November 11, 2003

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Apostle Peter commanded Christ to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well and good evening. Welcome to The Dividing Line.
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It is a Tuesday evening version, which is not usual for us. Normally we are on Thursday evenings, but we're, well, we're playing around with the schedule.
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Someone was asking today if it was going to stay this way and I said we're going to do it whenever we get around to doing it.
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In essence, it's just simply a matter of scheduling and trying to work around various sundry schedules with only two folks who are very, very busy and of course this time of year, especially with the debate coming up this in just a matter of a few weeks actually, the trip to Florida and then to California and one day going from Orlando to all the way to California, crossing the entire continental
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United States and I tell you, I hope there's going to be something left of me come the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast in December because it's going to come right at the end of about three weeks away from home and that always, that always, you know, it's a little bit of a challenge, but that's what's coming up.
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So we're going to try to do this type of thing a Thursday, probably should be able to work out.
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I was going to try to get out of out of town for a few days this week, but things just simply too challenging to do so until probably
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Thursday evening, just be gone a day or two. It's the only way I can work things out. So we probably will have a
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Thursday morning dividing line and what it'll be on. By the way,
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I just sent another email to Mr. Matitix. Mr.
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Matitix's wife is expecting, so I'm obviously not high on the priority list.
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I've let him know that if he can't make it for a week from tonight, we're just not going to be able to do it.
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We'll have to do it at the earliest sometime in January, maybe in February. That's just the first time we're going to have any opportunity of doing anything.
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That's just, that's just how it works. So we've, you know, we've been here, we've done our part.
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So we'll see what happens that I sort of need to know before the next program so I can make some sort of relevant announcement so that we can have people listening and maybe even have phone calls.
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I'm not really sure how phone calls would work in a situation like that. It's probably just going to be myself and Eric doing the discussion anyway.
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So we will see what happens with that, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, 753 -3341 is the phone number for your participation, was in Springfield, Illinois over the weekend and had a great time there with the folks, a number of folks came from St.
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Louis and we were at Southern View Chapel in Springfield, Illinois. It was wonderfully cold and I really enjoyed that after the longest summer
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I can ever recall in Phoenix, the hottest summer in Phoenix, hottest July and hottest
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October ever in our recorded history, obviously, not the entirety of history.
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I think it was probably a good bit warmer about 700 years ago. But anyway, it was great to be in the –
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I think one night I got down to 19 and that was just wonderful. I really enjoyed that and a great time with the folks there, talked about every subject under the sun.
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It was a little bit difficult. I spoke about 10 times in three days and I'm starting to wonder if that's a good thing to do.
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I may have to start asking folks to sort of back that schedule off just a little bit because by the time you get to numbers 8, 9 and 10,
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I'm not really certain whether that's – whether it's worth listening to me anymore at that point in time.
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You're starting to get a little tired, a little brain dead and so I'll have to think about that in the future.
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When I was 25, that was one thing but you know, you start getting a little older and you slow down just a tad bit after about six or seven times, at least if you really invest yourself.
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And I had a good time with the folks there and that's the last trip before the big one into Tampa, the debate with Greg Stafford on the deity of Christ.
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Is Jesus God or a God? And I can pretty much tell you exactly how that's going to go right now, at least as far as the primary subjects.
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The primary issue is going to be the nature of biblical monotheism. You could hear a lot about angel Christologies, what defines
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God, what monotheism truly is – is Jesus Christ described as God in the way that the Father is described as God or is
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Jesus Christ described as God in the way that an angel might be called a divine being? That's going to be the focus because that's just simply the way that Mr.
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Stafford presents his case and so that's going to be something obviously
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I am investing a lot of time and energy and preparation on that. And I hope that those of you who recognize how important this debate is in the overall scheme of things and the apologetic scheme of things will be praying for that particular encounter as it takes place, then the ministry that takes place afterwards in the cruise and then right after that we will be heading out to California for the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast and so it's all coming together. Yes, the debate book with Dave Hunt is still on schedule.
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It arrived, that is the galleys arrived yesterday and I really haven't had a chance to look at it too much, but it's always exciting to see a book in its final form as far as the pagination.
