February 1, 2005

desert metropolis of phoenix arizona is the dividing line the apostle peter commanded christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence our host is doctor james white director of alpha and omega ministries and an elder at the phoenix reformed baptist church this is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with doctor white call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the united states it's 1 -877 -753 -3341 and now with today's topic here is james white just picture this situation i'm going to have a child and i'm gonna bring that child into a loving family but i know at the very beginning that that child may get killed in a car accident or that child may contract cancer or that child eventually is going to die that child is going to suffer i know that going into the process what if you could prevent it as a father wouldn't you but i can't prevent it as a human father and i could as a heavenly father but if i prevented evil or the potential for evil as a heavenly father then i would eradicate freedom of choice and i would say it's better to love and lose than to never love at all and there you have a section of a phone call we'll be looking at today because it raises a fascinating issue an important issue that is the issue of theodicy the issue of the problem of evil and how it is answered and there are some very fundamental differences in regards to how that particular subject needs to be addressed and how it needs to be answered my name's

James White this is the Dividing Line thanks for joining us again today uh... if you're looking for it is better to love and lose than to have never loved at all in your concordance uh...

in Strong's uh... you're not gonna not gonna find that one there i'm not exactly certain what to say about that but we'll get to that because the reason i want to play this one

A again and everybody says A you're picking on Hank again no i'm not uh... we have the same audience same people listen uh...

to both of us and we're giving very different answers on these issues any longer and it's it's uh...

that's too bad but that's the way it is and so people are hearing and in this one in essence what happened and this is the whole there wasn't a whole lot new here you had the the cosmic rapist puppet stuff and all the stuff that we've refuted thoroughly many many times before uh...

but what we heard this time which truly concerned me was in essence the assertion that there are only certain ways of answering the problem of evil and the way you answer it in christian theism is to posit libertarian free will and that almost sounds like the reformed understanding and i would say the biblical understanding derived from genesis 5020 isaiah 10 acts for those three passages that i kept trying to get discussed on the bible and it's been broadcast in december two thousand three m never did it get anyone to address them uh...

the biblical answer has it sounds to me and will listen has been defined out of the realm of christian theism and that's not a good thing uh...

because that is the biblical response i wanted to read however i i i normally don't do this i really don't i want to read someone else on this topic i want to let someone else speak and so i'm going to be reading and i'm not going to mention who it is until the end uh...

not because that's overly relevant uh... just so that maybe if you'd like to be guessing and uh...

thing about who's might be it'll be interesting to see if anyone knows i want to read a section from a reformed on this particular issue if god is to create all the comes to pass and if god by his most holy wise and powerful providence governs all his creatures in all their actions in order to accomplish his holy ends how is one to understand all this so that god is not made the author of sin and man is left responsible if we are to be biblical it is important at the outset to affirm with no equivocation that god has ordained whatever comes to pass as the

Westminster confession of faith declares god is the sole ultimate first cause of all things with calvin we must confess that god's will is and rightly ought to be the cause of all things that are but god is not the author of sin nor the chargeable cause of sin and we must insist upon this for three reasons the first simply that's the bible teaches that god is light in him there is no darkness at all first john one five and then he tempts no one to send james one thirteen the second reason is this while he certainly decreed all things god decreed that all things would come to pass according to the nature of second causes either one necessarily as in the case of planets moving in their orbits to freely that is voluntarily with no violence being done to the will of the creature or three contingently that is with due regard to the contingencies of future events as in his informing david what's all the citizens of kyla would do if they've remained the city of kyla for samuel twenty three nine to thirteen therefore whatever sinfulness ensues proceeds only from men and angels and not from god warfield observes in this connection quote that anything good or evil occurs in god's universe finds its account in his positive ordering an active concurrence while the moral quality of the deed considered itself is written the moral character of the subordinate agent acting in the circumstances and under the motives operative in each instance thus all things find their unity in his eternal plan and not their unity merely but their justification as well even the evil though retaining its quality is evil and hateful to the holy god and certain to be dealt with as hateful yet does not occur apart from his provision or against his will but appears in the world which he has made only as the instrument by which he works the higher good and quote far from god's decree violating the will of the creature or taking away his liberty or contingency god's decree established that what they would do they would normally do freely the occurrence of the word freely here may surprise some readers how can the reformed christians speak of man's freedom if god has decreed his every thought and action the solution is to be found the meaning of the word reformed theology does not deny that men have wills that is choosing minds or that men exercise their wills countless times a day to the contrary reformed theology happily affirms both of these propositions while reformed theology denies that a man's will is ever free from god's decree his own intellection limitations parental training habits and in this life the power of sin in some there is no such thing as the liberty of indifference that is no one's will is an island unto itself undetermined or unaffected by anything furthermore reformed theology is not opposed to speaking of man's free will freedom or free agency the phrases may be found the

