raging conservative, which only tells you how completely whacked the theological realm is because I've had

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Roger Olson in my, um, apologetics feed for a number of years.

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And that's where I have the Roman Catholics and all sorts of other folks too. Um, in other words, I'm not, he's not in the feed of folks on my side because I've read his stuff and he's way off to my left.

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And he's, his view of scripture is very, very, very different from yours and mine.

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The most of the people that are, that would watch this program or listen to this webcast, but you and I, I hope recognize what a small tribe we are and that, especially when it comes to the old

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Testament, uh, the number of people that accept the old Testament for what the old Testament proclaims itself to be, for what the

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Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim, uh, to use the more standard, uh, terminology amongst, uh, uh,

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Jews for the Hebrew scriptures, the, the number of, of scholars and just people in general that actually accept that for what it says it is, knowledgeably, understanding its background, history and things like that.

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Pretty small group, pretty small group. And, uh, so we need to keep that in mind.

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And I think the reason that so many of us have responded to Olson, I mean, he did that series, you know, you know, why

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I'm not a Calvinist, why I'm not an Armenian with Michael Horton. And they went out and did their little, you know, promo tour.

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At least they would talk. Dave Hunt would never, would never allow it to happen when we did our book, but, um, uh, the, the reality is that, um, we hold him because of where he teaches, which doesn't mean anything anymore.

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Sorry, but teaching at Baylor that that's, that's irrelevant. Um, or any of the schools associated there with, um, we, we sort of inappropriately hold him to a standard of conservatism that he clearly has denied for a long time.

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Um, so, uh, would not a large portion of Old Testament scholarship be

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Martianite today? Oh yeah. You bet. You bet. They don't believe that God had anything to do with this.

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They don't believe in the God of the Old Testament. They don't believe this is inspired scripture. They don't believe that it's trustworthy, that it's the

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Anustos. Yeah. You bet. The percentage of believing, uh, scholarship, especially in the

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Old Testament area area is sadly small. They're still there. Thanks B for that.

15:53

But, um, they will admit that they are very much, uh, in, in the minority.

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And so I think the only reason that, um, I've been concerned about what

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Brian Zond has said, or what, uh, Roger Olson is saying is because people tend to think that these folks are actually in our camp when the reality is on a fundamental level, they're not.

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And what this means is, um, what, what it means is this helps us to see the different kinds of Arminianism that are out there.

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Um, the, the Roger Olson Arminianism is not the

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Southwestern Baptist theological seminary, seminary Arminianism. Um, there is an

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Arminianism, the Arminianism that refuses to do what

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Olson and Zond are doing in basically saying, you know, the

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Old Testament is, uh, just men's thoughts.

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You know, they're, they're not willing to do that. Well, hopefully at, uh, Southwestern.

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And so that, that option of just getting rid of the God of the Old Testament, because I mean, reformed theology takes all the scripture as a whole.

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You're, you're, you're recognizing that the new is the fulfillment of the old and that therefore you have connection, you have fulfillment, you have greater things in the new.

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Yes, but you have the same God through all of this. And, and you can't do, oh, that's just the God of the Old Testament. Uh, that's just the

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God of the Hebrews, the Old Testament. And now we've got Jesus is now we know better. You can't do that and have a meaningful doctrine of scripture.

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Some of you will remember when I was talking with Austin Fisher on Unbelievable, I said,

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I said, Austin, I don't see, I don't see any basis for you to continue to have a meaningfully conservative view of scripture.

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Uh, the people that are endorsing your book, the things that you're saying, when you say you're not all upset about open theism, et cetera, et cetera,

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I don't see any basis for you to continue to hold a meaningfully conservative view of scripture, a consistent view of scripture.

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I came out in this debate. I've it's, I'm afraid I have to go, told you.

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So, uh, pretty obvious. Didn't take much to tell you that, but, but that's exactly what's, what's going on here.

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So what you end up with are the philosophical Arminians like Olson and others that have clear authorities that are not derived from scripture.

