Non-Denominational Denomination

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line. I'm sort of expecting the phones to die, the internet to die all instantly right now because Peter Lemkins has relatives that work for Cox.

Actually, we've been we've been streaming old DLs all day and everything has worked and we think we know why.

And it was all somebody else's fault. Note to Cox Communications, you can only give certain

IPs to certain people. You can't give the same one to multiple people. It doesn't work that well and it's a it's a bad thing.

But anyway, hey, welcome back to the Dividing Line. We did a dead cast last.

Boy, OK, I'll do that. A dead cast last time. And actually, the sad thing is

I got a lot of really positive feedback on it. It's like, oh, great. Wonderful. Thank you very much.

Appreciate that. So obviously, when I'm actually talking to people, that's not nearly as exciting as when I'm just sitting here. But I think it was the subject.

A lot of people found the the discussion and the issue to be somewhat very useful, somewhat very useful.

I didn't come out quite right, but that's because I'm trying to get Google to get the phones up here and unable to connect to the

Internet. I may have to bring bring the phones up on the other computer for some odd, strange reason.

I don't know what's going on. Oh, yes, it is. Yeah, yeah.

You have to reboot the wireless doohickey whopper there. Yeah, I love technical stuff.

You know, Charles Spurgeon never had to put up with any of this stuff. You know that. I think that's that's a good thing. Anyway, the subject that we were addressing,

I think a lot of people find to be very useful. And that is the Sam Harris, William Lane Craig debate. Going to get back to that.

We're listening to the 12 minute rebuttal that I found absolutely amazing from Sam Harris. But even more amazing is that I tweeted this morning.

Isn't it interesting how Twitter is becoming a source of links and resources and stuff like that?

Very strange. Don't think that's what it was originally intended to do, but it sort of works that way.

I tweeted this morning a link to an article that included interviews with people behind the scenes at the

Notre Dame debate itself. And I guess there was controversy because I think about it last year.

What was this debate? This was Dinesh D'Souza versus Christopher Hitchens. And we criticized that one, too, actually.

But at least one of the two debaters was a Roman Catholic, sort of Roman Catholic.

But at least one of them was this time. Neither one was. And I guess there are people in Notre Dame that were not happy about that.

And I can understand that, you know, if you're going to have have something there, you know, maybe you might want to,

I don't know, have a Roman Catholic representing Roman Catholicism at a

Roman Catholic institution. That would be a good idea, personally. But anyway, the main thing that really caught my attention was how much these debates cost to put on.

Now, I know that debates cost money. I know that when

John Shelby Spong walked out of the ballroom when we did our debate with him, he left with a certain number of thousands of dollars.

And I know that Bart Ehrman left with more and that I didn't leave with either one of them.

Because we do debates, you know, it's a ministry thing, you know, you're trying to get these folks to do debates. And we have very limited financial resources.

According to the information that I saw this morning, this debate cost $63 ,000 to put on.

And according to the source, most of which was speakers' fees.

Now, think about that. What would most of $63 ,000, let's say that's $50 ,000. Now, like I said, we know that when we contacted or someone else actually contacted

Sam Harris's promotional people about setting up a debate, $25 ,000 plus first class airfare and good place to be put up.

That's my recollection. I'm pretty certain on the number. I'm certain someone on the channel will confirm this in a moment because they're the one that did the contact.

Anyway, that's a lot of money and it sounds like that goes both directions. So, you know, $25 ,000 for two hours of work.

It's only two hours, three minutes long, at least the recording. Not half bad gig if you can get it.

It would also just mean I really would expect more over the two hours than what we got.

So I find that very, very interesting. But we continue on despite those issues.

And we are about, I don't know, I'm just ballparking this looking at the waveform here. I think we're about nine minutes through the 12 minute rebuttal.

So we're listening to Sam Harris's 12 minute rebuttal. And so far we have been absolutely amazed at what we've heard.

And we've got some audience questions that I have a Norm Geisler phone call from a couple weeks ago. No, not him calling us, someone calling him on a radio program.

I believe it was on the Janet Parshall show, which I really miss being on, but will never be on again.

Evidently, used to have a good time on the Janet Parshall show, but haven't been invited in I don't know how long.

And then we'll take your phone calls. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one. Your thoughts on the

William Lane Craig Sam Harris debate or other things like that. So let's continue on with Sam Harris.

If they had the right God, what they were doing would be good. Undefined command theory.

Now, I'm obviously not saying that all the Dr. Craig or all religious people are psychopaths and psychotics, but this to me is the true horror of religion.

It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions what only lunatics could believe on their own.

Now, I don't care how hard he tries at this point, he just called all religious people lunatics.

He can say, well, I'm not really saying that, but words have meaning. And if you say billions, you're talking about the majority of us,

OK, are believe things that are worthy only for lunatics. That's what he just said.

And during the next rebuttal period, I didn't say that you're misrepresenting. No, I think that's that that's what he said.

