A Little Bit on Infants, a Little Bit on Alistair, the Rest with More Carl Trueman

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:33

Well greetings, welcome to the vying line. I've got the cough button over there ready to go You know, we don't have one of those in the

00:40

RV, do we? Yeah, not I Suppose so Anyway feel fine.

00:49

In fact, I raced this morning in Zwift and That reminds every time

00:56

I get off the bike I forget You can get these messages when you're in Zwift. Zwift is the largest online racing platform and right now

01:05

It's very very busy because it's January in you know, it's a lot of people are riding inside right now.

01:11

Um and I just do it all year round just for safety anymore. And I kept getting these messages from Kay Johnson and I Sometimes I wouldn't be able to respond because I didn't have my phone or my phone was on a different network and There's reasons why you can't reply and then

01:30

I'd look for this guy. I could not find him. There's two Kevin Johnson's. I know that I Would think would be seeking me out in Zwift One lives here locally

01:44

And the other was my co -author In the youth books that I did remember what's the dudes at the door and what's with the mutant in the microscope?

01:54

He was a editor at Bethany House Publishers a little bit younger than I am well a fair amount younger than I am and Finally a couple days ago.

02:06

I get another message from I still couldn't respond to it But it says what's with the dude at the door?

02:13

So I knew who it was. I still can't find him I can't I I don't know how to track down people in Zwift right now and I But I need to remember to do that and I will

02:22

I can guarantee you by the end of this program I will have completely forgotten everything. I just said about that. Um, so Kevin if you're out there

02:29

Dude, great that you're Zwifting. We'll have to ride some time together Appreciate that. Anyways, yeah, I raced today and I've decided to come up with a new category

02:40

It's the age weight category so I can actually in in this on this one website 60 plus is my age group and then it's got weights and so I can check weights out and In my age and weight category

02:58

I won I nobody was even close to me. It was great I want you put that weight part in there.

03:04

Oh The old fat man is pretty good But no, I I did I did pretty well.

03:09

I think I think it's 227 watts for 45 minutes. That's not too bad Worked hard, uh, so I sound like I'm on death's door, but um feel fine and It's just this stuff and I don't it's not that stuff's blooming yet.

03:25

Um, thankfully it's not blooming yet um But man, my tree dropped its leaves.

03:31

I have one tree people at back each like your tree Yeah, we in phoenix.

03:36

We we might have a tree um My tree dropped its leaves finally and I had that taken care of yesterday and Already, you look at it and the buds are everywhere.

03:49

So It it has it has like one day Yeah. Oh, yeah.

03:55

Yeah, it's it's it's amazing when you live in the desert and it's supposed to be 79 degrees that means it'll be

04:02

You know, it'll be 90 degrees in the sun and it'll be 100 degrees in my truck when I get into it.

04:08

Um, it's just It's coming again, that's just sort of how it works. That's just that's just life.

04:14

Um real quick Matthew vines uh tweeted

04:21

Alistair beg a non -affirming pastor recently encouraged a grandmother to attend her grandson's same -sex wedding as a way to show him christ's love

04:28

I'm grateful that despite significant backlash beg has chosen to stand by his advice this week It wasn't even same -sex wedding.

04:34

It was a transgender wedding, which again, I don't even know how that works I listened to doug wilson's response to alistair beg which was posted like three hours after Beg's sermon dropped so it was pretty quick um

04:50

And certainly agreed with the response amazing. Um, doug can absolutely nail something and The people with derangement syndrome go after about every everything else including one particular guy who has derangement syndrome for me, too anyway um the

05:10

I do realize that there have been a lot of simplistic responses to alistair beg Uh that there were before the sermon

05:17

There are after the sermon There were a lot of things in the sermon that bothered me um he did uh say that he is the product of european christianity um england and scotland

05:33

And the people he named Um certainly come from that perspective and but then he he contrasted that with fundamentalism

05:43

And the people that I would think he would be listening to who have had the biggest concerns about what he said

05:52

Are not a bunch of fundamentalists um were reformed men despite whatever r scott clark says

05:59

Which I don't get to I don't get to know what r scott clark says because he's blocking me on twitter, but who cares?

06:04

um and the the issue That we were hoping to hear addressed which was not addressed

06:14

Was not a contrast between well, I think he completely blew who the older brother in the story was too.

06:21

Um But was not a contrast between judgmental pharisees and those who are gracious or something like that it's a completely erroneous um

06:34

Description of what the what the issue really is in my opinion anyways The issue is the sacramental god -ordained nature of marriage

06:49

And It's one thing, you know, it's well well I advise and then then we find out this woman's not a member of his church

06:56

You don't even know if she is Because one of the things that crossed my mind was is there?

07:02

Are so often and people don't understand this if they've never been involved in church work

07:07

So often when you're a pastor there are attending circumstances

07:14

That you cannot even talk about And I cannot tell you especially in church discipline situations, oh my goodness

07:25

Uh, the reason most churches don't do church discipline

07:32

Is because in this world and especially in a social media world

07:37

It's a no -win proposition in the next world. Okay, great but it's a no -win proposition because When you discipline someone um very often they will start

07:53

Getting together with other people who've been disciplined as well And they you know, they start these rumor mills and all the all the slandering and the gossip and oh it and in 99 % of the instances you can't defend yourself

08:10

Adequately because there's all sorts of stuff. You can't talk about just it. You can't

08:15

People would be destroyed It would change everything It's totally unfair.

08:20

It's totally unrighteous. It's disgusting But that's the way it is and so the the thought crossed my mind

08:28

Especially in a situation like this there might be stuff with the parents because this is a grandparent parents

08:33

Children, so maybe there's something here You know, i'm trying to be to extend grace here

08:41

But this isn't even a member of his church. So that that sort of takes that out And So the the whole issue

08:52

Is not being gracious It's and and so well, she she's just trying to keep her relationship.

