A Mega Dividing Line with 50 Minutes of Open Phones

and greetings welcome to the dividing line it is a Wednesday and it is in the afternoon sometime and we're only doing one dividing line this week and the reason for that is probably the first thing we'll talk about real quick and that is on Friday evening we will be having a debate in Rapid City South Dakota the first time

I've ever been to Rapid City South Dakota and looking forward to meeting the

Saints up there and it's gonna be a little cool looking at the at the weather

I'm gonna have to I packed all my all my winter stuff away I'm gonna have to I'm gonna find something

I suppose to be able to do some running or whatever it is I'm gonna do up there anyhow

Friday evening there Lord willing will be a live stream look

I'm maybe I'm just negative Debbie Downer or whatever live streams sometimes work and sometimes they don't and my experience is that live streams from a established location like churches and stuff like we had live stream to South Africa stuff like that they they tend to work live streams from remote locations like a hotel don't tend to work that's just I'm I'm hoping

I'm wrong I'm I'm really but there could be so many people want to watch this live that I I don't know that the company is doing it really understands how many people are gonna be slamming that stream so yeah we'll see anyway we'll see what happens we hope it works the debate begins at six o 'clock their time

I don't know to be honest with you with which time zone that is I really don't

I live in Phoenix we don't play with clocks and are really hoping that all the rest of you will stop doing that insanity in the near future the debate is going to be highly predictable if you have taken the time to look at any of the materials from Iglesia Ni Cristo they don't vary they've got one script they've got one set of arguments you're gonna be looking at John 17 three you're gonna be looking some passages first Corinthians you're gonna be looking at your standard run -of -the -mill subordinationist argumentation and they just they just don't change that's just that's how they do things and so obviously there's a tremendous amount of assumption of Unitarianism rather than proving

Unitarianism and the gentleman that I'm going to be debating mr.

ventilation has a lot of experience one of the more interesting recordings on YouTube is when he debated

Carl Keating of Catholic answers this was back when

Carl did debates when Carl was still young this is sometime in the 80s and it was very interesting very very interesting and I think this will be just as interesting if not more so my big concern for the debate is simply this it is clearly a tactic of INC Iglesia Ni Cristo in debates to utilize the audience audience packing their speaker remember what happened with with Tim Staples Eucharist everybody's yes and you know stop everyone stop thinking immediately you know type of a type of situation and that happens a lot where mr.

ventilation will make a completely undisputed assertion there's only one God and the whole debate has to come to a grinding halt where everybody applauds and whoo and you know

I'm sitting there going yeah we already knew that can we get back to the debate now but that takes up a tremendous amount of time and so the the moderator is going to have to very strongly encourage the audience to behave as adults during the course of the debate and not to interrupt not to applaud not interrupt and to be honest with you there's nothing new about that this is this is just standard stuff for every debate that that I that I go to I mean it's normally not even discussed it's it but in this situation it will need to be discussed and it will need to be very clearly laid out and what

I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm going to say at the beginning to mr.

ventilation and to the moderator stuff look if there is interruption I will stop my clock and ask the moderator to admonish the audience once again and then we'll start up again

I will not have my time stolen by cheap debating tricks this subject is too important and so that's the big thing is please pray that that will be taken care of controlled shall we say in in what happens on Friday Friday evening and please you know we want as many

INC folks as possible to see this not only live but certainly when it's posted so pray for the recording sound recording the whole nine yards because I think it's it's very very important that I'll be doing a conference on Saturday talking about a number of different issues that are relevant up there in South Dakota and preaching on Sunday and get back on on Monday much longer flight than would be necessary if there's such things as direct flights but I get to fly over the

United States just to get to Rapid City that's sort of that's not unusual in those in those situations

I'm home only a brief period of time just a couple weeks before the longest overseas trip of my life and obviously we need your help financially for this trip it's just a lot of legs and all sorts of things in this trip which will take me from here to London from London to Wittenberg from Wittenberg to the

Czech Republic from Czech Republic to Ukraine Ukraine back to London and London home over three weeks which is a which is way past my expiration date obviously concerned of about staying healthy and things like that just aside from all of the the speaking and the teaching and everything else

I'm gonna be doing during that time period we need your assistance financially there's a travel link on the website you can help us to make that happen but we just posted on Facebook or actually

Pearty Williams is posted on Facebook and I think I shared it the event announcement thing with Bobby for the debate on May 15th at the

Brompton Oratory an incredible location if you just google Brompton Oratory hit images and you'll see what

I mean that's Pearty Williams church there in in London and we will be debating the

Marian dogmas are they authentic Christian doctrine and this is a

Roman Catholic Protestant debate and the program that Peter do

Williams and I did on the Reformation will actually air this Saturday which is great because they'll be able to promote the upcoming debate as part of the of the discussion like I said it was a the conversation that Pearty Williams and I had was really really good conversation unlike men unlike Peter like people like Peter Stravinsky's Pearty Williams reads my books and is very familiar with my positions my arguments and that makes for a much better conversation you have to be explaining everything you don't have to be dealing with citations of Jimmy Swagger you know that kind of that kind of stuff and so I am really looking forward to not only the airing of that conversation this coming

Saturday on unbelievable Justin Barley's program premiere Christian radio but then the debate on May 15 so to my friends in in London be great to have you all come out that evening that's all

I'm doing in London this trip will be that that debate we may get to get some incredible pictures because someone who loves to take pictures is going to fly in and take pictures so you know who that is so there could be hundreds of pictures really high -quality pictures of the of the event and then from there the next day to Berlin and from Berlin by train to Wittenberg for the

Herzen Conference also known as the Shepherds Conference in Germany notice

I said that all to avoid saying the German Shepherds Conference which everybody just immediately starts laughing about so got that and then teaching the next two weeks between Czech Republic Ukraine it's going to be really intense and realize

I get back June 4th three different churches in July in Colorado preach at my church first part of August then it's back to London and South Africa at the end of August September is the

Reformation tour twice to Dallas in October and probably looking at Washington DC in November yeah really uh -huh yeah so that that travel link will be very very very very very useful and please please help us with that so a tremendous amount of stuff going on your prayers very much needed for this incredibly busy year and all the incredible opportunities that we have and of course in the midst of all this

I have writing responsibilities that I am not getting to I'm going to have to break my my normal comfort zone and try to be writing on the road it's very difficult for me to do but I'm gonna have to try to and the possibility of a written debate

I can't give you any more details than that the possibility of a written debate a timed written debate this summer when

I don't know just stop sleeping maybe I need to find some way of doing dictation while on the bike that's if I could overcome the wind thing maybe maybe that's and somehow get the breathing thing down to where it you know that might be the only way to do this kind of think of it

I don't know but the possibility of a written debate this this summer on a really interesting topic with a really interesting individual and could be really cool if it ends up working out

I haven't heard back from the folks I wrote back to them but I haven't heard back so a billion things going on and so that's better than sitting around watching the paint dry

I suppose now as to the topic today I would like to probably at some point in the program within like the next 45 minutes or so open the phones let me see if I can remember oh there's the phone number right there it's seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one we haven't had open phones in a while they're always interesting dangerous but interesting as well and we've it's not like we ever talked about anything controversial nothing controversial has been going on recently and everybody loves me no one ever says anything bad about me so open phones just probably no one has anything to ask about but just in case eight seven seven seven five three three three four one we'll we'll get to those now so many things to look at her but I don't want to let this one get away sort of on a personal level but hopefully useful to everybody on the weekend

I was you know scan through Facebook you know

I used to have a life and then then rich forced me into Facebook and and now

I just sit there staring at the feed and that's all I do in life and well okay

I I wrote a hundred miles yesterday morning but that that was it was tough because I almost felt like stopping a few times check my feet no

I didn't actually I'm lying about all this but I was going through and I saw a post from one of my

Muslim friends Ijaz Ahmed and you may recall

Ijaz I've we've we've actually not debated but we've had a lot of exchanges and the last one was on John 2028 and p66 and and you know looking at papyri and and the textual variants and and stuff like that and you've got to scroll through a lot of football stuff with each other and I'll tell you there are some there are some fractures in the community when it comes to football that I can

I can guarantee you that I you know there's there's something going on between Ijaz and Sami Zaatari when it comes to football that's all

