A Tale of Two Topics: Assumed Unitarianism, More from David Allen

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00:29

Well greetings and welcome to the dividing line as I said on Twitter, I hope I'm semi -coherent today someone very kindly said you're never coherent because you're a

00:37

Calvinist but That was a part of my saying

00:44

Didn't have a complete night's rest last night Was woken up I think it was like 125 a .m.

00:54

And My wife is going It's got the call and of course, she's been packed and ready to roll for ten days,

01:04

I would say and and there goes the parking lot again and My daughter summer was starting to have some you know

01:18

Things going on and sorry indicate. I mean she's do I think actually tomorrow if I recall correctly

01:25

Yeah Open channel blah blah blah blah. I crashed again right as a program starts

01:33

That's just how the this thing works. It's Windows. That's just Windows is

01:39

Windows is always Windows. Um anyways, so 125

01:47

Well, that's That's nice. I'm glad that that's that doesn't help me one little bit

01:54

It's back up and you got a crash program to make it work anyway So You know when she had clementine she labored for 44 hours and This time we got to call 125 the baby was born at 417, so I don't think she was at the birthing center

02:21

Any more than two hours, maybe a little bit more um Before the the baby was born.

02:28

So a Kuiper Jaeger is is now What what's the current number is now?

02:37

$187 ,000 in debt Something like that. You know, it's the National debt as soon as he gets born.

02:43

Yeah. Oh, oh the government 187 ,000. Oh, yeah. Here's the bell.

02:48

Welcome to world. Here's your bill Eight pounds nine ounces,

02:54

I mean that's linebacker Material right there. He's he's a big boy so that'll be that'll be very very interesting and I've seen the first family photo and of course ransom they put they put him on ransoms lap and The look on his face is so mischievous like we're gonna have so much fun getting into trouble together.

03:17

Oh Ransom and Kuiper and yes, it's Abraham Kuiper It's not

03:24

Kuiper I've had two people now I think it was Kuiper but it's

03:30

Kuiper Abraham Kuiper the Famous theologian

03:37

Obviously, yeah, don't blame me for that one. I was pretty surprised when

03:42

I heard that one. I didn't expect that But obviously Eric Had saved up, you know box tops

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Something like that. I just realized, you know, few people have any idea what saving up box tops would mean

04:00

That's right. I'm I have not heard of a of a promotion or a contest

04:08

I've never seen seriously. I Oh Green stamps and box tops and oh gosh.

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Yeah, I was sitting here thinking that's my sixth grandchild My first born will be 40

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In less than a year. So I have a 40 year old child. I am officially

04:31

Well, there's there's a lot of people in the in the reformed world It would say I'm officially washed up need to retire was only relevant for a few days.

04:39

Anyways during kovat whatever you want to go from there, but Yeah, it's it's good to have a little

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Kuiper in the world. He seems to be doing fine and Excited to have the little booger and So what we're gonna do today is

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I I'm Please forgive me. I said I was gonna be on with Jeremiah Nortier on Tuesday You know,

05:04

I cross wires. I guess I cross wires crossed wires it's this afternoon and Since my wife's not home.

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I'm trying to juggle stuff at the house So I'm gonna if you see me sort of looking over once in a while.

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I'm trying to Figure out when things are being delivered and people coming by and you know tomorrow morning

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We've got people doing something with some tile and you know, all this kind of stuff going on and I'm the only one there now

05:32

So and Jeremiah is flexible so we may do something to where we

05:39

Pull the trigger real quick after we finish the dividing line and just hit that and then I can go rushing home Or have to put that off a couple hours.

05:48

I go home take care of stuff come back Either way, it's a little rough.

05:53

It is one of the hottest days the year here in Phoenix. I think my

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My weather app said that we were is gonna be basically the same as yesterday and it is right where it was yesterday 114 degrees

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But we don't have the monsoon going the dew point 49 .3

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They used to say the monsoon was three days of 55 degrees or above We just have not had any rain we haven't had any nothing it's been last year either it's been

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Yeah, yeah, it's pretty ugly pretty ugly. No trace about but it's 114 right now and Omaha has moved out here now and Yeah, and He posted yesterday he he posted the 114 degree reading from his phone and said what's this

06:55

I Said welcome to the Valley of the

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Sun brother It's actually been a pretty mild Summer for us there have been a lot worse 2020 was horrible.

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But yeah it's it's Pretty toasty right now.