08:59

What's what relationship? The relationship already exists She's the grandmother.

09:05

This is I guess the grandson though. I've seen other people say granddaughter given it's a transgender thing. Who knows?

09:12

but It's not her duty to maintain a relationship

09:20

When the grandchild And again, we don't know where the parents are that's not not come up but the grandchild is in self -destructive family destructive societally destructive rebellion

09:38

Against god in his ways Um, it's not the grandparent's responsibility to maintain that relationship

09:46

The relationship exists by blood And The statement was already made that they know that you do not

09:57

Affirm homosexuality Or transgenderism, I would assume. Um, and that you do not approve of this

10:07

Relationship. Okay relationship What about Pretending that this is a marriage because that's what it is.

10:15

This is pretense And it certainly has made me think about the reality that I think for a lot of evangelical christians today um marriage is just a social construct

10:31

The Covenantal concept of it that kind of stuff. It's gone It's just not a part of even how christians think about it and therefore um

10:42

Um You know you could argue and people have and it used to be a

10:47

Point of dispute and discussion really not much anymore though it could be you could argue that more discernment needs to be exercised by all of us in regards to Our role as witnesses in covenant making ceremonies, but no one understands what covenant is anymore

11:07

There is no covenant being cut In in this situation none whatsoever

11:15

Uh, it can't be so You put all that together and I can see

11:21

I I you know, you watch online and wow, you know, there's all sorts of Alistair begg fans that are you know firing rapid fire their direction the other direction and And then people who clearly never listened to an alistair begg sermon or been blessed by one as most of us have um

11:42

Firing the other direction and they don't know what they're talking about and it goes back and forth and vice versa and everything else and It's not it's not a pretty thing

11:50

But the real issues were not addressed by alistair in his sermon and that That makes me wonder if You know, a lot of these guys do not have a social media presence.

12:03

They're not they're not reading this stuff themselves they're getting stuff handed to them or It's being filtered through to them because It just it just struck me that the response was just a massive swing and a miss and And it just did not show that he is aware of who

12:29

Has raised the objections. I'm not talking about myself I'm talking about pretty much all

12:36

Reform men that I know of who have any presence in social media I've said what's talking about?

12:44

And why is he responding this way? This should be about What marriage is?

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And uh the fact that the church is under tremendous pressure in the society to pretend

12:59

That something that isn't marriage is marriage And that hey just go ahead and go along and maintain relationships just maintain relationships to what end

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What what is the so so now you're saying? What you should do is you should go along And demonstrate that you don't really have

13:23

A firm conviction about what the nature of marriage is Or you'd at least have enough

13:32

Integrity Um, not to countenance that by coming and bringing a gift

13:40

Oh, no, no, no, you just gotta keep all those channels open. So so there's nothing you can do So do you you know,

13:45

I mean we can really start down a pretty dark road When you start asking well, what about going to this or what about going to that or you know, what?

13:55

What what about um, you know, we have gender reveal stuff Well, what if they have and I imagine they do

14:02

Uh, they have parties for people who are um about to get surgically mutilated

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Should we maintain our relationships and go to that too and bring a present or maybe come to the hospital after?

14:15

Wacko wacko or whatever else they've done and bring some um, bring some candy Do we need to do that too?

14:23

Um Wow, I I I'm I don't get it. I I don't

14:31

Don't understand it, but that's what's uh, that's going on so You know, there's i've been asked to go on other programs and talk about I wouldn't have enough to talk about I don't know the man.

14:42

I've never met him We've never spoken to conference. He's scheduled to speak at shepherd's conference next month.

14:49

Well, it's still january, isn't it? Um I'm sure it's in march. I don't know Never been there uh, and probably never will be um, but uh

15:01

That's that's gonna Because everyone's posting those pictures you know um

15:07

In fact, there's a bunch of people speaking there that I had been told in years past would never be speaking there again, but um

15:13

That's interesting too. Anyway, um, so there there's there's that then real quickly um

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Um, there was something where oh, yes, um One of our guys, uh has been

15:33

Scanning through the Transcripts function on our website

15:41

And um, which again our enemies use just probably more than we do.

15:47

Um And it's it's hilarious because going all the way back

15:56

And this is not it's it's not like this is something that I think about very very often it's not like something that we bring up very often it but it does come up in phone calls and debates and Stuff like that, but the documentation that now exists

16:13

Is the Consistency, I mean the boring consistency That that I have had um over the course of My recorded ministry history at least from when

16:29

I became reformed uh, I guess there's something uh From right as I think it said it was 1987 and I think it was 86 is when

16:38

I read Was it I guess yeah Yeah, it's hard to know.

16:45

Um, it was 86 87 is the area where um I read

16:51

I chose my god and started reading reformed literature and So on and so forth, but um,

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I know that was after The atheism series that we did on the radio program and so Somewhere before I became reformed

17:08

Wow, I repeated the perspectives I had when I was a kid, you know, I was raised independent fundamentalist baptist

17:14

So you had uh age of accountability and you know stuff like this. You didn't have any emphasis upon.

17:21

Um, Federal headship, uh union with christ union with adam um

17:28

Any of that kind of theology just wasn't there and um But once I started addressing the issue so for the past What almost 40 years, uh, not quite there just mind -numbingly the same

17:48

Just example after example from debates and radio programs said the same thing about elect infants

17:56

You know when people would ask the question I would answer it and say well You've got the extreme over here. You got the extreme over there in the middle, you've got the position that's you know provided for you in The Westminster confession of faith in London Baptist confession of faith um where you believe in elect infants if an infant is saved it's because of the

18:20

Grace of god um and Just example after example after example, it's almost embarrassing.

