Open Lines and a Little Bit of Karl Keating

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is

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James White. We are live today, back from the frigid northeast, where it was, well, depending on how far away from the water you were, but most of the time, 14, 15, 16, 17 degrees, got up into the 20s once in a while, but first arrived on Long Island last week, and man,

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I'm going to tell you, the wind was whipping, and there were a couple times, trips out to the car, it just hurt.

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I don't know how folks, it's interesting for a while and it's sort of fun for a while to, you know, put on long coats and gloves and cover every bit of your body and all the rest of that stuff, but, you know, come about April or, well, more like February, March, that would really get to be extremely boring,

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I'm going to have to admit. So I look down and see these 62 degrees that we have here in Phoenix, and I go, yeah, that's not half bad.

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I think we can probably live with that, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.

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Don't have a whole lot on the plate today for the simple reason that I started teaching last night.

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It's going to be five hours on Monday nights, a lot of preparation for that, and then I'm under extreme time pressure on a book project, finishing up a chapter, even right until the theme music was playing, and so that's really where I'm focused right now, and so, yeah, there's things we could talk about.

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I do have one little item here I was going to take a brief look at, but we'll let you drive the program today.

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Just make sure you can handle a stick shift, and give us a call at 877 -753 -3341.

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There will be some breaks like this today while I cough, and I do have a cough button.

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In fact, I'm going to move it down here where I can get to it a little bit easier there. That's, I don't know, I might fall over on stuff there, that would be a disaster.

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Anyway, I have a cough button, and I have a cough, so every once in a while, if it all of a sudden just goes quiet, don't worry, real audio didn't die, well, it may have, but it's just me getting through one of those coughs, and we'll survive it from there.

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What book? A book on scriptural sufficiency, it's got to get done, it keeps getting pushed off by other things, debates, and stuff like that, so got to get it done because we have other major projects heading our direction, other possibilities of some large major debates between now and the debate

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May 20th on Long Island, possibly in April, two possible debates, can't go into details yet because they're really not firmed up, but up in Salt Lake City, so could be a very busy time, and just have to get this project done.

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It's not that the writing is that difficult, it's just trying to find the time to get around to doing it.

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I enjoy writing this stuff, and I enjoy contemplating seeing this stuff in print and available to people and hopefully encouraging people.

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Are looking forward to the arrival of Debating Calvinism, 5 points, 2 views, unlike many of the advertisements

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I've seen out there, when I talk about that book, I mention my other author, that's not just my book,

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I wrote exactly 50 % of it, and he wrote 50 % of it, his name is Dave Hunt, but of course

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I believe it should be identified as Dave Hunt vs. James White, but I think the cover actually says

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Dave Hunt and James White. I'm expecting that, Lord willing, around the 15th of February, and if you all want to get a signed copy of it, then you need to get it from almin .org,

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please do not, I bet you, I bet you anything, that there will be people who will write to us, and I bet you almin would agree with this, there will be people who write to us, and they will complain because they ordered the book from Amazon, and I didn't sign it.

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That's the kind of thing you have happen, you really do, some folks just get really easily confused, and so I think it's going to happen, but if you order it from almin .org,

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if you pre -order it, I will be signing it, and that could result in hand cramps and numerous other things, we have been joking about the fact that the first 300 are signed by me, and then the next 100 by my kids, and then we get

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Zeke to do the last ones, and so you need to get your orders in soon, first come, first serve, because any book that Zeke gets hold of will not be in really good shape by the time it gets to where it's supposed to be going, so you might want to order early and order often, as they say in Chicago or something like that, anyway, 877 -753 -3341,

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I have a, whoa, that button made a huge leap there, way up there, but if we could put, there, that sounds about right, that's good.

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Alright, before I look at this, we do have a caller, so we'll just go ahead and go that direction and see if that opens up other vistas of discussion, oh, but, really, is that accurate where he's from, we're going to start off with a

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Canadian, well, okay, you know, I guess we've got to be nice to our

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Canadian neighbors up north, because right now they are blocks of ice, and, therefore, maybe we can help to warm them up by talking about theology with them, so let's go ahead and talk with Sean in British Columbia, hi,

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Sean, or is it Seen? Sean. Sean, well. Well, correctly, I appreciate that. Well, but, you see, we have a guy that does weather here in Phoenix, and his brother's name is

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Sean, his name is spelled S -E -A -N, and it's Seen, so that's why I have to ask those questions.

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Although, not much for forecasting for Phoenix, isn't it hot always? No, no, we have winter storms that come through, and it's only 62 today, that's actually below our normal, so, no, it's a desert, so you get a little bit of the seasons, but the cold weather just doesn't last, it never snows here, and I do,

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I miss it, though I'll have to admit, walking around on Long Island with the ice that stayed there just day after day after day, you know, human beings just don't adjust to walking on ice, it's just, you know, it just, it looks weird,

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I mean, you can do it, you learn how to do it, but you look pretty dumb when you're doing it anyway, so, anyhow, your question, sir.

