Radio Debate: Proclaiming The Gospel of Grace in Salt Lake

Good evening, and welcome once again to Religion on the Line. This is Van Hale, and I will be host of the program this evening. Bill Forrest, as I mentioned last week, is on a little vacation over spring break, and so he will not be with us this evening.

But I do have sitting in Bill's seat this evening, James White. And we will be discussing several topics. Who knows where all this might go, particularly when we invite your participation. Let me just lay a little ground rule or two for this evening's discussion insofar as the callers are concerned.

I don't really care what it is that you want to talk about, or if your feelings are strong or mild, or your language is strong or mild, that's fine. But I do want to request that you direct your questions or comments this evening to topics which could be addressed by our guests, James White and myself.

So if you have some comment on some previous program, or want to carry on a discussion of something that we've discussed over the past few weeks, let me invite you please to put that off until our next program, when we will have an open discussion, and you can pursue whatever topic you would like to choose.

The Reformed and LDS Views of God, Creation, and Omnipotence

This evening we're going to be talking about, I would say, the differences between my point of view, which basically comes out of my LDS perspective, and the point of view of James White, which comes basically, I believe, out of the position of the Protestant Reformation.

And so we'll be discussing what I consider to be some of the, not just myself, but I'm sure what James and I would both consider to be some of the significant differences of theology and doctrine between these two different points of view.

And I think to start with, let me just mention that James White is the Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and he comes up here frequently, I guess twice a year? Twice a year, in fact, it's somewhat of an anniversary, this is the 20th consecutive General Conference that I've been to and passed out literature at, so starting the second decade now.

And you have a publication that you put out? Well, if you're referring to Prost-Poly-Gion, our theological journal, we put that out on a semi-regular basis, you know how that works. Exciting. And also I'm the author of Letters to a Mormon Elder, a Bethany House publication that is currently out from Bethany House, and actually I'm getting a lot of letters from Utah on Letters to a Mormon Elder, it seems to be doing quite well up here.

Okay, this evening we're going to be talking about, I thought maybe just to start with, I would throw out a couple of ideas and we'll just kind of draw the distinction between your point of view and my point of view on a few topics to lead us into our discussion this evening.

First of all, it seems to me that one of the most substantial differences that leads to a number of other differences between our two theologies is the question of the absolute omnipotence of God, and in reference to that I'm referring to the idea of creation out of nothing, creation ex nihilo, and what is your position, did God create everything out of nothing?

Well, I think it goes a lot farther than just simply creation ex nihilo, the idea that God has full creative power, that he is omnipotent in the sense of having the power to create out of nothing all matter, whether spirits or a rock or whatever it might be, I think it goes far beyond that even to the entire theology of God.

That's what underlies the major difference, obviously, as I've always said, between Mormonism and what I view as historical Christianity, is that in Christian thought God is absolutely and totally unique, that he is immutable, unchangeable, and that he is absolutely perfect, and obviously perfection and changeability being in my thinking two things that cannot go together, and so what I feel anyway should be one of the major objections raised by evangelicals, Reformed individuals such as myself against Mormonism should focus upon the nature of God, and Van, you've looked at letters to a Mormon elder and you know that that is really one of my strong emphases is who God is, because many of the conversations we get into the gospel, which hopefully we'll do this evening, as you recognize the fundamental differences there, go back to very different viewpoints in regards to who God is, and then how that fits into what God's purpose in this world is, what man's ultimate destiny is, what man's purpose is, it all comes back to who God is, and that's why I think that should be the primary area of inquiry at first, when two people are attempting to communicate on these issues, but how often is it?

At least in my experience, Joseph Smith or something becomes discussed much earlier than some of the fundamental issues. Well, I don't know that Joseph Smith is not maybe the most fundamental issue, but when we get into theological discussions, the question of whether, of the omnipotence, the absolute omnipotence of God is of course the starting point, at least as I see it, and my thinking on that particular point would be, I think in line with traditional LDS thinking, and that is that God did not create everything from nothing, but God is an organizer and creation in an LDS definition would have reference to the organization of matter rather than to the creation out of nothing.