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I imagine what I get in my my big Black truck that is sitting out in the

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Sun Right now out in the parking lot. I can at least see it now It'll probably be 140 145 degrees because I'm parked facing away if I was facing the

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Sun it'd probably be 155 160 in there so And yes, you can burn your touch metal you can mm -hmm

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Yeah, it's it's that time year but come January Yeah, you mean well, no we schedule we schedule winter in for about two weeks in January about two weeks and that's it and We never have to shovel anything.

07:59

The only thing I have to shovel is gravel You know moving around my yard a little bit when the cats

08:04

Mess it up or something like that. The cats are suffering. There's no two ways about it for little kitties outside.

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There's a Whole bunch of them laying on my back porch right now. I've got two evaporative coolers running back there, but when it's 114

08:20

With no insulation They they do it new. Okay, so sorry.

08:26

Sorry. Sorry. I told you I probably won't be coherent today Lack of lack of sleep.

08:32

Um, I was watching as most of you know We have a debate coming up next month between myself and dr.

08:39

Dale Tuggy Dr. Tuggy is you know,

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I almost I should have queued this up. I Really should have queued this up Because I was watching a debate the debate he did with Michael Brown.

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This is a number of years ago it's at least six seven years ago and at the end of his comments

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Dr. Tuggy said that he was raised in an evangelical church

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And it wasn't till he got to college that he started running into arguments against the

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Trinity He just thought everybody believed in the Trinity and and he made a comment. He said I had never heard a sermon on the doctrine of the

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Trinity and I Thought about that and assuming

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Now I'm just going to assume that he Had not heard a sermon on the

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Trinity You know, he could have missed it one Sunday or something like that, but my goodness How many

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Evangelicals would have to say the same thing how many if you ask them if you said

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Is your church? Not just confessionally

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Trinitarian, but practically and In an

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Application sense Trinitarian, you know, so recently who was it

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ELCA? I think it was ELCA. There was some ELCA bishop woman

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Who I obviously not a bishop anyways, but She was explaining why they weren't going to I think they nixed the filial quit clause.

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That's what it was. They they nixed the filial quit clause That's a it is a

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You can make a strong argument that it wasn't a part of the original Nicene Creed comes with 381 in Constantinople But both sides have their arguments about that.

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I thought Jason Wallace did a really good job arguing the filial quay side in fairly recent video he did on Eastern Orthodoxy, but anyway

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It's the filial quay means and the Sun so spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son The East says no the

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West says yes, they're gonna drop the filial quay and I'm just like Who cares?

11:30

They're not Trinitarian anymore. Anyways, I mean seriously if if your commitment to the

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Trinity is Merely creedal and not because you actually believe that is what

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The scriptures as the Word of God teach The LCA doesn't believe that the scriptures are the

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Word of God or that they teach any consistent thing That's that's just silliness to the most mainstream

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Protestantism and most mainstream Theological education in the world today

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You believe in the Trinity because it's tradition. That's all the idea That it's actually divine revelation.

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It just has been abandoned by all those groups. So You know that's just how it is and Yet amongst evangelical churches that that's not how it's supposed to be but it often is and I just wonder how many people could say the same things that Dale Tuggy said in this debate specifically that he had never heard a sermon on the topic of the

12:45

Trinity that just one sermon might slip your mind or something like that, but when

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I think of How you teach and preach The entire

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Council of God and make application. I Don't know how you could not make commentary about The application the

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Trinity in almost every sermon you do You don't have to make it ace.

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This is a sermon on the Trinity if you're teaching Through the scriptures you're going to have to Do it in a

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Trinitarian manner Because it was written that the New Testament was written by Trinitarians now, dr.

13:38

Tuggy's head is now spinning You know, they know they were biblical Unitarians and blah blah blah, you know

13:44

He makes that argument and I I don't I don't think it's a valid argument and you'll be able to judge for yourself once again

13:52

Next month But it did strike me that there was a element of truth to what he said that shouldn't be true shouldn't be that way but often is and I tried to address that With forgotten

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Trinity. I mean I did raise those very issues in the book Long long ago long long ago over over a quarter of a century ago

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Which is a a bear blip in time as far as church history is concerned so what

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I want to do now, you're not going to be able to just Sit there and Listen to me blather at this point in time.