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Yeah, well, I've been listening to a couple of your programs here from January, earlier in January, and I...

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When we were talking about the Bible Answer Man? Yeah, various different things, but there was a fellow who you talked with, although it may have been, yeah, originated from Bible Answer Man, the idea that, of what,

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I'm not sure exactly how you put it, God's knowledge of the future is rooted in his predetermination, or pre -ordaining, or however you put it, did

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I hear that correctly? I'm not sure what you're referring to,

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I was referring to, the only time I used the term along those lines was in relating

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Norman Geisler's perspective, where he talks about predeterminately foreknowing, and foreknowingly predetermining,

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I used that term then, and then we were talking about George Bryson, I mentioned the questions that I had concerning his perspective and his understanding of how we know the future, what's the basis of God's knowledge of the future.

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Yeah, that's it. Yeah, okay, so, but I'm not sure what your question was about. So can you rephrase that again for me, just to make sure that I understood that?

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Well, the question I was asking George Bryson, if that's what you're referring to, was how does

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God know the future? I mean, he said, well, God knows the future because God is omniscient.

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Well, that doesn't actually answer the question, what is the basis upon which he has this knowledge?

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Is it because the events in time take place outside of his creative decree, and he takes in knowledge of them at some point, or is it because the events in time are a part of his creative decree?

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And that had come up, of course, on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, and unfortunately, I was noting in channel today that those programs are no longer available to be listened to for free.

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I would assume they still can be heard, however, by ordering the

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MP3s from CRI directly. Yeah, okay, if this creative decree idea,

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I'm not sure if I understood it. It's possible that I'm not philosophically trained here to understand it, but it appears to me that if we say that God has perfect knowledge of the future because of his creative decree, as you put it, or creative decree, that sounds weak to me, and it sounds like there's a weakness in there somewhere.

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Can we say that he does not know unless he creatively decrees?

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No. Can we say that, doesn't it logically follow that his knowledge would precede the decree?

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And therefore, I would think it does, and therefore, is it not independent of the decree, creative or whatever?

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Well, if a person were to take that position, then A, the decree of God regarding what he is going to do in creation would not include the activities of man in time.

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Secondly, you then have to deal with, well, then what takes place in time, since God is not the one who determines this by his decree, by his sovereign election and predestination, then who is responsible for what takes place in time?

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And if God is not responsible for what takes place in time, then why would God be glorified for what he does in time?

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Does he act in response to what he learns free creatures are going to do?

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That's what open theism says, is that God is constantly reacting and responding to what free creatures do, but that, of course, results in a denial that God actually knows the future and knows what's going to take place and hence reduces him to the same situation we find ourselves in, in discovering as time goes by what's taking place within time, which then becomes very difficult to defend the idea that God isn't changing, growing, gaining knowledge, becoming better or worse, one of the two, and things along those lines, which are clearly unbiblical.

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So I don't see any basis for saying that it means there's some weakness in God to say that his knowledge of what takes place in time is a part of his decree, because to say otherwise is to assume that something could come into existence separately from God, and I don't believe anything can come into existence separately from God.

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Of course, that's impossible. I'm not sure if I did a good job explaining my view.

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I agree that God is those things that you mentioned, that he, of course, knows perfectly and nothing happens outside of him.

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I'm not saying that there's a weakness in God, or somehow with God. I'm wondering if the way you voiced your view, if that is perhaps susceptible to a problem, and I'll try to give it a crack again here, give it a try.

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If we say that God's knowledge is based in his creative decree, then, well,

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I could be wrong, please correct me if I am, but just in this simple fact, would that not limit his knowledge to his decree?

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And if so, would we be able to say then, if it's true the way it is worded, that God does not know, then, therefore, unless he decrees?

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No, it would say that unless God creates, there's nothing to know. The point is that if you say anything otherwise, it's not a limitation, it's simply saying that what

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God creates, God knows, and that nothing exists outside of God. And so, if you're looking at it,

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I think, from the opposite side of the way it needs to be looked at, it's not so much limiting

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God, because the idea of limitation assumes that there is knowledge to be had outside of God's creative decree, outside of what

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God has made. But I thought we had already agreed that nothing exists but that which God has made, and hence there could be no other category out there that God's knowledge would be limited by his creative decree.

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It just doesn't follow. So that's what I'm trying to communicate, is that there's no weakness there, and that we're not limiting anything, we're just simply saying, well, if we're limiting anything, this is what we're limiting.

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The only thing that exists is what God makes. Of course. And so, if he makes it, then he makes it for a purpose, right?

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Of course. And he knows what is going to happen in time with that which he makes, and so the limitation is just simply a limitation that is inherent in all forms of theism that believe

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God is the creator of all things, and that is, if it exists, God made it. Therefore, he has perfect knowledge of it.

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Okay. I'll have to think about it more. If one says that his grounding, or his knowledge of the future, is in his decree, it seems to, maybe

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I'm wrong, but it seems to be tied to his decree. Whereas I would suggest, and I think

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I heard you suggest the same thing, or at least imply the same thing, that his knowledge is actually independent, or it's separate.