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They're derived from their own, you know, whatever sources they want, their pietism or, or whatever. Um, but it's not going to be a, it's not even going to really pretend to be biblical.

18:57

They're not going to sit there and try to come up with a, an argument from John chapter six. There's not going to do it.

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Then over the other side, the people that remain biblically conservative. The fact of the matter is their arguments.

19:12

You can simply take them apart as we've done on this program over and over and over again, man, we should have just fired up the, uh, radio free

19:20

Geneva theme for this one, actually, uh, same thing. And so you end up with the

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David Allen's and their, uh, and the current Southern Baptist convention attempts to get around, uh, original sin in Romans five and, and the strange incoherent theories of atonement that, uh, where they're stuck, they're stuck with, with penal substitutionary atonement, which is a reformed theology, trying to meld that with some kind of denial of the specificity of God's decree of election.

19:57

And the result is a mess, uh, just a real mess. And, uh, so those are two different kinds of, of Arminianism that you end up with, and they are not a whole lot alike.

20:10

Now you will find some people drawing from, from both traditions, but they're really very, very different in their, in their mindset and in, and in where they're coming from.

20:19

So, uh, that's what we see here in, uh, in, uh, in Roger, Roger Olson.

20:25

So, um, let me at least address this and we'll get to Austin Fisher. Um, anyone who throws that accusation to me is either ignorant of what

20:34

I have said or ignorant of the meaning of Martianism or both, actually, neither, as we will see.

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By all credible accounts, Martian in the second century Christian heretic, after whom the heresy Martianism is named, did two things that defy his heresy.

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First, he proposed a Christian canon of scriptures that exclude all the Hebrew scriptures, our old Testament, and many of the apostles writings.

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His truncated canon included only portions of what we now call the new Testament that he considered purely Gentile and not

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Hebrew. The reason for this was he viewed the God of the old Testament as a demiurge, which is the point he gets to next.

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Second, he denied that the Hebrew God, the God of the Hebrew scriptures was the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Instead, he argued that the

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God, as he would put it, the Hebrews was a demiurge, a demented or evil demi deity. Now the specific motivation for Martian is

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Gnosticism, dualism, uh, the, the, the God of, uh, the pure God of the

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Gnostic worldview could not create material, which is evil.

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So you've got the E, the eons, the play Roma finally have a demiurge. It's still a divine being, but far enough removed from the pure God to be able to create, uh, the, uh, physical world.

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And that's what, that's what Yahweh, uh, ends up being. Martianism is by all credible accounts, a denial of the inspired status of the old

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Testament. Um, yeah, status of the old test. I'm not sure why

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I use that type of terminology, but it is a denial that what you have in the

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Tanakh is God breathe coming from the one true God of all of creation.

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Now the motivation for Martian is different from that of Olson, but the results the same.

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If Olson tells us that God did not command these things and that what, and that the reason for this is that this is simply the

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Hebrews learning about their God, then the nature of the

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Tanakh is human. It's human. Jesus never taught that none of the new

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Testament apostles taught that that's a modern teaching. Well, okay.

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Modern teaching in the form that's taking right now to try to avoid the problems of biblical theology, but it's a, it is a denial that the

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Hebrew scriptures are the honest us. And that's what Olson's taught. He wants to try to avoid saying this out loud, but let's just be honest.

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If what he is saying, if the words he's used mean anything, then what he's saying is the reason we can get around these texts of terror, which is simply another way of saying that God actually used his covenant people in a few incident instances as the means of his punishment of sinners.

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But the re the way around that is to say, no, God never did that. The Hebrews thought

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God wanted him to do that. And so what you have as God's speaking and commanding in the

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New Testament, in the old Testament is not God's speaking and commanding at all. But what follows from that?

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Because if that's true, then what the Hebrews did was terrible and horrible and wrong.

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And the God they attributed it to would be like a demiurge. Wouldn't he? Yeah, I would think so.

