William Lane Craig, Andy Stanley, and Albert Mohler, Then, Surah 9, Islam, and the Changed Heart

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:37

And greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. I did remember today to see the

00:43

Borg sphere there next to the Tribble. It's sort of a bobblehead thing.

00:53

But there's the Borg sphere, not cube.

00:59

Anyway, it came out of the cube, if you remember the movie. If you didn't see the movie then it really isn't making much sense.

01:06

You're wondering why there are fuzzy things on top of a green glowing cube next to me. You probably don't really understand, but that's okay.

01:14

It's alright. Remember the Borg sphere today and I appreciate that I was given that.

01:19

I think that was at Kensington Temple. Someone came up to me and gave me that after the dialogue with Abdullah Al -Andalusi.

01:26

And now everything just went black over here. That was happening last time. It flashes on and off and does fun stuff like that.

01:33

So it's sort of weird. Huh? Yeah, it's back now, but it goes on and off and sort of odd and strange.

01:42

Anyway, yes, Robert, there is a live stream and you're not listening to it. Anyway, well,

01:49

I'm hoping there's a live stream. The look on Rich's face seems to indicate that there actually isn't a live.

01:57

YouTube weirdness. YouTube is reporting weird things to me.

02:03

That's really exciting. I'm glad to hear that YouTube is reporting weird things.

02:10

That probably explains no video or audio, according to the people in the channel, which means it's not working at all.

02:19

So what's your suggestion here? Just hopefully it's recording and we get to do a dead cast again.

02:32

Lovely. Got to work on this. It's frustrating to tell folks, here we go.

02:38

And then, well, but it's what's the chances of it doing anything?

02:46

Yeah. Yes. So once again, I will minimize the channel.

02:52

We won't have any interaction with folks because I'm just going to get flooded with, we can't see anything. Nothing's working.

02:57

And I know and there's nothing we can do about it. And I don't know why that is. We need to, like I said last time, need to contact the

03:05

IP folks because I don't know. Anyway, I will attempt to put that behind me and focus upon important things, which is somewhat difficult to do.

03:17

But we will do our best anyway, because we do have important things to talk about today.

03:23

And yesterday morning, my

03:30

YouTube, not YouTube. See, I've got YouTube in the mind. My Twitter account became quite active as people started telling me about what was going on with Reasonable Faith and Dr.

03:47

William Lane Craig. And that, actually, it looked like the date was the day before, but maybe it just dropped that morning or late in the evening.

03:55

I really don't know. But anyway, the episode that had been recently released sort of went back to,

04:05

I think, last year sometime. Let me look at the, I'm not sure what this, let's see.

04:16

Well, that says March 27th, but that's not when it was.

04:22

Yeah, September 26th of last year, Dr. Moeller posted an article,

04:30

For the Bible Tells Me So, Biblical Authority Denied Again. Subtitle, A true defense of the

04:36

Christian faith has never been more needed than now, but an attempt to rescue Christianity from its dependence upon scripture is doomed to disaster.

04:43

And so this was posted last year, and Dr.

04:50

Craig decided to respond to it, this most recent episode of his webcast.

05:00

Now, sometime, I forget exactly when it was last year, we dedicated a number of programs to the discussion of Andy Stanley and his sermon series, and specifically his comments in regards to the relationship of scripture and the

05:20

Christian faith. And I said at that time that what

05:26

Andy Stanley is doing here is he is popularizing the perspective of William Lane Craig.

05:34

This is the minimalist perspective, this is the make Christianity as, make the target as small as possible.

05:44

Mere Christianity, the idea of the Trinity, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, leave everything else out.

05:54

And I'll be perfectly honest with you, I'm starting to wonder if even a fully -orbed doctrine of the

06:00

Trinity gets included in all of that. But it also, you know, we have for years been attempting to help people understand, because look, my audience, the audience of Reformed apologists at Westminster and elsewhere, our audience and Dr.

06:21

Craig's audience touch. There are a lot of people who listen to what we have to say, who go, well, you know, that Calvinism stuff,

06:32

I'm not so much on that, but I like what you have to say on other things. Never understood that. Reformed theology is what holds it all together, and so I've never really followed that, but what can

06:47

I say? But anyway, we have attempted to make it clear, because it's a source of confusion.

06:58

You know, I was being criticized on Twitter, there's a guy, ThereforeGodExists on Twitter that was, he was accusing me of gossip, that this was going to be gossip.

07:06

I was like, good postmodernist that he must be, though he would certainly scream if I said that.

07:13

But evidently words don't have meaning, because gossip has a certain meaning, and my consistently responding to Dr.

07:20

Craig's Molinism and his evidentialism, and the perspective that he takes on apologetics, and differentiating that from a biblical perspective, providing a biblical response, that's not gossip.

07:33

If you call it gossip, you no longer have any meaningful way of communicating with people. It's amazing.

07:41

But anyhow, what? Oh, that's good. So anyhow, it's not at all surprising why we would take the time to respond to what

07:56

Dr. Craig is saying, because if we do not, and look, it would be a whole lot easier for me, trust me, to just go with the flow.

08:09

And to just say, hey, everybody's, whatever anybody has to say, it's good, everything's fine.

08:17

Because I have to respond to these things, because we do respond to atheism, to unbelief, to the secular movement, in a different way than Dr.

08:32

Craig does, and this causes confusion amongst people that go, well, wait a minute, we're all

08:37

Christians, why aren't we defending things the same way? Because apologetic methodology must flow from our theology, and not the other way around.

08:48

And I have criticized Dr. Craig for decades, probably coming up on at least two decades,

08:55

I think, late 1990s, we're getting pretty close, for inverting that relationship.

09:06

And obviously, there are theological issues, upon which I have strong disagreement with Dr. Craig, his

09:11

Molinism being one of the primary ones, but there are others, too, his frequent attacks upon Reformed theology, and so on and so forth.

09:22

But since this creates confusion, then there needs to be regular, because we have new listeners to the program all the time, regular interaction on this subject, and it is what we would call a teachable moment.

09:36

It is an opportunity to make appropriate distinctions, and in so doing, help people to understand why it is we emphasize so strongly the need for consistency in doing

09:47

Christian apologetics, and that this is a theological activity.

09:53

We are seeking to be obedient to our Lord, this is something every Christian is commanded to do.

10:00

When we are told in Scripture to be ready to give an answer, before that apologetic is ever mentioned, every

10:09

Christian is commanded to set Christ as kurios, as Lord, quoting from Isaiah, as Yahweh, treat

10:18

Him as holy in our hearts, and that this is going to so reorient our priorities that people are going to come to us and ask us for the reason to hope to do this, and then we are to be able to give that consistent apologetic.

10:30

Most presentations on apologetics in that text from Peter invert that relationship, but you can't.

10:42

Apologetics is a part of evangelism, evangelism is a presentation of the gospel, it's all theological.

10:48

It's all theological. Now, today you're going to hear Dr. Craig saying, well, that's apologetics, not theology.

10:59

He's going to attempt to drive a huge wedge between doing apologetics and theology. I recognize that writing a text on a particular topic in systematic theology, hypostatic union, issues in the atonement, can be distinguished from apologetics in dealing with an atheist.

11:26

I recognize that. However, what is extremely dangerous to me is the idea of thinking that the very essence of the message you're attempting to communicate can somehow be isolated from the methodology you use of communicating it.

11:46

Apologetics is theology. Doing apologetics is engaging in a theological thing.

11:53

And this is where there's another huge difference, because we say that if you're going to follow the scriptural example, if you're going to follow the apostles, then what you're going to have to do is recognize the nature of the person to whom you're speaking.

12:11

Well, where do you get information about the nature of the person to whom you're speaking? That's all theological. So, no matter what you do, no matter how you approach the subject, it has to be theology.

12:24

It is all theology. It's soaked in theology. So, to deny that relationship, as Dr.

12:32

Craig's going to do here, is pretty amazing. So, in this program, what they did is they started off and they played about five minutes of Andy Stanley.

12:42

And man, I had forgotten some of the things he had said. It's not like I sit around thinking about Andy Stanley every day.

12:50

But we're going to go ahead and play that. And again, I'm playing it fast, so we can get through it a little bit quicker.

12:57

But I do want to remind us of what prompted all these things. And I may make a few comments along the way, but probably won't make too many, because we've been over this ground before.

13:07

So, here is what Andy Stanley had to say, and this is presented to us at the beginning of the

13:14

Reasonable Faith podcast. Many of you, you're like me, many of you were brought up to believe this. Jesus loves me, this

13:20

I know. Right? I mean, it's a fabulous song. Most of our kids are still singing this song. We sang this song. Jesus loves me, this

13:25

I know. What's the next line? Right. For the Bible tells me so. And this is where our trouble began. It really did.

13:30

This is where our trouble began. Because, and don't leave, because the implication is, the implication— Now, I have to say, don't leave, because for a lot of folks, it's like, our trouble began by saying, because we recognize the supremacy of Scripture as the foundation of Christian faith.

13:47

The Christian faith is a revealed faith. Now, of course, that's not what he's talking about.

13:54

And the impreciseness of his words is his own fault. He's talking about a childish faith that remains childish.

14:03

And no one's going to argue that a childish faith should remain childish. That you shouldn't learn more about the

14:10

Bible, so on and so forth. It's what he thinks he's learned about the Bible. That it's wrong about the Exodus.

14:16

That it's wrong about the Flood. And a few other things in the process. That's where the problem really lies here.

14:25

This is important. The implication is, the Bible is the reason we believe. No, the Bible is the source of the object of our faith.

14:35

We believe in God because he's spoken to us. God wants us to know who he is, so he's revealed himself. And so,

14:41

Scripture becomes God's speech to us that God holds all men accountable to. So, it's not the reason we believe, it's the means that God has given to us what we are to believe.

14:54

There's a tremendous amount of imprecision in Andy Stanley's words. That's one of the problems.

15:00

The Bible is the reason to believe. In other words, I can believe Jesus loves me because it's in the Bible. I grew up in a church where basically the byline, the subtitle for everything was, if the

15:08

Bible says it, that... anybody? Settles it, right here on the front row. Yeah, that's right. If the

15:14

Bible says it, that settles it. And so we send kids off to college with a, if the Bible says it, that settles it.

15:19

And oh my goodness, they discover that that didn't settle it. Well, here's the problem. He engages a tremendous amount of equivocation in this presentation.

15:27

Once again, he takes the low bar on all this. So, he sent people off to university, and I've bemoaned this many times, without giving them mature faith, a foundation for recognizing the supremacy of Scripture, knowing where Scripture came from, knowing how we received it, really even knowing what it teaches.

15:48

That's not the same thing as recognizing the complete necessity of a divine revelation as the foundation of our faith.

15:59

That's not the same thing. Being ignorant of that, and yet, you know, that's one thing.

16:04

But knowing it and recognizing the centrality of revelation, everything else, that's completely different.

16:11

And yet, he allows those two things to coalesce. And then they come home and they say, Mom, Dad, Grandma, my Granddad, Uncle, Aunt, did you know, did you know?