All right. If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes now.

OK, remember the context. Notre Dame. We are at a

Roman Catholic school. And so now Sam Harris decides to stick his finger in the eye of the

Roman Catholics. Now, of course, I sit back and go, hey, if you're going to present unbiblical, magical stuff like you do in regards to the subject of transubstantiation of the mass, then and you have a non -Roman

Catholic, but very friendly toward you, squishy Protestant doing the debating, you certainly don't expect him to defend any of this stuff.

So Harris knows he's got carte blanche here. And it does make me wonder a little bit as to exactly who his audience is.

He evidently doesn't want to bring any of the Catholics along, or at least the conservative

Catholics. But given some of the audience questions, maybe he already knows that this is a sensitive area, maybe a a useful, profitable area for him to go after in the number of people who maybe don't even believe

Roman Catholic dogma on these things is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley. You have lost your mind.

But if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker in the body of Jesus, you're just a Catholic.

And I'm not the first person to notice that it's a it's a very strange sort of loving

God who would make salvation depend on believing in him on bad evidence.

Bad evidence, you know, I keep using a term and I hope you understand why

I use it. I use the term non -reflective atheists and it has nothing to do with the fact that I keep forgetting to powder my head before going on television and become very reflective and look really silly.

These are individuals who just, I don't know how to explain it.

I was listening to some material this morning, helping me make some decisions as to whether I'm going to try to set aside some time for another debate later in the year on a subject that I'm really not writing on.

And I really decided not to do that. But I was listening to people criticizing my faith and making assertions about my faith.

Now, in my worldview, I need to listen to that. And when they are raising questions that I don't have answers to, it needs to be sort of put into the queue.

I need to do a little looking, need to do a little thinking. And the next time I speak on subjects related to that,

I need to in some way, shape or form, reflect upon and show a cognizance of an understanding of the fact that there are arguments there and try, if I'm making a positive presentation, to try to provide an answer, to at least make my positive presentation include information that demonstrates that I know those objections are there and I'm expressing myself in such a way as to answer those objections, or at least to take them into consideration.

That's what I mean by reflective. You're reflecting upon other worldviews. You understand how other worldviews work and you're interacting with them so that you're seriously attempting in the presentation of your own worldview to do honor to the truth and to do, in essence, show respect for other worldviews by refuting them.

It's disrespectful to just simply use an argument of authority that says, well, believe me, because I have the right to tell you what to believe.

There's only one that can use the argument of authority, and that's the one who created all things. It's perfectly fine for him to use the argument from authority, but I ain't him.

I don't have that right. I don't have that ability. I have to point away from myself. And so it is disrespectful and arrogant for people to make argumentation where basically you just have to believe whatever it is they're saying.

And Sam Harris has done this a number of times in his presentation so far. He is non -reflective.

He does not demonstrate that he is thinking through seriously what the other side is saying and how his worldview interacts with that worldview.

It's just, well, you're all just a bunch of lunatics. I mean, you're all just nuts. I mean, you're just crazy. Well, you know, that pulls all the emotional strings, but it's not actual rational argumentation.

It's not the type of argumentation someone presents who's actually wanting to try to start critical thought.

It just it doesn't work that way. OK, it's it's. I mean, if you lived 2000 years ago, there was evidence galore and he was just performing miracles, but apparently he got tired of being so helpful.

And so now we all inherit this very heavy burden. So this is all going back to the you have to believe on bad evidence.

And who gets to define what the good evidence is? I mean, for atheists, what's the only evidence of God's existence?

Well, if he strikes me dead or if he spells something out with stars in the sky or, you know, he comes down and makes an appearance on this stage and and it's just so surface level, it's so childish, these types of demands.

And yet that's the best they've got. If they really start getting into the evidence of man's own experience and the evidence of man's history and the evidence of of the design of the universe and all of this, they they just don't do real well in that area.

And why? From a biblical perspective, because they already know that God exists and they are suppressing knowledge of that truth.

And so they try to stay away from those things that would start prying their fingers up from that suppression of the doctrines, implausibility and and the effort to square it with what we now know about the cosmos and what we know about the all too human origins of scripture becomes more and more difficult.

Now, did you catch that? What you just heard there was the argument from authority done so quickly that most people do not even catch it, let alone consciously object to it.

But but you need to hear what he what he said, what we know of the cosmos, in other words, what we and we are the only people who aren't lunatics, what we naturalists and materialists interpret to be the meaning of the cosmos.

Including all the information that we ignore. And all the all the conclusions that we just are unwilling to to see because of our overriding presuppositions and the all too human nature of scripture.

Well, what does that mean? I'm sorry, I don't find this neuroscientist to be much of a biblical expert.

He's undoubtedly just simply going on what he's heard from other people. You know, Bart Ehrman has proved it all. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it was done in two sub clauses. And it has its cumulative effect over time.

And so very few people. Catch that kind of thing, go, whoa, wait a minute, wait, that's just verbiage, man.