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So number two, a denial of belief in the true deity of the Yahweh of the Hebrew religion. However, in popular usage, the term has come to be applied to any denial of the old

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Testament as not equally inspired with the new Testament. Well, equally inspired as what you have a range here.

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I mean, it's either Theano Stas or it isn't. It's either God's speaking or it's not.

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And there isn't any question about what the New Testament writers thought about this. None. In other words, the

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German Christians, the 1930s were Martianites whether they knew it or not, insofar as they rejected the old

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Testament as inspired. Well, 1930s? German rationalism goes way before that.

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Yeah, German liberalism, British liberalism, American liberalism, French liberalism, whatever it is, definitely joins with Martian in denying the full inspiration of the

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Tanakh. No question about that. That's just sort of a given. What might make it a little bit more relevant is that at least they were claiming to be

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Christians, whereas it might be irrelevant to call an atheist a Martianite who denies the inspiration because they didn't believe he was a god.

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So, anyway. Then he says, the issue here that I have raised for consideration and discussion has never been whether the

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Old Testament or any portion of it inspired. Baloney! I'm sorry, I'm losing what little respect

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I had for Roger Olson because he just won't face the issue here. That's exactly what the issue is.

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Exactly what the issue is. If you're going to sit there and tell your readers that what you have in the

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Old Testament is the Jewish people learning about Yahweh and stumbling and failing and committing genocide by mistake in the process, don't tell me that's inspired.

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I mean, really? Let's let words have meanings here,

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Dr. Olson. The issue is and has always and only been hermeneutics, how best to interpret portions of the

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Old Testament. Really hard to take a professor seriously who can be so dunder -headed when it comes to category mistakes.

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I mean, really? Come on, man! You don't think that the nature of the text is directly related to the very hermeneutical issue that you're raising?

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And your response to the hermeneutical question is that this wasn't

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God speaking. But the text says it was, so the only way that answer can have any meaning is that you're denying that it's actually

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God speaking and hence is the Anustos. Wow!

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It's amazing. Christians have always disagreed about that, going back to their church fathers themselves, not including

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Marcion, who was not a church father. Origen and Tertullian both wrote against Marcion, but neither interpret the whole

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Old Testament literally. Doesn't matter. Neither one of them said what you say. Yes, Origen was out in NaNa land, did tremendous damage.

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No question about it. But neither one of them had the gall to say what you say,

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Roger Olson, that the Old Testament text is just the Jews learning about their God. That it's not the

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Anustos, it's not God speaking. All the allegorical interpretation in the world is going to take away the fact that you are ultimately addressing the nature, and therefore based on the nature, making your hermeneutical application.

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Would the critics who accuse me of Marcionism apply that epithet to all the church fathers who interpreted portions of Hebrew scriptures allegorically?

28:25

I doubt it. No, we wouldn't, because they didn't say what you said. You're just not honest enough to stand up and say, yes, this is the words of men.

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It's not the word of God. Just be honest about it. Just be straightforward. It's the only way your system makes any sense.

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If this is just the Hebrews learning about their God, and they made some mistakes, big mistakes, horrible genocidal mistakes, but mistakes all the same, then just be honest about it.

28:58

Quit ducking it. You've said it. Just stand up behind it. In fact, in my opinion, as far as they are knowledgeable about church history and theology at all, that accusation aimed at me not only misses the mark, but is sheer demagoguery.

29:15

I've never advocated expelling any part of the Old Testament from the Christian canon. No, you've just evidently advocated completely changing the nature of the canon from that which is the

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Anustos to that which now includes the mistaken thoughts of man that led to genocide. Nor have

29:32

I denied the inspiration of any portions of the Old Testament. Now, what do you mean by inspiration? What's inspired?

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If this is just the Hebrew people learning about God and lying about God by saying, well,

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God told us to wipe these people out. He was, we were wrong. They were wrong.

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God never said it. That's inspired? Again, meaningless rhetoric.

