Covid-19 is a Darwinist's Dream, Two Full Hours in Response to David Allen

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Even if the rain outside ends up ending our possibility of webcasting, we will of course be recording this and getting it posted as quickly as we possibly can.

We have the unusual situation in the Phoenix area of days worth of rain now. And I know that those of you in Seattle are like, yeah, so. But for us, it's very unusual. And we've just noticed over the years that our internet connection gets wonky when it gets wet, which in Phoenix is not all that often.

But this is not the first time something like this happens. So we're gonna do our best. And if it breaks up and stops and dies, I'm actually not even gonna ask Rich to tell me so that I'm not distracted because we've got other things to do.

And I don't have, I don't really, in fact, I'm even gonna drop Twitter here. So there's really nothing that would tell me one way or the other. So that's probably the best way. Today on the program, as you can see by the stacks of commentaries on the Book of Romans and by the fact that the last thing I was trying to do was to get to a certain page on this particular book here right at the end.

There we go. Let's see if that works there. Yes. We'll see if that actually got me to where I need to be. We'll find out when we get there. Anyway, on the program today, we are going to be looking at the 11 ,000 word response by Dr. David Allen of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to the program we did last year on the subject of Romans chapter eight.

We, as you may recall, I should have grabbed them, I didn't, but as you recall last year, I think it was in December, early December, I went through both of the major works published by Dr. Allen on the subject of the atonement.

And we looked very carefully at what he said about Romans chapter eight, because he had written an article in response to a article in TGC, I think, on the subject of the atonement. We pointed out that there really was no meaningful exegesis offered in either one of these books, even though each book has a little bit of a different tenor than the other.

And we provide a response, a rather lengthy response, based upon walking through the text of Romans chapter eight. And so it was, I don't know, a month later, something along those lines, I don't remember exactly when it was, but there was a response.

I saw the first one and then I sort of figured since it was broken up into parts, there would probably be some space of time. It was only a few days. And this three-part, 11 ,000-page response was provided.

Of course, I immediately read it and said, oh man, it's gonna take some time to respond to just because of its length and because how disorganized it is. It is not organized well. As we will see in the middle of the paragraph, you'll all of a sudden go flying off to another area.

And so it's not an easy thing to respond to it in a coherent fashion. We've had a lot of other things going on. There's a lot of stuff going on in a lot of different areas in the world today and that's relevant to a Christian worldview and Christian apologetics and things like that.

And so we will get to that response in the following period of time today. But obviously, something happened today that is extremely important. And because it's extremely important, we need to take a look at it.

And that specifically is the reality that, I wonder, I didn't see anybody talking about this, but I wonder if this is the first time this has ever happened. But the General Conference of the LDS Church, the thought crossed my mind with what's going on in regards to COVID -19 and the proper concern together with toilet paper panic.

There is a proper concern. However, there are far more people dying of other diseases that no one's talking about every day. But because we are accustomed to it, then we aren't talking about it. There are more communicable diseases, though it's very communicable.

There are deadlier diseases, though it's primarily deadly in regards to certain people and certain conditions. Average age of the person who's died so far is 80. And the reality is Italy is getting hit harder because of preexisting conditions and because of the older population.

I was aware of this, but the average Italian is over 10 years older than the average American. It's a very aging population. And having been there, I know that a lot of the places are very small, people are close to one another, easy to carry, and all Italians talk with their hands and they hug and they kiss.

And yeah, that's just... They do what? Oh, yeah, a lot of... The Chinese are behind a lot of this stuff. That's another subject for another program, I think. But anyway, the reality is that there's a lot of concern and certainly when you have older relatives, friends, things like that, these individuals should be protected.

And I personally think the handshake is done. And I hope so. I hope so. When I think of how many hands I have shaken over the years and then gone into a restroom and immediately washed or had hand sanitizer and everything else, and in the back of my mind, there was always this, you know, this is not the smartest thing we've ever done.

And then the funny thing is, I think the live long and prosper thing is great, but there are many people who are genetically incapable of doing this. You can do it. Pat Madrid. I just jokingly respond to Patrick Madrid on Twitter.

