Revived Caner Scandal

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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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.

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

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

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James White. Good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line, a special mega edition of The Dividing Line here on a

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Thursday morning, unusual time for us, I understand, but here we are.

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We have been gone for a while and we have much to catch up with.

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Let me begin with sincere thanks to those of you who prayed over the weekend on Facebook and Twitter, word got out that I wasn't feeling so well.

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I've become very, very ill while traveling twice now, and as I weigh the two places where I've become very, very ill, it's significantly more comfortable to be very, very ill in London than in Oakland, California.

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Just thought I'd mention that. I'm appreciative of the fact that there were nice paramedics and things like that and my first ride in an ambulance and things like that, but the emergency room in Oakland on a

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Saturday night is really not one of the best places you want to be. So there you go.

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But we're feeling almost 100 % again. Not quite, but it takes a while to get over things like that.

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But we're here and many, many thanks. Also sincere thanks. As many of you know, we have something called the

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Ministry Resource List, which began a couple years ago, which is always a great source of encouragement to me and some folks have been very kind on that.

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And then a few enterprising folks have searched around and found that I have a personal list and I just tweeted something.

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Sometimes I put things on there. They're still directly relevant. But, you know, let's just say someone got me

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Codex Sinaiticus, not the real one. I mean, that would be great. That would be that'd be super.

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I'm not sure where we'd put it, but and it's actually in multiple different museums. So that really wouldn't work out at all.

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But back in 2010, Hendrickson Publishers put out a facsimile edition of Codex Sinaiticus.

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What do we say weight yesterday? 30 pounds, 30 pounds. I just tweeted a picture of it and someone said,

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I'm a complete nerd. Yes, my Bible nerdom is so epic. Someone on tweets said, but I just tweeted a picture of it up on my on my shelf.

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It is humongous. It is big. And I'm very happy to have that.

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And yes, it is all in line today. But, you know, a PDF of Sinaiticus is not nearly the same. It just doesn't weigh 30 pounds or anything.

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It's just not anybody can have that. But I've I've got the big book now. And so now people say, what do you use that for?

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Well, I'll use it to beat up on the King James. Only guys that come after me with their big honking 1611 facsimile editions, which aren't anywhere near as big as this thing, not even close to the size.

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It's just, yeah, I was just wondering, do you think that would fit on that set of shelves that I messed up? And I don't know. I don't even think the shelves you messed up are tall enough now.

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Super tall. It is. This is huge. It's huge. Yeah, it's it's big. It's very big. So I don't.

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And the thing is, the thing about about Amazon wish list, whether it's a mystery or list, my personal one doesn't necessarily tell you who got it.

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So I don't know who who got that for me. And I'm very, very thankful to whoever you are that you that you did that.

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I appreciate that. And of course, there are people on Twitter now going, looking at everything else in the picture.

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Other than that, going, oh, you got a new lamp. You got a new picture frame. Actually, the picture is interesting because to the right, there is a picture on the wall.

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And that's that's the picture from when I was speaking at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. So it sort of goes.

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Actually, there's a sense of irony when you think about that. And Codex Sinaiticus, but that's another issue we won't get into today.

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So we've been gone for quite some time. And, you know, the bummer about collapsing at airports and being dragged out in gurneys, things like that, is it sort of ruins what you went over to do in the first place.

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Had a great time at Cornerstone Seminary with a class on apologetics. And I do want to thank

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Abdullah Kunda. On Thursday, when we started talking about Islam in class.

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I also it struck me and I went, man, I am getting old. Last January, when

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I taught that class at Golden Gate, we hooked up with Abdullah Kunda via Skype down in Sydney.

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And he spent an hour with us talking with the students. And, you know, we set it up. It's really easy to do. You know, you got to you put your laptop up front.

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It's got the camera. He can see us. We can see him. We project him up on the screen. And it worked really well last year.

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And all of a sudden it struck me. I had not even thought about doing that. And so during one of the breaks,

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I dropped Abdullah an email, knowing that he's already like a day ahead of us.

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So this would be like Saturday at his time. 18 hours, as I recall. And so we, you know, got it all set up.

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He wrote back, said, yeah, it's gonna be eight o 'clock in the morning, was when he was going to be getting together with us.

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But he spent an hour with us on Skype. And again, two times now we've done an hour long trans -Pacific

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Skype situation without so much as one incident of max headroom stuff.

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No breaks, no interruptions, no nothing. The technology has definitely improved over the years.

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And that was very, very interesting. And in fact, that's sort of what led to Abdullah's commentary on William Lane Craig's comments, which

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I will try to get to as well. But I'm not going to get to that because I just realized

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I don't. Well, I could probably bring it up. We'll see. We'll see. And in a jumbo or mega,

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I might actually get there. Now that I think about it, we'll see. But much has come up.

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And I was thinking about the topics that we're dealing with today. And every topic that I'm going to be dealing with today, almost every time, every topic

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I'm going to be dealing with today is just going to just make me so much less popular than I already am.

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It's just great. I was thinking about every single topic. It's like, well, this group's going to hate what I have to say about this. And I was looking at Facebook yesterday.

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Yes, I actually looked at Facebook yesterday. And some of the comments that I was getting, they're talking, people talking about this sniping that we do.

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You're just sniping at people. Because I was talking about, well, I need to address the subject of what

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William Lane Craig said, especially about Psalm 11 .5.

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And I think it's important. And I just know there's going to be lots and lots of people that are not going to like that at all.

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So where do we start? Where do we start? Actually, I'm going to start with something to get out of the way so I have a little bit more of a consistent theme,

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I guess. There really isn't any particular theme. But I was directed to an article that Bart Ehrman posted on his blog.

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I generally don't follow everything that Bart Ehrman has to say. But I was directed to a specific set of comments by Bart Ehrman because he made reference to me.

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This is on my birthday, December 17th. And it was responses to my Newsweek article.

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And Ehrman's response, unfortunately, is directed to a pack of lies posted by someone by the name of ML.

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And I have a feeling ML might be listening to the program, either that or he listens to the

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Janet Mefford Show. He says, There is a very strident, conservative, evangelical woman who does a religious -themed radio show named

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Janet Mefford. So Janet's a strident, conservative, evangelical woman. She has often had, as a guest on her show, a man,

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James White, a hardcore conservative Calvinist. Then he goes on to not only attack me, but he says that I was on for the sole purpose of claiming

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Ehrman is all wet. Now, anyone who listened, well, with a slight bit of fear, that's what really bothered me about this.

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ML is a liar. He is dishonest. You cannot possibly be so biased that he could actually defend what he's saying.

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And by the way, if ML, whoever you are, I love people who post just under this type of thing and then lie in the process.

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I doubt he would listen to this program because I can just tell that these folks don't feel like they need to listen to what we have to say.

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But if anyone listened to what I said on Janet Mefford's show, one of the things I have said, and how many hours have

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I spent playing Bart Ehrman debates with Dan Wallace and portions of his classes and going over stuff?

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What have I said over and over and over and over and over again that any honest person would have to have to recognize?

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I have said many times, normally Bart Ehrman is right on about his facts. It's the interpretation that's the issue.

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How many times have I said that? I don't know how many times I've said that. So anyone who listened to what

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I said knows that I was not on that program to say that Bart Ehrman is all wet.

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I was on that program to say, you know, Bart Ehrman does not seem to reflect very much on the overriding presuppositional nature of his worldview.

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And does not seem to represent the fact that there are all sorts of other interpretations that are just as good as his and that are more consistent with a biblical worldview.

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Now that's fair, but that's what we get from ML. He goes on to, he says, she tells the listener that James White had, and by the way, it's funny, his comment is filled with typographical errors, which makes it, had denated

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Bart Ehrman in a context which suggests White mopped the floor with him. No such context at all.

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It's a lie. It's just a lie. The problem is, I'll bet you Bart Ehrman doesn't care whether it's a lie or not, isn't going to check these things out.

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And his comment shows that. So he's responding to lies from his fans.

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And this is somehow supposed to advance discussion. Um, he, he goes on, uh, you know, basically saying people like Ehrman shouldn't debate people like me because we're all a bunch of idiots.

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Anyways, uh, James White mentions, it's having debated Ehrman regularly and despite his express contempt for Ehrman's views, contempt for Ehrman's views.

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You mean I disagreed? Oh, oh, that's, that's the great sin here. You can't disagree. It's interesting to me,

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ML, I would love if he was listening because that's the one call I would take. If ML wants to go and that's me,

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I'll be happy to talk to this person and expose him for the dishonest person that he is.

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Because this is just, just disgusting to me. Uh, his expressed contempt for Ehrman's views.

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In other words, he dared as a Christian to disagree with the great

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Bart Ehrman. How dare you? But unfortunately, that is how these folks think. Clearly takes great pride in the fact that Ehrman considered him legitimate enough, enough, uh, to debate.

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No, I, uh, actually, sir, you need to understand something. Bart Ehrman walked out of that room with a check for 5 ,000 bucks in his pocket.

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I didn't. Okay. That's just a fact. That's just the way it is.

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It has nothing to do. Bart Ehrman didn't care who he was debating. Bart Ehrman didn't even

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Google my name. He does not believe that we have anything worthwhile to say. He was condescending to me. He was condescending to the audience as well.

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That came across very, very clearly. And the reason that we want to do those types of debates is to demonstrate that you can stand toe -to -toe with these folks.

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Because in general, it's only people like you, Mr. ML, who are utterly incapable of critically analyzing what these guys are saying.

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You just believe whatever they say. If they say it, it's gospel truth. We are the ones who actually listen to both sides.

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You aren't. You're demonstrating right here. You're demonstrating your bias and your bigotry and your incapacity to actually engage in meaningful exchange.

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That's a shame. That's a shame. Again, he does seem to listen to us more often because he says,

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Moreover, people like the aforementioned Meffred cite the fact that Ehrman debated White to lend credibility to White, despite the fact that White's debate with Ehrman went disastrously bad for White, a view reluctantly conceded even by many of White's online fanboys.

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I wonder if he's thinking of Peter Lumpkins or something. That's about the closest you're going to get. Ehrman, on the other hand, is not in the habit of name -dropping

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James White. No, of course not. Not in any way, shape, or form. Nor would he because he does not care to reach us folks.

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He has his own... Anyways, cognitive dissonance here is striking.

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According to White, Ehrman doesn't know his bleep from his elbow when it comes to the

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Bible. That's a lie. That is a downright lie and ML knows it. He knows it.

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Anyone who's listened to me, I've never said anything even close to that. ML, if you have to lie about me so badly like this, what does that actually say about my arguments?

