Mega-Size DL Response to Mike Riccardi and Derrick Brite

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00:38

Welcome to The Dividing Line, welcome to another way of live -streaming The Dividing Line, since yours truly managed to get us kicked off of Twitch only last week for daring, well

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I don't know, if you all saw the side -by -side comparison of ballerinas today,

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I think it was posted yesterday, now that I think about it. I was just simply observing the reality of the world, and there you go, you're not allowed to do that in the clown world in which we live today.

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So anyway, we are doing all sorts of new things, I have predicted 10 minutes before it all crashes and burns,

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Rich is having to use new software and all the rest of this kind of stuff to make this work.

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So, being the Scotsman that I am, I'm expecting disaster.

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We'll see. But thank you for tuning in today, this evening, for those of you in the East Coast, we have important stuff to talk about.

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Tony Arsenault on Twitter a couple days ago tweeted,

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Now, I'll be honest with you, I have no clue what theology proper errors are.

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Obviously there's something in his mind at that point, he's not expressing it very clearly. And he even said that his sentence was unclear when

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I said, you do realize I don't hold to EFS or anything like that, and the sentence may sound like I did, but I don't know what.

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The only—if I were to be asked, define what

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Grace Bible Theological Seminary School thought would be, it would be the all -sufficiency of Scripture and the need to have

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Scripture as the source of all of our theology and practice, maybe?

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Obviously that's not what Tony Arsenault had in mind, but he's not the only one who thought that Mike Riccardi's talk was at least partially aimed at yours truly.

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I had a friend listen to it, and he didn't really think it was about me. Clearly the

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Matthew 24 -36 section, brief as it was, was about me. And once I got a chance to listen to it,

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I thought that a number of the comments made in the first half hour were about me.

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Nothing after that, because the rest of it was a theological and philosophical argument against eternal functional subordination, which

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I've never held, and all honest people know that. Though many dishonest people try to make it sound like I do.

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And so it was only that first half hour that I was like, okay.

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And that was the first two points in regards to methodology and things like that. So given there are a number of people asking me about it, and it does give us an opportunity to, once again, clear the air of the fact that right now, unfortunately, there are a number of people.

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There is a concerted, organized effort to marginalize this voice and this ministry on this topic.

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Students are being told numerous, utterly untrue things about me, and they are supposed to believe these things on the basis of the authority of those that are telling them these things.

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The problem is, I think people will eventually find out that that kind of authoritarianism does not work.

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The Watchtower Belt and Track Society has found that out. The Watchtower has, for many, many, many years, was able to change theology, change direction, and since they could control the information flow for their people, they could get away with it.

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Then came the Internet. TV, VHS, stuff like that had opened up a few avenues, but especially once the

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Internet became a ubiquitous aspect of life, they couldn't do that anymore.

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They couldn't make those types of changes. Their people would be exposed to the evidence that demonstrates that they're making things up as they're going along.

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We're just going to keep telling the truth, and if people try to marginalize us, try to silence us, try to say, don't listen, that's their right, but they will answer for whatever it is they're telling people or anything else, just as I will answer for everything that I have to say.

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There is a day of judgment coming, and we say that to the rest of the world, but it's true within the church as well.

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I want to have a friendly response. I'm going to have to over and over again say,

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I don't know if this is aimed at us. If it is, here's where it's misrepresenting us, or here's how

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I would view something like this. But hopefully that'll be useful to everyone, and then I am going to be responding to Derek Bright, a doctoral student at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary, who wrote a lengthy screed on Twitter.

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I believe it was yesterday, and it is very helpful because it sort of collects together all the slander and lies that are being told about me and gives us opportunity to refute all of them at the same time and clear the air and then say, and if people keep saying these things, then mark them and know where they're coming from, in essence, is where we're going.

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So instead of struggling with audio, the audio and I'm not sure if the video.

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Yeah, I haven't seen video. I just realized it was sent to me with audio. The audio is out there.

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You can listen to the entire presentation. It's about an hour and a half long, as I recall, but I have a transcript of it.

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And it is an electronic transcript, so I'm hoping it's fairly accurate.

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It seems to be fairly accurate. The few times that I listened to the audio and was reading the transcript, it was accurate at that point in time.

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But I'm going with the electronically derived transcript. So let's just dive in.

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This is from Mike Riccardi's presentation, first half hour, very early on. The doctrine of divine simplicity, that God's attributes are identical to his essence, and whether that means the divine attributes are therefore identical to one another in God.

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He's going over the issues that he identifies as Trinitarian controversies.

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I'm really not sure that they're, it's not that they're disconnected from the Trinity, but they're theology proper type controversies in many situations.

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But yes, the doctrine of divine simplicity, that God's attributes are identical to his essence, and whether that means the divine attributes are therefore identical to one another in God.

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So, ad intro. And once again, the key element here that unfortunately was not clear,

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I think, in Dr. Riccardi's presentation. So much of this actually goes back to, and for me, is not

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Trinitarian argumentation. It is authority argumentation. It's where we start. What is our starting place?

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Now, I'm very thankful that at one point, Dr. Riccardi refers to the biblical, to biblical Trinitarianism.

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Biblical and historical Trinitarianism is a term that he used once. And I'm thankful that because I've been criticized for doing that.

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And in fact, there's a number of things that Dr. Riccardi said that were directly, you know, he talks about the one what, three who's, which

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I've been criticized for, again, from the Neotomists multiple times. So I'm thankful for that, and I wouldn't be overly surprised if the first place that he heard that was from me.

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So there's a lot of interface. There's a lot of connection here. But the thing that concerns me from the start and will all the way through this discussion is that people are thinking that we're arguing about theology proper and Trinitarian stuff.

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And yeah, we are discussing those things. But it's the origin and source of where we derive our interpretation and understanding that is the issue.

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It is the first thing that I recognized in December of 2021,

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I think it was, before everything sort of blew up, is great tradition.

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The relationship of external interpretational grids, the nature of scripture itself, and how it is supposed to be that which from which we derive our theological statements and the fact that we all say, and Dr.

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Riccardi will say and we say that scripture is the norma normata.

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It is the unnormed norm. But how does that work? How does that actually function?

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That's the real issue. And it will be all the way through here. So when we're talking about divine simplicity, you can have biblical divine simplicity, where you can make a biblical case from the actual words of scripture and the concepts of scripture and say that God's being cannot be constructed of lesser parts based upon monotheism and God's eternality and the fact that everything else that exists is created by God himself.

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And therefore, if it's less than God, then it was created by God. You can make that argument. That's very different from Thomistic divine simplicity.

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The same thing with the next section, the doctrine of inseparable operations, whether all of God's acts like his essence are undivided and indivisible, such that each divine person is equally active in every divine action.

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If what we mean by that is the unity of God's activities, the fulfillment of the one divine decree of God, then all well and good.

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But if we are talking about Thomistic inseparable operations,

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I think it raises insuperable problems for the biblical revelation of the existence of three divine persons and the interaction that they have with one another.

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You cannot have meaningful interaction between the divine persons in a

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Thomistic concept because you have imported

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Aristotelian metaphysics that are not big enough. They're too restrictive. They just simply cannot handle divine revelation, and so you have to shove stuff out.

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That's one of the big issues. Very, very, very, very big issues that's going on here. There's been the question of canonic

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Christology, what it means for the sun to have emptied himself in the incarnation, and whether he's laid aside some or all of his divine attributes to become genuinely human.

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Once again, we've addressed this a thousand times before, and I would say what we have said in regards to a voluntary veiling of certain aspects of the sun's divine prerogatives so that he can function as the

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Messiah is in perfect harmony with what has been taught over there in California for a long, long time.

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If that's changing, okay, just come straight out and say, you know what? We've always been wrong about that. We're going to change it, but none of that means that the sun ceases to be the sun, that the sun can in any way, shape, or form change in essence.

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The issue is what divine prerogatives were veiled, and this is language that's been used by Christians for a very, very long time.

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I'm not talking a hundred years. I'm talking way, way back. What was it that the sun had to do in taking on that human nature to be able to function as the

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Messiah? That'll come back up again in regards to Matthew 24 -36, and we'll talk about that then.

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Undergrading all of this, there have been debates about the methodologies that are employed to give the various answers to all these questions.

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Exactly. Biblicism versus the great tradition. Literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutics versus census planar and spiritual interpretation.

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Even and increasingly the place of Thomas Aquinas ought to have in our theologizing about the doctrine of God.

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Those are many of the issues. I would point out that one of the biggest names being cited in this resourcement today is

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Dr. Craig Carter, who wrote an article in the TMS Journal spring of last year.

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We have interacted with him. Of course, he won't interact back, and in fact only misrepresents what we have said, and we've documented that, and he has made no effort to recover from the documentation of his misrepresentations, but he has done that, and that is an established fact.

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And so, these sources are out there as well. These debates over which so many within Reformed evangelicalism are so divided cannot be things that we are divided over, because though they are complex, and though they are difficult, and though they are mysterious, each of these matters relates fundamentally to the fundamental doctrine of Christianity itself.

