The Pillays of South Africa, Self-Made Energy Crisis, Response to Derrick Brite

Well, greetings! Welcome to The Dividing Line. It is good to be with you. I didn't know Chris had his tweets protected.

How strange is that? I was just looking at this long thread that Chris Wisna had posted.

He does a lot of reading in the Westminster Divines and Calvin and people like that, and he posted this big long thread on their views of Aristotle.

And, you know, I hit refresh or something, lost it, was sitting there scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, couldn't find it.

Now I try to try to look it back up again, and these tweets are protected. I don't know.

Twitter sometimes just leaves me completely lost. So, I don't know, I was going to say, look it up yourself if you want some some great quotes on what early reformers thought of, especially the ethics of Aristotle, but I'm not sure if you can find it.

Not sure what's going on there. Well, we'll probably find out fairly quickly. Oh, someone did accuse me of crashing

Twitter yesterday. I didn't see that, but that doesn't mean much because I don't see a whole lot that happens on Twitter anyways until somebody tells me about it and then

I have to go looking for it. And I don't know. At least there is some reason for believing that I'm not being shadow banned anymore, as I know

I was. The first time I ever heard the term shadow banned was when the first list came out years and years and years ago.

I mean, you're talking, I don't know how long ago, 2016, something like that? Years ago.

And I was on the first list. Someone contacted me and said, do you know your name's on the list of people that are shadow banned on Twitter?

And I'm like, what's a shadow ban? I have no idea. Because I've gone from 92 ,000 to like 106 ,000 followers fairly quickly after after the

Musk takeover. So I don't know. It's still somewhat confusing to me.

It's I prefer it to Facebook by a long shot. I can never find anything on Facebook.

It's just it is what it is. Anyway, welcome to the last program of the year. I woke up this morning and when

I started looking at things on. Well, actually,

I was actually looking. It's not the first place I look. I don't.

It's not my favorite place at all, but I did go to Facebook this morning, and one of the first things that popped up,

I'm pretty sure it was. Yeah, it was in Facebook. Definitely. Was from the police down in South Africa, and I was reading the article that Adrian had posted.

About what's going on with his with his parents. And I just his mom is pretty much gone in the sense that she's nonresponsive and things.

I just remember the first time that Rudolph and I went to Durban, South Africa, that I stayed in the place home and.

She was very sick with cancer at the time that was. I remember it's 15, 2015, 2016 might have been even 2014.

Now I think about it, I don't remember the first time. And yet they were just so incredibly despite her illness, so incredibly welcoming and hospitable.

And I think the next time I went down, Rudolph and I stayed like a B and Airbnb. I don't think it was

Airbnb, but sort of a bread and breakfast type place. I remember that one because that's when

I discovered that the taxi cabs would drive around Durban just honking their horns all night.

That's how they get business is you listen for the honking horn. That's not like in South America. When I went to Lima.

And the entire city of millions of people is a cacophony of honking horns. People just drive down the road honking their horn.

And as we're leaving the airport and you just hear this and we're driving down and I'm looking around going.

So finally, I'm just like, excuse me, but why are you honking your horn? So people know we're coming.

But if everyone's honking their horn. How does that work?

But literally, when I left Lima. I had to get up at like three o 'clock in the morning for a super early flight.

And I walk outside in the middle of the night, three o 'clock in the morning, and it's nothing but a cacophony of honking horn at three o 'clock in the morning.

So it wasn't like it was like that in Durban, but it was strange. These, you know, and that's how they're advertising for me.

Anyways, that was second time. And then the last time they put me up in a real nice place down near the beach, running next to the ocean in Durban is one of my great memories of being in South Africa.

But each one of those times, you know, when we. I didn't bring the pictures up, but I've got pictures of me and Dennis and Adrian and all the other guys in bow ties going to the

Gray Street Mosque. That was Akhmedidat's mosque in South Africa before the debate there.

And they were all sitting there. They were right there in the debate. If you look up the term hospitality from a

Christian perspective, you're going to find Dennis there and his wife, Cecilia.

And so to see, to read that it looks like, you know,

Dennis is right there at his wife's side, and then he has these horrible pains. It looks like he has colon cancer and was going in for emergency surgery and things aren't looking good.

And but then to see how it would. The inheritance of godly people are godly children.

And to see how their family is responding just reminds me again. It's been a few years, I think, since I mentioned it.

So I'll go remembers, but no one else will. How I was struck years ago when reading

Ian Murray's biography of Jonathan Edwards.

And this is decades ago, but was talking about how

Edwards's wife. Responded to the news of Edwards death, his sudden death, early, early vaccines.

And she had responded by praying that God would make her, that God would keep her from doing anything in response to his death that would in any way detract from the glory of God.

Basically was what it was. It's just so, so completely different than how most of us think and act.

When terrible things happen in our lives, you know, we're first focused upon ourselves rather than focusing upon glorifying

God and thinking toward the future and going, how can

I respond to this in such a fashion so as to glorify

God in all things? And then down the road, when people look back at how I responded. It's a whole different thing.

And so to see the church down there and the believers down there responding in the way that they are, beautiful thing.

So please, I put on Twitter and Facebook, pray for the folks there in Durban, the whole family, as they're dealing with this very difficult situation.

And again, it's going over there before doing debates, and things like that, going over to the home.

Eating, I mean, they would always put this beautiful spread out.

And they'll have to admit, I ate stuff there that I had not eaten anywhere else. And there was this drink that he would mix up of,

I think it was tea and something else. They sent me home with some of it once so I could have some for a while.

Just so good. Just so wonderful. Some of the highlights of my trips down to South Africa, there in that home.

So pray for them. And the Lord would be gracious and merciful.

