“Problem of Evil”

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence
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Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation.
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If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 460 to or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is
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James White Hey, good morning. Welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday morning
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And I think this is only like the second time I think I think
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Warren Smith once filled in for Rich Pierce. At least I think I could be wrong about that In fact,
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I may have even been back in the old Kpxq days, maybe that's what it was. I don't know but we come to you today with no the the sonorous voice of Rich Pierce Has been silenced by a vacation as you can see from the website.
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It says the offices are closed. Well, they're not technically closed I'm here, but I don't really matter
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I don't get to the phone And I don't fill the orders and I don't do all that stuff.
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So I guess we are technically closed. So anyway instead The big
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B who's a fan of the big D aren't you you are a Cowboys fan, right? Yeah, I'm a bit Cowboys Okay.
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Well, we'll let that slide because we need all the help we can get so God's team and by the way, the dividing line will self -destruct
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Dividing line will self -destruct when the first person calls at 877 -753 -334 -1
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Is the phone number so We're gonna do the best we can and And press on here this week in the absence of mr.
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Pierce and hopefully edify you in the process. I was Listening yesterday to a
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Cambridge lecture delivered by William Lane Craig and I said, oh no, William Lane Craig again. Well, what happened was
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I actually had Someone in channel asked me this completely off -the -wall question about da
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Carson's views I think had something to do with the Sun being the
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Messiah I didn't understand what the thing was and and what had happened was he was assuming
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I had finished listening to all of those Carson lectures and I hadn't
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I have two different shuffles and I'd switched between them and the Carson lectures were on one I've been using the other one and So make long story short
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I went back to the other one and it had this William Lane Craig lecture on the existence of evil Which I had loaded long before I started doing the
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Sunday school series. I had put all that stuff up and So I listened to I started listening to the
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Carson lectures morning while lifting but yesterday while riding I Listened to the William Lane Craig Theodicy lecture from Cambridge University, I guess he sort of did a whole tour of the various universities in London and see he gets to go to London or he gets to go to gets a university and he speaks at Oxford and Cambridge I go there and I have classes with Muslim students
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About the Trinity or something like that So things are things are different. Anyway, I finally got a chance to listen to it and It's a fairly lengthy lecture and I figure if you're at Cambridge University And you're taking questions on the existence of evil and things like that This is this is going to be your best stuff.
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This is going to be you know good stuff and there is a
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I gained an insight You know people go. Yeah, I must really dislike
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William Lane Craig. No, not at all. It seems like a nice guy I just think that given his popularity
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He becomes an example of What happens when? Your theology is insufficient to the task of apologetics.
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That's the problem and I have said and you've got to give me credit on this one. I have said for many many many years for a long long time
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Even before algo was listening to the dividing line, which is about as far back as you can go
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That's a Person who engages in apologetics Cannot start there
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Your apologetic is determined by your theology when you're told to defend something you have to And I just this just crossed my mind and I'm sure that's not an issue, but I hope we're recording this, right?
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We started cool at it. We're good on that. We've got the tape going got everything going. All right That's the one thing
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I go. Hey, I had a great program today Never heard again, but we had a great program day. Anyway, when someone tells you to defend something you have to know what you're defending and William Lane Craig's teachings illustrate over and over and over and over and over and over again
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What's that means and how that impacts things I but I can still learn things and I It was fascinating.
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He made a Said something and I was thinking about it. I said, you know, that's a really good insight
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He then turned around and vitiated He just took took the insides out of everything that he had just said in the next sentence but the first sentence was really useful and I know that I'm I certainly have given a lot of thoughts since I listened to it
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So I want to listen to some of those. I've also got some Steve Ray stuff and And we'll be taking your phone calls eight seven seven seven five three three three four one in fact, you said
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The dividing line will self -destruct in a certain number of minutes and I think it was before the program
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It was seven minutes after and it's almost seven minutes after right now So I figure we might as well go ahead and take our first phone call and let it all happen at once so hopefully the callers are queued up and when
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I when I hit this button, I'll be able to talk to Robert hi Robert. How are you?