16:18

It's like, I don't ask those questions. The Bible says it, that settles it. The Bible says it, that settles it. That's not how we do apologetics, obviously.

16:26

What he's referring to is a dysfunctional ignorance. And making that the same thing as meaningful

16:33

Christian scholarship, understanding of Scripture, Christian worldview, that may have been his experience, and sadly, it is the experience of many people in shallowly evangelical churches where you don't preach the whole counsel of God, where you don't challenge people, things like that.

16:53

You know, I was talking to my daughter, and we were at dinner a couple nights ago, and she mentioned why it was she first memorized

17:06

Romans 1, verses 18 -32, and it was, if I recall, it was in Mike Porter's Sunday School class at our church.

17:15

And I think about the teachers that she had in junior high and high school, you know, people like Warren Smith and Mike Porter, and they're all people who have been involved with this ministry, and they're going to be emphasizing the very things that, yeah, are not normally emphasized in most places.

17:35

That's quite true. There's no question about it. But that does not mean it's the application he's making.

17:43

I join him in bemoaning the lowest state. It's his, the lowest state of Christian education amongst

17:50

Christians. It's his answer that is disastrous. And as Dr.

17:56

Moeller rightly pointed out, he takes the Schleiermacher perspective, and, well, we'll see that in just a moment.

18:04

The problem is this. The problem with that is this. If the Bible is the foundation of our faith, if the

18:09

Bible is the foundation of our faith, as the Bible goes, so goes our faith. In other words, Christianity cannot survive if the

18:14

Bible goes away. Yeah, Christianity cannot survive if we do not have a revelation from God. Duh. That's exactly right.

18:21

Notice the conflation here. He's now conflating the ignorance that he described before with the actual statement that, yes, the foundation of the

18:29

Christian faith is the Bible, which Christians have believed from the beginning. I mean, we mentioned this back in September of last year.

18:38

You cannot possibly look at the early church fathers and not recognize that they all said the same thing, that Scripture is the final authority, that it's absolutely definitional, etc.,

18:51

etc. What we know about the resurrection, what we know about the reason of the resurrection, the function, the gospel, it all comes from Scripture.

19:01

So, yeah, that's a given. But notice how he's going between the two. Between an ignorant misrepresentation and then the actual theological assertion.

19:12

And that's massively problematic. Christianity cannot survive if somehow every single part of the

19:17

Bible isn't absolutely true if the Bible is the foundation of our faith. If the Bible is the foundation of our faith, it is all or nothing.

19:24

This is why when you grew or growing up, every once in a while you would bring information to your parents or your grandparents or maybe somebody else who was raising you, and you say, today at school we learned, and they just kind of shut you down.

19:33

We don't believe that. That's not what I did. That's not what anybody needs to do.

19:41

I'm sorry if that's what Andy Stanley experienced. I really am. But that does not mean that Scripture is not

19:53

God -breathed. That does not mean that Scripture is not inerrant. Just because you don't know how to defend that, just because you haven't done your homework, doesn't follow.

20:05

We don't believe that. We're Christians, we don't believe that. It's like, yeah, but it's true. Well, we don't believe that. Well, what was that about?

20:10

Why are Christians so afraid? Why are Christians so fearful? Why are we not the most curious people and scientifically oriented people in the world?

20:17

I'll tell you why. See, he's assuming things that are simply untrue. I was just, one of the books that I'm working through,

20:26

I'm working through a couple of different books. I'm just about done with N .T. Wright's new book, On the Atom. We'll have some comments about that when

20:31

I finish it up. But I've also, I'm almost done with Darwin's Doubt.

20:38

And I've read, I don't know, three or four books from the Discovery Institute and on Intelligent Design, people like that.

20:45

I guess Andy Stanley doesn't read these books. These people aren't Christians. I don't know. This is just so far from my experience.

20:54

And are there lots and lots and lots of people who are raised in really shallow churches? Yeah, there are. Is that what he's saying?

21:00

He was raised in a shallow church? But you do not extend that kind of misuse of certain truths.

21:11

Well, the Bible's true, so we just don't worry about all the rest of that stuff. Well, if the Bible's true, if God is the creator of all these things, then there's actually answers to these issues.

21:22

And once you actually develop a mature Christian worldview, you can normally find out where people have missed the boat.

21:29

In their utilization of argumentation, in scholarship today, etc., etc. That's normally how you can do it.

21:38

Like I was raised in, and it was all or nothing. If anything proves that something in the Bible isn't actually, absolutely, historically, scientifically reliable, uh -oh, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

21:48

Because this version of Christianity is a house of cards. Did you catch that? People say, you're all picking on Andy Stanley.

21:58

He just said that the historic understanding of the foundational concept of the

22:03

Bible is a house of cards. I haven't heard too many people saying, hey, uh, shouldn't he have been a little bit more careful in his statements?

22:14

Uh, yeah? Instead, it's, well, he's just doing a great job, it's wonderful, it shouldn't be.

22:21

Okay. And all you have to do is pull out one card and the whole thing comes tumbling down. Christianity becomes a fragile house of cards that comes tumbling down when we discover that perhaps the walls of Jericho didn't.

22:34

Perhaps the walls of Jericho didn't fall. You know, it's funny, I had not seen the video that came out,

22:44

I guess, the year before last. Evidence for, was it Evidence for Exodus? Is that what the name is?

22:49

I've got it on my other, well, I might actually have it on this one. No, no, no, I don't, not on this. No, I might. Anyway, I'm not going to bother looking for it.

22:57

But Evidence for Exodus, I think is what it was called. It was a really well done video. And what I enjoyed about it was it came to conclusions that I'd come to in seminary.

23:07

Because again, I was in a minority in seminary. In seminary you're taught that there's no evidence for the

23:12

Exodus and that the Exodus took place 200 years out of sync with history and all the rest of the stuff.

23:22

And this video just goes through. And of course, back then, I only had

23:28

X amount of information. But I was like, oh, it looks like there's some real presuppositions going on here.

23:34

I thought presuppositionally and said, well, it would be obviously better. You know, because remember, for a long period of time in the 1800s, there were certain peoples in the

23:46

Old Testament that scholars confidently told us never existed. These were just mythological developments of the scriptural writers.

23:56

And they never existed and all the rest of that kind of stuff. Well, and then what happens? You do a dig.

24:02

You pull up these documents. And lo and behold, guess what? Here's the very people that we've been told were mythological.

24:09

And this is in non -biblical writings. And we were wrong all along. And the Bible was right. The Bible has been proven right so many times that it's probably best in areas of ignorance.

24:19

And once you get that many thousands of years back, there's only so much information you can derive.

24:28

To go with the Bible rather than with people saying, I think the Bible is wrong about this based upon theories and so on and so forth.

24:35

So I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that the Exodus was probably 1400, not 1200

24:41

BC in that timeframe. Well, here's a whole video now with all sorts of new stuff going, wow, look at this.

24:49

You know, if we just slide everything back, everything fits. Look at that. And why don't the scholars do that?

24:55

Because that would mean having to stand up in the academy and say, we've been wrong.

25:01

And we can't do that because our jobs would be done. And it's like, I've heard this someplace before.

25:06

It's like whatever happens when you sit there and look at the structure of mitochondria in the cell and go, that's designed.

25:15

You can't say that. We'll kick you out. Yeah, I've seen that before too. So what can you say?

25:24

What happens? He just accepts these things. We found out it didn't happen.

25:29

That's just the way it is. Capitulation on Andy Stanley's part. We're told that perhaps there was no

25:35

Exodus from Egypt to the promised land. There's no historical evidence of that. Really, I mean, can you imagine what would happen to biblical theology if there was no

25:46

Passover? I made the point Sunday evening in my sermon. It was really strange because I got to the end of a really deep passage.

25:56

The John 10, 31 and following, you know, I said your gods and Psalm 82, 6 and all the rest of that stuff.

26:01

We went through all of that. Made a number of certain people's fans unhappy once again. Yeah, the guy at Logos.

26:09

Anyway, there's this transitionary paragraph.

26:15

Very short. I made a whole sermon out of it. You might say, wow, you really had to milk that one.

26:23

One of the points I made was it talks about Jesus going across the Jordan to where John the Baptist has been baptizing. People remember what

26:30

John had said about Jesus there and stuff like that. Here was the point. The point was this happened at a particular time in a particular place.

26:36

It's rooted in history. Can you imagine how you could even have New Testament theology without the

26:42

Passover? What we're hearing here from Andy Stanley is, well, you know, we're really not so sure about the historical stuff.

26:57

It could just be a story, you know, but the resurrection is true.

27:04

That part. But all the stuff that was wrapped around it and stuff, it could just all be mythology.

27:10

Look, what Dr. Moeller said in his article, what I said in my review, what

27:17

Dr. Craig ignored in both, is some of us have heard this before.

27:23

Some of us have heard this before. We know a little something about church history over the past three or four hundred years.

27:33

And, you know, I went to Fuller. I've heard all this before. And people are rushing to Stanley.

27:41

Andy Stanley said, hey, he's not getting liberal. He believes all these things. You know, all everybody who went liberal started off by saying, you know what

27:48

I'm trying to do? I just want to make sure that the core message remains believable in this modern day.

27:54

You know, I want to keep it relevant. You know, they all started that way and ended up denying the whole kitten caboodle, completely redefining it.

28:03

We've heard this before. There's nothing new here. That's the problem. We're told in school and in graduate school that there's no evidence for a worldwide flood.

28:11

When people point out apparent contradictions in the Bible. When in school we're told there's no way the earth is 6 ,000 years old.

28:17

It's four and a half or 4 .55 billion years old. And the universe is 14 and a half billion years old. And all of a sudden, all we have to do, you know, the tension is around the

28:24

Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says. Science has said, science has said, the Bible says, science has said, the Bible says. So what it's all about?

28:31

Having a mature Christian worldview. That's what it's about. Is Andy Stanley correct that there are people sitting in front of him who were raised in nominal

28:43

Christian situations that were never challenged? Well, first of all, they were never converted. And even if they were, they were not taught to develop purposefully, intentionally, consciously, a mature

28:57

Christian worldview. Is that all he's saying? No, that's not all he's saying. He's right that that happens.

29:05

Maybe that happened with him. But it's the solution that's fatal. It's a fatal solution.

29:13

That's the problem. All of a sudden there's this extraordinary, extraordinary tension. If the Bible, if the

29:19

Bible. Tension, man, did I get sick and tired of that phrase in seminary. There's tension here in the text.

29:26

If the entire Bible isn't true, then let's be honest, the Bible isn't true. I mean, if the whole thing isn't true, because when you grew up and I grew up, if you grew up in a church.

29:33

Now, I love this. Well, most of it's true. Who gets to decide? What's the criteria,

29:41

Andy Stanley? Well, most of it's true. Okay, so how much?

29:47

What about those prophecies of Jesus? You know, for some reason, the early church taught that Jesus Christ rose from the dead the third day according to the scriptures.

29:56

What does that mean? Which scriptures? How much error is in those scriptures? Again, it sounds good until you make application and the wheels fall off.

30:08

In the United States, it's basically the Bible says that that settles it. The Bible says that that settles it. And then we grow up and we become adults.