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It's not the same thing as a decree. A decree is an act. Knowledge is something that he always possesses,

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I guess. But we're talking about... He could choose not to decree, like he could choose not to act, he could choose not to whatever, and he would still know, even if he did not decree anything, he would still know.

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He would still know what? He would still have perfect understanding of everything.

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Yeah, but there would be nothing to have understanding of outside of himself. We're talking about creation here. Of course.

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If he did not create, then he could not have knowledge of that which he has not created. But all we've been talking about from the beginning is

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God's knowledge of events in time. And so, since time is a creation itself, then that's what we've been talking about from the start.

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God's knowledge... We're not dividing God up. We're simply stating that his knowledge of what takes place in time is a result of his creative act.

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Otherwise, you have to have some source of the events in time coming to existence outside of God's creation.

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And we've already agreed that's not possible. Okay, maybe I missed a qualifying idea that it is in time.

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Well, we're talking... The discussion from the beginning has been, how does God know what sinful men are going to do in the future?

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And that's why we're talking about, for example, the horrible example of knowing in the past that Sonny and Cher are divorced.

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Well, that's completely irrelevant to knowledge of the future. We've always been talking only about the future as far as creation itself.

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We've never abstracted that to any type of abstract consideration of non -created knowledge in God or anything like that.

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So, really not limiting it in that way. Okay? I appreciate it. By the way.

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Yes, sir. If I may, one more thing. I appreciate that you explained this to me. I got it from the horse's mouth or from the dark night of Calvinism, as you've been called.

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I still haven't gotten the book. Can you believe that? No. I ordered the thing the 29th of December.

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I still haven't gotten it. Just to let you know, I greatly appreciate the hard work that you do.

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And I suppose I'm a new, largely because of you and Mr. Coco and Ronald Nash, I guess

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I'm a new convert to Calvinism, if I can call it that. But I appreciate the hard work that you're doing.

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All right. Well, I appreciate the fact that you're surviving for the Lord up there. I mean, what's the temperature up there right now?

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Well, I'm actually on the West Coast, so it would be very much like Seattle. Oh, okay. Well, that's true. You get a little bit of warm air off the ocean.

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That's not as bad as the folks in the middle there, just frigid. That's brutal. That's purgatory,

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I guess. Broken over. The opposite end of it. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. God bless. Bye -bye.

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877 -753 -3341. I need to send a note out to the warehouse at CRI.

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I thought I got an email or something that said, you know, we are back ordered and, you know, we're going to get it to you.

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It's shipped and all the rest of the stuff. Today's the 20th. It's been almost a month since I ordered that thing, and I still don't have it.

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This is starting to get a little bit weird, I think, that I still don't have

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George Bryson's book. Isn't it weird? I'm not going to be able to get to a discussion of it until, well, now, the programs are not even available for people to go listen to for free anymore.

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So it's like this is very odd that it would take this long to get a book to me.

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And I could have had it right there, but I had just been willing to jump over a desk or something like that and attack somebody.

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I could have actually just grabbed one myself. But, anyways, let's continue on. Let's talk with Adam down in Texas.

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How are you doing, Adam? I'm pretty good, Dr. Why, how are you? I'm doing all right. You know, you folks there down in Texas, you just take it really easy when you talk because you sort of don't really take a lot of breaks.

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You don't have to worry about a whole lot of pronunciation of, you know. Sometimes the grammar, we just throw grammar out.

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Yeah, the whole time thing, yeah. What's up? Oh, my question for you is not very specific because I don't really know very much about this guy.

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But there's sort of an underground following of this guy named Vincent Chung.

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And I did actually manage to search the Internet and find some books that he's actually published.

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But I think most of them know his works through PDFs that he's made available on his website.

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And I see him mentioned all the time in Amazon .com

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reviews of other books, books of apologetics written by other authors. And he represents himself as a theologian, an apologist, and Christian philosopher, and also has been reformed.

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And, in fact, the name of his organization is the Reformation Ministries International. And I just wanted to know if you'd ever heard of him or what you thought about him.

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You know, I was just looking at stuff on the Web here.

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Boy, I honestly have never once heard the name, had anyone refer to him, never seen anything he's written.

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Is this Vincent Chung's homepage, Jesus is Lord? Is that what we're talking about?

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I don't see anything about Reformation here. Well, the guy, the website I'm talking about is www .rmiweb

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.org. That's not where I am. Maybe it's on your office. R -I -M -I,

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I may be mispronouncing it, C -H -E -U -N -G. That probably would make a difference, yeah. Nope, Rocky Mountain Institute.

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So he's someplace up in Colorado someplace? I think maybe we still have rmiweb .org.

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Oh. That's the problem with using

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URLs when you're... Oh, okay. Books and PDF, that's...

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Yeah, there's really not much on his website besides his books. Boise, Idaho, British...