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Well, they do, but one thing that is clear is that there has been a, and there needs to be, a freedom for differing emphases in a discussion of what becomes speculative theology.

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Once we go past the direct revelation of Scripture, once we're no longer talking about what the apostles themselves would have even recognized as part of their proclamation, there has to be freedom of having a different emphasis.

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I'm not talking about denying monotheism or something along those lines, but we recognize, for example, that Calvin held a view in regards to certain aspects of Trinitarianism and Christology that would be considered to be a minority view, even amongst

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Reformed. But until recently, you didn't check them out the window for that.

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There was, there needs to be a level of maturity and confidence that allows for discussion of differing views once you get to the point of dealing with speculation.

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The problem is, very often down through church history, people will elevate speculation to dogma.

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Rome has certainly done that over and over again, and we reject Rome having done that, but that means we can't then turn around and start doing it ourselves in the process.

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It's very dangerous. The triunity of God is the heart of the Christian faith. There is no Christianity without it because there's no

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Christianity without God, and the Trinity is who God is. No disagreement about that unless, again, the connection then becomes, and if you don't buy

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Thomas's final formulations of these things, then you aren't actually believing in the

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Trinity. And without Thomas's formulations, then you're going to become a tritheist or this, that, or the other thing.

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That's where the problem comes in. And we look around us and see dear friends and partners in ministry suddenly in a web of disagreement about matters related to the

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Trinity. There's a real sense in which it ought to make us tremble because the Trinity is the doctrinal nerve center of Christianity. Agreed, I'll be honest with you, as one who has been defending the doctrine of the

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Trinity apologetically, globally, for decades, this web of disagreement, part of it, and two -thirds of this presentation is focused on EFS, part of it really launched in 2016, not because a bunch of people changed their perspectives, but because there was a very strong denunciation of what was becoming a more popular definition of things, shall we say, that had sort of flown under the radar and after 2016 could not fly under the radar any longer.

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Anyway, what has happened since then has been prompted by an insistence on a certain group within Reformed camps that the only way to deal with these things is to no longer have the freedom to discuss these topics without going straight to the heresy charge.

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And to do something that we did not think about doing, at least the vast majority of us did not think about doing before, and that is to elevate external sources of authority, specifically to mystic metaphysics and the

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Summa Theologica, to a much higher position than it ever had before.

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Certainly there were people within Protestantism, the Evangelical Seminary, Norman Geisler, even R .C. Sproul, mainly because of John Gerstner, who were big, big, big fans of Thomas Aquinas, but the vast majority of us were not, and many of us will never be.

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But that's been one of the major changes, and this web of disagreement, the past two, three years of it, has been primarily due to that emphasis upon a particular version of quote -unquote classical theology.

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That's where that has come from. The brothers who are on opposite sides of some of the questions asked above all confess one

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God in three persons. No one is openly espousing Arianism, or modalism, or tritheism.

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Well, I'm glad to hear that. But the problem is people are espousing positions on EFS, or simplicity, or inseparable operations.

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I'll stop just for a moment. It seems that simplicity and inseparable operations here are being defined not in a

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Biblical sense, but in a Thomistic sense. And I think there would be a lot of people on the other side who would say there is no

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Biblical doctrine of simplicity or inseparable operations. It has to be Thomistic. And then

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I think there are others that are trying to adjust to this new reality around them, and they just haven't, they're just not willing to come to that conclusion yet.

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But the problem is people are espousing positions on EFS, or simplicity, or inseparable operations that tend toward some of those great errors.

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And this is the key issue. When I responded to the

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EFS controversy in 2016, initially, one of my concerns was that it seemed to me that EFS would tend toward some form of subordinationism, not just in relationship, but in being.

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And for many, many decades, I had agreed with Calvin's gut feeling that unless you confess the son is autotheos, that he has aseity in himself, you cannot have a derived aseity.

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That just doesn't work. And again, one of the differences,

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I believe, in why different people are taking different perspectives on these things, is that in much of the academy today, interaction with non -Christian perspectives, or even interaction with Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, with Christian cults and isms, or religions outside of what would be identified as having any connection to Christianity at all, is very rare.

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And while Calvin would not have considered himself an expert on global religions or something like that, he did have to engage with those who were already casting doubts and questions upon the doctrine of the

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Trinity, and upon, well, everything in Christianity. You know, the Radical Reformation opened up the door to question everything.

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And he was thinking through these objections. He had to deal with Servetus long before he revealed who

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Servetus was, Michael Avila Nueva. And so, I honestly do believe, and it's not just because I'm a

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Christian apologist, and one that has been a Christian apologist for 40 years, but I honestly see that when we're talking about tending toward these great errors, that it's very helpful if you've actually engaged people who believe in those errors.

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To be able to know whether your gut feeling is correct, or just too much hot salsa over lunch.

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It can feel the same thing, but not actually have the same result. And so, when

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I hear people saying, well, you know, if you don't hold to Thomas's position, this is going to lead to an

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IS go, but it never has. And I can tell the people saying this don't know anybody that actually teaches the errors that they say this quote -unquote tends toward, which removes a lot of the credibility for saying that it tends towards such errors.

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When I read Vidu's discussion of inseparable operations,

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I go, and this is again where I'm constantly misrepresented. By the way, when you misrepresent things, when

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I hear someone repeating what allegedly they think that I've said, and it's not even close, then

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I know that there's something else operating in the situation.

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And what I have said about Vidu's discussion is not that he is a modalist, or the people who believe that are modalists.

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What I have said is you could never take this position into debate against modalism and hope to prevail and hope to be able to say anything that would help a modalist to come to understand the truth.

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So, just a matter of weeks ago in Louisiana, I had the opportunity to go to a wonderful small

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Baptist church in a small area in northern Louisiana and do a presentation on how the

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Bible presents the existence of the three divine persons and differentiates them.

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And you can do that. It can be done. It does not require you to stand upon your head.

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And it did not require me to ever quote Thomas Aquinas or anyone earlier than Thomas Aquinas.

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I didn't have to quote Augustine. I didn't have to quote Basil or Chrysostom or anybody else. I can let the apostles do that.

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And it helped people to understand. It helped people who were involved in Oneness theology to understand.

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And I'm sitting here telling you that a complex, convoluted— you have to learn 14 new

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Latin terms and 12 new Greek terms— presentation on the nature of God is not going to have the long -term effect upon Christ's sheep that opening his word to them will.

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It's one of my great concerns. And I am unashamed to say that.

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The only thing that hurts me is that so many people who would have applauded my saying that 15 years ago are the very same people trying to shoo people away from listening to me now.

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It's strange. So when we say these things, tend towards some of those great errors.

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We have to be very careful as to what we're saying. And that's why it's just so strange that what we do— what have we done when

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I've critiqued Craig Carter? We've put his book on the screen and read it. And we'll outline stuff.

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Okay? When we talked about Vito's— you put his book up there.

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You read it. You read sections from it. And then you interact with it.

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How about doing that on the other side? No, they don't want to do that. Don't listen to those folks.

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Just listen to us. That's problematic. No one is openly denying the

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Trinity. Well, good. I've had a few people get close to saying I was. But there are guys who are holding positions, the logical entailments of which do strike at the implications of historic, biblical

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Trinitarianism. There's the phrase. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Riccardi. Biblical Trinitarianism.

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And so we need to press hard after unity on these matters. Well, okay. I know

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I certainly have laid out why I feel that some of the positions being adopted by the

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Thomists logically entail problems with historic, biblical

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Trinitarianism. Okay? So, you bet. Make the argument.

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But make it biblical. Not, you just haven't read enough Thomas. If you just read enough

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Thomas, if you read this scholar and Thomas and that scholar, you'd understand all these things. That's what we get back all the time.

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All the time. Okay. But that incomprehensible

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God is not unknowable. He has revealed himself. Amen. And so we are to press after the

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Bible's answers to these questions. Yes, that means even Thomas, Basil, Gregory, Athanasius, Augustine.

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Do we hold all of them accountable? How? How do you do so?

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If you, again, have people who are saying, as Craig Carter has said, that the

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Christian doctrine of the Trinity achieves its highest development 1 ,200 years after the birth of Christ, in Thomas Aquinas, how do you test that claim by the

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Bible? How do you press after the Bible's answers to these questions? Because this is my big issue.

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And that is a consistent Thomistic position would say, the

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Bible doesn't address these things. We're past the Bible. We're into doctrinal development and the great tradition now.

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And I'm still a Baptist. And my believing

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Presbyterian brothers, with whom I disagree on infant baptism, will also agree with me that, for them, the only way to truly hold to believing infant baptism is from biblical categories and not traditional categories.

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This is what it's all about. This is where it all, this is where the rubber meets the road, is what will be the final source of authority that we will be utilizing.

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So we are to press after the Bible's answers to these questions, even under the sharpening of one another, who are on different sides of this issue.

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Yes, but it has to be the Bible's answers, not the Bible as forced into the strictures of a

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Thomistic theology. That's just absolutely necessary.

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But it is worth the long, difficult, wearying conversations with one another. There hasn't been a lot of conversations.

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For example, when I did an entire program walking through some of the claims of Craig Carter, for which he misrepresented me and then blocked me and stuff like that, that's not a conversation.