Westminster confession of faith in the writings for example of A. A. Hodge, John Murray, and Gordon Clark whose reformed convictions are unquestioned provided the arminian construction of free will as the liberty of indifference is not placed upon the phrases according to reformed theology if an act is done voluntarily that is if it is done spontaneously with no violence being done to the man's will then that act is a free act this is happily acknowledged in order to preclude the conclusions of a

Hobbesian or Skinnerian determinism that would insist that man's will is mechanistically genetically or chemically forced or determined to good or evil by an absolute necessity of nature what all this means is this if at the moment of willing the man wanted to do the thing being considered for reasons sufficient to him then reformed theology declares that he acted freely there is reformed theology would affirm in other words a liberty of spontaneity it is in this sense that I used the term used the term freely earlier to illustrate was

Adam aware of God's prohibition and warning respecting the tree of knowledge of good and evil at the moment he ate its fruit reformed theology says yes did

Adam have the capacity and power to do God's preceptive will respecting the fruit reformed theology says yes did

Adam for reasons sufficient to him come to the place cognitively where he wanted to eat the fruit reformed theology says yes again reformed theology would also insist this point over against Arminianism precisely because Adam had his reasons that he was not exercising an indifferent will was

Adam forced to eat the fruit against his will reformed theology would say no therefore because Adam acted knowingly willingly spontaneously spontaneously excuse me for reasons sufficient for him with no violence being done to his will reformed theology insists that he was a free agent in his transgression but if someone should ask was

Adam totally free from God's eternal decree reformed theology would say of course not could

Adam have done differently again from the viewpoint of the divine decree the answer is no to answer these questions any other way is simply to nullify the scriptures teaching the fact that God who works everything conformity with his eternal purpose

Ephesians 111 purposed before the foundation the world to save a multitude of sinners who would fall in Adam Henry Staub says this succinctly and superbly quote

Calvinists are not free willists they assert indeed that man is free that he is a moral agent not caught up in the wheel of things or determined by mere natural antecedents but they apprehend that this is something else than freedom of the will man is free i .e.

he can under ordinary circumstances do what he wills to do but the will is not free i .e. with no extra volitional vantage point from which the will can determine itself man's will responds to his nature which is what it is by sin or by the sovereign decree of God all which leaves responsibility fully grounded for nothing more is required for holding a man accountable than his acting with the consent of his will however much this may be determined and quote thus because God decreed that all things would come to pass according to the nature of second causes which means that in the case of men they would act freely and spontaneously whatever sin they commit proceeds from them and not from God he does not sin nor is he the author of sin only self -conscious self -determining rational second causes sin for yet a third reason is clear that God is not the chargeable cause of sin and that man alone is responsible for his sin this may be shown by careful analysis of the meaning of and necessary condition of responsibility a word which every theologian uses but whose meaning very few bother to think about as the main element of the word suggests responsibility has referenced the obligation to give a response or an account of one's actions to a law giver to illustrate when a judge hears a case concerning an auto accident involving two cars he attempts to determine who is responsible that is which one of the two drivers bears the obligation arising from a traffic violation to give an account to the traffic court in short a man is a responsible moral agent if he can and will be required to give an account to a lawgiver for any and all infractions he commits against the law imposed upon him by the lawgiver whether or not he has free will in the