Grant his strength and his comfort as only he can. Because there's an example of folks who, from an

American perspective, have very little. But from God's perspective, have a whole lot more than I think a lot of American Christians do, to be honest with you.

So anyways, saw that first thing this morning. And so we definitely want to pray for the whole family.

And just thankful, just deeply, deeply thankful for all they've done over the years. And their continued ministry.

They're in a difficult, difficult area. It's, you know, people don't realize, the media doesn't talk about it here, but they have four to six hours a day without electricity in South Africa now.

Same idiotic policies that are leading to that in Northwestern United States.

California, it's coming our direction, folks. It's coming our direction. We are simply under a spirit of deception.

And a large enough percentage of our fellow citizens are so deceived that they will continue voting for people who will enslave us.

It is a process of enslavement. And that's what these people want to do.

That's what they're doing. Demonizing what God has given to us as gifts. You know why you have hospitals?

You know why you have medicine, electricity, education? Why we have art today and you can enjoy the beauty of, you know why?

It's called fossil fuels. Okay, it's called what we, what the earth produces and is still producing.

And our nation sits on an abundance of these sources of energy.

And they've been demonized. And so now, you know, another cold snap hit

Texas last week. And you just watch the charts. And they didn't have the collapse of the grid like they did last year.

Came close, so it didn't. But then you just watch the quote -unquote renewables versus the good old consistent fossil fuels like natural gas.

And it's shooting up there and it's keeping everybody warm. Meanwhile, the windmills are freezing up.

And I have solar now. I have solar on my house. I live in Phoenix.

Of all the places on the planet. You know, when you think about it, not only do we get the most sunshine.

But one thing I've noticed, they provide shade. That's a big section.

That's the most exposed section of my roof. Which is now underneath shade. So there's a little of an advantage there, too.

Though I'm sure they get quite warm, but they're above the roof. So the heat is going up. Yeah, and there's a gap underneath, too.

So I've got a little, don't we all? I have a little app on my phone.

And I can pull it up. In fact, I'll do it right now. Um, yeah, it's not a really, it's not sunny outside today, is it?

Producing 0 .97 kilowatts. So 950 watts. Okay, that's not nothing.

But that's not enough to run a whole lot in a house. Now, I've seen up to five or like five kilowatts.

Something like that here during the winter. And I imagine in June, it's going to be pretty interesting to see at noon.

With the sun cooking on those babies, what it's going to be able to produce. But yesterday it rained.

And I was producing zip city, not a niche zero. I was

I was watching it. Nothing there. Because, you know, that happens. And it just just, oh, oh, yeah.

Al Gore, who said that by by 2020, our children wouldn't know what snow was.

And did you see that? Did you see the video of the Buffalo Bills? Coming back after after their after their football game.

And they're having to find their vehicles. And literally, they're under six, seven feet of snow.

You know what this means, right? The next ice age is coming. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what that's what

Leonard Leonard Nimoy said back in the 70s. That was a big thing. It was we all grew up with it. Next ice age is coming.

We're all going to freeze to death. And now we're all going to fry to death. And and maybe they'll change it back.

And who knows? As long as you keep people scared to death, you're going to be you're going to be doing well.

So that's that's what's happening anyway. So 2023, right around the corner,

I feel sorry for odd numbered years, first of all. They always seem a little odd.

And it doesn't seem to me like it was all that long ago that we were celebrating 2022 coming in.

It's been an interesting year. Things are not as bad as I expected them to be at this point, to be honest with you.

There's been a few positive things, a lot of negative things, but a few positive things.

The insanity of the culture only has accelerated.

There's no question about that. We can be thankful for such things as the Dobbs decision.

But at the same time, the Dobbs decision, I think, cast a tremendous light on just how incredibly rebellious and set in rebellion our society actually is because the response to it.

The response was not to recognize, well, this returns the argument to the states, which is all it did.

People are so conditioned by the public indoctrination system.

That they accepted the idea that this is somehow an attack on women's rights. This is enslavement of women.

And whenever I see anybody who, in discussing abortion, does not recognize that the central aspect of the question has to do with the nature of the unborn child,

I know I'm dealing with someone who is an ethical and moral pygmy. And that this is exactly how the society intends people to be.

It's the infantilization of our society. Our society, I would say that your average 25 -year -old today has the mental and emotional maturity of 13 and 14 -year -olds when

I was that age. There's a lot of reasons for that. The changes in the family structure, especially the educational, the indoctrination system.

But the result has been that young people do not think critically.

They emote. Now, people like Sol and others were talking about this decades ago.

I'm not saying anything new. They warned about this. But now we see it on a level that is astonishing and utterly destructive.

And these people are now in positions of authority. And so the 20 -something censors at Facebook or Instagram, used to be at Twitter, they have no problem shutting down discussion, skewing elections, stealing elections, doing all this stuff that is so clearly morally problematic.

But because it makes them feel good, then that makes it something that is good to do.

Objective morality, objective standards, objective truth. Who needs any of that stuff?

And as we enter into 2023, you and I both know,

I think most of us, without necessarily being conscious of this, live with a little bit of dread that the next time you open up your browser, the next time you look at the news, the next time you're in contact with the world going around, you're going to hear about the next thing.

Right now, the thing is climate. That was what they wanted to use all along.

COVID came along, gave them many more tools to use. But climate, while they're getting their goals and they're shutting down fossil fuels and they're putting people into the dark and they're destroying industry and everything else and human health and...

Hey, did you all notice life expectancy in the

United States? Did you hear about this? Oh, didn't hear about it? See, life expectancy in the

United States, post -2020, has declined over two years.

For the first time, maybe since World War II, I'm not sure.

It had been steadily increasing, steadily increasing, and now it's going down. That wasn't just COVID.