14:35

This is what I want to do. I want to Start working through the cross -examination

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Because across again, they were both standing at podiums, which I found odd But anyways, they're both standing at podiums this is the one time that you really have to engage your opponent's position and What I want you to be

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I want you this is an exercise this is a theological debate on a

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Specific theological topic is the God of the Bible. The Father alone was the

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Title of the debate and What What I want you to learn to do here and then make application in your own stuff your own wherever you're engaging in apologetics

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You have to be able to listen to what the other side is saying and And identify the

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Foundational and even presuppositional errors in their thinking and very often what that involves is when a question is asked of you

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The question will contain Facts not in evidence. It will the the question will assume that State of Affairs X actually exists when

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They haven't proven that it actually exists. And in fact who? Agree that it actually exists

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Will require you to abandon your thesis in the debate and I cannot tell you how many

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Christians I Have seen in dialogues debates so on so forth

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Accept and try to answer questions that were based upon The negation of their own position and they didn't they didn't recognize it didn't see it and So everybody on my side

17:02

Will tell you it's hard to listen to Dale Tuggy Because he is so Presuppositionally committed to Unitarianism That he cannot even

17:19

Consider What it what something other than his position would even sound like So he so often

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When when he hears the term God God has to be unipersonal rather than tripersonal so he's assuming

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Unitarianism and so His questions will assume

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Unitarianism and Then he will ask that question and say well you didn't answer it because you won't assume

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Unitarianism It's very frustrating and you'll hear it over and over again in his dialogue with Michael Brown Now it starts off with an interesting then last very long but Michael Doesn't like to use

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Specific kinds of creedal language So he does not like to use the term person three persons one being of God and so they'll asks him about that and While I don't demur from using the term

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There is the reality that it has to be defined that it has been defined in very different ways in early church history, that was one of the

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Biggest problems at the beginning was What is a who pastas? What is oozea?

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What prosop on there's all these different terms and the east and the west were also linguistically divided

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Latin in the West Greek in the east And so there was all sorts complications and even today

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We have had Disagreements and I've been attacked, you know, you're a

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Trinitarian heritage because of this that nothing and normally what the essence of that is is

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That I Insist that creedal statements have only a derivative authority

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They cannot have a primary or definitional authority they can function to provide definitions, but their authority is

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Derivative from their faithfulness to Scripture and so I'll get attacked for saying that it wasn't overly

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Controversial I thought amongst reformed people until Few years ago and then discovered that it was because those folks don't really believe in things like Semper Reformanda or Total scriptura so soul scriptura.

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They're all that's solo scriptura blah blah blah blah So as They talk about this

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For example the issue of how you define a person

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Are you going to find a person differently? When talking about fallen humanity over against defining person you're talking about the incarnation

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What does it mean for Jesus to be one person with two natures?

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And When you when you come to conclusions What is the nature of the authority of those conclusions so for example one of the

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Things that comes up as well. We talk about person.

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What is a person does a person have a will and You end up in an argument between those who say that the will is definitional of personhood and those who say the will is definitional of nature and when we start trying to Attach these things to a discussion of God Where do you end up throwing your hands up and going it looks like we're trying to Go a bit farther than we should have

22:06

So I understand Michael's hesitation at that point, but we'll get through that hopefully this allowed me to stop stop and start since it is a external file, so it should be okay and So let's let's dive into the cross -examination here, and I'll stop and start and we'll

22:24

Comment about stuff, and then they'll do it another time and after that we're gonna have some closing statements

22:31

Dr. Tuggy you're first Maybe you could help us out with this a little bit just to understand your views

22:37

You could just fill in the blank in this sentence the Father Son and Holy Spirit are three fill in the blank in God It's not something that scripture exactly defines

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So that's more of a creedal statement See the normal answer would be persons.

22:56

I mean, that's the But as I was just saying What does that mean what does that involve

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And how far can you push that and Still call it a scriptural. That's that's really the

23:13

The background of all this I would rather just say what scripture says That the Father Son and Spirit are

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God and that's how God revealed himself to us some say persons But that's using human language to describe

23:24

God To say it's three aspects of the same God again, we're limited by human language in describing

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God I'd rather use New Testament language Now what what what has to be emphasized though is that whatever word you use or not use

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There is a personal relationship Between Father Son Holy Spirit they make reference to each other these second -person pronouns

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Jesus specifically refers to a time when he was glorious in The presence of the father which he shared the glory of the father

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Before the worlds were made John 17 Says that 17 5 so Whatever term you have to use

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The Sun as the Sun Existed as a divine person

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Prior to the birth of the man we call Jesus in Bethlehem in history and that's

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Where one of the problems is for Tuggy because Tuggy doesn't believe that Tuggy believes that the

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Logos The word is God's wisdom is

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Sophia, but it's an attribute it's not a person It can be

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Personified but personification of an impersonal attribute is not the same thing as the existence of a divine person and Clearly the one spoken of in John 1

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John chapter 17, please accept to is a divine person that existed prior to his worth in Bethlehem and was active in That context that's will come up in the debate