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The fact you can't even begin to address my arguments, can't even mention what my arguments were, is a demonstration that you folks cannot engage with our side.

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You can't do it. The only thing you can do is hide behind this kind of rhetoric and the fact that the media loves you and they will not give us the opportunity of responding.

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It's all there is to it. All there is to it. And so then he closes.

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So yeah, maybe Dawkins has a point after all. So we understand that ML is a dishonest man and there are many people who are dishonest on the left.

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There's people who are dishonest on the right. It's not just a left -right issue, but it does seem to be rather endemic and it would seem that the left's worldview doesn't have any basis for demanding any kind of honesty.

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But then Bart Ehrman responds, Yeah, I constantly wonder about this. In my self -defense,

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I had never heard of James White before I agreed to debate him. He's a big person in his own small little world, but unknown among scholars of the

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Bible, which is the world of people I live with. Could we have some music, please?

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How many times have I said, how many times have I said, that Bart Ehrman believes his own press and that Bart Ehrman does not listen to criticisms of his position and he honestly doesn't think there's anyone smart enough to criticize him.

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That came across in the debate. It came across in the condescending way in which he engaged in the debate and the fact that a lot of his answers didn't really deal with the question.

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Thank you for, I did not do this. There we go. I think that's one of your favorite.

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Yeah, it's one of your favorite songs, isn't it? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for the musical interlude there,

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Rich. Yes, there you go. Now remember, this is the same man, folks, who at first agreed to debate whether textual variation precludes the possibility of inspiration.

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And then a month out or two months out says, no, no, I never agreed to do that. So we had to change the topic to promote his book, of course.

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And then while we're on the phone, and I have a witness to this, um, I dared mention the fact that Paul viewed scripture as taught was, it was theodnustos.

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The man laughed out loud. He thinks that's, no critical scholar would ever believe that.

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He is more careful in some of his public comments, but in his private comments, the man has no respect whatsoever for a believing

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Christian. Remember, he is an apostate and he hates his former faith. That's just all there is to it. He calls himself a happy agnostics.

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He's not happy. He's not happy. But here's a man who just admitted, yeah, I was,

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I didn't, I never heard of him. Didn't care. Don't know. Didn't read his stuff. Don't need to. I'm Bert Ehrman.

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And this is the mindset of the left and our culture is being given.

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Well, what's, I wasn't going to bring this up, but I think,

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I think it really is important. I'm going to go ahead and look at the text here really quickly. I didn't have it, didn't have it queued up, but there is a text in the scripture that is very sobering, very, very sobering.

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In 2 Thessalonians chapter two, there's two groups in Paul's theology. There are those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

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And that's one of the problems that Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, they have middle groups and things like that. And Paul's thinking that you're in Christ, you're outside of Christ.

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You're, you have spiritual life or you're, you don't, you are either perishing or you're being saved.

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And 2 Thessalonians 2 .10 says, with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

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Therefore, God sends on them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false and or that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

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Here is a man who has known the truth. Here is a man who is a scholar of God's inspired word.

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That's what he's called. He's a Bible scholar, New Testament scholar specifically. What is it like to possess the word of life in your hand and yet refuse to love it?

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He was given quite an opportunity to do so. I mean, he went to Moody, he went to Wheaton. He's heard the gospel.

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He's been given these opportunities. But the fact of the matter is, when you refuse to love the truth, you will be caused to love a lie.

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That is judicial justice. It's justice. God's under no obligation to grant the privileges that were granted to Bart Ehrman to hear the gospel with the clarity that he did.

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There have been many who have perished without ever hearing and they will be judged on the basis of their works and found wanting.

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Because the standard, of course, is perfection to enter into the presence of a holy God. But here is a man who repeatedly heard the message of grace and yet in light of that has now done everything in his power to dissuade others from following the truth.

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Amazing. And now has been given a spirit of stupor so as to love a lie.

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And you know what one of the lies is he loves? That he's the greatest scholar on two legs. There ain't nobody like him.

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And I've read to you in years past the commentary of people who have attended scholarly meetings with Bart Ehrman and have been disgusted by his behavior.

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By the condescending attitude he has toward other people. Even within his own circle of critical scholarship.

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Which of course Bart Ehrman he defines that. Agree with him you're a critical scholar. Disagree with him you ain't. You're just one of those folks.

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Shouldn't surprise us though folks. Shouldn't surprise us. If you do not, you know,

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I think anyone who seeks to engage the world today should make it a part of their study.

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Should make it a part of their, you know, just their activities.

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To read first Corinthians chapters one and two about once a month. Just, just to do it.

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Just to have that information right there in front of you to be reminded that folks the world's going to hate us and the world's going to consider us foolish.

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Absolutely foolish. And that has not changed. That has not changed.

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All right, so there is, there is Bart Ehrman. Let's, let's keep that in mind.

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I think what I'll do is I'm going to, I'm going to get the smaller subjects out of the way first. Because I've announced the fact that we're going to be playing portions from William Lane Craig.

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I'm going to be responding to that. I'll, I'll do that when I get the smaller, you know, shorter topics out of the way.

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And that's, that's how we'll, we'll handle things. Briefly, the 20th,

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I guess this is going to become a yearly thing. I don't know. I don't think there was one in 2012. I forget when the

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John 316 conference was. Wasn't that 2010? Anyways, it's the 2013 John 316 conference coming up March 21st and 22nd.

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And it is interesting to see who is going to be speaking at the 2013.

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Of course, Jerry Vines Ministries is behind it. So Jerry Vines, an inveterate anti -Calvinist.

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But the North Metro Baptist Church down in Georgia is the host. So Dr. Frank Cox is going to be, is the host pastor.

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I suppose he's going to be speaking. Then, of course, we have David Allen, Dean of School of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, who does not know what a hyper -Calvinist is, but refuses to be corrected on that.

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He will be speaking. And then right below him, Ymir Kanner. Yes, indeed. Ymir Kanner, president of Truett McConnell College.

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Also the same place where for some reason the really, really, really bad list of really silly excuses that Norman Geisler still has on his website, or at least had last time

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I checked. So, excusing Ergen Kanner for all of his many, many lies concerning being born in Istanbul and raised in majority

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Muslim countries, and father being a polygamist, brought multiple wives to the United States, and learned

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English by watching the Dukes of Hazzard, and trained in madrasas in Istanbul, Cairo, and Beirut, and then came over, trained in jihad in 1979, and then wonderfully converted, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of which, of course, are lies.

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All that stuff, the excuses that are currently made for that stuff, including how you cannot possibly cite the hadith properly, which is why we still wonder about hadith 2425, which

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I was reading yesterday, by the way. I was putting together a little list of stuff, and I said, ah, yeah, there's hadith 2425. There it is.

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Still there. Still hasn't been identified by Ergen or Ymir Kanner or Norman Geisler or any of the defenders of Ergen Kanner.

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All that stuff, still there. Where'd that come from? It came from Truett McConnell College, as we saw in the

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Word document from which the HTML was generated. Anyways, Ymir Kanner, president of Truett McConnell College, self -proclaimed

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Anabaptist, is going to be speaking. Steve Gaines, who has often spoken against Calvinism.

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Eric Hankins has become one of the big guys now. He was the one that did the public invitation, ask

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Jesus into your heart thing at the Southern Baptist Convention last year. I don't know who

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Adam Harwood is, but he's at Truett McConnell College as well. And remember, Ymir Kanner got rid of all the Calvinists at Truett McConnell, so that makes sense.

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And of course, Jerry Vines. These are the speakers coming up at the John 316 conference. When I saw this, my only comment was, it wasn't bad enough first time?

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Now we're going to have to do it again? Okay. Yeah, that was good. Oh, yeah, it was 2008, wasn't it?

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Yeah, because that was, wow, that was when I was in London. And I remember that. It's coming up on five years now.

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And it's the 2013 John 316 conference. Get your reservations in early.

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Tulip, yeah, five years. Let's not go there. Okay. Speaking of Ymir Kanner, Ergin has come out from hiding.

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You know, we had mentioned just a couple weeks ago that Ergin Kanner has been pretty quiet of late.

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And he got down there to Arlington Baptist Bible College and switched all his

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New American Standards over to King James Version, I'm sure. And either that or he's just become very, very good at kanterizing all of his appearances, making sure that, okay, if I'm coming, don't tell anyone, swear your entire congregation to secrecy, black out your website, install electronic surveillance equipment so that you know if there's anybody there with an active

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MP3 recorder or anything like that. And maybe that's how he's doing it, you know, because we have come up with a term, kanterize.

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To kanterize a sermon means that, well, our recording equipment didn't work today.

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We forgot how to upload stuff to the internet, that kind of stuff.

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It's still just amazing to me that instead of just coming out and saying, hello,

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I lied. Okay, I'm sorry. I confess. I would like to be restored.

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I promise to never do it again. I realize it was wrong, et cetera, et cetera. Instead, it's,

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I'm going to stick by this. I'm going to stick to my guns. I refuse to engage with anyone who would expose me, but I'm just going to continue doing what

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I'm doing. I'm going to stay low for a while, and then we'll eventually be able to come back, and everyone will have forgotten because, look, that was 2010, man.

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That's so 2010. This is 2013. Three years have passed. That's longer than Jesus' ministry, for crying out loud.

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Can't we all, we had a discussion on Facebook yesterday. You got to forgive him. You got to forgive him.

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He doesn't have to ask for repentance. Now, the guy did say, well, what I mean by that is you shouldn't be mad at him.

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Now, I feel bad for Ergen Kanner. I feel pity for Ergen Kanner, but the guy did admit, well,

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I don't think he should be restored to his position. Okay, so what do you mean forgiven? I mean, you're talking about partial forgiveness here.

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You're talking about your own attitude and not allowing your root of bitterness to grow up within you. That's fine, but we're talking about a situation here where there are people who are in ministry, they're in responsible positions of ministry, who are doing everything in their power to continue to aid and abet the

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Kanner cover -up. It's still going on. And they are just, you know what? They're taking the same political tack that the left has taken in recognizing people's memories are very short.

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All they care about is what's going on right now. This was three years ago. Nobody cares. Anyone who brings this up, it will immediately be attacked.

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And I have been already. And talking about it now, I can just see the people firing up the

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Facebook pages, firing up the Twitter. How dare you? Look, you're just focused on us.

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Folks, there's been no resolution. And I really wonder how many people live today would have just completely given up on poor

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Joseph there in the prison. Because, you know, oh, three years have passed. And so you don't talk about this stuff no more.

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And what I'm referring to, of course, is the fact that yesterday, well,

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I think it was the day before yesterday, late, late on Tuesday, I think, people started sending me little tweets and said, hey, guess what?