Let me tell you, it's a whole lot more than that. But life expectancy, hmm, wow, the thing that people want the most, huh?

Because if you're a secularist, that's all you've got. You've got nothing else to look forward to, nothing else to live for, than that life expectancy.

And now it's down two years. We live in this little bit of a dread.

Is it going to pop up tomorrow? New variant, which one will it be?

Omicron Pi? They would never use Pi. It sounds... Rho, the

Rho variant. Maybe they could go back and pick up some of the

Greek letters they skipped. I don't know. You don't want the Omega variant. It sounds like a movie.

Anyway, and now the people have finally figured out how to pronounce Omicron. But it's going to hit.

And we haven't learned anything. Um, the governments, despite the fact that there are now thousands and thousands of healthcare professionals, study after study after study after study, demonstrating that getting

Uncle Joe's cookies and getting Uncle Joe's booster cookies, um, just decimates your immune system.

Just, I hear all sorts of people got the flu right now, right? And they're really struggling with it.

Okay, well, there's a reason for that. You know, um, all these sudden deaths and unexplained deaths, all the rest of the stuff.

Look, the people in charge, that's what they want. They've been very clear about their desire to lower the population of the planet.

And if you can, um, um, basically neuter, castrate the next generation with transgenderism, murder them in the womb before they're born, uh, kill them with euthanasia,

Canada, um, or kill them with, um, heart disease.

Uh, hey, that, that all works. That, that for the people who want fewer and fewer people on the planet, that, that all works for them.

We all live with that little concern. It's going to hit tomorrow. And this brief period of 2022 where, okay, you know, well, uh, the, uh, the omnibus thing, which

I'm going to just go ahead and say it. It's straightforward. Was sinful. Most people don't call it sinful. It's called theft.

And it's called not using even scales. It's called just making money, printing money up, which you, which no one seems to understand.

I don't know how, but if you like have tried to save and invest and stuff like that, when the government prints money, it makes what you've saved less and they're stealing from it's sinful.

It's wrong. Uh, Fiat money, just, uh, just, it is, it is, you know?

Uh, anyway, uh, all that stuff. We, we sit here looking at it going, it's only by the grace of God.

This whole thing hasn't come down like a house of cards yet. And you just wonder, when's that going to happen?

That's funny. I, I posted something on Twitter. I did a thread about some of the societal stuff.

And again, you always get your people. It's all you ever talk about anymore. And then I do a whole thread on Tom's.

That's all you ever talk about. There is, there's no winning matter how hard you just honest folks.

Let me tell you something for those of you who post that kind of stuff. I don't hear you.

I'm not listening. I don't care. If you don't want to follow me on Twitter, don't follow me on Twitter. Turn it off.

Just, just check the little box. It won't show you that stuff anymore. Um, because whenever you say that's all you do,

I know it's not. And therefore you have no credibility. It's just like, why are you bothering?

The problem is, is when they say that, that's when, you know, they don't follow you. This is the first time they've actually paid any attention and who knows how long.

And oh, gee, look, he's talking about this. That's all he ever talks about. I know, but I, I posted a thread and someone responded by basically saying,

I thought you were a post -millennialist and I'm going to tell you,

I'll be honest with you. Um, I need to,

I need to dust over here. Um, I have probably learned more about post -millennialism and general equity, theonomy by recognizing that its critics don't know what it's about than by reading positive stuff.

So in other words, listening to the criticisms and going, huh, okay, but that's not what we're talking about.

The criticisms are so often just so far off that it helps you to think through and go, oh, well, um,

I suppose maybe we're not being clear, but then I go and watch some of the stuff that's out there and go, no, we were pretty clear.

Um, hmm, there's a, there's some prejudice going on here. So someone said, you know,

I was talking about the direction that Western culture is going and the inevitability of its self -demise.

And it's like, I thought you were a post -millennialist. I'm like, what does that have to do with being a post -millennialist? I mean, you, you look at, you look at the prophets, you look at what they said to Israel, then you look at what's going on today and the prophets spoke

God's truth to Israel. And what happened to Israel? They still ended up in Babylon. They still ended up, um, under judgment.

Um, did that mean they failed? No, that's, that's the whole point of Isaiah six. I'm going to send you as a prophetic voice and I'm going to use you to harden their hearts.

And God had a purpose in that. And I look at church history and unless you have the silly, silly, silly notion of, unless you're, you're literally thinking that when we're talking about post -millennialism today, we're talking about, uh, the 1890s, everything's just going to get better and better and better every single day and blah, blah, blah.

If you've listened to us, you know that we know, and especially me, you know that we talk about the dark times in church history.

And there have been some really, really, really dark times. And believing that Christ is going to be victorious and that there is going to be a, a great salvation of the nations so that they are going to be streaming to Mount Zion to hear

God's law. And, and that the son is going to ask, you know, give, I will give you the nations as your inheritance.

And, you know, you can take that as a, I will give you a few people out of the nations as your inheritance spiritually.

You want to take that view? You may be right. Go for it. Fine. But if you, if you go, that sounds like God's really going to save a bunch of people.

He did say to Abraham, your, your, your sentence would be like the sand of the sea. Um, and so you got to put together narrow way, broad way with the promises and see how all that works.

Um, but from my perspective, this all comes down to Christ reigning over his enemies and his enemies being put under his feet.

Now that was something I'm going to be honest with you. It just was not a part of the eschatological systems that I've been a part of in the past.

There was not an emphasis upon the actual subjugation of the enemies of Christ in this world.

It was all, well, yeah, that's going to happen at the second coming and the blood's going flow up to the bridles and, um, you know, it's just instantaneous type thing.

It's not an actual subjugation to where Christ is reigning over.