30:13

We become aware of things that make us wonder if everything in the Bible is true. Now see, then we grow up.

30:20

So we were babies when we believed this. And only babies continue to believe this. That's really where it's coming from.

30:28

And what this is demonstrating is that Andy Stanley was not taught to be a mature Christian and have a mature

30:33

Christian worldview as a young person. And that happens. Happens a lot.

30:39

Again, the solution is fatal. And when we conclude or if we come to the conclusion that maybe it's not all as true as we were told it was true,

30:47

Christianity comes tumbling down. Christians feel, your parents felt, your pastor felt, perhaps you still feel, that the pressure to defend the

30:56

Bible. Because if you don't defend the Bible, you can't defend Christianity. And this puts the Bible in the center of the debate.

31:03

This puts the spotlight on the Bible. This puts the Bible in a place that if we can't defend everything in it, everything in it goes away.

31:11

And the good news is that that's very unfortunate. And the great news is that is absolutely unnecessary. Christianity and the

31:17

Christian faith is far, far, far more endurable than any of that. So here's my plea today.

31:23

And then we're going to jump into some detail. Now again, okay, so what's the Christian faith again? And do not use the

31:29

Bible. Good luck. The only place to go there is to go to tradition, abandon any type of concept of sola scriptura.

31:39

I mean, it is an incoherent position. But we're not saying anything we didn't say earlier.

31:46

If you walked away from Christianity, if you kind of stepped back from the whole thing because of something you read in the Bible, something you were told about the

31:52

Bible, I want you to listen carefully. Because at the end, I want to invite you to take a step back toward the faith of your childhood, not childhood faith.

32:01

It's time that it grows up. But the great news is there is a grown -up version. There is an adult version that is far less fragile than the

32:09

Bible says that that settles it. And if the Bible didn't say it, that doesn't settle it. And if there's anything wrong with the Bible, then the whole thing comes tumbling, tumbling down.

32:16

So there's Andy Stanley. And that's what we talked about before. Now let's dive into the conversation between Kevin and William Lane Craig.

32:27

Can you see how Dr. Molerud might be a little upset? Oh, absolutely. And that's just one small snippet,

32:34

Bill, of this whole sermon that Andy Stanley is delivering. At first brush, it may sound like we don't believe

32:40

Christianity because of the Bible is a denial of biblical authority. That's what it sounds like, but that's not what he meant.

32:47

And as you read the entire article by Al Moler, I think that's very clear. What Andy Stanley is trying to do is make a fundamental distinction that I make in reasonable faith between apologetics and theology.

33:00

Now, what have I said from the start?

33:06

As soon as I heard this, I said, oh, thank goodness. My fundamental criticism of reasonable faith and William Lane Craig has now been documented to the nth degree.

33:18

Make sure to download this and save it because what have

33:23

I said from the start? Theology determines apologetics. Not for William Lane Craig.

33:32

And if I can establish the biblical reality that for a

33:37

Christian, your theology must be the determinative factor in the creation of your apologetic, then the debate's over.

33:47

I would love to have a debate on this. Oh, we could have, could you imagine if Biola would step up and on one night, and hey,

33:58

California is not very far from here. Of course, he's in Atlanta. But one debate on doctrines of grace versus his synergism.

34:10

Another debate, Molinism. Is it consistent with biblical revelation?

34:17

Final debate, apologetic methodology. How do we represent apostolic truth in a modern age?

34:26

Man, that would be really useful to the church. And there is no question, there is no question about the fact that those debates could be done in an absolutely respectful, proper, scholarly manner.

34:45

Because between the two of us, we have a minimum of 300 debates. If he's done as many as I have,

34:51

I've done over 150. So there isn't any question about how well it could be done.

34:59

Wouldn't that be valuable? It's never going to happen. And not because we won't do it. Not because we won't do it.

35:06

But, anyway. When we do systematic theology, the basis of theology, the rule of faith is scripture.

35:15

Scripture is the only authoritative and infallible rule for faith and practice. But when we do apologetics, we are attempting to persuade someone who doesn't accept the authority of the

35:26

Bible to believe that God exists and that God has decisively revealed himself in Jesus, so as to place your faith in Jesus.

35:33

Now, just stop. Why? Why? Every word that was just used, that's supposed to be extra theological, only has meaning theologically.

35:53

You're trying to convince someone. Who? A rebel sinner against God. Someone creating the image of God.

36:01

Someone whose reasoning capacity is the result of the creation of God. The very idea that you can reason, that there is objective truth.

36:09

Dependent upon what? Theology. Dependent upon what God has done. And you're trying to get him to believe.

36:16

Now, he said in God, but he starts off in a God. There's a huge difference between getting someone to believe in a

36:23

God and believe in the God. And then the specific revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

36:32

And so we're talking about the deity of Christ. But we're also talking about Jesus as Messiah, as Son of God.

36:40

Saying, I want you to believe in Jesus, but I'm not going to get into theology, is an empty set of words.

36:47

It's a waste of breath. When Jesus presented himself to the

36:53

Jews, he said, unless you believe that I am, you'll die in your sins. In other words, you can believe all sorts of things about me that are partially true, but unless you believe the truth about me, you'll die in your sins.

37:03

That's what Jesus said. Which is why liberals said, nah, you never say that.

37:09

But anyways, so just listen carefully and be amazed at the result of what happens when you have an apologetic methodology that is not derived, does not receive its lifeblood from the exegesis of Scripture.

37:35

In fact, I really doubt that many people in this camp actually believe that you can derive your apologetic from Scripture.

37:41

Scripture is even intended to give you an apologetic. I doubt they actually believe that. And the apologetic enterprise or task does not depend upon biblical authority, inspiration, inerrancy, and all the rest.

37:55

Now, did you catch that? I'm going to play it again. In fact, I'm going to outline this, and I'm going to change its color just so I remember where that is.

38:04

We may need to make this a clip for use in future programs.

38:11

And the apologetic enterprise or task does not depend upon biblical authority, inspiration, inerrancy, and all the rest.

38:20

Those things are important for doing theology. But when you're doing apologetics, those sorts of things are not presupposed, lest one be arguing in a circle.

38:28

Aha! Aha! Lest one be arguing in a circle. And here's the problem with that.

38:35

You see, there's this thing called ultimate authorities. And any ultimate authority, fundamentally, if you're going to accuse it of something, is going to be circular, because an ultimate authority cannot appeal to an authority above and beyond itself.

38:52

When you—and I learned this from someone else many, many, many years ago.

38:57

We all learn everything from somebody else. When you go into the court of law—well, you used to anyways—and you put your hand on a

39:09

Bible, why did you used to do that? You were swearing by something greater than yourself.

39:14

You're saying, I'm going to speak the truth, and I swear by one that has higher authority than me that I'm speaking the truth.

39:24

You see, this is the nature of oaths in the Scripture. Swearing by the temple, so on and so forth.

39:30

That's something that's greater than I am, so that's why I swear by it. Who does God swear by? By himself, because there's nothing greater than him.

39:39

Well, isn't that circular? Yes, because he has to be the ultimate authority. And that's why

39:44

Scripture's truthfulness is not derived from any authority outside of itself, and cannot be, because if there is an authority greater than God speaking, then that becomes the ultimate authority you're trying to prove.

39:58

And so, if you have the highest view of Scripture, that it's God speaking, it's not just simply men thinking about God, their words elevated by the

40:05

Spirit of God, or something like that. If you believe that Scripture is actually a revelation, that it's theanustas, then you can point to its consistency to other things as indicators of its truthfulness, but those cannot become the basis upon which you accept its truthfulness.

40:22

Instead, Scripture becomes that which judges you, because if it's God speaking, and you're a mere creature, then you are beneath it in authority, and are under its authority.

40:33

So, what Dr. Craig and the evidentialists are just loathe to admit, is that in their system, they put

40:42

God in the dock. They put God in a position where you get to judge him. And what you do with the rebel sinner, is you elevate the rebel sinner, and you say, you judge the evidence, and you decide whether God exists or not.

40:57

And the biblical presentation is, God gets to decide, he's the judge, and he's going to judge you.

41:07

And he's already revealed himself. He's already given plenty of evidence. That means we are unapologetus, without an apologetic.

41:15

We cannot give a consistent defense of our rejection of our

41:21

Creator, and our own recognition of our own created nature. And so, there's the real issue. We can't presuppose these things.

41:30

We can pretend that we have this neutral ground with people. We can lay these things aside.

41:36

No, you can't. No, you can't. You can pretend.

41:42

You can engage in fantasy apologetics. And guess what? God's even used fantasy apologetics a few times in the past.

41:48

Yes, indeed. God can draw a straight line on the crooked stick. But that doesn't mean that we want to do that, because we want to glorify

41:54

God. We don't want to make him overcome our errors and our inconsistencies.

42:01

Well, I call it fantasy apologetics because there is no neutral ground. Any fact that exists is a fact because Jesus Christ created it to be a fact.

42:11

That's all there is to it. And so, you can pretend that you're not presupposing the truthfulness of these things, but you are.

42:19

And if you want to do apologetics as evangelism, which is what it must be, or you're wasting your time,

42:27

I mean, where do you get the biblical mandate to just run around with your theological sword, or your philosophical sword, lopping atheist heads off, and then cackling as you close

42:39

Facebook for that night, and going to bed feeling good about yourself? Where do you get that?

42:45

If you're not seeking to glorify God, I'm saying that this is a presentation of the gospel.

42:52

And by the way, you can evangelize the saved and the unsaved. That might shock a few of you, but in the book of Romans, Paul says,

43:00

I want to come to you and evangelize you. He's writing to the church. Every time you proclaim the gospel, you're evangelizing.

43:06

It strengthens the saints, and it's used to bring unbelievers, the elect, and they don't believe in the elect, that's why it doesn't really work for them, to Christ.

43:16

And God's glorified in that. God's glorified in the strengthening of those who are already believers, the drawing of the elect into himself, and, and this is what they really don't like,

43:26

God's even glorified in the rejection of his truth by unbelievers. Because the gospel will always get a response.

43:36

Either it's a hardening, or by God's grace, bringing salvation. One of the two.

43:42

One of the two. So there's the issue. In a nutshell, right there.

43:49

And so I think what Andy Stanley is talking about is how you approach a non -believer with the message of Christianity and give him reasons for believing or for becoming a

44:01

Christian. So it's all up to him. He just needs more reasons. He's not always expressing the truth. He's not unapologetus.

44:08

He doesn't know God exists. This is why theology matters. A false anthropology results in a false apologetic methodology.

44:16

And we're watching it. Right there. Dr. Moeller says that this reminds him of Friedrich Schleiermacher.

44:24

Tell us a little bit about him. Schleiermacher is called the father of modern theology. And he attempted to respond to the enlightenment critiques of Christianity in the late 1700s, early 1800s, by basically compromising away the supernatural elements.

44:42

Now let me, let me read what Dr. Moeller actually said. Because you'd never really get an idea from Dr.