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John Ankenberg is having Ergon and Ymir Kanner on again. I think they were first on in 2003. And of course, this was right in the middle of where they were just spouting every kind of lie.

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And what would be fascinating, what would be fascinating would be to compare what they say now with what they said in 2003.

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You want to see how truthful I and others have been? Listen to how the story changes.

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Listen to whether Ergon starts talking about having been born in Turkey and debating imams in Arabic in mosques and his dad coming over with his multiple wives and learning

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English, watching the Dukes of Hazzard. And let's see if all that has just gone. And if it has,

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I wonder why must have been those bloggers in their parents' basements somehow got to them,

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I guess. Right. What was what was Liberty's wonderfully politically correct way of putting it?

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Did not find any factual misrepresentations or factual errors or something along those lines.

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Nice way of saying, oh, well, we don't think you really lied, but we don't want to say that because it's pretty obvious he did. So on the

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John Ankenberg Facebook page, even a Muslim, when

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John Ankenberg said, just finished a wonderful new series of John Ankenberg show. Thanks, Dr. Ergon and Ymir Kanner.

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Pray many Muslims will come to Christ. But almost immediately, a Muslim said, how can we trust someone who lied about his own mother and then has a link to some of the lies that Ergon Kanner has talked about his own mom?

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You know, she took the hijab off as she got into the baptistry. According to Ymir, once the divorce took place, she became a hippie.

31:49

Hippies generally don't wear hijabs. You know, I mean, hello. I pointed out in writing to John Ankenberg.

32:02

I wrote John Ankenberg back in 2010 when he first put out his defense in July of 2010 of the

32:08

Kanners and said, could you interact with some of the information we've provided? Here's some links. Never heard back. Never heard back.

32:15

Evidently, John Ankenberg now is is invested to admit that they've done two series of programs.

32:25

Well, it would have been one thing in 2010 to look at the information and go, wow,

32:30

OK, all right. Well, you know, we didn't know this at the time. This information wasn't available, then that would have would have been easy to say.

32:39

Sorry that that this is the case. We still feel that much of what Dr. Kanner said is valuable and and useful information, which is true.

32:46

Something I have said many times. How many times have I pointed out Kanner's approach, his rejection of the camel method, for example?

32:53

I agree. He's right. The camel method is not the way to go. OK, you know, just because Ergon Kanner says it doesn't mean it's false.

33:01

But to have them back on now. And yesterday, one of the questions

33:06

I asked, and I would be overjoyed if this was the case, overjoyed if this was the case.

33:16

Did he ask the questions that needed to be asked? Did he raise these issues?

33:21

I can I at ninety nine point nine percent. Of my heart and mind says no.

33:34

No. There's no way that the Kanners would have shown up. If John Ankerberg was going to ask them the real questions because they have refused to engage these questions, they will not answer the questions.

33:47

We've had videos up asking both Ergon and Kanner questions for two and a half years, more than two and a half years now.

33:55

They will not answer because do so would be admit that they were lying. That would force them to confess.

34:01

And that's, you know, there you go. So I really doubt that the real issues were dealt with, but I bet that still, despite that, they were at least mentioned in, as I said, the difference in the telling of their own story.

34:20

That has to have been the case now. But then again, I could be surprised and who knows, maybe some of the stuff that he's been exposed on will end up back on the

34:30

John Ankerberg show. I don't know. All I know is that when I talk to Muslims who know about this situation and I refer to people who have come to Christ out of Islam, their response is, oh, you mean like Ergon Kanner?

34:48

What can you say? What can you say to do this again is to is to function upon the assumption that evangelicals have no more interest in truth than the general average

35:04

American citizen does, who allows things to just, you know, once it's more than about six months ago, does it really matter?

35:13

Doesn't really matter anymore. We are so, we, our attention spans are so short.

35:20

Our memories so shallow that we don't forget. We don't remember. We forget. And that's how it works.

35:26

And unfortunately, they're probably right. They're probably right. I'll admit it.

35:34

I'll admit it. That's all there is to it. So I wonder when that's going to show.

35:42

I wonder when that's going to air. I'll, I'll, I'll be interested in seeing what, what comes up as to when this is going to air.

35:51

And I would be interested in, because I don't even know where,

35:57

I don't even know how you watch the John Ankenberg show anymore, to be honest with you. I'm looking,

36:05

I'm just looking at the thing here and I don't see any, just finished only seven comments.

36:12

Ah, Rudy got on there. Having a dishonest testimony, lying about where you were born, pretending you can read, write and speak

36:20

Arabic, all while standing behind a pulpit is just as much, if not more anti -Christian than Muhammad himself.

36:28

Ah, there you go. I'm surprised that wasn't even managed 10 hours ago via mobile. There you go, Rudy. I'm surprised that one hasn't been deleted yet.

36:37

But there you go. I just wanted to see what was, what was there. And that's, that's interesting.

36:44

All right. So there's the Ankenberg thing and the Cantor thing. And we will see what comes of that.

36:51

All right. Big thing, last week when I was in California, I, one morning,

37:00

I kept getting people writing to me and saying, are you going to respond to, are you going to comment on what

37:08

William Lane Craig said on his program? And, you know, all the rest of this stuff.

37:13

And at first I was like, you know,

37:20

I've addressed this so many times before, but then I went ahead and fired it up and I listened to it. And I thought, you know what? We have so many people who are listening to the program for the first time.

37:31

I mean, I was just watching somebody in Chat Channel a few minutes ago. And, well, at the beginning of the program, and the person's comment was, who's

37:41

Bart Ehrman? Okay. So that's obviously someone who has not been listening to Dividing Line very long or actually missed last week when

37:48

I was reviewing Bart Ehrman's debate with Dan Wallace.

37:54

But we have new audience all the time. And so you probably haven't heard the fact that over the years, you know, not everybody listens to the

38:06

Wayback Machine, okay? Um, over the years, I have interacted with Dr.

38:14

William Lane Craig's apologetic presentations dozens and dozens of times.

38:22

I have played debates. For example, his debating

38:27

Shabir Ali. I've debated Shabir Ali many times. I think probably more times than actually

38:34

William Lane Craig has. But I've played those debates. And there are times when what he says and what

38:42

I say would be exactly the same. But there are times when we would respond to the very same question in very, very different ways.

38:54

Very, very different ways. Why? And I think, you know, there are people who do not believe that I should say anything about William Lane Craig.

39:04

They call this sniping. You're just trying to get an audience, et cetera, et cetera. Folks, there would be so many more doors open to me if I did not engage in programs like this.

39:16

There really would be. One of the reasons that I don't get the invitations to the big conferences.

39:23

Ever seen me at the big conferences? You haven't. You haven't. One of the reasons is because I do this kind of thing.

39:32

I think it is, I do not think there's any better way for you to see the difference in apologetic methodologies and to see how theology must determine your apologetic methodology than to engage in this kind of examination.

39:46

It's not just William Lane Craig that I've done this with. I've been pretty across the board. I've played all sorts of evidentialists, all sorts of folks who are not reformed in their theology and have demonstrated through their debates how we have very, very different ways of responding to the same questions because our theology demands that we respond differently.

40:09

And to illustrate it, how else would you illustrate it? I mean, it's one thing to sit there and say, well, because Arminians believe this, they'll say this, and because reformed people say this, they'll say this.

40:19

Yeah, okay, you can do that. But of course, the best way is for someone to hear it and then hear the interaction.

40:28

People remember that. I can't tell you how many people have said to me, it was only once you played that and you went through it, that's when

40:35

I understood that theology matters. So I don't see any other way to do it that is fair and honest.

40:45

And people say, well, you shouldn't do that with another Christian. Well, if I was saying he wasn't a Christian, maybe, but I hold

40:54

Christians to a higher standard, actually. And I think Christians should engage in this kind of conversation.

41:01

And since we have a common source of authority, it's not a bad thing to engage in this kind of conversation.

41:10

And I think it's a demonstration of fear on the part of many in evangelicalism that, well, we shouldn't do that.

41:19

That's not good. No, I do not understand how

41:27

Christians can view it in that way. I just don't. So I have, over the years, played many of William Lane Craig's debates and lectures.

41:38

I've played stuff from his Defenders class where he went over Calvinism. And I have responded to it.

41:45

Very, very few of my critics ever extend to me the courtesy that I extend to those that I criticize.

41:58

Very, very few of them play my comments and then respond to what

42:04

I actually said. We're the ones that do that. And that actually, from my perspective, is showing respect for Dr.

42:12

Craig. I mean, there are people out there that, once in a while, I will play just ridiculous statements, just for entertainment value or for the fact that, unfortunately, sometimes really ridiculous statements get repeated a lot.

42:24

And therefore, you have to know how to respond to them, even though they're really, really ridiculous. But I consider it a sign of respect for someone to let them speak for themselves and to accurately represent what they say.

42:40

And the people who criticize me, one thing they don't criticize me for to my face is misrepresenting the people that I'm talking about.

42:53

You know, like that guy, ML, on Ehrman's blog. He could never engage me in conversation because he's dishonest.

43:01

He has misrepresented me. I don't respect that. If I was misrepresenting

43:06

Bart Ehrman, that would be a different thing. I'm not. And I'm not misrepresenting William Lane Craig, either.

43:13

And we will demonstrate that by the fact that we will actually play the comments that William Lane Craig gave.

43:23

Now, this section appeared on the

43:30

Unbelievable Radio broadcast. And Justin Brierley himself asked if, you know, he said,

43:39

I'll be tuning in, which I would assume probably means he'll be listening on the podcast, but might be listening live.

43:44

I don't know. He's a busy man. So I would assume that he would do the same way I listen to Unbelievable, and that is on the podcast.

43:52

But he asked, you know, what were your issues? You know, because obviously, Justin would go, I think this is a pretty mainstream presentation on his part.

44:02

And much of what he said, I could agree with. But there was stuff that I could not agree with.

44:09

And it did strike me. Now, he speaks about Islam a good bit in this presentation, which you have to do.

44:18

He was addressing the apologetic situation in the UK. And while I would agree generally with much of what he said,

44:30

I was concerned with the fact that, for example, he addressed the issue, and we are going to play this section.

44:36

He addressed the issue of love in Islam. And I am concerned that even some of my good friends set themselves up for refutation on this particular subject.

44:51

And what is more than that, set themselves up for refutation by a criticism of the biblical view of God's love, because frequently they will adopt a view of God's love that is not a biblical view of God's love.

45:04

What do I mean by that? Well, if you are one of the undifferentiated omnibenevolence folks, if you take the view that God loves every single person in the exact same way without any differentiation, you throw out everything the

45:22

Bible says. When God spoke to the children of Israel and says, you alone have

45:28

I yada, have I chosen, have I known, I've set my love upon you.

