The Absurdity

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, it has been an interesting time period since we finished the program up yesterday.

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If you were listening yesterday, you know that we spent two hours starting to work through Micah Coates' new book,

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A Cultish Side of Calvinism. We found it to be significantly less than accurate in its argumentation, citation, and interpretation.

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We were looking at one particular element of that, which may possibly be the worst, most obvious misrepresentation of me ever put in print.

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And it was the section, page 285 of the Kindle edition, where we read,

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In debating George Brice and leading Calvinist James White admitted to Calvinism's view of God.

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So this is what, this is what Micah Coates thinks we really think about God. And if we were just honest, and I was honest, see, the following is a loose paraphrase from this debate.

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As soon as I saw that, I was like, what? And he has, Bryson, Calvinists believe that God is an evil potentate who causes sin and tyrannically damns people and for no good reason causes babies to be raped.

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White, yes, and here is why I believe that, Genesis 50 says, Bryson, yikes, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

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While White's response is shocking, I deeply appreciate his honesty in acknowledging the sovereign attributes of his small g

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God, because Calvinist theology has misinterpreted certain verses of the Bible for 400 years. They have essentially created a totally new and totally foreign small g

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God. Now, even my worst enemies know that that is a bold faced lie and that I've never said, oh, yeah,

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I believe, yeah, I believe God's a evil potentate and I, I believe he causes people to sin and tyrannically damns people for no good reason and causes babies to be raped.

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Yeah, that's, that's my God. And everybody, everybody knows that that's just as absurd as the day is long.

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So what would motivate someone to do something like this? And so as I was discussing it on the air yesterday, uh, certain people in my chat channel who are somewhat frightening as Eric and Cantor learned firsthand, as Eric and Cantor learned firsthand, these folks go a looking and, uh, so they, um, they, they tracked down the source of these things and it took a while cause they've, they've, they've found that, yes, indeed, uh, in George Bryson's book, the dark side of Calvinism, uh, you have pretty much the same story, but slightly edited.

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And I grabbed my copy, but evidently mine's one of the earliest copies and it is now, it's now a hundred pages longer than it used to be when it's a self published eight and a half by 11 thing.

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You can make it as big as you want, I suppose. Um, and discovered that Mr.

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Cote had misunderstood things and had changed things he had taken out. Uh, well in, in Bryce's book, it says even more pointed to comments found on the internet in a section called whiling away the hours, the

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Calvinist John. And again, I forgot to ask, I haven't actually responded to his email, but Robbie or rave,

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I'm not sure which offers what he calls a loose paraphrase in the James White and George Bryson debate on the Bible answer man.

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So here in Bryson, he's not, this guy was sitting in the studio, he was sitting right there.

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He has the recordings of these things. He could have checked this out for himself, but Hey, that would, that would show some type of honesty and integrity.

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And when you're a rabid anti Calvinist, you don't have to worry about Calvinist like that. You can just, you can just, we don't have to like use their definitions or worry about being accurate about what they say.

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We can just let them have it. So uh, at least he doesn't, uh, attribute the yikes with friends like this, who needs enemies part to, to himself cause he knows he didn't say that.

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And then he goes on with the same type of absurd application that yes, that's, I was saying, yes,

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I believe this thing. So, so both of both. So coat is just following Bryson and Bryson was there.

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So the, the first, the fundamental guilt here for gross misrepresentation, lying through your teeth goes to George Bryson and uh,

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George needs to be called on the carpet for this to answer for this, this level of absurdity. But people started wanting to go, well, where did this come from?

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And so eventually everything was tracked back to a, uh, a website, a blog and uh, uh,

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Calvinist John Robbie, I'll, I'll just go, I'll just go Robbie for now. If it's, it's rave, then he can let me know.

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Uh, he, he undoubtedly has to correct the pronunciation all the time anyways.

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So it's not like my last name, mine's pretty easy, but R -A -B -E could be all sorts of things. It was a forum.

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Okay. So in a forum, evidently John did not like how the program went and this morning

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I got a Twitter message from him that I got into the office. I got an email from him. He doesn't even remember this. Um, but he says, yeah, that's a forum that I was involved in and yeah, that's my style.

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So this was a, a knee jerk reaction after the program. He did recognize that this was a two on one, uh, but he didn't like how the program went.

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Well, you know what? I did the best I could over three hours to, to drive people to the word of God. And I have met many people that have said that that was the

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Genesis, the starting point of their becoming reformed. So I leave that in Lord's hands.