18:30

Uh, just you know, ah, here's one 2005. Oh, here's one 2008 You know, it's the same thing and yet this whole group of people

18:40

Created a controversy. They've done videos um this one guy, um, who's just He's he's joseph smith and but smarter.

18:51

I mean this guy could start a cult on his own um, someone sent me a video that he had done as soon as it came up and I saw who it was just clicked it off Just don't have any interest whatsoever

19:03

Uh, but they have spent hours and hours and hours on this stuff and Someone even came up with a geneva doll.

19:13

Did you see that one? um where it's um comes the smell of sulfur and flames and uh, so you can explain infant damnation all this stuff and of course cheryl schatz,

19:26

I mean there was a whole I suppose there's a I I kept one of the screenshots or something, but and it doesn't

19:33

Especially with her. It doesn't matter how many times you tell her no Once she has decided you believe something.

19:40

She's just going to repeat it doesn't matter how High the mountain of documentation is

19:46

She has no connection to reality. It's just it's just it's wow. It's scary.

19:51

Um really is But these folks I don't I don't know that they sleep.

19:59

Um, I Just the stuff they've cranked out over a nothing burger over Look, it's it's chapter 10

20:08

Paragraph 3 of the westminster confession of faith of 1648. That's a long time ago

20:14

It's the same chapter and section Paragraph in the london baptist confession. And so hey

20:23

Here here's the here's the irony. I pointed out in our chat channel. Here's the irony Hey, he's confessional

20:32

Well You're darned if you do and you're darned if you don't it just doesn't matter which direction you go

20:37

There'll be somebody shoot at you from from both directions. Um ah but it it could be mere coincidence

20:50

But it just seems to me That when I have major debates coming up or in this case major debates with a capital s at the end

20:59

Uh coming up that this kind of stuff happens That all of a sudden controversies break out and I need to respond to this person

21:08

I need to be scheduling debates with that person and It just does make me wonder a little bit given how

21:19

Stupid you have to be to be just let's be honest You got to be really you got you got to have the iq of a wet shoelace to have engaged in this controversy

21:29

You really do the consistency of what I have said and all of a sudden in 2024

21:36

Be having a hissy fit about stuff that i've been talking about since the late 80s early 90s

21:43

And it's never been i've never written a book about it anything like that. It comes up I had somebody on twitter say hey,

21:51

I was at a conference you were at and and justin peters was there and uh, uh

21:57

He took a different view than you did, but I remember what you said. And yeah, you said the exact same thing then I know

22:04

I know We've been very very very very very very consistent on this subject so For it all of a sudden to be turned into this faux controversy bail ball gate um

22:18

It really makes you wonder if there's not a little something more to it. Um, Then then meets the eye.

22:25

But yeah, I was just looking at some more quotes that have been posted And it's like Yeah Um, if if I ever get alzheimer's

22:36

I can always go back and look what I used to believe anyways Because there's plenty of examples of it um all over the place and um unlike Someone we know who has alzheimer's that changed his story a lot.

22:48

Um over his the course of his political career different situation there, um, so anyway, uh once again, just briefly please uh pray for Continued preparation.

23:03

I need to have my opening statement on the it's weird. It's the last debate of the five

23:10

But I have to have that finished, uh tomorrow And i'm almost there i'm almost done with it, but i'm it's probably the most um

23:21

Technical opening statement given the topic I have to have it done because the man i'm debating demanded that he have it.

23:29

Uh by that point in time and I think that's the first time it's ever happened.

23:35

Um Okay, whatever but um Much more preparation needs to be done after that i'm going to be studying while on the road um, so I really don't need to have any problems so We are really hoping that the um, we got the the truck back from the shop, uh last week and the one little thing that I had felt that had changed since we had first purchased it

24:02

Um shimmy in the front end at certain speeds Turning corners they got that and uh, it's got less than 50 000 miles on it.

24:11

You shouldn't be having that quite yet um, so I figure you get it fixed early enough you can Keep stuff from wearing out faster than it should be otherwise

24:20

And the rv is uh got a new roof on it with hopefully enough glue. Uh To hold it on this time.

24:27

Um Yeah, flap flap flap. Yeah, that would be Thanks I hadn't really thought about that.

24:34

Um And uh, the refrigerator's working Because I think I mentioned to you the fridge stopped working on the last trip and um

24:44

Again, every time something like this happens I find out why and then i'm like, okay.

24:51

Well At least I would know where to look next time maybe um

24:56

And we discovered something rich and I had did not know we had this thing for almost a year

25:01

And we thought it was a 110 Propane refrigerator because that's what we had had before Um where it would switch over to propane while you're driving down the road

25:15

And then it switches back to gas back to electricity once you plug in It's 12 volt 12 volt refrigerator

25:23

And most of you were like 12 volt refrigerator. How does that work? That's what they're doing with all of them in rvs now

25:30

Because almost all rvs have so have solar and so do we

25:35

Got 400 watts up there. So why not use it? Uh, you've got Yeah, we've and we've doubled our battery capacity.

25:43

So it runs off a 12 volt battery What whether you're I would assume

25:49

When you plug in then shore power is doing that Uh, but it's still only 12 volts

25:55

We didn't know now we know that every I see i'm trying to look at the bright side something goes wrong.

26:02

You learn you you've learned something more about it and uh, It was a it was a bad ground and uh

26:12

Anything made after covet started let's just be honest. Oh, uh bad stuff.

26:17

Yeah, you just like You know the roof and everything else. It's like But everything should be fixed

26:24

And uh, well we may not have there's a fender that fell off, you know, it's super Light plastic fenders they have over the wheels um, one of mine got broken and and Whether I will have it for this next trip or not.