And I said, there are certain people who just aren't able to do this. And he said, I'm one of them. He said, you can get these two, but these two will not do that. Not if these two are doing this. The older you get, the less they cooperate.

Okay. But the point is, there are certain wise things and I'm gonna, but it's funny though, as soon as somebody walks up to me and you stick your hand out, it's just second nature. You can't stop yourself.

And I think the same thing in Italy and more so, even more so because, you know, it's a kiss and all that, you're dead. So I know, I know it's, yeah. But the point is, when you think about it, certainly not all the people who attend the General Conference Salt Lake City are elderly, but a number of them are.

And yeah, it's a big building, a lot of space in it, but they've just decided that they're going to go virtual. And so it may be the first time, I don't know if this has happened in the past, maybe during a period of war, you know, maybe in 1918 when there was a true pandemic.

I mean, true pandemic, millions, millions of people, uh, died. Maybe they did then, I don't know, I don't know. But what this does mean is that a General Conference, I was really looking forward to, because it is, from the LDS perspective, the 200th anniversary of the first fission, spring of 1820.

Now we know it wasn't spring of 1820. We know it could not have happened the spring of 1820. We know that there is documented evidence that it did not happen in the spring of 1820. And it's not just one piece of evidence, it is literally dozens of pieces of evidence from independent sources that demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no first fission in the spring of 1820.

So they're going to miss the spring of 1820 General Conference, but the actual history of when it could, the earliest it could have happened is still the spring of 1824, 1824, 1825. So maybe they can, maybe by then they'll liberalize so much, they'll go ahead and do something, I don't know.

It's possible the way things are going in Utah, weird. So right now we are still planning on doing the dialogue with Alma Allred. He's going to sit on one side of the stage, I'm going to sit on the other side of the stage, and we're going to be in isolation masks, and no audience, yeah, no.

No, no, that's not what we're going to do. And then the debate with the two gentlemen on ethics and morals without God is currently still scheduled. We are obviously at the mercy of the University of Utah at that point.

If they make a decision, they're not going to be having meetings of more than 50 people, which is happening in certain places. There you go. Same with BYU. Will these be, you know, are we going to end up having to reschedule all this stuff for the fall when I think most of this will be in the rear view mirror?

All of it will be in the rear view mirror? Yeah, probably, we'll see, I don't know. I don't know, we'll let folks know. But what I wanted to do here at the beginning, very quickly, was to point something out.

And that was, when we think about COVID -19, this is sort of in regards to the debate that's still scheduled on morals and God, from an evolutionary perspective. Now, just really quickly, I was a biology major at a Christian college, but I was the only creationist in the biology department.

All my professors were minimally theistic evolutionists. And so in high school, public high school, I had still one of my favorite teachers. In fact, when they ask you to fill out, you know, who your favorite teacher was, I still use this teacher's last name, because, well, I won't tell you more than that, because then all my accounts will be compromised.

But he would bring me articles, college-level articles, university-level articles, on Darwinism and neo-Darwinian micro-mutational evolutionary theory. And we'd sit there at lunch, and we would have long conversations and battle through this stuff.

Had to do the same thing at university. I remember Dr. Ned Grosnickle was one of my professors, best limnology teacher ever, but that was about the only class that he was the best limnology teacher in.

But he knew limnology like the back of his hand, but from an evolutionary perspective. And so on these long trips, we were going out to do surveys, you know. So I battled through a lot of this stuff. And so when I graduated, I read, well, the first book I read after I graduated from Grand Canyon could have had a BS.

I should have taken the BS. I took a BA, but I'd finished the work for either one. Was Darwin, yeah, Dawkins, it starts with a D. Dawkins' book. And, you know, The Blind Watchmaker and Selfish Gene. And I went after all those books as they came out to read them and familiarize myself with the Darwinian viewpoint and understanding.