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Uh, John was very kind in his emails. He's apologized profusely. Not like, it's not like his fault that someone like a

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George Bryson or a Micah Code can take those words and read into them a conclusion that is just, just,

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I now call it the absurdity. Uh, the, you know, not even the cults have come up with something this stupid, uh, but they've pulled it off.

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Uh, it's not his fault, but, uh, he, he said, man, I must've just got a bird in my saddle and man, uh, talk about a lesson in, uh, um, you know, being careful with your words.

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So you never know where they're gonna end up and, uh, you know, that's just, that's the way it goes. I, I, as soon as I saw his tweet this morning,

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I said, Hey, don't worry about it. You're not the one that wrote the, all the rest of that stuff. Blessings to you, et cetera, et cetera. So I, you know, it, there's, there's no problem there and uh, if I'm ever speaking someplace reason nearby,

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I'd love to have him come by and say hello and I'm not going to kick him in the shins or anything like that. Yes sir. You're obviously, well, the clip that you put on the website this morning,

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I'm going I just remember at the time, my knee jerk reaction at the time was, wow, am

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I glad this is being recorded because some people might get the wrong impression of how this went down.

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You need to play it back. We need to have it because Bryson and Hanegraaff, in my opinion, at the time where they were shouting you down.

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Well, they weren't shouting me down, but they, they clearly, uh, did not, and it's, I had not listened to this in a long, long time.

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I don't know that I've ever sat down and re -listened to all of it. I might've right afterwards. I, I don't recall that.

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I normally don't listen to my stuff unless I'm preparing for a debate on the same subject or with the same person again.

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Uh, but, uh, I was surprised at how, again, my recollection was very, very clear how very much involved

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Hank was on the other side. And that was very obvious at the time. And certainly you can tell that by listening, but it was also so incredibly obvious how

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George Bryson wouldn't answer a direct question if his life depended on it. I mean, it was, he was just, he was, he was panicked of being drawn into any type of exegetical discussion at all.

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It's, what is it like to know, don't get me into that Bible, I'll be, I'll be in big trouble if you get me into that Bible stuff.

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What's it like to be a Christian and fear being brought into the Bible? I, I just,

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I cannot even begin to conceive of that. That was where I am so much at home. That's where I want to be.

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And that's where I just had to keep dragging, uh, him kicking and screaming, screaming into the text of the

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Bible. So anyway, uh, once we started getting all this information, uh, first thing

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I did is I downloaded, uh, from our website, uh, actually it was day one.

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This was day one. Yeah, this was day one. Um, well, well, maybe it was the next day, but, or maybe he heard it.

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He said, remember he listened on the internet, so it doesn't, that doesn't mean he was listening live. Uh, but, uh, it was day one and, um, it was part of the, it's within the first 20, it starts,

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I think 20 minutes and 43 seconds, if I recall, or maybe 22, 43, somewhere around that timeframe into the very first day.

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And uh, that's at least an hour version of it without the commercials in it. If you have the commercial stuff, then that's going to be, that's going to change the timeframe.

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But anyways, I'm going to play it for you. Anyhow, I have posted on our website, uh, in our, in my neat little, uh, little audio player thingy here that, uh, took us about two hours to get up there, but hey, you know, at least now it might work and I'll be able to do this in the future.

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I've put it into the same place where I put the links for all the dividing lines, so I should have it. Anyhow, uh, even though I don't have access to that sub -directory, so it's useless to me, you better get it to me, uh, because I should be able to post audio on the website without having to involve 20 people and taking three hours.

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It's silly, but anyhow, um, I want you all to listen. Let's, let's, let's, let's remind ourselves one more time.

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Here is Michael Cote's new book. Here is, here is the, all of this, but before we listen to this, let's just step back and go, okay, let's compare how responsible

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Calvinists deal with the issue of people who disagree with them, and how

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George Bryson, Micah Cote, Lawrence Vance, Norm Geisler, Dave Hunt, and all their endorsers,

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Paige Patterson, Jerry Vine, C. Gordon Olson, who have endorsed this kind of book.

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Let's, let's compare and contrast the two sides. And here's what, here's what

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Cote has, Bryson, Calvinists believe that God is an evil potentate who causes sin, tyrannically damns people, and for no good reason, causes babies to be raped.

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By the way, why didn't Bryson catch the fact that he never said that? Didn't he see that this was a caricature?