26:38

I do not know Because i'm picking it up on two on tuesday and if it ain't in yet well, it ain't gonna be quite as pretty as it would be otherwise, but Doesn't really have much of an impact on function.

26:48

So it doesn't really matter one way or the other But other than that she should be ready to go so pray that um

26:54

That we get to where we're going and we get there without incident because I need to be focused on what we're doing

27:00

Speaking of which need to be focused on what we're doing. Um Need to jump back Here to what we were talking about last week and finish up if we can listening to I will uh

27:14

Once the founders Uh presentations are available i'll take a listen to them if I can obviously if they become available in the middle of this trip, i'm not gonna necessarily

27:27

Be distracting myself, uh with other things but um, this was carl truman's inaugural opening statement to the uh, whatever society of classical theology or whatever it was um and We have played a number of statements that we uh, certainly agreed with and uh

27:52

You know good insights and and things like that, but now we're looking at some stuff where you'd go Okay What about this?

28:01

What about that and um, uh interacting with that as as we go along so We'll go back to it.

28:08

I think I left uh, the sound where it's supposed to be I did Uh, you never know about that.

28:15

So let's uh, let's jump back into it that the development of the trinity The development of the doctrine of the trinity in the early church is a highly variegated process

28:24

Whereby orthodox trinitarianism emerges from a complex set of shifting debates and discussions

28:31

What that teaches us is this nicene formulations don't simply fall off the pages of scripture

28:37

To understand the doctrine of the trinity you have to understand something of the history of the doctrine of the trinity to understand why hypostases

28:46

Arguing for three hypostases is anathema in 325 And is compulsory in 381

28:54

You have to study the history of the debates You might say well what has that got to do with me?

29:00

If you say the nicene creed I would suggest that you as a christian certainly as a minister Have a responsibility to explain to your people what the nicene creed means

29:09

And that requires you understanding what goes on between 325 and 381

29:16

Now, um again many things ouch that are um

29:23

Sort of self -evident we have um done extensive programs

29:33

Right here on the dividing line on council nicaea The arian ascendancy after the council of nicaea

29:40

The council of constance noble and 381 What he's referring to when he speaks of three hypostases one hypostasis

29:55

Between 325 381 is really all of this Is not the development of the revelation of the trinity

30:04

But the expression of the trinity Within the categories

30:13

That become prevalent in the west primarily um

30:24

As we've explained many times in the past part of the issues about terminology and language was due to the split that is developing right at that time really really starts in the um third century and then

30:43

Grows larger and larger the split between the east and the west as far as language is concerned The language of the east continues to be greek the language of the west becomes latin and so you have

30:57

Serious Translational issues, especially when you talk about the

31:05

Usia the substance of god versus the

31:12

Divine persons. What is what does persona mean? uh, what

31:18

What's the greek term going to mean? What's the latin term going to mean? homo usius In the east initially was a statement of modalism

31:29

It was denial of the existence of three persons and that had been dealt with in the second century in the east And then when it's it comes up at nicaea that's why a lot of people in the east had a problem with it because like We already said that's wrong because it's understand.

31:45

It's understood amongst our people to mean this Or we don't mean that we mean something different.

31:51

Okay um, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with translational issues

31:58

So when we talk about the development of the doctrine of the trinity what I am concerned about Is that in the majority of for example roman catholic discussion and again

32:10

Whether they want to admit it or not uh the New classical theologians or whatever um

32:19

Are promoting roman catholic theological formulations on these issues

32:26

And the books are recommending and and he During this conversation. I don't i've lost count

32:32

As to how many roman catholic scholars he referred people to uh, because carl has said

32:39

He's troubled by the fact that the men from whom he learned the most about justification were wrong about god and the catholics were right so he

32:49

You're viewing this as an as an absolute Right wrong issue in regards to god and that's one of the problems that I have here

32:57

Is that we're not talking when we're talking? The debates we're having right now is all amongst classical theists though It does seem to me that many of these people are willing to draw the circles so tightly as to exclude people um who

33:14

You know profess the trinity and the deity of christ and and Can give better biblical defenses.

33:24

It's funny. I remember, um years ago

33:30

When we were on long island There there was a group of roman catholic women who started coming to the various debates

33:39

And You know, they were sitting on the front row when I was debating mitch paqua on the priesthood

33:47

And so they're on his side But then they showed up the next debate I was doing that I think was with either a muslim or won this guy or something

33:55

And so we were talking to him. They're like Well, we sure we want to be here because we don't have anybody that does what dr.

34:02

White can do And it's in defense the trinity um and I just always think about that when

34:11

People start getting really uppity about this type of stuff. So anyways, so it's important I think um

34:22

To differentiate between The trinity as it is revealed in scripture

34:29

And the trinity as we Express it When encountering various linguistic groups languages cultures philosophies um all of that It's not as if the greco -roman world is the only world that exists in our world

34:55

But a lot of people treat it that way And my concern is I have heard many a roman catholic say that You cannot derive the doctrine of the trinity from scripture

35:07

And you just heard carl say well, it's not like the nicene Creed just falls off the pages of scripture well

35:17

I would say That which would make the nicene creed true

35:24

Does fall off the pages of scripture and The language that is being used is being used within a particular context

35:35

Because you have an objective given revelation And in this context you have a teacher arias

35:45

Who is seeking to undercut the consistency of that revelation that's what he's doing

35:52

And so the language is used to detect That fundamental denial of the consistency of biblical revelation, but it doesn't make the trinity something that develops as a dogma

36:11

To where it meant one thing at one point and something different another point and the

36:20

The danger of going down that road is being illustrated right in front of our eyes right now

36:28

Um when you listen to what pope francis and um

36:35

Tucci fernandez are doing And the many people working with them to do to accomplish this.