I can say and these guys are merciless when it comes and of course when

I say football Americans sit there and go do I like the Vikings or something that that's not football this is the sport where you actually use your foot and a ball not hand egg that's that's

American what it's called American football is actually hand egg because you use your hands and an egg -shaped thing so anyway

I'm sorry okay I had some obviously you know people that were born in Prescott Arizona not exactly world travelers when it comes to sports anyway so you scroll through all this football stuff and I saw this one article from Easter from Resurrection Sunday and I can imagine what it's like to be a

Muslim watching all the memes flowing through Facebook around Resurrection Sunday when you don't believe in the crucifixion so you obviously don't believe in the resurrection and on April 16th he posted a you know a graphic type thing one of the 99 names of Allah and it's the the ever -living one and one comment just one comment indeed there is never a need to die was all he said now these days sadly in my experience that the temperature that exists between the vast majority of Christians and Muslims is such that the responses to such a a posting if they most

Christians are not going to see it those that do aren't going to touch it and the few that there are probably going to use a flamethrower in response to it but as I'm sitting here looking at it

I all I see is an open door all

I see is an opportunity and with the jaws I I think he would admit if I comment on this he's actually gonna listen when

I say because of the fact that I don't treat him like dirt which some people think is necessary to be a

Christian apologist to Muslims and obviously

I'm not amongst that particular group as they like to point out a lot these days I see an open door because if we were sitting down across the table and if I had my druthers we'd have some incredibly good chips and salsa multiple kinds of salsa on the table because that would be that would be wonderful but if we are sitting there talking here's basically what

I would say at this comment indeed there was never a need to die well first of all do you understand what we believe when we say that Jesus Christ died on Calvary's tree we don't believe that death is non -existence so he didn't cease to exist it was it was a voluntary thing each one of the

Gospels makes it clear that Jesus not only prophesies his death but knows the circumstances of it and as he himself says in John chapter 10 no one takes my life from me and he does this voluntarily this is a voluntary self -giving on his part and so when we talk about the death of Christ we're not talking about his ceasing to exist we're talking about a voluntary action that he undertakes together in perfect harmony with the

Father and the Spirit which is why you can find in the New Testament the Father the Son and the

Spirit all involved in for example in the resurrection of Christ as well and so this is the intention of the triune

God from eternity past that the Son in this way at this time at this place as a fulfillment of prophecy lay down his life as an atonement for sin

I mean that's that's if you if you take the New Testament as a whole that is its message that is what is being proclaimed by the earliest followers of Jesus and so God didn't cease to exist and when you say there was never a need to die that that was the thing that caught my attention on one level you are right if what you mean by that is that there was an external necessity placed upon God that forced him to act in this way we would agree that there was no external requirement that forced

God to redeem in the way he chose to redeem this was a freely chosen route by the

Father Son and Spirit there was nothing there's there's no cosmic card player there's no

Molinus middle knowledge forced God to do it this way not that kind of stuff so if you mean by need as in an external force acting upon God constraining him to do something then we would agree with that but if you mean need in the sense of fulfillment of prophecy following through with his own decree once he created and established his law the fall of man the sacrificial system so on so forth then the idea being well you know then it could have gone some other direction now you have now you have the decree of God flowing from the being in nature of God which is different than Qatar seems to well

I don't want to go too deeply into all this because it takes a lot but as I see and there's all

I realize it's all sorts of different understandings of Qatar as far as Muslims are concerned but especially how it interfaces with man's will and predestination all the rest

I guess I get that but it seems to me that most of the forms of Qatar that I've read about in Islamic theology separate differs from the

Christian understanding in light of the absolute transcendence of Allah and also the fact that the law of Allah can be broken without penalty you know

I've referred this many times for the the story of the man who killed 99 people Allah takes him 100

Allah takes him to paradise his law broken crushed and left that way 100 lives and God just forgives and so there seems to be a disconnection that when we talk when

Christians talk about the decree of God particularly reform Christians talk about the decree of God there is a a perfect fulfillment of all of God's intentions in creation in what

Jesus Christ does what father son Holy Spirit does in in redemption so when we talk about it from that perspective then yes there is a need because there needs to be a sin -bearer there needs to be an intermediary there needs to be an intercessor and obviously my greatest desire for every

Muslim who listens this program and I know there are a number of you is for you to understand that this is not a removal of your responsibility is a recognition of your incapacity and when we talk about Christ's work as mediator the fact that there are there's a specific people united to him so that they die with him they're crucified together with him this is the most intimate gracious loving thing that I can even begin to imagine that unworthy not only unworthy sinners but sinners worthy of the utmost of God's wrath would be joined to Christ in eternity past in the decree of God fully knowing what they're gonna be like joined to him in that decree so that his work is perfect on their behalf and they can have not only union with God but God's law is fulfilled his justice is fulfilled he can truly say righteous guiltless before me all because of the perfect work of their

Savior to whom they are joined in a in a tremendous and beautiful fashion and so I understand that seeing all those resurrection memes and things like that you know

I know what prompted it but what I see here is an opportunity to go yes

God is the ever -living one there are look the vast majority of assertions that are made in the 99 names of Allah are biblical they're biblical he's called the truth well on but what that raises is from my perspective as I listen to Muslims interacting with scripture it seems like there are more names of God revealed in the

New Testament that Muslims are afraid of Islam to me seems like a

U -turn going back to the old ways and instead if you would follow the

Ark of Redemption if you would follow that's arc ARC not ARK if you'd follow that Ark of Redemption follow the prophecies consider consider

Isaiah 53 little bit more carefully consider Isaiah 9 actually just consider them

Isaiah 6 through 11 amazing section all these different things going on in Israel's history and yet in the midst of all of that you have all this prophecy that then ends up being fulfilled in Christ it's a fantastic thing but if you follow that you see that it would lead you to the a much greater fulfillment than the author of the

Quran allows you to see allows you to see so I wanted to I want to make sure to get a chance to respond to that or just comment on it here on the program because like I said

I just I just see it as a an open door to a proper and appropriate discussion of of important theological truths and I hope you jaws that you'll hear that coming from someone who obviously does not have any ill feelings towards you and hence it will communicate to you in a in a better way all right now obviously

I suppose I should just go ahead and mention this and then we'll go on to something a little bit deeper as far as stuff on the program word came out yesterday or day before yesterday

I forgot which day it was word came out that the

Bible Answer Man broadcast has been removed from the bot radio network now I I don't know a lot about who's who anymore

I remember at one point that BAM was on Salem and then there was a game of chicken that was played and BAM lost and then they came back in a reduced format in certain places but not all places and that's what that's when

I sort of lost track of things is they had been on KPXQ here in Phoenix and you said what a wonderful opportunity it was to but did you yes just now that's the whole point that that was the whole reason

I did it is he listens to the program so anyway it was it was a

Twitter thing and someone's asking me so did you interact with him I guess with the jaws thing is like yeah just now for 20 minutes that's a lot easier to do it is on Facebook I mean you know yeah so a squirrel yeah well it's that's that's the way it is anyway so I sort of lost track with of BAM at that point because we used to be able to listen to it here and in fact

I bet if I could find that old radio that I used to have over in the corner

I'll bet it's still in KPXQ after all these years so evidently they were on the bot radio network which

I guess is what Janet Mefford's on now and of the 400 stations they were on that's 330 of them and they're no longer on the bot network no longer that's 330 out of 400 that obviously is a huge huge percentage of your your coverage and you know

I'm like what what what was expected did

I it just I'm still left sitting here going you you didn't think this through you didn't you didn't sit here and go well you know

I have a feeling that the vast majority of folks in our audience are probably going to not like this or just go hey we're just defending mere

Christianity anyways some main channel doesn't like the attitude that I had but see that what they didn't see is that the in on the tweet there's question marks and everybody knows what two question marks means right we developed a whole new a whole new way of communicating that is actually not overly accurate anyways so it it saddens me what has happened obviously

I have you know

I'm glad that I'm seeing at least some conversations in in social media that are getting back to some fundamental issues in regards to Eastern Orthodoxy the centrality of justification centrality of soul scriptura that kind of stuff but most of the conversations let's just be honest are not real good

I haven't taken a chance I haven't looked back at it but last night or is yesterday afternoon a graphic was posted on the

Bible Answer Man Facebook page a quotation from a female Eastern Orthodox writer on shouldn't have been solo scriptura but on solo scriptura because that's what she was describing

I wrote a fairly brief you know response to it I guess on the

Bible Answer Man Facebook page it got started getting pretty ugly and if you really want to see people get upset quote early church fathers that contradict either

Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox views especially on scripture that's not difficult to do in fact just remind you of the three volumes set by David King and Bill Webster on this very subject the third volume is just a compendium of citations from the early church fathers on these particular topics and good stuff very good stuff and people start quoting a few of those and it got got pretty nasty but anyway

I I don't know what the future holds in any way shape or form but look

I would you know we're not in a network anywhere but I would expect rather cataclysmic results if I decided to make some kind of a move like Hank Hanegraaff did and it just strikes me as very odd that there would be any surprise on the part of Mr.