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Because it was. This was, this was a caricature on John Robbie's part of saying, well,

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Bryson's way off on this side, and, and White's saying yes, and look at Genesis 50, and it never, from his perspective, got to where it really needed to be, and, of course, all that really represents is

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I was doing all I could to get it back into the text of scripture. So why didn't, why didn't Bryson catch that?

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Because he didn't want to. He doesn't care if it's a caricature, as long as it's anti -Calvinistic.

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And all of these people, and their endorsers, need to be held accountable and responsible for this. I dare anyone, anyone, find one single parallel in the

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Potter's Freedom. Find it. And if you go, if you, and be careful, if you go to Geisler's appendix, which is no longer there, there's a reason why it's no longer there, folks, the publisher pulled it.

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Because just go to the appendix of the current edition of the Potter's Freedom, and be embarrassed for Dr.

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Geisler, for the number of outrageous and outlandish errors, page number citations, complete fabrications of citations, the

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Gale Ripplinger -esque level of that appendix. So don't go there. It's not going to do you any good.

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Even though Michael Cote quoted from it, and anyway. So what a contrast.

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What a massive contrast. Why does one side have this incredible willingness to engage in dishonesty and strawman argumentation and everything else, and the other side doesn't have to?

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It's simple, folks. One side has the truth, and the other doesn't. That's why. I mean, that's obvious, but that's just the way it is.

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So let's actually listen. Some of you, this is only a few minutes long, but here is what became paraphrased and turned into the absurdity by George Bryson as he was trolling the internet looking for something to make himself look better after the debate in 2001.

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It was God's purpose to preserve the children of Israel alive in Egypt. So it was his purpose to send

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Joseph, and he did so by having him sold into slavery in Egypt. Well, let me answer that with a question.

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Let me ask you this question, and this will put it into perspective to show the difference. When a child is raped, is

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God responsible, and did he decree that rape? If he didn't, then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose.

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What I'm trying to point out by going to Scripture... So what is your answer there? Because I want to understand the answer to that question.

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I'm trying to go to Scripture to answer it. Yes, but what is the answer to the question that he just asked so that we can understand what the answer is?

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I mentioned to him, yes, because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless, and though God knew it was going to happen, he created it without a purpose.

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Does that mean... Now, by the way, let me stop right there. The only thing I was responding to was the use of the term decree, not responsible.

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I have so clearly, already up to this point, had so clearly differentiated between primary means, secondary means, the whole nine yards.

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All I was responding to was, did God decree... What does the Westminster Confession of Faith? Freely decreed whatsoever takes place in...

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Isn't that what it says? Whatever takes place in time. Isn't that there? So when you're asking a Calvinist, do you really believe what

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Calvinists believe? Yes, I do, and let me explain what that means. They don't want to explain what that means.

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George Bryson does not want anybody to really understand what we believe. He wants people to hear his distorted version of what we believe.

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He doesn't want anybody to know what we really understand, and how we accept these things, and how we understand primary causation, and secondary causation, and what the basis for moral culpability is.

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Does anybody remember that two weeks ago, I spent over two hours on this program discussing this very thing for a single person who had written an email?

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Two hours discussing these very issues. Remember about Adam and Eve, and moral culpability, and the basis upon which

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God holds men accountable in the whole nine yards? Two hours. And they don't want you to hear that.

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They want you to hear a monologue from their side, because they just can't interact with it.

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God brought the evil into existence. No, it was going to exist, but for no purpose, no redemption, nothing positive, nothing good.

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So he did decree it, and if he decreed it, then there's a meaning to it. It has meaning. It has purpose.

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Now, Hank's summary was exactly right. Hank heard me.

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Hank got it right. He didn't say, he didn't use response, but he said he decreed it, and because he decreed it, it has a purpose.

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Exactly. Does that, does that mean that you had a morally neutral human being with God, the big gun behind his back, saying, do evil?

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No. In fact, you probably had restraint involved even at that, but that was part of the rest of the conversation.

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Suffering, all suffering has purpose. Everything in this world has purpose. There is no basis for despair, but if we believe that God created, knowing all this was going to happen, but with no decree, he just created, and all this evil's out there, and there's no purpose, then every rape, every situation like that is nothing but purposeless evil, and God is responsible for the creation of despair, and that is not, not as, that is not

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For years I've been trying to figure out why it is that in order for rape to exist, or, unless God caused it to happen, there can't be any purpose in it.

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God can use evil, and he does, but to blame God, which is what a decree does, to blame

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God for the rape No, I just, I wasn't going to comment on this, which is what a decree does.