Armenian sense of the term the liberty of indifference is irrelevant to the question of responsibility to insist that without free will a man cannot lawfully be held responsible for his sin completely fails to apprehend the meaning of the word free will has nothing to do with the establishment of responsibility what makes a person responsible is whether there is a lawgiver over him who has declared that he will require that person to give an account to him for his thoughts words and actions hence if the divine lawgiver determined that he would require every human being to give a personal account to him for his thoughts words and actions then every human being is a responsible agent whether free in the

Armenian sense or not in other words far from God's sovereignty making human responsibility impossible it is just because God is their absolute sovereign that men are accountable to him if the sovereign

God has determined that men shall answer to him for their thoughts words and actions then that determination makes them responsible to him for their thoughts words and actions a full biblical treatment of all the grounds of human responsibility would also include treatments of one man's innate knowledge of God's law and to the doctrine of original sin men are chargeable causes the sins they commit if they know to do the good but do not do it even if they are unable to do it

Luke 1247 Romans 8 -7 God has also determined that men are responsible for Adam's sin by the principle of representative headship and legal imputation

Romans chapter 5 verses 12 -19 clearly free will is in no sense the precondition of responsibility for imputed sin but accountable to God for Adam's sin men are nonetheless

Paul teaches thus free will in the Armenian sense is not the necessary precondition of a man's responsibility for his sins a lawgiver is the necessary precondition of responsibility now that is the beginning section of this is called why

God is not the author or chargeable cause of sin I can continue on with a biblical theodicy as well and this is all from of course a new systematic theology the

Christian faith by Dr. Robert Raymond published by Nelson and so we may who knows since we have a number of other shall we say sections to listen to in regard to regarding to the the

Bible and Smith broadcast trying to read what's in channel at the same time as talk about this and they're two completely different things

I just was informed and though this will probably take up the Thursday evening dividing line that the

Dave Hunt excuse -a -thon for talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls and early church fathers and mythical Hebrew originals etc etc

I let me someone just put this in channel is read this before we go to the Bible Answer Man clip

I offer no foot but footnotes for this brief paragraph because the source or sources are not important I'll I am the phrases were probably written in some scholars claim show that I am not presenting my own opinion gathered from personal research

I am only stating is something of possible interest for anyone who may wish to pursue it further that certain people believe this idea

I'm sorry that is so lame I even

I didn't predict that level of lameness oh my goodness how on when is someone going to hold this man accountable

I mean am I the only one who who wrote to this man and said you should not write this book am

I the only one who wrote to him and said as a Christian leader you have responsibility for what you put in print can you imagine if some if I wrote something like that whacked out paragraph about the

Dead Sea Scrolls talking about the authorship of acts which is a clear historical anachronism and someone recent and I use that as an argument against Rome can you imagine what the

Roman Catholic apologists would do and if I responded by saying why didn't put any footnotes cuz it really doesn't matter and besides it's somebody else's opinion not mine all my goodness

I would close the doors turn off the lights and go work in a tire shop just is that I is that really what it says it was not wise to include this brief speculative statement and it will be deleted from the next printing yeah yeah baby yeah oh my goodness is is rather sad that James White has spent so much time refuting a casual statement upon which

I place no essential importance while avoiding the major scriptures and arguments

I set for can you believe this

I'm sorry you can tell that I'm absolutely amazed I have avoided his scriptural arguments and this is how he is getting why doesn't he just come out and say you know what folks somebody threw this at me

TA McMahon said it sounded good it's against Calvinism so we threw it in there folks were throwing the kitchen sink at this stuff we hate

Calvinism we will use any argument no matter how absolutely positively absurd it is just be honest

Dave come on I just talk about a complete and total meltdown a complete and total meltdown wow unbelief