Hanegraaff or those immediately around him that there's been the kind of reaction that there has been so yeah

I'm well aware of what was what has happened people keep kept sending me stuff and so I'm aware of what happened there

I meant that in a loving tone and not sarcastic as you're making my comment out to be well then why did you put two question marks and now two exclamation marks look when people say but did you two question marks that communicates to me so did you and yeah

I just did that was the whole whole point of it real question is exactly are you still sitting after a winter mile bike ride yesterday well it's better than standing truly okay nothing too much there and there was while I do follow

Patrick Madrid and there was well some Roman Catholic thing pops up my screen I'm also like ah what's that oh okay that's right anyway probably the big thing everyone was commenting on yesterday other than the

BAM stuff was seems like every time an article gets posted it's further documentation of what we've been saying about well the mere

Christianity movement I mean like I said last week I was not aware of Hank Hanegraaff's constant utilization of that language so every time that I've talked about up until last week that I've talked about the mere

Christianity so I was talking about William Lane Craig I'm talking about that Mike Licona William Lane Craig Frank Turek group of apologists

I wasn't even thinking of Hank Hanegraaff I bet you there are a bunch of people in the audience though that were thinking wow he's taking shots at Hank Hanegraaff didn't even know he used the terminology because that that's not terminology that he was using back when when

I was in the program years years ago so there you go and yes

I am aware by the way of the pulpit and pen article today evidently

Jeff Maples went over to the church that Hank Hanegraaff is now a part of the

Orthodox Greek Orthodox Church and it was a very interesting description in case you are not aware of it well at least you only put one period after that so we're good now

Rose Eastern Orthodox services are very very long very long three plus hours long and I guess it's something you sort of get used to over time

I don't know but for most folks you know first time visiting it was interesting it was very interesting for example it was an interesting observation that Mr.

Maples talked about the dress of the individuals there there were a lot of immodest women not sure that's not the case in a number of Christian churches or Protestant churches as well but that that is a

I think relevant observation in light of what but what makes that relevant the nominalism the cultural form of Orthodoxy and how much of Orthodoxy is cultural it's just it's what you grow up in it's my big fat

Greek wedding thing was that was that was that was called I think it's got my bit you know it's cultural it's it's a part of your culture and so when your culture becomes more and more influenced by what's going on around it then you end up seeing that in the church and then

I guess a number of the deacons snuck out for smoke breaks well three hours

I suppose if you're a nicotine addict you can't can't make it for three hours I guess but yeah that's that's interesting and obviously iconography on everything is going to be very very very strange to an individual upon first encountering it proper observation of the fact that there is much scripture read but almost no exhortation interpretation application very that look that's part and parcel of both

Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy the scriptures are read but as far as meaningful exegesis interpretation application being read authoritatively in the sense of being pressed upon the audience different thing and it you know the vast majority of the observations lack of gospel content exegesis repetitive prayers these would all be the same things that I would observe it's just when it comes to JD and Jeff Maples and the pulp and pen guys it's you know the difference between us is not so much what we believe but it's like you know if I'm going to write about something

I'll alright with this pen and they're going to write with this one that has acid in the ink

I mean there are ways of saying the same things without you know you're

Orthodox person and you can say I really you know

I really have a problem with your focus upon icons or you can say

I have a problem because it just it just seems like it'd be fairly obvious that leave it leave it to the reader to fill in some of the outrage you know it just I don't know a lot of us just go come on guys anyway anyway so yeah

I saw that that was that was that was interesting John Caldwell says he does talk about mere

Christians but Christian crisis okay well I I certainly don't remember during our our conversations but anyway so yeah alright someone says a channel do not use a cannon to kill a mosquito okay that's that's one way of putting it

I suppose but look there are ways I just think there are more effective ways of expressing disagreement without just automatically throwing in all these adjectives just to make it real obvious that you think that this person or this position is pure and utter heresy sometimes communicating with clarity will communicate that without having to use all the excess words but anyway wasn't gonna go there that's for sure the other big thing was

William Lane Craig and let me just dive into this real quick because I want to get to the phones

I am a great admirer of yours despite being a non -religious theist myself for the sake of full disclosure

I have never been able to bring myself to take atheism seriously and I'm convinced I'm purely philosophical grounds that the atheist worldview is consigned to logical absurdity that said

I have never been able to bring myself to subscribe wholeheartedly to any religion either and this for a variety of different reasons depending on the religion discussion however since you're a

Christian I will look myself to the principal reason why I cannot bring myself to accept Christianity to which I have yet to receive a satisfying response

I figure if I won't get a compelling answer from dr. William Lane Craig and most likely no such answer is available at least for now oh okay so here's here's the the issue the root of my problem with with the

Christianity I think it's probably just with Christianity and all the Abrahamic religions that matter leads back to a number of Old Testament accounts in particular the book of Genesis I've listened to all 21 parts your

Defenders series on the doctrine of creation however when I read the book of Genesis through as I've done many times based on the various exegetical analyses

I have reviewed of the Genesis accounts I find very difficult to avoid the necessity of a literal interpretation very good the first two chapters concerning the creation account first the whole world and of man seems to afford some scope for a non -literal hermeneutic but even if this were so that still leaves me with the whole wild account of Noah's Ark in the deluge the inordinate life expectancy of the first man for which some reason decreased with each generation not to mention references the existence of Giants and accounts of women copulating with evil spirits

Genesis 6 4 well there's more than one way of interpreting that among many other things that I've no which

I've no doubt you are aware these accounts incorporate very specific language and do not seem to lend themselves to figurative interpretation now

I know I could dispense with belief in biblical inerrancy which is what you usually propose to those who like me have confronted this stumbling block to faith in Christ hmm that's interesting however if I can see that the book of Genesis as a whole or a significant portion thereof is not true then that leaves me with the awkward fact that Jesus Christ the deity to whom

I would owe my allegiance on more than one occasion affirmed these errors as truths

Luke 17 26 mark 10 6 through 9 Matthew 19 4 through 5 I hasten to add that Paul in his letters reiterates many of these affirmations the only way it seems to me one can resolve this problem is by saying that Christ affirmed these truths in a metaphorical sense but I find this justification unsatisfying mainly because the most reasonable interpretation of Jesus's words is that he really did believe these events were literally true if you say that the gospel writers misquoted

Jesus and all these counts then that raises the question of what else they might have got wrong needless to say that strikes right at the heart of the

Bible as a whole smart guy now your response to this would probably be that none of what

I have said above detracts from your historical case for Jesus's resurrection that is true although it also means that I am left with this one argument for an event which supposedly took place 2 ,000 years ago upon which to erect the whole rational foundation of my

Christian faith it's an awfully heavy rational burden to sustain for just one argument however even

I think it's probably even if I were to acknowledge Jesus rose from the dead it seems to me that I am not in a position to know for certain what

God wants from me since his repository for truth is in effect fundamentally tainted and therefore can't be trusted so here are my two questions for you one if I reject biblical inerrancy what use is the

Bible to me as a Christian more specifically what epistemological referent am I left with to determine whether certain aspects my would -be

Christian faith are true or untrue am I to be left only with the voice of conscience if so this does not seem to be positioned to different than the one

I am in now secondly what is your position on the other accounts in Genesis besides the creation account in particular

I am interested to know your thoughts on Noah and the flood since I do not believe you have ever directly confronted this question

I would like nothing more than for you to resolve this conundrum for me since I do have a very special affinity for the