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Oh, there's another British Columbia thing there. Nope. Afraid I am completely and totally clueless.

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Haven't... The foggiest idea. Never seen it. I'm trying to look at this here.

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Presupposition... Light of the Mind. Renewing Mind.

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Philippians. Looks interesting, but never ever seen anything about him.

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So I'm afraid I have no idea whatsoever. Yeah, like I said, apart from book reviews on Amazon .com

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and things of that nature, I've never seen any reference to him. But he's always extolled as having an invincible system of apologetics.

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Invincible? Yeah, invincible. And I'm pretty sure he's a presuppositionalist.

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Well, I mean, you could make the argument that that is part and parcel of the claim, is that if you start with the presupposition that human knowledge is not possible outside of the

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Christian God, then your apologetics should be, if it is perfectly practiced, and if you are able to anticipate the entire range of questions, it should be impenetrable or impervious to refutation.

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The problem is that none of us can practice any particular system of apologetics perfectly, and hence the hesitation

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I would have, shall we say, of making such a claim for myself, obviously, because I recognize that I'm an ignorant man in many, many areas.

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But the system of apologetics isn't dependent upon me at that point. And so I would understand that if that's what someone is saying.

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Hopefully they're not saying, well, if you just follow these steps, you're always going to be able to, in essence, win the debate.

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That assumes just a bit too much. All right. All righty, sir. Thanks for talking to me.

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All righty, thank you, sir. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. Ah, well, we really do need to get

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Jason on now, because he's calling from the United Kingdom, and therefore we need to now move over to the dividing line

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English version, and that means everyone on the channel needs to begin to type the word color as c -o -l -o -u -r, and honor as h -o -n -o -u -r, and things like that.

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And we just need to, in fact, Mr. Pierce, as we bring

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Jason on, could you turn up my computer for just a moment, sir? Mr. Jason, this is just simply to honor you, sir.

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Good evening. Can you hear that? I can't.

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Okay, well, just wanted to make you feel warm and welcome there. Oh, thank you very much. Yes, sir, what can we do for you?

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Well, I've been speaking with a Roman Catholic just recently, and he said a number of things, well, two things, really, that I thought

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I would like to ask you about, really. The first issue is regards assurance.

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Yes. Because he argued that if you're a Calvinist, you don't really have any basis for assurance, because you might not be part of the elect, and he's also heard you on a number of occasions say that people have false assurance.

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Well, the fact that there's false assurance doesn't mean that there isn't true assurance, and it's ironic to me that a

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Roman Catholic would be saying that in light of the fact that Roman Catholicism dogmatically denies the existence, outside of a supernatural revelation from God, which they would consider to be an unusual thing, of any assurance of the state of grace itself.

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So I find that odd that that statement would be coming from a

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Roman Catholic. Well, I think that he made that statement because I think he wanted to argue that a

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Protestant Calvinist can't really have any more assurance than he can. Interesting.

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Okay. Well, you know, I just posted in Channel a citation from Ludwig Ott's book,

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Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, where he says, the reason for the uncertainty of the state of grace lies in this, that without a special revelation, nobody can with certainty of faith know whether or not he has fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for achieving justification.

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So I think it needs to be understood that from a Roman Catholic perspective, you still have this concept of fulfilling conditions that are necessary to achieve justification, whereas from our perspective, the issue of assurance goes to our relationship to Christ, not

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Christ's ability to save us. And it is really the difference between do and done.

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For the Roman Catholic, there is this focus upon my fulfillment of the sacraments, the utilization of sacramental forgiveness to maintain the state of grace and everything else.

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We believe that if a person is in Christ Jesus, that that person has eternal life as a present possession.

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And the only issue that he would be able to raise is, well, if there is false assurance, does that not then cast a doubt upon any form of assurance?

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And I, for one, believe that saving faith brings with it an element of assurance, but it is not the same assurance that comes from the long -term faithful walking in the will of God.

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I look at 1 John, I look at James, and what does the Scripture tell us? If we do these things, then we know we will not stumble.

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We are able to look at the fact, do I love the brethren? Is there a love of God in my heart? And when we see these things that Scripture describes as being the work of the

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Spirit, then we are ever more convinced that this is indeed the Spirit of God who is working within us, the

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Spirit of God that testifies that Jesus has come in the flesh, etc., etc. I don't see the reason or the purpose of those passages in Scripture, if they are not there to increase over time our confidence in the work of the

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Spirit of God within us. But that's a completely different concept than the idea of, well,

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I'm doing these things, I'm fulfilling conditions, I'm going through sacraments, and I'm trying to make sure that I'm going to stay in the state of grace, and I can lose that position, and get back into it, and lose it, and get back into it, and all the rest of that stuff.

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Completely different context there. I suppose we would still have to say that ultimately our assurance is not in the fact that we're sanctified, or being sanctified, but in Christ and His blood.

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Yeah, it's two different things. One is the assurance of the perfection of the work of Christ on our behalf that saves perfectly all those for whom it's made.