44:49

Craig's comments here. Evangelical Christianity has a big problem, says Andy Stanley, and that problem is a reliance on the

44:55

Bible that is both unwarranted and unhelpful. In a recent message delivered at North Point Community Church and posted online,

45:00

Stanley identifies the evangelical impulse to turn to the Bible in our defense and presentation of Christianity as a huge blunder that must be corrected.

45:07

Some years ago, in light of another message Stanley preached at North Point, I argued that his apologetic ambition was, as we saw with Protestant liberalism a century ago, a road that will lead to disaster.

45:16

No doubt many Christians might be surprised to see an apologetic ambition identified as an entry point for theological liberalism.

45:22

But this has held constant since Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theological liberalism, issued his book on religion,

45:29

Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, in 1799. In the wake of the Enlightenment, Schleiermacher understood that the intellectual elites in Germany were already turning a skeptical eye to Christianity, if not dismissing it altogether.

45:40

The Enlightenment worldview was hostile to supernatural claims, suspicious of any claims to absolute truth beyond empirical science, and dismissive of any verbal form of divine revelation.

45:50

No problem, Schleiermacher responded, we can still salvage spiritual and moral value out of Christianity while jettisoning its troublesome doctrinal claims, supernatural structure, and dependence upon the

45:59

Bible. He was certain that his strategy would save Christianity from irrelevance. His ambition, in other words, was apologetic at its core to defend

46:07

Christianity against claims of its eclipse. The formula offered by theological liberals is the same now.

46:13

Save what you can of Christianity by surrendering truth claims. Acknowledge the inevitable hostility that these doctrines face in the modern age, and adjust the faith accordingly.

46:22

No theological liberal declares himself the enemy of Christianity. To the contrary, he offers liberalism as the only means of avoiding

46:29

Christianity's demise in a secular age. Of course, the Christianity that remains after this doctrinal surgery bears little resemblance to biblical

46:36

Christianity, and, as scripture makes abundantly clear, it cannot save. So, that's what

46:42

Dr. Moeller said back in September, which you don't really hear here, because, well, listen.

46:51

In Christianity, for Schleiermacher, the essence of Christianity lay in a feeling of absolute dependence upon God, moment by moment.

47:01

And Jesus was merely a human being in whom this God -dependence was a dominating factor in his life.

47:09

He was utterly dependent upon God for everything he did, and we should similarly be dependent upon God.

47:15

So it was a Christianity that gave up all of the central tenets of Orthodox Christian belief.

47:24

This was an apologetic for Christianity that fundamentally compromised the truth of Christianity.

47:30

And Moeller recognizes that Andy Stanley doesn't do that, that Andy Stanley affirms the central truths of the

47:38

Christian faith. So the only resemblance between the two is that both have an apologetic motivation of trying to reach unbelievers with the message of Christianity.

47:51

But it's really, really misleading to try to compare Andy Stanley to Friedrich Schleiermacher.

47:57

Now, I can't explain why Craig misses what

48:02

Dr. Moeller said. I just read it to you. I know I read it fast, but we're playing these things fast, too. And for those of you listening at double speed on your iPods, you're probably really frustrated now, but that's okay.

48:14

We have a lot to get to today. So once in a while, I have to turn mine down to normal speed to follow stuff, too.

48:20

So that's just how it works. Dr. Moeller did not say that Andy Stanley had gone as far as Friedrich Schleiermacher.

48:28

He said that not only is it an apologetic desire, but that it is an apologetic desire that ends up being embarrassed by Christianity's confession that God has spoken.

48:41

And this, I can't even, again, I can't begin to understand how someone who takes the

48:46

Bible seriously can't see this. One of the things that's so embarrassing to modern liberals is what the

48:56

Bible teaches us concerning Jesus' own view of Scripture. Because they want to be able to present a

49:01

Jesus who is just, you know, just so relevant and modern and squishy and wonderful and all the rest of this stuff.

49:07

But the reality is, Jesus had an old line view of the inspiration of Scripture.

49:14

It was God speaking. And if God said it, He holds you accountable for it. That doesn't mean you didn't have to interpret it and all the rest of that stuff.

49:22

The point is, God has spoken. In all of Scripture. And so, that's really embarrassing to people.

49:31

And that's what they're trying to run with. I don't know, I've never understood liberalism.

49:36

I've said many, many times, if you're a theological liberal, I don't know why you bother teaching theology, why you do what you do.

49:43

It just seems like a total waste of time to me. But the reality is that liberals want to hold on to Jesus, just not the

49:55

Jesus of the Bible. They reform in their own image. And for Andy Stanley to say the things that he says, and for what

50:05

William Lane Craig is about to say, because we haven't heard nothing yet. And man, I've only got 10 minutes, because I've got another hour's worth of stuff to do.

50:13

But you ain't heard nothing yet. What you hear these folks saying is not anything

50:19

Jesus ever said. Not anything Jesus ever said. Especially in their view of Scripture. Andy Stanley seems to be wanting to say that in today's world, that there are so many who are just not going to listen to you if you just say the

50:35

Bible tells me so. Right, right. That you'd better find some other tactics in order to, eventually, even if you want to get them to the

50:42

Scriptures. Yeah, and that's just good apologetics. The way you do apologetics is you find some common ground between yourself and the nonbeliever on which you can then argue.

50:54

The only common ground, biblically speaking, is they're made in the image of God. That's the connection point right there.

51:01

Just so you know. And Al Mohler just doesn't seem to understand this in his editorial.

51:07

Al Mohler just doesn't understand this! No, actually,

51:12

Al Mohler understands a whole lot more. See, really briefly, it just seems to me that Dr.

51:19

Craig does not take seriously. He just doesn't seem to think that there's anybody out there that really has the intellectual firepower to question him.

51:32

And so he just, I mean, anybody that would not recognize the intellectual firepower of Al Mohler is okay.

51:43

Just not really thinking clearly. But he does, and he takes a completely different perspective.

51:50

And it's almost as if, well, yeah, but it's not a philosophical perspective like mine. Well, actually, it is a philosophical perspective, but it's a philosophical perspective based upon divine revelation, which is where you get into the problems with a lot of these folks.

52:02

...emerges in the following paragraph. He says, perhaps the oddest part of Andy Stanley's approach to defending the resurrection of Jesus is his insistence that we have some access to historically verifiable accounts of the resurrection outside of the

52:19

New Testament. He rests his confidence in recent historiographical work by apologists who defend the historicity of the resurrection by affirming historical sources that are prior to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

52:36

This is not at all odd or peculiar. What Andy Stanley is doing is pointing out that contemporary

52:42

New Testament scholars, not apologists, contemporary New Testament scholars, have been able to identify the traditions or sources upon which the

52:53

New Testament authors draw, thereby closing even more narrowly the window between the original events and the time of the recording of those events.

53:04

One of the premier examples is Paul's quotation of this ancient

53:10

Christian formula in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 -5, where he speaks of Christ's death.

53:17

Now, by the way, that's found in the New Testament, right? Would we know anything about this alleged tradition if it were not in the

53:26

New Testament? No, we wouldn't. So, what he said was,

53:32

Dr. Moy said, outside of the New Testament. And yet, Dr.

53:37

Craig then gives this example that is only found from where? Within the

53:42

New Testament. Hmm. Paying for our sins, his burial, his being raised from the dead on the third day, and then his appearances to Peter and to the twelve disciples.

53:52

This tradition, which Paul is quoting here, has been dated to within the first five years.

54:00

Theoretically speaking, yes, it has. And there's no question, there's no question that the early church was preaching that very message from the very beginning.

54:08

But how do we know that? How has God communicated that to us? Is that found in the

54:14

New Testament or outside the New Testament? It is in the New Testament. After Jesus' crucifixion.

54:20

So, these resurrection appearances, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus, are not late developing legends.

54:26

Agreed. They accrue generations or decades after Jesus was dead and buried. These are traditions that go right back to within five years of the events themselves, and are therefore of incredible historical value.

54:42

So, that would be just one example of what Stanley is talking about, where we have these pre -New

54:48

Testament traditions that have tremendous historical credibility. Which are only communicated to us in the

54:54

New Testament, and Dr. Mohler said about outside the New Testament. So, not sure how that was relevant, but anyway.

55:01

Is Andy Stanley saying in a way, hey, even if, and I'm not saying that there is, but even if there were some error going on in the

55:08

Bible, is that going to destroy Christianity? And he would say, no. He's definitely saying that. He's saying to be a

55:13

Christian, you don't have to believe. Now listen, folks. Okay, listen carefully.

55:19

You ready? You sitting down? If you're driving right now, I'm not sure this is good. I'm giving you a warning right now.

55:26

I hope you're not in high speed or in bad traffic or whatever. Just get a deep seat.

55:38

You don't have to believe in things like the virgin birth or that the Bible is inerrant. Some of you may be going, no, play that again.

55:47

Okay, let me play that again. You don't have to believe in sixth day creationism or in the flood of Noah, or frankly, even in things like the virgin birth or that the

55:59

Bible is inerrant. The fundamental historical credibility of the claims and resurrection of Christ can be established historically to those other sorts of things.

56:11

That can be decided later once you have made a commitment to Christ. That can be decided later on whose authority.

56:19

How many times have I said it? What you win them with is what you win them to. And so when you have this kind of presentation, well, you know,

56:27

Mr. rebel sinner man, you get to decide whether God exists, and then you get to decide whether it's the

56:34

God of Jesus, and then you get to decide whether Jesus is God, and you get to decide all this stuff, and you get to analyze all this historical stuff, and you get to do all these things, and then all this stuff in the

56:44

Bible, hey, you get to decide whether you're really into the virgin birth or whether you're really into this inerrancy and inspiration thing.

56:56

I know Jesus talked about the flood and Noah, and he used it as an example, but he was just a man of his age who would have enjoyed that, and he was just communicating.

57:09

It's all up to you. What you win them with is what you win them to.

57:18

I was, I, I heard that, and I'm like, really?

57:24

Well, look, we all know that William Lane Craig simply plays lip service to inerrancy.

57:32

He's told some people that it's disastrous for evangelicalism and apologetics, and we know that N .T.

57:38

Wright describes it as that silly American doctrine. We're in the minority.

57:44

I admit, I'm in the minority in believing in the doctrine of inerrancy.

57:52

I've said to Dr. Licona, stop pretending. Just go ahead and come straight out and say, hey, this is all just you know, once you've got your ticket punched, then you can think these things through, and hey, whatever you decide.

58:14

Whatever you decide. There you go. And he's quite right about that.

58:21

We do have these credible historical sources for the life and teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus, which are not dependent upon a doctrine of biblical inspiration or inerrancy.

58:34

And I don't think that Al Mohler understands this. And I don't think Al Mohler understands this!

58:41

Okay, you just made a bunch of people sit up and finally take notice about really how far out you are theologically.

58:50

Why do you have to keep making yourself look really foolish by saying, I don't think Dr. Mohler understands this?

58:57

It almost makes people wonder, why are you doing this program anyways?

59:03

Is there something going on behind the scenes that we don't really know about?

59:09

Makes you wonder just a little bit. You really think? I mean, Dr. Craig, Dr. Mohler has read probably 50 times the number of books you have.