And if you are familiar with those books, then you know that from the Darwinian perspective, getting your genotype into the next generation is the greatest good. Now, Darwinists have come up with really very, very brilliant, I mean, they've had to put some real thought into this, reasons why you might have some members of a community that you sort of sacrifice to try to fit Darwinism into certain social modes.

But the reality is that if nature is just red in tooth and claw, that it is merciless and pitiful, has no pity upon anyone, then the Darwinian perspective is that COVID -19 is good. COVID -19's one of the greatest things that I think man has ever designed, because I think it was.

Why? Look what it does. Who does it kill? And who doesn't it kill? Doesn't even seem to affect kids. Just, they're like, okay, that was done, and that's it. So it doesn't kill the members of the population that can reproduce.

Who does it kill? The weak. It's natural selection as a virus. It is a natural selection virus. So it kills the elderly who are, from a Darwinian perspective, a drain upon society and a drain upon the population.

They've already fulfilled their purpose from the Darwinian perspective. I mean, that's really what was behind, was it Ryan's run? Logan's run. Was that the one where they went up in this thing at 25 years of age and poof?

Okay. That was a long time ago, man. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, well, 25 was a long time ago for you and me, but the movie was even longer than 25 years ago. But that's the same thinking, is that from a Darwinian perspective, once you've had your kids and invested yourself in raising them and they're ready to have kids, you should just be done away with.

You're a drain, you're worthless. And so the other people it kills, the people with preexisting health conditions. In fact, do you know who it's killing in Italy? Obese people. Obesity, diabetes, heart issues, if you're not in shape.

Hey, this is, again, this is Darwin's greatest dream. COVID -19 is the natural selection virus. It really is. And so from a Darwinian perspective, and what else does the world have to offer? I understand that in Western culture today, it's all based on feelings.

And that the vast majority of my fellow citizens have no earthly idea what Richard Dawkins actually believes. And even though they saw recently, remember, what was it, two months ago? Maybe not even two months ago.

That he was quoted on Twitter multiple, multiple, multiple times over and over and over. I don't know how many people sent it to me. Saying that eugenics and that nature, this is, nature naturally does this type of stuff.

And so if man did it, what would be the big deal? And la, la, la, la. Yeah, of course. I realized that in our society right now, it's all emotional stuff. And so talking about Darwinism this way and saying, hey, COVID -19 is the perfect Darwinian natural selection virus.

It prunes, it improves, it literally improves the herd. COVID -19 for humanity does what we do with our crops. You prune, if you're looking at a branch in a vine and you want it to produce more fruit, you cut out the bad stuff, the stuff that's taken away the life of the vine, only leave the good stuff.

That's what COVID -19 does. Get rid of the old, get rid of the infirm, don't kill the kids, we're good. So from a secular perspective that actually takes seriously the scientific basis of secular thinking, what's wrong with that?

What's the problem? How is that wrong? Why isn't that something that's being celebrated as something that's good? I can guarantee you that there are Darwinian geneticists who are celebrating this. They will not say that publicly, but in the privacy of their own brains, they're sitting there going, man, this is the best thing that could happen.

Best thing that could happen. You're getting rid of the old, you're getting rid of those that are just a drag on society, and you're getting rid of the infirm. These are people that have taken up resources that can be used for the more genetically advanced.

And isn't that what we're saying is good about designer babies and stuff like that anyways? Isn't that what's behind the aborting girls and only having boys and stuff like that? Isn't that the same mindset?

We just aren't consistent about it? Something to think about. Something to think about, because if we are getting to the point where we are electing to office those people who will use their authority to create a totalitarian state where the state determines morality and ethics, and this is the only foundation they have, then why are we panicking about COVID -19?

Something to think about. Something to think about. I can't find this thing, and that's a bummer. So I'm gonna have to go by memory, but that's okay. I mean, I posted it on Twitter, so I suppose I could probably pull it up that way.

But I'd have to look at my own stuff to do that. That's not always something that I do, but I'll look at it here really quickly. But again, just in passing, by the way, on Twitter, I did post something linked to the informationisbeautiful .net.