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And then the people pushing his material, they didn't engage in conversation.

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I didn't see any kind of response to what I said, other than, you're just digging in your heels.

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Okay, show me where I was wrong in my interpretation of what Craig Carter was saying, or my response to what he was saying.

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Silence. Nothing. And again, if you go, well, we're only talking about TMS here.

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Hey, I'm not the one that edited the journal that had him writing in it, which included a footnote referencing the book that I'm quoting from all the time on great tradition exegesis.

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It's right there in the TMS journal. Look it up for yourself. Spring of last year. Craig Carter's right there.

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Who invited him? Why was he invited? That might be a question to ask, huh?

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And then, I did an entire presentation on Reformed Biblicism, and I grounded it, and I'm going to do some more on this in the future, by the way.

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There's another excellent source that's been pointed out to me by someone else that I will have to give credit to, because that is something you need to do.

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You need to give credit to your sources. But I almost hesitate to do so simply because I don't want to get that person in trouble.

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But, be it as it may, I built that entire presentation, which

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I know has been mocked by certain people in leadership at Masters, sadly. Not by interacting with it, but just mocking it.

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I did that whole thing by putting an important key section of Calvin's response to Sadaletto on the screen and walking through it, putting it in its context, its historical context, what was going on with Sadaletto.

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Sadaletto, important person. He set up the Council of Trent. That was years later, but a vitally important person in Roman Catholic history, and a great scholar on the

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Roman Catholic side. And here is interaction. Here is an excellent historical source for the definition of Reformed Biblicism.

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I have not seen anything in response to that. Nothing. Mockery? Sure.

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Actually walking through Sadaletto? No one will touch you with a 10 -foot pole. So, where are these conversations?

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And if what I'm being told by many independent sources is that men who

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I've done conferences with and everything over the years are telling people, don't listen to James White.

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He's gone off the deep end. Who's not having the conversation? If you want to say

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I've gone off the deep end, let's debate it. Oh, come to California. You know,

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I'm not sure if I jumped in my truck and head to California right now whether I'd beat the Chinese troops there.

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Okay? I mean, that's how bad things are over there. But there are other places we could do that. There are other places that would be willing to do it.

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There really would. Anyways, but it is worth the long, difficult, wearying conversations with one another.

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It's not worth the Twitter bickering, right? Cantankerous, snark -filled snipes on the internet edify no one?

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Boy, I'll be honest with you. I happen to know. I'm going to name names here. I'm going to be straight up front with you.

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I'm going to be honest with you here. I know that Mike Riccardi was meeting with Richard Braselis yesterday on the campus.

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And you want snark? Richard Braselis is now the king of snark. And I tried to reason with Richard.

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I tried to say, Richard, back up. Dude, don't use solo scriptura as a punchline in a joke.

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Well, it doesn't change anything. So, where's the snark coming from?

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Cantankerous, snark -filled snipes on the internet edify no one? And those who engage that way show themselves too immature for the task of doing theology at all.

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And frankly, they shouldn't be taken seriously. I don't know who he's referring to. But, okay.

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But if we can get face -to -face, if we can get voice -to -voice, pen -to -pen with one another, and press one another to be scrupulous in our exegesis and our reasoning,

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Who has been begging for exegesis since December of 2021?

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Who? Hi! Who's been offering exegesis?

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Who else has been offering great tradition exegesis? Press one another to be scrupulous in our exegesis and in our reasoning and a spirit of brotherhood eager to preserve the unity of the

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Spirit and the bond of peace, believing the best about those whom we fully acknowledge are our brothers in the Lord and trusting in the

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Spirit of God, will do his work of illumining the truth to those who seek him diligently. If we can do that, it will be worth it.

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That sounds great! That does not explain at least two meetings that I know of over the past year where I was one of the primary subjects of this conversation.

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I don't have secret meetings with people like that. So, I just hope that if you're involved with that, you might go,

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Ooh, I'm uncomfortable with this. That would be a good thing to be uncomfortable with. First, I want to...

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So the two things, by the way, here's where he lines that up. First, I want to comment on methodology. Second, I want to address the metaphysics that underlie these discussions.

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That was the first half hour. It really broke into parts fairly easily. So, methodology and metaphysics.

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Those are the issues. It cannot go without saying that I am, that we all ought to be passionately committed to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

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Amen. That the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments are the sole infallible authority on all matters of Christian doctrine.

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Amen. That the Bible reigns as the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined.

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Exactly. The Norma Normata. But there's a vast difference between saying

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Sola Scriptura and doing Sola Scriptura. A vast difference.

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And what I'm discovering is when you do Sola Scriptura, especially when you apply it to Thomas Aquinas, what you'll be accused of is

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Sola Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura. That's what Rome does. That's what the

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Neo -Thomas do. They've done it over and over again over the past couple of years.

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And by which all creeds and confessions, all the church fathers, and all the teachers throughout church history are to be examined.

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Including Thomas Aquinas and his clear, obvious, pretty much acknowledged by everybody dependence upon a commitment to Aristotle's metaphysical categories which were based on Aristotle's theology of God.

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Which was absolutely aberrant. Not just sub -biblical, but anti -biblical.

41:19

And the result is that you have certain aspects of the fullness of divine revelation that simply have to be muted to fit

41:30

Aristotle's perspectives. And that comes through no matter how much you love

41:36

Thomas. He didn't escape those strictures. And the question is, how would you even know?

41:45

How can you test Thomas? I have sat in this chair and I have read,

41:54

I've stood in the studio over there and I've put up on the screen the words of Thomas Aquinas on numerous different topics.

42:03

Read them in context. Have nobody say, well, no, they'll always say you just haven't read enough

42:10

Thomas. R. Scott Clarke did that this last week. You just haven't read enough Thomas. Okay.

42:18

But never have I had anyone come back and say no, no, no, you misquoted him here or this context changed.

42:25

Never. When I walk through his face -plantingly bad comments in Romans chapter 4 or seeing activities the

42:41

Virgin Mary in the book of Isaiah. We're not talking about Isaiah 7 either. Silence.

42:48

Just quietness on the other side. So yes, all teachers throughout church history are to be examined.

42:59

That means their conclusions cannot form the framework that then becomes necessary for the interpretation of Scripture.

43:09

Right? Right? So I would assume that anyone agreeing with Dr.

43:16

Riccardi here would just break out in hives at Craig Carter's insistence that Nicene Orthodoxy needs to be prior to the reading of the text of the

43:30

New Testament, right? Because all those creeds, all those confessions need to be tested by Scripture but if you can't understand the

43:38

Scripture without those creeds and confessions then you can't test those creeds and confessions, right? We can't skip over this part, guys.

43:46

You've got to answer this. You've got to be able to say that one's prior to the other.

43:54

Okay. We don't believe in any doctrine simply because it was codified in a creed or taught by a preferred theologian.

44:01

Amen. You see, we have to start here. Have to agree with that.

44:10

But if you're a great traditionalist, you can't. And you would say it leads to anarchy.

44:17

Right? You would. We believe the theology we believe because we have been convinced that such doctrine is biblical.

44:26

That's the only way to be a Baptist. If you're going to be a great traditionist, if you're going to be...

44:32

Hey, I've had Reformed Baptists you know, pushing the great tradition stuff and we've got to get connected to this stuff and this is the only way to defend the

44:41

Trinity. I've had them say that. You can't be a

44:47

Baptist if you believe that. You will not be a Baptist if you believe that. Credo -Baptism is not the great tradition.

44:54

I think it's much earlier than the great tradition but that's the whole point. Once you believe you need the great tradition and once you accept its authority and its interpretational function there's no way to examine it.

45:08

You're stuck at that point. It's just there. That it is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence maybe to do some

45:17

Scripture. I would much rather use the Baptist way of saying that because I've heard good and necessary consequence used for a lot of stuff.

45:27

There's a better way of putting that. At the same time, I am also convinced and you ought also be convinced that the creeds of Nicaea in 381 and Chalcon 451

45:35

Why not say Constantinople? They're going to get confused if they look up Nicaea 381 and it's 325.

45:42

Anyway, in Chalcon 451 are accurate expressions, expositions of the biblical teaching on the triunity of God and on the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in Christ.

45:51

Okay. Fine. Make the biblical defense of Nicaea and Chalcedon as I have done for many, many years.

46:02

But recognize that what you're defending is biblical theology and that in so doing, in looking at either of those councils, you are purposefully and openly not accepting the theology and authority of the canons and decrees that come from the same councils.

46:27

And I'm not even talking about Nicaea 2. I mean, obviously that's way, way out there.

46:33

Much farther down the road. But it's the same principle. Why do we reject

46:38

Nicaea 2? Because it's hilariously unbiblical. Well, who are you to do that?

46:47

So we have to be consistent. We have to recognize we are being biblicist even with Nicaea and Chalcedon.

46:56

Right? I've met many a person who had no earthly idea what

47:02

Nicaea... What's the 6th canon of the Council of Nicaea? If .01

47:08

% of evangelicals could answer that question off the top of their head, I'd be stunned. Okay?