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That's one aspect. The other aspect is, when I look at myself, what is my confidence and my participation in that work of Christ?

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Those are two different things that people tend to confuse with one another. I'll admit, there are people who say, no, no, no, you're being influenced by your

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Puritan forefathers or something. In fact, the AAPC folks will say, this is one of the major problems that we have, is that on a pastoral level, you're telling people to look to themselves.

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I'm not saying to look to themselves for the source of their salvation. That was St. Hunt's challenge, wasn't it, again?

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Yes, it is. And of course, he gets rid of it very easily by simply saying there's no such thing as false faith.

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There's no such thing as false assurance. And that's just absurd. I mean, there's just so many contradictions to that in Scripture, in the existence of people who once made the claim to be a

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Christian, but they went out from us because they were not from us. They made the profession. He just refuses to deal with those things.

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Hey, I'm going to stay with you, and then we'll take our break after we're done with that, because I know it's costing you an arm and a leg to call in.

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So really, I think it's an important thing to distinguish the issue here.

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It's always important pastorally to direct people to the perfection of the work of Christ in their behalf.

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And it's also important to differentiate between an infallible certainty and a sufficient certainty.

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People say, well, if you don't have infallible certainty, then it's not true certainty. Well, the idea of demanding of human beings infallibility in almost any area is where I immediately have a problem, because that's never said to us in Scripture that we somehow need to have this kind of infallibility.

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There is instead, I think, a spirit -born assurance that grows ever deeper as the

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Spirit of God works within our lives. And I think when we see that we love those aspects of God's truth that the natural man hates, that we are willing to be obedient when the natural man rebels, that we are willing to hear the

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Word of God say that you are the thing formed and God is the one who formed it, and we embrace that, and we don't spit at that, we don't have anger at that.

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Those are all evidences, I believe, of the work of the Spirit of God within our hearts. Okay. Alrighty.

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Okay, there was one other thing. Okay, very quickly now. I've heard you say on one of the programs that you did in the past that Rome's gospel can't save.

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Yes. But my friend says that he's done everything that we say a person should do to be saved.

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He believes in Christ, he accepts Him as his Lord and Savior, and he has faith.

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Right. So he said, well, yeah. I know that there are some evangelicals who say that faith alone isn't essential for salvation.

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Well, the problem with the Roman Catholics is, look, I've done everything that you say that I'm to do,

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I've just done some extra stuff. That takes us right back to Galatians, because that's what the Judaizers would say. The Judaizers would say, look, we've believed in Christ, we've trusted in Christ, but you just don't have everything.

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There's this other stuff you need to do. And when you have that other stuff, that's where the problem comes in.

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That other stuff really demonstrates that you haven't trusted in Christ, because you're trusting in these other things beyond that.

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I mean, a person who believes in something like indulgences and purgatory and things like that, sacramental forgiveness of sins and penances and masses and all the rest of that stuff,

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I say that means you have not trusted in Christ because of the fact that you are embracing all these other things which rob

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Christ of his sufficiency. That was the whole point in the book of Galatians, was not a taking away from faith in Christ, it was redefining it by adding all these other things to the gospel message.

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And so, when you look at that, that's why I say it's the gospel of Rome, which includes all that extraneous stuff that rips the heart out of the message.

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That's what does not save. A person who is within the fellowship of Rome, who is actually a regenerate individual, is so not because they believe

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Rome's gospel, but they've heard the actual gospel and may be in a state of ignorance or confusion as to what they believe being what

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Rome teaches. But the point is that Rome's gospel, if Rome's gospel could save, then

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Paul had no idea what he was talking about in Galatians. Or, the other option here, that's very popular these days, is anyone out there who's listening from the new perspectivist perspective, is saying, oh, you've completely missed the whole idea.

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Galatians isn't about the gospel, it is about church membership. And it's about the boundary markers of the covenant and so on and so forth.

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I don't remember reading that. Yes, so that's a whole other area there. All righty.

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Okay, thanks then, Dr. White. Okay, thank you for calling. God bless. God bless, bye -bye. Edgy how

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I say that is that you've got to just emphasize the beginning of the words to do things. Oh, we're taking a break, someone doesn't want to hear me.

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Bye. A godly man is such a rarity today.

35:11

So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.

35:18

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

35:24

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

35:30

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

35:36

Bible's teaching on the subject. Explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

35:44

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

35:53

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.

36:04

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMin .org.

36:13

Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ.

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Elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

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In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.

36:35

He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant, and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed

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Queen of Heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ, and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the

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Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the

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Bible calls blessed among women, and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.

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You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at AOMin .org.

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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.

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An easy way, it's a journey to the sun day by day.

38:28

Following Jesus is a walk of grace. And welcome back to The Dividing Line.

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My name is James White. We are live here in nice, warm Phoenix, Arizona in comparison with other places where other people are like really, really, really cold.

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When I came back and my laptop was still set to the little weather bug thingy was getting the weather around Westbury.