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Good Dr. White, um, I was reading a book and in it cited that Matthew 25 starting at verse 31
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Where Jesus separates out the goats and the sheep? It's and the right the should go
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Were damned because you know, they whenever there's a thing in jail or hungry or naked didn't help them and it cited this as Evidence for salvation by works
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Mm -hmm, which I knew was wrong, but I didn't know how to properly execute the passage
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Well, how do you know that's wrong? there are other passages in the
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Bible that say salvation by a faith alone and Okay, so Then if you're aware that there are entire texts like Romans 3 and 4 that talk about salvation based upon the
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Imputed righteousness of Christ a person's faith in Christ and things like that then in Matthew 25 and this discussion of Jesus In verse 32 who is who is gathered before him?
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The people of all the nations That's it. Actually it says before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate
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People from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. So this is a a general
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Judgment of of nations based upon how they treated the the people of God in essence and yet even at that The the situation you're facing here is one of many texts
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Where you ask a simple question? It clearly is not nowhere does does the
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Bible? Base one's salvation upon such things as well, you know, you need to feed 477 people you need to hand out water to that this number of people that that's never made the basis of salvation
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And in fact, the only people who can make that kind of a system work of the people who minimize sin
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As if somehow there's a certain number of good deeds you can do that's going to outweigh The weight of your sin or something along those lines
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But even more so than that and we've got a It is the mouthpiece real close to you there
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Robert because we're getting some like wind noise in the mouthpiece a little bit.
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Yeah Difficult Here over that now, it's gotten much worse
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Okay Why don't we just pop that down a little bit there There while we while we take that down about 50 % and then when
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I'm done my comments We can bring that bring that back up so I can I can finish that. Um Anyway, what
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I was what I was trying to say is a number of these texts This one
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Matthew 7 I suppose you could think of James but Not not not really
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I'll go back again to the same principle that we've we've addressed many times before and that is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive reading of the text if you read these as Prescriptive as if they are laying out the things you must do
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That's one way of reading reading these texts that leads you to all sorts of contradiction and difficulty or you lead them read them as Descriptive that is these are descriptions of the results of salvation.
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That is those people who? Did the things that are described here are those in whom the
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Spirit of God? Was active and at work and and they had the right motivations and doing so so on and so forth the difference between prescriptive and descriptive
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The the problem the easy way to determine between the two is if you simply have a biblical doctrine of sin and a biblical doctrine of the punishment of sin and That's what all groups who end up taking these as prescriptive passages and work salvation passages end up having to throw out
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None of them can let the Bible's teaching about sin actually stand They have to come up with a another way of looking at it
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They have to come up with the man having an ability to do these good works in and of himself To continually do these good works, etc, etc
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They have to come up maybe with an idea of grace where grace becomes sort of a helper thing rather than the thing that actually
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Accomplishes God's purposes in some way shape or form. They've got to get rid of the doctrine of sin because it ends up making it impossible for anyone to have works righteousness and so When you look at Matthew 25 you look at Matthew 7 judgment texts wherever they may be found
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The question is is this laying out things that must be accomplished by the natural man?
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Or by just mankind in as a whole to obtain salvation or these?
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Descriptive of what the Spirit of God does in the lives of those That he has drawn to himself only one of those two interpretations can do justice to all of Scripture I think one of the reasons that works salvation systems are
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More prevalent and popular than ever is due to the fact that there has been a great degradation in the view of the
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Bible In many churches and denominations and therefore they don't worry about consistency or harmony.
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In fact Harmonizing Scripture is considered to be a bad thing. Now. It's a lot easier just to say well, there's contradictions.
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There's tensions in the text so on so forth But a person who wishes to not in a surface level way
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Harmonize the text where you're just ignoring what the writer is saying. We cannot ignore what's being said in Matthew chapter 25 we cannot ignore the reality of the fact that God calls us to a certain kind of life that there is a certain kind of of Result of regeneration our lives.
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That's what James chapter 2 is all about But you can preach all those texts in their context and seriously without causing them to speak in contradiction to to the others
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Still there Robert. Yeah, okay. All right Thank you very much, thanks for calling
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Okay, excellent. Thank you very much Alrighty so Somewhat similar to some of the things we'll be addressing here.