45:34

If you don't see that there is a difference in the way that God is treating the people of Israel at the

45:41

Red Sea and the way he's treating the Egyptians, if you think it's half the same, it's just vanilla love.

45:51

God is going to be loving the sinner in hell for eternity the same way that he is loving the saved saint in heaven eternally.

46:02

If that's your view, and there are people who take it, then you're going to have one set of criticisms for Islam.

46:11

Now, the problem is a smart Muslim is going to go, hey, your own Bible doesn't say that.

46:16

What are you talking about? But you're going to have one set of criticisms for Islam. If you recognize the fact that there is differentiation in God's love, then that will change things.

46:33

This is a live program, folks. And we break into this discussion, before we listen to what

46:39

William Lane Craig has to say, to deal with breaking news. Yes, we have breaking news sources right here in front of me called

46:47

Twitter. I just want to mention this so I can get it out of the way, and then we'll get back to it.

46:55

I did note this morning on Dr. Moeller's program, because this is relevant to something we do, and I should have went ahead and done this, but I don't know how long this could take.

47:05

So I want to do this. And I do want to take a break at the top of the hour if we could. The disinvitation or voluntary withdrawal of Louis Giglio, who had been invited to offer the prayer at President Obama's inauguration.

47:29

I'm trying to say that without using another term that also ends with shun. I found it interesting.

47:41

I would never do that personally. President Obama has shown himself to be so thoroughly opposed to the

47:47

Christian worldview. He promotes the profanation of marriage that I could not in any way, shape or form be involved with that.

47:54

But what is fascinating is that he has now been forced to step down from doing that, not by the right, but by the left.

48:03

Because he dared many years ago to preach a sermon that presented the biblical view on homosexuality.

48:12

And as now the briefing this morning with Dr. Moeller was before he stepped down, evidently.

48:19

But as Dr. Moeller pointed out on the briefing this morning, it had already been said by numerous people.

48:26

He mentioned a fellow, I recognize the name, but I forgot what it was off the top of my head. He basically said that he,

48:34

Giglio, had to demonstrate that he had evolved since then in his views of homosexuality, if he would be allowed to do that.

48:42

In other words, if you're going to be in the public realm, if you're going to be, if you're not going to be the object of cultural hatred and opprobrium, then you must bow to the homosexual agenda.

49:03

You must bow to the secular state and you must bow to the homosexual agenda. And otherwise you will be viewed as a member of the

49:13

KKK, as a racist, a slave owner, whatever else it might be. Those are the types of, you know,

49:20

Nazi, Hitler, all that stuff is going to be thrown in your direction if you do not bow to the secular left and its homosexual agenda.

49:29

That's just the way it is. And so he has been dismissed from offering that prayer. And so what you're going to have is someone to offer that prayer, who, of course, profanes marriage and who does not believe in the

49:41

Bible. There you go. Personally, I think they should just stop that prayer thing anyway.

49:48

A prayer is an act of worship. And if you're going to profane God, it would be best to just be a good secularist and get rid of that stuff.

49:57

Anyways, so I thought I would mention that. We return to the actual issue of our conversation, and that is the love of God in Islam.

50:08

Let's go ahead and listen. I'm just going to play the section that William Lane Craig gave here on the subject of the love of God in Islam.

50:19

And then that's the basis of which the questions came up as well.

50:25

So let's just make sure we're plugged in here. And here we go. Now, again,

50:30

Islam can be justifiably criticized for its morally inadequate concept of God. One of the things that surprised me most when

50:38

I began to study Islam as a theological graduate student in Germany was all of the people whom the

50:44

Quran says God does not love. This fact is emphasized repeatedly and consistently like a drumbeat throughout the pages of the

50:52

Quran. Just listen to the following passages. God loves not the unbelievers. God loves not evildoers.

50:59

God loves not the proud. God loves not transgressors. God loves not the prodigal.

51:06

God loves not the treacherous. God is an enemy to unbelievers.

51:12

Over and over and over again, the Quran declares that God does not love the very people that the

51:22

Bible says God loves so much that he sent his only son to die for them.

51:29

According to the Quran, God's love is reserved only for those who earn it.

51:36

It says in Surah 1995, to those who believe and do righteousness,

51:43

God will assign love. So, the Quran assures us of God's love for the

51:51

God -fearing and the good -doers. But he has no love for sinners and unbelievers.

51:58

And thus, in the Islamic conception, God is not all loving.

52:03

His love is partial and has to be earned. The Muslim God loves only those who first love him.

52:15

His love thus rises no higher than the sort of love that Jesus said even tax collectors and sinners exhibit.

52:24

The Islamic conception of God is therefore morally deficient.

52:30

Faced with the challenge of a false theism, the church must not remain silent.

52:38

When the apostle Paul was confronted with another gospel in Galatia, he opposed it unflinchingly, regardless of what people thought.

52:48

He demanded, am I now seeking human approval or God's approval?

52:54

Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

53:03

Islam is another gospel. It presents a distorted view of God, an inaccurate picture of the historical

53:12

Jesus, and a false view of salvation. The church has something better to offer.

53:19

A holy yet loving heavenly father, a savior who voluntarily lays down his life for mine, and the free gift of salvation and eternal life through faith in Christ.

53:36

In conclusion then, the church in Britain faces apparently overwhelming challenges on both the left and the right.

53:46

But as Paul has said, God has equipped us with weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left.

53:54

Bearing in mind, as Paul says, that we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

54:06

He says we destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey

54:16

Christ. 2 Corinthians 10 5. Now, that would have taken longer if I hadn't had it at super high speed at the start.

54:26

So if you're sort of wondering why he's talking really fast at the beginning, and then he slowed down and started talking at his normal pace, that was my fault.

54:33

Again, I use Audio Notetaker, and as I was queuing all this stuff up, I had it at high speed so I can listen to it faster and take as long to get everything set up.

54:42

And by the way, I've even got a note from the Audio Notetaker folks on Twitter thanking me because a number of people picked it up, and everyone who has picked it up has said, yep, it's everything he said it was.

54:54

And to do what I do, awesome stuff. Okay, so he gets done, and so he has addressed secularism, and he's addressed

55:01

Islam, he's made those comments regarding the love of God, and that God only loves in Islam those who, in essence, earn his love.

55:15

Well, that concerned me. It concerned me because, well, first of all, look,

55:25

I've fallen into it, though I do try to make appropriate distinctions, at least at the start.

55:36

But look, we tend to broad brush the other side. When you're summarizing, you can't really help but do that in some senses.

55:47

And so I will say Muslims say

55:52

X, Y, or Z. And at the beginning of a conversation or at the beginning of a lecture,

55:58

I'll say, no, I'm primarily talking about Sunni Islam here. I'm not necessarily talking about the Shiites here.

56:03

There are other smaller groups that are not going to be included in this. But even amongst the Sunnis, there's all sorts of different views, especially when it comes to issues like predestination and election.

56:13

You'll find two Sunnis, one of which will take everything that the

56:18

Quran and the Hadith say, and every one of our actions is determined all the way down the line.

56:27

And then there's others who believe in free will, and they have a completely different set that they look at, and they have their ways of understanding those other texts and so on and so forth.

56:36

So the danger, obviously, is when you're making comments like Dr.

56:42

Craig was, the danger is speaking in generalities. But even then, you have the problem of the fact that in Islam, to say, well,

57:00

Muslims believe this. On this subject of the love of God, there are different views.

57:06

There clearly are different views and how it's understood. And it was just a little bit too simplistic and that's why

57:16

I asked Abdullah Kunda, could you look at this and tell him what you think? And he has told us that. And we'll maybe get to that.

57:22

It sort of all depends on how the timeframes are looking and so on and so forth. So before I start playing the

57:32

Q &A section, which is where the real questions came up, we're gonna go ahead and take our top of the hour break and then come back and see if we can finish all this up.

57:43

So see you in a moment. Breaking news from the

58:00

White House and the issue, gay marriage. For a lot of people, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.

58:09

I think same -sex couples should be able to get married. The NAACP has passed a resolution endorsing gay marriage as a civil right.

58:17

This comes two weeks after the president announced his support for same -sex marriage. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

58:30

Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened and accused of discrimination.

58:39

It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.

58:45

How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2

58:55

Timothy 2 .15. Dr. James White and Pastor Jeffrey Neal have partnered to bring you their book, The Same -Sex

59:01

Controversy. If you are a Christian, this book is just one of the tools you'll need to be prepared to give a proper defense of the faith in the face of the unrighteous onslaught we face today.

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The authors write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on this subject, explaining and defending the foundational biblical passages that deal with homosexuality, including

59:19

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and return to God's plan for His people.

59:28

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy today from the bookstore at aomm .org.

59:36

And don't forget to search for other resources like debates and past dividing lines dealing with this very provocative issue.

59:42

And remember, theology matters. God speaks from His word.

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What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? The charges are as follows. Prostitution, using the gospel for financial gain.

01:00:22

Pandering to pluralism. Cowardice under fire. Felonious eisegesis. Entertainment without a license.

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And cross -dressing, ignoring God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women. Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town?

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Get Pulpit Crimes in the bookstore at aomm .org. The Trinity is a basic teaching of the

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Highly recommended. You can order The Forgotten Trinity by going to our website at aomin .org.

01:01:43

All right, welcome back to The Dividing Line. You're now free to go do what you need to do, Mr. Pierce.

01:01:48

That UPS guy is not going to stand out there forever. This is a live program, folks.

01:01:56

Uh, it is truly live and you hear all the mistakes and all the whoopses and all the facts that we're just living in a real world like all the rest of you are.

01:02:04

And, uh, so, uh, and we're very honored that you, uh, you listen. We are, um, doing a mega edition of The Dividing Line today, a full hour of theological fun and frolic.

01:02:14

I've already, already offended all of John Ankerberg's fans, Norman Geisser's fans. Would it be possible for me to further offend

01:02:23

Eric and Kendra's fans? I don't think so. Uh, but, um, anyway, now we're going to get into offending, um, uh,

01:02:31

William Lane Craig's fans. After his presentation, which again, as I said, said many true, appropriate, proper things in regards to, um, secularism in, in England.

01:02:44

And, and, and there are many things he said that I would echo. I would agree with, uh, generally, uh, so on and so forth.

01:02:52

It's not like we're on different planets as far as that goes, but Dr. Craig and I have very, very different theologies.

01:03:02

Um, his Mullenism is foundationally different than my belief in the absolute sovereignty of God over all that takes place in this world.