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And so I kept getting these little weather alerts when I had my laptop plugged in the network. And it was talking about winter snow, winter storm warning and ten inches of snow and three degree windshield.

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And it was it was it was fun.

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It was very sad to think about all of you back there that are there. You know, anyway, seven, seven, seven, five, three, 33, 41.

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Yeah, somebody needs to change that, Nick, or get sent into the next universe. Let's talk with Bill in Virginia.

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Hi, Bill. Hi, how are you doing? Good. Thank you for taking my call. Thanks for calling. I have

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I've been talking to a friend of mine about Exodus 32, where especially verse 30 or verse 14, where it says in the

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Lord repented of the evil, which he thought to do unto his people. Yeah. Newberry says his Lord changed his mind about the harm which he said he would do to his people.

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Right. What what's the best? I mean, I'm a Calvinist. And so is my friend, actually. And we're just concerned.

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What is the best way to approach this or respond to those who who would raise this as an issue to show that God changes?

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Well, what are they attempting to prove with the with the assertion would be would be the question

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I would ask, because they could come at it from a number of different angles. This is one of the passages that is utilized in the open theist argument in stating that God did not know the future and therefore altered his activity in light of the obtaining of new information.

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And then there are others who would maybe not realize that their perspective leads them to something in regards to, you know, denying the eternal knowledge of God.

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But then they would likewise say, well, see, here's an example where, you know, God's not sovereign.

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He had intended to do one thing. He doesn't end up being able to do that, etc., etc.

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So that's, you know, that's a possibility as well. So it's sort of both all or are you talking with someone or are you just sort of having a little discussion with somebody about it?

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Just having a little discussion. I mean, we've been studying the heresy of open theism in our church.

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And I certainly have run into it else, you know, among other people, but I don't want to be equipped to be able to answer correctly how you handled it.

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Yeah, when you've been studying it, what resources have you been using? John Frame and, well, it was one of our elders who was doing the study.

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John Frame spoke against it, plus he was using some of the actual source materials.

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Sanders and I forget the chucklehead's name right now. Right. Right.

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Well, I would suggest to add to that the excellent book by Bruce Ware that specifically has discussions of Vexus 32 .14

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in it. And it's entitled The God's Lesser Glory. It's a crossway book.

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God's Lesser Glory, The Diminished God of Open Theism. The specific date on this is 2000.

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And I would add that along with Dr. Piper's work as well on the subject.

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There's been a number of good books that have come out now. Dr. Frame's work is fine, but it's not nearly as full as some of these other works.

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You put them all together and it's a pretty impressive array of material that's been produced.

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But I would agree with Dr. Ware's comments on the subject. And that is that what we have here is if it is

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God's intention. I guess I should take that back. I don't want to say that I'm necessarily representing Dr.

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Ware's view. I think that what I have read in his book is consistent with what I'm saying here. So I think we're on the same page, but as I expand on it,

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I don't want to say that's necessarily the case. So just forget what I just said. I think it's consistent with what he says there.

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Basically, my understanding would be this. If God's intention in his actions in time is to bring people, such as in this case,

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Moses, to crisis situations where they have to, in essence, step forward and put themselves in a position of self -sacrifice, where he is working in their lives so as to change them, as to mature them, as to grow them, then he has to have the freedom to be able to do that in such a way that the threatened action results in the desired change in the person without then locking

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God into having to do what he said. In other words, there has to be an ability in God's decree for God to act in time.

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And that action in time, from our perspective, from our limited, finite perspective, may appear to be, because of the anthropomorphic way in which it's expressed, to be a change in God.

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But the choice of God to act in that way can be completely eternal. In fact,

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I would say it would have to be completely eternal. The open theist, in essence, is saying that if you believe that God has exhausted divine knowledge because the future is fixed, then

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God cannot even be seen, even if he desires to be seen, as acting in time.

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He has to be aloof. He has to be separate from the creation. There can be no instance in which

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God is seen, from our perspective, as responding to the changed situation in mankind's experience that he himself has brought about, where he is fulfilling his own purposes.

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And so there's a number of passages. This is one of them. Some other ones that you might want to just note, passages like 1

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Samuel 15, 29, Numbers 23, 19, Hosea 11, 8 -9. These are other passages that come up that are similar to this, where God is working in someone's life.

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He brings them to a crisis point by Moses, for example, standing in the gap, standing as the mediator for the people of Israel.

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Obviously Moses has changed. The people are changed. God's purpose is fulfilled without bringing the threatened destruction to bear upon them.

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It does not follow that what we have to mean is God brings

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Moses to this point. He has no purpose in it. Moses shocks God by standing up for his people.

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Moses somehow is better than God in that he convinces God to do the right thing, and therefore God himself gets better by going,

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You know Moses, that's not a bad idea. I think I'll take that idea and I'm going to run with it. Which is the only other way that, you know, if you read it that way, that would be the only conclusion you could come to, is that basically

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Moses had a significantly better idea than God did. And how God didn't know that Moses was going to do this, that's one of the reasons many of us have said that eventually, open theists, if they're going to be consistent, are going to have to deny to God the fullness of present knowledge.