59:18

Probably more. Most voracious reader I've ever encountered. You really don't think he understands this?

59:25

I mean, I'm just left stuttering at something like that. You know,

59:31

I'm so much smarter than anybody else. When I debated

59:38

John Dominic Crossan, before we ever debated, I was telling folks in my church,

59:44

I've told folks on the air probably, this guy is one of the most intelligent people

59:49

I've ever read. He's brilliant. I mean, he is so widely read and he's so intelligent.

59:57

His IQ is so far beyond my own. That if debating was just a matter of an

01:00:03

IQ contest, then it would have been stupid. But you can have the highest

01:00:09

IQ in the world if the reasoning, the worldview you have is based upon falsehood, your conclusions are going to be wrong.

01:00:18

And so this, I just don't think Mohler understands this stuff. Really, really detracted from everything else, which will need to be detracted from,

01:00:26

I suppose. From his editorial, he argues that if we can somehow believe in the fact of Christ's resurrection on the authority of prior historical sources, and then we find that Jesus, presumably as revealed in the four

01:00:43

Gospels, respects the inspiration of the Old Testament, we should conclude that if one who rose from the dead affirmed the inspiration of the

01:00:51

Old Testament, then we should as well. That's a very plausible argument. Why is it a plausible argument?

01:00:58

Why is that a plausible argument? There are so many things that he's presupposing the meaning of that resurrection.

01:01:06

He's ignoring the relationship of that resurrection to the atonement aspect of it, but leave that off to the side.

01:01:14

How do you determine Jesus's view of the inspiration of the Old Testament? If you know anything about liberalism, you know.

01:01:21

I know how the liberals respond to that. I know how the liberals... Every liberal laughs at what you just said, and they do.

01:01:35

Because when I say, well, look at Jesus's view of Scripture, they go, we don't have any idea what Jesus's view of Scripture was, and even if we did, it would just simply be whatever was popular in his day.

01:01:47

Well, what about this? That's just Matthew putting that in Jesus's mouth. Well, John, please. Mark, still, it's decades later.

01:01:55

It's the later churches understanding. We don't know what Jesus's view of Scripture was. It collapses.

01:02:03

It blows up. But it's a great argument.

01:02:09

Oh, wow. Regarding the inspiration is a reliable word of God. Namely, Jesus claimed to be the

01:02:16

Son of God, the absolute revelation of God, the Father to mankind. This radical claim was vindicated by his resurrection from the dead, and therefore we should believe in what

01:02:26

Jesus teaches us about God and about theology, and Jesus teaches us that the

01:02:31

Old Testament was the word of God, and so as his disciples, then we accept his teaching with respect to biblical authority.

01:02:40

This is not at all strange or convoluted. Now, again, this isn't the way you do systematic theology, but we're talking here apologetics of how one might convince an unbeliever to accept first and foremost.

01:02:53

Catch that again? This is how we do apologetics. We convince the rebel.

01:02:59

See, they won't call him rebel. He's just the unbeliever. He's just this neutral, might even be friendly toward God, just needs more facts.

01:03:06

Theology matters. Theology determines apologetic. First and foremost, believe in Christ, and then on the basis of Christ's teaching, the inspiration of the scriptures.

01:03:17

Okay. I'm sure that ears perk up when you said the virgin birth, Bill. Would some people be alarmed that you would say that you could not worry about the virgin birth?

01:03:32

Wouldn't that be a fundamental or an essential? Now, listen, listen. How do you respond to that? Because Kevin's exactly right.

01:03:39

Kevin's exactly right. We're talking about chucking elements out from the gospel here, from what the

01:03:48

New Testament writers thought was relevant, was clearly a part of the tradition of the early church, so why can we do that?

01:03:59

Because... Or can you just say... Well, it may be fundamental to theology, but we're not doing theology. We're doing apologetics,

01:04:05

Kevin. And the historical credibility... There. That is absolutely...

01:04:11

I'm marking that one because we've got to keep that one marked. And it's almost condescendingly said.

01:04:17

Or can you just say... Well, it may be fundamental to theology, but we're not doing theology. We're not doing theology.

01:04:30

Dr. Craig, if you're not doing theology, you're not doing Christian apologetics, I don't know what you're doing, but it's a game.

01:04:38

It's a game. Yes, sir? Quickly. I listen to that and I hear somebody saying, apologetics boils down to a good sales pitch.

01:04:44

Look, we may be selling lemons, but we're not worrying about the lemon juice right now. We're just trying to sell the thing, okay?

01:04:51

That's true. Of the crucifixion narrative, the empty tomb narrative, those don't depend in any way on the historical credibility of the virgin birth story.

01:05:03

These are independent accounts. And so Christian truth can be fragmented, and it's all up to you to determine how to pull these things back together again.

01:05:11

If you don't want that element, you don't have to have that element. It's a disaster! It's an abject disaster.

01:05:17

But this is the Craig, Lycona, Habermas, this is why we keep saying, you know, there's a problem here, folks.

01:05:32

You might want to be careful and recognize that if you reason back from this, the theology you're left with is going to be a mess because they're not driving their apologetic from a meaningful theological basis.

01:05:48

And they each need to be assessed in their own right. And Andy Stanley is saying that very thing.

01:05:53

He's saying, look, I say things like, I don't blame you for having your doubts about, say, the virgin birth or a global flood or things like that, but let's talk.

01:06:05

He says, quoting here, Andy says, For listeners accustomed to preachers taking every opportunity to correct, chastise, and reprimand unbelievers, my approach is confusing.

01:06:15

In other words, he's saying, I'm not going to chastise you. I'm not going to correct you. I'm not going to jump on you because you're having doubts or you're having trouble believing the information

01:06:28

I think you need. Yes, it's a more invitational approach. In other words, it does not take seriously man's rebellion against God and the fact that as well, as John says, he abides under the wrath of God.

01:06:41

That sort of determines things too. To invite the nonbeliever to look at the evidence, to look at the

01:06:47

New Testament documents, not as inspired, authoritative words of God. Just whatever you want to make them.

01:06:57

But look at them as simply first century documents in Greek handed down to us telling this remarkable story about this man,

01:07:07

Jesus of Nazareth. And the question is, how credible are these documents? And Stanley's argument is that when you assess these documents by the standards in which ancient historical accounts are normally assessed, the

01:07:20

Gospels and the New Testament letters come out looking very credible. Very credible. That's why the result of all this is that the preponderance of the evidence points to the higher probability of the existence of a

01:07:35

God. But it's all up to you. And that's what the apostles taught. Just read Acts 17. It's highly probable.

01:07:41

Jesus rose from the dead. But it's up to you. As sources for the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And I must say,

01:07:48

Kevin, that's the reality of the

01:07:54

New Testament documents. Because he says in his article that on Stanley's approach...

01:08:00

You know, I think that... I just get the real feeling. This was much more Craig's defending this movement against Moeller than it was his trying to prop up Andy Stanley.

01:08:15

Because these... This type of commentary is unnecessary. And in fact, distracts from the flow of what's going on there.

01:08:26

Inquiring minds want to know. We would be dependent upon historians among others to tell us what parts of both

01:08:34

Testaments we can still believe. Those parts will inevitably grow fewer and fewer.

01:08:41

And that is simply not the case. What do you mean it's simply not the case? Dr. Craig, I'm starting to wonder how much you know about liberalism.

01:08:50

I mean, that's not the case? You're constantly contracting, contracting, contracting what you'll defend.

01:08:59

Of course it's the case. Wow. Historically, since the time of Friedrich Schleiermacher, the beginning of the 19th century, the confidence of New Testament scholarship in the historical credibility of the

01:09:14

Gospels has grown and grown and grown. Amongst whom? Amongst whom?

01:09:21

You have to define... People like Daniel Kirk? I don't think so.

01:09:27

At the end of the 19th century and the heyday of liberal theology, a person like Bruno Bauer, German theologian, could doubt that the historical

01:09:35

Jesus ever even really existed. Today, nobody except these nutty internet mythicists would propound such a view.

01:09:43

Which, by the way, which is why I just saw on Twitter the day before yesterday a picture of Bart Ehrman on the existence of Jesus because they're just nutty internet people.

01:09:59

And that's why Ehrman wrote a whole book on the subject because he just writes books against nutty internet people.

01:10:04

Even during the mid -20th century, a scholar like Rudolf Beutmann could say that all that we can know about the historical

01:10:10

Jesus could be written on a four -by -six index card. By contrast, today in the 21st century, the

01:10:17

Gospels are widely regarded as the foundation of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

01:10:27

Fundamentally credible. Not in the details, but fundamentally. And as I've emphasized in my published work,

01:10:33

Kevin, this includes not only Jesus' death by Roman crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, but his burial in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.

01:10:44

We actually know the name of the man who buried Jesus. There are many, many, many, and we've never provided the inclusion of any type of name at that point.

01:10:58

This is just sort of wishful thinking on his point. The discovery of that tomb empty by a group of women followers on Sunday morning, including

01:11:07

Mary Magdalene, by name. Thirdly, that thereafter ... This is the minimal facts argument again.

01:11:13

We've heard it 47 ,000 times. Various individuals in groups depends upon the belief of these earliest disciples that God had raised

01:11:28

Jesus from the dead, a belief to which they sincerely and suddenly claim despite every predisposition to the contrary.

01:11:35

These facts are part and parcel of the portrait of the historical Jesus that has been established by the sort of historical criticism that Andy Stanley is talking about.

01:11:47

Now when we do see... And the meaning of all those things, utterly disconnected from the New Testament? No. Presupposes the

01:11:53

New Testament. Theology, we don't base our doctrine upon historical studies, we base it upon the

01:12:00

Bible. But when we do apologetics and you're asking why should we believe what the Bible says, or even more fundamentally why should we believe that Jesus Christ is anybody special or that he rose from the dead, then we do appeal to the work of these historians which

01:12:16

Contrary to Al Mohler has increasingly established the historical credibility of the

01:12:22

New Testament documents. Yeah, we shouldn't fear historical inquiry and research. We got to keep that away from the

01:12:28

Bible or it might destroy the Bible. Which is nowhere near what Dr. Mohler was saying.

01:12:33

Come on guys, get serious. This is condescendingly insulting at this point.

01:12:40

It really is. You've got something going on here and you're trying to do something about Dr. Mohler.

01:12:45

That's obvious. This is getting bad. Shame on you. How much confidence is that? Well, Andy Stanley wraps it up with this quote and we'll wrap it up with this as well,

01:12:55

Bill. He says, but to recap, yes, I believe the Bible is without error in everything it affirms. In everything that it affirms.

01:13:02

That's exactly what Roman Catholics say. Whenever you hear someone add that caveat, in whatever it affirms.

01:13:08

If it's not affirming historical things, it can be wrong in history. If it's not affirming scientific things, it can be wrong in scientific things.

01:13:15

That's the weasel word. Believe me, I've taught in the context where I hear weasel words all the time.

01:13:21

Yes, my approach to preaching is not traditional. Yes, my approach at times leaves those outside our local congregations wondering if I'm still an evangelical.

01:13:29

So in light of all that, along with the fact that here I am once again having to explain myself, shouldn't I consider changing my approach?