01:03:14

My Calvinism is completely different than his Arminianism. And remember, just a while ago, he responded to me because I have said many times,

01:03:22

I firmly believe that Dr. Craig's theology is primarily determined by his philosophy, his apologetics, rather than the other way around.

01:03:34

And I think he said, now he, he denied that, but he has many times said things that substantiate my assertion.

01:03:42

And I think we'll see this here as well. Um, first question.

01:03:48

Now, now let me, before we read this, let me, let me go to a particular text in scripture and let us consider a theological truth.

01:04:01

What is God's attitude towards sin? What is God's attitude towards sin?

01:04:09

Well, I think the vast majority of individuals in the world who have any familiarity with the

01:04:17

Bible would say, God hates sin. But what has become the standard line?

01:04:26

God hates the sin, but he loves the sinner. Here's my question to you.

01:04:32

What if the sinner loves his sin? What if the sinner loves his sin?

01:04:41

Does God's love extend to sinners who love their sin? Well, it certainly extended to me when

01:04:48

I loved my sin. And so there is that reality.

01:04:57

But you see, the only way to make that work is to recognize that God's love must be differentiated.

01:05:08

The idea that there was an equal undifferentiated love, operational at the

01:05:15

Red Sea. Let's go ahead and use that. I used it as an illustration before. It's a good enough illustration. There's many other, other illustrations we could use.

01:05:24

We could make, we could make application to, and I'll try to remember to make application to, say, the people staying at the foot of the cross.

01:05:33

Many incidences in the history of Israel. But let's look at the Red Sea for now.

01:05:39

The love of God, is it true or is it untrue that God could have brought judgment to bear upon every single human being involved in the incident at the shore of the

01:05:55

Red Sea? The Pharaoh's army is closing in on the Israelites. They're trapped against the sea.

01:06:01

Moses parts the sea by God's power. They walk across and then the Egyptians try to cross and the sea covers them and they are killed.

01:06:09

Now, before they enter in to the Red Sea, was there any person standing anywhere near the

01:06:20

Red Sea that was not under the just judgment of God?

01:06:26

Any non -sinners? Perfect people? Individuals who are not a stench in the nose of a holy

01:06:35

God? If you think there were, I invite you simply to look into your own heart.

01:06:44

How many lustful thoughts? How many dishonest thoughts? How many thoughts and you go, but, but, but God made us that way.

01:06:51

So you, you, you're not even operating on a Christian worldview when you think that way. Not even operating in a biblical realm when you think that way.

01:06:58

You have no concept of the purity and holiness of God. None. God's wrath could have come on any person.

01:07:08

That means that God was restraining his wrath. There was what we call common grace being extended to everybody in that God had not brought his wrath to bear upon those individuals.

01:07:23

He was restraining that wrath. God's love was being shown in that they had all up to that point in time.

01:07:30

I had at least enough health to get them to that point. They had had food. They'd had sunshine. Grace had been extended in that sense.

01:07:40

But again, you have to differentiate between saving grace and common grace, redeeming love, and that love which is seen in God's taking care of his own creation.

01:07:51

And so at the end of that incident, there's only a certain number of people that are still alive.

01:07:58

And there's a bunch of people that are dead. Are you going to tell me that God's love was equal for those two groups?

01:08:08

The only way to even begin to make sense of this is to recognize that just as we differentiate in our expression of love, just as we are to love

01:08:17

God supremely, even above our human families, so too

01:08:24

God has love that is differentiated. And that is not a defect.

01:08:31

That is an aspect of personhood. And so with that in mind,

01:08:39

Psalm 11 5 says, The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

01:08:48

Let him rain coals in the wicked, fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be a portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous.

01:08:53

He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face. Is that merely poetry?

01:09:04

Is that not foundational to an understanding of God's law? Is that not foundational to even understanding of why the cross had to happen?

01:09:14

Doesn't that explain why it is that we only have eternal life and forgiveness in Jesus Christ?

01:09:21

If it was true that there was something lovable about us outside of Christ, then why do we need

01:09:28

Christ? Listen to it again. Yahweh, literally

01:09:35

Yahweh tests the righteous. Is that just a poetic statement? Is that just, why is this poetry?

01:09:41

It's just the Psalms. Wow, how many times does the New Testament quote in the

01:09:46

Psalms in the middle of, well, you know, Romans 4. Blessed is the man.

01:09:53

Talking about justification. Ah, it's just poetry. Just poetry. Romans 3, the sinfulness of man.

01:10:01

Poetry. Poetry. Don't have to worry about that. Just poetry. Does Yahweh test the righteous,

01:10:09

Sir? It sure does. That is a theologically true statement. Think of how many times the

01:10:16

Lord has tested you as a believer. Brought you into trials and difficulties.

01:10:22

To change you. Grow you. Mature you. But his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

01:10:34

Yeah, but my preacher said, but the Psalter says. But if he hates the wicked, what about the

01:10:46

Bible saying that God so loved the world? What do you do?

01:10:53

Try to pit one against the other. How do you do biblical exegesis? And this is one of the things that really, really concerns me about what

01:10:58

William Lane Craig said. Basically, he's going to take the viewpoint that you sort of count up the numbers.

01:11:07

And if it's just a couple passages, then you just, they are, they're done away with by the overwhelming number.

01:11:12

I was shocked. In fact, let's just, let's go ahead and play it. Let's go ahead and play it. Let's listen to what he had to say and then we'll interact with it.

01:11:20

Dr. Craig, I just want to check where you come from with a God that loves sinners.

01:11:27

And yet in the Bible, it says multiple times he hates sinners, not just hates sin, but does actually hate sinners compared to the

01:11:33

God of Islam, where he does not love sinners. Where do you? I think that if you look at passages throughout the

01:11:42

Bible, there are almost no passages in which it says that God hates sinners.

01:11:48

There are a couple of poetic passages in the Psalms, but very, very few.

01:11:54

And these are completely outweighed by the massive number of texts that affirm

01:12:00

God's love for sinners, affirm his love for the world, and the whole plan of Christian salvation, which is done on behalf of unbelievers.

01:12:09

So the overwhelming evidence in the Bible is that God loves sinners and cares for them.

01:12:16

And these other passages would be poetic or non -literal and completely outweighed by these other passages.

01:12:24

And as an open -minded person, either could the same be the case with the Koran. Could it be that these are just poetic, poetic expressions of God's hatred of sin?

01:12:34

The problem is that there's no place in the Koran, no outweighing texts that affirm that God does love sinners and unbelievers.

01:12:42

The texts are unanimous that God is an enemy to unbelievers, that he doesn't love them, that he only loves those who love him and do righteous deeds, and then he will give them love.

01:12:56

So the whole concept of the love of God in Islam and in Christianity, I think is just radically different.

01:13:03

In Christianity, God's love is unconditional, universal, and unearned.

01:13:09

Whereas in Islam, it is conditional, it is partial, and it needs to be earned.

01:13:16

So I say that not as a polemicist, but just as an honest exegete. I think there's just this world of difference between the two concepts.

01:13:26

Now, I also think that there is a world of difference between the presentation of the

01:13:34

Bible in regards to God's love and now the Koran. I do not see in any way, shape, or form that the author of the

01:13:39

Koran understood the self -giving love of God that is found in the

01:13:47

New Testament. There's no question about that. And even if you take the perspective that, well, the reason that God loves certain people is because he's predestined them to that, and therefore, they don't earn that, is totally different.

01:14:02

Even if you take that viewpoint as the Quranic viewpoint, and hence the idea, well, you don't earn this because God's the one who determines your actions, so it's not like you're earning it.

01:14:11

God did these actions through you that result in this. Okay, I understand that particular perspective. It's not the only view expressed by Muslims, but, and I don't know that the

01:14:20

Quran is actually clear or consistent enough to make that kind of conclusion, but even if that were the case, the vast difference between Christianity and Islam at that point is that in Christianity, God personally, through a personal relationship by his spirit, raises the sinner to spiritual life by a power that is the extension of his own power, love, mercy, and grace.

01:14:49

He places his spirit in that person, and he's able to engage in this personal communion with this sinful individual because he himself has provided the propitiation for the sins of that individual by entering into the time of the person of Jesus Christ.

01:15:04

There is no concept of that in Islam. There's no question about that. There is a vast difference between what the

01:15:10

Quran teaches and what the Bible teaches on these topics. Agreed, but, but, if I had been asked that question,

01:15:18

I would have answered in a completely different way than William Lane Craig did.

01:15:25

I would not have dismissed Psalm 11 5. I would not have, now remember, right at the end there,

01:15:32

I didn't make this up. Listen to what he says. Not as a polemicist, but just as an honest exegete.

01:15:38

He's identifying himself here as an exegete. So his exegetical analysis is that what

01:15:48

Psalm 11 5 and texts like it say is, what was it?

01:15:56

Outweighed. It's outweighed by the large number of other texts.

01:16:03

What did he, how did he put it? Compared to the God of Islam where he does not love. Almost no passages in which it says that God hates sinners.

01:16:11

There are a couple of poetic passages in the Psalms, but very, very few.

01:16:17

And these are completely outweighed by the massive number of texts that affirm

01:16:24

God's love for sinners, affirm his love for the world. Completely outweighed.

01:16:30

So I thought that if you're an honest exegete, you do not take, well, a bunch of passages say this.

01:16:42

Therefore, we will not harmonize these passages. We will conclude that they are contradictory and therefore the ones that are contradictory, we will remove them from the realm of teaching, of containing theology, and we will relegate them to the realm of mere poetry and dismiss them in that way.

01:17:01

Now, I realize that that is pretty common amongst our non -reformed friends. All you got to do is listen to Dave Hunt's repetitive argumentation that, well, it can't mean that because there are dozens of other texts that say this, my tradition, and they're in these texts over here.

01:17:19

And then you go over those texts and you find out they don't say that, but there are, has to say that because there are dozens over here. That's not exegesis.

01:17:26

That's defense of tradition. And in this case, you have

01:17:32

Dr. Craig really ripping the ground out from underneath, being able to present a full -orbed presentation of God.

01:17:43

Now you've got a God who can love passionately, but he can't hate.

01:17:53

Oh, but God doesn't experience any of that. He's beyond what we realize we're not talking about in the human realm.

01:18:00

But if God loves holiness, what must his attitude be towards him?

01:18:09

Sort of corollary there, isn't it? And so you just dismiss him. Well, they're just poetic.

01:18:16

Wow. John 14's poetic. Do we get rid of that? The Carmen Christie is poetry in Philippians 2.

01:18:24

Do we get rid of that? I mean, really? Amazing.