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Right now they say God knows everything in the present perfectly, including knowing each individual perfectly, so he would know what they would do and things like that.

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But the problem is, if you know each individual that way, then there would be no reason for God to be caught short by what

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Moses does here. There would be no reason for God to not foresee that this is what Moses is going to do.

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He's going to stand in the gap and not be left going, Oh, that's a good idea, I hadn't thought about that one, as a result of what

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Moses does. And so you really just have to, I think, pull out the rest of what the assumptions that are being read out of the text really mean, to see why we can't go that direction.

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And instead, we should see God has the freedom, in his own sovereign decree, to act within time.

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Not as humans would act, in the sense of taking in new knowledge and now adjusting my course as a result, but these quote -unquote course adjustments are a part of his purpose.

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They bring about situations that themselves create the sanctification of his people.

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And he has the freedom to do that. And from our perspective, that's how he interacts with us, and he needs to do that.

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Or we cannot even begin to understand how we can have interaction with him, if we don't see these things in scripture.

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So that's how I explain Exodus 32, 14. Okay. But isn't his wrath against the...

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I mean, isn't his anger at his desire, his stated desire, to destroy the

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Israelites and to raise up the nation from Moses, isn't that in some way an expression of his divine wrath?

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And then his... Which he is free to not express out of mercy at any point in time.

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To his elect, right? Well, actually, no. He could have wiped out Pharaoh at any point, couldn't he?

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That's true. And he didn't for a purpose. He did wipe him out, but at the time that perfectly and clearly demonstrated his own power.

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Right. He made him a perfect vessel for wrath. Right. Right. Okay. All right.

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Thank you very much. All right. God bless. Thanks for listening. Bye. We've got some callers, but I wanted to jump on something here, because I've noticed something just real quickly here.

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We'll try to get to the other callers. But this is interesting. Normally, right after the dividing line,

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I get Carl Keating's e -letter. And I actually got a copy of it early today.

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And there's a section that's really interesting called, Jerry Matatick's Mimics Howard Dean. And, in fact, bring my computer up for just a second there,

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AOMN. So just to get you in the mood for this. Okay. There you go.

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I've made some noises like that too, but no one ever... Well, I guess some people have. Anyway, let me just read this to you. The former governor of Vermont has been the object of jokes on late -night talk shows because of his now -famous scream issued after he came in third in the

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Iowa caucuses. Last week, I was the object of screaming by Jerry Matatick's.

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Isn't this somewhat ironic, given what we've gone through? After 13 years' absence, he came to San Diego to give a talk.

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Is this the first time he's been to San Diego since he left Catholic Answers? That would be interesting. The evening ended with him gesticulating and yelling at me at the top of his lungs.

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It was a weird and disturbing sight. I can just see

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Carl Keating saying that. During the question period that followed his talk, someone asked whether an unbaptized person could go to heaven.

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Matatick, who a decade ago declared that he had undergone a second conversion and had moved from conservative Catholic to traditionalist

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Catholic, gave an answer that closed heaven's gate to almost anyone who is not a formal member of the Catholic Church.

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The follower's late father, Leonard Feeney, who is best known for his rigorous interpretation of no salvation outside the

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Church, exists on a narrow but real spectrum. Some, such as Matatick's friends at the New Hampshire -based St. Benedict Center, are at one end and say a person must be a formal member of the

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Catholic Church to be saved. They take the most hard -line position. Other Feeneyites permit a little more leeway, but still end up with a position that is more rigorous than that taught by the

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Catechism of the Catholic Church or by Vatican II or by the most conservative pope of the 19th century, Pius IX.

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Feeneyites leave either no or little room for invincible ignorance. That's a whole other issue that we can get into at another time.

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Matatick, who at his seminars used to distribute literature in the St. Benedict Center, makes a tiny distinction between that group's position and his own and uses that distinction to claim that he is not really a

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Feeneyite. If not, why distribute the most hard -line Feeneyite literature? Unlike the St. Benedict Center, he is open to the possibility that a catechumen who desires baptism but who dies before being baptized might be saved through what is commonly called baptism of desire.

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But such a catechumen's salvation is not sure, says Matatick. It might be that he is not saved after all.

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Anyone further removed from the Catholic Church would have even less hope or no hope of salvation.

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This would include not just the unbaptized but also Protestants. Matatick has said in public that he expects his own parents to go to hell because they remain

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Protestants. In church history, there cannot have been many cases of catechumens dying on the way to their baptisms.

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As a practical matter, therefore, Matatick's position reduces to the position of the St. Benedict Center. Formal members of the

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Catholic Church are saved and everyone else is lost. And then he goes on and on.

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Let me go down here. The Scream.

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Toward the end of the evening, Matatick referred to my January 13th e -letter, which may be found at. In that e -letter, I wrote about The Point, a little journal printed by Feeney's original group in the 1950s.