01:13:36

No, actually I would like you to consider changing yours. Here's why. He says, the world has changed.

01:13:43

That's right. A culture that is more skeptical and more secular and wants to hear credible, non -faith based reasons to believe.

01:13:54

Did you catch that? Did you catch that? Non -faith based reasons to have faith.

01:14:04

That's what this kind of philosophy leads you to. Wow. I couldn't have made it up if I had tried, folks.

01:14:14

Could not have made it up if I had tried. Progressive lenses with large monitors is really funny.

01:14:23

Okay, I don't even know what else to say. At that point, we've said everything that needs to be said and wow.

01:14:31

I wanted to get done 15 minutes faster than that so I'm gonna have to continue very quickly. I think

01:14:40

I might make some comments about the shack a little bit later on. There was a program on Moody.

01:14:47

You know, up for debate sounds like a program that would be actually natural for me. I guess I'll never be on it because that one incident.

01:14:54

I don't know if you remember. Remember I was supposed to be on and the Roman Catholic said he wouldn't be on with me and I think they were just offended at me because he wouldn't be on with me.

01:15:01

So anyway, Dr. Geisler was on. I couldn't even listen to all of it.

01:15:09

It was that bad. It was that bad. We won't even go into that.

01:15:15

But we may make some comments a little bit later on on the shack and what it means. I'm gonna completely shift gears here and remember story time with Uncle Jimmy?

01:15:28

Well, this is not the kind of story time that you necessarily want to gather the kids for.

01:15:36

I want to read you some material from the

01:15:43

Quran with some commentary. This is from the study Quran and then

01:15:48

I have some hadith and some tafsir. Over the past couple of months,

01:15:57

I've dialogued with a number of Muslims and a sort of general consensus amongst the non -radicalized

01:16:08

Muslims has come to fore in regards specifically to Surah 9.

01:16:18

Surah 9, Al -Taba, is considered by most to be the last surah of the

01:16:30

Quran revealed. And hence, in many people's minds, it is through the doctrine of abrogation, abrogates everything that comes before it.

01:16:41

And Surah 9 is the most militarized of the surahs in the

01:16:47

Quran. And there are certain verses in Surah 9 that are frequently raised by Christians in regards to how

01:17:01

Muslims are to view Christian people and interact with Christian people.

01:17:07

Now, I do recognize that Daesh, ISIS, as we say in the West, Al -Qaeda and others do not focus their attention primarily upon these texts.

01:17:18

But they are well known. They are well known amongst the Muslim people.

01:17:24

And I want to just read some of these and ask some questions.

01:17:34

A repudiation from God and his messenger to those idolaters with whom you made a treaty. So travel freely throughout the land for four months and know that you cannot thwart

01:17:45

God and that God shall disgrace the disbelievers, the kafirun, disbelievers.

01:17:51

An announcement from God and his messenger to the people on the day of the greater hajj that God and his messenger have repudiated the idolaters.

01:17:58

So if you repent, it will be better for you. And if you turn away, then know that you cannot thwart God and give the disbelievers glad tidings of a painful punishment.

01:18:07

Save for those idolaters with whom you have made a treaty and who thereafter could commit no breach against you nor support anyone against you.

01:18:14

So fulfill the treaty with them for its duration. Truly God loves the reverend.

01:18:20

Then when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them.

01:18:26

Capture them, besiege them and lie in wait for them in every place of ambush. But if they repent and perform the prayers and give the alms, the only way you can do that is as a

01:18:35

Muslim, then let them go their way. Truly God is forgiving and merciful. And if any of the idolaters seek asylum with thee, grant them asylum until he hears the word of God.

01:18:45

Then convey him to a place of safety. That is because they are a people who know not. So if you encounter people that, this is my understanding.

01:18:53

And I think as I read some of the commentaries, obviously it's an understanding.

01:18:59

It's not just me. There are many other Muslims that have this as well. That is because they are a people who know not.

01:19:07

So this isn't about people who actually have knowledge of the claims of Muhammad and of Islam.

01:19:14

How can the idolaters, so an idolater is just a polytheist, someone, a mushrikun, a person who engages in the worship of something other than God.

01:19:24

How can the idolaters have a treaty with God and with his messengers save for those with whom you made a treaty at the sacred mosque?

01:19:31

If they remain true to you, remain true to them. Truly God loves the reverend. How, since if they prevail over you, you will not, they will not observe any kinship or treaty with you.

01:19:41

They please you with their mouths while their hearts refuse and most of them are iniquitous. They have sold the signs of God for a paltry price and have turned from his way.

01:19:49

Evil indeed is that which they used to do, observing neither kinship nor treaty with any believer. And it is they who are the transgressors.

01:19:56

But if they repent and perform the prayer and give the alms, and they are, then they are your brethren in religion.

01:20:02

And we expound the signs for a people who know. Now I just, just briefly, especially for my

01:20:09

Muslim friends who will be watching and probably making videos of this within a matter of hours. One of the key areas where we have fundamental disagreements with one another is

01:20:23

I believe that a person becomes a Christian when

01:20:28

God by his, his gracious power, God's grace is powerful in the

01:20:34

New Testament. I know there are Christians that present God's grace, somebody just tries to help people do things, but that's, that's not what the

01:20:40

New Testament teaches. Grace actually saves. Grace actually teaches us to, to do certain things according to Titus chapter 2.

01:20:46

And when God saves someone, he changes them. He takes out that heart of stone, he gives a heart of flesh.

01:20:54

There is a radical break with their old life. And there is now a, a new bowing of the knee, not to one's own lusts and desires, but to the

01:21:05

Lord Jesus Christ. And we, we call this regeneration. There is a, a new creature.

01:21:14

And so that isn't a part, as far as I can tell, of the

01:21:24

Quranic understanding of how one becomes a Muslim. It's certainly not found here. If they repent, what does that mean?

01:21:31

Well, evidently every person's capable of doing this. What's the nature of repentance? We're not really told.

01:21:39

Then, well, you stop doing one thing, you start doing something else. But what about internally? Why this is important is when we talk about people, like the man who just a matter of days ago hit the accelerator on his vehicle, mowing people down, hearing their, their bones crushing under his tires, stabs an unarmed policeman to death.

01:22:03

When we look at someone like that, I saw one Muslim described the man as a retard. I was shocked by that.

01:22:13

When we, when we ask what's going on there, when we ask what the, what's happening in that person's heart, when we ask what happens when a person becomes a

01:22:25

Muslim, is there a new creature? Is there, is there a change? We don't get,

01:22:32

I just wonder what the answers are. I get different answers from different people. So you have fighting the

01:22:39

Mushrikun and then later on, here's, here's what we have.

01:22:46

Starting in verse 28, Oh you who believe, the idolaters are surely unclean.

01:22:52

Now this particular translation, I did not bring up the Quran, I apologize. If, but I'm going off my memory here.

01:23:00

And I think, I think that what this is saying is that the

01:23:09

Mushrikun are najas. They're, they're unclean. They're, they're repulsive before God.

01:23:16

So let them not come near the sacred mosque after this year of theirs. If you fear poverty,

01:23:23

God will enrich you from his bounty if he will. Truly God is knowing and wise. Now what's that about? Well, the caravan trade and the, the, the

01:23:32

Chaba, the Quraysh tribe made its money from the caravan trade and the people coming to worship at the

01:23:37

Chaba. So if you do not allow the Mushrikun to come and you clean the Chaba out, you get rid of all the idols, then the amount of money coming in drops precipitously, which evidently is what's being referred to here.

01:23:53

Then we have Surah 9, 29. Fight those who believe not in God and in the last day and who do not forbid what

01:24:08

God and his messenger have forbidden and who follow not the religion of truth among those who were given the book, the

01:24:16

Al -Kitab, till they pay the jizya with a willing hand being humbled.

01:24:25

Now, there are all sorts of interpretations about this particular verse.

01:24:31

Let me just give you what the study Quran says here. Let me just, before I read the commentary.

01:24:42

Fight those who believe not in God in the last day. Christians and Jews believe in God in the last day.

01:24:50

And then it says, and all of this is among those who were given the book. So is this a subgroup of Christians?

01:25:02

And who do not forbid what God and his messenger have forbidden? Well, that would have to be in the

01:25:09

Quran, I would assume. So this is allowing people to do things that the

01:25:17

Quran says not to do amongst Christians and Jews, but they also are individuals who do not believe in God in the last day.

01:25:27

Or is it possible that if you don't believe in Muhammad, that's evidence you don't believe in God in the last day?

01:25:32

I don't know. The Quran claims to be mubinun, which means clear, perspicuous, but this text is not clear and perspicuous, which is a problem because it's been misused from your own perspective many, many times.

01:25:50

And who follow not the religion of truth among those who were given the book.

01:25:55

Now, if the religion of truth is Islam, then who is being referred to here?

01:26:05

It would be easy to see, it'd be, there'd be a way of reading this that you need to fight all Christians that don't believe

01:26:13

Muhammad's a prophet, that do not believe in, well, for example, you'll frequently hear

01:26:22

Muslims talking about, hey, do you eat pork? Do you eat bacon? Why, you know, the

01:26:28

Bible clearly says not to do that. Well, the same text from which you have statements about not eating bacon also says don't eat camels or rabbits, both of which

01:26:41

Muhammad did, both according to the Quran and the Hadith. So is that part of it?

01:26:47

I don't know. It doesn't say. But I seem to see a way of reading this, fight all

01:26:55

Christians, till what? Till they pay the jizya. Now, there's different ways to define, but fundamentally, the best way of interpreting it is it is the tax that is placed upon Jews, Christians, and eventually

01:27:11

Zoroastrians that live under Muslim rule. And the idea is they don't have to pay the same things that Muslims have to pay as far as they don't have to go to war, those types of taxes.

01:27:30

So there needs to be something for them to be protected by the Muslims. Now, historically, at times, the jizya was simply used to keep

01:27:39

Christians and Jews completely suppressed, to keep them out of any type of meaningful business type thing.

01:27:48

It's used that way historically a number of times in a very horrific fashion.

01:27:57

But till they pay the jizya with a willing hand, and then this translation says being humbled, being humbled.

01:28:05

That's not what the term means. As we'll see when

01:28:11

I read something else, it's much stronger than that. It's feeling themselves humiliated.

01:28:16

It's the same term that's used, I remember when I was studying Arabic actively, which I've not been able to do quite some time, but I remember when

01:28:23

I was studying Arabic actively, I remember in looking at this in the

01:28:28

Quran, I said, I've seen that word someplace before, and it's because I was studying parallel passages in the Quran. And in the stories of when

01:28:35

Satan, Iblis is cast out, that's the same word, that he is to feel ashamed when he is cast out of the presence of God, because he would not bow down to Adam.

01:28:48

Same word, it's a very strong word. And so this is not just feel themselves humbled, but this is humiliated.

01:28:57

And I believe it's Ibn Kathir will say the same thing. Here's what we read in a modern commentary.