36:42

Um, you you start to realize The danger Of not seeing this on a fundamental level the fundamental relationship between authoritative revelation in scripture and ecclesiastical interpretation of that objective revelation

37:04

And the utilization of human language to answer further questions about it and of course there needs to be

37:10

I think likewise a uh A serious examination of just how far

37:21

We are willing to go before we Hold up the hand and say

37:27

God's made an end of speaking. So should we? and unfortunately

37:34

Scholastics Are loathe to do that And part of the reason they're loathe to do that today is because that limits the number of papers you can publish

37:46

And that's one of the problems I think in western uh scholasticism as as a whole

37:54

So I think it's very important to keep that material in mind You might say well,

38:00

I didn't realize that the medievals took scripture seriously Just as an aside observation in order to be the equivalent of a professor teaching theology in the middle ages

38:10

You would have had to have lectured and preached through more scripture Than any tenured professor in any bible department or seminary in the united states of america today now

38:22

You just just take that on its own And and the first thought that crosses my mind is you you read

38:35

Um accurate examples Of some of the

38:43

Medieval handbooks on scripture and things like that today and you you just you just thank god

38:52

For the reformation um You know

38:58

Again, you know he says well some people I didn't didn't think the medievals took scripture seriously Of course, they took scripture seriously.

39:04

I I can't imagine anybody saying that The problem was the scripture had become so encrusted with tradition that to actually get down to the scriptural level

39:17

Was the problem and we've given numerous examples from thomas aquinas who? At times can can give very clear

39:25

Scriptural interpretation and then you turn the page and you wonder what just happened the the connection to the actual meaning of the text disappears for a few pages and then

39:36

Reappears for a while and disappears and it's this hodgepodge of stuff and a lot that goes back,

39:43

I mean I would say the man who damaged um

39:50

Damaged the church more than anyone else was origin Clement didn't help

39:55

But origin was The brilliant man whose brilliance allowed him to Darken the minds of christians for a long long time and That influence was still deeply there

40:12

It was very deeply there and that I think that comes up as we continue here That's how seriously the medievals took scripture.

40:19

Now. There are problems in their approach But they did take scripture seriously Yeah, there's problems in their approach so I point out for a long time that if you go into if you go into an lds bookstore and man lds bookstores are

40:36

If you want to be able to track how much mormonism has changed over the past 30 years

40:44

Go to a large lds bookstore bookstores as a whole are suffering. I get that amazon has not been good

40:52

Uh, but there were no Scholarly exegetical commentaries on romans, for example from the lds perspective and I always said that the reason is that once you have the book of mormon doctor covers for the price

41:13

You you can't really practice meaningful exegesis any longer You have scripture it comes afterwards that Is Meant especially in the doctrine covenants to provide commentary from living prophets

41:30

And that completely changes how you would Practice any meaningful hermeneutics or do anything like that at all?

41:38

And so to say well, you know the mormons take scripture seriously But they have some problems

41:46

Is is a little bit of an understatement, right? And that's the point here Once you get to the point where you have, you know, again these medieval manuals the sentences and things like that that Were accepted and by their acceptance came to have really a canonical authority

42:12

Um You you The reason the reformation the reason that you could even use the term post tenebrous lux

42:23

Was that that? suffocating opaque thick stifling layer of dead tradition

42:34

Was torn away Now we're getting people today saying it might have gone too far, you know um

42:43

But it was torn away so that people had access to the word of god again And you could the the the depth

42:53

That you you look at calvin's commentaries the the labor that went into that You you you think about Not only his physical state his 28 year long headache uh, no, no internet um minimal numbers of Resources available to him and he's writing by quill

43:14

It's astonishing and Those commentaries spoke to us because they freed the word of god from the tradition

43:25

And they went back to the text And now we have people in this very group criticizing calvin

43:33

Because for example calvin recognized that A lot of the interpretation even from the early church had been imbalanced and in and indefensible

43:48

And that's the problem. That's that's the problem with tradition When you get big names that become imbalanced

43:57

They create a tradition that can no longer be tested And can no longer be filtered out

44:04

And calvin isn't an anabaptist He's not just throwing everything out

44:11

He is testing by consistency I think that's called reformed biblicism.

44:18

Yeah Um, which it is which it is there is a t1 tradition to trace the problem

44:24

Those overmans are it is t2 And that's where the theological tradition starts to drift away from scripture and become entirely determined by the teaching magisterium of the church t1 t2 heiko oberman

44:37

Uh, he's gonna say he met him once I attended Talk about something.

44:42

You don't even see the significance of for decades After I graduated from fuller We were looking at what to do after that and One possible option was university of arizona because heiko oberman was teaching church history there

44:59

And I was already teaching church history at grand canyon and so I went down to visit and Uh the visit

45:07

Was to heiko oberman's home in tucson to a doctrinal seminar um

45:17

And the subject that evening was calvin's response to sadaletto So you can understand why when

45:26

I wrote That piece I did on reformed biblicism last year the year before uh why

45:33

I especially drew from Calvin's response sadaletto.

45:39

I can't I can't think Of a more thought -out Obvious example of the reformers giving a reason in response to A brilliant man.

45:54

I mean sadaletto Set up the council of trent And His letter to the genevans was well crafted

46:05

And they had nobody to respond to it. So even though they had kicked calvin out They had to go to him in strasbourg and say um

46:12

Could you help us? I always chuckle when I think about what that what that would have looked like but anyway uh, so heiko oberman

46:25

Was famous for Talking about Kinds of tradition

46:34

Necessary development of tradition versus ecclesiastical tradition. That's what he's talking about right here

46:39

Where you get the magisterium and it's developing its own thing the problem is

46:47

That you talk to roman catholics as I will be with trent horn in just a matter of weeks And they're not going to recognize that distinction

46:58

And they are going to invest in the ecclesia

47:05

A nigh unto revelational level of authority and interpretation Um, so they're going to say oh no, you know, you you you're making a false dichotomy here when you make these distinctions

47:18

So one might say for example that the virgin birth of christ is articulated to an exegetical tradition

47:25

I would want to argue that the uh Immaculate conception of the virgin mary

47:32

That's a t2 thing that stands out with that exegetical tradition That's where the pope and the cardinals are intervening to say something's the case

47:40

Even though the exegetical basis for it is almost non -existent Well, isn't it interesting?