It's a massive exercise of divine force at one point in time that just brings it about.

Well, what if it's not that way? And what if my theory agree or not agree is that secularism is the greatest enemy that has ever risen against the name of Christ in history.

Um, you might say, Oh, Rome, Rome, Rome was at least a theistic system. Um, Rome had cross dressers and homosexuals and temples with prostitutes, male and female, and they had all that stuff.

Uh, the debauchery of man is nothing new, but they also recognized the vast difference between male and female.

They, they knew, and they believed that there were gods and they believed that there was a source of morality outside of man.

They may not have been consistent in that, especially as a polytheist. I'm not sure that works, but we're living in a day where we're just with, with bald face, man looks at God and says, we will have none of this.

We are going to say that all of this is a huge, massive, transitory accident.

There is no meaning. There is no foundation of law. And since man does always want to worship, we're just going to make the biggest honking idol ever called the state.

And you just worship the state. I, I think

Christ has to put that enemy under his feet. And I don't know that I'm going to live long enough to see that happen, but I believe it's going to happen.

And that's why I look forward to the future. And I, I invest in the future, not necessarily monetarily, but I think one of the greatest investments you can make in the future is to build the foundations that will survive the collapse and hence serve for what needs to be rebuilt once, because this stuff cannot last.

It can't. You, you cannot have a society that calls everything that's evil, good, and everything that's good, evil.

You cannot have a society without, without families. Did you see, um, another video popped, popped on through Twitter.

It was at a waffle house. And it was,

I think Christmas Eve or Christmas. I wanted to, and it was a huge fight between the employees and a bunch of black customers.

So some of the employees are black too. In fact, most of them are, but the, um, the, the person videoing it was a black man.

And there were just a bunch of black people there and they're hooting and hollering and, and encouraging the destruction of property and throwing chairs and, and, and, and all this stuff.

And of course the profanity is off the, off the scale. And I sit there and I watched that.

And what I see is not black people versus white, because it's like, it was black on black.

And there was one woman who worked at the store, a white woman that was involved in the fighting, but 98 % of everybody was black.

I don't see race. I see fatherlessness. Cause that can happen anyway.

You inflict any ethnic group with the destruction of the family that has happened in the black community, not only

United States, but in Canada, in England, you, you afflict someone with the breakdown of the family, no fathers to discipline, to teach morality, ethics, give young men that guidance they need to channel that energy that is naturally theirs into building, going on adventures, doing the things that make men, men, women start acting like men because they don't have men in their lives that act like men that take responsibility.

This is the result. You could go on YouTube right now. And if you dared put in the right search terms, you could sit there for hours, hours, watching this kind of thing taking place without a doubt, without a doubt.

And societies can't last that. Societies can't survive that. You see the looting of these stores.

I turn sometimes when I'm going a certain way home and Rich, you'll know this.

You go across Bethany home road and at 43rd and Bethany home,

I think it's 43rd and Bethany home. There is a former either CVS or Walgreens was a

CVS whole building. It's got graffiti on the side.

It's been closed for what about two years? Something like that. Something along those lines. About that time, about that.

Yeah. And why'd they close? They couldn't make any money. When they, first of all,

I think the building itself was less than five years old. Oh yeah. Practically brand new. And up at Glendale and 27th, brand new

Walgreens, same thing. Really? Yeah. One on the

North, Northeast side. Same thing closed. And when that CVS was open, they eventually got to the point to where they had to lock virtually every product in the store behind Plexiglas and in Plexiglas packages.

How can you possibly invest that much infrastructure in your CVS and, and survive?

Can't do it. It didn't. Can't do it. So, so they closed the stores and that leaves the people in that neighborhood traveling farther and farther if they can travel at all.

And what's it? Why? Sin? Selfishness? Breakdown of the family? Utter rejection of God's law?

It's, it's all around. No society can survive this forever. It, it, it comes crashing down.

And once a society becomes so turned in upon itself, our enemies are just waiting because they know, uh, our enemies are going to come in and they know what's under the ground here and they'll dig it out and they'll use it.

They'll, they'll have convinced us, Oh, we need to save the planet. Just a matter until somebody else is using it for their own purposes, their own.

Yeah. It's just, that's the way it is. That's the way it is. Um, and so something's going to have to be built in his place.

Something's gonna have to come, come back. And, um, all the blessings we've had and man, have we had blessings?

Oh my goodness. Have we had blessings? We have, we have not thanked

God one, one thousandth for the blessings we've had. Once you lose them, then you know.

And I just, I asked myself, and then I asked my fellow Christians, when you are reduced to living on the level of a large portion of humanity, will you still be praising

God? Will you still be singing hymns to God? Or will you be so focused upon what you've lost?

And see, the temptation is for us to sit here going, we tried to tell everybody. Oh, we did.

So the prophets, so Jeremiah, so Ezekiel.

And yet, you know, they go off to, they go off to captivity with everybody else.

And it's perfectly right for God to deal with us in that way. And I just, I asked myself, you ask yourself this question too.

If all of your creaturely comforts are taken away, how fervent will your, will your praise be at that point?

How fervent will your thanksgiving be? And yeah.

Yeah. That's a question every one of us simply has to ask ourselves. Okay. I'm going to, this is cheating, but a conversation started on Twitter yesterday.

And sometimes the easiest way, because I'm going to tell you, writing

Twitter threads is somewhat of a slow process. You know, sometimes if I really know

I'm going to be writing an entire thread, I will write what I'm going to write in a word processor, but then you still have to cut, paste, cut, paste.

You never know where 280 characters is going to end. So you have, you know, the red starts, you have to cut that.