25:20

I assure you they're all eternal God. Mm -hmm Okay, so you just saying they're all

25:26

God. Mm -hmm. Just using biblical language. That's all Did I understand you to say that you think

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Jesus and the Father are the same God With the father and okay, there's number one

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Here is and You're gonna hear this over and over and over and over again

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When Dale Tuggy says the same God when you and I hear that We have a shared belief that the being of God is not limited and That in light of scriptural revelation

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The identification of father son spirit with the name Yahweh The plain

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Distinction between father son and spirit even in the most glorified context even in Revelation 5 where The lamb is worshipped on the exact same level as he sits upon the throne still the there is a distinguishing of the father and the son

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What Tuggy does he says what Almost every time in the New Testament the term

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God is used. They ask it is used of the father Well, I would say there are times where the

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OS is used and no particular Referent is being demanded of us at that point and In the same way the vast majority of times in the

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New Testament that courios Lord is used referred to Jesus Even though that every

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Jewish person reading the New Testament knew that courios was what was used in the

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Greek sentient for Yahweh and Everything that then means in regards to what the

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New Testament teaches about Jesus. So when he says the same

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God In his mind God has to be

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Unitarian and Therefore are you saying Jesus and the father are the same person and We're not

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But this is the assumption. He cannot he cannot even think beyond it. It's just it's just where he starts and Of course, it's the conclusion of the debate.

27:57

I Mean, what what's what's the debate about? God is a father alone

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So he starts with that so there's only one person of God so the being of God can only be shared by one person or personality if he's gonna go that direction and Therefore Jesus can't be the same

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God as the father because he's not the same person as the father because as Unitarians there can only be one divine person

28:29

See how it works and so it's it's just baked into not only the mentality but the

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Given take exchange like is taking place now under one God. Yes Okay So God can be used for example to speak of father son the spirit

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God can be used to speak of father son or spirit because all three are God so God can refer to God in his triunity or God can refer to the father son of spirit all are equally

28:59

God. Yep, right again. Just trying to use biblical language That's that's all I'm good at Right, so you would agree that let's say a minute after Jesus breathed his last on the cross

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Jesus was dead and would you agree at that moment that the father was alive? now it's fascinating I Remember hearing this and I'm like wow

29:26

You know, you know who I hear that from all the time my Muslim friends, that's that's

29:32

I Someone raised that in the audience questions. I just happen to remember in the debate we did at Trinity College Dublin Ireland.

29:42

I think I was 2014 somewhere on there, but over and over again Muslims will will raise this question and And you need to be prepared with an answer

29:56

Because evidently they're not the only Unitarians out there asking questions the father was always alive and The son was always alive, but the human body of Jesus died

30:08

Okay, so the eternal son. So when we speak of Jesus We're speaking of the one who is both

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God and man who is fully God and fully man So the man died the spirit never died that the son never died

30:22

Okay, so there's a man. I mean, I think there's a man. I'm sorry. I think that's pretty self -evident scripture In other words, you don't crucify a spirit

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So Jesus again, we believe that Jesus is fully man the man Christ Jesus So he was born as a baby

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He didn't make believe that he was crawling or make -believe he was learning to all he was fully man and that's that's what

30:45

Philippians 2 is telling us plainly he Existed in the form of God and this is an example of humility for us, right?

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He existed in the form of God, but he emptied himself He stripped himself of his divine privileges and came down to earth as a servant fully man

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Suffered as a man died as a man rose as a man and also always the

31:07

Son of God Right. So you just said that the body died on the cross, which

31:12

I'm not I don't know what it is for a body to die other than if it's just the same thing as a man to die Then you said a man died on the cross.

31:19

It sounded like you also think there's this other self there the eternal Son Do you have two sons?

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Do you have a man and do you also have this eternal spirit? No one God One one one man.

31:31

I'm not I don't think I follow the question but to be clear to be clear You said that a man Jesus hangs on the cross.

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He says father into your hands I commit my spirit. So I'm assuming you believe that he had a spirit.

31:44

He wasn't just a physical being only he had a spirit Yes, I do assume that right and the spirit didn't die, right?