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Like I said In essence Craig's opening presentation was was one we've all heard if you listen to his debate with Christopher Hitchens You pretty much heard all of it
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He had a little more time so he could go a little more slowly But it was pretty much the same thing then the question started and you know from my perspective again cross -exam answering questions it really brings out the reality of where you're coming from and so Let's let's start listening to some of these questions and answers
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With the way lane Craig at Cambridge University on the subject of evil they may often take it to God in prayer and Sometimes that prayer is answered and sometimes it's not
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How what would you say to an individual who's a Christian or perhaps a person who isn't a Christian and Sees an unanswered prayer in a
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Christian's life And I guess the question is does God answer prayer does he not answer prayer, okay, thank you you talked about from nothing nothing comes and you said that It must come from a mind
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I didn't quite follow how you got to that conclusion. Could you explain how you got to that? Thank you Now in case you're wondering and I had not heard it done this way before but they do like three questions in a row and That then let him answer instead of one at a time.
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I don't understand the benefit of that personally The audience has forgotten what the other questions were and I was
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Dr. Craig, I would too I mean he may be furiously scribbling them down But you can only scribble down a portion of it
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It would seem to me a whole lot better to do it one question at a time. But you know, it's
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Cambridge. What can I say? That some people may so suffering as a result of human rebellion against God's will what about natural catastrophes, however and innocent children who join tsunamis
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Okay excellent questions Very different one other later on the questions will start to start merging together and be focused upon this natural evil thing
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But keep in mind listen to the responses and see if you hear anything about God's purposes
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God's decree there is no decree in dr. Craig's theology So he can't do that.
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So what becomes the organizing principle? What what ties it all together?
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Why is there evil? What is God seeking to accomplish? What is it focused on? here is where you see the massive difference between a theocentric theology and an anthropocentric theology a theology that is centered upon God his purposes and his glory and an anthropocentric
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Theology that is focused upon man that man is in the center of All of the purposes even of God himself now again
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I I don't want to hear the the feigned offense of some people but I cannot help but when
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I hear answers like we're gonna be hearing and especially the drumbeat answer we're gonna hear will identify it about halfway through but to think of the
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Text in the Doctrine and Covenants The LDS scriptures where God Allegedly says that that his his glory is to bring about the immortality of man.
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I Mean there is no more anthropocentric religion than Mormonism because God is an exalted man.
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There is no difference ontologically between man and God God men and angels are all the same species and So you can't have a theocentric
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Mormonism because there is no Theo to have at the center there is no God that is distinguished from the anthropos and Yet, I think we're going to be hearing an element of that in in the answers that are given, right?
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Let me take the last question first Everything I've said applies to so -called natural evil as well as moral evil
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Namely that God I think has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the natural disasters in the world
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And that there is no Way that we can assess with any kind of confidence the probability
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That for some natural evil that has entered our lives that God lacks a morally sufficient reason for permitting it now again
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Dr. Craig is a philosopher and I have to Reign in my natural disdain for answering theological questions
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Philosophically, and this is a primarily philosophical lecture. I didn't even play any of it because we've all heard it before It the pastoral elements in me and the pastoral apologist in me recoils at Providing merely philosophical question of responses that do not direct people the
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Word of God from my perspective What is alive and powerful and sharper than a two -edged sword? What is it the benefits of people of God?
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What is it speaks to the hearts of people of God? What is it brings conviction to the hearts of people?
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It is the Word of God and so I want to bring that to bear not just simply merely by quoting it or something like that, but by Applying it by by by bringing it out and applying it within the context and letting it have its effect
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I've seen that impact so many times and in my experience the impact that it has in that way Long -lasting, it's not just in the short -term
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Impression of the university student it is the long -term impact upon the
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Saints of God I want my answers to be relevant to someone 10 15 20 30 40 50 years down the road not just because they happen at this point to be in a university and they're impressed with a with a
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You know philosophical answer or something like that. So I have to be You know careful that's at that point, but it does
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Again, it grates on me to hear Christian answers being put in the context of probabilities
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It you know, it doesn't impact the probability of the existence of the nature of God or something like that Certainly by now after listening this series, you know that that's one of the major differences between The Reformed apologetic and a non
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Reformed apologetic is the one Aims the non of Reformed apologetic aims at the demonstration of the greater probability of existence of a
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God and the Reformed aims at the demonstration of the absolute necessity of the existence of the Christian God There is a vast difference between between those two we're just not in a position to make those kind of probability judgments and Similarly with respect to my second point that God's goal is not human happiness
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But the knowledge of God these Christian doctrines God can use natural evils and suffering in our lives to perfect us or to bring about other ends in human history that would be
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Conducive to maximizing the knowledge of God. In fact, I'm there's the beginning of the drumbeat conducive to maximizing the knowledge of God Okay The revelation of the knowledge of God The proclamation of his name in judgment is a very high priority for God.