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Meaningless rhetoric. And I will say it again, nobody takes every part of the

30:04

Old Testament literally. Again, confusion of categories. In fact, in my view, taking the Old Testament text of terror literally contributes to the problem of implicit practical

30:12

Martianism. Why did Martian deny the inspiration of Hebrew scriptures? Well, there are almost certainly several reasons, but one was the

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Old Testament text of terror taken literally. No, they had to do with the fact that he was influenced by Gnosticism and dualism and the creator, the creation being evil, the spirit being good.

30:32

That was the motivation. In my opinion, for whatever it's worth, the only worthwhile reason even to respond to such a ludicrous accusation is the teachable moment for those open to facts.

30:42

Well, we'll see who's open to facts. At least one of us will name names and read what the other one's saying, while the other one won't do that because, well, you know, that's just not something that we should be doing.

30:55

Okay, so there was this morning's very weak, very, very weak attempt to get around.

31:02

Now, Austin Fisher is a student of Roger Olson, so we can draw a direct parallel, direct line here to where Austin is getting his ability to do the things that he is doing.

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It would be interesting to ask Austin now directly if he accepts

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Olson's statement that the Hebrew Christians were accurately recording their thoughts about God rather than these being the actual words of God.

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If you can't see what the difference there is, and if you play around with ignoring the difference, you're just, you're not helping anybody, and you're just being dishonest with the text.

31:52

So let's get into Austin's presentation. They were talking pretty fast, but they'll be talking faster because I said at one point, it's just the one click, just one little thing.

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It's not going to cause any problem. It just helps us get through a little bit faster.

32:10

So eight minutes only takes about seven and a half minutes. So that helps. But let's start with Austin Fisher.

32:20

So during my time as a Calvinist, which was a while, I would have explained... Which was a while.

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Well, of course, it was a while. It was more than 30 seconds. But again, Austin, could you just come straight out?

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Because, you know, he didn't really say in the book, but could you just come straight out? How long was it? And how old were you?

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Because I'll be pretty honest with you. If you were like 17 to 20, maybe that long.

32:53

Strong suggestion here. Stop calling yourself a former Calvinist. Say, you know, there was a period of time when

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I was young that I read John Piper and I was enamored with what

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Piper had to say. And you even read the Potter's Freedom, though. Interestingly enough, you make a number of statements that I refuted in the

33:12

Potter's Freedom without refuting the refutation of them that I gave in the Potter's Freedom, which I did also notice you were more willing to use biblical arguments or at least quote scriptures than with me.

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You didn't want to quote those scriptures. I'm really wondering, Austin, do you really, really think that if we got down to the text, you could defend the things you're saying right now?

33:34

But my suggestion to you is I just really think there's something really stretching honesty to represent yourself the way you're representing yourself.

33:50

You were never a Reformed theologian. You were never a Reformed pastor. As far as I can tell, you were never a part of a meaningfully

33:57

Reformed church. And the period of time and the age of your life. I mean.

34:05

It really bugs me when I watch the Dean show. And they have people on who are former

34:13

Christians who are now Muslims. Who were Christians for two years.

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They were Christians when they were a teenager in high school. They were involved in youth leadership, and now they're being viewed as experts on Christianity on the

34:27

Dean show by the Muslims. That bugs me. It also bugs me. If I became an

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Arminian, okay, I've got a little cred, wrote some books, did some debates, been a pastor, stuff like that.

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You just don't have any cred. Sorry. You were never a pastor. You didn't write anything.

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And you were just too young for it to be any type of badge on your shoulder.

34:57

Sorry. I just find it to actually diminish greatly the weight of what you're saying.

35:05

Because if you even have to make that argument, then it seems you sense that the rest of what you have to say doesn't have nearly as much weight.

35:13

Unless you have to prop it up with this. Well, I was a, you know. No, you weren't.

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Unconditional predestination like this. That before the world existed, God decided to choose certain individuals for salvation.