01:29:09

Some, this is the study Quran, some commentators connect this verse with the Tabuk expedition, the period after the battle of Hunayn, corresponded with the final defeat of the

01:29:18

Persians by the Byzantines. The former retreated from Syria and Egypt, and the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius returned the true cross

01:29:23

Jerusalem. Word began to reach the prophet that the Byzantines were planning a major offensive against the now increasingly powerful

01:29:29

Islamic polity, and had enlisted the Arab tribes of Ghassan, Lachum, Judum, and Amila, who occupied the buffer zone in the

01:29:36

Levant between the Arabian Peninsula and the Byzantine and Persian empires. The prophet mustered the largest army that had yet taken the field and marched north on the

01:29:43

Syrian campaign. The army remained in Tabuk on the road to Syria and situated at the east of the Gulf of Aqaba for 20 days, but the rumors the

01:29:51

Byzantine force gathered against the Muslims were unfounded, or they decided not to take the field after having heard the size of the prophet's army.

01:29:58

Al -Razi, among the major commentators, devotes the most attention to this verse's description of the people of the book, especially as being those who do not believe in God in the last day, knowing that both

01:30:07

Jews and Christians claim to affirm belief in both God and the Hereafter. The Quran itself states in 3 .113

01:30:14

-114, among the people of the book is an upright community who recite God's signs and watches the night while they prostrate.

01:30:21

They believe in God and the last day, and join right and forbid wrong, and hasten unto good deeds. Also, with regard to the

01:30:27

Christians, the Quran states in 582, that is because among them are priests and monks, and because they are not arrogant.

01:30:33

Al -Razi mentions that Muslim theologians themselves occupy a range of positions regarding fundamental matters of belief, such as the ontological status of the attributes of God and the scope of human free will.

01:30:43

By doing so, he also acknowledges that the criticisms directed at Jews and Christians for certain aspects of their belief can be equally directed at certain theological positions within the

01:30:52

Islamic spectrum. This is significant because, according to the Quran's own attestation and the claims of these communities themselves, they, or at least some of them, believe in God and the

01:31:01

Day of Judgment. However, in Al -Razi's view, those people of the book who can truthfully be said to believe in God and the last day still fall under the legal status set out by this verse, namely, being fought until they enter into a treaty and pay an indemnity.

01:31:13

He sees no legal reason to distinguish between them, noting, these who believe in God do not fall under the description of this verse, but the requirement of the indemnity holds for them, since it is said that when an indemnity is required for some of them, one says the same for all of them, since no one, that is, no jurist, holds the view that there is a separation.

01:31:32

That is to say he relies on the absence of any legal opinion on the contrary, while acknowledging that some people of the book are not those defined by this verse.

01:31:39

Now, that's fascinating to me, because this does illustrate something.

01:31:46

The legal understanding of Al -Razi depends upon later tradition, rather than, he recognizes the actual words of the

01:32:00

Quran make a distinction, but that legal precedent later on means we shouldn't make application of that.

01:32:07

This is important because in speaking with a number of my Muslim friends, what they,

01:32:16

I got to minimize something here because I guess we've lost everything again, what they say is the moderate

01:32:25

Muslim, the position of historic Islam, developed these traditions, this fikh, this jurisprudence that circumscribed the activity of jihad, and that the

01:32:41

Wahhabis, some of the Salafis, obviously Daesh, ISIS, Al -Qaeda, so on and so forth, that these groups are like modern

01:32:53

Protestants, and they are like the Roman Catholics. They have their traditions, they have the things that developed over time, and these people are going back to the earliest period and saying, we reject all of that.

01:33:05

So they actually view it as if modern, well, at least Protestants at the time of Reformation, not modern mainstream

01:33:12

Protestants, are more like the radicals. And there you have an example where al -Razi and later jurisprudence becomes the lens through which he interprets the

01:33:22

Quran itself. That's sort of like how Roman Catholics interpret the New Testament as well, through the lens of their interpretation of the tristic sources, things like that.

01:33:34

So that's rather interesting. This interpretation characterizes much of the mainstream of Islamic legal opinion on the matter.

01:33:43

Though this verse speaks of people among those who are given the Quran also mentions those who were given the book both to praise certain

01:33:49

Jews and Christians and criticize some of them. Thus, the mere fact of their identity as people of the book cannot be the single decisive reason why they should be fought.

01:33:59

Al -Samarkandi glosses, do not forbid, by saying what is forbidden in the

01:34:05

Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran, while al -Zamakshari quotes an opinion that interpreters do not forbid to mean they do not act in accordance with what is in the

01:34:14

Gospel. However, many commentators read this verse as saying that they are not Muslims and that they reject the

01:34:19

Prophet. Jizya means the renting of a thing owed and as a legal matter amounts to an indemnity or tribute from non -Muslim communities residing within the

01:34:28

Islamic State with whom Muslims have a treaty. Such treaty holders paid this indemnity but were exempt from paying the alms, the zakah, or contributing to military defense as Muslims were obliged to do.

01:34:39

Jurists disagreed as to the precise amount of the indemnity and the method of payment. Here, with a willing hand, which some interpret to mean that they should pay directly without intermediary and without delay.

01:34:51

Others say that it refers to its reception by Muslims and means generously as in with an open hand since the taking of jizya is a form of munificence that averted a state of conflict.

01:35:02

Finally, some interpret being humbled to mean that the treaty holders should render the indemnity in a state of humility, but some say that the very fact of paying the indemnity is tantamount to this being humbled or being the minor party.

01:35:14

Though the practice of forcing the treaty holders to pay the indemnity in a humbled manner was not unknown in Islamic history, many jurists, such as al -Nawawi, pointed out that the

01:35:24

Prophet and caliphs never did so and said that the treaty people's indemnity should be received with gentleness as one would receive payment of a debt.

01:35:34

Umar ibn al -Khattab reportedly agreed to call the indemnity charity when asked to change its name from jizya.

01:35:41

Okay, then it talks about dimitude, the dhimmis, Zoroastrians, so on and so forth.

01:35:50

There's more there. Okay, so there's a modern commentary. I'm trying to leave enough time to read this.

01:35:58

This is, whenever this gets posted, I guess, we crashed and died, crashed and burned?

01:36:06

No? Can't tell? Huh, okay. Tafsir is commentary on the

01:36:18

Quran, and one of the most widely published, widely read commentaries, tafsir, on the

01:36:29

Quran is by Ibn Kathir, and so very often what we're told is, you know, you're not, you're not accurately representing, uh, you know, our position and things like that, but, um, if you're reading

01:36:50

Ibn Kathir, you're reading fundamental Islamic commentary from the past.

01:37:00

Let me read you commentary on Surah 9, 28, 29, following.

01:37:06

Oh, I'm sorry, before I do that, my apologies, my apologies. There was something else that needed to be noted in, um,

01:37:16

Surah 9, and this came up in my discussion with Abdullah al -Andalusi.

01:37:26

What are the very next words after Surah 29, 9, 29? You know, because, because what

01:37:32

I'm being told is basically, well, you know, this had to do with this, they heard the Byzantines were coming, and, and, uh, so, you know, there was a particular context that, that can't really be reproduced today, but here's my, here's my concern.

01:37:47

Again, just looking at the text, not, not looking at traditions that developed hundreds of years later, but looking at the text itself.

01:37:58

Here's, here's the next part. The Jews say that Ezra is the son of God, and the

01:38:06

Christians say that the Messiah is the son of God. Those are words from their mouths.

01:38:11

They resemble the words of those who disbelieve before, the Kafirun. God cursed them.

01:38:19

How they are perverted. They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords apart from God, as well as the

01:38:27

Messiah, son of Mary, though they were only commanded to worship one God. Now, right there, we have the regular misunderstanding of the

01:38:40

Quran concerning the nature of Christian worship. I've never had any of my

01:38:47

Muslim friends show me any evidence whatsoever from the text of the Quran that the author of the

01:38:52

Quran really had intimate knowledge of what is in the New Testament. If you believe Allah is the author of the

01:38:57

Quran, Allah had intimate knowledge of what's in the New Testament, even if he didn't inspire it, even from your perspective, right?

01:39:04

But I see no evidence of it. Anybody who reads the

01:39:09

New Testament knows that, for example, in the Carmen Christi, Paul is willing to quote from a text that's about Jehovah God, apply it to Jesus, and then say, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess the glory of God the

01:39:23

Father through Jesus Christ. No idea of separate gods, no idea of a division of worship that's inappropriate or anything along those lines.

01:39:37

And when it says, though they were only commanded to worship one God, there is no God but he, that's the exact same language that's used every time the word three is used.

01:39:45

Do not say three, there's only one God. Same thing if you hear. Glory be to him above the partners they ascribe.

01:39:51

That's an accusation of shirk in the context of Christianity. Is it not?

01:39:57

I mean, can you show me where I'm wrong about that? Because I know my Muslim friends say, well, you know, not necessarily, you know, it doesn't specifically say shirk, but how do you avoid that?

01:40:07

The vast majority of Muslims I've talked to do believe that Christians are Mushrikun, right? Do we commit shirk?

01:40:15

And there it is, glory be to him above the partners they ascribe. They desire to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, but God refuses to do aught but complete his light, though the disbelievers be averse.

01:40:27

He it is who sent his messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all religion, though the idolaters be averse.

01:40:37

Now, here's the point. These are the very next words after Surah 929. And if that's not theology,

01:40:45

I don't know what theology is. The whole argument, you know,

01:40:52

I suppose if you take the perspective that the Quran was edited, redacted,

01:41:01

I mean, if, you know, all of you Muslims that take the perspective on the

01:41:07

Old Testament of, you know, the JEDP theory and all the rest of that kind of stuff, you got no reason to object to someone saying, it looks like it was just very poorly redacted.

01:41:17

And, you know, you had a civil verse and it's neatly followed by this religious stuff. But, you know, that was just some scribe later on anyways.

01:41:24

That's not generally an option for most Orthodox Sunni, as far as I can tell.

01:41:31

That's theology. And it seems to identify Christians as Mushrikun and says to fight them for what they believe.

01:41:41

It seems to be what it's saying. And I'm just asking, why isn't that,

01:41:47

I'm applying the same, I'm trying to listen to this text in its context, the same way

01:41:54

I ask you to listen to our texts in their context. So, we go to Tafsir ibn

01:42:00

Kathir. Tafsir ibn Kathir. This is the way the leader of the faithful,

01:42:08

Umar ibn al -Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well -known conditions be met by the Christians.

01:42:14

These conditions, did I, yeah, okay. Actually, the page turned.

01:42:26

I'll get to that in a second because it is important. Therefore, when people of scriptures disbelieved in Muhammad, they had no beneficial faith in any messenger or what the messengers brought.

01:42:36

Rather, they followed their religions because they conformed their ideas, lusts, and the ways their forefathers, not because they are

01:42:42

Allah's law and religion. Had they been true believers in their religions, that faith would have directed them to believe in Muhammad because all prophets gave the good news of Muhammad's advent and commanded them to obey and follow him.

01:43:00

Now, you know why we've debated a few times, does the Bible prophesy the coming of Muhammad? It's central to the

01:43:06

Quranic understanding and it's found throughout the Tafsir literature of the earlier period.