It's a coronavirus infographic data pack. Man, it's really well done. It's really, really, really well done. I mean, whoever put that together knows graphics like the back of their hand. They're really, really good.

And so look that up if you want. But no, it's not coming up anywhere. There it is, found it. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, so I was giving you some of the background to the exchanges we've had. Well, the one side exchange we've had with Dr. David Allen, we have, of course, offered to engage in public debate on this subject because I think that is obviously the best way to do it.

You get to have cross-examination. You get to hear both sides interacting with one another, but that has been an invitation that has been consistently declined. And so I mentioned on the program when Dr. Allen responded that I would get around to my response.

I took all these commentaries on Roman's Home, started putting some material together. The wife was like, I don't want all those things sitting around the front row. You know, I had to hide them someplace.

And then a bunch of other stuff came along, and I'll be perfectly honest with you. Maybe I haven't asked you. No one asked me about it. No one asked me when you can get around to responding to David Allen.

I wasn't getting anything on Twitter or Facebook or emails. Nobody seemed all that interested. And so it wasn't at the top of my plate. I'd always look over. I'd see the commentary. I was like, yeah, I need to get to that.

I just know it's gonna take hours because it's just so long. And so on the 27th of February, just found it, thankfully, someone, J. Drew McLeod or something like that, maybe, I don't have all of it here, but had said something to David Allen about it.

And so David Allen says, not to my knowledge, that is, did White ever respond to you? I was told he said in late December, I think that's his way of saying I refuse to listen to him, or maybe it's just a passive aggressive thing, I don't know.

But I was told he said in late December he planned to respond by mid-January. At this point, I doubt he will. His position is basically indefensible exegetically. Well, given that I still would submit that after 11 ,000 words, Dr. Allen still hasn't given us a meaningful exegesis of the text.

Oh, he's now talked about a lot of grammatical issues here and he's quoted a lot of commentaries. But we obviously have a completely different understanding of what exegesis means. I believe exegesis is giving you the meaning of the author in his context as it would have been understood by his original audience, not telling you all the things that it doesn't mean or couldn't possibly mean because of something else.

And so I'm not going to go back over everything we've already done multiple times on this program on Romans chapter eight. We've already given our exegesis. But what I do want to do is I want to work through and I will have to be somewhat disciplined.

It will be hard to do. I don't think we'll get done today, especially since I spent the first 20 minutes on the COVID -19 situation. But I want to look at the article and begin anyways walking through it for two reasons.

First of all, I want to demonstrate once again that Romans eight, when allowed to speak as a whole, rather than breaking it up into little parts and breaking up, for example, I would submit that Dr. Allen breaks the connection between 828 to 30 and 31 to 34 on a very artificial level.

He says, hey, it doesn't matter what conclusions you come to on the golden chain and stuff like that because there are Calvinists who believe that's teaching election that don't believe this is teaching limited atonement.

Now, okay, they could be inconsistent or consistent or whatever else, but the idea is from his perspective, it doesn't matter what you believe of that. Well, yes, it does. Of course it does. It's fundamentally the case because if you're going to offer an exegetical explanation of the text, it's going to have to stand as a whole.

This is, you know, we've seen this over and over again. We have seen people with piled higher and deeper all over them. We've seen Norman Geisler. We've seen others chop John chapter six up into little parts and skip over 37 to 39 and skip to 40, then read it backwards into 37 and do all this kind of stuff to try to avoid the fact that we can start anywhere you want in Romans eight or earlier for that matter.

And we can simply walk through the text. Let's go through the argument, dun-da-dun-da-dun-da-dun, then this means this and this, and we can just walk all the way through it. But one of the fundamental arguments that Alan makes is, no, you can, whatever you believe about 28 to 30 doesn't really matter.

It doesn't impact 31 to 34. Well, of course it does. But the most important thing that, you know, as we do this response, you need to learn to demythologize scholarship. You need to learn to demythologize scholarship.