47:47

Excuse me that um

47:55

I hadn't thought about engaging this specifically, but it wasn't really popes and cardinals

48:03

That were behind the development Of the immaculate conception. I mean they're pushing it at the end

48:10

Once it's defined sure. Yeah 1850s, of course But it wasn't popes and cardinals.

48:19

It was a monk named edmer a british monk named edmer that Really started the drive on that and But again,

48:32

I I agree here is a form of tradition that is completely outside biblical parameters the question is

48:43

How do we test any such tradition? And are we literally saying that there are forms of tradition that cannot be tested and who makes that decision

48:56

Um, those are those are important I think very very important matters in other words a confessional presbyterian today

49:04

Does not have the option of throwing out thomas aquinas's doctrine of god I don't think that is the case

49:13

Okay, so it's obvious to me that the framers of the west coast confession of faith the smaller number of framers of the london baptist confession and See if you hold the london baptist confession you have

49:36

Double duty You can't just Look at the baptist framers

49:44

Because in the vast majority of instances, they're completely using the language of westminster

49:51

And so Where they make changes, okay where they add definition

49:59

In regards to the active and passive obedience of christ. It's not that there wasn't anybody westminster to believe that stuff there were um but You can see from looking at the writings of the westminster divines

50:15

That there were differences and when there were differences then They wrote in such a way as to allow for As broad a consensus as possible this current controversy controversy over the past couple of years

50:33

Is about emphasis it's about emphases plural

50:41

In classical theology It is Responding to you know, when when up -and -coming young scholars publish

50:57

Something where they've sort of resurrected something from the past um

51:04

There can be A swing that direction for a while and then things

51:10

Even back out over time We're talking about where your emphasis is so when we talk about simplicity, no one is saying that god is um the sum of definite integers

51:27

And you just add them up and once you once you get the right ones you get god And that god is made up of all these different parts

51:36

And this attributes apart and that attributes apart and nobody's saying that Um, what we're saying is you can argue against that biblically

51:48

You can make a case for simplicity biblically And there are other people saying that's not enough

51:57

You've got to make that case utilizing metaphysics that would have been unknown to the apostles

52:04

And that's where I go time out, um

52:10

It's not that you know, I I don't I do not see I I I'm sure if we looked around enough in some of the

52:20

Stuff on tbn that you could find all sorts of people teaching heretical stuff even about Simplicity even though I don't know what it is.

52:30

Um, but it's not like this is some big movement Uh, there is an I'm completely unaware of a uh group promoting the doctrine of the complexity of god

52:42

I'm, just not So the issue really is um

52:51

When we explain that god is eternal The god is self -sufficient.

52:58

The god does not depend upon anything outside himself. The god is Is not to be confused with his creation um when we do

53:07

Talk about things like pantheism and panentheism And deal with eastern religions

53:16

Uh, and so there are issues that are raised along those lines um then

53:23

From my perspective The only way to be consistent

53:29

In bringing the christian message to different language groups and ways of thinking and things like that is to truly ground our teaching a in scripture and then b um

53:45

Know when to make an end of speaking and to say

53:51

God has not revealed everything there is to know about his nature and about his being and He has set the parameters.

53:59

He's put the fence up in light of the fact that the bible is

54:05

Thankfully, uh short enough to be carried in one book and some people

54:13

Seem to pretend that well, you know what we can we can make it a whole lot bigger

54:19

By something we'll call natural theology And now we can

54:25

Get plato in here. We can get aristotle in here and we let them start fighting it out and we can start doing this that and the other thing and And That's not going to work in talking to the eastern folks at all

54:40

And so this is all about emphases it's it's about where what where's the emphasis that we're going to use here

54:49

And um from my perspective What will carry on to the next generation

54:59

Is that which finds its lifeblood in scripture? And in scriptural exegesis

55:07

Not what finds its lifeblood in the metaphysics of aristotle or thomas aquinas

55:15

And the only thing that is valuable in aquinas Is that which is already found in scripture?

55:22

Um, and that seems to be where the the problem is, uh is coming up here

55:29

In other words a confessional presbyterian today. Okay. I already did that one. Sorry about that. Um, So when he says a confessional presbyterian can't get rid of thomas's doctrine of god

55:43

Um that again assumes that you can make this Clear clean distinction

55:51

Between thomas's doctrine of god and thomas's doctrine of what god does Or how god reveals himself

56:01

Which thomas would not have agreed with so I wish these guys would just be open and saying We are we are seeking to sanitize thomas in a way that thomas would have had us burned for I wish they'd just come straight out and say look

56:17

We get it We are making distinctions where he never made them and would never want them made and would

56:25

Call the inquisition to deal with us. Um, if if that were to happen we get it

56:31

Just just come out and say it I think the thing that most shocked me when I was doing my work on owen in the 17th century

56:37

Is that the no creed but the bible people did exist? And they were called sassinians

56:43

And they were really bad guys if I put it that way The reformed orthodox were not

56:51

No creed, but the bible guys in the sense of just having their bibles They engaged in theological formulation in dialogue with the tradition of the church

57:00

It didn't mean they affirmed the idea of every theologian who'd occurred in the church. That would be incoherent and impossible

57:06

That would be incoherent and impossible on what standard? By what standard now again

57:14

I would like to strongly suggest To brother carl that You drop the sassinian stuff now.