01:18:33

Absolutely amazing. And to say that this is done as an exegete, I am doing this on an exegetical level.

01:18:43

Amazing. Now, of course, this wasn't a give and take. There's no one who's going to be able to criticize him on that point.

01:18:50

But if I was asked that question, A, I would not have given the same less than balanced criticism of the

01:18:58

Quran's view of love in the first place. I would have probably focused more upon the concept of Qadr and contrasted

01:19:08

Qadr in the Quran with that concept in the Bible. And the fact that the real issue is that God has demonstrated his love toward us in the incarnation, which is the primary thing that Islam rejects, is the incarnation, which is why we do debates on that particular subject.

01:19:27

I would have responded very differently. And I would have said, no, I do affirm that God hates sinners. That there is a sense in which

01:19:36

God's love is universal, but it is not an undifferentiated love. And that, well, as Jesus himself said, right after John 3, 16, he says to the one who does not believe what?

01:19:47

The wrath of God abides upon him. You have to allow all the text to speak.

01:19:54

You have to. You have to. If you don't let it all speak, you're not letting any of it speak.

01:20:04

Think about that. If you do not allow all of scripture to speak, you're not letting any of it speak. Because once you muzzle

01:20:10

God in one area, then you've really silenced his speech in all areas.

01:20:18

Okay, we have some other ones to get here too. Here on The Dividing Line, this is a mega edition of The Dividing Line.

01:20:27

We still have about 40 minutes or a little less left on the program today.

01:20:33

And I don't know, maybe, might, actually, if I get to the last question, we're going to have time,

01:20:39

I might even throw it open some comments toward the end, if we get there. We'll see. But here's an important question on the subject of evangelization.

01:20:49

Thank you for that. Please, could you ask your question? Okay, thank you very much. My question is a bit related to the previous question.

01:20:57

You addressed the problems of the left and on the right. Yes. I mean, as Christians, I mean, are we going to deal with the left the same way we deal with the right, i .e.

01:21:06

Islam? I mean, and I want to follow on in saying, for example,

01:21:12

Jesus is addressed in the Quran to the degree that we find it a bit blasphemous. And if we challenge

01:21:18

Muhammad to the same degree, we'll have problems. So how are we going to challenge? Yeah, I don't think we should challenge

01:21:26

Muhammad. I see no reason to get people's backs up by challenging their prophet or deriding him or castigating him.

01:21:36

Jesus is the issue. Jesus is the stumbling block. He's the stumbling block over which people fall when it comes to Christianity.

01:21:45

And so what we need to do is to focus on who is the historical Jesus. And therefore,

01:21:51

I think our approach to the challenges on the right and the left is very much the same.

01:21:57

The approach is the same. It is through rational argumentation and debate. And so when

01:22:04

I participate in debates with Muslim apologists, and theologians, which I've often done,

01:22:10

I will focus upon the identity of Jesus of Nazareth and the evidence for his crucifixion and resurrection.

01:22:17

Because if that is right, then Islam is ipso facto false.

01:22:23

And we don't assume that the Bible is an inspired text or the

01:22:28

Quran is an inspired text. We examine these documents historically, as Gary Habermas described.

01:22:34

And when you do so, the New Testament is obviously a superior historical source for the life of Jesus, because it was written in the first generation after the events by people who were actually there.

01:22:47

Whereas the Quran was written 600 years later by a man living in Arabia who had no independent source of information for Jesus, apart from the

01:22:57

New Testament. So no historian or historical scholar treats the Quran seriously as a source of historical information for the life of Jesus.

01:23:07

It's the New Testament sources that are the primary documents. So I think the approach is very much the same.

01:23:14

We don't need to get into theological critiques of Muhammad or even the

01:23:20

Quran. Just talk about Jesus and who he was. And the same historical apologetics for the resurrection that you use with the secularists, you can use with your

01:23:32

Muslim friend to try to convince him that Jesus was more than a mere prophet. I had a follow on question to that.

01:23:39

Having made that case and your friend turns to you and says, so OK, I grant you that the case for Jesus being somebody who is the center of reality and being

01:23:49

God and essentially grants an overwhelming core of the beliefs of Christian commitment.

01:23:55

How would you then help that person to move into a living, loving relationship with Jesus?

01:24:02

I guess I would invite him to pray with me, repent of his sins and give his life to Jesus Christ and ask

01:24:10

God for spiritual cleansing and forgiveness to be born again by the inner regenerating work of the

01:24:17

Holy Spirit. And then if he will make that commitment with you, then begin to meet with him privately to disciple him in growing in his relationship.

01:24:27

And in time, he will probably gather the courage to make a public profession.

01:24:32

But I would work with him privately, I think, to help disciple him in his new faith. Thank you.

01:24:39

Your question, sir. It almost sounded to me like he believes in sort of a secret

01:24:46

Christian concept there that you don't have to make a public profession of faith. You can just sort of be the quiet, you know, the silent one.

01:24:52

It sort of sounds like what that was there. And I would really question that on a biblical basis.

01:24:58

But don't challenge Muhammad or the Quran. Don't challenge Muhammad or the Quran. Well, all right.

01:25:05

I've said it many times, you know, if I could live the rest of my life without ever saying the word

01:25:11

Quran or the name Muhammad or Joseph Smith or anything else like that, again, I'd be a happy person.

01:25:17

But the fact of the matter is, if I want to present the gospel to someone who has a pre -existing belief structure that stands in the way of the gospel, then

01:25:25

I have to deal with those issues. And if belief in Muhammad will preclude belief in the gospel, because Muhammad preached falsehoods.

01:25:36

He did not understand the New Testament. He did not understand the gospel. And as a result, taught people falsehoods about Jesus.

01:25:46

So if I love them, and if I love God, and if I love his truth, then

01:25:51

I have to challenge those things that stand in the way of their hearing the gospel. If a belief in the

01:25:57

Quran stands in the way, then you deal with the Quran. If a belief in Muhammad as a prophet stands in the way, you deal with Muhammad.

01:26:03

Now, I understand the fact that there are some people who become so focused upon that, that the gospel message gets lost.

01:26:12

I understand that. But that's not what he said. That's not what he was talking about. And I don't understand how you can deal with...

01:26:25

Well, you just talk about Jesus. Well, they'll talk about Jesus in the Quran. Jesus in the

01:26:31

Quran is not the Jesus you have. Jesus in the Quran contradicts Jesus in the Bible. How are you going to deal with that?

01:26:38

And of course, we don't look at any of these documents as inspired. We never treat the Bible as inspired. You just deal with it as a historical document, you see.

01:26:45

And I, again, find that to be utterly non -apostolic and fundamentally flawed as a...

01:26:55

I have challenged the followers this methodology many times. They have never even attempted to show me one place where the apostles engaged in this kind of apologetic activity, had this kind of a perspective, said this would be a good way to go.

01:27:10

Never happened. They can't because they didn't. So all they have to say is, well, the apostles didn't have to deal with the situations we deal with today.

01:27:16

So in other words, we're wiser than the apostles. It's a shame. But it's one thing

01:27:23

I agree that in dealing with the issue of Muhammad, we must be sensitive.

01:27:38

And I will say this. I think there are many Christian apologists who, you know, they've seen horrible things done in the name of Muhammad.

01:27:49

They, you know, so on and so forth. And so they just feel like it's perfectly okay to rip and snort, you know, just go after him and call him every name under the sun.

01:28:07

I think there are some unfair criticisms of Muhammad that are fairly regularly presented out there.

01:28:14

I would agree with that. I think he has to be interpreted in his historical context.

01:28:21

And I would rather be more careful in what

01:28:26

I say about Muhammad and then make my criticisms stick than to present the more emotionally laden criticism of Muhammad.

01:28:40

Just to give you a parallel. When dealing with Joseph Smith, for years, for decades,

01:28:48

I have said to people, if you're going, if you're gonna go after Joseph Smith, if you're going to talk about false prophecies of Joseph Smith, for example, make sure you only deal with the good ones.

01:29:03

Don't multiply your examples just for the fun of ripping on Joseph Smith. Because once you present a weak one, the

01:29:09

Mormon is going to grab hold of the weak one and dismiss all the strong ones on the basis of that. In the same way, when you're making criticisms of Muhammad, make them strong, make them substantive, make them the kind of criticisms that bring you to a direct presentation of the gospel, the supremacy of Christ.

01:29:25

Don't get into a lot of the side issues, especially cultural issues that just simply, you know, they may have validity, but they're not really going to bring you to a position of presenting the gospel.

01:29:38

And I think I've tried to be consistent with that. I really have. So I'm not one of those folks that says, yeah, just go after, just, you know, go after Muhammad and rip on Muhammad and put up websites calling

01:29:51

Muhammad names, stuff like that. No, it's ridiculous. There's no reason to do that. People who do that are not trying to foster dialogue.

01:29:57

They're not trying to find a way to present the gospel to Muslims. They're trying to find a way to stop presenting the gospel to Muslims and to just have fights and arguments.

01:30:06

And there's just no reason to do that at all. So some words, hopefully, of advice that I certainly try to follow myself.

01:30:14

We're listening to comments that William Lane Craig made at a last year, I believe, during his tour of the

01:30:22

United Kingdom. Then we had this one. And I don't know.

01:30:29

Again, theology matters. Theology determines apologetics. And here is an illustration.

01:30:37

Thanks for the question. And if I might just very quickly say, as an evangelistic strategy too,

01:30:42

I think it's very unwise to attack Darwinism. People are so deeply wedded to Darwinism.

01:30:49

We shouldn't make them jump through the hoop of becoming creationists in order to become

01:30:55

Christians. Let them become Christians and believe in Darwinism and the theory of evolution.

01:31:01

If they change their minds later, fine. But my evangelistic strategy is to set the bar as low as you can.

01:31:08

Make it as easy as possible to become a Christian. There are very few things you need to believe to be a

01:31:15

Christian. You've got to believe that God exists, that Jesus Christ is divine, that he died for your sins and rose from the dead, and that you will be saved by grace through placing your faith in his atoning death.

01:31:28

And really, that's about it. There's not a whole lot more. You don't have to believe in creationism and things like that.

01:31:35

You're setting the cultural milieu in which Christianity becomes more credible by showing that naturalism,

01:31:42

Darwinism, and personalism... I'm talking about evangelistic strategy, which is what I thought you were speaking to.

01:31:48

Certainly, we need our theorists to be working on all of these sorts of questions.

01:31:54

Absolutely. But I'm speaking to you now in this room. In doing evangelism,

01:32:00

I would encourage you not to try to argue with unbelievers about Darwinism.