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That's what Romans 9 says But Romans 9 says God does that through accomplishing his own purpose his own decree
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Not through actualizing one of many worlds wherein you have a world that is
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Suffused with suffering and this suffering suffused world leads to the maximum knowledge of God That that may sound like similar things, but hopefully you're seeing they're not
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I'll say that I find it not at all improbable but only in a world of free creatures, which has a
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Great deal of natural evil in it would the maximum number of people come freely to embrace
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God and his salvation and there is the central element the controlling element of William Lane Craig's theology and philosophy
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There it was. I hope you caught it Free creatures
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Creating a world Organizing a world wherein the maximum number of people would freely
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Choose to know God That's what God's up to maximum number
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Now immediately I sit back and go Okay, if the goal is maximum number and There's gonna be a lot of people
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I Don't know what percentage but a lot of people that are not going to enter into a
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Faith relationship a knowing relationship with God. They are going to continue to suppress the knowledge of God Are you saying that this was
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God's best effort at getting the biggest numbers he could think about that for just a moment
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Are we are we really suggesting That in the Molinus perspective there wasn't a world where there would be more knowledge of God or Maybe there wasn't a world where there would be more knowledge of God and less suffering
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Evidently what's being suggested is This amount of suffering is necessary for the maximum amount and this is the maximum amount.
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This is it God could not save anybody more and any more than he does in this particular world
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And now immediately they're saying well You're saying he he has he won't save any more than he is in this world and I say and that's because of his purpose
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He has a decree. He is decreed to show his mercy to the elect
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Whom he chooses freely from eternity past That's his purpose
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It is not that he's trying for a maximum number and he can just only get it up so far it's it's you know, it's it's like You know, maybe a a great basketball player and he's he's decided in the
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NBA Finals since that's what's going on right now that that he's going to shoot a 55 % from beyond the arc
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In every game. He'll never go below 55 % and he makes 53 5, you know
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Well, couldn't you go for 75 couldn't couldn't make all his shots from beyond the arc Evidently, there's not a world in which that would happen or something like that It does seem like there's some type of constraint here that keeps
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God from Accomplishing greater numbers Which which just doesn't make much sense to me if God prevented every natural evil that might occur
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It would not at all surprise me that people would not be responsible moral agents
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But would be infantile immature children because their actions would never have any consequences
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The fire would never burn you if you leapt off a cliff you would never be heard if you drove drunk.
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It wouldn't matter Diseases wouldn't bother you you could drink anything you want.
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It would lead to a kind of infantile Existence that wouldn't be conducive toward the knowledge of God so I don't think it's at all improbable that God uses the
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Natural evils in the world to maximize the number of people that come to know him and his salvation freely
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Now what is the first question that crosses your mind at that point because the lady asked about Natural evils.
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So what would be what was the probably the biggest natural evil natural catastrophe in the past?
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Number of years for us. It wasn't Katrina It was the tsunami in Indonesia And so just think of how many thousands of people
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Died and from William Lane Craig's perspective These are people who did not know God the vast majority of them
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Were Muslims and he even identified Islam as the as an example of a false religion in the debate with with Hitchens, so How did that?
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Increase the knowledge of God and so immediately that's exactly what somebody decided to ask
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So you argue that natural catastrophes can bring people closer to the knowledge of God But I would argue that especially after the earthquake of Lisbon The faith has been in decline at least in Europe That after the earthquake of Lisbon What did you say faith in Europe has been on decline has been retreating rather than increasing?
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So at least when we look at Europe, yeah, you're saying that the Lisbon earthquake led to an increase in atheism
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Yeah, see the difficulty is here that even if that were true, which it might have been in the short term
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We don't know what the long -term consequences are. This is one of the failings in an ethical theory called utilitarianism
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Utilitarianism says you should choose that action which will bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people
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Well, the standard critique of utilitarian ethical theory is that we have no idea
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What will bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people an action that looks wonderful in the short term?
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Could be disastrous in the long term and an action that looks catastrophic in the short term could actually turn out to be
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Beneficial in the long term and so we don't really know what the ultimate consequences of the
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Lisbon earthquake are even if they were in in the short term Negative and increased unbelief.