I didn't expect that I did not expect that I expected what we got with Spurgeon well yeah

I said he unequivocally denied particular redemption but what I meant was he contradicted himself well you know what unequivocally and contradicting yourself are sort of like antonyms okay those are different things

Dave they don't words have meaning that's what I was expecting I was expecting you know what

I did let me we're gonna get to the Bible Answer Man clip okay you know if you have to just fast forward to it later on what can

I say we'll get to it but this is this is just beyond this is called live webcasting folks because MDH came in channel

I almost looked at the Berean call half an hour before the program I almost looked but I had an ad you know

I'd I'd probably get an email first and dada dada dada we've been sovereignly redirected yes you know what happened when

I saw that paragraph first of all the first thing across my mind was you've got to be kidding but then this is what

I did and my fellow elder at Phoenix Reformed can confirm this I immediately said wow that does not sound right but I stopped and I said you know

I need to research it I've never heard anything like this I've never heard anything like this at all but you know what

I'm gonna check it out and I invested hours I went through my library and all the commentaries contained therein

I searched the theological journals library for relevant keywords and current scholarly articles on the subject

I checked all of my printed commentaries in my library I contacted my fellow elder and said

I've seen some footnote references to discussions of Hebraisms or Aramaic references to sources

Luke may have used in the first twelve chapters I saw a reference to an

Auland I think it was that knows that it was a Nestle article do you have these commentaries in your library and he brought a bag of commentaries to church and after evening service one night

I went over to the copy machine and I ran all the relevant pages that had anything in regards to any discussion of an

Aramaic or Hebrew use of Aramaic or Hebrew sources by Luke in writing

Acts now I collected all that stuff and satisfied myself that I had fairly looked at the scholarly literature and was aware of the fact that certain scholars see especially in the first 12 not 13 12 chapters of Acts the possibility that Luke is utilizing foreign language sources

I remember Luke says in Luke chapter 1 he researched he gathered sources he interviewed people he he did the work of a historian and that what's where is what's the context of the first 12 chapters of Acts it's primarily amongst people who would be speaking

Hebrew or Aramaic right and so when you're when you're quoting sermons that were delivered a

Jewish synagogue to Jewish people in a Jewish context then it's not overly shocking or surprising that there would be

Hebraism that is Greek translations of phrases that were originally spoken in in Aramaic right okay that has none of those commentaries none of them at all said that Luke had written the first 15 or 12 chapters of the book of Acts in Hebrew none of them but you see before I then went out on a limb and discuss those things

I took the time to look at it and now we see how

Dave Hunt does things and folks this is how Dave Hunt treats Mormons and Roman Catholics and anybody who holds to a non premillennial dispensational pre -trib rapture theory too this is why he has for a long time been accused of seeing on a page only what he wants to see on a page and taking no responsibility for what he says when we spoke at the conference in St.

Louis after he spoke and went after certain churches I had members those churches come up to me and say he only told half the story and now having seen how he treats my writings and now when he puts in print one of the most absurd paragraphs

I've ever seen that undercuts believers belief in scripture and the the canonization of scripture and the accuracy of scripture all the rest of this he simply does not have the integrity to say

I was wrong folks this is why apologetics is supposed to be done within the church

I don't think there's anyone in ecclesiastical setting that can sit

Dave Hunt down and say Dave apologize admit you were wrong admit that you will use any argument no matter how crazy it is against Calvinism because you're on a crusade you've been convicted the evidence is right there but you see

I don't think Dave Hunt is in a single church often enough in a year for anyone to do anything like that and that's one of the biggest problems with apologetics that's one of the biggest problems with apologetics is it's normally done by people who are not serving within the church and that's how they become imbalanced that's how they end up going off on crusades because they don't have the corrective of the

God -ordained ministry within the body of Christ that's the problem oh my goodness there'll be a third edition yay wahoo did

I not say there'd be a third edition I think I did I think I think I predicted that let's let's just review before we take our break here and I catch my breath let let's just review the history here in the first encounter between Dave Hunt and I he says