You're just you're just taking up time with that kind of assertion. I mean, on a debate level.

But that's unfortunately what we have in so much of the interaction that we have in our society is very, very short, very, very pithy.

And so you can just throw these things, these unsubstantiated things in here and people go, oh, yeah,

OK, I'll accept that. And it's not just the generic

God that Dr. Craig is recommending, it is God, the father and Jesus, the son of Christianity.

Now, let's let's not forget the Holy Spirit, their father, son and Dr. Craig's account is the true moral wealth of the world.

Well, I hate to break it to you here at Notre Dame, but. Christianity is a cult of human sacrifice.

I hate to break it to you here at Notre Dame, but Christianity is a cult of humans sacrifice.

I, I'm not the only thing I could figure out is he had already cashed the check before the debate started, you know, because I mean, if you're going to if you're just going to shoot yourself in the head on any type of meaningful academic, logical, ethical level, then you need to make sure the check is cashed first.

And he's he's behaving that way. You just pulled the microphone over in front of you.

Well, I was going to say, we kind of ran into a similar situation with John Shelby's mom. Yeah, you know, the promise had already been made.

This is what you're going to get for showing up and doing this debate. And, you know, once 1030 came, that was it.

No, we're done. Hand me the check. It's at the same time. There was just so much of what he did in that debate that was just part of his normal.

Yeah, it wasn't much of a debate. I mean, cross -examining anyways, but at least we had cross -examination or tried.

You don't get to really do that in these types of debates. But anyway, of course, what I mean by the fact that the check must have already cashed is because to so distort the biblical message, to so distort the the self -sacrifice, the voluntary self -sacrifice of Christ and turn it into a cult of human sacrifice is just so absurd and so lacking in any type of meaningful intellectual rigor that it gives the lie to his vaunted

Dr. Harris neuroscientist. Really?

And they taught you in your neuroscience classes to to be grossly dishonest and to twist things.

Is that what you learned in neuroscience? Is that what a Ph .D. in that field gets you? Just sort of wondering because, wow, that's bad.

And yet that's what you you get from. That's why I said he needs to be bumped out. There's there's no reason to view this man as top tier.

Why in the world would you pay somebody twenty five thousand dollars to do that? Doesn't even doesn't even register.

Christianity is not a religion that repudiates human sacrifice.

It is a religion that celebrates a single human sacrifice as though it were effective.

Yeah, of course, if you include that incarnation thing so that, you know, it's

God's self giving, you know, pictured on Mount Moriah long ago, you know, all that.

But, you know, that's taking the biblical record too seriously. And we can't expect a neuroscientist to actually read the

Bible and take it seriously. We're just asking way too much for our money. God so loved the world that he gave his only son,

John 316. The idea is that Jesus suffered the crucifixion so that none need suffer hell.

Except those those billions in India and billions like them throughout history. Hmm. You know, that's what happens when you only quote a part of the text, because that's not really what

John 316 says, is it? Well, it is how it's very shallowly presented by certain

Armenians. But it's not what it says, because there is that there is that particularity in that verse about so that whoever so all the ones believing, it doesn't matter who it is.

But it's everyone believing might have eternal life in him. And then it goes on, you know, the very next sentence to talk about, you know, the wrath of God and not believing and not having life.

And that would explain the billions in India, even though actually God has his people in India, too, doesn't he?

Yeah, he does. Hmm. Well, it it I'm sure.

Remember, Dr. Harris has this has a doctorate from a from a from a big school.

And everybody knows that if you have a doctorate from big school, you'd you will always be accurate in everything you say.

That's what a doctor from big school means, isn't it? Well, that's what people would like you to believe.

OK, this is this is this is a stride. This doctrine is a stride, a contemptible history of scientific ignorance and religious barbarism.

We come from people who used to bury children in under the foundations of new buildings as offerings to their imaginary gods.

We just think about that there in vast numbers of societies. Yeah, I remember that in the

Bible. That well, let me look at it. Let me get a cordons up in here. Let me see and find that, because evidently it's being laid at our feet here.

So I'm going to see if I can find that while he continues on. People would bury children in post holes, people like ourselves, thinking that this would prevent an invisible being from knocking down their buildings.

These are the sorts of people who wrote the Bible. Really, these are the sorts of people that wrote the

Bible. Obviously, I have completely missed the gravy train.

Because, you know, evidently, this is how you make the big bucks. This is how you get the

New York Times bestsellers and you make the big bucks is I'm just way too concerned about actually talking truth, saying something that's right, something that actually makes sense.

I mean, this is absolutely embarrassing. That's the only way to put it, is embarrassing.

It wasn't so much that William Lane Craig wiped the floor with him. It's that he wiped the floor with himself. It's just self -destruction.

And I sensed a major difference between his opening statement and then this 12 minute rebuttal.

And I'm not really like I said, is this was this the atheist red meat portion? That is it a calculated thing?