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I listed the titles of the 12 issues published in 1957. All but one was about Jews and the problems they allegedly caused.

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I said that Feeney's group was, quote, preoccupied with the Jews to the point of obsession, end quote. I break from my quote for just a moment to note, isn't that interesting in light of what

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Roberts and Genesis have been up to lately? I continue on. Not so, said Matatick. The Feeneyites were not obsessed with Jews.

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They simply were concerned about the salvation of Jews. I rolled my eyes. In the US in the 1950s,

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Jews were outnumbered by Protestants. They also were outnumbered by people of no religion. Jews then as now represent about 2 % of the

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American population. Subtract Catholics from the mix and Jews represent about 3 % of the population. So why were 11 out of 12 issues of The Point focused on perceived problems with Jews?

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Then he goes on to talk about it. Anyways, I reminded Matatick's audience that Feeney's men used to go to Boston Common and give public lectures.

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When talking about Jews, they used slurs such as kike, K -I -K -E. A woman in the small audience asked what kike meant.

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I explained that, with respect to Jews, it was the analog of the N word.

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Someone used the latter word to refer to blacks is suspected of racism and rightly so. Similarly, someone using kike to refer to Jews is suspected of anti -Semitism.

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Matatick's turned up the volume. His friends at the St. Benedict's Center were not anti -Semites, he yelled. I didn't say they were,

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I replied. I had been writing about the original Feeneyite group in the 1950s. In my e -letter, I noted that today's

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St. Benedict's Center reprints articles from The Point. I asked whether today's group repudiates the anti -Semitism of the 1950s.

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My words were lost in the din caused by Matatick's and his fans. He was visibly agitated.

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His voice went from a yell to a scream, and eventually broke. He was on a rant. I couldn't make out what he was saying, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.

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But I could get out. I was standing by the door, and I went through it,

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Matatick screaming after me. I was relieved that he didn't chase me as I made for the hotel's exit.

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As I stood in the night chill, several people gathered around me, shaking their heads at what they had witnessed.

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One smiled consolingly and said the evening had reduced my time in purgatory.

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Maybe, maybe not, but I know it reduced, almost to oblivion, the residual regard

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I had for Jerry Matatick's, and it reaffirmed my belief that he would do the Church a favor by finding another line of work.

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Oh, well, I'm awful glad that I got that, because, you know, you know the world has gotten very strange.

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When I can have a calmer discussion with Jerry Matatick's than Carl Keating can.

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Oh, yes, the world's gone nuts. Well, let's squeeze another call in here real quick. Roland in Toronto. Hi, Roland.

56:07

Hi, Roland. Yes, hello. How are you? Doing pretty good. We're short on time, so we're going to have to move pretty quick. Very quick. I've been looking at your exegesis of John 3 .16,

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and the reason for that is I'm teaching a Sunday school in what I would guess would be a fairly

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Arminian church. And me and one of the elders are teaching through the

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Book of John, just getting the highlights. And I'm just wondering why all the major translations continue to put in whoever, whosoever, and so on, when the

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Greek clearly, according to your exegesis, has pas ha pisteun, which means all the believing.

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So why don't we have any translations sort of translating it the way it's written in Greek? Well, the reason is primarily because that's not how we speak in English.

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And the point of the term whosoever is that whoever believes is the one who is going to be saved.

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The point is that there is no one within the pas ha pisteun group, within all the ones who are believing, none of those will ever receive anything but eternal life.

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The point is the universal extent of the group, within the group, that receives eternal life.

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And so it's whosoever. It's our tradition that makes us read into whosoever an element that is nowhere in the text whatsoever.

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So I wouldn't mind rendering it that way, but the problem is that that's just not decent grammar.

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And many times it's very difficult to get any publisher to publish a translation of the

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New Testament that is not more and more and more quote -unquote smooth. I mean, the whole push today in publications of the

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Bible is to make it smoother, smoother, smoother, smoother, not rougher, rougher, rougher, which is what you'd have at that point there.

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But couldn't it be rendered something like all those who believe? Well, but you'd want to probably bring out the participle there, all the ones believing.

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So, yeah, you could. I wouldn't have any problem with that. But that's just traditionally not the way it's been done.

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And I think we probably should have the interpretation of that being done from the pulpit, or in your case, in the

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Sunday school class where you're explaining those things. That's really where it needs to go. Hey, thank you very much for your call, sir.

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Keep warm up there in Canada. Everybody, thanks for listening to The Dividing Line. We'll be back Thursday morning, 11 a .m.

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Talk to you then. God bless. We need a new reformation day.

59:04

It's a sign of the times. The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm.

59:11

Won't you lift up your voice? Are you tired of hate religion? It's time to make some noise.

59:17

I'm going back home. I'm going back home.

59:23

I stand up for the truth. Won't you lift up your voice? Are you tired of hate religion?

59:31

It's time to make some noise. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.

59:41

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

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World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.