I've never read the reformers don't know anything about them the first manuscript of what love is this starts circulating 90 days later in the first edition

Acts 1348 what does he do he claims translate Greek he claims tell us what the best

Greek translation is and what was it I just happen to be the same as the

New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses when I point that out what happens in debating

Calvinism he doesn't use that particular translation and the second edition that particular translation disappears even though we were told it was the best so here you've you've got

Dave Hunt out of ignorance using the New World Translation coming up with the

New World Translation he finds out oops

I better not do that does he apologize does he put a footnote in saying ha man you know folks

I I'm really sorry I wow I a that's pretty dangerous when you start telling folks this is the best translation and in reality you you can't translate

Greek you don't know best translation is what it is simply because you don't believe what the

Bible says in this passage that's the problem so I just said third edition forward misspelled forward but the third edition forward by Dan Rather yeah that's that's our what we're looking at is the same you know

Christians will get upset about that within the secular media why do

I seem to be the only one going excuse me is it just because you've been doing this for a long time and you've spoken every

Calvary Chapel on the planet that you get a free pass when you tell God's people that all they've really got the first 15 chapters of Acts is an errant

Greek translation of a Hebrew original that no one knows where the Hebrew original is or anything like it you get a free pass and then you go well

I didn't footnote because the sources aren't really important and it really isn't a big issue and I'll take it out but um oh please this is absolutely beyond imagination and since it is so far beyond imagination

I have gone so far beyond the time for a break so we're gonna take a break up this this divine line has flown off of the tracks it is it's um it's a runaway freight train in the neighborhood someplace but we're gonna take a uh take a break and a phone call and who knows what we're gonna do after that but we'll be back after this you know

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King James version is the word of God James White in his book the King James only controversy examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true

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I turned on some nice calm music I tried to remember that guy on PBS or something who's who's very friendly and all and tried to put on a nice Mr.

Rogers type sweater just to but then I opened it up in PDF and now I can't I offer no foot footnotes for this brief paragraph because the sources are sources are not important first line is a lie it's a lie can you imagine someone writing something about Dave Hunt saying that Dave Hunt uh it grossly misrepresents everybody he he he addresses no footnotes and Dave Hunt says do you think you'd be kind enough maybe to give me some examples oh they're not important sources of source are not important I really

I didn't put much emphasis upon that it's not important the phrases were probably written in some scholars claims show that I am not presenting my own opinion gathered from personal research

I am only stating as something of possible interest for anyone who may wish to pursue it further that certain people believe this idea yeah the editor of his book believed that idea maybe he's maybe that's where it came from and Dave just is throwing himself upon the funeral pyre rather than his editor

I don't know my argument however is in no way dependent upon such opinions was your argument dependent upon your use the new world translation in the first edition

Dave yet James White thank you thank you treats this paragraph as of major importance and has even attempted to recruit critics to confront me about this in my meetings yes

I have and I am very I'm very open to say yes I have

I that's me I did it I did it right here James White asked people to ask him you know why because whether Dave Hunt wants to admit it or not that paragraph is of major importance it's of major importance to his own lack of integrity on this issue but it's also of major importance for another reason and this is what people don't seem to understand

Dave Hunt put a paragraph in his book to try to get around acts 1348 which he had failed on repeatedly that told his readers now remember something folks one of the reasons

I did debating Calvinism is because Dave Hunt has a core of readers who would never read anything

I would write otherwise they never do it Dave Hunt is their leader he is their source of all information and they're going to read the second edition of what love is this and they're going to hear that what they read in acts 1 through 15 is an errant inaccurate may not even begin to represent the original intention of the original author translation of the original writings that no bible known to man is based upon they're going to be told the

Dead Sea Scrolls talked about the authorship of acts what if those people actually ran to some critic who knows what he's talking about and go excuse me but the

