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

Alpha & Omega Ministries iconAlpha & Omega Ministries

1 view

Had to keep it to an hour today, but we started looking at some statements from Dale Tuggy in his debate from a number of years ago with Michael Brown in preparation for my second debate with Dale in Tullahoma next month. Then we got back into David Allen's new book as we move toward it's attempt to deal with Romans 8.

Comments are disabled.

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
03:51
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.
04:18
Yeah, I was sitting here thinking that's my sixth grandchild My first born will be 40
04:24
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
04:47
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
04:58
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.
05:13
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.
05:19
I'm trying to Figure out when things are being delivered and people coming by and you know tomorrow morning
05:25
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
06:01
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
06:12
But we don't have the monsoon going the dew point 49 .3
06:20
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
06:35
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
07:00
Sun brother It's actually been a pretty mild Summer for us there have been a lot worse 2020 was horrible.
07:08
But yeah it's it's Pretty toasty right now.
07:14
I imagine what I get in my my big Black truck that is sitting out in the
07:19
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
07:33
Sun it'd probably be 155 160 in there so And yes, you can burn your touch metal you can mm -hmm
07:42
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.
08:10
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,
08:44
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.
08:55
This is a number of years ago it's at least six seven years ago and at the end of his comments
09:03
Dr. Tuggy said that he was raised in an evangelical church
09:09
And it wasn't till he got to college that he started running into arguments against the
09:15
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
09:24
Trinity and I Thought about that and assuming
09:34
Now I'm just going to assume that he Had not heard a sermon on the
09:41
Trinity You know, he could have missed it one Sunday or something like that, but my goodness How many
09:51
Evangelicals would have to say the same thing how many if you ask them if you said
09:59
Is your church? Not just confessionally
10:05
Trinitarian, but practically and In an
10:15
Application sense Trinitarian, you know, so recently who was it
10:22
ELCA? I think it was ELCA. There was some ELCA bishop woman
10:30
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.
10:43
That's what it was. They they nixed the filial quit clause That's a it is a
10:52
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.
11:03
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
11:16
It's the filial quay means and the Sun so spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son The East says no the
11:24
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
11:36
Trinity is Merely creedal and not because you actually believe that is what
11:46
The scriptures as the Word of God teach The LCA doesn't believe that the scriptures are the
11:52
Word of God or that they teach any consistent thing That's that's just silliness to the most mainstream
12:01
Protestantism and most mainstream Theological education in the world today
12:09
You believe in the Trinity because it's tradition. That's all the idea That it's actually divine revelation.
12:15
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
12:52
I think of How you teach and preach The entire
13:00
Council of God and make application. I Don't know how you could not make commentary about The application the
13:14
Trinity in almost every sermon you do You don't have to make it ace.
13:20
This is a sermon on the Trinity if you're teaching Through the scriptures you're going to have to Do it in a
13:32
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
14:09
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
14:19
Which is a a bear blip in time as far as church history is concerned so what
14:25
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
14:43
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
15:04
I want you this is an exercise this is a theological debate on a
15:12
Specific theological topic is the God of the Bible. The Father alone was the
15:19
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
15:40
You have to be able to listen to what the other side is saying and And identify the
15:55
Foundational and even presuppositional errors in their thinking and very often what that involves is when a question is asked of you
16:07
The question will contain Facts not in evidence. It will the the question will assume that State of Affairs X actually exists when
16:22
They haven't proven that it actually exists. And in fact who? Agree that it actually exists
16:28
Will require you to abandon your thesis in the debate and I cannot tell you how many
16:35
Christians I Have seen in dialogues debates so on so forth
16:41
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
17:32
When when he hears the term God God has to be unipersonal rather than tripersonal so he's assuming
17:39
Unitarianism and so His questions will assume
17:47
Unitarianism and Then he will ask that question and say well you didn't answer it because you won't assume
17:53
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
18:17
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
18:46
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
18:56
Biggest problems at the beginning was What is a who pastas? What is oozea?
19:06
What prosop on there's all these different terms and the east and the west were also linguistically divided
19:15
Latin in the West Greek in the east And so there was all sorts complications and even today
19:26
We have had Disagreements and I've been attacked, you know, you're a
19:35
Trinitarian heritage because of this that nothing and normally what the essence of that is is
19:46
That I Insist that creedal statements have only a derivative authority
19:54
They cannot have a primary or definitional authority they can function to provide definitions, but their authority is
20:04
Derivative from their faithfulness to Scripture and so I'll get attacked for saying that it wasn't overly
20:13
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.
20:29
They're all that's solo scriptura blah blah blah blah So as They talk about this
20:39
For example the issue of how you define a person
20:45
Are you going to find a person differently? When talking about fallen humanity over against defining person you're talking about the incarnation