It's not the most efficient and effective investment of your time. But I think back on Tuesday, a fellow by the name of Derek Bright had, he's a

PhD student in systematic theology at Puritan Seminary. And so the first thing

I had seen is that Sutton Long had responded to the announcement of what I was going to talk about on the program, which on Tuesday was, you know, where are

Reform Baptists going to go with this Thomistic revival and the resourcement of Thomas Aquinas and all the rest of that stuff?

By the way, I just want to say, I had some pastors just briefly reach out to me and say, thank you for that program.

And I thank you for that encouragement. I really do. I do believe we're the majority.

I really do. But I think that for a lot of folks, this is not a subject that we want to even invest ourselves in.

I know, for example, that Dr. Johnson, Jeffrey Johnson, has another book coming out soon.

I've read it. And it's going to be really helpful. He is going to take a lot of heat for it, because he says a lot of the same things that I've been saying, but he spends so much more time in that area.

I don't have the stomach for it. I just don't. But there is a level of academic hubris that I just...

I'm too much of a churchman. I'm too much of a... we need to have our eyes on the ball.

What's really important, this is distracting everybody. It still has to be dealt with.

This isn't some political thing that people are sowing these seeds to divide us all up. This happens every generation, every other generation, all the time.

It just happens to be happening at a bad time right now. Anyway, Derek Bright had first popped into the announcement of that program, basically saying, hey,

I just want to tell everybody, read widely, don't do what this white guy and all this other... what he and his ilk are saying.

So it's not like started off real positively. But eventually, at some point,

I asked him the question. Let me see. See, my concern in scrolling back here is that you end up losing yourself.

Okay. Here's the question. But since you have popped into the conversation, can you answer a question?

Give me an example of necessary apostolic truth. So necessary apostolic truth that has been explicated and enunciated best by Thomas better than anyone before him or after him.

Because I can't think of anything that is a necessary apostolic truth. I can think of all sorts of Aristotelian metaphysical speculations, but I can't think of a necessary apostolic truth that has been explicated and enunciated best by Thomas Aquinas.

I can't. And so, as always ends up happening.

See, the problem with Twitter is you get scattered. And so somebody will respond, and then somebody responds to them, and it goes off into the throat over here someplace.

And I have to go digging for stuff. And sometimes I don't see things for hours or days, because it's in some other thread someplace and for some reason doesn't show up in mine.

I just use the web interface. I've tried TweetDeck and TweetBot, and none of that helped.

So it is what it is. And so someone named

RedRiver got involved with it, and so that went various places. And so eventually what he says, okay, so how about divine simplicity?

Is that specific enough? That was actually to RedRiver instead of to me, but I saw it anyway.

And elsewhere he mentioned impassibility. Okay. My response.

So I assume that means then you're thinking the Thomistic expressions of simplicity and impassibility are definitional of faith in their

Thomistic forms, because there's... And this is one of the things that's going to be helpful with Dr.

Johnson's book. I hope I'm not spilling secrets. But because he differentiates, as I differentiate, as anyone must differentiate, between derivation of dogma and doctrine with Scripture as the primary ground of that dogma and doctrine, or philosophy as the primary mover, the primary source of a dogma and a doctrine.

He there is a biblical doctrine of simplicity, but then there is a philosophical version of simplicity that imports the metaphysics of Aristotle, which would not have been a part of the apostolic witness.

And so when I say impassibility are definitional of the faith in their

Thomistic forms, I even put asterisks around it. So given that those two are inarguably deeply indebted to Aristotelian categories, it must follow that definitional

Christian beliefs are dependent upon Aristotelian metaphysical categories, which likewise means there had to be a, parenthesis, spirit -guided, question mark, parenthesis, development over a period of more than a thousand years that would lead to a formulation significantly clear and more consistent than could have existed with only the apostolic witness.

Indeed, given the Scriptures completely lack these metaphysical categories, which he's going to dispute, or it could be argued use a different set of said categories, there could not be a once -for -all delivered -to -saints faith,

Jude 3 and 4, that would be coherent and consistent until this process was completed.

Yes, I am assuming here that it is generally agreed that a biblical definition of simplicity or impassibility is not sufficient in your view, since that would not include the very metaphysical underpinnings that have become so important to one side in this particular discussion.

I would also assume that you would agree that Thomas did not offer an exegetically derived definition of these beliefs.

That's an important aspect, but one that was very much based upon the natural theology of contemplation upon the principles provided by Aristotle.

So there's a bunch of stuff there, and everybody knows what those things are. It's what is the role of natural theology?

What is the origin and source of natural theology? If it requires a regenerate mind to contemplate spiritual truths, how is that a natural theology to begin with?

A regenerate mind using biblical categories to examine God's natural world is not the same thing as pagan philosophers looking at the natural world with an unregenerate mind.

Can we agree that Aristotle is an unregenerate man? I certainly hope so. Oh, but the natural mind has natural law, and there is common grace, and so are we really comfortable saying that yes, even though the

New Testament writers don't use Aristotelian categories, though I did see at least one person saying, oh,

I think that's actually in there somewhere. Though they didn't, that contemplation of the universe is sufficient to produce those categories that then are necessary to the process of development of doctrine over time, so that the ultimate and highest expression of Christian theology could only happen 1 ,200 years after the apostles, and in light of Greek philosophical categories that existed 500 years before the

New Testament, but the New Testament doesn't use them. I just hope everybody understands that if that's your position, that again, you need to stay out of the debate arena, because any sharp opponent that can figure out where you're going with that, there's some huge leaps you're going to have to make to get over that.

So that's what I wrote, and I guess, according to this, just two hours later,

Derek didn't see it until earlier today. Again, just trying to find stuff is hard to do.

So I haven't responded to this, so I'm responding to this now. So I'm cheating. It's a lot easier.