31:50

Right. Okay, but you but dr Brown you said that the father and the son are the same God and you at one time

31:56

You've got that same one father and alive and that's just nonsense. You can't be dead. No, I did at the same time

32:01

I think it's much much better. If you didn't put words in my mouth. I never said the son died

32:07

I never said I said the son didn't die and now you say I said he did die So I don't find that helpful

32:12

I mean, I think we get better progress if you quote me accurately rather than say things I didn't say

32:18

There's only one son in the New Testament and that guy died. Nothing could be clearer in the New Testament now catch catch the assumption

32:25

There's only one son in the New Testament. So his assertion is there's no no examples of the pre -existence of Christ Now I will demonstrate that that's not the case in John 1 1 and The the regular use on Jesus part of The phraseology

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I have come down out of heaven Or in John 17 5 the glory which

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I had with you in your presence before the world was I had If Jesus is simply a man indwelt by God's wisdom by God's logos

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But that the wisdom and logos are themselves impersonal and are not divine persons

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Cannot speak as he does to John 17 5 Jesus is not gonna go.

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I have come down out of heaven if he is simply wisdom dwelling in a human body

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But the one speaking didn't exist before his birth in Bethlehem So whatever he was saying then

33:44

I'm gonna say I go I me and Johnny 58 who knows I I don't know but There's some serious problems the

33:53

Unitarian position at that point. So did his spirit die? He said father into your hands

33:59

I commit my spirit. Well, this is my question time You can ask me that in a minute. All right, great Everyone remember the question

34:04

Yeah Yeah, okay. So it's not clear to me at all that you're a Trinitarian rather than just a modalist who just simply collapses

34:13

The son and and the father and to just kind of different manifestations of the same being not

34:18

What's the difference between your view and modalism? God is eternally father son and spirit Oh, it's just that it's eternal.

34:24

God is eternally father son spirit. Nothing more holistic and anything ever wrote as you know Yeah, that's

34:30

I mean some theologians won't call that modalism, but it is All right, so we agree.

34:36

I'm not a modalist Yeah, do you I'm great you you threw out a bunch of Not not as they define it.

34:44

You threw out a bunch of little quotes from early Church fathers.

34:50

Do you think any of these ever mentioned a triune God your quotes were just calling Jesus God. Mm -hmm

34:56

That's all that's all I focused on they use language which contributes to Trinitarian thought which

35:01

I'm really unconcerned With what term we actually put on it and in other words if someone insists on using

35:08

Trinitarian terminology, that's fine But that's never been my battle and just as a Jewish believer I've always just gone back to scripture and presented what scripture said my point was to demolish your argument

35:18

That you mentioned right out of the gate that this is Catholic tradition So so these what's very clear is that the the one that these?

35:28

fathers spoke of the disciples of the Apostles Absolutely rejected your position if they were here they would have been shouting out loud.

35:35

No, no No, that is not what we believe not what we held to yeah, they were logos theorists They thought that there was a second

35:41

God and when they called Jesus God They were not collapsing into the same God as the father Okay now

35:51

You're not supposed to be making that kind of commentary At this particular point in time in the in the debate

36:01

He's making an argument here rather than asking a question, I'm 99 % certain

36:07

I will have to stop him and say questions, please not statements questions because we had to do that in Houston and It just seems to be a part of how he thinks and so on so forth, um

36:24

But He it's amazing that there are times He will say

36:30

I just I just want to stick with the Bible. I don't want majority opinions But the vast majority of his presentation is actually based upon his particular

36:41

Peculiar reading of early church history and Who he's going to Privilege as the best interpreters in early church and who are not and Then he he just says hey, this is this is what they were this is what they meant and He's an analytical philosopher.

37:04

He's not a historian So, I'm not sure Exactly how that works

37:12

I would say that it doesn't work doesn't work well at all but Something else to keep in mind

37:21

He likes to push at the earliest

37:27

Two centuries in essence, so basically from 100 to 300 or so He likes to Draw from that time period and yet this is a time period of persecution the persecution against church does not end till 313 and So you don't have the establishment of Seminaries don't have the establishment of Christian schools you you you have a

38:04

Well Especially in an early period you have people who may not even had all the all the

38:10

New Testament So he likes to refer to Justin Martyr and there's obviously Very big difference between us how we read

38:19

Justin Martyr But the fact is Just an only quotes from like two of Paul's letters doesn't even seem to be familiar with the others and Maybe one of the things that Dale likes is he wore the

38:38

Philosophers pallium his entire life that there was a specific clothing item that you would wear as a your public statement to the world that I am a philosopher and He wore that his entire life,

38:59

I mean Justin's very very deeply influenced by Greek philosophy and Is one of the key?

39:07

steps in the influx of Greek philosophical categories of terminologies

39:16

Into the bloodstream of the early church and And That's an important thing to keep in mind as well, but he's making broad generalizations and conclusions about a field that isn't his field in the first place and Really requires

39:38

Special pleading on his part to Come the conclusions that he comes to so I I gave way too much background and chattered too much about grandkids

39:48

I will try to Keep an eye on on this Next time around because there's a number of other times where Presupposition Lee dr.