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And then just pass over and leave the rest of humanity in its fallen state. Now, immediately, you say, boy, you haven't even given him 30 seconds.

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No, I can't. Because this debate was lined up in such a way that it went way too fast, way too short a period of time.

35:44

And, you know, sometimes that's just the way it is. But the result was one of the primary issues is that the focus of this debate was completely anthropocentric.

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I mean, the Calvinists tried. But the Armenians succeeded partly because of the way that the thesis was stated.

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The two theses were stated to really center the attention upon man.

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And that's a problem because the Reformed understanding is the center, the focus, the reason for all of this is focused upon God's self -glorification and his own intention.

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So, to immediately dodge that and go to, well, the result of God's having chosen to create in this particular fashion is that there are going to be those who are saved and those who are not.

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Just unfortunately, part and parcel of what you deal with when you're dealing with this type of debate and the

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Reformed side has to take time to emphasize to people. And this is where, again, and this makes perfect sense, when you're talking with people, the natural human tendency is to put man in the center.

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It's not natural for man to come at this and go, well, I really want to see what this has to do with God first.

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That's not how man functions. We focus upon ourselves. And so, it is always the requirement for us to be emphasizing the fact that this has to first and foremost be centered upon God and what

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God has revealed about himself and that we are but the creatures of God. And that's a disadvantage that we have, but obviously, the advantage of being

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Reformed is advantage? Disadvantage? What does that really mean? The only person who's ever going to come to truly embrace these things is the person whose heart the

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Holy Spirit works to open up their eyes to their own true condition, to the gracious act of God, to the authority of God's Word.

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Spirit of God doesn't do that. Anybody's brief flirting with it will be just that, brief flirting with it and nothing more.

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And do not be surprised when you see people who briefly flirted with the truth leaving that truth and embracing something else.

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Now, it is interesting to me that in the vast majority of instances, not every, but in the vast majority of instances that I know of where someone has flirted with this, once they leave, they don't stop at some pretty orthodox conservative position.

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And that's what we're seeing here. That's what we will be seeing here. The one major failure of this debate is that the real position of Austen Fisher and Brian Zahn really wasn't forced out of them.

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They did not have to defend a position. They were only attacking a position.

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That's easy. That's easy. But, you know, there's going to be a debate this weekend.

39:37

No. Yes. Saturday. That's this weekend, the 13th. Brian Zahn's going to be debating

39:43

Michael Brown. You know what's on? Substitutionary Atonement. Because Brian Zahn denies it.

39:52

Considers it, you know, you remember, you know, the Steve Chalk stuff from England, divine child abuse.

39:58

Yeah, that's where Zahn's coming from. And, you know, the irony, of course, is that substitutionary, penal substitutionary atonement is a reformed doctrine.

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And Michael's going to be defending that. So. Yeah, well, you know,

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I, Michael knows that I've pressed him on that very issue in our debates.

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You're inconsistent, brother. May the debate help you to see this.

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And it might not sound fair. It usually does when you hear the first time that God chooses some and not others. But you've got to remember that everybody deserves hell.

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So those who get it are just getting justice, whereas the elect get mercy. And I'm guessing this is probably how

40:41

Daniel and Timothy will explain it, but they'll get a chance to correct me if I'm wrong. So I think there are some problems there, but we'll move on because I think there's some bigger fish to fry and the rabbit hole goes a little bit deeper.

40:50

Because in Calvinism, it's not that God just permits or allows the fall and then chooses some and leaves others, but rather it's that God ordains and God predestines the fall and then chooses some and he likes others.

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So it's not. Now, listen very carefully to the formation of Austin's argument through the inappropriate mixture of categories and use of language.

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He is going to pretty much reject the idea that there is a prescriptive will of God and that there is the decretal will of God.

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Not going to allow that distinction to stand, which again is one of the things that requires him eventually,

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I think, to adopt a sub -orthodox view of scripture because reformed theologians didn't run there because they were mishandling the text of scripture.