47:16

So we by nature have to be consistent.

47:23

We are being biblicist in regards to our view of ecclesiology, sacramentology, baptism, obviously.

47:30

All of these things, we're being biblicist. Is there a reason why we shouldn't be biblicist on everything?

47:38

Is every speculation say, from the Cappadocian fathers, infallible doctrine for us now?

47:46

Because I've read church history for years and years and years and when I would read stuff

47:52

I would critically go It's not an argument

47:58

I would ever use in a debate. I appreciate that he thought that was great insight, but it would be indefensible biblically and I think, for example, if it was an interpretation of a

48:13

Pauline text or something like that, sometimes I've gone Man, Paul would have no idea how he came up with that from what he said.

48:21

Because unfortunately origin influenced a lot of people after him including

48:26

Augustine. Every time I run across some kind of you know, where Augustine's throwing

48:33

Genesis under the bus because he just can't believe all that literal stuff in Genesis and because of the neoplatonism that was part and parcel of his every bone in his body

48:49

I just learned a long time ago to read him and go, okay so he had a different view on that don't have to but now all of a sudden other people are coming along and going oh but we need to we need to be

49:04

Christian Platonists today no we don't so just be self evidently clear on what the source of authority for Nicaea and Chalcedon actually are and that even then we are rejecting elements of those councils we're only accepting the creedal statement and by the way

49:26

Nicaea was rejected for 40 years after it was promulgated and Chalcedon never created the unity it was intended to create there are still major churches existing today that reject

49:42

Chalcedon it did not accomplish what it was it hoped to accomplish at the time scripture alone is the norming norm which is not normed but Nicaea and Chalcedon are norms of the

49:57

Christian faith you mean the creeds not the councils they are not on the same level of scripture that's right neither can they be prior to scripture they themselves are to be normed by scripture but how what does it look like to norm

50:20

Chalcedon by scripture but as biblically accurate summaries you have to prove the biblically accurate part if we're going to use these words then you but as biblically accurate summaries that have stood the test of the centuries yes and no there have been many centuries when they were not being tested where there was no meaningful discussion going on so be careful about things tested by the centuries claims when you can go through entire periods of time where nobody was questioning it anyways they are more normative for our faith than say our favorite preacher, bible commentator, or podcaster some people saw podcaster aimed my direction

51:14

I don't know but it would be true they certainly are you don't just throw you don't take down a wall without knowing why it was put there no question about it but how in what meaningful way can you norm

51:35

Chalcedon by scripture since we're talking about these things this is how iron sharpens iron how does it work functionally what does that look like and observing that friends is not a concession to the

51:54

Roman Catholic doctrine of traditionalism if that's a shot my direction then it shows misunderstanding on Riccardi's part of what

52:03

I have said because what I am seeing people doing what Craig Carter does do yes same

52:10

Craig Carter who wrote for the Mass Seminary Journal is a form of traditionalism his definition of great tradition exegesis is a form of traditionalism there's no question about that and again to say that there has been a development of doctrine that was completed by Thomas so 1200 years you cannot believe in sola scriptura and say that at the same time it's not possible well okay let me change that it is only possible to say that by never wandering outside the ivy covered walls of academia and taking any of this into the real world and seeking to defend it in the real world you can do it as long as you can hide behind all the academic jitter chatter but you can't do it any other way um and observing that friends is not a concession to the

53:15

Roman Catholic doctrine of traditionalism it's simply agreeing with a very central Reformation teaching that the creeds of Nicene and Chalcedon were biblical in what they affirmed at the

53:27

Reformation that was an issue in other words how do you determine what's biblical who gets to interpret scripture and Rome says you can't interpret scripture outside of her tradition

53:45

Eastern Orthodoxy certainly says the same thing and if you're saying that you have to have for example a

53:53

Nicene creedal framework to even start with the New Testament you're saying the same thing you're not believing in sola scriptura in any of those contexts the source of authority becomes inverted um so it's wonderful to say they were biblical in what they affirmed but you have to then understand what you need to be able to do to be able to defend that statement and to demonstrate that something is biblical that's that's the key there um without confusion, without change, without division, without separation concurring in one person those are biblical declarations and so insisting on fidelity to the creeds in this case is insisting on fidelity to the bible but they are biblical declarations first which then provide the foundation for the creeds being considered to be biblical we have to always observe the flow of where does the truth come from what is the source how is it coming to us how do we proclaim it to others and once that gets um distracted it becomes problematic

55:20

I'm not arguing for blind loyalty to the great tradition, whatever that means whatever that means no one who does argue for traditional authority can ever give you a consistent objective definition of what tradition actually is but I am saying that if I can avoid putting myself in a place where I can't trace my convictions on the trinity and on the person of Christ through the steady stream of historic

55:50

Christianity and if in so doing I wind up making the same arguments that the heretics of history made even if I'm able to sort of ward myself off from following all the way to their conclusions, if I can avoid that,

56:03

I want to avoid that sounds good, how do you do it on baptism? how do you do it on baptism?

56:10

I mean I can, obviously I've made a case over and over again for primitive credo baptism but if you want to trace an unbroken chain, how are you going to do that?

56:23

how about ecclesiology? how about something without priests and prelates and differentiation of bishops and presbyters and stuff like that do we have the same standard there?

56:39

if not, why not? every biblicist has to face this reality and I just go, gotta be consistent gotta be consistent and that means that we can't be impatient with the use of extra biblical terminology in these trinity debates

56:59

I agree I'm sure

57:04

Dr. Riccardi read The Forgotten Trinity a long, long time ago and was probably introduced to the lengthy citation that I provided from Warfield by reading that book about the propriety of describing biblical teachings accurately even if we have to use unbiblical language no problem it is necessary to use terminology that doesn't appear in scripture in order to explain precisely what scripture does and does not mean by the language it does use that was

57:34

Warfield's argument that I quoted in The Forgotten Trinity however it would not be

57:43

Warfield's position or mine that that is due to anything lacking in scripture it is due to the fact that we have to bring the scriptural teaching of the doctrine of the trinity into contact with all sorts of new contexts that arise outside of that which the apostles themselves faced in a relatively small geographic area in a relatively small period of time in the early church but it does not open the door for the importation of metaphysical categories derived from Aristotle via Thomas that then provides a stricture to what scripture can and cannot mean two completely different things there and so the great danger there is a danger in using unbiblical language and that is that you can use that as a mechanism to bring in definitions and concepts that have no origin whatsoever in apostolic thought or in any type of biblical revelation maybe a better way to put that do do do do do do do whatever is so revealed in the scripture this is a quotation um from Owen whatever is so revealed in the scripture is no less true and divine that whatever necessarily flows from it for how far so ever the lines be drawn and extended from truth can follow and ensue nothing but what is true also in other words the logical implications of divinely revealed truth are no less divinely revealed nor less true than the scriptural principle from which it is deduced that is true as far as the accuracy of the reasoning can take us so again early on in this dispute in the other studio

59:36

I used the illustration of the headlights of the car and those headlights only go out so far and if you stand out there you sort of know where that line is where things start getting fuzzy up to a certain point you know if there was a big old pothole in the road you'd see it but you get past a certain point and you're not certain when you're taking the next step whether there's a pothole there or not because there's just not enough light left and it's out there when you get to the end of what divine revelation can tell us that you start dealing with speculation and you start trying to put things together and you start trying to stitch things together and you can up to a point but there simply comes a point and Calvin recognized this

01:00:24

God's made an end of speaking we do too we have to make an end of speaking here but the temptation is to go nope nope as long as we accept this category of thought or that category of thought then that must mean we have to go here we have to go there and church history is littered with the broken axles that resulted from driving that direction and hitting that pothole and you got stuck in it there you go so there is if it's a truly logical implication and I would want something even stronger than implication because there can be implications and then there are necessary implications then we have to go from there it's not disagreement that the biblical text says the son is consubstantial with the father it's a disagreement about what the implications of the son's consubstantiality with the father are and what those implications cannot be well that's especially true in regards to EFS it's not in regards to to mystic simplicity or to mystic inseparable operations if you believe that the cardinal confessions of Christian faith are that the only true

01:01:43

God is three persons subsisting in one nature and that Christ our savior is one person subsisting in two natures then you are necessarily interested at the most basic level in defining what a person is and what a nature is it's true you cannot avoid metaphysics but you must insist that all the metaphysical categories be grounded in the necessary meaning of scriptural texts so when

01:02:14

I when I help oneness people to see in John 17 5 that you have two divine persons speaking

01:02:32

I derive that from the use of personal pronouns references to time references to relationship and so you come to conclusions from that but they're derived from the contextual meaning of the words as they're found in the biblical text itself the danger

01:02:53

I'm seeing is when when people start with categories they have brought in from philosophy and end up turning the text of scripture on its head and reading stuff into you know

01:03:10

Matthew 24 or 36 tells this about the spirit it never mentions the spirit ah but if we start here see that's that's where the danger is and that's when it becomes indefensible because again you take it out of the academy and into the real world and you discover it's a problem and this means that every