40:05

Tuggy presents the one God is the father

40:14

Unipersonal Unitarian I'm starting here to prove that's where I need to go um

40:22

Rather than hearing what the other side is saying and trying to interact on with it on that level

40:27

It would be much more helpful if if he did that which he's not doing now. I'm not gonna get into Yesterday day for yesterday,

40:40

I think it was yesterday We were chatting in a

40:47

I would make a chat channel type thing And a quote from I'm shifting gears here, did you hear the clutch going

40:59

Oh Again, just lost half the audience Hey what? You clutch things you hold on to them.

41:07

What what do you mean? Did you hear the clutch? What? First car

41:16

I drove 1974

41:24

Ford Granada Three speed on the column. Yeah That's a good that's a if you start with that you're gonna you'll everything else is gonna be easy after that You know,

41:38

I mean if that's your first car, huh? Oh, yeah, if you can do a bill with with the

41:44

Ford Granada With three on this on the column, you're you're gonna be just fine the rest of your life anyway

41:52

You know, we're gonna keep doing this in 20 years from now We're still gonna be doing this and we're gonna be the only ones doing what we're talking about at that point

42:00

Well, yeah, it's true and we will all have our own personal optimist robots that actually

42:07

Control us and make sure that we don't do what we're not supposed to do. Whatever the government has decided is anyway

42:18

Shifting gears we were looking at liberating Romans from reformed captivity

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What a noble cause that dr. David Allen has as Written his white horse out on the field to to liberate

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Romans from reformed captivity and What I can't help myself is that the

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Monty Python horse or is that the Lone Ranger horse? Yes, that's well.

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It does remind me a little bit of When the Knights came to the

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Castle and oh no, no. No. Yes.

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I Think some of dr. Allen's research was delivered by a African swallow

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And African swallow can only carry so much. We all know that Especially if your favorite color is blue.

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So anyway I Don't know sleep last night. Um I'm blaming

43:27

I'm blaming the grandkid. Hey He showed up looking like he and I go the same barber.

43:33

So we're good so far. Um anyway If you only now tuning in to the program for the first time this will probably be your last time too

43:44

I fully understand this but we've been looking at a new self -published book called liberating

43:50

Romans from reformed captivity A critical evaluation of Calvinism's interpretation of Paul's letter, which really is not a good title at all.

43:57

This is a If you just look at the table of contents Augustin Augustin Augustin Augustin Augustin You know

44:06

Ken Wilson is just uncritically accepted as the final be all expert on all this stuff despite all the holes in his

44:16

Dissertation that we've demonstrated in about five years ago now But Anyway, we

44:23

I'm not going to get into we ran across something about the term divine determinism as quoted by dr.

44:33

Allen he seems to indicate that he's quoting John Calvin and we sort of did a little little digging and Came up with some interesting stuff.

44:44

I'm gonna leave that to name or to Hopefully put together a an article on that and to Discuss that subject instead

44:56

I Wanted to finally start getting into the text here and we've only got 15 minutes but into the text here

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Here this this is right as you get into The section of Romans chapter 8 because that's what

45:20

I want to try to work with I want to try to get to what is said about Romans chapter 8 and My hope long term is that what people will do is take

45:40

Take dr. Allen's book and And Read the chapter that ostensibly addresses

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Romans chapter 8 and Then take a book that I've written like here's a book called the

45:56

God who justifies And I didn't do Romans 8 specifically in here in the sense of I Mean I did a lot of Romans well, actually

46:12

I Take that back there it is. Ah So compare

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Yeah chapter 14 Romans 8 20 34 justification in the golden chain of redemption.

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Yeah, of course justifications there. So chapter 14 It's not long.

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It's a fairly short chapter Pages 243 to 250.

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It's only nine pages long So Take my book look at the presentation

46:48

I make there and then ask yourself a simple question Who is presenting to us the text and what the text is saying and who is multiplying citations

47:04

All in an effort to say I'm not going to tell you what the text says, but I can tell you what it can't possibly mean

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Because that's what David Allen does is he spends all this time

47:20

Not telling you positively What the text says? but telling you positively what it can't possibly be saying and Then you get to the end and there will be a summary statement as if this is already been proven by everything came before And then you move on from there

47:37

That's the the nature of provisionist Argumentation and Publication as well

47:45

So I'm trying to get to that But as we get to it, here's

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Quotation from Dr. Allen's book. I Wish that it gave all it tells me is 19 %

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Unfortunately, I wish it gave page numbers a little bit more accurately But we have

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Ken Wilson being cited and again, we Don't find that overly helpful

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Wilson summarized the radical new theology Augustine forced upon the church

48:24

Okay forced upon the church Augustine forged a syncretism.