Whatever position you take on that, I think leads to another, takes you down I think two different roads, and for example, in the question of salvation, which of course is one of the areas in which we would, I think, diverge significantly.

Salvation, Human Responsibility, and the New Birth

In the area of salvation, my question would be to you to bring out maybe the difference between us on this point is, do you feel that man, does man have any responsibility in his own salvation? Does man have any responsibility?

If you mean by that, is man able to bring about his own salvation, or is man put in a situation where salvation is merely offered to him and then it is up to him whether he brings about his own salvation or not?

Obviously I would say that man being dead in sin is not capable of saving himself, and that outside of regeneration, man isn't capable of doing anything that is pleasing to God in line with Romans chapter 8 verses 5 through 9 and many other passages.

When you use the term responsibility, God has created man in such a way that man does what his will decides to do, and the will acts upon the desires that are presented to the will by the heart. Well, when you say the will, are you talking about man's will or God's will?

I'm speaking of man's will, that man's will makes decisions based upon the desires that are presented to the will by his personality, by his heart, and I believe that outside of regeneration, as the scripture says, the desires of man's heart are evil continuously, that there is no man who does good, there is none who seeks after God, and hence, as Jesus said, those who commit sin are slaves to sin, men are enslaved to sin, and hence, their will is always to decide against what God would have them to do, outside again of their being given a new nature, of their being set free from this bondage to sin, that is by being born again, by being made a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Now when you say, the reason I want to get back to responsibility is that man's situation, which he is in in regards to sin, is something that he embraces, that he holds onto, and he is held responsible for that, for his rebellion against God, just as you would hold a criminal responsible for wanting to go out and murder people or doing things like that, man is held responsible for being a rebel.

But when you say, we've got to differentiate between responsibility and ability. Yes, what I'm referring to in this question, I don't know exactly how to phrase it so that we're communicating appropriately on this, but the question that I'm getting at here is, from your point of view, from your theological perspective, can man do anything that has an effect upon his salvation?

The only way I can answer that is to say that God is the one who saves men completely, that God works within men and he sanctifies them and causes them to be more like Christ. But who is to be saved is God's decision, not man's decision, because it is an act of grace.

And the very fact of being born again is not something that comes out of man's will. As the Gospel of John says, men are born not of the will of man nor the will of flesh, but of God. And so when you say, does man have anything to do with his salvation?

If you use salvation in a very broad term, the sense of, well, does God just save people when you just sit around and do nothing? No. Paul said that we are Christ's workmanship, creating Christ Jesus unto good works.

So good works are very important. But if you're talking about salvation in the sense of who is and who is not going to eventually experience eternal life with God, that is God's work, that is God's activity completely.

That's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, it is by his doing that you are in Christ Jesus. If it was just a matter, and this is an area where there are a lot of, actually, interestingly enough, on some of these issues, there would be a lot of people who would agree more with an LDS perspective on some of these issues than they would with my own.

And that is that there's a common perspective out there that, God puts out a plan. Here's the plan. And he says, anyone who does this plan will be saved. Anyone who doesn't won't. And that's a real common perspective.

He makes salvation available. And if you do this and various religious groups have only one thing to do or a hundred things to do, who knows which it is? But the whole point is God puts the offer on the table and he sits back.

And he's not there. He maybe doesn't know. Maybe he does know that people disagree. I don't believe that that's how God functions. I don't believe that's what the Bible teaches. I believe that God not only created the plan, God actually accomplishes the plan, that he has a purpose and that he is bringing people unto himself.

And I believe that the Bible teaches that very clearly. And so on this idea of salvation then, would it be your point of view that sometime before the creation that God knew how many people would be saved and how many people would be damned?

Not just knew, but determined. And he determined which would be saved and which would be damned. Yes, I do believe that. And that what God then is doing, there will simply be no surprises. There is no surprises for God.

No, the idea that God is surprised, I think is completely outside the realm of the Bible. I don't believe that the Bible presents God as being surprised. I believe the Bible presents God in the words of Ephesians 1 .11.