01:03:32

Christian is involved in the study of metaphysics yes biblical metaphysics first and foremost so first of all we need to understand that the decision before us is not the bible alone or the bible plus metaphysics the question is what kind of metaphysics does the bible require us to believe or far far better does the bible actually provide to us by its own argumentation you see when you say it require us to believe that leaves the door open that well we need to derive this from someplace else from some other source or we need to um you know natural revelation and natural theology and that's that was the big thing for like natural theology that's why we can go ahead and use

01:04:18

Plato and we can use because all truth is God's truth see that's where the danger lies then while a person is a who a nature is a what again illustrations that I used long ago and now

01:04:38

I have been attacked for using them so I would just say Dr. Riccardi be careful who you're having lunch with in the future you might find yourself under attack for utilizing these categories that yes we've been using for a long time with the jettisoning of the cornerstone of Christian doctrine came the wholesale rejection of the

01:05:03

Christian account of metaphysics now he's talking about the alleged influence of the

01:05:10

Enlightenment and of course the Enlightenment has tremendous implications but they're very broad implications such a major production of differing perspectives and differing views and people go yeah we didn't have that before the

01:05:29

Reformation it's all the Reformation's fault yeah the Inquisition helps but that wouldn't have lasted

01:05:38

I'm just so thankful that that Uniview that was going to break down because the

01:05:45

Renaissance one way or the other broke down with an explosion of the

01:05:50

Gospel of Grace now yes that has resulted in the secularism we see in Europe and the

01:05:58

West today that wasn't because of the Gospel of Grace and Rome's one view could not have fought that off for much longer one way or the other but that doesn't mean that everything that had been decided through the medieval period has to be accepted lock, stock, and barrel and if we just go back to that everything's going to be fine it didn't produce a lot of light during the medieval period that's why post -Tenebrous

01:06:33

Lux after the darkness, light it's not after darkness, darkness but anyway

01:06:40

I know there was yeah here we go and so he goes on to say and this is a lot of doles all stuff the persons of the

01:06:52

Trinity began to be conceived of as a society of personalities not three who's subsisting in a single what but three centers of consciousness each performing their own discrete operations by virtue of their distinct personhood and so here we go into again and what really

01:07:11

I'll be honest irks me is that there should only be in meaningful, believing worshipful

01:07:19

Christian discussion here, this should not be where we all go wandering off into our own little metaphysical corners and start quoting our own favorite scholars on this and just out of the other thing of all places this is the one place to be diving deeply into the text of scripture and you go well there's no text there's no text of scripture that specifically addresses these terms but this is why

01:07:49

I've been so emphasizing the tremendous texts that do show us the divine persons interacting with one another this should not be where we are doing human philosophy this should be where we are going the deepest into the text of scripture of any place else right here right now at this point and we know that God's not a family we know we don't have three gods running around there's only one

01:08:26

God Yahweh and so the fact that that one name is used of Father, Son, and Spirit should provide us that protection of the fact there's only one

01:08:39

God but what

01:08:44

I'm seeing happening and what I simply cannot follow is when you then fundamentally debilitate disembowel the richness of the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit and when you say they're just doing the same thing then there is no relationship if you have three robots androids that are programmed to do the exact same thing and they just do the exact same thing at different times that's not a relationship they cannot have a relationship with one another the

01:09:29

Bible shows us that we need to have terminology and understanding big enough for Scripture not small enough for Thomas.

01:09:43

Can anyone really argue that? Because I have not again, maybe it's all happening at those special meetings but I haven't seen anyone coming out and doing anything on Philippians 2

01:10:03

John 17 other than deflect not actually pulling from the text and going here, let's put this with this let's allow

01:10:15

Scripture to be I don't see that happening why? After the

01:10:24

Enlightenment you had professing Christian theologians who knew they had to affirm the ancient formulas of three persons in one nature and one person in two natures but who had been duped duped into redefining person and nature in such a way that would have been unrecognizable to the very men who gave us these formulations strong words not sure who he's referring to and if you're going to use that kind of strong language

01:10:48

I would highly recommend being specific that was one of my problems

01:10:54

Dolezal's book was he lumped everybody into social Trinitarianism it didn't matter how wildly different their views were throw them all in one side and the other side and that's just totally unhelpful it's not accurate, it's not helpful so who is this being duped?

01:11:16

but then the other thing is well, you know, I've heard it over and over again if you're not holding

01:11:21

Aquinas' doctrine then people in the ancient world they would have no idea they wouldn't even recognize what you're teaching as Christian theology warning!

01:11:36

if they came to your church, they wouldn't recognize it either if they watched a baptismal service they wouldn't recognize it either so you seemingly don't have a problem over there but you do over there if you're going to be consistent then the issue needs to be derived from scripture yeah, from the

01:11:57

Bible the Norma Normata well that redefined unbelieving enlightenment metaphysics continued to hold sway in many conservative theological circles through the 19th and 20th centuries calling it unbelieving

01:12:15

I think is completely unhelpful prejudicial and honestly it really seems to me that there is a movement today and I hope

01:12:25

Michael Carty is not a part of it but there is a movement today and I see people saying this all the time man, the 20th century the theology of the 20th century is horrible

01:12:38

I'm just so glad that we're resourcing all this stuff it was just from their perspective thanks to Richard Muller Post -Tenebrous

01:12:48

Lux only has a meaning starting about 2010 because it was just darkness back then

01:12:59

John MacArthur evidently started his entire ministry in darkness because that's the 20th century nobody knew what they were doing back then nobody knew what they were doing until the past few years but now

01:13:16

I suspect unknowingly in many cases and especially as of late it was the theological air that so many of us have breathed even as late as the first quarter of the 21st century ah yes, but now now after the darkness of the 20th and even first quarter of the 21st century now light has dawned and if just James White would just get with the program and not dig in and double down he didn't say that but in God's kindness several theologians and historians have begun to recognize this metaphysical shift had taken place and they have sought to discover just when and how the project of Christian theology had gone off course we have

01:14:02

Richard Muller we have Dolezal we have come to Craig Carter I guess we've come to understand in fact we've got a bunch of Roman Catholic theologians too that we are more than happy to refer our students to at least at Midwestern and having discovered it they've begun to disentangle the enlightenment metaphysics that had been taught was the metaphysics of historic

01:14:32

Christianity and they began to recover the metaphysics of those who bequeathed to us the cardinal formulas that we regard as the foundations of our religion.

01:14:41

Do you hear that sentence? I'm not sure that Dr. Riccardi heard that sentence. The metaphysics of who?

01:14:51

Not the apostles not the norma normata not the scriptures but of those who bequeathed to us the cardinal formulas that we regard as the foundations of our religion.

01:15:02

But wait a minute I thought earlier you said that we needed to be able to analyze and norm even the creeds but that's not what you just said here.

01:15:15

There's where the problem lies. There's where the problem lies The result has been this movement of theological retrieval that is among us and we're a part of it.

01:15:25

We're on board A movement that is granted not without its own problems.

01:15:31

Yeah I don't think it's thought itself through yet as to what its final sources of authority will be and seemingly is not happy to be challenged to do so A movement that is granted not without its own problems not without its own flaws not without its own excesses.

01:15:48

How do we determine that? And failures of articulation There's not been a lot of articulation.

01:15:55

But a movement that nevertheless is seeking to unite our fundamental confessions of the triunity of God and the hypostatic union of Christ.

01:16:02

The confessions which virtually everyone wants to affirm to unite those the definitions that the framers of those formulas were using when they gave those formulas to us which may seem either ignorant or which many seem either ignorant of or suspicious of.

01:16:21

So my simple question again is why do we stop there? Why don't we test them by an even higher standard?

01:16:35

Because for a lot of people they'll say well you know post -Nicene orthodoxy yeah yay well

01:16:43

Calvin didn't think he was under. Oh Calvin really wasn't much of a Trinitarian theologian anyways.

01:16:49

That's I've heard you've heard people say it. You've heard people say it. Well maybe you've heard people say it.

01:16:57

But if we're going to be consistent um when I read the Cappadocian Fathers Oh great stuff.

01:17:05

Oh not so great stuff. Oh great stuff. Oh not so great stuff. Again what does it sound like?

01:17:14

How does it work to actually do what you're saying needs to be done? Had said earlier. But now we get to this part.

01:17:21

It's we're only going back to that particular point which provides us with a tradition right?

01:17:30

Yeah. It makes sense that some perceive our insistence upon doctrines like inseparable operations as yielding ground toward modalism.

01:17:45

Okay one more time let's make this clear Adonis Vedu should never debate a well -read modalist because he has compromised biblical categories with Thomistic metaphysics that cripples the ability to demonstrate the existence of the divine person is biblical.

01:18:11

Is that easier? Is that more straightforward? Was that understandable? Do I need to say that more slowly? Maybe need to make it more slowly?

01:18:18

Okay. Um the simplistic erroneous responses to where I've been coming from have been oh

01:18:29

James White saying everyone's becoming a Roman Catholic oh James White saying if you believe this you're going to become a modalist. When I hear somebody saying that I know you're not listening and you're not being honest but you see you need to understand something.

01:18:41

I think the majority of people out there that are concerned about this are on our side.