And hopefully I will be able to show you how that works because you can look at something like this. And what I'll show you is how in the middle of a paragraph, all of a sudden you will have the insertion of material that is completely irrelevant to what is being spoken at that time.

It's extraneous and it's an error. It's a tradition, but it's vitally important to the person's argument. And once you see them doing that, then you know that they're not actually drawing their conclusions from the text.

They already have their conclusions drawn out and they're doing what they need to do with the text to get to their conclusions. And so hopefully by seeing this being done, you'll learn to recognize it and not, don't be cowarded by the large amount of verbiage or the number of references to a grammatical form if that grammatical forms are relevant to the argument.

And most of the time in here it was. And so the last thing real quickly and jump into this, fundamentally what the argument you're gonna see is, and this doesn't come out with nice, clear clarity. I did have one, yeah, here.

I will, we'll get to this, but I want to explain this so that people can understand where Alan is coming from and what the fundamental argument is. It started coming up in the last time I mentioned it in the last time, in the last time that we dealt with this.

Basically what Alan is saying is that what you have in Romans eight is about believers. And as a provisionist, believers are such by the exercise of an autonomous free will. And since Paul discussed justification by faith, in chapters three through five, which come before chapter eight.

And since he's talking about believers in chapter eight, then the free will act, the autonomous free will act of faith precedes whatever's in chapter eight. And so Paul is not allowed in any way, shape or form, having discussed justification by faith to at a later point in the same letter, go back earlier into history, into eternity itself, to discuss the foundations upon which justification by faith is possible.

So in other words, because he's already talked about justification by faith and faith is a free will act of God, then everything after that has to be interpreted in the light of the primacy of the action of the human being.

So combine that with his repeated assertion, it's a false assertion, we will document it, but he repeats it as an absolute given axiom that cannot be questioned, where he says, nowhere in scripture does any inspired writer ever speak of the elect qua the elect, the elect simply as the elect.

This is a given for David Allen. It's so much a given that when you see him referring to the elect as the elect, it can't be that. It is a filter. It is an axiom. It simply must be interpreted. Everything in scripture has to be interpreted like that.

So you take those two things, believers, which means their action is first and determines everything that God does in light of their action. And God never talks about the elect as the elect. You put those two things together and then you use that as the lens to redefine Romans chapter eight.

That's what you're gonna encounter. So Paul cannot, in chapter eight, take us back into eternity. He can't talk about God foreknowing and predestining and calling and justifying. You can't go back before chapters three, four, and five and talk about the foundation of all this.

No, no, no, no, no. Once he starts off where he did, that's it. And now everything after that has to be interpreted in light of the free will commitment of man to believe. So one example of this, and then I'll start at the beginning.

The next link in the chain brings us back to the central theme of Romans one through four, justification. In Dikaiosin, he justified. In those chapters, long before any mention of predestination, Paul repeatedly stresses the necessity of faith leading to justification.

So the idea is long before Paul mentions predestination in the golden chain, back in chapters one through four, he had talked about justification. Therefore, that must become our interpretive grid. And we cannot allow Paul to go back into the basis upon which justification by faith can be, that's not allowed.

This becomes it. You can't go any farther back than that, that's it. Now, does he ever provide us any reason for that? No, it's just a given, it's an axiom. It's just thrown in there repeatedly in the article.

And once you recognize it is just simply a given on his part, but it's never argued for and can't be argued for. What basis could you argue that if an author talks about justification by faith in chapters three, four, and five, that he cannot in a later chapter go back into eternity and ground the very action of God that makes justification by faith possible.

There's no rule that says, ah, ah, ah, no, you can't have an author talking about stuff even earlier. That's not allowed. There's no rule, that's absurd, but that's what we have. So, diving into the text itself.

That's fine, are you gonna show the text? Oh, okay. Okay, so he says, I appreciate James White's engagement at this point because quite frankly, few other Calvinists who have firm limited atonement have shown any wellness to engage my work on this subject.

This was something he had mentioned in an earlier article as well, and I do not wish to be disrespectful, but I simply believe it is because the vast majority of reformed people look at this type of argumentation and they just go, this is fallacious on its face.