I just I have no idea. If there is a a a less moral moral framework than the one

Dr. Craig is proposing, I haven't heard of it. Hey, great ending.

Wow. I've never quite figured out why so many of my opponents as well.

You put a timer in front of them and they don't know how to complete a sentence. They don't know how to complete a presentation.

You know, maybe this is just the way he is. I don't know. But it certainly strikes me that you think that's how to impress folks with your rhetorical skill is to.

Now, it is interesting. After the applause, let's at least listen a little bit to William Lane Craig's first first few words.

Professor Craig now has eight minutes for a rebuttal. Timekeeper, are you ready?

Timekeeper. Hello. Set of great minutes there, timekeeper again.

The less moral framework is atheism. Atheism has no grounds for objective moral values or duties.

And it's interesting that in that last speech, I was disappointed to hear no defense given of that crucial second contention that I offered against Dr.

Harris's view. So, you know, he was right about that. I mean, it was it was it was truly amazing.

Well, I've got a lot of things I get to today. So let's get to these audience questions pretty quick, because they were.

Wow. Dr. Harris, if Dr. Craig could link out of your objections about the problem of evil and the problem of choosing the right religion so that those weren't really problems, those weren't functioning in the debate.

Where does that put you dialectically? How do those function in the debate?

Do you mean if I was given good reason to believe that Christianity is true? Or if I could show that choosing a particular religion wasn't necessary for the grounding of of morality, just that some religion being true was sufficient for there being a grounding for morality and that the problem of evil was somehow answered?

Well, I would never be tempted to dispute that we could make up a religion that, if true, would be a grounding of morality.

Those are those imaginary schemes are there for the asking. We could make them up and in about five minutes we could make up a better religion than any that exists.

I mean, you just you just take Christianity and cut out Leviticus and Deuteronomy and already you've done great work.

So and again, notice the argument from authority. Why? Why?

I mean, what are the two primary books of the Old Testament that Jesus quoted from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, of course.

So why? I'm sure he has his surface level, his surface level arguments, but I can guarantee you they will be just that surface level simplistic.

These people are so arrogant. They think they are so much more intelligent than we are that they never go in depth.

They just don't think there's any reason to. Their arrogance is their downfall. We've proven that I would love to debate this guy, but I would never, ever donate twenty five thousand dollars to his retirement fund to get the opportunity to demonstrate his ignorance and his arrogance.

Dr. Harris, if Dr. Craig could link out of your objections about the problem of evil and the problem.

Let's skip past that. Add being kind to children and swap out the bit about the graven images and you've already made it a much wiser document.

Now, but that's not the point. I mean, the point is that one point

I made, which which he he never really addressed, is that you're smuggling in a concern for well -being in any case.

You just have a different timeline. If Christianity were true, it would be part of my moral landscape.

I mean, if someone like myself is going to suffer in hell for eternity based on what I'm currently thinking, then

I clearly am doing the wrong thing. I mean, I would I would want

I would want that information. And I would think I mean, that would be a revelation to me, which

I would take seriously and I would do everything I could to get into heaven. I mean, that would be heaven is that if eternity in heaven versus eternity in hell is really the the the landscape that we're living on.

Well, that's part of my moral landscape. It just changes its its its temporal characteristics. There's just no reason to think that that's the universe we're living in.

Thank you. OK, let's let's get to let me see if this is the one.

First of all, a lot of the argument, I guess I felt like it depended a lot on the definition of good and of good and bad, right and wrong.

And I wanted to ask you if you thought it would it would be possible for there to be.

So I've got a two part question. But there'd be a hypothetical God that so to scratch everything, you know, about Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, create your own new

God. And if it would be hypothetical for this God to perfectly align with your definition of moral of moral.

Now, that's not it. But remember, these are the Notre Dame students. I think this is the one I was looking for. Mr. Harris.

Yeah, here it is. From my personal experience and from my faith,

I find that. Christ's first commandment was to love thy neighbor and thy

God, and I believe that if you are a Muslim, then you follow through with that if you are a devout

Muslim and you care about the well -being of all mankind. And that's kind of in relation to my next question, which is like, how would a naturalist respond to amazing miracles by God, which like, say, the miracle of the sun, which was witnessed by 30 ,000, 200 ,000 people in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, as well as miracles of the

Eucharist in which the Eucharist actually starts to form veins and bleed and where this blood is actually tested and is found to be

AB positive from the left ventricle of the heart. And it's actually been researched under leading pathologists in New Zealand to actually be throbbing and living as it was in his laboratory for the 30 days.

OK, 30 days. Well, the problem with with miracle stories are that they truly are a dime a dozen.

I mean, the miracle stories that cash out Christianity are miracle stories set in the context of the pre -scientific context of the first century

Roman Empire, attested to by copies of copies of copies of ancient Greek manuscripts that have thousands of discrepancies.

Now, there are miracles that you can find in India today, attested to by living eyewitnesses.