01:18:46

They're not on your side. They don't bang their drums and go on social media to necessarily wage campaigns and stuff like that.

01:18:57

But they're listening and they're going yeah this is what we've always believed and there's definitely changes being made here and um and they're seeing it.

01:19:07

And so they're hearing what I'm saying. I'm not saying that if you hold to Thomistic inseparable operations that you are a modalist.

01:19:17

I'm saying that by restricting the breadth of divine revelation into Thomistic categories which are not big enough for the richness of that revelation, you are putting yourself in a position to where you will never be able to engage modalism in any successful fashion to the glory of God.

01:19:41

There's the issue. You wanted to actually... I want to chime in here Ladies and gentlemen, just so you know that Rich Pierce has not fallen asleep during the course of this lengthy program.

01:19:50

Not at all. The Rich Camp has been activated. I will have you know zero frames have dropped from this webcast our maiden voyage here really using

01:20:02

OBS and Odyssey for the last hour and 23 minutes now.

01:20:08

What does any of this have to do with modalism? Smooth sailing. I just want to throw that out there. You're doing this so I can take a drink?

01:20:14

There you go. Go with that. There you go. Keep thinking that. You talk about the misrepresentations and I want to call out a

01:20:25

Reformed Baptist pastor from New Zealand by the name of Matthew Johnson who just a few minutes ago apparently is listening to this program right now.

01:20:34

Hi Matthew, how are you? My name is Rich. Anyway, Dr. James White doesn't hesitate to call inseparable operations and simplicity

01:20:44

Thomistic. That's quite amazing he says and then he tags you. I didn't see it.

01:20:51

I know because you're focused on what's going on. But what did I actually say? I said the Thomistic versions of simplicity and inseparable operations and I said that there is a non -Thomistic

01:21:03

Biblical version of those things. See they don't even listen. This is also part of the problem and I've been saying this for the last couple weeks since Shepherds Conference and I got the handout of Dr.

01:21:15

Riccardi's presentation and I got to that section where he talked about talking past each other and I just thought wow okay here he's really going to get into a nitty gritty and then he goes those who reject inseparable operations say it leads to modalism.

01:21:32

That was under the category of talking past each other. Dr. Riccardi, you didn't name the names except from what

01:21:42

I heard Grudemann Ware, that was the only names that were mentioned here. I think we're talking past...

01:21:50

In the presentations, plenty of folks that were there heard more than that. Not from Riccardi in the recording but behind the scenes.

01:21:57

The presentation that my pastor was part of he said all he heard was Grudemann Ware.

01:22:03

The one that I heard that was taped off the room only Grudemann Ware was ever mentioned but the point is these guys and so as I'm going to say it

01:22:14

Matthew Johnston, pastor Reformed Baptist pastor from New Zealand isn't interested in a direct honest conversation because you'd rather just talk past it because if that's your evaluation of what you just said it's not honest sir.

01:22:29

It's not honest and this needs to stop. So there you go.

01:22:35

We gave me the opportunity to get a drink after an hour and twenty minutes of speaking to boast about how good a job

01:22:46

Rich has done in setting up the new software when I predicted disaster in ten minutes.

01:22:52

Now it hasn't been posted yet so the possibility of it all simply disappearing into the ether is still there but if you're going to tweet silly stuff during the program

01:23:07

I'm not going to see it I don't have time to be I see a few things scrolling by as it goes on.

01:23:15

I have it refreshing every two and a half minutes but the likelihood is I'm not going to see it but if you say silly things

01:23:22

Rich will catch you and Rich has the Rich Cam so don't be silly because that's not what

01:23:27

I said Let me try it one more time for the folks in New Zealand I mean look you're so far down south there you're constantly hanging out your head's hanging out of the space because you're upside down and so this will be helpful for you

01:23:46

There is a biblically defensible doctrine of divine simplicity that I believe in and in fact am published in presenting from years before all this controversy started and then there's

01:24:02

Thomas' view and there is a biblically defensible concept of the unity and my understanding is that some people call this soft inseparable operations of the perfect unity of Father, Son and Spirit in doing all they do but that's not the constricted

01:24:26

Thomistic concept that leads to the confusion seen in Vidu's book and definitions

01:24:34

If you're going to be honest then you have to deal with those distinctions. If you're not going to deal with those distinctions then you're just promoting a perspective and don't care what the other side has to say.

01:24:43

So we don't want to do that So back to the thing here because I still have... How long can this thing go?

01:24:50

Ha ha ha Okay Inseparable operations teaches that since the divine nature is the principle by which the three persons act, therefore

01:24:59

God's external acts, like his nature, are inseparable or indivisible. That doctrine was formulated in order to safeguard the unity of God's nature and to protect against tritheism

01:25:10

How about we formulate our doctrines based on what Scripture says not what we think is a danger

01:25:17

Because see, I'd have Scripture say things a lot differently. It would be easier to defend the doctrine of the

01:25:23

Trinity if we just had chapters on the Trinity That's not how God revealed it Okay?

01:25:29

So if it's true the doctrine was formulated in order to do something then the question is so it wasn't forced upon us by the consistent handling of the text of Scripture.

01:25:42

There's the problem There's the problem That's the issue right there.

01:25:47

Bing bing bing bing bing Protect against tritheism

01:25:52

Yeah, that is the... I'm telling you, we are having to deal just with a rash of tritheism

01:26:00

I mean, I've written 20 tracts recently against tritheism No, actually

01:26:05

I haven't I was actually I've got a beautiful picture beautiful picture of me and two of my granddaughters at the

01:26:16

Mesa Easter pageant Saturday night Oh, that was wonderful Yeah, I had a nasty security guard call me a liar.

01:26:25

Man, he went after some more missionaries He's a Mormon. Oh, I'm glad I'm not those missionaries.

01:26:31

I think the Danites took them out and they may never be seen again It was fascinating But they're not even tritheists

01:26:43

They're polytheists I've never found a tritheist. I don't even know what one looks like But now all of a sudden it's the biggest danger in the world

01:26:52

We can't find any of these people but tritheism is the greatest danger in the world People say, oh, you're a tritheist

01:27:00

And I go How many hours have you spent defending monotheism with Muslims, Mormons anybody else

01:27:13

Probably one one thousandth of what I have. Don't you dare slander me like that That's why most of the conversation takes place in the hallways away from microphones and not in front of me.

01:27:30

Because you know if you're going to make that accusation I'm going to make you back it up because I should

01:27:39

But because some are employing the enlightenment metaphysics which confuses person and nature they hear in several operations which protects the singularity of God's nature as if it erases the distinctions between the persons and affirms singularity of personhood, which is what?

01:27:54

Modalism No That's not what I'm hearing What I'm hearing is an enforced metaphysical eisegesis that does not recognize the depth of the interaction of the divine persons

01:28:11

And if you can't have interaction between divine persons because they're all doing the same thing anyways then your metaphysics is not coming from the

01:28:20

Bible and it's causing you to misinterpret the Bible And so people hear orthodox interpretations

01:28:26

Ah here we go, here's one that was aimed directly at me And so people hear orthodox interpretations of Matthew 24 -36 for example that while the son was ignorant of the day or the hour of his return according to his human nature but according to his divine nature he did know the day and the hour of his return they hear that and say that's

01:28:42

Nestorianism I have never said that by the way And I am the only person that I know of at least in any kind of public context that's talked about Matthew 24 -36

01:28:55

And the funny thing is up until the past couple of years everybody else was more than happy to stay away from Matthew 24 -36

01:29:06

When people would ask questions like that like at a conference or something like that I can't tell you how many hours

01:29:13

I have spent in Q &As, at conferences And when that question comes up, everybody else on the panel goes

01:29:22

And they're looking at me They're looking at me So I don't know what this orthodox interpretation was

01:29:32

And if you want to say, if you want to give a theological exegesis,

01:29:38

I'm sorry, a theological interpretation, a theological conclusion of Matthew 24 -36

01:29:45

Fine But don't pretend that that's what Matthew was communicating. That's as bad as the guys that say that, hey, you can go to Matthew 24 -36 and find out stuff about the

01:29:54

Holy Spirit of God That's eisegesis That's eisegesis

01:30:00

That's not supposed to be happening at schools that used to be proud of being biblicists

01:30:09

That makes Christ two persons, the same person can't know and not know the same thing at the same time. Well, yes, ordinarily the same person can't subsist in a divine nature and a human nature at the same time either

01:30:19

But they hear that. Enlightenment metaphysics hears what two natures sound like, and they think that'll make two persons.

01:30:24

So the point is if Reformed Evangelicals are going to get past the Twitter bickering, I guess I guess if I'm doing it it's

01:30:31

Twitter bickering. If they're doing it in secret meetings, it's not And the podcast sniping

01:30:37

Hello! of the present moment, we have to be willing to stop and listen long enough to consider for all of our protestations that we believe in three persons in one nature, and two natures in one person

01:30:48

Here we're using definitions of person and nature that would have been unrecognizable to Orthodox theology before the 18th century

01:30:56

The point is, what do those words mean in this book right here which you said is the

01:31:04

Norma Normata And the question is is that what you can defend?