There's a lot here. First, I'm not convinced that the scripture is totally absent of these categories.

What's that, about 20 seconds? Someone's not listening to what

I'm saying right now. Anyway, yeah, go ahead. You do whatever you want to do over there.

First, I'm not convinced that the scripture is totally absent of these categories. Well, if you mean

Aristotelian metaphysical categories, I would love to see where the apostles laid these things out, but since you don't follow up with that, what can

I say? Second, it's only a development of doctrine in the same way

Calvin and his successors developed union with Christ or predestination.

Is that a development in doctrine or in understanding? Now, I would very much disagree with this.

First of all, there are all sorts of people prior to Calvin that had not only a belief in, but based theology upon, said deep, incredible things about union with Christ, predestination, and I'm not just talking about Augustine.

In fact, in speaking of Augustine, I would point out that we have to be honest and forthright in recognizing how much of Augustine's thought is influenced by Greek philosophy,

Neoplatonism in particular, and how that impacted so much of his theology, and I thought, silly, naive me, that we had already agreed a long time ago that you recognize that and you don't have to follow

Augustine into any of the blind alleys that his Neoplatonism would have led him into, but evidently there are people that wouldn't agree with that.

Fulgentius of Rusp has deep discussions of these things as well, and he's long, long before Calvin, but the point is that the difference here is that Calvin is not bringing an externally -derived set of metaphysical principles to bear upon Scripture, so as to say,

Paul meant this, but in light of our commitment to these clarifying metaphysical principles, we now know that the truth is actually this, which is something that Paul never said and, in fact, would not have recognized.

There's huge difference there, and in fact, that's one of the criticisms that Calvin is receiving from the

Neotomists is saying, well, he didn't follow the great tradition interpretation of the

Old Testament, and so that actually led to people abandoning the

Doctrine of the Trinity, as if that was the foundation of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the first place, but they recognize in Calvin's own words.

Dr. Clawson has given, has invested the time, again, like I said, writing threads on Twitter takes a little effort, that gave evidence from multiple sources in Calvin's writings, but especially,

I think the clearest stuff was from his proposed commentary on Chrysostom that he never ended up writing, but he wrote the introductory materials to, where he lays out the necessity that exegesis fundamentally is focused upon the intention of the author, what he's seeking to communicate, we must understand that first, and that's that's not what

Aquinas did with scripture ever. That was not his tradition, and so, no, to say that Thomas' formulation of which

Aristotelian categories to bring to bear and how to bring them to bear on Christian theology must become normative for orthodoxy itself, because remember,

I said these are supposed to be apostolic and fundamental doctrines, is fundamentally different than Calvin saying we want to know what scripture says as written by the authors in regards to these issues, these subjects, and I've pointed out over and over again, repeatedly, church history does not give us a even -handed set of commentary upon all the doctrines of the

Bible. Your first full -length discussion of the atonement doesn't come until late in the fourth century.

Does that make the atonement less important than all the controversies that had existed beforehand?

No, since one of the controversies that existed beforehand was when you're supposed to celebrate Easter. So, no, you don't have that kind of thing in church history, and so issues such as union with Christ definitely become subjugated to traditional influences because of the rise of the sacramental system, and so there are elements of the tradition, the specifically anti -biblical elements of what becomes tradition, that becomes a blinding lens, and so does

Calvin do tremendous work on the subject of union with Christ? Yes. Does that mean there was some development of doctrine that required the importation of Greek philosophical categories to clarify the thoughts of the inspired writers?

If you ever described, let's put it this way, if you ever described to Calvin his work in that area in that way,

I'm hoping you can get out of Geneva really fast. It might not be good for you in the long term.

Okay. Third, yes, I believe these are essential.

So, again, I would say, because I put this in with asterisks, the

Thomistic definition of simplicity, which is deeply

Aristotelian, and impassibility, deeply Aristotelian, rather than a biblical definition of those doctrines that would say, you know what?

God used the prophets in the context they were in. We should do that, too. It sounds like what

Derek Bright is saying is, yes, I believe these, the Aristotelian formulations, are essential because I believe they're faithfully taught in Scripture.

Well, they're faithfully taught in Scripture. Why didn't even Thomas claim that? Because on any exegetical grounds, you're not going to make that claim, are you?

I mean, even he's very plainly arguing from principles that are philosophically oriented.

He's not saying, well, no, we need to believe this because these texts, as they were written, communicated these things.

I think the discussion of natural theology is a good one to have. I believe there's great use and benefit of natural theology and borrowing from pagans.

Okay. Then, and this is where it would be useful to read the lengthy, lengthy, lengthy section from Chris.

He didn't get in touch with you, did he? He's probably not listening live today. Because I'm just concerned because I looked him up, and I'm concerned to say everyone should read what

Chris, all the stuff that Chris spent time doing that, but like I said, when I looked it up, you couldn't.

They were protected, even from me, which I'm one of his followers, so I don't know why they'd be protected from me, and I couldn't see them.

It's a little bit weird. Anyway, so he provides, he thinks, are two helpful quotes.

One is from Calvin's commentary on Titus 112, that those persons are superstitious who do not venture to borrow anything from heathen authors.

All truth is from God, and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it, for it has come from God.

Besides, all things are of God, and therefore, why should it not be lawful to dedicate to his glory everything that can properly be employed for such purpose?

But on this subject, the reader may consult Basil's discourse, and he goes on from there. I think that is an extremely imbalanced understanding of what

Calvin understood in regards to sources of divine truth.

This is talking about Paul's citation of a heathen author.

He's not talking about bringing Aristotelian metaphysics into a definitional role in Christian theology, which

Calvin rejected. He would not go there.