So you look at people surrounding someone like Sakya Sai Baba, thousands of Western educated people go to India, spend time with Sakya Sai Baba and come away claiming that he's performed a variety of miracles.

And in fact, if you if you add up all those stories, every miracle attributed to Jesus, including including the resurrection of the dead, is attributed to Sakya Sai Baba.

And he's and millions of people think he's a living God. These stories, from our point of view, don't even merit an hour on the

Discovery Channel. And yet two point three billion people think that the miracles of Jesus are worth organizing your life around.

And that that I think is a a intellectually unsustainable disparity.

Now, I'm not I'm not closed to the evidence of miracles, and it would be trivially easy for God to convince me of of his existence or the powers of psychic powers of saints or whatever it is.

If you can tell I've got a 20 digit number written on a piece of paper in my wallet. I'm sorry.

OK, but if you if you tell me what that number is, then we have a very interesting miracle on our hands.

And I still can't let the follow up continue. Sorry. We have a whole bunch. Yeah, OK, so you get

Eucharistic miracles thrown in there for the fun of it. And it is interesting to listen to Sam Harris respond.

Now, in one of the comments that he that's William Lane Craig has made about the debate on his on his

Facebook page, he he says, many of those in the free thought subculture are clearly cheerleaders, not analysts.

They're prisoners, their own perspective and incapable of judging objectively. There is no hope of getting from them an accurate assessment of the debate.

That's not their role. They're there to cheer. Our aim in the debate should not be to win over the cheerleaders.

It is to win win those in the audience who are still seeking for truth in our open mind argument and evidence. Their good opinion should be our concern, not the opinion of the cheerleaders.

Now, I've said something similar to that, but I want to differentiate what I have said from what

Dr. Craig has said, because there is a subtle, but again, definitional difference. He is exactly right.

I have said many times that when you come into a debate, there are people on my side that are not going to hear a word the other guy is saying.

And I do not I do not applaud that, but I know that there are those people and there are people on the other side.

They're not going to hear a word I'm saying, but it's the people in the middle. And especially the people in the middle on the other side where there is a spiritual activity going on that I am most concerned about and the people on my side that need to be edified and strengthened in their faith on this particular subject.

That's those are the people that I'm debating for. That's similar to what he says here. However, when he says that there is no hope of getting from them an accurate assessment of the debate, that's not their role.

They're there to cheer. Well, I would say outside the work of the Holy Spirit, that's everybody. And it says our aim in a debate should not be to win over the cheerleaders.

It is to win those in the audience who are still seeking for truth and are open minded to argument and evidence. Well, there is no such person outside the work of the

Holy Spirit of God, especially in a debate on the existence of God. This does not take into account the fact that what you have are are haters of God.

Unless there is a spiritual change going on in their lives, and it says their good opinion should be our concern, not the opinion of the cheerleaders.

No, our concern should be the proclamation of God's truth and the glorification of his name, first and foremost.

God then uses that. To change his elect people, but men's opinions are a dime a dozen.

They they truly, truly are. So interesting debate. Amazing the amount of money that went into it.

I mean, sixty three thousand dollars, that's that would cover every that would cover all the debates that were done just about, you know, and I've done over a hundred of them.

So people keep saying, why don't why don't you debate those guys? Well, there you go, folks.

There's there's the reason why. Now, a few weeks ago, a fellow by the name of Jonathan called in to,

I believe, the Janet Parshall Show shifting gears here now. And Norm Geisler was on talking about a new book that he has that he has written, co -authored.

I think the vast majority of Norm's books are co -authored. And evidently, in a previous question or a previous point,

Dr. Geisler had once again, as is so common amongst our Arminian brethren, there is no such thing as a moderate

Calvinist. Our Arminian brethren misquoted Matthew 23, 37.

And so here is a phone call where Dr. Geisler once again simply glosses over his miscitations, his misunderstanding and bad exegesis, eisegesis, actually, of these texts.

And in light of the fact that this morning I reposted the video that has been up now for over nine months with the three questions that Norman Geisler needs to answer.

And he continues to ignore that, even though he continues to post the fallacious, fraudulent, refuted, shallow, ridiculous excuses offered by Ergenkanner.

And by the way, if you haven't seen that blog article, someone this morning sent me a link to yesterday's chapel service at Southwestern, where Dr.

Paige Patterson preached on the Ninth Commandment and not lying. And as the gentleman indicated to me, it was like a description of Ergenkanner.

And he's exactly right. So I linked to it. You can listen to yourself. Talks about padding your resume with with stuff that never happened, you know, like living in, you know,

Turkey and being trained in madrasas in Beirut and Cairo and Istanbul and your father bringing his wives with him and you doing debates in Arabic in mosques when you don't actually can't do that.

And, you know, making up Arabic, which is just gibberish and standing before Marines and lying about all that stuff, that kind of thing is the problem.

So anyway, here is the is the

Norman Geisler just playing around with phones, aren't you? Yeah. OK, here is the. It's it's it's a little distracting, you know, lines busied out, look a little weird.