01:31:10

Honestly, Dr. Riccardi Will you stand in a debate and say that the meaning when

01:31:19

Matthew wrote those words was what you say it is? Not my final conclusion looking at all the canon of Scripture is that it's best to understand that in this context

01:31:32

Okay, if you want to say that don't tell me that's what Matthew 24 -36 means and don't get yourself into debate with a

01:31:39

Muslim where you have to answer that question Some of us take this stuff outside of the academy, into the real world

01:31:49

And you've got to answer that question, and that's not going to be a proper answer That's not going to get you anywhere

01:31:56

They're going to say, well that's real nice but you're telling us that's what Matthew meant?

01:32:03

How are you going to turn around and hold them accountable when they twist what Matthew said?

01:32:12

You've got to be consistent You've got to be consistent So I It's possible, because I can't believe the stuff that I'm hearing, that people are saying to other people at various schools

01:32:24

Did you hear James White said this and James White said that? And I hear it and I'm like This is worse than kids playing the telephone game

01:32:34

It goes around the circle and by the time it comes out, it's wacky But this kind of You know

01:32:45

James White saying we're all a bunch of historians. James White says we're all going to become Roman Catholics. I've never said anything like it

01:32:51

But I have said that when you elevate Thomas Aquinas to the greatest theologian that's ever lived, it's highly likely that you're going to have people who are going to read the rest of Thomas And they're going to realize his theology is consistent

01:33:08

And so they're going to go, well if his theology was this Theology proper was this, hmm

01:33:13

Here's the soteriology, here's the ecclesiology Here's the sacramentology, and if he's the greatest Christian theologian ever

01:33:19

I've never actually had to deal with this stuff before Now you see, when you put it that way most common sense folks go

01:33:30

Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh Right? But see, when you go, well here's the

01:33:37

And that's what a bunch of people have been doing in the snarky Twittersphere That if you say anything against Thomas, you're just saying we're all going to become a bunch of Roman Catholics Never said it

01:33:50

Never said it. Never said anything close to it But I have laid out very, very, very, very, very clearly that logically there is a progression

01:34:02

And if you're not clear as to why you're criticizing Thomas in one area, when you're accepting him in another area, you're opening the door to all sorts of things like that You really are

01:34:18

Does this or that definition of person cohere with scriptural teaching? Does this or that definition of nature arise from a coherent holding together of all the biblical data?

01:34:26

Well, there you go Thomas's doesn't It's too restrictive because it starts with the wrong

01:34:34

God by Aristotle But again, I just I challenge all of you

01:34:42

It's one thing to say, biblical data How are you going to do this? How is it going to work out?

01:34:50

That's the question Okay, wow An hour and a half, yay

01:34:57

Really quickly, I've got to be real quick here Let's go over here because I've got all this over on the other screen

01:35:04

I don't want to make anything break, by the way But it worked Alright, I've got that apple cider vinegar going again

01:35:19

When you first hit that I'm not sure it really helps you speak Derek Bright, doctoral student

01:35:27

Puritan Reform Theological Seminary Lengthy thread, not going to be doing a bunch of in -depth stuff here

01:35:35

But I do want to respond because this is sort of a conglomeration of all the falsehoods that are being thrown around out there by various people

01:35:43

Unfortunately, because I put it where I did on the screen It's somewhat small font

01:35:50

It's time to stop engaging these guys. You're not engaging us in the first place They don't want dialogue. Yeah, we'd love to have a debate, actually.

01:35:56

They don't want debate, and that includes me They aren't serious about objective reality, church history, confessional doctrine, etc.

01:36:06

They want to push a narrative in their echo chamber Okay, um This is projection.

01:36:12

Derek, you're the one doing that. I don't have an echo chamber. I take this outside the Christian faith I take it out into the world, and so it's not an echo chamber, and your accusations are false

01:36:26

Much like to the doctrine of God, he critiques men like Matthew M. Barrett and implies they are going to Rome Again, you hear the simplicity

01:36:36

When I point out Barrett's wildly imbalanced fascination with Thomas Aquinas I don't know if he'll ever become

01:36:44

Roman Catholic. Maybe he will, maybe he won't I don't know, but it's wildly imbalanced If you're at a

01:36:51

Southern Baptist seminary and your students are drawing pictures of Thomas Aquinas for you you might want to go, hmm huh, something strange

01:37:01

There's an imbalance a massive imbalance. Just look at his timeline I mean, if I as a

01:37:08

Calvinist talked about Calvin half as much as Matthew Barrett talks about Thomas Aquinas and all you gotta do is go back to 2016 when he wrote a book on Sola Scriptura.

01:37:19

That's not the same guy That's not the same guy Something has changed big time

01:37:29

Even though Barrett is saying what the Reformers and the Orthodox themselves said all in caps, regarding what specifically

01:37:38

I mean, I listened to him on that British webcast, at least I listened to the first portion of it

01:37:46

Most of it I would agree with Of course the Reformers didn't think they were founding a new church

01:37:54

You can go back and in fact, somebody has them but the last church history series

01:38:00

I did at PRBC in 2016, 17, 18, that's still on Sermon Audio Someone had finally, because it was done in real audio as I recall, had finally

01:38:13

MP3'd the first run at Church History I did back in the 90s at PRBC and that's still out there someplace too

01:38:24

There's an archive of it someplace You could go back there This was 20 years before these guys started doing their thing

01:38:31

And you'll hear me saying, in dealing with the Reformation, the background of the Reformation Reformers were not trying to start a new church, they saw themselves as a continuation of Christian theology they were dealing with the accretions of unbiblical traditions and all the rest of that stuff, that's not even arguable

01:38:51

Duh, has nothing to do with anything Why is this so? I don't want to speculate the reasons

01:38:57

Yes you do, you already did You already said that I'm not interested in objective reality church history How can you say you're not going to speculate about reasons when you've already given the reasons

01:39:05

You've already made the accusations What I will say is this

01:39:12

I'm wondering if I didn't get some of these because I'm not seeing a real

01:39:20

One problem with Twitter at least the one nice thing now about the blue check is you can put all this stuff in one post instead of trying to track these things down and get them all to line up So JW, that's me, presses the need for church history yet rejects it when it comes to important doctrines

01:39:42

How? What do you mean reject it? What important doctrines? You mean the important doctrine of the papacy?

01:39:52

Do I reject the papacy? Yes, primarily for biblical and historical reasons But it sounds like what you're saying is well, but you know, post -Nicene

01:40:00

Orthodoxy Are you seriously going to sit there and say that even the Cappadocians have the exact same view on everything?

01:40:07

They don't! Anybody knows that? There was development there What about What about Calvin's problems with post -Nicene

01:40:18

Christological developments? You throw him out too? I don't know He criticizes the

01:40:25

TR -only position, in part because many in the past didn't have the number of resources available to them that we do today yet ignores what we have today when it comes to Wow I now realize these got all confused

01:40:45

How would that even work? Because concerning the doctrine of God available today

01:40:50

Wait, these are all mixed up I just pulled up the thread and thought that it was took screenshots of it but it's skipping from one thing to another

01:41:02

I'm not sure if it was actually posted as a single thread because it keeps saying show this thread, show this thread even though I thought

01:41:09

I had done so Anyway, yet ignores what we have today when it comes to I'm not sure if this guy is

01:41:14

TR -only Maybe at Puritan Reformed he would be I don't know. It comes up later on He uses the phrase

01:41:22

The bastard child of I have no idea what the preceding part of that was

01:41:28

They refuse to listen to 2 ,000 years of church history You know when

01:41:35

I first heard someone talk about 2 ,000 years You know the only people who say 2 ,000 years of church history all the time are

01:41:41

Roman Catholics When John Paul II died 2 ,000 years of church history They refuse to listen to 2 ,000 years of church history

01:41:50

Derek, you're not a not a papist, right? So you're not You're refusing 2 ,000 years of church history too?

01:41:56

I mean, this is childish argumentation If you're a doctoral student you've got to up your game because this is bad

01:42:06

They refuse to listen to 2 ,000 years of church history thinking they know best Yep, just me and my

01:42:12

Bible out under a tree, right? What arrogance Any possible sniff of Thomas Aquinas and it's off to Rome Again, this is just a lie

01:42:23

Anyone who's listened carefully, honestly knows it's a lie So why is this side so willing to repeat this kind of stuff?

01:42:33

Because the people who do listen, they know but that's not what he's saying He's got specific concerns

01:42:38

He's raised specific issues He's quoted from Thomas on this subject

01:42:44

He's gone through all this stuff and he's said over and over again Thomas Aquinas was a brilliant man but he started at the wrong place

01:42:55

His starting place was wrong because of the traditions that he had imbibed and so he came to really bad conclusions on a bunch of stuff but he was a brilliant guy

01:43:10

Any possible sniff of Thomas Aquinas? Off to Rome Nope, that's a lie Yet they argue like Sassinians but don't want to be called as such

01:43:18

Inconsistency? Yep Again, I've already said anyone who says they argue like a

01:43:24

Sassinian does not have a clue what they're talking about You shouldn't even be in seminary if you're making that kind of accusation

01:43:31

You really shouldn't and I'll tell you why To define a

01:43:36

Sassinian, you need to to define anyone If I say you're arguing like a

01:43:42

Mormon I have to make a meaningful, logical connection between the substantive form of your argumentation and specifically delineating and defining beliefs of Mormons.