He criticized that. This is talking about, you know, what he's talking about, and I didn't pull up the whole thing because I didn't, but he's talking about Titus 112.

One of themselves, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true.

So he's talking about utilization of that. That is not anywhere on the same planet as insisting that the metaphysical categories of Aristotle are actually necessary for the establishment of Christian orthodoxy and the doctrine of God, and it takes 1200 years to get there.

That's not even on the same planet. And then

I think the other citation was from Bavinck. The good philosophical thoughts and ethical precepts found scattered through the pagan world receive in Christ their unity and center.

They stand for the desire which in Christ finds its satisfaction. They represent the question which Christ gives the answer. They are the idea which

Christ furnishes the reality. The pagan world, especially in its philosophy, is a pedagogy under Christ.

Aristotle, like John the Baptist, is a forerunner of Christ. Well, I reject that. I just utterly, completely reject that.

Aristotle is not, like John the Baptist, forerunner of Christ in any way, shape, or form.

And in fact, if I read it correctly, the thread that Chris posted was about Aristotle's promotion of abortion.

Now, if you want to say Aristotle was like John the Baptist, fine.

I think you're just completely missing the point. And I really wonder how the early church got along without such things.

And then when they started coming in, when you start getting the discussion of what

Jerusalem has to do with Athens, the irony, it's not

Aristotle. It's Plato. And you don't have to be a philosophy expert to recognize that Plato and Aristotle have some rather fundamental differences between them.

It's Plato, then Neoplatonism, it's Stoics, it's all that kind of stuff that is part of the discussion at that point.

Aristotle comes much, much, much farther down the road. But again, that is a nice positive way of trying to say, well, you can find some pearls.

But that's not what's being said right now. We're not saying that there is a pearl to be found in Aristotle or Plato or Stoicism.

What we're literally saying is, without the fundamental metaphysical concepts enunciated by Greek philosophy, you cannot simply from the apostolic witness have true orthodox

Christian knowledge of God himself. Wow.

I mean, can we just put it out there for what it really is, is that's what's being said?

Are we literally saying that until Thomas, those believers who didn't have

Aristotle had a lesser view? Now, all this again goes back to, well, but don't we have a clearer view of this?

Don't we have a clearer view of that? Are there things we have a clearer view of today than people in the past did?

Yes, because we have access to far more meaningful information concerning history, all sorts of things.

And that has allowed us to, for example, one of the greatest things Reformation did was to help us to get rid of the influence of origin on how we interpret

Scripture. That's a positive thing. That's a good thing. That's not the same thing as saying, well, the true height of Christian theology is found in the application of Aristotle's philosophy as mediated through Thomas Aquinas.

And I am hearing a lot of people saying that. Now, I expect Dominicans to say that, okay?

That's their boy. And so I expect

Roman Catholics, as a whole, to say that. Even the Pope said that, and he's a Jesuit for crying out loud. I expect that.

But there is a fundamental disconnect when it's Protestants who are making that claim.

Not that there's something to be found here or something to be found there, but that the metaphysical framework that pre -exists the

New Testament, but is not utilized by the New Testament. Did the

Spirit of God not know? Well, it wasn't popular in first century Palestine.

Oh, but that's just authorial intent, right? That the system of Aristotelian metaphysics is actually what is necessary to have the clearest and purest view of God, which you boil it down.

And what that's saying is, even the apostles didn't have what we have, thanks to Thomas.

And once you go there, just before the program, the troublemaker in Utah, not in Texas, the troublemaker in Utah, I have never seen the troublemaker in Utah wear overalls, not once.

And I don't think that he would. But the troublemaker in Utah sent me a note about a

Baptist guy up in Utah that back in September had blasted away at some

Thomas stuff. And then he gave me the information that that guy had just become

Roman Catholic, only a few months later. Now, did that have anything to do with Thomas? The point is that my

Roman Catholic friends are watching what's going on.

And honestly, they're just sitting there going, oh yeah, oh yeah. Keep it coming.

Come on. Come on. Just think it through. Once you make him the pinnacle of the development of theology, just think through what it means.

It's pretty straightforward. So, yeah. So, again, my initial question was a foundational apostolic thing.

And so, if the apostles did not enunciate the doctrine of simplicity in Thomas' terminology—again,

I can make an argument for biblical simplicity—then my question really wasn't answered, because there really isn't anything there.

I say that Calvin and some of the

Westminster divines and Warfield, all of them far exceeded

Thomas in any explication of the central doctrines of not only salvation—though, though, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, drat.

We've got to get that program working on this computer. It keeps driving me crazy, because I need to be able to pull this stuff up.

Here it is. Last thing. I know we've gone over time. Again, just to point these things out.

Matthew Barrett at Midwestern tweeted, For Aquinas, scripture stands at the heart of scholastic enterprise.

Someone named Warikow. Looks Polish or something like that.

New edition—stop that. New edition of Aquinas' commentary on Isaiah.

Aquinas was dedicated to preaching all scripture, but Isaiah was special because it was saturated in the gospel.

Credo Magazine Book of the Week, and it is

St. Thomas Aquinas' commentary on Isaiah and that introduction that was being quoted.

So once again, at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, you will see as one of the promoted books,

Aquinas' commentary on Isaiah. And remember, it wasn't very long ago that it was sort of a given.

We were all agreeing, well, yeah, but we're only appropriating Thomas in a narrow area.

Not anything about the gospel. I mean, you know, give the guy a break. He can be wrong on some things, but we agree on 85%.

Remember, it was 82%, whatever it was. So Isaiah was special because it was saturated in the gospel.

Simple question. On what logical grounds will the

Neo -Thomists be able to continue to make the distinction that they make now in regards to Thomas' gospel versus Thomas' theology of God?