Christ figure and would like nothing more than to believe that it is true many of my non -religious friends and acquaintances have confronted this same problem vis -a -vis

Christianity and I would love nothing more than to be able to refer them to a compelling answer God bless John in Malta Wow John in Malta I hope someone refers you to this program fascinating insights into the very criticisms that I have been making of the

William Lane Craig Mike Licona Andy Stanley mere Christianity all you needs the resurrection you don't need to really know what it meant or why it was necessary and you don't need all those prophecies and all the rest that kind of stuff and let's just close our eyes the fact that Jesus's view of the

Old Testament is not the view of the Old Testament that we're actually most comfortable with today and and let yeah mm -hmm there you go and by the way

I didn't write this I just want you to know I had nothing to do with it nothing to do with it at all all right so here's here comes the response at least

I think this is when people ask me what unanswered questions I still have I tell them I don't know what to do with these

Old Testament stories about Noah and the Ark the Tower of Babel and so on so I find myself the same boat as you

John I don't have any good answer how to resolve these problems yet these unanswered difficulties have not kept me from Christian faith or from abandoning

Christian faith why not why stop immediately I just I just want to hear I want to make sure people hear that a man that many people consider to be the leading

Christian apologist in the English -speaking world when faced with the obvious reality that the one he says created all things the one that he says he himself is dependent upon for his own personal salvation clearly believed these things and taught these things that when faced with those issues he's left going

I don't get me wrong I recognize that in our secular rationalistic world the existence of supernatural events in the past is considered to be foolishness but that's what the resurrection is it's a supernatural event the virgin birth supernatural event

I guess that's why we noted earlier that don't worry about the virgin birth thing either you know just all we needs one supernatural event well

John recognizes well that's an awfully slim basis for this whole big thing I'm supposed to be believing yes there were supernatural events in in the past and there was a reason why those supernatural events took place then in opposition to at other points in redemptive history so you see when you have a decree of God when you have a

God who's working things out in a particular fashion then you have a basis for saying that there is a reason why there were supernatural events taking place in the establishment of the covenant people of God or at creation itself and things like that that would not be normative in other situations another in other places along the the the line of redemptive history that is under God's sovereign control it's not just you know here's a place where not only your standard synergistic systems can't really hack it but Molinism can't either because remember you know yeah

God's working out a particular plan but it was the one that the card the guy dealing the cards gave him you know he ran all the numbers this is the best

I could do here we go not exactly a firm foundation either and it's something about theology matters yeah theology matters well a large part of the reason as you know is that the truth of what

CS Lewis called mere Christianity doesn't stand or fall with such questions mere

Christianity denotes those central truths of a Christian worldview which evidently do not include the supernatural characteristic of Scripture if a person believes that God exists and raised

Jesus from the dead in vindication of his allegedly blasphemous personal claims this is clams but I'm sure they mean claims we could do something on textual variance there but we won't then one ought to be a

Christian and the rest is details a matter of in -house debate among Christians now I stop right there stop right there

I reject that absolutely and I call it everybody else rejected to that's not the

Christian faith you cannot minimize the Christian faith like that it doesn't work and John sees it doesn't work let's listen to it again if a person believes that God exists and raised

Jesus from the dead who's Jesus who's Jesus no just raised you from the dead in vindication of his allegedly blasphemous personal claims that's actually a part of the mere

Christianity part then why not to be a Christian and the rest is details so the entire gospel is details the whole thing about atonement and sacrifice and forgiveness of sins and details just in -house debate among Christians hey if that's all you got if that's your position you're gonna defend the

Christian faith very very very very very very very differently than I am I also don't think you have any right to call that the

Christian faith but there you go questions about the historical liability these ancient

Jewish texts which Jesus called God speaking believe in Jesus just don't worry about his view of scripture

I'm sorry but sometimes I feel like I'm living in an alternate dimension here you know what when

I when I see people saying things like this questions about the historical liabilities ancient

Jewish text just has no direct bearing on whether God exists or Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead can you imagine any historian denying the historicity of some of that in the

Gospels because say the story of Babel is a myth well now what did you just do well you've just made the stories in the

Gospels completely disconnected from the very redemptive history that the writers of the

Gospels say they're a part of what what are you gonna do with this poor person once you cajole them into some kind of yes of freewill decision what do you what do you give them then you've got no foundation you've chopped everything up into pieces already moreover

I'm persuaded that we have really solid reasons for thinking mere Christianity to be true so what that means is but we don't really have solid reasons for thinking the fullness of Christianity is true more

I'm persuaded really have solid reason thinking mere Christianity to be true when I debate other philosophers on God's existence

I find myself thinking wow these arguments really are powerful the historical credibility of the

Gospels commends itself increasingly to historical scholars it just amazes me that the central facts undergirding the inference to Jesus's resurrection are accepted today by the wide majority of scholars and the flimsiness of the objections of skeptical scholars is shocking well here again you have the appeal to majorities and do scholarship which of course goes both directions all depends on how you want to find scholarship and who where you want to draw the line as to what the percentages are and everything else

I wouldn't worry that this leaves us depending on just one argument for something that happened two thousand years ago

I would I think John's exactly right John recognizes this minimum facts mere

Christianity resurrection alone thing leaves you with nothing you can't ask who

Jesus is you can't ask what redemption is you can't talk about the gospel you can't talk about resurrected unions that's all secondary secondary the crucial time gap is between the time of the original events and the time when they were recorded not between the time they're recorded and today well if you mean textual okay good evidence doesn't become bad evidence just because the passage of time so long as the gap between the events and the recording of them is short it doesn't matter how far into the past both the events and the records of them have receded moreover it's misleading to say this is just one argument we're talking here about historical records of life and teachings of Jesus that are far better than what we have for many of the major figures of antiquity well that's true to a sense you know as long as you accept the testimony of of the

Gospels but you've got a problem if you don't accept them as inspired records because then you take the

John dominant crossing route and you really only have one testimony mark because Matthew and Luke are just following him and John's unreliable there you go once we once we finish this up once I finish reading this we'll start taking your phone calls eight seven seven well you're taking him right now

I guess from what I'm hearing the other room let me look here oh yes look at all those eight seven seven seven five three three four one and as you note genius of Nazareth is an incredibly compelling figure in his own right whom we ought to take seriously rather than dismiss in fact

I'd want to turn the tables on you and say that you're placing an awfully heavy burden on just one argument namely Jesus citation of these

Old Testament stories as a basis for denying either the historical credibility of the Gospels or the inference to Jesus resurrection

I've tried to I've tried to block those that that particular sales people people and move

I didn't stand line and then they just hang up on you anyway look

I think you're totally missing at that point Craig totally missed the point and John has it right

Jesus the citation of these Old Testament stories is a part of the very fabric of Jesus's view of Scripture you can't just dismiss that and it goes directly to his credibility as an individual but then notice where we go from here remember

William the railing Craig is Christologically weak I mean heretical in being some of his rejections of certain things the most important move you make dialectically is exploiting the

Christological implications of rejecting the historicity of the problematic Old Testament narratives your claim is that since Jesus evidently believe in the historicity of these stories then if we allow that these narratives are not historical we allow that Christ has heard but what are the

Christological implications of that now that's a really good question which theologians need to explore like they've never explored it before did

Jesus hold false beliefs in his human consciousness did he think the sun goes around the earth did he think the earth was at the center of the universe did he think that there were any stars beyond those we can see at night

I'm not going to try to answer those questions but I think they're worth asking did

God stoop so low in condescending to become a man that he took on such cognitive limitations that Jesus shared false beliefs typically held by other ordinary first century

Jews calling dr.