01:43:59

Now I can do that because I know Mormonism I know Mormonism really well I've personally witnessed over 5 ,000

01:44:07

LDS missionaries I've written two books on the subject I know

01:44:12

Mormonism well and if I, as an honest person, were to argue that someone is arguing like a

01:44:18

Mormon I would have to make a connection to the defining doctrines of the

01:44:24

Mormon faith Now, Mormonism holds to authorities outside of scripture, but so do

01:44:31

Jehovah's Witnesses with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society so does The Way International so do a lot of different groups and so if I were to say you're arguing like a

01:44:40

Mormon when actually you're just bringing in external sources that would be true of all sorts of others then that would be an invalid argument and I would be being dishonest and disingenuous in my argumentation

01:44:55

Anyone who accuses me of Sassinianism when I affirm the eternal nature of Jesus Christ the virgin birth, the doctrine of the

01:45:02

Trinity is simply a dishonest liar It's absurd and I do not have to show a single bit of respect for anyone who will do that kind of thing because you are absolutely trampling on the truth.

01:45:17

Shame on you! Shame on you! You are not arguing as a

01:45:23

Christian You're arguing as a pagan. Stop it! Repent! Turn from your ways because that is not how to defend the

01:45:31

Christian faith It is not appropriate for Christians to be engaging in that kind of activity at all

01:45:37

Stop it! Inconsistency? None! The fruit of this ministry online and it's rotten

01:45:46

There are many who are rejecting church history I teach church history and they're rejecting church history

01:45:55

No, they're rejecting your strange, odd interpretation of church history but let me point something out

01:46:03

It said the Luther Hello! You're a Protestant For now

01:46:09

J .W. himself said all in favor of what they claim is solo scriptura but in reality it is what

01:46:15

Scott Swain and Michael Allen rightly called solo scriptura So here's again What happened to the

01:46:27

You took it out of there? Were you redoing the insurance or something?

01:46:36

You're going to light the place on fire Here's our straw man Derek, if you're looking for your straw man because you are doing straw man we must have stolen him from you but he took the lighter

01:46:48

I have more lighters I'm just going to have to remember to get them It's called lighting the straw man

01:46:55

So when we talk about norming the norms when we talk about examining the creeds by scripture

01:47:04

Oh that's solo scriptura not solo scriptura Here you go

01:47:10

Where does that lead? What foundation is that going to leave for you?

01:47:16

That's the question That's the question Concerning the doctrine of God available to them today that has

01:47:26

I wish this had put it in any kind of normal order because I did see the preceding one to this

01:47:40

Concerning the doctrine of God available to them today that has never before been seen yet James White digs his heels in as he has taught us inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument agrees with me for various reasons but one major reason we are seeing that probably goes to the fruit of his ministry online

01:48:02

Man this just totally they all say the same time so I do not understand what

01:48:08

Twitter did here but anyways notice something concerning the doctrine of God available today that has never before been seen ooooh we have new revelation it's never been seen before that's what we all

01:48:27

I can't dig my heels in against this there's new stuff that's never been seen before really?

01:48:36

that gets really scary when people start thinking we've got stuff no one's ever seen before no you don't um and then he says something about Jeffrey Riddle and the

01:48:49

TR stuff so I'm getting the feeling he's definitely TR only guy which would give him that's why he probably got the animosity that he has here um when he says that Erasmus and others didn't have the vast number of manuscripts available to them that we do today that's a given, that's a fact, that's reality which implies that if they did they would not be

01:49:10

TR only but would agree with the majority text, well I've never said that either it's amazing that people won't even listen to what the arguments are yet today the layperson has so many resources is he not allowed to change views?

01:49:25

we live in a day and age where we have more primary sources available to us than any other generation primary sources of what?

01:49:32

for New Testament? or Reformation? or what? it's remarkable, Dr. White -Alvin claims talks about this when it comes to manuscripts against the

01:49:40

TR position nobody says against men like something didn't teach doctrine of God the same way years ago that may or may not be true

01:49:51

I don't know personally you don't know personally oh great but is there not room to be corrected in your theology?

01:50:00

I hope so, I'm certainly not infallible as anyone and then he says for many years he wasn't a post -mill or a theonomist and the primary sources disagree with him he is the one who taught us to exegete from the languages and our exegesis differs from his he claims to hold the 1689 yet the framers of 1689 disagree with him he states that many in his camp men like Richard Brassellus probably changed their views at some point or another so it's just a collection of argument after argument that are not arguments they're just assertions if you're saying well can't people change their perspective?

01:50:41

ok fine change your perspective just be open about it just be honest about it say you know what? I've been wrong my entire ministry and then explain why and I was wrong because I needed

01:50:56

Thomas just come up straight out and say it I needed Thomas I didn't have

01:51:02

Thomas before now I have Thomas and I can be right about God because without Thomas you can't be right about God are you going to say that?

01:51:11

I think there's a bunch of folks that are willing to say that but there's a lot of others that are really going to hesitate he is the one who taught many of us to go to primary sources really sounds like I really had a big impact on where this guy started but now

01:51:33

Thomas has caused you to find in me someone who's got rotten theology and rotten fruit and everything else then

01:51:47

I was accepted into a PhD program PRTS which prides itself not only on academics but true piety the more

01:51:54

I read the more I disagreed with White of course that in and of itself is not a big deal but White has a major ministry that has influence among many young men anyways as I began to plumb the depths of the original languages and primary sources

01:52:10

I began to have considerable disagreements with James White specifically concerning the doctrine of God and Christology we're both reformed sounds like you're

01:52:22

TR only you're going to tell me that your Thomistic understanding of simplicity and inseparable operations is so major let me ask you something let me ask you to do something

01:52:38

Derek aside from trying some honesty in the future some restraint in your attacks upon others your slander of people that you admit introduced you to exegesis, reformed theology and everything else let me suggest something to you if you can get to the point let me put it this way let me make this something to challenge everybody on the other side to do go into your junior high, early high school class in your church if you have a

01:53:21

Wednesday night class Bible study class and you explain to them why the

01:53:32

Thomistic definition of simplicity and inseparable operations is vital to their

01:53:41

Christian life you make it so they can understand it you explain it to them because see

01:53:51

I can do that with Trinity I could even do that with Biblical simplicity and a

01:53:57

Biblical doctrine of inseparable operations you do it you do it and then explain that you can turn on someone that God used to get you into theology and attack them viciously as you've attacked me viciously, slanderously untruthfully all because of the

01:54:26

Thomistic definition of simplicity and inseparable operations and then explain that to them you do that send me a recording of it,

01:54:38

I'd love to hear it it would be fascinating be fascinating Derek you've got a balance problem anybody who's spent the time and I apologize,

01:54:49

I thought I had all of it but that must have been quite the tome if I'm missing portions of it because I've got three screens right there but if you spend that kind of time and it's so easy to demonstrate that most of this is surface level misrepresentation it's dishonest, it is absolutely dishonest

01:55:11

Derek, Christians should not be dishonest and I'm not talking about well we have a disagreement about this we have a disagreement about that, fine disagreements fine but you're just being dishonest about what

01:55:25

I'm saying anybody who's listened knows that so you have to ask yourself a question why are you saying the things you're saying?

01:55:36

why do you have that animosity? I don't understand it, but anyway we have gone one hour and fifty five minutes so far and that's as far as we're going to be going first of all, my congratulations despite my expression of a lack of faith at the beginning again, it hasn't been posted yet so disaster could still strike but I want to Rich made it work, there you go we've had disasters in the past but we don't we're hopefully not going to have one today oh it didn't hit there's a record button so you need to start over and we'll just do it again do it again that'd be easy to do, sure to all of my friends at Masters I have let me just say one thing the key issue in all of this is not all the minutia about simplicity or EFS or any of that stuff it's the sufficiency finality and ultimate authority of scripture so it is and Thomism is battery acid to soul scripture and the reality is

01:57:14

I am still teaching and defending and promoting the things that I taught and defended and promoted every time

01:57:22

I ever spoke there every time I taught any classes taught overseas

01:57:29

I'm teaching the exact same things and I believe I am teaching the exact same things on the nature of scripture and its perspicuity that John MacArthur's taught his entire life now sadly

01:57:41

I think there are people telling Dr. MacArthur things about me that aren't true I doubt Dr. MacArthur's ever listened to anything

01:57:47

I've said on this subject I wouldn't expect him to but I'm being consistent and that's why a lot of you are being told not to listen because you can go back and you can go yeah that's what's always been said you're right you're right and we're going to keep saying it and I am just praying that God will bring us back together again and that he'll do so based upon a common commitment to all of his truth and to a recognition that there are sources out there we should not be bringing in in the way we're bringing them in to our theologizing and to our proclamation so with that thank you if you've lasted this long good job hopefully