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Only if you insist, like George Bryson, to simplify to the position of stupidity.

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Only if you will not allow for distinctions that we all make in our theology. That again, this is where, you know,

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Michael Cote gets this stuff, he's just simply following in line in this kind of, we will not defend our theology, we will assume our theology, we will not ask these questions of our theology, we will presuppose all of our distinctions, but you can't examine them, but we will examine yours.

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You can't, you know, when people come into our chat channel, what's one of the first things we ask them? Where are you coming from?

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What's your church background? And we can tell immediately when the lamers don't want to tell us. But why do we ask that?

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Because we're info -nazis or something? Because you have to have a context from which to have a meaningful conversation, and you need to know where both sides are coming from.

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And this side just simply won't lay their cards on the table. We're only attacking Calvinism, we ain't talking, it's just a mystery to us, but we just think your answer's terrible.

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No, you have answers, you just don't want to have them examined on the same level. And that's what they don't like about me, and that's why

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Bryson won't do a debate with cross -examination, because cross -examination means his position gets examined for consistency, and he knows it's not consistent.

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A child is a horrible attack on the very character and love of God.

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How about to blame God for the destruction of the heart of a father thinking that his son has been killed for many years, the weeping that he underwent,

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Genesis 50 -20 has not been answered yet. And Acts chapter 4 tells us that the early church believed that Pontius Pilate and Herod and the

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Romans and the Jews in the crucifixion of the sinless son of God, which I believe we would all agree is the greatest evil that man has ever committed, that that took place on the basis of the sovereign decree of God, Acts chapter 4 verses 27 -28.

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If you could tell me both what you believe Acts 4, 27 -28 means.

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I didn't say what you both believe, did I? That was pretty obvious by that point. Let me ask you if you think that rape is a sin.

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I believe... That's funny. When I asked him earlier, are you an open theist, Hank really got upset with me.

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But now he just asked me, do I think rape is a sin? And Hank did not get upset with him for that.

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Yeah, that was... Can we use a biblical example, Acts 4, 27 -28?

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Can we use a biblical example? George Bryson. No? At least that's a direct quote. At least I didn't have to make that one up.

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Rape is a biblical issue. Is rape a sin? Just as the crucifixion was a sin, yes. Okay, so does

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God decree and therefore is God the cause of sin? Again, as you... Catch, catch.

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See, Bryson does God decree and therefore is the, put into parentheses, primary cause.

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He will not allow for the... He cannot criticize Calvinism as it is.

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He has to create this straw man. It's just... That's all he's capable of doing. He's built his entire shtick on that.

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And it's just... It's sad to see, but, you know, that's just Bryson. And if you're going to follow

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Bryson, you can't go any higher than Bryson. Who well knows, having read all of these things. Let me just read this into everyone's hearing so they can see it.

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The early church said, for truly in this city they were gathered against your holy servant. Now see, instead of going after George, what am

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I trying to do? I've got a purpose in this program. I know... I knew

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I had already written, and Eddie Dalcor will testify to this, and I could probably go in the other room and find the notes from this, even though this was eight years ago.

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I'll bet you... Because I remember which notepad I had. And I know about where that notepad is on my shelf.

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So I bet you I could even find this. But I... And Eddie will tell you.

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I had written on the notepad. You know, I'm taking notes as... And what would really be cool now, boy

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I wish we'd had this, is I've got that Livescribe pen, because what people don't hear is what went on during the breaks.

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Which very much substantiates what I have said, concerning what was really going on in this situation.

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But I had written on my pad, this is the last time

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I'll ever be on BAM. And I had showed it to Eddie, and he just sort of looked at me. Because I had been on 13 or 14 times at that point.

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I was starting to become a regular. But I could tell that this was the last time

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I'd ever be invited on. And it was. I've not been on since then. And so I knew what was going on here.

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And so I had a purpose. I had decided early on, the people that I want to get to in this conversation are the people who honor the

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Bible as the Word of God. The only way you're ever going to believe these things is if you believe God has spoken. And I've told the story many times of Susan V, who came into our chat channel years ago, from a

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Church of Christ background, still attending a Church of Christ. And how we explained John 6 to her, and she'd come back a few days later, and she'd talk to her elders, and they said this, and we'd respond to that.

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And then she'd come back, she read some commentaries, and we'd respond to that. And over a period of time, she'd come in and she'd say,

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I'm losing sleep over this, and I'm losing friends over this, and it's impacting my family, and all the rest of this stuff. And yet, her commitment to the

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Bible as the Word of God never varied. And she accepted what the

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Bible states, because she looked into it just that carefully. And those are the type of people I'm concerned about.