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You never really see it. I mean I can see it in my mind, I've written enough books now I can see what this one is going to look like, but that will be coming out in February.
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Yes, I wish it was earlier than that, but that's just the way that it works. And I think though that unlike many other situations where we go,
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February, then it might be March, then it might be April, I think this one is really going to be
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February. I actually think that we're going to have the book come out when it's supposed to come out and if we can get confirmation on that,
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I'm not sure when we'll start pre -sales, but it will be available. And I know a lot of folks looking forward to that book and it's going to be very interesting.
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No two ways about it looking at that. Now another thing that was rather interesting is you're calling in today at 877 -753 -3341 is
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I was looking at an article from modernreformation .org,
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November, December 2003 issue, and there is an article there, some of you may have seen, called
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Are Mormons Trinitarian? I immediately had to start chuckling because Mormons is misspelled.
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It is spelled as anyone who has never dealt with Mormonism would spell it.
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I can always tell when someone has never read a meaningful word on Mormonism or Mormons because they spell the word
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M -O -R -M -A -N and right here on modernreformation .org
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are Mormons Trinitarian, M -O -R -M -A -N -S. And that's just a tad bit on the embarrassing side, but oh well.
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Are Mormons Trinitarian is an interview with Dr. David Paulson. Now anybody who is familiar with LDS theologians and scholars is aware of the name
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David Paulson. And it is interesting, I am trying to keep myself from being overly critical in the sense that Dr.
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Paulson obviously had a very limited space in which to give answers and let's face it when, you know,
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I've had to point out to a number of folks, I could name names, many times people will criticize you for an article that you write, whether it is in the
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Christian Research Journal, I just wrote an article for it, Modern Reformation Fact, Table Talk, whatever it might be in, people criticize you because, well, you didn't address this, you didn't address this, you didn't address that, and so many times it's because, well,
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I was not asked to do so, I was asked only to address this other aspect, I only had 4 ,000 words or whatever it might be, and it looks like here we're actually talking about a matter of a couple of hundred words or maybe even only 100 to 150 words to respond to each of the questions that were asked, therefore you obviously have a tremendous limitation at that point.
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Dr. Paulson is Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University, he is the
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Richard L. Evans Professor for Religious Understandings, he has held the Richard L. Evans Professorship for Religious Understanding, and I think,
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I think Roger Keller did too, if I recall correctly. Interestingly enough, he has served as a bishop and as a member of a stake presidency, which is, that actually means something to me, a lot of folks who would read that might not consider that relevant, but that indicates that he's, you know, a lot of the
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LDS scholarship today, especially when it's getting a little bit on the unusual side, those folks haven't served within the church in the sense of doing missionary work and things like that, so that's important to me.
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The answers that are given to the question are Mormon's Trinitarian, very, very interesting, it was interesting to me the choices, the word choices, the source choices, the quote choices that Dr.
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Paulson made to present his perspective. I think 50 years ago the answers would have been somewhat different, certainly the answers that he gives are not as vague as some people give today, but it is sort of a moderating viewpoint, it is not as clear an answer as could have been given,
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I think at least as would have been given by Mormons only a few decades ago, but it's not quite as vague and misleading as some of the answers that have been offered by the
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LDS leadership over the past number of years, and so if you'd like to go to, well,
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I'm not sure exactly how to get you to this, the URL is far too long for me to give on the air, it is
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Christianity .com is the main website here, I suppose what
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I could do is I could post a link to this on my blog page, on the front page of the website
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I suppose would be a good way to do it, we'll see if we can't make that work out and do so, if you want to take a look at it, but is, are
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Mormons misspelled Trinitarian, I suppose if you just go to modernreformation .org
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you should be able to track that down from that perspective as well, take a look at it, it's very interesting, those of you who know
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Mormonism will find the answers given to be at least interesting, and especially answers to questions like this, there have been a number of discussions recently among Evangelical Protestants about the nature of God's being, some theologians commonly called open theists are asserting that God grows in knowledge in response to the actions and choices of his creatures, does the
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LDS doctrine of God allow for a similar view of God's growing and changing according to time and circumstance?