01:32:05

I think that's just a non -starter. They're so deeply wedded to it that you ought to just leave it aside.

01:32:13

Get them to Christ first and then worry about these other tangential issues that are secondary.

01:32:22

Well, at least he said they're secondary. I suppose that leaves open the door that he does believe it would be important to maybe communicate to someone the idea that God is their maker and creator.

01:32:36

But again, theology matters. I believe that when you're talking to a secularist in Britain or a secularist in the

01:32:47

United States or anybody else anywhere, they're creating the image of God. And my

01:32:52

Bible tells me in Romans chapter 1 that this individual is not neutral toward God.

01:32:59

That this individual, in point of fact, knows that God exists and that they are doing something about that.

01:33:08

In fact, according to Romans 1 .18, it says that they are katechanton, they are suppressing the knowledge of God.

01:33:15

They're holding that down. In fact, Romans 1 tells me because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made, sounds like creation there to me, so that they are unapologetus without an apologetic.

01:33:41

They are without an apologetic. You want to render a person without an excuse, without an apologetic for their rebellion, then this is where you start.

01:33:50

This is where Paul says, this isn't where man's philosophy says. And unfortunately, this is not where William Lane Craig says, you should go.

01:33:58

He says you don't challenge their autonomy. You let their autonomy stand.

01:34:05

It's by their autonomy that they are to judge, that by the preponderance of evidence, there's a greater probability of the existence of a

01:34:13

God. And then by their autonomy, you walk them through the process of going from a

01:34:19

God to the Christian God, but not so much the Christian God who created, but just the Christian God who is a warm, kind, loving father, not the

01:34:28

Christian God with law or anything like that, not because that's associated with the creation because he created and therefore his law is valid for all people and we are under responsibility to follow it.

01:34:37

We don't want to go there. And so what you want to do is you want to go to felt needs. You don't want to go to broken law because that requires the creator.

01:34:44

So you go to felt needs. They have a need for Jesus and you can't approach the Bible as a divine word of God.

01:34:50

So you just have to go historically. There's this guy named Jesus. He did really great things. I think it makes him God as if just reading about this in a historical book makes someone

01:34:57

God. But somehow you're supposed to do that and then you lead them to Jesus. What do they need from Jesus?

01:35:05

Because he said, you'll get forgiveness for your sins. What sins? Well, the sins of breaking God's law. Whose law?

01:35:11

God's law. You mean the one who created all things and therefore gave us his law? Well, we can't go there because they're Darwinists.

01:35:16

So we can't do that. What Jesus are we leading people to? Well, you're making them jump through hoops.

01:35:24

The Bible doesn't make them jump through. What do you mean the Bible doesn't make them jump through? It's specifically said right here in this text.

01:35:31

They know God. They did not honor him as God to give thanks. They became futile in their speculations. Their foolish heart was darkened.

01:35:37

Is that not what secularism is? Is that not the very sickness of secularism? Fundamentally, folks, what you're listening to here is the wisdom of the world that says, this is how you get people to make decisions you want them to make.

01:35:54

Folks, no one has ever been regenerated by the will of man, whether it was their will or somebody else that was trying to get them to do something.

01:36:05

This is a fundamental lack of faith in the spirit of God.

01:36:11

The spirit of God? How is anyone actually brought to Jesus? The gospel, the foolishness, the moria, the foolishness of the gospel made alive by the spirit of God.

01:36:29

Isn't that it? Amazing. Amazing.

01:36:36

Don't argue about that. No, no, no, no. Don't challenge Muhammad and don't challenge

01:36:42

Darwinism. Go ahead and let them believe they're an autonomous creature who has no creator.

01:36:49

And that's supposed to lead them to wanting to bow the knee in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ? Really? Theology matters.

01:37:01

Theology matters. I have one more here to play. And so maybe you'd like to defend

01:37:08

Dr. Craig. Maybe you'd like to defend Ergin Kanner. Maybe your WL or whatever the guy was that lied to Bart Ehrman.

01:37:18

877 -753 -ML? 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

01:37:26

If you would like to get involved in the program, we'll have just a few minutes here toward the end where we can sneak you in as I finish up on this last section of quotations from William Lane Craig.

01:37:40

Or if you'd like to comment about the Giglio thing or anything else we've brought up today, 877 -753 -3341.

01:37:51

So there was another person. And no, I didn't. I'll think about it.

01:38:01

Abdullah Kunda responded to Craig too. So we don't get calls. I'll go ahead to Abdullah's stuff and we'll go from there.

01:38:08

But someone in the audience, obviously caught some of the dissonance, shall we say, in some of the things that Craig was saying.

01:38:16

Here's the last thing we'll listen to. Sorry to bring in Darwin one more time. A problem

01:38:21

I always had was with Romans 5, where Paul goes into quite a bit of detail on the origin of sin.

01:38:27

How sin entered the human race through Adam and Christ turned the tables as the second

01:38:33

Adam and so forth. If Adam wasn't a real historical figure, I don't know if that's your standpoint or not, but if he wasn't a real historical figure, then how can we say with certainty that Christ is the second

01:38:45

Adam if there was no first Adam? Well, you couldn't say it in a literal sense.

01:38:51

It would have to be purely symbolic. If you don't believe in a historical Adam, you would have to say that Christ is the second

01:38:58

Adam in the sense that he reverses the fall and sin and death and so forth.

01:39:07

And while I affirm the historical Adam, the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and his death on the cross and resurrection doesn't stand or fall with the historicity of these ancient

01:39:19

Hebrew narratives. I mean, even if they were symbolic or even mythological on an unsympathetic view, that wouldn't do anything to undermine the historical credibility of the

01:39:31

Gospels as sources for the life of Jesus as Gary Habermas described. So I think that you're right.

01:39:39

You couldn't interpret it in a literal way. It would have to become just sort of a theological symbol that he would be the second

01:39:47

Adam. So Moses could be a myth, but the historical value of the

01:39:55

Gospel narratives would still stand. There you go. Look, the guy's right.

01:40:03

Paul based his understanding of the origin of sin and hence the necessity of the work of Christ upon the reality of a man named

01:40:11

Adam and the fall of the human race. And there are a lot of people, Peter Enns included, that are just embarrassed out of their minds by that.

01:40:22

But from William Lane Craig's perspective, it could be a myth. So I could change the historical reality of the

01:40:29

Gospel narratives. What if they're myth too? Um, look,

01:40:38

I know that people listen to these things and they go, wow, there is a huge difference between how you respond to things and how

01:40:48

Dr. Craig responds to things. I try to explain why I don't believe that I have been mean to Dr.

01:40:57

Craig because I allowed him to speak for himself. You know what's mean to somebody? It's what that guy did on that website to me.

01:41:03

That's mean. That's unkind. That's misrepresentation. Misrepresentation. I didn't misrepresent William Lane Craig.

01:41:09

I let him speak for himself. I mean, I could have done this program in much less time if I said

01:41:16

William Lane Craig is X, Y, or Z. I let him speak for himself. I even slowed him down to the right speed at the end so he didn't sound like a chipmunk.

01:41:24

So I let him speak for himself. I gave the whole context. I've explained why I am concerned and I think

01:41:30

I have reasons to be concerned. I really, really do. Now, after I listened to this,

01:41:37

I dropped Abdullah Kunda a note and I said, I'd be interested in what you think about Craig's presentation because I would be.

01:41:48

Now, obviously, I interact with a lot of different kinds of Muslims. I think

01:41:54

Abdullah Kunda is one of the most thoughtful Muslims with whom I interact, but his is one view.

01:42:00

It's not the only view. And I would encourage Abdullah to recognize,

01:42:07

I think maybe a little bit more than he does, that there are other views out there. And there are other views even expressed within MDI, of which he is the

01:42:16

Australian representative. And he says that. There are different views. He recognizes that, but sometimes

01:42:21

I just get the feeling that Muslims will sometimes say, well,

01:42:27

Muslims believe this and they'll use the big broad, we're a big group UMA thing. But then when they want to differentiate themselves, they don't have any problem sort of doing so.

01:42:38

And, you know, we do the same thing, but I think we're a little bit more consistent. Anyways, this is interesting.

01:42:48

I'll just jump into what he posted on January 8th, so two days ago.

01:42:54

He mentioned that I had asked him to review the content of a lecture presented by Dr. William and Craig, which is on the

01:43:00

Unbelievable Radio program. He even spelled program in a good British way and then gave the date in the good British way, 29 -12 -2012, which confuses us.

01:43:10

What month is 29? He says he's never met with Dr. Craig, so on and so forth.

01:43:18

And then he says, Dr. Craig suggests that salvation in Islam is deeds based in contrast to Christianity, which is purely based upon the grace of God.

01:43:27

However, he could not possibly be more incorrect. Salvation in Islam is purely by the grace of God.

01:43:32

Almighty deeds are merely an indication of the reception of his grace. Now, I am not questioning that this is what he believes, and I think it's important for us to understand why he believes this, because I got the feeling this came up briefly in our conversation with my class in California.

01:43:52

I was teaching at Cornerstone. And at one point, Abdullah said that Muslims and you

01:43:59

Calvinists agree on this, and we don't.

01:44:06

Because his perspective is this. He says, Let's show this from a few simple

01:44:11

Islamic sources. I can only assume that Dr. Craig has missed a verse that must appear very perplexing to him. It's Surah 3796, which says,

01:44:18

It is God who created you and all your actions. The position of orthodox

01:44:23

Islam is that God Almighty is the creator of all of our actions. This is clearly recognized by the rational mind one considers the implication of the alternative, i .e.

01:44:32

that human beings create their own actions and that God, therefore, does not have full control over the affairs of his creation. How could our deeds be the cause of our salvation when we do not create them?

01:44:42

Indeed, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad illustrate this point further in a Hadith narrated by both Bukhari and Muslim. Through several chains, the

01:44:48

Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, The Prophet said, The good deeds of any person will not make him enter paradise.

01:44:54

The Prophet's companion said, Not even you, O Allah's Apostle. He said, Not even myself, unless Allah bestows his favor and mercy on me.

01:45:01

So be moderate in your religious deeds and do the deeds that are within your ability. And none of you should wish for death, for if he is a good doer, he may increase his good deeds.

01:45:10

And if he is an evil doer, he may repent to Allah. This is from Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 78,

01:45:16

Number 577. I can confirm, having now finished Bukhari, and in fact, interestingly enough,

01:45:22

I'm reading a compilation of all of the common Hadith that are found between Bukhari and Muslim, before I go back and then do all of Muslim, which

01:45:29

I think will give me some more insight into the ones that are not in Bukhari, but are in Muslim. Anyways, that this is narrated a number of times, many times, in Bukhari.