Let's listen to the Norman Geisler call here and and how not to answer meaningful objections to your position.

Because he's all powerful and he's all good. Hmm. Jonathan, I welcome you from Atlanta, Georgia.

Thanks for stopping by. And your question now, please. Yes, sir. Thank you, Dr. Geisler for answering these questions today.

Just real quick, I wanted to correct your citation of Matthew 23, 37. It is how often I would have gathered your children together, not how often

I would have gathered you. But I did have a question real quick. You said that God wants to save everybody and he doesn't want anyone to perish and go to hell.

I, you know, judging that God has absolute perfect foreknowledge and he sees whether I will perish or whether I will spend eternity in heaven even before he creates me, if he's not willing that anybody perish, why would he continue with the creation process of those that he knows absolutely will perish?

Well, first of all, thank you for that correction. You're right about that, but it doesn't change the point of the verse.

The point of the verse is still the same. He's talking about Jerusalem's children, which is the

Jews, how often he would have gathered them together and that they would not. John 1, 10 to 12.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you catch that? And how often they would not. No, Dr.

Geisler, that's not what it says. How can it just it just boggles my mind.

When when Christian men holding the Bible in front of them have such strong traditions, they cannot even read the text.

First, they'll say how often you want to gather you, but you would not. Now he says how often he would gather them, but they would not.

Neither one of them is correct. But you see, the text has to say what Norman Geisler has always said that it says.

It can't actually say something else. It can't be a condemnation of the Jewish leaders.

How often would I have gathered your children, but you would not. You see, the object of the gathering and the resistant will has to be the same thing to substantiate his exaltation of man's autonomous will to the position of all being all authoritative and all determinative.

So even his own mind, even when corrected, did you hear he changes the pronoun, so it still matches the same thing.

He just can't hear it. And I remember asking people back in 2000 when

I was writing The Potter's Freedom, I talked to people who knew Norm, who had talked to Norm about these things.

And they all said the same thing. As soon as you start trying to correct his misapprehensions about Reformed theology, it's like a wall comes up, the eyes go blank and he won't listen to you anymore.

This is what we've seen it with Dave Hunt. We see it with Norm Geisler. There is just simply with some people an absolute unwillingness to even hear the essence of the objections you're making.

And there it is. Shouldn't be, but that's the way it is. 12 says he came to the world.

The world was made by him. The world knew him not. He came into his own. His own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he'd be power to become the sons of God.

So the point is the same. And 2 Peter 3 .9, the point is the same. He's long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

And 1 Timothy 2. Entire chapter in the

Potter's Freedom, the big three. It's been out for a decade. Does Norman Geisler have an answer?

The answer is no, he does not. He's put out two editions since the

Potter's Freedom came out. A new one just a matter of months ago. Here he is on the air only a matter of weeks ago.

Has he even attempted to interact with the counteracts of Jesus offered? The answer is no.

You have to ask yourself the question. If you wrote Chosen but Free and someone wrote a book -length response, and we're not talking about some, you know, self -published little thing over in the corner.

There are 27 endorsements on it from leading pastors and theologians.

It's a meaningful response. Anyone who has read it knows that it is. If you go for a decade and end of a decade, you're still just spinning your wheels.

You're just repeating everything that you've said from the beginning and you show no, well, reflection upon the responses have been offered to you.

That means you have no answers. That's why I wait. What other possible interpretation is there?

You have no answers. 2 -4, he wants all men to come to a knowledge of the truth.

So we've got to look these scriptures square in the eye. And when we do, we see that God is loving. God is compassionate.

He doesn't want anyone to perish. Why did he make this world? Why do the

Super Bowl teams both play knowing one is going to lose? Well, why is it that before the

Super Bowl, they're both willing and they know that one team is going to lose. They know that one set of big, strong, seven foot men, 300 pound men are going to be crying and the other ones are going to be rejoicing.

So there's your answer, folks. I want you to hear this. This is what I heard this. I was just like, wow.

OK, here's the answer that Dr. Norman Geisler, the provost of Veritas Theological Seminary, also home to Eric Cantor, defender of Eric Cantor.

Here's here's the illustration that he gives. Even though God knew.

With certainty, who was going to believe and who was not going to believe who was going to be saved and who was not going to save, because Dr.

Geisler does believe that he's and he's not an open theist. I mean, give the guy props. He left the ETS when they couldn't get rid of the open theist.

That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Then why does he create?

Well, it's like a football team, because they know that one of the teams is going to lose. Yeah, but they don't know which one.

There is no parallel. There's as much parallel there as talking about Sonny and Cher's divorce, for crying out loud.

There is no parallel. Divine knowledge cannot be paralleled in human predication of future events.

The fact remains that God chose to create knowing that there would be a certain number of those that he created that would be under his judgment for eternity.

Either he had a purpose for that or he didn't. Reformed theology gives you the purpose.