48:31

Here's the quote of the Christian tradition of Pato baptism Now I wonder exactly, you know again we've pointed out that Ken Wilson stuff on Augustine infant baptisms like that is just full of Massive holes holes you could drive a semi -tractor trailer through Stoic non free free will the discriminatory gift of neoplatonic divine love and Then the

49:04

Manichean radical grace of divine unilateral predetermination of individuals eternal destinies

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You'll notice over here seeing you see my thing. There's the acronym for that for divine unilateral pre -determination of individuals eternal destinies duped which as I've said is the most stupid

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Acronym is Aaron put up We blew more holes through Wilson's Complete misunderstanding of Manichaeism and Augustine and reform theology in 2020

49:43

Then you could you could count we spent hours on it. We were sitting there reading directly from Augustine and Yeah bad stuff but just again

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Take if you want to take the time to find out what Manny actually taught what

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Manichaeism was about Who the elect were In Manichaeism the realm of light the mixture of Gnosticism and various other pagan elements that Manichaeism was

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The very idea That there is any real rational connection between the biblical theology of Isaiah and Jeremiah and The biblical theology of the

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Apostle Paul That draws from those Old Testament materials absolute monotheism

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Absolute one creator which all stuff that's completely contradictory to Manichaeism and Try to say they that one gave birth to the other it is simply one most absurd things ever seen

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I have no respect for it. I don't know almost anybody who does now there were people who attacked

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Augustine And used his having been a part of the that that movement

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Against him at that particular point in time, but no serious. That's why these guys don't debate the biblical text

51:23

With reformed people they state produce stuff like this, but they will not debate These texts and everybody you need to debate

51:31

Ken Wilson. Okay, I'll debate Ken Wilson in Romans chapter 8 Where is he live? Well?

51:38

Have have have RV will travel, you know, I mean it's not gonna happen He's not gonna do that He's not an exegete he's not theologian

51:49

As far as I know he's a medical doctor who went to Oxford and fooled somebody into giving him a

51:54

PhD for some of the most Absurd stuff I've ever seen in my life It's just astonishing

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Anyways, so and the Manichean radical grace of divine unilateral predetermination of individuals eternal destinies with the gift of initial faith

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Into an insuperable weapon to destroy Pelagian isms heretical Christianity now that is one of the worst sentences

52:17

I've ever seen It crams together stuff that no rational person would put together

52:24

But it just gives you an idea and David Allen just eats it up. He just repeats it as if it's just well, there it is

52:32

Okay replicating the exegetical acumen of the Gnostics and Manichaeans Augustine assimilated their numerous scriptural texts and deterministic interpretations to validate his

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Christianized duped now again, we demonstrated this is Absurd we went through example after example after example

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But again Allen won't debate me on Romans 8. I don't think Ken Wilson will debate me on Romans chapter 8 why because this is all their stuff

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This is the stuff they use I can here

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Find Manny in there It's it was a short chapter find

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Manny in there find find me utilizing Manichaean definitions

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I Doubt that I quote Augustine in there anywhere so You know,

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I've said Walk into your classroom Greek New Testament They won't do it

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They know they can't do it So one side has the truth and one side wants to write lots of books and make lots of accusations, but when it comes to putting money where the mouth is

53:48

That's much so Then a quotation from Thomas Martin It has become virtually commonplace to see the final

54:00

Augustine as theologically self -imprisoned within a rigorous Predestinarian framework as many would see it

54:06

Augustine could hardly be expected to maintain any Serious hermeneutical principles in the winner -take -all polemics that mark the final stage of plaguing controversy

54:15

Well, we can talk about the plaguing controversy and all sorts of stuff like that But when it comes to hermeneutical principles

54:24

We're about to find out as we dig into Someone trying to do that who has the upper hand, okay

54:32

Finally get into some of the stuff that I've marked here And if I recall correctly,

54:37

I mean, let me check something here. Yeah, there's a Yeah, and then that this goes right into Yeah, there's unconditional election so this is the last section right before you get into where Romans 8 is going to become

54:55

The central thing so this is stuff that I felt need to be dressed right could get to it today We've only got six minutes five minutes

55:04

Because Augustine did not depend on exegesis But rather upon philosophical and theological assumptions, he ends up far afield from Paul's original purpose in Romans I think

55:12

I read this one last time and simply said that is the perfect description of David Allen That's exactly what