And also we have attained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose. And here's the description of God who works all things after the counsel of his will, not after the counsel of men's will, not in the sense of God sitting around and having sort of a magical ball where he looks into the future and sees what's going to happen and then does things on the basis of what he sees.

Or even some people would say God just simply predicts well because he has so much knowledge about what's going on now that he can predict future events real well, better than we can because we don't have as much knowledge.

No. God is the moving force in your mind and what is happening is happening by God's, according to God's eternal decree, not just looking forward and predicting so let's maybe just become a little bit personal on this.

All this becomes very personal. Yes, it does. And I reject that idea as well as I reject the idea that we've already talked about of God creating the known universe out of nothing. Does that put me outside the parameters of salvation in your mind?

Well, certainly I would say that it would set you outside the parameters of a person who's worshiping the one true God of the Bible. Okay. I would say that just as in Israel of old, there were limited deities that were known to the Israelites whose power and authority was limited either to a particular realm of nature or to a particular geographical area.

And the Bible is very plain that they were not to have any dealings with these individuals in the sense of being in any way, shape or form involved with their religious worship. Why? Because it's idolatry and Jehovah is the only true God.

And as Jesus said, he seeks worshipers to worship him in spirit and in truth. And I do not believe, and we've discussed this before, I think it's very straightforward that I do not believe that the God of Joseph Smith, who, as you have indicated, is limited in the sense of not having created all things, but he organizes things.

And you'd have to limit the phrase, all things to those things dealing with this creation. However, you might define that. But if he was an exalted man to live on another planet, there were things he did not himself organize, but there was a deity before him that organized those things.

But that is not the true God that there is no salvation in the worship of that God. And so, so to bring this to make this really personal, maybe make something that we can discuss here in some concrete terms.

I'm assuming that you're that you're certain that you will be saved. Well, I am when you say certain that I will be saved. I am certain that that God's plan of salvation is true. I admit the possibility that there is hypocrisy in my heart.

And so I am not going to say that I am imperfect, that I am perfect, that I am infallible, or that I am you know, absolutely beyond a doubt, a person who has, you know, no faults and could not someday run off and deny the faith or something like that.

But that has to do with me as an individual, the fact that I recognize sin in my own heart. And I recognize the power of hypocrisy and the power of self deception. But I do believe that God is perfectly capable of saving me without any additions on my part.

That's really the important thing. And that is that I believe God's promises, and hence God can save me. And it's not a matter of well, I'm not sure whether I can get saved or not, because I'm not sure if I can fulfill this condition, that condition, this condition, that condition, Jesus Christ has fulfilled all those conditions in my place.

Okay, maybe we won't be able to make this quite as personal as I was hoping for. But you're convinced that at least from what you can tell about myself, that I am, I am not within the circle of salvation.

If the words you've spoken to me truly reflect your belief in God, then it would be very similar to someone asking me, is someone who is involved in any religion that does not present the God of the Bible, are they under the redemption of the God of the Bible?

And my understanding of scripture prohibits me from saying, well, yes, certainly they are. Because I see nothing in scripture teaches me that God saves people outside of his truth. And obviously, my idea that that that's your idea, I'm sorry, that God is, is a limited being in the in those areas where we, you know, in fact, has not eternally been God, and was once a man is an exalted status of Godhood.

I don't believe there's salvation in the worship of that God. And I don't believe that an individual who is experienced regeneration has been born again by the Spirit of God is going to believe that for any particular length of time, I suppose possible theoretically for a short period of time.

But you and I have been doing this talking to one another about these issues since for a long time, I'm not sure how long. So do you think it is possible for an individual to know that he that he will be saved?

Is that a possibility? Well, that goes into a whole area of dealing with the the subjective witness of the Spirit in a person's heart. And if you're asking, do I do I have a subjective witness of the Spirit of God in my heart that I'm most redeemed?

Yes. I'm just simply admitting the fact that there is the possibility in the fact that I am a sinful person, that I have a fallen nature, which is one of the things we I think may get into this evening, that there is still sin abiding in my heart and the possibility exists that I could deceive myself.