Dead Sea Scrolls were written before acts they're told early church fathers said this what if they ran to someone actually knows something about the early church fathers this is important folks that's why we do what we do that's why you actually take the time to research what you're saying you don't just throw stuff out there not when people listen to you and not when people look to you as having done some homework done something to earn the trust earn the fact that people will listen to what you're saying do your homework for crying out loud you know people are always asking me questions about stuff it's it's it's a joke in our channel last night somebody asked me what i thought about michael jackson the michael jackson case and i said why on earth would anyone care what i think about michael jackson i don't i don't keep up with any of that stuff i'm just a plain old guy why would anyone care what i think about michael jackson and people are always saying you should write about this and i respond not gonna happen well why not it's not my area i'm not the brightest bulb in the constellation there's only so much i can do and do well folks i don't claim to have this you know i don't claim to be the smartest man on the planet there's so many people who think that well if you're an apologist you need to be able to answer every question ever asked you need to you need to be an expert in all things no one's an expert in all things and it is not and indicative that if i'm if i express an opinion for example and i i really feel a great deal of weight upon myself to not express opinions on stuff these days i really try to back myself off because people think that if you express an opinion about topic x that if you're wrong about that if you're proven wrong about that let's just say someone calls in we're just chatting away and i say something about some historical figure and i'm wrong i get the year wrong or it was somebody else i say calvin said something it was bases said it okay there are actually people who are so muddled in their thinking that they think that if you're wrong about that then you must be wrong about everything you you have to have an absolute 100 % record or your you have a 0 % record there's there's nothing you know in between and that's ridiculous that that's not people who think soundly don't think that way you know it's this is how we and and you know what conservative bright -minded people make the same mistake i was listening to a very well -known scholar over past couple days lecturing on a particular subject and i couldn't help but think i know people who would not listen to what this man has to say because they don't like what he believes in a completely different area completely different area they disagree with him over there and since he he's wrong about that then i'm not gonna listen to anything he says about anything that is a problem folks that even we conservatives have you know someone came to the channel asked me about um oh oh the liberal as the day is long what's his name oh i had to read one of his books for a college course oh man now i can't remember what the name was anyway it'll come to me eventually and i said i said well the guy's liberal's day is long he's downright heretical in some areas but you know what i i gleaned some interesting insights and said i went to a liberal seminary for my first master's degree and i had to read all sorts of liberals i had to read carl bart and you know what carl bart was not 100 wrong about everything on certain issues he was smack on but because he was really dangerously wrong and others we tend to go oh well you know just i'll never listen to a word that person has to say that's where we sometimes lose the balance and so if you're sitting there going wow you sure are you sure are uh agitated today i am because here is a man i warned this man years ago don't do this i saw this coming i saw it coming you know it's back to the uh detective spooner i robot somehow i told you so doesn't quite say it i saw this coming and so at least when i get upset about it i can go back and i can show you the correspondence i sent to dave hunt and said dave it's irresponsible of you to write this book because you don't know what you're talking about and when you don't know what you're talking about you combine that with a big ego and you're gonna end up saying stupid things like this and who suffers who suffers the people who read his materials his books yeah james white treats this paragraph as a major importance and has even attempted to recruit critics to confront me about this in my meetings certainly any basis for the idea that the first 15 chapters of acts were originally written in hebrew is tenuous at best well dave why didn't you say that but that doesn't matter it's that's what it says i'm reading straight off it's this is page four of six just posted february berean call newsletter but that doesn't matter the fact that some people including some scholars believe this to be the case is all that i stated who dave still no names still no details believe this to be the case all i stated but it is clearly not relevant to my arguments which means i include an entire paragraph my argument that was irrelevant unbelievable just beyond beyond belief here it was not wise to include this brief speculative statement and it will be deleted from the next printing the three pages i devote to acts 1348 offer many solid reasons for rejecting this verse as evidence that certain persons are predestined to salvation the rest of mankind is predestined to eternal torment a multitude of scriptures how many times have we heard