Kirk only a few of you know what I'm referring to there it has nothing to a Star Trek by the way since I have good reason to believe in his deity as explained above I don't know what the explained above was to be perfectly honest with you

I would sooner admit that Jesus could hold false beliefs that ultimately don't matter rather than deny his divinity rather than impose on him our a priori conceptions of what divinity implies we need to be open to learning from the gospels what the incarnation entailed just think with me for it for a second here about what's really being said here somehow now we're being told we need to be open to learning from the gospels what the incarnation tell remember when

Michael Icona say I'm just at my view scripture I'm just open I don't want to be boxed in by inerrancy

I'm just I'm just open learning from the gospels same stuff here please someone somebody explain to me how can you learn about the implications of Jesus's deity and humanity in the hypostatic

Union from books that are nothing more than mainly reliable historical records how do you do that you can't do that the impossibility of a non divine revelational source at the heart of this mere

Christian movement exposed by that one consideration exposed but at one consideration in any case

I don't feel pushed that far yet I think the text you cite for showing that Jesus held false beliefs about the

Old Testament are fairly week mark 10 6 through 9 Matthew 19 4 through 5 for example just quotations from Genesis about the purpose for which

God created man and woman no they aren't dr. Craig may I may

I allow the non -christian theist to refute your horrific handling of inspired scripture you can look at Matthew chapter 19 and say it's nothing more than quotations from Genesis about the purpose which

God created man and woman Jesus said these are the words of God he takes the scriptures more seriously than you do oh my so your only example of any force is

Luke 7 got laughter in the other room is Luke 17 26 to 27 where Jesus says just as it was in days of Noah so to lead a son of man they're eating and drinking and marrying being given in marriage until the day no end of the ark and the flood came destroyed all of them but this reference like Jesus referenced in Jonah is compatible with citing a story to make one's point

I might say to someone just as Robinson Crusoe had his man Friday to assist him so I have my wife

Jan to help me without thinking to commit myself to the historicity of Robin Crusoe Robinson Crusoe sorry um

I know I know it so what you're saying dr.

Craig you see if you said that your audience all knows that Robinson Crusoe is fiction so are you actually suggesting that Jesus operate on the basis of assuming that his listeners thought that Moses is fiction do you think

Moses is fiction we seem to have

New Testament examples this phenomenon for example June 9 mentions an incident the assumption of Moses and apocryphal work which was never part of the

Jewish canon of scripture that's true there is no question that the inspired writers can make reference to stories that were prevalent in their day no no problem the

Jews recognized that the assumption Moses was not scripture so they would not be confused by it none of that addresses the reality that every single time

Jesus quotes from Moses it is God speaking do

I need to remind you math chapter 22 have you not read what God spoke to you saying and then he quotes from the

Pentateuch that this is God speaking and so much so God speaking that he holds men 1 ,400 years later accountable for God having spoken it to them that's not the same thing as you have with a reference to a popular religious work of the day to make a point first image 3 -8 makes comparison to a couple of characters named in Jewish targums

Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic of traditions which were similarly never part of the Jewish canon yeah but they were names given individuals who well there to a story that takes place in the

Pentateuch are you saying that the story is likewise fictional such comparisons do not commit the authors to the history of the characters or events we may have something similar in Romans 5 7 where Paul says indeed rarely will anyone die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person so might actually dare to die

I do not see that one at all sorry Simon Gather call a finder testament scholar points out that Paul is appealing to a common motive in Greco -Roman culture of someone stepping forward to die in the place of another the most famous example in antiquity was

Alcestis in Euripides play by that name who volunteered to die in the place of her husband King Admetus Alcestis was celebrated for centuries and her name is to be found even in epitaphs on Christian graves

Gather call thinks that Romans 5 7 Paul may actually be thinking of Alcestis he says in effect Alcestis is willing to die for a beloved husband but Christ died for his enemies so saying so saying would not commit

Paul to the historicity of this purely literary figure as if anyone in the audience didn't already know that the the huge chasm here is that Jesus doesn't treat the

Pentateuch and his audience does not treat the Pentateuch or view the Pentateuch as fiction in any case having utterly failed there in any case how can we be sure that the

Old Testament stories are false well that might have been a good place to start several years ago an article caught my about two secular geophysicists who think the flood of Noah could have been a catastrophic local event caused when the

Bosporus Straits which were formally closed opened up causing the Mediterranean Sea to spill through and create what is today the

Black Sea I never cared to look into it because as explained above I just don't think it matters much but maybe something of the sort really happened

Wow what could someone explain to me please please please why someone who thinks that death itself can be defeated in the resurrection thinks that a worldwide flood is such a big deal all right so I'm not convinced that the

Christological consequences you fear are so drastic as you think well I'm sorry John you're not gonna buy this and you shouldn't so I see your specific questions okay it's only this is last last section then we're gonna go the calls

I'm sorry if I reject biblical inerrancy what use is the Bible to me as a Christian more specifically what epistemological referent am

I left with to determine whether certain aspects of my would -be Christian faith are true or untrue response he's given

I'm not advocating that you reject biblical inerrancy but if you do the Bible would be of use to you as a guide to theological truth

Galileo wisely said that God gave us the scriptures tell us how to go to heaven not how the heavens go the great literature of the world shows us that works which are non -historical like the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Dostoevsky or the fables of Aesop have important to teach us it wouldn't follow from the non historicity of certain

Old Testament narratives that God's repository for truth is in effect fundamentally tainted and therefore can't be trusted we know for example that the

Gospels are credible historical sources whatever you think of the early chapters of Genesis just use good principles of biblical interpretation follow the evidence where it leads while retaining an attitude of humility and number two what is your position the other accounts in Genesis besides the creation account as explained

I don't know what to think like you I am baffled by some of them I accept historicity as a sort of default position but I have an open mind

I can live with uncertainty confident in the truth of mere

Christianity it's at reasonable faith org if you're sitting there going no you're making this up no no

I'm today we live in stay we live in and you need to understand the impact this kind of stuff is having collapsing giving into our society giving into the pressures giving into the world yep all over the place all over the place so I see someone in channel going answer the phone you coward yeah well some of you look at some of you been lying for 40 minutes

I better get to you before you fall asleep so let's talk with Josiah I just I'm a doctor why thank you for taking my call mm -hmm

I'm a student at Azusa Pacific University and one of the things I find really strange in the more liberal universities is not so much the dogmatic teachings of the

Catholic Church but more of the deliberation theology and especially with the explosion of like liberal leftism and with social

Marxism on the rise to liberation theology seems to be taking hold of a lot of millennial believers and I just wanted to ask you what do you think is one of the most fundamental problems with liberation theology well obviously if this is simple but it's opposed the

Christian faith I mean it's Marxism in the garb of theology we are seeing the impact of the fact that you have a pontiff in the

Roman Catholic Church who is a liberation theologian at his heart that's what he was most deeply influenced by down there in South America liberation theology has been a central element of the

Roman Catholic experience in South America for many decades now and one of the reasons

I I know I've said this many times to my Roman Catholic friends when when the Vatican gets serious about enforcing

Roman Catholic Orthodoxy then then you can start talking about the papacy to me but look the Vatican has allowed this perspective to grow and now is been infected by it itself fundamentally it you know

Marxism is is a man centered philosophy it does not have room for a transcendent

God and for transcendent law and therefore no matter how much you try to Christian eyes it or try to soften it up it is always going to lead to authoritarian systems that are are fundamentally opposed to biblical principles it's interesting that that while it focuses upon man as an individual it ends up dehumanizing me anything that's against a biblical worldview is going to do that in one way or the other and we are seeing a tremendous rise in Marxism in in the

West it's all over these these are Marxists in our universities who are trying to shut down any and all dialogue debate communication it's it is we live in a day where where people do not realize that this this culture only a matter of 40 50 years ago was in a death struggle with this stuff people even know what those what what

Marxism is anymore and so when you when you have an entire generation the millennial generation that knows next to nothing about world history their own history included then it's very easy to control people who don't know history and so when you come to quote -unquote millennial

Christians when you know I've lamented many times the fact that that when we do not proclaim the whole counsel of God we end up with pews filled with people who are still thinking like the world and trying to make sense out of what's found in scripture and in in that situation you always end up perverting the scriptures to fit the current trend in social thinking rather than examining social thinking and finding it to be inappropriate from a biblical perspective so I you you folks in the in the universities out there is you need to you need to be in a solid if you can find these days a solid church that is going to be constantly grounding you in a

Christian worldview and encouraging you in your faith so that you can you can fight the good fight within that context and do so in such a way you hate you can still learn from liberals you just have to filter the facts from the conclusions you know

I went to a liberal seminary myself and got a good education of course that was that was 35 years ago now

I don't think I could go to that same seminary any longer and survive but you you are facing

I think a much more difficult time than my generation did in trying to be faithful it's going to require radical commitment on your part to the

Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of your life and especially in your academic philosophical studies to not be ashamed of first bowing the knee to him and not bowing the knee to anyone or anything else and how long you even be given the freedom to do that I don't know in some places

I would say right now you don't you don't have that freedom as far as teaching right now in many places there's no question about it all right thank you so much

Dr. White all right God bless thank you all right and just looking at the times here

Johnny hi Johnny I hit air

I'm hitting air can you do it did he's gone no we're all locked out what'd you do the phone system just reset that's exciting it cleared everything

I'm sorry Johnny and Thomas and Jeff please call back and you'll be put to the front of the line if you can get in but evidently according to Rich the entire phone system

I guess that's what I get for not having used it for all this time yeah

I just see the comrex my screen just went blank and it says establishing connection with server and we're not getting well there's always a first for everything

I guess he's gonna try to reset things and sorry

Johnny you had what looked like an interesting question there but now that's even gone off my screen it was about the

Islamic hello oh I thought

I heard something restarting yeah okay I'm hearing various and sundry things in the fact

I'm gonna take this out because it's making strange noises now so let me let me know if when

I can refresh my comrex thing here once it's up and we can try to get back to it

Johnny had a question about the Islamic doctrine of revelation that looked rather intriguing and interesting while we're trying to get the phones back up sorry folks we've never had that happen before up looks like it's logging in here and all the phone lines are ringing one quick comment

I like to make there was a multiple shooting yesterday a guy shooting white people and there is a big discussion online about the fact that he was yelling aloha

Akbar I wish people on Fox News would learn how to say aloha Akbar I really do and I saw a bunch of people online doing the batch that's

Islam again well could you hold off long enough to find out if this if this look put put the shoe on the other foot for just a second if some guy is caught shooting people screaming hallelujah and he has a long history of drug abuse visiting prostitutes and mental instabilities are you going to sit back and go oh

Christianity again oh and are you gonna appreciate that take the time to find out just be patient take the time if is this an individual that makes a serious was was this a person because this has happened don't get me wrong here is that's a person who is seriously attending mosque and was reading and studying and became radicalized and etc etc

I see all that stuff or is he a complete nutjob when you have that other that's a serious thing but you diminish the seriousness of the radicalization the arguments radicalization when you just throw it all out there and say every nutjob that's quote quoted saying aloha

Akbar is the best representative ever had of Islam I mean

I shouldn't have to say that but it makes sense yes I see I see I see yes you can you can put your hands down down rich Johnny hello

Johnny hello Johnny there you are yes I can hear you now brilliant brilliant hey thanks for taking my call and I the short context is

I'm preparing some materials trying to teaching on Islam putting hello hello what happened rich step am

I still there well you you said you were teaching you're preparing materials teach on Islam and then it went silent okay

I can can you hear me now yes I can okay I'm on a skype line maybe that also not playing ball and but so what

I'm doing is I'm putting and we're preparing materials on having on the doctrine of the Word of God from a reformed perspective in conversation with the doctrine of the

Word of God from an Islamic perspective I just want to make sure I'm not missing a step here because I so with a

Muslim's view of God has spoken view of scripture should there be or is there and I'm just unaware of it a kind of a parallel Islamic version of the reformed view of the self -attesting nature of scripture

I mean you know kind of evidence by the scripture providing the conditions of intelligibility and Banton's wonderful the impossibility of the alternative it seems to me that looking at Islamic doctrine there should be a similar form in there but what

I see in Islamic apologetics is often this kind of it knows dives into a poly evidentialist apologetics they're heavy on the history of the text heavy on subjective stuff so is it a consistency issue there or is there actually a difference in the

Islamic theology of revelation that leads them if you like away from a kind of a Islamic Michael Kruger kind of argument and into a much more subjective

I guess I guess I guess I'll dr. Kruger about the Islamic Michael Kruger comments sometime no

I have not encountered what you're referring to I have not encountered a

Muslim argument you're exactly right the vast majority of Muslims to whom you know the materials that I've read certainly amongst those that engage in Dawa is that they do default to a very strongly evidentialist perspective part of this is due to what's called the fitra the idea that because in Islamic theology there is a time when when

God rubbed Adam's back and all of his progeny came forth and stood upon this great plane and a covenant was made with them and they said you are our

Lord and so they they all of mankind has taken a law as Lord and therefore is born upon fitra that is born with an innate knowledge of the existence of a law and then according to the hadith

Mohammed taught that then a person's parents come along and pervert them into a

Christian or a Jew or whatever else they might be and so because of that fitra there would be a a a basis for there being a point of contact that we would identify as the imago deis the image of God but that they would identify as fitra but generally that just very quickly because of the lack of a similar anthropology in regards to doctrine of man and the fallen nature of man so on so forth very quickly just evolved straight into appealing to the unfallen nature of man to recognize what they already know because the fitra and that's basically presentation of all sorts of arguments and and and things like that so they don't they they dodged they get round a they don't have a repression kind of Romans one no

I'm just not anyone that I've encountered now there could be some Sufi you know there could be some non -mainstream expressions especially possibly amongst the

Sufis or something along those lines but I'll confess I don't I don't have a lot of experience in reading Sufi writings that if it would be anywhere it might be along those lines or in some westernized

Muslim philosophical materials but as far as anything in the in the early periods no

I'm not familiar with anything like that at all there is a fundamental difference in our view of inspiration the nature of what scripture is and it's it's rarely addressed in a in a proper fashion but I can't see there's nothing well

I think also the transcendence of a lot the fact you do not have even the possibility of an incarnation does

I think cut out some of the the heart of what we would view as a transcendental argument in the sense of the know ability of God and things like that so it might be a really hard hard path for someone to come up with something like that okay that's that's very helpful there's a whole lot of other attending doctrines that are just not in place to make them such a worldview work well that's very helpful thank you dr.

white I think I know are you in London I know I'm in well I'm in the UK but I'm in the

Midlands Oh Midlands okay I'm not I'm in the furthest point from the sea in every direction well

I was just gonna say we can use everybody we can turning out for the debate on May 15th so well hey we'll bring we'll bring a crew down from from our church up here in the

Midlands sounds good all right thank you Johnny all right thank you all right where you want me to go next all righty and let's talk with Jeff hi

Jeff hi dr. white I am first of all I just want to say I'm really glad you're taking phone calls today

I've been meaning to I've been meaning to ask you this question for a while and it dovetails perfectly with what you're talking about I when

I interact with a lot of Catholics they bring up the

Janice and Jambreeze and and the rock in the desert sort of thing to prove that there was an oral tradition outside of scripture and I've kind of followed dr.

Michael Brown on this question that I don't believe in an oral Torah for reasons that he kind of details specifically like the incident with Josiah where they found the

Torah so if they don't remember what the written Torah is I don't see it very likely that they remember oral

Torah right so I was just wondering based on everything you were saying today because I don't want them because I know an argument saying that you know that the new like Paul is referencing it could be used against us with saying oh he's just using

Adam as figurative and I don't want to go that route but at the same time I don't feel comfortable affirming a

Jewish oral Torah and I just was wondering if you had any thoughts on well again in dealing with Roman Catholicism these are two different these two different issues the

William Lane Craig utilization of this stuff I felt was completely inappropriate because it violates what the author

Jesus the person speaking and his audience would have understood concerning the nature of the

Pentateuch and the writings of Moses they they would they were not functioning on the idea that this could in any way possibly be a fictional situation so that that doesn't follow secondly when the

Roman Catholic is utilizing this type of information what they're trying to say is they're trying to find some way of saying well there's there was revelation that existed outside of what was found in the canon of Scripture and as a result then we can have these things like the bodily assumption of Mary and immaculate conception and papal infallibility and all these things that are defined by Rome as being apostolic but simply are not found in Scripture they're just we can say they came from the

Apostles but they were passed down in an oral in an oral fashion and so there's two different purposes that's going on here that are going the opposite directions because in essence

Craig is diminishing the the body of infallible revelation and they're trying to increase it by putting infallible divine revelation outside of the canon of Scripture I want to be consistent that's my main right right right and so I don't have any problem with the fact that someone writing in the first century can make reference to literary works that existed in that day to make a point that's not what

Jesus was doing that's not how anyone would have understood him to be speaking about Moses and you know