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They were forced there because there's no other way to understand what scripture is actually saying, but to see that distinction that is there.

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And so what you're going to hear is an anthropomorphizing of God so that God wants, and that term want is going to be used in the sense of desire.

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God wants sin. God wants evil as if this comes from some lack on God's part and he desires these things.

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Failing to see the distinction between having a holy and just purpose in bringing something into existence and having something reflect the wants and desires of God in the expression of his holy character.

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Once you don't allow those biblical passages to stand, which again is where you, what we were just talking about with Olson is not just an academic exercise.

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It, the entire reformed understanding is forced upon us by our understanding of revelation itself.

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We have to deal with all these texts. We have to apply a consistent hermeneutic because without that, then we're stuck exactly where Roger Olson is, pietistically choosing which texts to believe and which texts not to believe.

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Since we won't go there, since the New Testament writers didn't go there, since the Lord Jesus didn't go there, the irony here is that our synergistic friends are going to be talking all about Jesus hermeneutic even though they just leave

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Jesus floating out in the ether someplace, disconnected from history and disconnected from the various scriptures he directed us to.

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But we don't go there because we simply have a more coherent, meaningful doctrine of scripture.

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I don't know how many times I've said it over the years, but if you don't have a high view of scripture, you're never going to believe the things we believe.

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My dear reformed brethren, don't be overly shocked and surprised when you encounter people who think that what you believe is just horrible because someone who's not under the authority of the

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Word of God is going to think that way. That's exactly where they're going to come from.

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Not only in the theological realm, but man, ask InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in California.

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The secularists find that what we believe is extremely offensive and are taking action to silence.

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They don't believe in religious liberty. They don't believe in tolerance. The governmental forces and the secularists who are in control of the university system do not believe in liberty and tolerance.

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They are totalitarians. They believe in the thought police and they're acting in accordance with that.

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It makes perfect sense because what we believe is extremely offensive to them.

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The proclamation that Jesus Christ is Lord over all men and women, every aspect of human life, is extremely offensive to the rebel against God.

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This even enters into the theological realm as well. Not just given this damned mass of humanity, what does

45:47

God do? Choose some and elect others. It's that God wants the fall to happen. God wants the house to burn down, as it were, so he ordains it.

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So notice the use of the two terms, wants, ordains.

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Wants, and that's attempting to communicate the idea that there is an impurity in God, that there is a desire for evil, rather than recognizing, and of course, from this perspective, again, this was one of the major failures of the debate, is neither

46:25

Austin nor Zond were ever held to presenting a coherent, and well, held to, they may have been invited to, but they never bothered to.

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You know, Austin wants to do the, well, you know, we don't know. Well, if you don't know, Austin, then you have no ground in making this accusation.

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None at all. It's dishonest. If you can't say, no,

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God had no idea this was going to happen. I mean, you need to quit the weasel words and really take a stand.

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You really do. If you're going to do this, I'm a former Calvinist. Calvinism is bad. Here's why thing.

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You need to take a stand and you need to present a coherent theology that actually answers the questions.

47:16

And so when God created, you need to answer the question. Did he know that evil would exist? Did he have a purpose for evil existing, et cetera, et cetera, and not do the, well, you know, some people say this and well, some people say that.

47:27

No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't have that option anymore. The, well,

47:34

I'm on my journey stuff or, Oh, Oh. And then I don't think

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Austin brought it up. I think Zahn brought it up. And then the Calvinists bought into it.

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And I was just like, Oh, uh, it was the old search for the

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Saguaro, um, uh, thing out there in the dark again. Um, the terminology that was used throughout this debate was that of the dance.

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God invites us to engage in the death. Please.

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Is there, is there really such a dearth of meaningful biblical phraseology and imagery that we have to go with the dam?

48:29

I mean, talk about fitting in to a synergistic God's God and us are on the same level stuff.

48:38

Oh my. Every time I heard someone talk about invites us to join in the dance.