20:55
What does it mean for Jesus to be one person with two natures?
21:04
And When you when you come to conclusions What is the nature of the authority of those conclusions so for example one of the
21:20
Things that comes up as well. We talk about person.
21:25
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
22:50
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
23:05
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
23:18
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
23:30
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
23:42
There is a personal relationship Between Father Son Holy Spirit they make reference to each other these second -person pronouns
23:52
Jesus specifically refers to a time when he was glorious in The presence of the father which he shared the glory of the father
24:04
Before the worlds were made John 17 Says that 17 5 so Whatever term you have to use
24:14
The Sun as the Sun Existed as a divine person
24:22
Prior to the birth of the man we call Jesus in Bethlehem in history and that's
24:31
Where one of the problems is for Tuggy because Tuggy doesn't believe that Tuggy believes that the
24:38
Logos The word is God's wisdom is
24:44
Sophia, but it's an attribute it's not a person It can be
24:50
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
25:07
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
25:32
Jesus and the Father are the same God With the father and okay, there's number one
25:39
Here is and You're gonna hear this over and over and over and over again
25:45
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
26:02
The identification of father son spirit with the name Yahweh The plain
26:13
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
26:38
What Tuggy does he says what Almost every time in the New Testament the term
26:44
God is used. They ask it is used of the father Well, I would say there are times where the
26:50
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
27:02
New Testament that courios Lord is used referred to Jesus Even though that every
27:07
Jewish person reading the New Testament knew that courios was what was used in the
27:14
Greek sentient for Yahweh and Everything that then means in regards to what the
27:20
New Testament teaches about Jesus. So when he says the same
27:27
God In his mind God has to be
27:32
Unitarian and Therefore are you saying Jesus and the father are the same person and We're not
27:42
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
28:03
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
28:22
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
28:37
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
28:46
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
29:12
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
30:14
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
30:29
So Jesus again, we believe that Jesus is fully man the man Christ Jesus So he was born as a baby
30:37
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?
30:53
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
31:02
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?
31:25
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.
31:37
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
32:52
I have come down out of heaven Or in John 17 5 the glory which
33:00
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
33:14
But that the wisdom and logos are themselves impersonal and are not divine persons
33:21
Cannot speak as he does to John 17 5 Jesus is not gonna go.
33:26
I have come down out of heaven if he is simply wisdom dwelling in a human body
33:34
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
42:25
What a noble cause that dr. David Allen has as Written his white horse out on the field to to liberate
42:36
Romans from reformed captivity and What I can't help myself is that the
42:43
Monty Python horse or is that the Lone Ranger horse? Yes, that's well.
42:49
It does remind me a little bit of When the Knights came to the
42:56
Castle and oh no, no. No. Yes.
43:04
I Think some of dr. Allen's research was delivered by a African swallow
43:13
And African swallow can only carry so much. We all know that Especially if your favorite color is blue.
43:20
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
45:13
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
45:51
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
46:18
Yeah chapter 14 Romans 8 20 34 justification in the golden chain of redemption.
46:25
Yeah, of course justifications there. So chapter 14 It's not long.
46:31
It's a fairly short chapter Pages 243 to 250.
46:39
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
47:13
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
47:53
Quotation from Dr. Allen's book. I Wish that it gave all it tells me is 19 %
48:03
Unfortunately, I wish it gave page numbers a little bit more accurately But we have
48:11
Ken Wilson being cited and again, we Don't find that overly helpful
48:18
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
49:12
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
49:28
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
49:57
Take if you want to take the time to find out what Manny actually taught what
50:02
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
50:20
The very idea That there is any real rational connection between the biblical theology of Isaiah and Jeremiah and The biblical theology of the
50:40
Apostle Paul That draws from those Old Testament materials absolute monotheism
50:50
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
51:02
I have no respect for it. I don't know almost anybody who does now there were people who attacked
51:07
Augustine And used his having been a part of the that that movement
51:16
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
52:00
Anyways, so and the Manichean radical grace of divine unilateral predetermination of individuals eternal destinies with the gift of initial faith
52:10
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
52:45
Christianized duped now again, we demonstrated this is Absurd we went through example after example after example
52:54
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
53:04
This is the stuff they use I can here
53:11
Find Manny in there It's it was a short chapter find
53:16
Manny in there find find me utilizing Manichaean definitions
53:21
I Doubt that I quote Augustine in there anywhere so You know,
53:29
I've said Walk into your classroom Greek New Testament They won't do it
53:35
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,
55:38
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
56:10
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
56:47
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
57:03
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