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We have no idea of how the descendants of those persons Have reacted in coming to faith of the gospel
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Now is that is my suggestion here that God uses natural suffering and evil in the world to bring
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The maximum number of people to himself just some sort of airy -fairy speculation or is there any basis for this?
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Well, let me just stop right there. He goes on it gets a very interesting statistics about the growth of at least
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Some form of Christianity or professing Christianity in some context But I'm not really sure if that answered the question as it was asked to be perfectly honest with you
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Again how does see when when I What really is missing in so much of what
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I'm listening to here that would be in every It would be a part of the very fabric of my responses
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Would be something along these lines There is something called the wrath of God that is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
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Who suppress the truth and unrighteousness and I don't hear dr. Craig saying that There there seems to be a real problem from his perspective in Saying these things in In talking about the wrath of God.
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He wants people to be attracted to the gospel But instead of allowing the
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Holy Spirit to be the one who does the attraction The instead you have this
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I this idea of well, I'm gonna sort of pull back on these things I'm not gonna really mention these things and that to me handicapped things.
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Well, anyway We are coming up on our break and I've got a lot more to play here
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But we'll also take your phone calls at eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three
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Hello everyone. This is Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program
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The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every
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Sunday yet. They have never been confronted with their sin Alpha -Omega ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses
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Man is sinful and God is holy That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior?
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We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well
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Support Alpha Omega ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.
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Thank you Welcome back to the dividing line.
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We are looking at the theology of William Lane Craig, and that's exactly What Douglas in London wants to talk about?
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Hello Douglas? How's that flat? How are you, sir? I'm doing very well.
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Thank you. You wouldn't happen to been at Cambridge. Would you and knowing when William Lane Craig was there? And no
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No, I mean you sound you sound just like other people in the audience Ignore my accent my accent is a weird composite of living all over the place
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Well, it's still good I like it alright Listen to all this stuff from dr.
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Craig his debate with the mr. Hitchens. Yes discussion of molars one wonders what?
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What about his theology is distinctly Christian at some point Well, he would say
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I think that his reason I think I can probably give almost exactly the response that he would give and and that is that he would probably make reference to CS Lewis and to a number of other theologians who would identify mere
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Christianity as Being a very simplified Theology based upon the
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Trinity and the crucifixion the resurrection and That that that's that's pretty much what everybody shares
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Catholics Eastern Orthodox Protestants we all share that together and Everything else really is not meant to be definitional of the faith at all especially issues regarding justification in the gospel
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It doesn't because when you hear some of the points he makes they are so incredibly vague you can fit any
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So -called Christian denomination and they even those who are which are distinctly liberal. Well, there's a reason well that the reason is quite clear given that his starting point is the demonstration of the existence of a
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God not necessarily the Christian God Then it makes perfect sense that he doesn't have a sufficiently defined foundation to stand upon To make any more distinct answers than the vague ones that he offers
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Okay. Yeah, I mean, I mean that's that's one of the major differences when when you've put the the the target down as far as You put it down.
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That's what happens Okay, it sounds like you're breaking up a little bit honest
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It's picking up some on the background there too, yeah my brothers in the room Well, it's actually doesn't sound too bad from being all the way in London, so Did you happen to catch any of the debates that I did there?
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Yes, I did get to see you and Sammy's actually I didn't get to talk because I had a bit of a long journey But I did get to see you and Sammy's actually debate.
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Well, I we don't have this nailed down yet but The discussions right now are for a return trip in February.
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So hopefully Next time in there and it would be at the same church that the the
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Sammy's a tree debate was that so Hopefully we'll get a chance to maybe run into you then Cool.
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All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for calling. God bless. Bye. Bye All right, Douglas from London.
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Yes, it's just so easy to slip back into that accent. It's wonderful Yeah, like I said, we haven't we haven't nailed that down yet, but we are having some conversations right now that Oh Was that that was that?
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Okay, that was that was actually a London, okay, one of our channel rats that was calling. So, all right,
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I'll be honest it may We are having some discussions about a return trip in February that would be focused there where we had the debate
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Attorney road chap, so let's let's hope and pray that works out. I would very much enjoy getting the chance to get back there again.
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I have good friends in the London area and When I'm gone for more than a year,
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I start getting I start missing him a lot. So I hope we get a chance to Get back there and say hello.