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Now the question itself is very interesting to me, I don't think what is being suggested is that the open theists are among Evangelical Protestants, or maybe it is,
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I don't know, I certainly would not include an open theist amongst Evangelical Protestants, but then again what either of those terms means anymore is pretty much up to anyone, but then you also, it is interesting that open theists have always, at least in my reading of them, done everything they can to separate themselves from the mantle of process theology, from the moniker of a process theologian, and yet does the
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LDS doctrine of God allow for a similar view of God's growing and changing according to time and circumstance?
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I would imagine there are some open theists that cringe at that, because a growing and changing God is the
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God of process theology, but I don't know how an open theist can escape that, if God is learning new things and is surprised by what people do, that would result in a growth and a change in God, I don't think there is any way that they can avoid that, certainly
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God must grow and change within an open theistic construct, they just try not to do it in the same philosophical, very strange philosophical categories as process theology does, and it shouldn't be surprising that Paulson's response is, thus we agree with open theist thinkers that God is the most moved mover,
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I'm sure that Clark Pinnock is very happy to know that the Mormons would agree with him in his perspective, and there is a rather lengthy response to that one, that one is probably about four or five hundred pages
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I would say, four or five hundred words on that one, so then of course the last question is, is it proper in light of significant differences between traditional
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Mormon theology and the doctrines of the LDS church to call faithful Mormons Christians? Paulson's answer of course is in the positive, yes,
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Latter -day Saints believe that through modern day revelation God has literally restored his New Testament church and teachings in preparation for Christ's second coming, thus we believe that faithful members of this restored church are quintessentially
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Christian, and I at least can respect that because if you really know what he's meaning there, he's just saying yes, we define
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Christianity, and in fact you all are members of apostate churches, but then he goes on to say my response is also affirmative when
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I attempt to answer the question without the light of modern revelation as my responses to the preceding questions demonstrate
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LDS understandings of God in some respects differ significantly from conventional conservative Christian theologies, although some of these differences are not nearly as substantial as they are usually represented to be,
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I'm not sure how that can be, we didn't have much of quoting of the King Follett Funeralist Course in this, but anyway, however none of these differences are relevant to the question of whether faithful Latter -day
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Saints are Christians, so in other words the difference between polytheism and monotheism doesn't define Christianity, faithful Latter -day
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Saints put their trust in, believe in, and worship the New Testament Godhead, they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they love him and seek to follow him and keep his commandments, by these standards the earliest
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Saints were known as Christians, by these same standards Latter -day Saints are also Christians as well as faithful members of evangelical and many other
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Christian churches, now there's where you see the fundamental change over the past 50 to 60 years in how a
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BYU professor would answer this question today as it would have been answered long, long ago, he then talks about spatial constraints, recommends people read
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Jesus the Christ and Articles of Faith by LDS Apostle James Talmadge, which I found somewhat interesting because Talmadge is very conservative on a number of things, and then he even gave his personal email address, david__paulson at byu .edu,
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I imagine that's going to result in quite an interesting number of emails heading his direction, we've got one person on line, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number for you to get involved in the program today, let's go ahead and start taking some of our calls, some of our calls, how can we, you know we can't take some of our calls, because we only have one, and therefore we'll be taking all of our calls, not some of our calls, some would be a part of GENITIVE, and we're taking all of them, so that was a misstatement on my part and I confess the error and...
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Are you sure there wasn't an expectation of more to come? But you see that has not yet come into fruition, and therefore
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I can't say some of our calls... Well we have one and there would be a biting result into the future. But that would require perfect tense and we're simply talking here about a part of GENITIVE, so we can't do that that way, so I'm going to have to restate it, we're going to take the entirety of our currently available phone calls in one shot by talking to Aaron in California, and I'm sure that Aaron is hoping that we will get a little bit more serious in responding to his question than we just were in talking about...
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Am I on? Yes, yes sir, Aaron... We get it, we get it, James, there's one caller. Okay, I'm just kidding though,
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Eddie. Do you ever come into our chat channel? Yeah, I'm on right now, Aaron, license to send.