And a lot of scholars don't engage in quite as much public discussion, and so may not be aware of how many people are picking these types of things up or whatever. He says, White asserts on his two aforementioned dividing line broadcast that I offer no exegesis in the text of scripture supporting my claims regarding Romans 8, 32 through 34.

This statement carries a certain irony since it is common among limitarians, that's those who believe in limited atonement, to sidestep the exegetical evidence that clearly supports unlimited atonement.

Now, I'll get to that one in just a moment. But fact number one, there was no exegesis offered in his books. If there was, why'd he have to write 11 ,000 words? Why couldn't he just refer to what was in his books?

Because there is no exegesis in his books. There wasn't any. The very fact that he's written 11 ,000 words now demonstrates that what I said was true. It was true on its face. Very, very clear. Then, notice what's said here.

This statement carries a certain irony since it is common among limitarians to sidestep the exegetical evidence that clearly supports unlimited atonement in many New Testament texts and appeal to broader theological logical issues, which we are told should be considered as paramount in deciding this issue.

On this approach, the clear texts affirming unlimited atonement simply do not teach unlimited atonement and must be filtered through deductive, logical, theological arguments such as double payment, triple choice, Trinitarian disharmony, universalism entailed, et cetera, none of which occur in Scripture.

So do you all recognize this? I hope you recognize this. You need to recognize that this is the source of Mike Winger's argumentation, and Mike Winger has admitted that he has talked with David Allen about this.

And that is what we've already said, and my neck's gonna get a crick if I keep looking up there. And that is what this side does is you take texts that are not about the extent of the atonement, but that you can assert must be relevant to that, they're talking about another subject, you imply unlimited atonement from them, and then you create a system out of that, and then the texts that are extended discussions, whether it's Hebrews 7, 8, 9, here in Romans chapter 8, those have to be subjected to the allegedly broader amount of evidence.

And so, yes, what we're saying is there is a consistent teaching of Scripture on the purpose of God and salvation, on the subject of God's sovereignty, on the subject of man's deadness and sin, the subject of the relationship, predestination, election, and the purpose of God in the atonement and everything else.

And this is someone saying, let's not worry about theology when we interpret the Bible. That's what somebody's saying. So for example, double payment. Okay, so that's the issue of if Christ paid for your sins, if Christ actually endured the wrath of God in your behalf for your sins, then how is God just to then punish you for the same sins that he punished the son for?

All right, that's a perfectly valid question. It's a wonderfully valid question. And I think Allen's response to that has been horrific. By the way, I don't think David Allen wrote all of this. Tony Byrne wrote part of this.

I can tell. It's just the language, especially some of the footnotes, very, very clear, especially when you get into the free offer stuff and some of the footnotes definitely came from someone who used to be in our channel, WhyNotHe, if you remember years and years ago, plainly came from his material.

But notice Trinitarian disharmony. Yeah, you know, we shouldn't worry about whether we introduce disharmony into the Godhead when we're interpreting scripture. Yeah, okay. Universalism entailed? Yeah, that does seem to...

These are all completely valid questions. But what he's hiding here is the fact that his primary texts aren't actually on the atonement. They are someplace else. He is implying something from them. And this is the argument that is being put forward here.

So next, notice here he says, my twofold thesis is simple. Number one, it is common among the Reformed to speak theologically of the elect as an abstract class. However, the New Testament always speaks of the elect as either the body of believers as redeemed and in a justified state, or in reference to an individual believer, as in Romans 16, 13, never in the abstract of the elect as all the predestined as such, the elect in an unbelieving state and or as yet unborn.

So there it is. That's an axiom. God cannot talk about the elect. Now, theologically, and this is fundamental, provisionist people like that, they do not want to be nailed down on what they actually believe about the issue of God's knowledge.

They don't want to be nailed down on it. So you can listen to Leighton Flowers and Leighton Flowers on Unbelievable was saying, well, you've got Molinism and you've got Simple Free Will and he goes all over the place and there's all these different options, but they don't want to be nailed down on that because they don't have a coherent, consistent systematic theology that consistently brings these issues together.