48:45

I just, um, I can guarantee you if I, Oh, I wish

48:54

I had a, I wish I had a camera right now. All it's missing is a ballerina suit.

49:02

Um, wow. I just saw the dance and there's even more reason now that we do not want to be involved in the dance because it's really bad.

49:15

Very, very bad. Anyway. Um, I can guarantee you if I was doing this debate that, um, as soon as the dance came up, um,

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I would have said, sorry, uh, don't do that myself. Uh, raised

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Baptist. Always have to keep one foot on the floor. So I would have rejected that and moved.

49:36

You didn't keep both of you on the floor there. So that was, that was almost charismatic. Uh, so, uh, and we can forgive you of that because every once in a while it still comes out.

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But, um, anyway. And then chooses to graciously bust in and save some and let the rest burn. And somehow they deserve it.

49:52

Uh, even though God ordained that would happen, wanted it to happen and made certain that it would happen.

49:58

So there's the Austin Fisher argument. And it is a, just a fundamental denial of prescriptive and descriptive will.

50:08

Um, I don't believe Austin was able as little as we got to it, but was able to walk through, um,

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Genesis 50, Isaiah 10 acts for, um, just don't, just don't think this system holds up to that.

50:27

Um, and notice by presenting it in this very surface level fashion, this is intentional.

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It is intended to create in the mind of the listener, a fundamental prejudice against any theology where God would have a purpose that transcends human experience.

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And so once you have limited the options for God in that way to that, which is presented to him by, uh, human actions, then you can understand why it goes the direction it goes.

51:09

Now, just to be clear here that I'm not, I'm really not setting up a straw man to burn down, not putting words in the mouth of Calvinism here. A couple of quotes from the maestro himself,

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Calvin. I acknowledge that this is my doctrine, that Adam fell not only by the permission of God, but by God's secret counsel.

51:22

Again, the fall of Adam was not by accident, but was ordained by the secret decree of God. So now notice we know what

51:29

Calvin was saying, and we know that what Austin is saying is not what Calvin was saying. And that is, he wants to change the language so that God has a desire for evil.

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Whereas Calvin is very, very clear to talk about the secret decree of God. And that has to do with his full overarching purpose and the reality that everything he does is going to reveal his glory and his holiness and his righteousness.

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And therefore, um, that, you know, that, that doesn't communicate as well to people that would actually require them to read

52:08

Calvin and to know something about his background there. This is the unconditional predestination that you have to believe in, says

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Calvin, uh, if you want to be a Calvinist, that before the world or any human ever existed, God unconditionally predestined the vast majority of humanity to eternal damnation.

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Now, before the world was ever created, God had a decree that brought about the greatest glory to the triune

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God through the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the salvation of a particular people to the glory of his grace.

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That's Ephesians 1. Why is it that synergists have to explain the purpose in terminology other than, and ignore the terminology actually used by scripture?

52:48

Because that is what Ephesians 1 is about. I'm sorry, if you want to try to turn Ephesians 1 into some class election thing where, you know, we get to vote whether we get in or not.

52:56

Fine, we'll go to that. I've, I have never ever been in a situation with a synergist of any level where we've gone to Ephesians 1 and they've been able to survive the examination of the text because the text is straightforward.

53:11

There's this thing called grammar and there's this thing called direct objects. And whenever I hear the synergists try to get around that, they ignore that.

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That's why generally we're the ones that want debates, not so much the other side. And actually we're the ones, we're the ones that want debates that have cross -examination, that actually have enough time to delve into these things.

53:38

And that didn't happen in this encounter. Now this is, this is an incredibly,

53:57

I'm trying to be nice here, imbalanced. Twisted and perverted are probably better words, but imbalanced representation.

54:07

And I can understand, I mean, you know, if, if you view yourself as a former something, even though you were only that as a young person for a brief period of time, if you view yourself in that way, then there's going to be pressure upon you to justify not only your abandonment of that position, but your profiting from that position and being viewed as a, as an expert on these things.