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Oh, I see you, okay, okay, good, I just wanted to know which one to kick, okay. Hey! Okay, so you got it,
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I hope this is in good humor. Yes sir, actually all it shows is
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Aaron Lisk, so it sounds like you're lisping or something like that. Wait for those t -shirts to come in.
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Anyway, you're talking about a debate with Jehovah Witness, I thought I could cover that. Before I get to that though, do you remember the
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Odes of Solomon you covered a few weeks ago? You know that was one of the most popular programs we've ever done, yes.
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Yeah, I could make recordings of those tapes and sell them to some uptight BYU folk, I bet.
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I wanted to point out something, I think everyone kind of got wrapped up in all the ridiculousness of it, but didn't
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Maditax point to that as a proof of the perpetual virginity of Mary? What he did, no, not the
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Odes, what he did was he referred to, well, oh wait a minute, yes, excuse me, you are correct, he did, he tried to deny their
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Gnostic nature, and he identified them as Jewish Christian, and that was evidence of a first century
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Jewish Christian aware of the belief of the perpetual virginity of Mary, yes, yes he did.
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Where in the reading, I mean ignore all the silliness of it, where in the reading does it even allude to that?
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Well, the concept, I forget which verse it is, I have to pull it up, but it was in the 19th section when it says that after she gave birth she was found to be as she was before.
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In other words, there is no, and that is what the Gnostic writer is attempting to say, is that Jesus, because he does not have a physical body, basically sort of beams out, and there is no physical impact of the birth, and so there is no question that at least on the realm of if you are going to present a
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Gnostic Jesus who did not have a real physical body, and I don't know if you have heard the debate, but I think it was during the question and answer period, either when
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I asked him a question or somebody else did, I forget which one it was, his response about the reality of Jesus' physical body was scary.
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It really was. I mean, it was, I don't know how he would ever respond to a
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Dossetist or to a New Ager that basically denied the true reality of Christ's physical body.
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So, it was a strange, it was very, very strange. Okay, I'll get back, I'll get to my real subject now. Well, and I noticed that the only reason that you stopped talking while I was talking is you were trying to get back into the chat channel.
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Let me stay in, please. I was just kidding. I have other power.
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Yes, okay, yes, sir. Okay, I have a good friend of mine, he,
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I mean, God bless him, he is really interested in this religious stuff, but he really holds to the Jehovah Witness view, and I eventually, you know, just got so up one day about how
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I decided to, I think Jehovah Witnesses are corrupt, he said, okay, let's go to my house and we'll debate this thing again, and incredibly, one of the best ways
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I found to keep order when you were talking about this stuff is I decided, you know, instead of talking over each other,
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I said, okay, you get five minutes and I get five minutes to explain myself, set up like a real debate, and it really worked really well, because if you notice people casually trying to talk about this stuff, they talk over each other, and it really steadied up even casual conversations about the stuff, and the debate format worked really well.
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So I gave him, I said, you have five minutes to explain, we talked a little bit about why we shouldn't talk about, say his name is
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Jehovah, I just said, listen, Jesus said, address him as father, and that wasn't my real interest.
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We eventually moved on to the subject of hell, which, and I gave him seven minutes, and then when it became my turn,
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I just said, I just took one minute, read the Rich Man and Lazarus, and I said, your turn, you rebut this, and he said, and it basically went along the lines of, when you're stuck, just kind of go and read 50 definitions on the history of the word
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Hades and stuff, but don't really answer the question, and eventually it just kind of broke down to what
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I heard when you were debating against a Muslim, well, it can't mean this, because over here it says it means this,
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I said, now, I guess I'd like you to correct me if I'm wrong, I said, the word Hades, or hell, can mean two different things, it can mean the physical grave, where there's no fire, and men don't stink in there, because your dead brains don't stink, and there's also the one
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Jesus talked about, which is the Hades, where there is fire. Now, is it true that Hades refers to two different places, depending on the context, that's correct, right?
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Well, actually, Hades and Sheol of the
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Old Testament are identical to one another, what you're looking for is Gehenna, that Jesus talked about, and that is differentiated from Hades.
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In fact, death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire in the book of Revelation, so you need to differentiate between those two places, and in Luke 16, you have the realm of the dead, but it's at that time divided into two areas, what's called
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Paradise, the bosom of Abraham, and then the place where the rich man goes, where he is under torment.