And that's why the scripture says we're to test ourselves and see whether we're in the faith, that we're not just simply to say, well, you know, I'm already redeemed. I'm never going to let that thought cross my mind again.

But that's that's that's really a different area than saying, well, I may make it. I may not. It all depends on whether I manage to work up enough faith or something like that. I hope everyone understands that I deny that a man can work up faith.

I believe faith is a gift of God. I believe it is given to God's elect by the Holy Spirit of God. And if the faith that I have is that kind of saving faith, it will not fail. OK, from what we were talking about a little earlier, though, what you are doing, from what I understand, what you have said so far is you are you what you are doing is what God has willed or decreed for you to do.

Yeah. And what I am doing is what God has willed or decreed for me to do. And if and we both do what we do willfully out of the desires of our hearts. Well, I don't know that I don't know that that logically follows.

But but the point that I'm leading to here is that you you are carrying out God's will. You are acting out God's will, his decree in every minute detail as he has decreed it. And you're not going to do anything to surprise God.

And from your point of view, I'm not going to do anything to surprise God. I'm acting out his will. So we're both acting out God's will willfully. And and yet in from your perspective, if not you personally, well, I think you've kind of indicated that you see yourself as among the redeemed.

You're acting out God's will. You're only doing that which God has already has decreed for you to do. I'm only doing that which God has decreed for me to do. And yet you will be saved in eternal bliss because that's God's will.

And I will be damned and suffer eternal torment, I suppose, because and yet we're both acting out God's will precisely in every detail. It's very interesting. The objection that you're that you're raising, of course, is is one that is found in the Bible.

It is found in that famous passage in Romans chapter nine, where Paul brings up this very objection. He has presented the sovereignty of God and salvation. He has laid these things out. We'll take a look at here in a moment.

And an objector to Paul's position says, well, if we're doing God's will, who is who is he to blame us? So it's interesting. I would I would submit to you that in point of fact, the objections you raise is an objection that was raised against the apostle.

And so that I think in and of itself is fairly important. But when you say you're working out God's will and the sense of his decree, how he is how he has decreed that the time is going to take place.

Two things you kept hearing me say willfully. That is that it is your desire to do what you are doing. You are acting on the desires that are presented to your will by your heart, as am I. And so it is not that you wish that you were down at Temple Square passing out literature with us.

It is not that you really wish you could do that. But there's this force that's just compelling you and forcing you to do something against your will. Not at all. I am not in any way, shape or form saying that there are people running around that just wish that they could do what's right, that just wish they could worship the one true God.

But God's forcing them not to. That's the first important thing. The second thing is in Acts chapter four, you remember the the prayer of the early church when the apostles are persecuted by by the Jewish High Council and they're they're told, do not preach in the name of Jesus anymore.

There's a very interesting prayer in Acts chapter four, and they refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, would you agree with me that what Pilate and Herod and the Sanhedrin and the Roman soldiers, what these individuals did in nailing the sinless son of God to a cross, that what they did was in fact sinful, that it was in fact the Jewish leaders, for example, were very plainly motivated by jealousy and hatred and desire for power and all these other things.

Would you not agree that what they did was a heinous crime? Yes, I would agree with that. Well, here we have a situation where probably one of the greatest crimes in history has taken place. But notice how the church prays in Acts chapter four, beginning in verse twenty seven.

For truly in this city they were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, verse twenty eight, to do whatever thy hand and thy purpose predestined to occur.

Acts chapter four, verse twenty eight. Let me read it again. To do whatever thy hand and thy purpose predestined to occur. Now, here you have one event in time, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and yet you have different people involved.

You have Herod and Pilate and the Jewish leaders, and what is their motivation? What is the desire of their heart? It's evil, and they're held responsible for that. But God's involved, too. And God has predestined this to occur.

For what purpose? For an evil purpose? No. We know, of course, that in the death of Jesus Christ the greatest good in all the universe is brought out. And this is the same thing you have in Romans nine with Pharaoh, the raising up of Pharaoh, so on and so forth.