01:45:41

Then we also have, The Prophet said, Do good deeds properly, sincerely, moderately, and receive good news, because one's good deeds will not make him enter paradise.

01:45:49

They asked, Even you, O Allah's Apostle. He said, Even I, unless and until Allah bestows His pardon and mercy upon me.

01:45:55

Indeed, many a Christian apologist, he continued on to say, that would not be in Bukhari. It's well -versed in both these narrations, as they usually attempt to use them to illustrate the

01:46:03

Prophet was uncertain of his own salvation, or that Islam does not certainly offer salvation.

01:46:09

God Almighty creates all our actions. When we acquire good deeds, they are ultimately caused by and belong to Him.

01:46:15

Moreover, it is God allowing us to complete good deeds through His providence, and even presents us with the opportunity to acquire them.

01:46:22

He says in the blessed Quran, Every good thing that reaches you comes from God, Surah 16, 53.

01:46:28

Orthodox Islam unambiguously holds that God rewards us purely through His mercy, and under no obligation requiring to do so, and certainly not via our deeds.

01:46:36

Now let me just stop right there. I want to continue this, because this is a good conversation. I think there's a lot to be dealt with here.

01:46:48

And we're getting a phone call, so it's probably something I have to go back to. But at this point, what

01:46:54

I would ask Abdullah is, OK then, explain to me the scales, and explain to me the hadith.

01:47:05

Two hadiths just pop into my mind. I just mentioned this briefly, but I assumed you all knew this.

01:47:16

I finally finished Bukhari. I finished Bukhari right before I went to California. So I have now read all nine volumes of Sahih Bukhari.

01:47:25

It took me many, many, many hours, mainly because I didn't read it. I listened to it, and that means

01:47:31

I could not skip the repetitive hadith. And if you know Bukhari, you know that means

01:47:36

I listened to some hadith the same story a minimum of 40 times. The same story.

01:47:42

And some of them are long stories. You may say, why did you do that? Because I want to reach

01:47:48

Muslims. I want to understand Islam. That's why I'm going through the ones that are common.

01:47:54

I'm doing Malik's Muwatta. I'm doing Muslim. I'm going to do all of them. Because I want to understand, and I want to be able to communicate.

01:48:02

And the more you hear them, the more you remember, the more I'm able to bring these things out of my memory and give illustrations. So I finished it.

01:48:08

Next is Muslim. As I said, while I'm reading a compilation, a two -volume compilation of all the hadith that are found in both

01:48:14

Bukhari and Muslim. So that way I'll hopefully be able to recognize the ones that are only in Muslim, but are not in Bukhari, which

01:48:21

I think is a good way of studying it. Anyways, two hadiths come to mind. One, a man is brought before Allah, 99 scrolls.

01:48:31

I'm sorry, I didn't look these up, but I'm sure if Abdullah is listening, as I'm sure he will be listening, he will recognize these.

01:48:38

And I could obviously get you the references fairly quickly if I wanted to pull up my programs and do a quick search, but we don't have time to do that, especially since I got to get to a call real quick.

01:48:48

Two hadiths, a man is brought before Allah on Judgment Day, 99 scrolls of his evil deeds are brought before him. The 99 scrolls are read out and the man is asked, have you been done any injustice?

01:48:56

Did you not do all these things? He says, I did all these things. Do you not have any good deeds? The bad deeds are put into the scale.

01:49:02

One side, boom. Do you have any good deeds put in the other side? He says, no, Allah, I have none.

01:49:07

And Allah says, you're wrong. You do. And a small scrap of paper. Now remember, 99 scrolls are sitting in the bad side.

01:49:14

A small scrap of paper is brought out and placed on the good side and the 99 scrolls come up in the air and the one side goes down and he enters into paradise.

01:49:24

And what was written on that one piece of paper? The shahada, la ilaha illallah. He said the shahada.

01:49:31

So he goes into paradise. That is the first. The second one that I would ask about is very troubling to me.

01:49:39

And again, it has multiple narrations in Bukhari. Muhammad talked about the man who lives his life doing the deeds of the people of paradise.

01:49:51

In other words, he does good deeds. It was, if I recall correctly, the context is normally placed in where there is a man and someone says, wow, look at what a wonderful Muslim he is.

01:50:01

He fights in jihad, la ilaha illallah. And Muhammad says he's of the people of fire. He's going to hellfire. How can that be such a good person?

01:50:07

And then you have this illustration. Anyways, the illustration is there can be people who live their lives doing the deeds of the people of paradise.

01:50:15

And then when they are one hand's breadth away from entering the paradise, what is written of them takes over and they go into hellfire.

01:50:27

Because on the 40th day after conception, the angel comes and whether you're going to heaven or hell is determined for you.

01:50:34

Male or female, heaven or hell, good life, bad life, all determined for you 40 days in. And then there are other people, he says, who do the deeds of the people of the fire their entire lives until they're a hand's breadth away from going in.

01:50:49

And what was written for them overtakes them and they enter into paradise. Combine that with the oft -told story of the man who killed 99 people, then killed the 100th, the monk, and was ushered into paradise because when he died, he was one cubit closer to the city he was going to find about repentance.

01:51:05

And I really wonder how you can come up with a consistent perspective on this particular issue.

01:51:13

And I do understand why there are many Muslims who have contradicted what Abdullah Kunda has said to me as the orthodox

01:51:18

Islamic perspective. And so looking from the outside, I see contradiction here. I see tension here.

01:51:26

And I know that Muslims look at us and see the same tension. I would say we give the only consistent response to those things.

01:51:33

But I would be interested in what Abdullah has to say about that as well.

01:51:39

We'll go ahead and sneak one phone call here in at the end of a mega edition of The Dividing Line.

01:51:46

Let's talk with Kyle up in Canada. Hello? Hello. Oh, can you hear me?

01:51:51

Yes, sir. Okay, great. I have a question, perhaps somewhat related to the

01:51:57

William Wayne Craig thing. It just had to do with 1 John 4, and in verse 8, it says that— at the end of the verse, it says that God is love.

01:52:08

And when you do a search for the phrase, God is hate, you don't find that throughout

01:52:15

Scripture. I'm just wondering, since God does hate sin and hate sinners, in what sense is

01:52:24

God love? Is love an attribute that is elevated above his other attributes?

01:52:31

Or perhaps you can expound on why the Bible doesn't say that God is hate, when in fact he does have the attribute of hatred towards sin.

01:52:41

Well, obviously, you would never find a statement saying that God is hate, because hate has to have an object.

01:52:50

The only object that has eternally existed in the Godhead are the other persons of the Godhead.

01:52:55

And so the only relationship that they can have is one of love. And since there is no rebellion in the

01:53:01

Godhead, or there's no dissonance in the Godhead, then the reason that we can say that God is love, just as God is holy, and that these are indeed attributes of God, is because they can be positively asserted of God's essence eternally.

01:53:19

And we can say, over against the Unitarian, that God is love, because God's love has existed eternally between the divine persons, the

01:53:27

Father, the Son, the Spirit, within the Godhead. Hatred, as well as wrath, or punishment, or things like that, these are not attributes of God.

01:53:36

They are the necessary responses of God to the bringing into existence of the created order where sin and rebellion exist.

01:53:47

And so it is necessary that God hates sin because it is the positive attribute of God to be holy.

01:53:55

And so it is the necessary result of the affirmation of God's holiness that there be a hatred of sin.

01:54:03

It's the absolute requirement for— if God's attribute of love and holiness is actually eternal and active in God, then in the presence of that which is the negation of his holiness, there must be that type of response.

01:54:19

So no, you're not going to find a phrase, God is hatred, because that would violate the very nature of what the attributes of God represent.

01:54:29

And that is, it must be true of God even prior to creation.

01:54:35

God was holy and just prior to creation. That was part and parcel of his being.

01:54:43

And so it really— the real question is, when it says,

01:54:49

God is love, does that mean that God's love, that the love of God, that that attribute of God, is disconnected from and not defined by his personal being?

01:55:02

The fact that God is personal. We as human beings, when we love, because we are persons, we love in different ways.

01:55:13

I've often used the illustration that my love for my wife must by definition be different than my love for someone else's wife.

01:55:21

I must be able to differentiate in that love because I'm a person. When we say

01:55:26

God is love, are we denying his personhood or saying that he has less of a capacity for differentiation in love than we do?

01:55:35

I would assert that because God is perfect and God is holy, then the differentiation in his love will always be perfect, it will always be just, and it will always result in his glory.

01:55:49

Unlike the fact that my love is imperfect, and therefore there are times when

01:55:54

I differentiate in my love in ways that I should not differentiate in my love. So God's capacity to love is far greater than my own and will always be exercised in harmony with his other attributes, especially in harmony with his holy, just, and righteous nature.

01:56:14

Okay, so the attribute of love is an eternal attribute, just like his attribute of holiness?

01:56:21

That's kind of the gist of that. So once the fall took place, then,

01:56:28

I guess I could ask, before the fall took place, would it be accurate to say that God knew no hatred because no object of hatred existed, because there was no sin yet?

01:56:39

Yes. Yes, because again, hatred implies the existence of the negation of God's attributes.

01:56:51

So why does God hate evil? Because he loves good. So until there was something to hate, you could not attribute that activity.

01:57:02

It's like saying, you know, God is judge. God is the just judge. Well, until there's something to judge, what does that mean?

01:57:11

Why would there be a need for judgment until sin itself exists? Okay. And what about in the eternal state?

01:57:25

Obviously, there's going to be those that are in heaven and those that are in hell, and so there will still be those who are experiencing judgment and wrath, and so there would still be,

01:57:37

I guess, an object of God's hatred. In the sense that the relationship continues to be broken and is, in essence, fixed in that situation, yes, there is the continued demonstration of the holiness of God in the wrath of God placed upon those who are under punishment.

01:58:01

Yes. Yes, but I don't think that requires God to be extending any effort to express that wrath because these are individuals who are now consumed in their own self -hatred as well.

01:58:15

I think that's going to be most of the punishment. That wouldn't define God's character, then? No. No, not something in the future, because again, that's the result of the creative act, which he did freely.

01:58:26

Hal, thank you very much. Snuck you in right there at the end. Hope that's helpful to you. Thanks for listening to a mega edition of The Dividing Line today.

01:58:34

Lord willing, we'll be back on our regular schedule next Tuesday. And notice I said, Lord willing. I'm saying that more often these days after this past weekend.

01:58:42

I think it's something that we need to be reminded of. We'll see you then. Lord willing. God bless. We need a new reformation day.

01:59:32

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 P .O.

01:59:41

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01:59:47

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