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Now, there are different theories as to, at the resurrection of Christ, did that change, were those who were in Hades awaiting the resurrection, were they now ushered in the presence of Christ, so that there is only one section of Hades today, there are those who hold that perspective, and I think there's some validity to that concept, but really, discussing hell with Jehovah's Witnesses is frequently a very emotional thing, they'll frequently say, well, you know, my great -grandfather was
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Jehovah's Witness, so you're saying he's roasting in the pits of hell today, and you don't really get anywhere at that particular point, and as I was listening to what you were saying, you had said something about the name
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Jehovah, and saying, well, Jesus just referred to him as the Father. One of the strongest arguments with a
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Jehovah's Witness, in helping them to see the context and the light in which Jesus is identified as God in the
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New Testament, is the fact that Jesus is identified as Jehovah, or Yahweh.
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I listened to that one right after I finished the debate with you, I would like to use that one. Yeah, that really helps a lot in getting them to start thinking.
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But, you know, the idea of timeframes, if you know the person, that probably works real well.
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The average Jehovah's Witness going door -to -door is going to completely freak out if you even suggest such a thing, because they're looking for what they call sheep -like individuals, they don't have any interest in hearing what you have to say, in fact, many of them, if they were to be really honest, are afraid of what you would have to say.
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Not afraid in the sense that they are really scared that you're right and they're wrong, but afraid of the idea of a person in an evangelical church speaking to them.
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They really believe that evangelical churches, I'm talking about Witnesses who have been raised in this society, they're not going to say this overly openly, but this is definitely what they believe, evangelical churches are the haunt of Satan.
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There are demons in evangelical churches, that's why the Witnesses won't generally go into them, they're afraid of them.
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And so, they really honestly believe that all you're going to be able to give to them is demonic information anyways.
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And so, that's why they would be really freaked out if you said, well, you take five minutes,
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I'll take five minutes. They don't want equal time, they're there to teach you their way, they don't think they need to learn anything, or can learn anything from you anyways.
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This situation is a blessing because he holds to Jehovah's Witnesses' views, but he doesn't actually follow them because it's just like he says, oh, this is hopeless,
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I'm never going to get to heaven. Eternal damnation, I mean, oblivion is the best
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I can do, and that's not so bad, I'm just like, you know, I guess it's just... But that's not even what the Witnesses believe. But that's not even what the
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Witnesses believe. The Witnesses believe, certainly I can understand a Witness saying,
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I'm not going to be in the heaven until I'm 144 ,000. No, he doesn't, he cannot,
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I don't know if you know the impositions they put on their members, but he's not even allowed to have a beard, he's not,
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I mean, they regulate his haircut, they do everything, the regulations are just so heavy on him.
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I mean, I'm not saying this is everywhere, but he's saying, you know, they're giving me a hard time because I just wear a little goatee, and he just says, you know, just forget it,
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I believe in what they say, but I'm just not worthy enough to be one of them. I believe everything, it's just like me saying, you know,
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I'm a Calvinist, but you know, God just told me I wasn't one of the elect, so darn, I'm just going to have to go to hell and live with it, you know.
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It's kind of like that, but oblivion is a little bit easier to stomach, I guess. Wow, that's pretty strange, because...
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It's really sad. Yeah, well, there is a works -righteousness orientation within the
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Witnesses, of course. That's what broke him down. He said, you know, I just can't, I can't do all the work, I'm just going to live my life and accept oblivion.
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That's really not that bad. Wow. Well, certainly, given their view of Christ and the fact that they cannot even have a personal relationship with him, that would be a good direction to go, what they believe in the doctrine of salvation, the great crowd, the justification.
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Generally, even your good Witnesses are only going to have a certain number of passages they're going to go to, and once you get past that, they really don't have a lot of knowledge of those things past that.
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So, that would be a good direction to go, you know, to say, to basically say, well, you know, what if you're wrong and oblivion isn't what's there?
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That's a little modified version of Pascal's Wager. That's what I finally brought up. I said, listen, if I'm wrong and you're right, what's it going to hurt me?