The point being that in a sinful action you can have the desires of the person who is committing the sinful act, and that's the basis upon which that individual is judged. But God can use sinful acts.

God used the sinful act of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He used the sinful act of Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery. Genesis chapter 50, after Jacob has died, his brothers are scared to death that Joseph is now going to take vengeance upon them.

What does Joseph say to them? He says, you meant this for evil, God meant it for good. But it's not just that God uses these sinful acts. What you're suggesting is that God is the one that had decreed this and is orchestrating the sinful acts.

That everything that takes place in time and history takes place at God's decree, and that everything therefore, and this is very important, this isn't just theological speculation, this is very important, everything that takes place does so for a purpose.

There is no such thing as a purposeless action in this world. And I think that's extremely important. David, the problem that I have with what you're saying, though, is coming back to the idea of if what I am doing is what God has laid out, I'm acting out the script that he's written, and I'm in act 257 ,000 right now or something, and this was all decreed by God, that you and I would be sitting here doing this, and that everything that you do in your life and everything that I do in my life is simply an acting out of the will of God, then it would appear to me that there is no logical conclusion other than that it is God's will that I commit sin or I have false beliefs, that it's simply his will that I be punished for acting out the script which has been written from which I cannot deviate.

Well, notice again that what you did was you changed the thing that I emphasized right at the beginning, and that is that each of the things that we do as individuals, each of the things that you do as an individual, you are not forced to do in a sense of your desiring to do something else, it is the desire of your heart, and that is the only basis upon which God judges, is the fact that you act upon the desires of your heart.

And it's interesting, I said, you know, this is the objection, and I'd be interested in hearing, obviously you would not feel that you're actually voicing this objection from the Bible, but I'd like to know why you don't feel you're voicing this objection.

Do we need to take a break here? No, no. Okay, I'm sorry. Before you go to that though, I would just like to make my position, my thinking clear on this, and that is simply that if God created, if everything that I am, God created, that means that every desire of my heart, every propensity that I have, every inclination that I have, everything that I do, every thought that I have, I have that only because of what God, the way in which God created me.

And so, if that's the case, and all I, it's not my, okay, it's my heart, you're saying, and it's my will. But, it's the heart that God gave me and the will that God gave me. I have nothing else, according, you know, coming from your perspective, I have nothing else except that which God created from nothing.

And so, it's not, okay, it's my, I'm doing something of my own free will and choice, as are you, from your perspective. But God placed that will within me. Well, it's his will, it's not really mine. Well, no, I would disagree with you if you term will there.

You are doing what the desires of your heart, the will simply chooses among the desires that are presented to it and goes from there. But when you say, I need to clarify one thing that you said, that you only have what God has given you.

In regards to the nature of man, we are very, very careful to assert that when God created man, man was perfect, that man did not have those evil propensities until Adam fell. And that, yes, we do believe, and again, this is a major area where Mormons disagree with this concept, that we all fell on Adam.

And that we are, in fact, have a corrupted nature because of Adam. The whole concept of original sin, which, which, of course, was a large discussion in the days of Joseph Smith and remains so today. And that he reacted in accordance to that particular doctrine.

But when you say, well, I'm just what God made me to be. Again, I think we do need to look at what Roman science says about that. But the point again is, upon what basis does God judge? Is it on the basis of, does he force us to think in the eternal concepts and to have the ability to see outside the realm of time?

Does he, does he judge us on anything outside of what he himself has said he would judge us on? And what does he judge us upon? He's, he's revealed what is right and what is wrong. And yet we willfully do what is against his will.

He then, he will even use my evil actions to one end. And this is, this is another major area. What is the purpose of this creation? I don't think, I would, let me put it this way. I do not believe that in Mormonism, the final purpose of the universe is theocentric at all.

In Christianity, the, the purpose for creation, you know, we talk about the purpose of life can all be wrapped up in the glory of God. God is demonstrating his glory in everything that happens. Even, even I believe in the punishment of the wicked.