57:23

Look sassinianism Aznosticism was a major threat um

57:31

In a period of time in church history And in certain contexts of church history And it's still out there

57:38

Um, I would say that i'm debating a sassinian In in may I would say dale tuggy is pretty much a sassinian dale tuggy

57:49

What What would I say may dr.

57:56

Tuggy March 9th. There you go. A lot of dates to be remembering right now.

58:04

Um Anyways, um Dr. Tuggy would would qualify as a sassinian,

58:12

I think Um And so I have in my hand here

58:19

The rokovian catechism the rokovian catechism just obviously a cheapy paperback reprint

58:28

But this was one of the primary mechanisms by which sassinianism uh advanced itself and There are numerous

58:44

Fundamental heresies in the rokovian catechism Aside aside from just the denial of the deity of christ

58:54

You deny the deity of christ and that impacts everything else atonement nature the atonement offices of christ

59:04

Everything changes when you have a non -divine savior Just the way it works so were these

59:13

People me and my bible under a tree no creed but christ Well, they would say we reject the authority of these creeds because they don't have apostolic foundation they would say that Just like luther did

59:30

Okay, just like luther when faced with the demands of the magisterial church um

59:39

Tested those demands by scripture. That's 1518 johann ek

59:46

It's luther running to the library after getting hit with jan hus quotes

59:53

And in the wagon on the way back admitting i'm a hussite Didn't know it

59:59

But now I know And now he's having to think through all the authority issues Does that make him a sassinian?

01:00:06

No It doesn't at all and it is inappropriate

01:00:12

Inappropriate misleading For someone of karl truman's great stature intellectually

01:00:20

It's laziness It's laziness To use that type of language

01:00:27

Because the sassinians were rationalists one of the things that i've seen about modern unitarians

01:00:37

Um, they're rationalists Their philosophy first Not revelation first Revelation is something to be used to sort of put stuff together

01:00:50

But they're that's not it's not Drawing from that they're not exegetes

01:00:57

They're rationalists And a rationalist dealing with the pages of scripture dealing with inspired writ that's a completely different animal

01:01:07

So it's not even properly descriptive of them they weren't saying That's just me

01:01:13

Under a tree with my bible They have a concept of a perfect philosophy a rational philosophy

01:01:24

And I just don't know where all these people are That I keep hearing every time

01:01:30

I hear Reformed guys, whether it's the presbyterians because he's a presbyterian fesco amongst the opc um or amongst reformed baptists

01:01:46

Wailing about the invasion of the biblicists And the destruction that they are wreaking

01:01:54

And then when you push them even in the slightest, I mean the examples they'll use they're aiming at me

01:02:00

And at people like me At reformed baptists like me at presbyterians like me I just happen to have the webcast where I just throw it out there and we discuss these things um but then when you

01:02:13

When you face them And you you ask them For examples, they start giving you this kind of stuff about People with their bible alone under a tree and that's not what i'm doing.

01:02:30

I mean Again taught church history since 1990 And anybody who's watched this program and again

01:02:41

Got the transcript page you can you can go back and There have been people who have complained because I will bring so much church history into discussions of doctrines and all sorts of things like that And so I don't know who these people are

01:03:00

They're warning against me But then when you press them what they're describing has nothing to do with what we're doing

01:03:07

And it's like Y 'all notice this at all and and they're like, yeah. No, we haven't really noticed them

01:03:14

But none of them thought that simply staring at the pages of their bible Would allow them to come up with the orthodox christian faith

01:03:23

Who does? I've I've said look I I motion this direction toward twitter

01:03:33

And toward um, you know web browsers You can find anything online

01:03:43

When I find a kindle book that I need for the program or whatever Which you all make available through the ministry resource list um you give to that that's how we do this stuff, but I Ran to this guy on twitter,

01:03:59

I think it was yesterday That was talking about hindu calvinism

01:04:06

Hindu calvinism. I think it was called four thousand years of hindu calvinism and Some of the things he said in his tweet and there was a link to amazon and the stuff that he posted one of the

01:04:24

Lessons that he posted had a picture of me in it. So i'm like, um, So I got the book

01:04:31

I I so what I what I do is I send the link to rich and rich buys the book and sends me the link to Grab it in kindle form and I get this thing and I start looking at it.

01:04:48

I took the time To write a paragraph for the author on on twitter

01:04:56

And I start off by saying This is a royal mess. It's a couple steps beneath gail ripplinger

01:05:05

It really is it's that bad And so the whole reason

01:05:10

I mention it is I don't even know honestly if I could get enough material to even

01:05:17

Waste on right in radio free. Geneva. I mean everybody wants to see the new video again, but uh

01:05:24

It's just not enough to even try with this thing It's just really really bad so my point is

01:05:32

You can find I I imagine there's somebody out there That actually believes that you can just stare at the page of scripture and Everything will just pop out the

01:05:46

Westminster doesn't say that london basketball face doesn't say that They all admit they're a difficult passage of scripture.

01:05:51

They all talk about hermeneutics. They all talk about um, you know elders and and pastors the role of teaching and All that kind of stuff.

01:06:01

Everybody believes that So Again, I don't think that guy is a threat to any reformed church in the world.

01:06:10

Okay guy wrote this book So, I don't know who you're talking about Why? make reference to the looniest of the loons

01:06:21

I don't understand and To our credit, I guess we evangelicals on that front what we deny in theory.