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However, if you're wrong, you're going to be in a heck of a lot of trouble. And I think Pascal's Wager and the logic behind it is an incredible evangelical tool.
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Once you get, okay, I need to believe in a God. Now, which God should I believe in? Well, I would say believe in a God that has a hell, because if you believe in a
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God that ordains no hell, then you don't really have to fear that God. That's why
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I kind of like the God of the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons, because if I'm wrong about them, well, we're not really going to be in that big of a trouble.
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We'll have a little loft in the celestial kingdom or whatever, and we can kind of hang out and say, well, we did our best or whatever.
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Yeah, well, I would press upon them at that point the fact that he obviously is really holding to a view of God's holiness there that in essence winks at sin and does not extract any true justice for the sin that has been committed.
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There's someone who really is not under any conviction concerning the nature of their sin and the reality of their sin.
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So keep working with them. If the five -minute peace thing works, hey, great.
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I mean, like I said, obviously you two know each other, and that's what allows for it to happen.
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Well, I guess by what you said, it sounds like if converted Jehovah Witnesses will not talk with you, then
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I would say the most important thing is to especially reach out to people who are trying to be convinced by these people, because apparently that's the only reason why
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I could even talk to my friend. Well, yeah. I mean, there's just as much validity to reaching out to someone who's in danger of becoming involved in it as there is reaching out to the people who already are involved in it.
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That's very, very true. No two ways about it. Oh, and I have one last thing, a new apologetics trick to look for.
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It's not a trick, but I was asking them, you know, how can there be just one level of oblivion if it says, you know, the
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Pharisees are going to receive a greater damnation? Well, the answer to this is really simple. You see, we are the lesser damned.
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The people who go to Paradise are the lesser damned. I don't think that's even a witness viewpoint either.
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So he's sort of developing his own little system there, and probably got a little rebellion going against their rules and stuff like that.
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So maybe that's something you can utilize to keep the communication going. Okay. Okay. Bye.
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Thanks for calling, Eric. Okay, bye, Jim. All right, goodbye. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.
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877 -753 -3341. I don't think we have anyone else online.
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We're going to take our break, and if we don't have anyone else online, we get back. I do have lengthy sections of John Denver Christmas music we can play.
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So call that number. Be right back. There's such a rarity today. So many stars.
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Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject. Explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.
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The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality.
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Get your copy in the bookstore at almen .org. Millions of petitioners from around the world are imploring
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Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ. Elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.
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In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.
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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant, and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived bodily assumed
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Queen of Heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ, and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the
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Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer, is fresh insight into the woman the
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Bible calls blessed among women, and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at almen .org.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
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The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30
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p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805
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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
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If you are unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
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North 12th Street in Phoenix. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. I guess the question is, you haven't heard from David K.
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Barnard, have you, on top of the date? Did he ever respond to your invitation?
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Yes, in fact, I was reminded of that.
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Let me see, I'm looking at the date here. The last email I received from him was
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November 4th. And he says that he discussed the possibilities
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I had offered to fly to St. Louis and to have the debate at the
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Urchin Graduate School before the student body.
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I'm sorry, I just read something on the screen, I'll have to read later. And he indicated that they would like to focus on an annual symposium instead and that this has been building and so far the symposium is only for Oneness folks, but hopefully in the future it might be expanded.
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And he says, so I don't want to close the door, is what he said, nor would this preclude the possibility of our arranging a debate in other locations, such as a local church.
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And so I wrote back and in essence said, let's really try to press forward with this.
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This is something that I would very much like to do. Obviously the reason that I had, and I responded the same day, in fact, and said
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I would be happy to participate in such a forum as I would think to focus the topic would be very important and useful to the students in your school as it seems to encapsulate the true defining theological issue that separates the
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UPCI from other denominations, does it not, outside the tongues and baptism issues referring here to theology proper.
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At the very least, I would think I could present the historic Trinitarian perspective with clarity so as to allow your students to have a firm grasp on it.
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My travels take me to your area rather frequently, so if there's any possibility of arranging a scholarly exchange, please consider it.
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Thank you. That was on November 4th. So the reason I had mentioned going to the graduate school was just to make it as easy as possible.