01:43:13

I think it's one of the weakest arguments. You simply have to twist scripture to an incredible extent to try to horseshoe

01:43:21

Muhammad into any of those texts, especially the Song of Solomon, oh my. Yet, when he was sent, they disbelieved in him even though he is the mightiest of all messengers.

01:43:31

Therefore, they do not follow their religion of earlier prophets because these religions came from Allah, but because these suit their desires and lusts.

01:43:38

Therefore, their claimed faith in an earlier prophet will not benefit them because they disbelieved in the master, the mightiest, the last, and most perfect of all the prophets.

01:43:46

That's Muhammad. Hence, Allah's statement, fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the last day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and his messenger, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the people of the scripture.

01:43:58

This honorable ayah was revealed with the order to fight the people of the book after the pagans were defeated, the people entered

01:44:03

Allah's religion in large numbers, and the Arabian Peninsula was secured under the Muslims' control. Allah commanded his messenger to fight the people of the scriptures,

01:44:12

Jews and Christians, on the ninth year of Hijra, and he prepared his army to fight the Romans and called the people to jihad, announcing his intention and destination.

01:44:22

The messenger sent his intent to various Arab areas around Al Medina to gather forces, and he collected an army of 30 ,000.

01:44:31

Some people in Al Medina and some hypocrites in and around it lagged behind, for that year was a year of drought and intense heat.

01:44:37

The messenger of Allah marched, heading towards Ashsham to fight the Romans until he reached Tabuk, where he set camp for about 20 days next to its water resources.

01:44:45

He then prayed to Allah for a decision and went back to Al Medina because it was a hard year, and the people were weak, as we will mention,

01:44:51

Allah willing. Then, in regards to until they pay the jizya, and then with willing submission in defeat and subservience, and feel themselves subdued, and here's

01:45:04

Ibn Kathir's interpretation, disgraced, humiliated, and belittled.

01:45:11

Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimma or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced, and humiliated.

01:45:23

Muslim record from Abu Hurayya that the prophet said, do not initiate the salam, that is the blessings of peace, to the

01:45:31

Jews and Christians, and if you meet them, any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley. I'm just reading

01:45:38

Ibn Kathir. So, you're not to wish us peace, and if you meet them in the road, force them in the narrowest alley.

01:45:47

They are to be miserable, disgraced, and humiliated. This is why the leader of the faithful,

01:45:54

Umar bin al -Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well -known conditions be met by the Christians, these conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation, and disgrace.

01:46:04

The scholars of Hadith narrated from Abd al -Rahman bin Khan al -Ash 'ari that he said,

01:46:10

I recorded for Umar bin al -Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, the terms of the treaty of peace he conducted with the

01:46:16

Christians of Ash 'am. In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful, this is a document of the servant of Allah, Umar, the leader of the faithful, from the

01:46:25

Christians of such and such city, when you Muslims came to us, we requested safety for ourselves, children, property, and followers of our religion.

01:46:32

We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church, or a sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration, nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims.

01:46:47

We will not prevent any Muslim from resting in our churches, whether they come by day or night, and we will open the doors of our houses of worship for the wayfarer and passerby.

01:46:56

Those Muslims who come as guests will enjoy boarding and food for three days. We will not allow a spy against Muslims into our churches and homes or hide deceit or betrayal against Muslims.

01:47:06

We will not teach our children the Quran, publicize practices of shirk, invite anyone to shirk, or prevent any of our fellows from embracing

01:47:17

Islam if they choose to do so. We will respect Muslims, move from the places we sit if they choose to sit in them.

01:47:23

We will not imitate their clothing, caps, turbans, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames, and title names, or ride on saddles, hang swords on the shoulders, collect weapons of any kind, or carry those weapons.

01:47:35

We will not encrypt our stamps in Arabic or sell liquor. We will have the front of our hair cut, wear our customary clothes wherever we are, wear belts around our waist, refrain from erecting crosses on the outside of our churches and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets.

01:47:51

We will not sound the bells of our churches except discreetly or raise our voices while reciting our holy books inside our churches in the presence of Muslims, nor raise our voices with prayer at our funerals or light torches and funeral possessions in the fairways of Muslims or their markets.

01:48:06

We will not bury our dead next to Muslim dead or buy servants who were captured by Muslims. We will be guides for Muslims and refrain from breaching their privacy in their homes.

01:48:15

When I gave this document to Umar, he added to it, we will not beat any Muslim. These are the conditions that we set against ourselves and followers of our religion in return for safety and protection.

01:48:25

If we break any of these promises that we set for your benefit against ourselves, then our dhimma, our promise of protection, is broken and you are allowed to do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion.

01:48:40

That's how Umar interpreted, as a caliph, these words.

01:48:49

There's much more here, especially in regards to the theology that followed after this.

01:48:59

Remember the following ayat are very theologically oriented but time is passing and I have only a few minutes.

01:49:08

I want to go to Hilal -i -Khan.

01:49:15

This is a translation with commentary of the Quran and here in, well that's the same thing.

01:49:32

Let's see here. Which section was

01:49:39

I going to? Okay, here it is.

01:49:54

Once while Allah's Messenger was reciting this verse, Ali bin Hatim said, Allah's Messenger, they do not worship them, that is rabbis and monks.

01:50:03

Allah's Messenger said they certainly do. They, the rabbis and monks, make lawful things as unlawful.

01:50:14

Now that's interesting. Oh, okay, I'm sorry.

01:50:20

That goes to the next page. Here, this is what

01:50:28

I'm wondering. Oh, Allah's Messenger, shall we see our Lord on the day of resurrection? He said, do you have any difficulty in seeing the sun and the moon when the sky is clear?

01:50:36

We said no. He said, so you have no difficulty in seeing your Lord on that day as you have no difficulty in seeing the sun and the moon in a clear sky.

01:50:43

The Prophet then said, somebody will then announce, let every nation follow what they used to worship.

01:50:50

So the people of the cross will go with their cross and the idolaters will go with their idols and the worshipers of every

01:50:57

God, false deities, will go with their God, till there remain those who used to worship Allah from the righteous, pious ones and the mischievous, evil ones and some of the people of the scriptures,

01:51:06

Jews and Christians. Now, immediately again, worship the cross? Well, I suppose if you see some

01:51:14

Roman Catholic prostrations and things like that, I could understand that. But again, that's not what the

01:51:20

New Testament teaches. We glory in the cross because it's the means by which we've been justified in God's sight, but worship it?

01:51:28

No. Then hell will be presented before them as if it were a mirage.

01:51:34

Then it will be said to the Jews, what did you use to worship? They will reply, we used to worship Ezra, the son of Allah.

01:51:41

I have no idea where that comes from, not historically anyways. It will be said to them, you are liars, for Allah has neither a wife nor a son.

01:51:50

What do you want now? They will reply, we want you to provide us with water. Then it will be said to them, drink, and they will fall down in hell instead.

01:51:58

Then it will be said to the Christians, what did you worship? They will reply, we used worship Masih, Messiah, the son of Allah.

01:52:04

It will be said, you are liars, for Allah has neither a wife nor a son.

01:52:11

How many times have I spoken on this subject? The fundamental misunderstanding of the Quran, that the sonship of Jesus has something to do with a wife.

01:52:21

It is right there, it is clear, and here it is in the

01:52:27

Hadith. It will be said, you are liars, for Allah has neither a wife nor a son.

01:52:34

What do you want now? They will say, we want you to provide us with water. Then it will be said to them, drink, and they will fall down in hell instead, till there remain only those who worship

01:52:42

Allah alone, the righteous, pious ones and the mischievous, evil ones, etc., etc. So Christians are given this mirage of water, when they fall down to drink the water, it is actually hell, and they fall into hell for having worshipped

01:52:57

Jesus. This is provided by Halal -i -Khan in Surah 9.

01:53:05

Halal -i -Khan is not ancient, Halal -i -Khan is modern. Why such an unpleasant story time with Jimmy section here, especially because a lot of people fell asleep a while back.

01:53:20

I realize we lost a lot of folks, and I get that, but we still have to address these issues.

01:53:29

I understand that later Islamic theology developed in such a fashion as to limit the appropriate use of Jihad.

01:53:45

It had to. If it was going to create any type of meaningful culture or civilization, it had to.

01:53:55

My concern, it remains my concern, I ask serious -minded Muslims to think, you know everything

01:54:01

I just read, you've heard it all before. When you actually look at the sources themselves, is the later formulation an artificial barrier against the spirit of the early time period that had to be restrained for civilization to be restored?

01:54:40

And if it is an artificial construct, how can you defend it against those who reject it today?

01:54:52

Combine this with the concern that I've expressed over and over again. I do not see in Islamic theology a meaningful concept of repentance and conversion that results in anything more than you now have to do these deeds.

01:55:22

I don't believe that can possibly address the actual problem in the heart. You can take an evil man and put him in the discipline, and he may well stop doing self -destructive things, but it doesn't change his heart.

01:55:43

And in many instances, it just gives him more weapons for the expression of that evil heart. I'm only talking to my serious

01:55:52

Muslim friends right now. I truly believe there is a real problem here.

01:55:59

Because when you combine what the Bible actually teaches, and I see no evidence that the author of the Quran understood what the

01:56:05

Bible actually teaches about this subject, when you combine what the Bible actually teaches about the sinful heart of man with what it seems the

01:56:16

Quran teaches about jihad, you put the two together, and there's a reason why we have the problems we have today.

01:56:27

Now, I hope you're not hearing me say, and that means every one of you who has spoken out against these things are engaging in taqiyyah or something.

01:56:37

I'm not saying that. You know I'm not saying that. Please, please, that surface level,

01:56:44

I know you get hit with it all the time. I'm sorry. I'm not saying that. I'm trying to talk to you about what you know about your own heart.

01:56:52

You all know sometimes it bugs you that in the debates that I do, what do

01:56:57

I always end up talking about? The gospel of Jesus Christ, the need for peace with God, righteousness with God.

01:57:04

I always take it back to the gospel because when I tell you guys I care about you and I pray for you,

01:57:10

I actually do. And so, I'm not saying, I'm not accusing you of taqiyyah. What I am saying is

01:57:17

I hear precious little discussion and serious interaction in my conversations with my

01:57:25

Muslim friends about this area, and that is the need for a changed heart.

01:57:34

And for me, this is obviously one of the, this is to me the key thing that my faith offers to you, that I don't see how your faith addresses it.

01:57:47

But I'd like to have more conversations about it. I hope you understand. I would like to hear what you think about those stories from the

01:57:56

Hadith, the commentary from Ibn Kathir. And hopefully, that's been helpful to some folks who have a serious interest in this area.

01:58:07

I realize for most folks, that was too much of a shift from what we talked about in the first hour and 15 minutes, too much.

01:58:16

I understand that. But I felt that it needed, look, we do apologetics here and hopefully consistently.

01:58:23

So, thank you for listening to Dividing Line today. Lord willing, we'll see you, when do we decide we're doing this again?

01:58:30

Tomorrow. I'm going to be too tired to do it tomorrow, but we're going to try. We'll come up with something.