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I'm not concerned about the philosopher who wants fancy philosophical language, because if you're a philosopher who wants fancy philosophical language, and I convince you with fancy philosophical language, then another philosopher can come along and convince you to another viewpoint with fancier philosophical language.

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And I don't... Life's too short to even bother with such things. Real edification of the body of Christ comes from the application of God's truth from His Word by His Spirit.

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Period. End of discussion. And if that's what you're looking for, then you're not going to be interested in what I have to say to you at all.

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And I'm not going to try to make you interested. And if you want to fill the blogs with insults at me,

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I was looking at the very place where John Robbie had put that initially. And you scroll down the pages, all sorts of just snobbish, insulting, he's such an idiot, he's no scholar,

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I mean, if I believed 10 % of what I read about myself on Google, I'd jump off a building.

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But it's just the way it is. But that's what I was trying to do. And so here

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I am trying to get it back into the text of Scripture. And there's George Bryson trying desperately to keep it out.

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Because he knows that's the one place he cannot go. He has to stay in the realm of emotions.

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He cannot go into the realm of actually thinking through these things. Because his position will collapse. Jesus, whom you anointed, both

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Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

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And so here is an example where men committed evil, and they did so at the predestining purpose of God.

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God is glorified. His intention is positive and good. The intention of Herod, the intention of the

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Jews... Intention. Something you'll not hear George Bryson talking about.

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What is the intention of the heart? Because that's the basis upon which judgment takes place. But, no, no, no, we can't have that.

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God, these were not innocent people, and God's standing behind them with a big gun, pushing them down the road going, Be evil, be evil.

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In fact, how many times did God restrain them... So they're making a choice in the process. And they're...

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In your view. They're not only making a choice... So they have the ability to choose. ...within the realm of their nature since they are fallen.

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Remember, God restrains men from committing evil. Do we... Why are men fallen?

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Now, it is absolutely clear how relevant my question here is.

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Can God restrain men from committing evil? Isn't it obvious?

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If God can do that, then there's a question, isn't there? Why doesn't He? Why doesn't

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He? And, if George Bryson will admit that God can restrain the evil of men, then he has to answer the question, why does

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God not restrain someone from raping that little child? Now, the fact of the matter is,

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God has restrained people from raping little children every single day throughout the course of human history, but since it didn't happen, we almost never thank

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Him for that. But, the fact is, see, once again, the Calvary Chapelite has to answer these questions too.

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And he may duck and make excuses, but he's got to answer these questions just like anybody else.

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And a refusal to do so is simply dishonest. Do you believe that? The question is, why are men fallen? Could I ask, could

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I finish a point here? Do you believe that God can keep someone from sinning? I would like to ask you the question, is

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God the cause of that sin? I can't answer that question! I've already pointed out in Genesis chapter 50 that God's decree is based upon His good intention.

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Can God keep a person from sinning? Will He violate libertarian free will to keep a person from sinning?

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Yes or no? It's not a yes or no question. George, it is, and we all know it.

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So, there's the section, folks. There is the clip that was turned into the absurdity by George Bryson.

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A paraphrase, it was meant to be a somewhat mocking paraphrase of both of our positions, but mainly more of a mocking of the debate itself.

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Well, it's just, you know, it didn't get to where it needed to go. Okay. But to turn that into, oh, look,

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James White has admitted that he worships an evil God that causes sin and damns people and has little babies raped just because it's fun to do.

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What an incredible insight! Not only into the rabid anti -Calvinist mindset, but into those who would aid and abet through the promotion and endorsement of such material.

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Men who sit in positions of high honor. I really wonder if Al Mohler read this book, what he would say about it.

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I mean, he would be shocked at anyone who's ever graduated from the seminary. And someone's told me since last night that Michael Cohen has an

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M .Div. And if that's the case, okay, then there's absolutely no excuses whatsoever for all the things we've talked about.

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Just outside of just abject laziness or dishonesty on a level that's just beyond comment.

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But if Al Mohler read this book and then saw Paige Patterson's endorsement on it, I wonder what the next meeting of Southern Baptist Seminary presidents would be like.

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Just amazing. Just absolutely amazing. Well, I wanted to get that out because that had developed since yesterday's program.

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And I wanted to deal with that. We've gotten it posted this morning. And I just don't even know what to say.