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He doesn't have to go anywhere. He doesn't have to do anything. He can come court. Yeah, you know, and I would be happy to do that.
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And so, you know, who knows. I don't want to monopolize the time, but I did have a question.
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I think most people are hoping that you will. Well, before I get to my question, I think I can clarify what the gentleman that called earlier was talking about as far as R .C.
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Sproul's position on the superlatyrianism and infralatyrianism. I've got a little quick little paragraph if you want.
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I can read it. If not, I can just tell you where it's at. It is, a great deal of confusion surrounds, and this is
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R .C. Sproul, a great deal of confusion surrounds this issue of predestination because of a very important element.
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We have a tendency to think of God's eternal decrees as if he were contemplating an innocent human race.
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This view is called technically superlatyrianism, that from all eternity, God looked at this morally neutral, innocent human race and decreed to make some of them sin and perish, but to make some of them believers and bring them into eternal salvation.
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What we call Calvinistic or Reformed view of predestination is infralatyrianism.
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Infralatyrianism emphasizes this point that when God makes his decrees about salvation and reprobation, he does so considering the mass of humanity has fallen.
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Obviously, God made the decision before the fall, but he makes the decision in light of the fall. So that's pretty much,
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I think what he hinted at, I think there's some forms of superlatyrianism that tend toward hyper -Calvinism.
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Well, yeah, there are those who make that assertion, but I really don't think that that follows, and that's why
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I pointed to Raymond's discussion of it. I think it's a good discussion. I really wouldn't see the emphasis in superlatyrianism being the way that R .C.
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expresses it there. Obviously, he's taking the infraposition. That's fine. It's good to discuss it, but I'm glad you read that because I wasn't aware of what the quotation was and hadn't recalled it for quite some time.
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Excellent. My question is, we had a visiting minister at our church that is a seminary graduate from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he told me that he was taught, or at least believes and has been taught, that every passage that talks about predestination and election unto salvation is meaning that we were all born predestined to heaven, but when we reject
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Christ, our name is blotted out out of the Lamb's Book of Life. And I was wondering if you had ever run into that, did that kind of go hand -in -hand with the
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Christ died for the sin nature view of the atonement and not actually for sinners? I wouldn't know the connection to the last part.
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The first part, yeah, I guess I've heard that, in the sense that it's very common for people to say, well, in reality,
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God's voted for you, Satan votes against you, you've got the tie -breaking thing, all the rest of that kind of stuff. I'm trying to think of passages where you could actually fit that in, and it's very difficult for me to even figure out where someone would put that, in the sense that they're connecting passages that have nothing to do with one another, in essence.
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So you said, where was this person educated? I'm not sure, it was one of the
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Southern Baptist seminaries here in the Southeast. Well, you know, one of the problems is that you're not going to get a monolithic perspective within a
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Southern Baptist seminary, in the sense that, you know, obviously
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I teach at a Southern Baptist seminary, so you're obviously going to get a different perspective out of me in systematic theology class this next semester.
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In fact, I'll be teaching Cis -Theo II. You're not going to be getting that viewpoint out of me. So, you know, you may get a particular professor who teaches for a long, long time, and hence has a lot of impact upon people, but no, that's not something that, at least from an exegetical perspective, that I've heard real frequently.
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It almost sounds to me like it's a theory that would have one believe that the intergenerate person could read
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Ephesians 1 and realize that that is written to him, and that just seems so far -fetched.
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No, but that really is the perspective of a person who makes election depend upon the creature, is that all those passages about blessing and everything else are actually about everyone, but it's really up to us to determine.
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I mean, class, election, everything else, it all fits within that same parameter. So that doesn't really surprise me a whole lot.
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Now, you can do this one of two ways. I've got a request and channel for the name of your church, so you could either just e -mail that to me and I can pass that on, because the gentleman asking is from the
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Georgia area, and obviously wants to know what church is possibly going to be doing that.
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Otherwise, you can just drop me an e -mail and I can send it to him that way. I don't, I mean... Oh, that's fine.
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I'll tell it to you. If you don't mind me saying... No, not at all. It's Hickory Road Baptist Church in Holly Springs, Georgia.