I gave the counterexample Matthew chapter 22 in the same way that doesn't mean that any of the works in which

Janice and Jamborace or the rock or anything that that any of those things are actually containing divine revelation and even the problem is even

Rome doesn't say that because we know many of these works and Rome has never canonized them Rome has always said that these are non -canonical and I just remind people of what

Mitch Pacwa said when I asked him in 1999 our debate on on Sola Scriptura I said

Dr. Pacwa can you identify for us a single place where we have where Rome how did

I put it where Rome has dogmatically defined a single word that Jesus ever said that is not found in the text of Scripture and he sort of looked troubled for a second and so I went well no no any of the

Apostles no no no so Rome will say on the one hand we have this oral tradition but then when you say have you defined a single syllable of it they go no no we haven't and so it becomes this nebulous thing that's totally under the control of the definition of their own magisterium and so no

I don't I think we're being consistent because on the one hand we're saying to William Lane Craig you are are mixing context here and the other people are saying you can make if the if the

New Testament is being written today and reference was made to something that happened in New York Times or something like that that doesn't mean the

New York Times is divine revelation and in between those two extremes you have

I think the consistent position that Christians have had down to the centuries right so if Paul's using midrash it doesn't mean

Paul necessarily views that of course that those events were literal history right and that the

Roman Catholics are especially in a really hard spot to try to make that argument because they themselves reject those written sources as having canonical status even though it's obvious historically books like the

Assumption of Moses and stuff like that have had huge impact upon their own theology well I will the way

I argued with the Catholics would say assuming for a moment that it is historically accurate that we only know it's historically accurate potentially because it was recorded in the

New Testament it's not like we they can't tell us what is and is not historically accurate in Jewish oral tradition exactly can they didn't they can't do that for us so so it doesn't mean tradition can't preserve anything that's true it just means that we just don't know and I just I just think that world

Torah hasn't been preserved for I guess the reasons Michael Brown outlined so anyway

I've always I've always pointed out that that the Korban rule was clearly a part of the oral tradition of the

Jews in the days of Jesus right and yet Jesus held men accountable for examining those things on the basis of what was the common

I usually use mark chapter 7 when they say the Bible doesn't teach soul scripture

Torah but I think if they don't they don't quite get it because I don't think they quite understand Jewish how

Jewish oral tradition works right all right all right thank you sir thank you god bless bye -bye all right where do you just put your put your hands up in the air and go wherever okay let's talk with Jonathan down in the

Holy Land that's you Jonathan oh yes sir yes dr.

White I was meaning to ask you about the doctrine of the Trinity in regards to the mere Christianity movement because how do they define what mere

Christianity is because Hank Anagraff was pointing to the Nicene Creed but William Lane Craig openly rejects the

Nicene Creed I just find it baffling is how do they even come of these definitions even when some of these guys are openly rejecting classical theism and even the classical doctrine of the

Trinity well Hank and William Lane Craig would be defining mere

Christianity in a different way I think the reason that that Hank is emphasizing what he's emphasizing about it now is he wants to try to continue being the

Bible answer man even though his fundamental commitments won't allow him to do that and by and to do that by saying well look

I've always emphasized this this mere Christianity thing well Eastern Orthodoxy does not believe in mere

Christianity in fact I can't think of anything that is more opposite to quote -unquote mere Christianity in light of the fact that real

Orthodox theology sees the liturgy of the church sees the prayers the church the worship of the church as a container of revelation so much so well

I happen to have the Greek Orthodox Catechism sitting right here and there is a question that is here's here's what it says quote the source from which

Christianity draws its truths is the divine revelation namely all which God and his mercy is revealed at different times to man who is incapable of finding it for himself as for those things which

God revealed to man were promulgated either from mouth to mouth or by the written word we say therefore the

Christianity has two sources the oral divine revelation or holy tradition and the written divine revelation or holy scripture usually we call the latter simply the

Bible as being the most important of all books and so to two sources the written and the oral and so if you can't just minimize the the oral down to something that is just a reliable historical tradition or something like that so they really are at odds as far as the utilization of that phrase mere

Christianity they're using utilizing it for different purposes but but I think abusing it in in both directions in my personal opinion okay because it seems to me to be entirely like completely subjective is like depends on which apologist you're talking to and stuff and you know yeah if you don't have a biblical revelation then it is going to become you know what is your mere

Christianity and many for a long time it was the

Trinity deity of Christ the virgin birth death, burial, and resurrection, so on and so forth.

Well now you know William and Mary's like well you know virgin birth you know hey don't don't let that stand in your way you know type of thing how far can you go that that becomes the question and it does become a very subjective thing.

Yeah, Craig rejects both the both the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene Creed.

He thinks the Nicene Creed teaches subordinationism which is just baffling. I'm not aware of that I know that there's he has issues in regards to the will of Christ or wills of Christ I think he's a monothelite or something along those lines

I I'll be honest with you trying to keep up with exactly where he's going on stuff is difficult to to do and not something

I want to invest a lot of time in but I didn't I was unaware of any comments he had made on the

Council of Nicaea if you have any of those in writing and could send them in I'd like to look at them. Actually his

Defenders class that he's been going through lately on his YouTube channel he's

I was a couple months ago he went over the doctrine of the Trinity and he got into Nicaea and he was just openly rejecting because he believes that he doesn't believe in eternal sonship of Christ so he believes that the the persons of the

Trinity are their roles in the economic Trinity were completely you know kind of arbitrary that it in the ontological

Trinity they're just they're completely equal. Hmm okay well

I have listened to the Defenders class when he was going through the doctrine of salvation a number of years ago

I remember riding along the Arizona Canal listening to that at twice speed but probably won't have time to go looking for that but maybe if someone wants to put all that in an mp3 and send it to me maybe

I'll listen to it then but anyways Jonathan got some other folks got to get to you real quick. All right thank you.

All right thank you bye -bye. All right yeah that's what I figured. Michaela.

Michaela. Yes, Michaela. Michaela. Oh it's very nice to be on with you I just want to say

I appreciate your patience but especially guys like St. Janice but now here's the question. The question is this

I've been dealing with a church for some time now who very much so they say stuff like Adam of the

God and and they've dealt with just weird issues like Jesus was created

God wanted to see himself recreated himself and then he created everything else but the question that has come up lately was just this

Resurrection Sunday we were there and he said that Jesus resurrected but when in John 20 17

I believe it is when he says touch me not for I'm not yet ascended to the Father the preacher insinuated that he was in some other form and had to go up to the throne of God first to acquire his body and then he was to come back down show himself to where he needed to and then he was to ascend up later on.

I never ran into this usually everything else I can you know kind of typically see you know the errors or whatever the case but this one is brand new

I don't see that clear in that scripture so my question is have you ever ran into that and if not or if so what do

I do from here because I don't know if I should be staying at this church. Okay so this is this is actually a church that that you're attending?

As a matter of fact I often would get up and speak I turned down eldership three years ago and I would often get up and speak and I currently do the sound and on top of that is my parents church.

Okay well from what you were talking about earlier about Adam being a god and things like that initially

I thought you're talking about the Mormon Church but I've never I've never heard of this mixture of things

I it obviously from how you've described it does not strike me as a as a sound biblical church one way or the other and unless you're going there because mom and dad say you need to I don't know how old you are then obviously

I would highly recommend finding a church that is Orthodox in its in its beliefs because this

I mean I it's very very difficult to even interact with what you're saying because something tells me there's probably far more fundamental issues than just an odd view of Jesus regaining his body or or something but it's really impossible for me to interact with with with something like that because I I don't know anything about the theology of this church it just sounds extremely far removed from anything that would be considered

Orthodox well they came from a pastor who's passed away it was like an off -branch church and they believe in the latter rain movement you know the manifest sons of God movement well and they've been there for a number of years and recently they've been getting more involved in the word and I've been trying to be patient and just kind of deal with those things and just you know be have love and it's a lot of things

I had to learn over the years well I hear you but the church isn't for experimenting in theology we need we need a place to go where we can actually be edified and where we're not having to constantly fight a battle

I mean I I can understand being in in churches that are somewhat sub -biblical because there's just nothing else in your area but are still fully