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Let's go back now Here is this Statement it's an odd statement about the world being suffused with suffering and How this is related again to this idea of the maximum number of people believing no problem at all
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Thinking that it only in a world suffused with natural suffering Would the maximum number of people come to know
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God and his salvation freely? And I think that the demographics bear this out So I think it would be very very difficult for the atheist to show that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the natural evils in the world if those morally sufficient reasons that include such things as bringing people into personal relationship with himself and Increasing the knowledge of God.
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I don't see how you could show then in a world with less natural disasters
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That there would be less knowledge More knowledge of God or equal knowledge of God than there is in the actual world
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And in that case the atheist is shouldering a burden of proof that he simply cannot bear its pure speculation
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Well Could with the atheists even want to engage such an argument in in the sense that We're talking about God's purposes here.
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What is the only? Mechanism for knowing what God's purposes are is It not
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God's revelation. Is it not what Scripture teaches and what does Scripture tell us God's purposes are?
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well the salvation of elect people and God's self -glorification in the punishment of evildoers
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But again, that's what's missing. It's it's a partial answer. It's not a full answer. It's only a partial answer and It just It's very troubling
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I'm gonna skip one here. I want to make sure to be able to have time to get to this one We've still got time for your calls at eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three
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Three four one Barry's looking a little confident right now He's two and oh, he's he's batting a thousand right now.
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No meant no problems at all He's starting to think he might get through this whole thing without anything happening
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I've actually the thought just crossed my mind that I would sit here and also I start going Moving my mouth like this and and letting nothing come out just to see what happened if that happened, you know
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What's amazing is last week. I was getting the mail on this day and look at me now. That's right. That's right. You're the one that Was bending
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Romans 13 every action guess the William Lane Craig debate anyway, I Wanted to say
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I wanted to get this one, especially Because like I said at the beginning I learned something from listening to this lecture and When I heard dr.
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Craig say this it was one of those duh moments. It's like You've you've been
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Standing right next that maybe like when you're have you ever been looking for something for a long time? You've got to find it
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And when you do find that you had been right next to it had been right within your eyesight so many times
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And you just can't believe you hadn't seen it before I would hope that I will always continue to Grow in my knowledge and my understanding of things and and you know because you forget stuff
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You know you come back to it later, and you've forgotten things and so The discussion was of the subject of hell and If you can honestly look me in the eye and Say that you have never struggled
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With the subject of hell and you've never struggled especially With the subject of the eternal punishment of the wicked
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That the thought hasn't crossed your mind 50 years 70 years 80 years of sins and Unlimited punishment
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Then I just don't think you've ever thought very seriously about issues, and I think all of us have in fact
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Thought these things through and we've gone hmm. How does that work and and we've spent some time
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Lord willing in those times where we actually shut out the world and and all the distractions and Amusements and things like that to keep us from doing serious thought anyway
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I've often used the illustration and it goes back to the issue of The nature of man as sinner and and its importance that If we were to open the door of hell and Reach in and pull individuals out and of course
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I'm using a spatial temporal concept there that may not have almost anything to do with the actual existence of eternal punishment, but I'm using as an illustration, and we were to blow the smoke off and Sit this person down in in a chair and say here here are your your your options
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You can either love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and worship him forever or You can turn around and march back into where you have been for 10 ,000 years.
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I am absolutely convinced that every single person Without doubt and without question would turn around Spit toward the throne of God in the process and scamper back into hell itself and The reason
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I say that is that it seems very clear to me that there is no restraint upon man's sin in hell there's a restraint now and Every once in a while God lifts his fingers of restraint
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So we might see what mankind would really be like if he was not restraining evil Now I don't think the restraining of evil part
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Figures into Craig's theology at all. I don't think he has any place for that I'm speaking of myself here
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But I've used that illustration a number of times and I've also made the comment that I I don't think that God has to extend any particular effort to Bring punishment upon people in hell in the sense of you know we've got all sorts of medieval pictures of hell of devils running around with pitchforks and skewering people and and You know all that kind of stuff from Dante's Inferno And that doesn't come from the
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Bible the exact nature of what punishment is and what it involves is not a major subject of discussion in Scripture and It seems to me that once again considering man and The restraints having been removed from him
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That man would provide more than sufficient punishment in of himself the
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Destruction of that human person as he's separated or she is separated from the very source of life consumed in hatred for the source of life would be a tremendous torture in and of itself and So I don't think
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God has to sit up in heaven and launch thunderbolts and lightning bolts and Tosh Daggers and darts and so on and so forth into into hell just to keep the the denizens thereof
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Jumping I think there's much more to it than that and so having said all of that.