that one refute this calvinist theory none of the many reasons i put forth my understanding of this passage rests in even the remotest sense upon the opinion of certain persons that the first 15 chapters of acts may have been originally written in hebrew thus it is rather sad it's so sad that james why i spent so much time refuting a casual statement upon which i place no essential importance while avoiding the major scriptures and arguments i set forth there isn't enough truth in this statement to measure it's incredible total and complete meltdown total and complete meltdown this is a this is a continuation of the same modus operandi to which i called attention to my closing argument in our co -authored book debating calvinism and then you have a long quotation from debating calvinism um which is nothing more than stuff that we've refuted over and over and over and over again years ago white accused me of aligning calvin by reporting his unchristian conduct in geneva and said he would refute such calumnies i'm still waiting as i am for any calvinist to explain how god could be said to love those whom he could have saved but for whom the father didn't even send the hmm looking at the pdf here and uh doesn't seem to be showing it here hmm well i guess it would have to be the sun or something yeah mine just cuts off at that point i imagine that would be the sun i don't know if that's typographical or just what it is you can go back in the archives we have responded to dave hunt and demonstrated his continuous errors and his complete ignorance of the biblical text over and over and over again i think it's just simply time if you are a member of a calvary chapel and dave hunt's coming i think you need to go to your elders say look this this man has no idea what he's talking about he is inaccurate in his statements it's time for those in the apologetic community to stand up and say excuse me that's enough that's enough we we've put up for this for a long time there's been all this this this sensationalism and this if you're not a pre -trib pre -mil narrow -mindedness enough already just stop it's time to do it it's time to do it all right enough of that uh do we still have a caller um uh ye of the of the great powerful um yes all right let's go ahead and take the phone call if we have to go back who knows what we'll do maybe we'll go back because i do think it's important when when a national figure identifies the reformed understanding of of evil and uh theodicy and responsibility is no longer a part of christian theism in essence uh probably unintentionally i would hope so oh great he just dropped it let's play that let's go ahead and play that clip uh because i think it's important to to mention that i'm gonna go ahead and play that clip from uh from hank henry this is why i started this response and hey this is a live webcast folks that's how it works you know this was breaking news just happened and you've now heard you got to listen to exactly how i respond to it as i'm seeing it for the first time there aren't too many programs well that happens there aren't too many programs and you know what just yesterday i was doing a radio broadcast with chuck chrismire and uh during one of the breaks chuck said you know toward the end of program well i'd like to get away from the debating and just have both of us speak from our heart i said chuck i already am i already am the whole reason i discuss this is not to to debate that is that is my heart that's the whole point i'm passionate about these things because i see how they're interrelated with one another you can't stand up and tell people you believe in all of scripture when you don't believe all of scripture when you're inconsistent when you refuse to accept what scripture says it's right there in front of you it's all related folks it's all related and that's why we're going to respond to this clip let me play you the beginning section of it let me try to do something that i think might help frame the answer to the question somewhat for you let me give you a framework within which we can discuss this question and then we can get into the intricacies of it would that be okay yes thank you there are are there only three basic answers to the question of evil i don't know if you knew that from the standpoint of world views there are only three basic answers that are ever given there's the answer from pantheism and and that is the idea which denies the existence of good and evil because in that world view god is all and all is god i'm familiar with that yeah so that doesn't really give you a good answer then there's philosophical naturalism it's the world view that undergirds evolutionism and that's of course the idea that everything is a function of random processes so there is no such thing as good and evil in that system either it's all a part of of random naturalistic processes and then you have theism and that is the only relevant response to the problem of evil and only christian theism can answer the question in a way that's satisfactory to us and here's the way christian theism answers the question okay now here we go now we so far great all right but here comes the means by which christian theism answers the question and tell me if i'm wrong to be reading this in such a way that sounds to me as if my answer to this question as i read from robert raymond and there's you know who knows maybe next time i'll read his section on the problem of evil uh doesn't fit here it's no longer within the purview of christian theism christian theism acknowledges that god creates the potential for evil and the operative word there is