Orthodox it does not sound to me at all like this is an Orthodox Church at all and my my concern is that trying to bring about Reformation in a true but sub -biblical

Church is one thing trying to be able to bring about Reformation in an unorthodox Church is something completely different and generally not something

I recommend to people because it can be very damaging to you personally so I would definitely be looking for a sound place to go all right thank you very much okay thank you thanks for calling all right all right let's talk with Tim hi

Tim all right Dr. White thanks for taking my call yes sir I appreciate your ministry

I've been blessed by it over the years as well as your your commitment to fitness and cycling and all that well when you get as old as I am you gotta you gotta fight you gotta fight hard so in fact

I don't know if you've ever been out this way I was in Northern California so I was gonna say if you ever find yourself out this way maybe we could do a ride up Mount Diablo or something like that it's no

Mount Evans yeah yeah I've heard there's some tremendous rides in California I just I just try to stay out of socialist countries as much as possible so you don't have to go to Sacramento I promise yeah well we have it did the nuts in Sacramento or control the whole place so anyways your your question

Tim yeah okay my question is about COC so and Rich was asking me about you know what particular view or what time point to give some background

I was part of one of the local churches during college before I you know realized what it was and that's sort of the

Witness We type of movement and so their their view as stated was that God became man in life and nature not in the

Godhead man could become God and my response at the time was that you know

I believe that they were misinterpreting you know second Peter one but is there insight you have on how to confront that that belief or that part of their theology well

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna claim to be an expert on on that group or that movement there was a lot of discussion about their perspectives a number of years ago the open letter that was that was sent out

I did some reading on on that at that time but it's it's been a number of years and and I I hesitate to comment in light of the fact that there's been development since then and things written that I I don't keep up with but at the time my impression was that there was an unwillingness to simply come straight out and answer direct questions about the

Doctrine of the Trinity and the Doctrine of Trinity is is not all that difficult to comprehend and now that difficult to ask specific questions about and and if you can't give straight answers there's probably a reason for it as far as theosis goes the idea of participation in the very nature of God there have been reformed writers like Jonathan Edwards who has been accused basically of having a doctrine of theosis on some level but the the dividing line between a a biblical doctrine of understanding what

Peter's talking about and what union with Christ means and things like that the dividing line always has to be that God is always uncreated and mankind is always created and never ceases to be a creature dependent for his existence upon God himself the idea of a transmutation or change of the very being of man into something other than the redeemed creature is where you go past biblical categories because those biblical categories have already established the creator creation distinction as an absolute given and so depending you know

I don't I don't know what their current views on this are what they mean by it even even early church fathers who spoke of theosis very plainly were monotheists and did not believe that there were little gods being created by this this sanctification process is glorification process so those are those just some of the only thoughts

I could possibly offer you on that particular subject so to sum it up that when it starts getting into the level of assigning immutable attributes of God that cross the line as it were yeah all right thanks

Tim all right I think thank you all right all right let's talk with Chris up in Canada hello

Chris hi dr. white hello are you doing good great a pleasure to be on the air yes sir so my question today has to do with the woes of being a presuppositionalist

I had a conversation with a friend about the flood and the historicity of Adam and Eve and he wasn't convinced that there's any evidence for either of these and basically challenged me to face you know scientific evidence historical evidence that these things never happened and basically

I suspect he would equally doubt the Exodus and other events you know recording the Old Testament he does claim to be a

Christian and with that in mind my question is this as a presuppositionalist how do

I avoid falling into the trap of appealing to historical archaeological and scientific evidence with a fellow

Christian who seems to already affirm the fundamentals of the faith well you're talking when you're talking about presuppositionalism you're first and foremost you're talking about a transcendental argument or something like that you're primarily talking with individuals who are denying the existence of God a person who calls himself a

Christian has already in some way shape or form made a confession that God has spoken and revealed himself so there is right they evidently on some level they accept the concept of revelation that Jesus is at least the revelation of God how they know that well that then takes us to the question of scripture but I mean someone who would take the position that he's taking it struck me when you first were describing him

I thought you were you were clearly talking about a an unbeliever who is a naturalist or something along those lines but then you caught me up when you said well by the way he's a

Christian and I'm like okay well that changes everything because you're no longer seeking to bring this person to a recognition the existence the one true

God evidently this individual believes there is one true God who has in some way revealed himself in Jesus Christ but now you're now you're basically just going to be having to push the antithesis with the inconsistencies of the person's perspective just we're talking about William Lane Craig I'm sorry you know someone says well yeah sure

I I trust Jesus Christ my salvation I just don't have to think that he was right about anything in history

I don't think that I think he had all sorts of false presuppositions or he was just ignorant this out of the other thing you've got to be pushing that antithesis and saying well why do you believe that why what on what on earth would lead you to this this conclusion because there's a there's a gross inconsistency there so it's not you're not talking transcendental arguments in the existence of God here and when if his argument is in fact that there are errors in Scripture see

I I think some presupposition let's get the idea that the only thing they can ever talk about is the subject of the existence of God I mean evidences are you know issues like history are perfectly appropriate things to discuss to be a presuppositionalist just is just simply to recognize when a person is bringing a non -christian worldview to the table in the analysis of that information so it sounds like what this individual is doing is that he has a non -christian worldview and doesn't seem to exist to believe in the existence of the supernatural when it comes to history because if someone says well science says this science can't speak to almost anything in history that's that's that's that's obviously requires a worldview that isn't that isn't even be to start to be logical so I'm not really sure that it's a matter of being a presuppositional apologist so much as it is just recognizing that when someone is bringing a secular worldview in and and trying to put a religious varnish on it that's it's not going to work so okay that makes sense the person's either going to end up just rejecting it all because they're they've made a false profession anyways or hopefully seeing that that they're being extremely inconsistent and if I'm going to be trusting the one who rose from the dead for my salvation then maybe he knows more about what happened in the past than than a group of of historians do right well thank you much

I appreciate it's really helpful okay thanks Chris take care all right let's take one more here and let's talk with John hi

John hi dr. white you have a question about the prosperity gospel that means you're you're gonna be making a big donation the ministry today to get your right leg lengthened is that what's going on yeah

I was having a discussion with a friend a few days ago and I just made it clear that I disagreed with with churches that preach the prosperity gospel and so he he asked me whether or not the prosperity gospel can bring salvation to people if God's elect were to stumble into a prosperity gospel church and hear whatever presentation they have of the gospel can that redeem them to Christ well the two things first of all

I've said many times that God can draw a straight line of the crooked stick so God can use all sorts of sub optimum presentations the problem is the prosperity gospel doesn't present

God as God and man as sinner who is incapable of saving himself many forms the prosperity gospel have the idea that we're we're little gods and that we create our own reality and I we speak reality into existence and there's really you know

Jesus go is born again in hell and all the rest is absurd stuff that is more

New Age wacko ism than it is anything else and so the real the real the real question is what's the absolute minimum level of of gospel truth and and and what's the minimum level of appropriate context you know when you if you if you're presenting a

Jesus to someone who is just mainly there to make your life easier and to provide you with the things you want and things like that that's that's how is that really any different from the

Mormon Jesus who's just simply you know the spirit brother of Lucifer and one God amongst many gods so there those are all the issues that have to come in to answer the question you'd have to know what context is being presented how much truth is being presented and in my experience in the vast majority of these word -faith contexts there's there's not enough gospel there to bring about any type of of redemption what's whatsoever so but that's you know that that's going to differ from from context to context it's so it's hard to answer with in black -and -white fashion all right yeah

I think that was helpful yeah thank you so much okay thanks John thanks for holding on yeah appreciate it thanks bye -bye yep all right what's wrong you look you're acting like you're the one doing all the work in there well

I'll tell you man that's never happened before yeah well you don't it's probably so much dust built up on the system

I'm sorry yeah cobwebs had to blow up blow the cobwebs off they started working yeah so go ahead and blame me that's every everybody does everybody okay everybody blames me for everything anyways

I'm pretty much accustomed to it hey thanks for listening today that was a mega size dividing line

I don't even I don't even know how to begin to describe this one I'm just gonna say lots and lots and lots of stuff and just let leave it that cuz

I how do you how do you describe all that we talked about religious stuff yeah yeah we did we talked about religious stuff so that's how we'll describe it thanks for watching hey pray for the debate