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There's still the issue of the weight of of Punishment in comparison to the sin now it has been rightly said that it is
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The holiness of God that has been violated. It is God's law that has been violated
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It has been done so repeatedly and willfully And that this all must be factored in and that's all that's all true
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But it was a part of what we're just about to listen to that. I went oh Why hadn't
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I thought of that before now again? He's then going to turn around and mess all that up With what follows because of a bad theology, but at least
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I will hear in public say I Hadn't thought of that the way that I needed to think thought of that and it makes sense
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And I'll explain a little more once you listen to it now. What about the problem of hell the problem here is you?
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Enunciated it is that it seems that the punishment doesn't fit the crime the crime is finite
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Even the most egregious crimes like say those of the Nazi torturers in the concentration camps are still a finite consequence so How can
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God send people to hell forever? For crimes that are in the end of only finite consequence
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Well, I can think of two possible answers to that question as I reflect on it first the objection confuses
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Every sin which we commit with all the sins that we commit
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There's a shift between every sin that we commit and all the sins that we commit It may be true that every sin that we commit has only a finite punishment
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But it doesn't follow that all the sins that we commit therefore have a finite punishment
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If a person committed an infinite number of sins Then the sum total of the punishment would be infinite now
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You might say well nobody commits an infinite number of sins in this life, and that would be correct
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But what about the afterlife? In so far as the denizens of hell
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Continue to hate and reject God they continue to sin and therefore
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Accumulate to themselves more punishment. So in a sense hell is literally self -perpetuating
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Because the sinning goes on forever the punishment goes on forever And so one could agree that every sin has a finite punishment
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But nevertheless that hell is of infinite duration But the second thing I'd want to say about this is why think that every sin does have only a finite punishment
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Couldn't there be sins or a sin that is of infinite proportion and gravity and it seems to me that there is
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In a sense nobody goes to hell for sins like lying cheating killing
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Committing adultery and so forth these because Christ has died for those sins the punishment or the penalty rather for those sins has been
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Paid all you have to do is receive Christ as your Savior to be completely liberated and forgiven of those sins but the decision to reject
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Christ and his sacrifice is a decision to reject
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God and Is a sin of an entirely different order it is to reject the payment that has been made for one sin and therefore to irrevocably separate oneself from God and this
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I think is a sin of infinite gravity and Proportion in view of the status of God's person.
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It is the creatures Rejection of God himself and that sin
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I think is plausibly a sin of infinite consequence so I think that we are not to think of hell primarily as a
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As a punishment for the array of finite sins that we have committed in this life, but rather as the just Penalty for a sin of infinite consequence namely the rejection of God and his forgiveness of sin altogether
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So hopefully you understood that what I found Useful was the first half of the question the answer and not the second half the first half was
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Recognition of the fact and and and I'm not sure how Craig would respond to this. This would be interesting to dialogue about sometime but from a reformed perspective
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It makes perfect sense to recognize that man outside of the presence of God Man outside of the the restraining effect of the
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Holy Spirit Would be consumed in his self -hatred is loathing for God etc.
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Etc. And as such Would continue in that that hatred of God I've often said that that what man is going to be doing in hell is standing upon The parapets of hell screaming his hatred of God That is the essence of that is the root of human sin and so there would never be any legal or just reason for that Person to be relieved of their condition because they don't desire that they don't desire to fulfill the only condition upon which they could be they continue in their sinning and hence the eternal nature of the punishment
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It is a continuation of that There is always that contrast between those who bow and humble adoration before God Because their hearts have been changed by grace and those who give vent to the full range of their hatred of God Who stand upon the parapets of hell?
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Screaming their hatred toward God and toward those who have been the recipients of his grace Which is what they do in this life as well.
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And So that part I went well, yeah that you know, I've I've come so close to putting it that way but that is a to me seems to be a useful insight
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That has been enunciated but then he goes on and says but really that's not why they're in hell anyway
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The only reason they're actually in hell is because they reject the rejected Christ now, of course
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How many people before Christ died? without rejecting Christ Where are they?