Reformed theology gives you the foundation. But Dr. Geisler and those like him have wiped away the foundation.

It is amazing to listen to the game is played. Some must win and some must lose, says

C .S. Lewis. The game of life is no different. It's better for God to have loved and to have lost than not to have loved at all.

Catch that, folks. I it is better for God to have loved and to have lost that never loved at all.

OK, let's just dig out all the cliches. Oh, my goodness. If you love something, I got you, babe.

I feel like seeing some Sonny and Cher now. It's like, what on earth? This is theology?

This is. Oh, I'm sorry. I just I should remain calm and cool and collected.

But when you start talking about the whole purpose of God's decree and creation and his accomplishment of his will and you're using it is better to have loved than to have loved and lost and to have never loved at all.

What? I've got the parallel now. It's eternal security. If if you if you love

God, let him go. If he doesn't come back to you. It's theology done from really cheesy

Christian posters from the 1970s that we all had on our wall. Yeah, I'm.

It's better for him to create it and give us an opportunity to receive his salvation than not to do that at all.

Well, Jonathan, thank you so much. The book again, that's the basis of our conversation. Yeah, OK, there you go.

There was. Absolutely amazing.

Is it me or did she say it all right there? Yes, I think. I think. Wow. Wow. Yeah, that that was that was that was where I went.

OK, how am I doing on time here? Yeah, I got plenty of time for this and time for your phone calls, too, if we can avoid wacky callers.

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number and and Skype at dividing that line.

You spend all the time getting that up. I did have one email I wanted to get to. And, you know,

I can certainly fill the time if we don't get don't get callers in. But here's a good question.

I've heard you say on a couple of occasions that Calvary Chapel will continue to produce Calvinists as long as they keep telling their people to go to the word of God.

And man, I cannot tell you how many times I every time

I can pretty much say every time I've gone out and spoken over the past year, someone has come up to me in the audience and said, that's me, that's me, that's me.

Sometimes multiple people in one trip. That's me. I was at Calvary Chapel. They said, study the Bible.

So as I started studying these things, I started asking questions. Now, here I'm here. I am. And they got rid of me.

Not quite the same situation here, but it is interesting. Says, I am one of those people.

It was about a 10 year journey for me being quite hostile to reform theology, to coming to love and embrace it. Potter's freedom was certainly instrumental in that process and was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me.

And I cannot tell you how many people have told me that, too. And it is amazing. That's why I've now learned when that book first came out 11 years ago, when

Chosen to be Free first came out, you know, I was deeply frustrated. There's gonna be so many people confused. And yes, there were many people confused.

But the overall good that has come from responding to it has been, well, well worth it.

And here's another example. Says, I'm currently involved in a Calvary Chapel church plant and I'm confident that this is currently where the

Lord wants me to be. I have found that there are many misconceptions about what we Calvinists believe and that many people's ears are already closed to hearing anything we have to say before we even speak.

Well, that's unfortunately coming from the various, very highest ranks of Calvary Chapel.

I've also found that as I have shown my faithfulness to this fellowship, it's people in mission to reach the lost.

People are more willing to listen and soften on their hard stance. Quite true. I mean, anybody who actually fairly listens to what the

Potter's Freedom says and how it said it in response to Chosen but Free would see the same thing.

No question about it. So, I also have learned that I have much to learn from them in other areas and I try to submit to the leadership and try not to project an attitude of superiority or that I am only here to instruct in theology.

Very good. No, that's the way it should be done. I mean, the only time that I just become completely, well, in that last situation, is there any excuse at this point of time, 11 years into this, for Norman Geisler to be misciting

Matthew 23 -37 and completely ignoring the counter exegesis of that text and 2 Peter 3 -9 and 1

Timothy 2 -4? There is no excuse any longer. But it's difficult to differentiate between those who don't know that.

He should know that. We can hold him to a higher standard. But it's hard to differentiate between those folks and the folks that, well, quite honestly, just all they've ever heard is the citation of those verses.

And the first time they hear a counter citation, since it's strange and different to their ears, they're automatically suspicious of it.

That's just how it works. So, here's the question. Could you comment on what you have found to be the most effective way to introduce people to the richness of Reformed theology and how our life and ministry play a part in that process?

Also, is there a role in seeking to reform from the inside rather than to leave an attack from the outside in terms of within a denomination or movement like Calvary Chapel?

Thank you so much for your time. And I would be suicidal to read the gentleman's name on the program because every time

I make a comment about Calvary Chapel, especially about Brian Broderson and leadership, boom, there is reaction.

So, we have folks who listen and listen regularly. And so, I won't do that. A couple of things.

Let's start with the words in order, the questions in order. What have you found to be the most effective way to introduce people to the richness of Reformed theology and how our life and ministry play a part in that process?

A twofold answer. This sounds so simplistic, but it isn't.