potential because he creates humans with freedom of choice so we choose to love to hate to do good to do evil etc now let me just stop right there now i was gonna go before the brain call hit i was gonna say now i'm gonna do everything i can to interpret these words in a way that will fill fit with my own perspective okay i'm gonna i'm gonna try to do that as far down the road as i can go the problem is i i can't because we already know having listened to numerous discussions of this before that by freedom here we are talking about the liberty of indifference that robert raymond spoke of we're not we're talking about libertarian free will we're talking about a freedom that exists outside of god's sovereign decree we're talking about the ability to do x or not x outside of god's sovereign decree god's decree does not determine and impact this and i would point out that from the reform perspective this also includes i believe the idea that even though one is fallen in adam and i love the point that raymond made i hope you caught it i was reading fairly quickly but you catch the the point that raymond made it was an excellent point where he pointed out that the imputation of adam's sin has nothing to do with free will does it in the sense that i didn't choose to have adam's sin imputed to me very few of those who hold to libertarianism actually believe in original sin in fact i would say i don't know if if ten percent if ten percent of serious confessing christians actually believe in original sin i would be somewhat surprised because you know you push on that and very quickly you start getting some really weird ideas you really do so i was going to try to take that but i can't because i know we're talking about libertarianism here and so it sounds to me right off the bat that in defining christian theism if libertarianism is the centerpiece then compatibilism the entire well a large portion of the material written on theodicy the problem of evil since time the reformation just got defined out of the arena or at least not going to be presented to this lady who's calling anyways but that one of course the record of human history bears eloquent testimony as the event that you just chronicled does to the fact that humans of their own free will have actualized the reality of evil through such choices so god creates the potential for evil but we actualize that evil by the choices that we make which now of course and i ask this if he created the potential for evil did he do so for a purpose did he know that that evil was going to take place without a doubt and is that purpose not defined by his sovereign decree and is that just big things of evil or little things in evil is that big action evil actions or little evil actions i mean i tried the record is clear i did try to bring this up i did try to make this happen and and actually get it into the biblical text did i not i mean anybody who listened you know wave your hands and go yeah that was the big that was the whole problem you kept trying to go to the text and everybody else in the studio were is like let's not let's not go there let's not discuss the text let's just you know uh that that's what happened leads to a further point without choice love means nothing and that we know again i think we're being fair here uh we know is libertarian choice not compatibilist not the not the freedom that we see in genesis 50 not the freedom that we see in isaiah 10 not the freedom that we see in acts 4 not none of those but libertarian freedom necessary for true love to exist and god is neither a cosmic rapist who forces love on people he's not a cosmic puppeteer who forces people to love him now these phrases have simply become cliches they've become cliches we've responded to them many many times before and i think honestly if you can get past the brie and call explosion and go back to the beginning of the program uh raymond's discussion here really rendered the vast majority of this moot but the reason i wanted to start this clip and play this clip at the beginning and the one that i also played in regards to well if god's loving father why wouldn't he keep us from these suffering experiences and the only answer was given was well because that would destroy free will free will or the sovereignty of god free will or the decree of god those those create very different proclamations very different churches very different forms of worship and very different apologetic systems they really do when i teach apologetics i play two debates on the existence of god one is the bonson stein debate one is a debate between william lane craig and frank zindler and the theological foundations upon which each christian stands and engaging those debates determines the massive difference between the two one says god certainly exists must exist to even explain why we're here tonight the other says the majority of evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of god now which one of those two is closest to the apostolic proclamation is what i would ask you so you see these are not simply obscure theological issues they are all part and parcel of a foundational understanding that christian theology is a whole and it determines how we are going to do apologetics theology determines apologetics not the other way around wow okay i'm heading to north carolina this weekend i will be here on thursday um lots of stuff this week but i'll try to get something up on the brian call thing as quickly as possible thanks for putting up with my um little explosion there uh but i think it's vitally important i 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