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If they're in hell, it's not for having rejected Christ There are still all sorts of people who die today who have never never rejected
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Christ and he said that's why this kind of speculative non -biblical theology That doesn't have a proper understanding of God's wrath and God's justice and God's decree and predestination election and so on and so forth
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Has so often led to all these Post -mortem conditionalism, you know post -mortem evangelization type ideas eventually toward inclusivism
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Universalism, you know, what honestly is keeping Craig from moving in those directions?
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What what is binding him to where he is? It's not a biblical theology Why not quote -unquote move that direction toward a ever -expansive
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Concept of the grace of God La -la -la -la -la -la what keeps that from happening outside of just simply well
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I teach at a school where I probably get fired if I did that. I Mean that's that's not a really good reason to be perfectly honest with you and so That to me is is is extremely important You know it the
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Bible does not say that that that a person is not Punished in eternity because of their sin because Jesus already bore all of that That leads us once again to the oxymoron the the the contradiction
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Saying well Christ died for all your sins except for unbelief Unbelief is a sin if he died for unbelief, then you should become a universalist at this point
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But well, he didn't die for unbelief So there are certain sins he didn't die for so it's unbelief that becomes the one sin for which people are punished
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Well, then how do you deal with Jesus statement that there will be some who will be punished more severely than others
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Why will craze and Bethsaida be punished more than Sodom and Gomorrah? The light they sinned against was greater.
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Yeah, okay, so what does that mean? Sodom and Gomorrah did not reject
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Jesus quote -unquote did they and yet they'll still be punished so it just it's not a biblical insight
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It's not a biblical perspective to go that direction despite. How popular it is for people to do that, okay?
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Just a few minutes left there was this another question about natural evil, and I see if you can figure out this response
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I couldn't figure it out My question actually links in slightly to that You've drawn a distinction throughout the talk between natural and moral evil
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And given your your idea of an intelligently created Finely tuned universe.
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How do you explain the presence of natural evil? I mean are you suggesting that that was actually created by God in order to make us suffer and thus bring us closer to him or With some outside agency allowed to bring that evil into into the universe, and if so how did it do that above God's will?
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Again in some way related to that the Bible seems to teach that Suffering came into the world partly because of the fall it says that I'm cursed is the world because of you and it's mentions that women's
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Labor pains are greatly increased and that men will have to work hard and That the ground will resist them and everything
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So if that is the case and suffering came because of the fall how is it that we live in a world where Natural disasters and suffering has clearly been around since long before humanity existed
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All right the last two questions were very similar if you think of natural disasters or natural evil as the result of Moral evil in some way.
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I think it wouldn't be because of Human moral evil you would have to think of it and this actually relates to the first question
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Then you would have to think of it as the result of some sort of a fall in a pre -existing angelic realm
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And I do know some Christian philosophers who think this Alvin Plantinga for example thinks that natural evil in the world is ultimately attributed to some sort of a an angelic fall that has then put the natural physical world under the thrall of demonic beings and that the natural disasters in the world can be attributed to that and That's certainly possible and God would permit this just as he permits us to perpetrate moral evils now
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I'm not inclined to adopt that hypothesis partly on biblical grounds
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I don't see any grounds for thinking in the Bible that natural disasters and natural evils are the result of moral failure
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You don't have anything in Genesis chapter 3 or Romans chapter 5 to suggest for example that animal pain and suffering
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Are the result of the fall or that there wouldn't have been plate tectonics prior to the fall or earthquakes?
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And hurricanes and things of that sort we're out of time, but let me just mention that obviously that forces you into a view that the the issue of the curse
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Romans 5 death coming through the fall of Adam You really have to come up with a new way of understanding all of that to have this idea that in essence well you know it was some pre fall fall or or Something else that causes all this natural evil the idea that God uses this as punishment.
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This is part of God's will He's accomplishing his will again the Molinist Just has no way of grounding any of that because God can't do that He can only use his middle knowledge to see what free creatures will do what is always the central issue
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The response the actions of free creatures and that impacts everything.
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Thanks for the callers today. Thank you Barry It looks like we made it through of course we got another minute and a half something could still go wrong here
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But let's let's hope it doesn't Rich will be really bored if you manage to get this all in fact he may never come back again
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But anyway, thanks for listening folks Lord. We'll be back on Thursday. See you then. God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 973 4602 or write us at PO box 3 7 1 0 6
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That's a o m i n dot o RG where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books tapes debates and tracks