I believe the punishment of the wicked demonstrates God's glory. Not popular things to say these days, I realize, but because there are a lot of people who are not LDS, who feel the weight of those objections and in an attempt to, shall I say, defend God and to remove from God any, any objections that could be raised against his government of the universe are willing to say, well, no, God doesn't have anything to do with the bad things that happen in this world.

God's decrees are not go, they do not go so far as to the, your actions or my actions. They're just sort of big general things like who's going to win World War II or something along those lines. Who's going to drop an atomic bomb on whom?

But when it comes down to personalized, no. And I, I have a real problem with that. You talk about being personal. I have a real problem with that, A, because it's not biblical, but also in the sense that I'm not just staying outside of a, of a temple.

That's not what I do. You know, that only happens twice a year. So that's all I live for. I'd have a fairly vacant life. For a number of years, I've been a hospital chaplain. And so I've taken these beliefs that God is sovereign over all things into the hospital, into the room where death is about to happen or just did where terrible, horrible things have happened.

And you may have some very difficult questions for me to answer, but I am of the strong opinion that it is far more, it's far better to have to answer the difficult questions than it is to have to look at someone in a grief situation and tell them there is no meaning or purpose behind what has happened because God wasn't involved.

God didn't know it was going to happen. He could do his best to try to put things back together again now, but he didn't know it was going to happen. Well, I, I, I can't, I can't look at someone and say that.

So there's, there's, it's not just a theological issue in the sense of a bunch of academics sitting around discussing it. I think this impacts the very way in which one lives one's life. That's absolutely correct.

And that's, that is the area in which I have the, my greatest concern and we far in regards to the doctrines of the reformation is this doctrine, the path that this forces a person to think logically down is as I'm looking at it, here's what happens.

God created everything from nothing. He created me from nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing that came from any other source. I have no, there, there can be no possible opportunity that I can see then for God to point his finger at me and say, you're justified in being condemned to hell and to be punished for eternity because of what you did, because all I am doing is the only thing that I could do.

I had no other option. You take, for example, a car manufacturer, manufactures a car that can go 80 miles an hour and he wants to destroy the car because he enters in a, in a race where all the cars are going 150 miles an hour.

I mean, it, you know, it doesn't make any sense for the creator of that car to condemn the car for not being able to do something that he did not create that car to do in the first place. And that the objection over and over again, it's the same objection that we, that we have in Romans nine.

And that's why I said, I need to understand how you feel. This isn't the objection that you present. If I can, if I can point it out, it's in Romans chapter nine beginning, really it begins in, in, in verse nine, this whole section presents this whole concept in regards to God's dealings with men.

And I think I'll start with verse nine. So this is the word of promise. At this time, I will come and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but there was Rebecca also when she had conceived twins by one man, our father, Isaac, for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad in order that God's purpose, according to his choice might stand not because of works, but because of him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger justice has written Jacob.

I love, but he saw, I hate it. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God is there may it never be for, he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. And I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy for the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose, I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you. And that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires. Verse 19. This is why I feel the objection that you're raising is you will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?

And I can only give you the answer that the inspired scriptures give on the contrary. Who are you? Oh man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder. Why did you make me like this?

Will it, or does not the Potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

And he did so in order that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared hand beforehand for glory. Now the answer that Paul gives is based upon a theology that you reject.

The answer that I honestly believe that the answer that Paul gives, that's why I said this is foundational to the, this has to come before what we're getting into now in regards to personal predestination.

But I honestly see in here, or does the Potter, does not the Potter have a right over the clay? The idea of the Potter and the clay is an old Testament concept that describes God as the one who creates man.

Okay. And I honestly don't think that that is a, a part of LDS theology in regards to God. I mean, you may have a, an understanding of it, but I don't think that the theology lies behind it as part of Mormonism, but that's where the answer comes from.

And the answer is who are you? Oh man, to answer back to God, Paul doesn't believe that God's an exalted man. And hence there is a, there is a fundamental distinction between God and man. God is the creator, man is the creation, and God is the creator has perfect right and will over the creation.