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Now, is that the most Georgian -sounding name you've ever heard in your... Hickory Road Baptist Church in Hollingswood, Georgia.
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Well, I should have said Hickory Road Baptist Church in Holly Springs, Georgia, about 40 miles north of Atlanta.
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That had a little Pentecostal ring to it, though. And we just don't have services when the
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Atlanta Braves are in the playoffs, so then again, that means we've been having a lot of services the past number of years.
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Absolutely. And we want you to know that we honor the memory. We honor the memory of Stonewall Jackson every third
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Sunday. You are the 100th Brigade. What did he say? You are the 1st
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Brigade. Yes, I could play that if I wanted to. I have it right here on my system. Well, God bless, and I'll e -mail you a confirmation on this.
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We shouldn't know something other than a couple of days. I don't know. Once somebody hears this, they're going to play it, and it's going to go down to complete defeat.
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All righty, sir. We look forward to it. Thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. 877...
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Well, you know, it's actually too late to... I don't see any more callers up there, so I'm sort of assuming then that that means we can...
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City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style.
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Okay, okay, okay. I turned it off. Good grief. What can
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I say? Hey, you know, we even had... John Sampson e -mailed me, and I guess called in, too.
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And was going to offer to help me sing with John Denver, and he is British. And so all I'd have to do is if I heard him...
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I don't want to make him feel, you know, really embarrassed, but he has an excellent voice, and he's an excellent singer.
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So if I listen to him singing it, then I could get the accent going and go with it from there.
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But you can always tell when I've been out of town, can't you? You know, my brain is completely fried, and that's when
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I tend to have a little bit more fun with the program than we possibly should. But, hey, you know what?
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Next week we're going to be doing the thing with the Gerrymatics and Eric Svensson.
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So that's going to be about as different as this laid -back program could be, though the temptation is going to be almost overwhelming, somewhere in the middle of something that Gerrymatics is saying.
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I'm going to hit sunshine on your shoulders. That's just, I don't know, that would be very difficult to keep from doing.
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But I'll do my best to not do that and to be very serious and all that kind of fun stuff.
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It'll actually be very enjoyable. Actually, I'll be perfectly honest with you. If I had my druthers,
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I wouldn't be doing this. Because my mind, let's face it, is right now about one -third of my mind is on biblical sufficiency because I'm still trying to get some writing on that book project done.
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And two -thirds of my mind is completely on biblical monotheism, the nature of Christ's deity in relationship to biblical monotheism, angel
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Christologies, the whole nine yards. And so it's, to be honest with you,
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I haven't thought about the perpetual virginity of Mary since the program we did reviewing the debate.
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And now I'm going to have to find time to go back, listen to the debate, line up clips in the whole nine yards.
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I would honestly really rather not do it. But it'll only get more tough to do it, get tougher to do it in January or February or something like that.
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And the interest exists right now. So we'll go ahead and do it and just hope and pray that we have all the sufficient time we need to get all the preparation done that needs to be done prior to the debate in Tampa and the ministry on the ship and things like that.
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My understanding, I guess I might as well go ahead and mention this, not that it really makes any difference because, you know, who's going on the cruise has already been set, but I was just informed that today that the music on the program, music on the ship will be provided as it was once before by Mr.
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Steve Camp. So Mr. Camp will be accompanying us. We were unaware of that until just just today.
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And those things have worked out. So that's going to be taking place. So those of you who are going, get ready for some music and some worship.
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And, of course, Steve knows some of the other folks that are going. So it looks like we're going to have quite the time coming up the week after the debate.
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But I'll be perfectly honest with you, right now my mind is totally on the debate. And what comes afterwards,
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I can imagine a number of my sessions are going to start going back toward the debate and reviewing elements of it and things like that.
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So that's what we're looking forward to. Thanks for being with us today on The Dividing Line. We'll be around at 11 o 'clock
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Thursday morning. Thursday morning is the time.
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And remember, if you don't call in, you have to listen to what I was just starting to play that the person on the other side stopped immediately because he likes you all too much to allow you to have to listen to it.
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So 11 o 'clock Thursday morning next to The Dividing Line. We'll see you then. You can also find us on the
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World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.