How long until they're saying, you know, there really isn't that much of a difference?

How long? And on what ground do you say, nope, can't happen.

Can't happen. We're going to sit here and we're going to tell you that Thomas had a greater insight into the key elements of the doctrine of God and the doctrine of simplicity than the apostles themselves did.

But we're going to still stick with Luther and Calvin on justification by faith.

How long until that doesn't work anymore? So someone goes, that doesn't make any sense.

And then all you've got to do is read a little new perspective on Paul's stuff, you know?

Grab yourself a little Sanders, a little Wright, and oh, hey, here's my way out.

I can still say that I'm holding this stuff, but now

I can become consistent. Yeah, well, we keep trying to say.

Oh, yes, sir. So I was sitting there hoping

I had popcorn or wishing I had popcorn watching the back and forth, and I actually joined in when you were distracted doing something else.

I can't remember what it was, but I... I took a nap yesterday, actually. Probably a good thing.

I asked the question, didn't the initial questioner actually ask you as follows?

And this is what you asked, and the thing is, what disturbs me most is

I wonder what he saw in your question versus what I saw in your question, and I tried to remind him of this.

The question was, give me an example of necessary apostolic truth.

Well, he did answer that. He said, yes, simplicity and... That has been explicated and enunciated best by Thomas, better than anybody else, okay?

And he said, yeah, these two things, and to which I basically, after a number of tweaks, asked him to show your work, okay?

Explain where you see this, what text of Scripture did

Thomas actually do? No, no, no, no, see, see, you Biblicists, no, no, no, no, see, he's not hearing...

that's not what he's hearing. He's not hearing that you need to be able to have a biblical foundation for that.

What he's saying is these are apostolic truths in the sense that they are implicitly found in Scripture, but once you reflect upon Scripture using natural theology the way that Thomas Aquinas did, then you'll discover that these things were actually there, even if the

Apostles wouldn't have recognized them. So, you know, and see,

I guess... Scholasticism is fun. It's just, yeah. I keep focusing, like I said, I think he hears something utterly different than I do, because when

I hear the standard is apostolic truth, and Aquinas, it seems to me that you need to show the apostolic truth in Aquinas, and there's only one place to find the apostolic truth, and that's in the

New Testament. And again, you know, I recognize, look, the guy's a

Presbyterian, so he already reads things out of the white spaces between the black letters. That's already going on there.

All of our Presbyterian friends are now angry with you. That's fine. I can handle that, you know.

But again, as I tried to point out to him, the question was very specific, and yet you've done anything but answer with first person, you know, first person work that you've done yourself rather than pointing at other people.

But he answered it in a way that I expected, and what that allows you to do is to point out that fundamentally what's actually being said here is that there is a development of doctrine over time, and I put in that spirit -guided question mark.

This gets us all back to great tradition exegesis and everything else, and you have to have great tradition exegesis to come up with the kind of interpretation that Thomas Aquinas gives.

And they think it's mockery or funny when me or you or somebody says, look, you know, you're teasing with Romish things here.

You're going in a direction that Rome naturally already has a corner on the market.

With the great tradition exegesis, yes, and that's obvious, and that's why they don't deal with that. And so I will, you will say you're swimming in the middle of the

Tiber, and Richard Barcelos comes along and makes a joke. Well, and it's like Dr.

Snark makes a joke about everything. This is not funny stuff. This is serious, and we're deeply concerned, as the one lady, you know, the other day said, you know,

I think it's a good idea when, you know, you snatch somebody from the fire. Yeah. Yeah. I just,

I don't see, there's a major disconnect I'm having in following the train of thought they're going down.

I just can't go down that road. I can't. That's because you didn't go to seminary and sit around with people that do that kind of thing all day long, and that's probably a good thing.

Keeps your sanity. Keeps your sanity. Anyway. All right. There you go. More discussion on that.

Now, again, those of you who are always doing the, I wish you wouldn't talk about this.

What are you going to do with today? Because I did two of our major topics, and there was a bunch of stuff in the first part.

So what are you gonna be upset about today? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. We'll see.

We will see. All right. Well, we'll see you next year. That's basically the case.

Thank you again. As I am preparing for the big trip in February, once again, my sincere thanks to all of you who make that possible.

For example, we were just ordering in a kit for the fifth wheel to hopefully make it a little bit safer going over speed bumps, and also to even out the wear on the tires and stuff like that.

But those are things that... And in fact, I was sitting in the truck right before the program started talking to a kind lady down in Louisiana.

And we've been having trouble getting ahold of each other because she's normally in the car or I'd be in the car or something like that.

And I was trying to make a reservation at her RV park because a friend down in southern

Louisiana said, you know, I've got a friend in northern Louisiana would love to have you come by. And it's about three hours out of your way going to Tennessee, but it would just mean everything.

And it's like, okay, we'll do it. So we're going to go up there and we're going to minister in that church.

And this was the closest RV park. And so I have to make multiple phone calls to the kind little lady.

Because most of these RV parks that aren't KOA, KOA is easy to deal with. They're their mom and pop stuff, you know, and you end up talking about the grandkids who's got the dog and stuff like that.

It's interesting. So all that stuff, you're making it available. You're making it possible for us to do that.

So indeed, our thanks go out to you. And we hope that you will have a safe and pleasant

New Year's. I'm hoping this could be raining cats and dogs on New Year's Eve.

I really am. Drown those people with the M60s in the alleyway behind my house that make my windows rattle.

You bet. I am definitely becoming the get off my lawn guy. I really, really am.

I hope it's just, I hope they just have to get soaked and get stuck in the mud if that's happening.

So stay away from my house. My cats, they can't handle it. They're old. They're going to croak.