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And unfortunately, what I've seen happen in years past with other people is you end up with more and more of an imbalance and less and less of a concern to accurately represent the position that you were, that you were actually once allegedly a part of.

54:59

So God wants the world to burn down, ordains it, and then saves some and lets the rest burn.

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And we're supposed to call this gracious, just, and even beautiful. Now this is mockery.

55:13

I mean, this sort of surprised me. This is, Austin has, has moved a long ways in a, in a very brief period of time.

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It's mockery because he knows what Calvin said.

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He knows what Augustine said. He knows what, well, I, again, I don't know about all that, but he's, he's a, he's a smart guy.

55:31

And so he knows that when we talk about the beauty and the glory, we are first and foremost talking about the incarnation and the self -giving of God and Jesus Christ, the union of a, of a people who are

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God haters, who were not forced to be God haters, but who fell on their federal head,

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Adam, who are, who are kept from so much of their sin by that same decree.

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And the beauty is the union of that people with Christ undeservingly, the formation within them of the body of Christ.

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Now, is it appropriate to say that part of God's intention is likewise the demonstration of his wrath against vessels of wrath?

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Yes, that's never the central focus, never the central focus. And that's what Austin just made. He just made it the central focus.

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That's what Brian Zahn's going to do. They make it the central focus because they, they do not believe that that could ever exist no matter what the rest of it is.

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That could never, ever happen. So they're focused solely upon that. And it results in the, this twisted, imbalanced representation that really here went across the line into a form of mockery.

57:07

Now, in my opinion, to call this a mystery is to make the most massive understatement ever spoken by a human being.

57:14

Now, Daniel and Timothy, I think, and I think Calvin thinks, have to defend this, all right? So as they do, you listeners, you've got to be ready for an avalanche of euphemisms.

57:24

They're going to be coming at you fast and quick as they try to soften unconditional predestination. Now, notice there's, again, a level of not only mockery, but poisoning the well, accusation of dishonesty, unwillingness to be straightforward.

57:44

Austin has shed the, I don't know, I'm sort of, you know,

57:50

I'm comfortable with this. That's where he was in the book and on Unbelievable as recently as February.

57:59

Not here. Not here. This was, this was different. This was different. And I, once you do this, you can't go back to the other one.

58:07

Once, once you've done this, you can't, you can't go back to the, well, I don't know, stuff.

58:13

Make it basically sound like single predestination and work the word so it doesn't really sound that bad. But it is that bad.

58:19

And none of the euphemisms really work because in Calvinism, no matter how much you squirm, and I understand why you do, I did when I was a Calvinist, at the bottom of the barrel, most humans will be damned forever because God wants them to be damned forever.

58:31

Now, what you have is the, the simple unwillingness to allow the

58:39

Bible, obviously we believe this is the Bible, to present an answer to the existence of evil that is deeper, fuller, and richer than the synergists demand it to be.

58:56

They want a very simplistic, shallow surface level. Well, the problem is they don't actually give an answer.

59:04

They got away in this without even giving an answer. But here you want this very, very surface level kind of response.

59:13

And I just looked at the clock and went, Oh, look at that. And I looked over at Twitter and Will Hoffman just posted a picture of his kids who are eating, it looks like a quesadilla or something.

59:32

It looks good. And I'm on the, you see it? I'm on the laptop and it's dinner with Dr.

59:39

Oakley, 1689. Hi kids. I hope that's good. Whatever it is that you're eating, making me hungry.

59:46

And we're out of time anyways. So we will, we will continue from right there. We're about halfway through Austin Fisher.

59:54

Maybe next time we'll get to go faster because I want to get to Brian Zahn. We'll get there eventually. But who knows when?

01:00:00

Probably next Tuesday, Lord willing. See my friends up in Boulder, Denver area.

01:00:05

We're going to have fun with early church history. Actually, it's really important stuff. We'll see you then. God bless.