01:06:29

We often affirm in practice We may deny the importance of tradition in theory, but most competent ministers will use commentaries

01:06:37

To prepare their sermons most competent ministers will use bible translations that stand in a tradition of bible translation

01:06:45

We're all aware that actually this is the way theology has to be done so again

01:06:51

Unfortunately, he's sliding between definitions of tradition at this point and you know,

01:07:00

I think there's a difference between Fraternizing with roman catholics in academia

01:07:09

And engaging with them in debate Um That may allow you to do that kind of a slide

01:07:20

Type thing and and get away with it uh, but I That don't work for me.

01:07:26

Um That that That doesn't that doesn't happen And i'm trying to remember now as I look at this

01:07:36

I did this now a couple weeks ago and the colors are Trying to remember what the colors meant Let me click on this real quick and see if we played it last time lucy

01:07:45

I started to make my sort of you know To the extent I had a breakthrough my breakthrough on john owen was when I realized how often he cited thomas quinnes

01:07:52

In his marginal notes in his texts Struck me as odd Because I was very much of that sort of no creed, but the bible

01:07:59

Radical break 15 17 etc. Etc. Kind of christian now see That really surprises me um

01:08:09

It's been a long time since I did anything with carl truman, uh the last time We spoke face to face

01:08:16

Was in a cemetery. Um Phil johnson was with us. Um uh, mike avendroth

01:08:26

It was us four and um I would

01:08:32

I would have never at that point in time Viewed carl truman the way he just described himself and it

01:08:41

It does strike me to be perfectly honest with you that when people adopt a position that they recognize does have

01:08:53

A fundamental That results in fundamental disorientation of where they once were

01:09:00

That there is a tendency to almost view it as a conversion experience. So, you know People become calvinists and it's like that's when they got saved and i've warned so many people of that type of language um

01:09:14

But he makes reference to this 2016 Change his perspectives on thomas aquinas and and you have that here as well

01:09:26

But he describes himself as as having would someone who would have been You know bible alone major break in 15 17 well um

01:09:39

Rome certainly thought there was a major break not necessarily in 15 17, but Certainly by 15 21 they did.

01:09:47

Um and It all depends on what you're talking about, you know I'll uh, i'll mark this one here and we'll we will get this and we're almost there.

01:09:56

We've only got literally maybe six minutes of stuff left after this so We will we will get it done but I want to give you an illustration that hopefully will be helpful to you

01:10:13

Um a lot of people will look at The first generation of reformers and you know, some people distinguish between lutheran zwingli and and calvin as second generation and there's a there's a sense in which that's true, but Let's let's say 16th century reformers

01:10:33

Um early in mid mid 16th century, how's that so luther calvin's wingling?

01:10:41

um They'll look at these men and they will think

01:10:48

That the work of reformation finished with them and there was a tendency even on their own part

01:10:56

Because of the enthusiasts Because of the um

01:11:05

Radicals because of what happened in munster Um I I noticed facebook just yesterday.

01:11:12

I What was it? Uh five years ago. I was in munster right now Uh five years ago.

01:11:18

I had a picture of the the cages up on the uh cathedral um

01:11:25

Miss doing that but uh, the world has changed anyways, um Because of the radicals

01:11:34

There was a appropriate Concern on the part of luther was deadly afraid of being accused of releasing anarchy in all of christendom

01:11:46

And that's why after the peasants revolt in 1525 you see such a radical change in luther Calvin is aware of what happened in munster.

01:11:55

That's why calvin never Seriously engaged with or listened to anything an anabaptist would have to say

01:12:02

Was because what happened in munster and you can understand that um

01:12:08

So there were issues That those reformers did not address

01:12:16

And again The annoying scottish guy from the outside I do debates with people who bring these issues up.

01:12:27

So You will hear all the time Yeah, but calvin and luther believe this that and the other thing about mary

01:12:35

Now they won't talk about the later marian dogmas because they hadn't even been dogmatized in roman catholicism yet So you could you could believe in the immaculate conception, but it had not been defined uh, and there are people talking about the bodily assumption, but it's not nearly as um, well, it's been defined as a dogma since then uh, 1853 1950 so Um, but People will say well see

01:13:02

They did not Have the radical view of mary that you have speaking to me

01:13:10

And my response to that is Why do you think that the reformation was completely done in one generation?

01:13:16

Why do you think that even someone like calvin calvin? Didn't live all that long a life.

01:13:21

Why do you think that? That they had the time Energy and ability to think through everything and all the ramifications

01:13:34

Now eventually their errors are going to apply solo scriptura

01:13:42

And are going to recognize that What had developed over time in regards to marian dogmas?

01:13:51

Was completely non -apostolic And hence would reject it

01:13:59

But For someone like a luther that just sounded like you're attacking jesus's mommy So we're not going to we've got enough on our plate.

01:14:06

We don't need that so there was a meaningful

01:14:17

Application of semper reformanda that needed to be continued in that context

01:14:27

It is appropriate and right that Those beliefs were to be examined

01:14:34

But it doesn't all necessarily happen in the first generation And so the question for all of us is

01:14:41

Does that process ever stop and it seems to me to be honest with you?

01:14:47

For a bunch of folks it does for a bunch of folks

01:14:55

It's done um, there's nothing more to nothing more to do

01:15:02

Except maybe dive deeper into thomas cornis or something um and I I just recognize that if augustine at the end of his life could write retartionis and Honestly go.

01:15:18

Yeah, you know, I I used to say this but Probably wasn't really wise to go there

01:15:25

And I now believe this and That's that's what maturity looks like That's what maturity looks like it really does it was

01:15:33

Wise of him to do that But that assumes you have an objective revelation from god so Anyway with that, thank you for listening to the program today.

01:15:44

I'm going to have lord willing a special t -shirt on on On thursday for the program

01:15:52

Just keep your keep your eyes out for that I'm excited about anyways, and all of you will be deeply disappointed, but I will enjoy myself.

01:16:00

So that's That's all that matters. We'll finish this up on thursday and get to other things too.