So your doctrine of God and your doctrine of atonement, it'd be nice if they actually fit together. Now, if you don't believe that the Bible's coherent and consistent enough to do that, that's one thing.

I mean, people on the left don't believe that. But if you do believe that, then these things should be brought together. But here is an axiom that is basically saying that God in eternity past could not speak of those who would be his elect people.

Even if you use their elect as a class filled by our free will choice stuff, God cannot speak of the elect, just can't. Not allowed to do that for some reason. And so when we see the elect spoken of in Romans 8, who will bring a charge against God's elect?

Alan's gonna have to say, that was only them then. Okay, so what's your basis of salvation now? Are there any elect today? If God cannot speak of the elect in general terms, we have no soteriology left, none, none.

And the commentaries that you say agrees with him, do not agree with him. He reads in the commentaries what he wants to read in the commentary. He's not agreeing with what they're actually saying, as we will see a number of times.

Number two, a careful reading and exegesis of Romans 8, 31 -34 indicates the text does not assert, nor does it support limited atonement, white disputes, both these points. That is for certain, and we will demonstrate that very clearly over the course of this.

All right. First, my argument is not with White's understanding of predestination election, though I think he is an error here as well. He assumes his reformed interpretation of Romans 8, 28 -30 is valid, and that other hermeneutical, exegetical theological options are invalid.

This is of course, begging the question on those issues specifically, but the refutation of White's interpretation of Romans 8, 31 -34 does not depend on whether one agrees or disagrees with the reformed interpretation of predestination election.

This again, is where I say, wrong, wrong, thousand percent wrong. Thousand percent wrong. This is a consistent text. This would be like saying that what you think about John 6, 37 -40 is irrelevant to what Jesus says in John 6, 44.

Really? Of course not. Of course not. That's why reformed exegesis has so much power to it. That's why it captured my heart, is that it allows the word to be the word and to consistently remain the word without breaking it up into little parts and going, well, that's what's going on here.

He says, I affirm the biblical notions of predestination election as White does. I merely interpret them differently as do virtually all those in Christendom who are not Calvinist. Well, yeah, that's like when Norman Geisler said he was a moderate Calvinist, which actually meant he was a full-blown Arminian on everything that was relevant.

That's like, you can redefine terms all you want. Election has to do with making a choice on God's part. You limit that to choosing plans instead of people. That's not the same thing. You can say you affirm it.

I would suggest to you that you are not affirming it at all. Secondly, there is no need to refute the Calvinist interpretation of predestination election in Romans 8, 29 -30. Why? All Calvinists who affirm unlimited atonement agree with the Calvinist interpretation of the golden chain of Romans 8, 29 -30.

That's just Calvinism. So what he's saying is, inconsistent Calvinists, four-pointers, Amaraldians, they believe Romans 8, 29 -30 is talking about election and predestination, but they don't believe the rest of what you believe, and so therefore it doesn't matter to refute any of that.

And again, inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument. That's been the problem with that position all along. It remains inconsistent. And if Dr. Allen is just simply saying, hey, I can't argue with a consistent interpretation of this text.

That's why I'm gonna break it up. Okay, fine. But he needs to understand that that's why people don't buy this stuff, is that when you walk through it, point by point, verse by verse, word by word, phrase by phrase, however you want to divide it up, you find a consistency that is being taught by that.

He says, it is also interesting to discover that many modern-day Calvinists, even some who affirm unlimited atonement, do not exegete Romans 8, 32 -34 and use it to support limited atonement as White does, Traumschreiner and Douglasson would come to mind.

He is misinterpreting both of these texts. The terminology that is being used, as we're gonna look at a bunch of these, I have them electronically. I may have to grab a couple of them because sometimes the page numbers in the paper and the electronic don't match up.

So sometimes you may have to grab a couple of those, might have a few moments of silence as we're looking at them but the reality is that, as we will see, Alan's reading of material is extremely selective.