Reformed theology's heartbeat, its life flow, is the consistent exegesis and teaching of the

Word of God. It is allowing the Word of God to speak for itself and not softening it. It is allowing

John 6 to be John 6 and John 8 to be John 8. It's going through a passage like John 8 and demonstrating that the answers

Jesus gives to the questions he asks are not the answers that people expect. And they point us to something else.

Why don't you hear my words, Jesus says, because you don't belong to God. Not because you don't choose to.

It's because you don't belong to God. You can't even hear. There's something fundamentally wrong. Going through the total depravity of man, the absolute sovereignty of God, going through Isaiah chapters 40 through 48, and introducing them to a

God that is so much bigger than the humanistic concepts of God that we tend to drag into church and then just sort of set those little idols up and continue to be happy with them because they do not really challenge us.

That's what you've got to do. You've got to allow God's Word to be God's Word and stop skipping over Romans 8 and 9, stop skipping over Ephesians 1 and allowing those echoes of God's absolute sovereignty that are found in every passage to come forth and to be heard.

That is what has to be done in introducing people to the richest reformed theology. And you do that by demonstrating the consistency of the

Word of God. Why are Christians supposed to react the way they do to tragedy and heartache in their life?

It's because God is sovereign over their life and he has a purpose in their life. And so you can demonstrate that.

And sometimes, unfortunately, God allows you to demonstrate that in going through difficulty, in going through trial and tribulation and heartache, and how you respond to that.

And when you don't respond the way the world responds, then that gives you the opportunity of being able to show these things to others and to explain these things to others.

And so the richness of reformed theology is found in the consistency of the testimony of divine scripture to it.

And that is done in the teaching and the preaching of the Word of God.

Also, is there a role in seeking to reform from the inside rather than to leave and to attack from the outside? I am not a church hopper.

I speak strongly against being a church hopper. And I would like to say at the last time

I left a church, God had to literally kick me out the door. He had to use a two -by -four on me.

And I fully respect someone who says, you know, I feel this is where God would have me to be.

But I also know what the current leadership of Calvary Chapel believes. And it is inevitable that at some point in time, if someone has success in bringing reformation to a church, and please try to understand something, reformed theology is not five points.

The tulip is not all of reformed theology. And I know I've got my truly reformed brethren who don't even think

I'm reformed. But listen to me, reformed theology is seriously listening to what the

Word of God says and believing about who God is, his sovereignty, his holiness, his transcendence, his absolute right to do with his creation as he sees fit, his historical interaction with his people, his grace, his condescension, his covenants.

Yes, covenant theology. I'm Reformed Baptist, read the 1689 sometime.

And the absolute sovereignty of his grace in the salvation of men, and it impacts how you do church.

God has the right to determine what is pleasing in his worship. He tells us how we are to worship.

And reformed theology speaks to how we grieve, to how we deal with death, to how we deal with sickness, to how we worship.

It is an entire world and life that we live in. It's a view and you can't keep it under a bushel.

You can't hide it. And eventually, if you are successful in bringing reformation to that fellowship, that is going to be seen.

It is going to be like a city on the hill and its light cannot be hidden.

And there will be a reaction. And unless God brings reformation to the entire non -denominational denomination, we could certainly pray that he would.

But I know the current leadership and the current leadership is just as blind and deaf to what the word of God says on these issues as Norman Geisler and Dave Hunt, who happened to be really popular amongst the non -denominational denomination.

And so there comes a day when for yourself and your wife and your children, there needs to be consistency between what is being preached from the pulpit and what is being taught in the home.

And that's why I had to leave the church I was in so many years ago now, 22 years ago now, my goodness.

And that was last time I left the church. That was not an easy decision. It was a very painful decision.

It took a lot of time, but I had to do it eventually. When is that time for you?

I am not the Holy Spirit of God and cannot tell you, but there comes a time.

And I can hope and pray that in your situation, you are so successful. When that time comes, the whole leadership of that local church will stand up in the streets and say, no, we will do what is right in God's sight.

But if that doesn't happen, then you have to be prepared to do what is right in regards to believing the word of God and what is right for your family and what is right in honoring

God and his truth. So that is how I would respond to that.

I would hope and pray that if that separation eventually does happen, that it happens in a proper way and in a way that's honoring to Christ and honoring to his truth and honoring to the gospel.

So thank you very much for listening to The Dividing Line today. We covered a fairly wide range of topics there, but I hope it has all been useful to you.

Streaming again tomorrow. Why are we streaming again tomorrow? We'll be streaming all Dividing Lines tomorrow, if you'd like to tune in on this link to keep testing the internet connection,

I guess. So otherwise, the real live Dividing Line, Lord willing, we'll be back again next

Tuesday morning at our regular time. Looking forward to talking to you then. Thanks for listening. God bless. It's a sign of the times, the truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm.

Won't you lift up your voice? Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise.

Pound on Wittenberg. Pound on Wittenberg. Pound on Wittenberg.

Stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the Lord? Cause we're pounding, pounding on Wittenberg.

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