55:18

David Allen does. That's what provisionism does. It's it's it's not exegesis

55:24

And it's philosophical and theological assumptions Libertarian free will so on and so forth

55:32

Augustine appears not to have had any abiding interest in exegesis Now I'll leave again,

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I'm not going to get into quite so much this Chris was in it is fellow that I was talking about earlier

55:49

Who knows Augustine very very well I'm sure is going to be writing on some of this stuff and he can talk to us about that Instead he just used scripture selectively to support his preconceived conclusions

56:01

Well, every side accuses the other of that only one side in our debate today is willing to actually defend that assertion in the presence of the other

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It's really easy to go on everybody else's, you know, your echo chamber and just shout the same things over and over again

56:16

I'm willing to come into your echo chamber. You won't do it and Because you're a big meanie head

56:25

My grant of us are Great big mini. My grandson does not think of a big meanie heads and I give him more credit there anyway

56:33

Paul did not write Romans primarily as a doctrinal treatise on individual salvation via predestination election due to the notions of original sin and inherited guilt

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I Have read a lot of reform commentaries on Romans Nobody thought that he did

56:55

Nobody thought that he did this is the kind of Unfair imbalanced

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To be honest with you, I think at a major publisher you'd have editors it would go you sure you want to go there

57:09

You sure, you know You know, but when you're self publishing it doesn't work that way

57:17

No one is saying that Romans is primarily a doctrinal treatise on individual salvation by predestination election due to the notions of original sin and inherited guilt

57:26

Romans is Paul's thought -out presentation of the gospel and its fundamental emphasis is on the glorification of God self -glorification of God in the fulfillment of all of his promises in The sending of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the church

57:46

Jesus Christ, which is made up of Jew and Gentile and So it's again the vast difference here knows all this it's not about this stuff about human salvation

57:56

Well human salvation is mentioned but from our perspective. This is about God It's about God and what

58:02

God does to glorify himself that is the Key issue and then a failure to identify

58:09

Paul's meaning of works in Romans as a reference in Mosaic law and not a Generalized reference to works righteousness leads to a misinterpretation of Romans.

58:16

This is what we talked about last time And we looked at Romans 9 12 And we realized that what's being said here is that works in Romans 9 12 is actually referring to law of Moses and So we stopped at this point we were right there where we stopped and we opened up Romans 9 and went what are

58:39

You talking about? This is the illustration of how

58:49

Presuppositional philosophical and theological assumptions override exegesis you did not get this from exegesis from Romans 9 12 and We walked through it and demonstrated that that was the exact case

59:06

So That's sort of the background then that leads us to the chapter

59:14

Chapter 4 Augustine reformed theology and unconditional election. Remember the title of the book has nothing to do with the chapters okay, so Calvinism can be accurately described as an expansive development of Augustinian theology with the notable exception of the doctrine limits atonement

59:31

Which Augustine himself never articulated. Well, okay That's how you get into it. What I want to get to is to get to Romans chapter 8 and that will take us to See Augustine Augustine Augustine, there we go

59:56

That's probably we'll pick up next time around With this wonderful quotation from Ken Wilson Augustine remained to to committed to a systematic theology demanding a damnably corrupted evil will slash willer

01:00:14

To entertain any notion of a neutral will in humans Neutral will in the fallen sons of Adam what?

01:00:28

Precisely because this evil willer could only choose evil without God no neutrality God must infuse salvific initial faith as a gift.

01:00:36

What what do you mean infuse salvation? No, we don't talk like this. What do you what are you babbling about?

01:00:43

We're talking about regeneration Being raised to spiritual life released to spiritual death.

01:00:49

The Sun makes you free. You'll be free indeed We use biblical language. You guys don't even want to touch it with a 10 -foot pole

01:00:56

Following his current stoic and prior neoplatonic and Gnostic Manichaean views It's just it's smokescreen folks.

01:01:05

It's it's just throw it out there and It has no foundation reality

01:01:13

So that's what we'll start with that's we'll start with like I said, I've got to Got another program to do and we may be doing it early

01:01:21

Uh Jeremiah is such a neat guy. He's willing to work with me We went a minute or two over here

01:01:27

But I will be hopefully joining the apologetic dog here in just a little bit while a little while.

01:01:32

We're gonna be talking about the a Conference in the Nashville area coming up next month with Jason Lyle and Jeremiah and myself

01:01:41

Eli Ayala, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be great and we'll be talking about then and we will continue with our analysis of David Allen's book and things like that next time around and Hopefully next time with more sleep because I don't have any other grandchildren that could be born between now and then thankfully