Chris Pinto and Radio Free Geneva

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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

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

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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line on a Thursday morning, doing it a different time than normal, but that's because we've got things to do this weekend and we're going to dive right into it.

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And I want to respond to one of the most, one of the weirdest things

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I've ever been directed to. We're going to talk about two topics and then the last half of the program we're going to, we're actually going to fire up Radio Free Geneva and get back to Dr.

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Wall's comments on Calvinism. So get a deep seat in the saddle, a lot to cover today.

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But I wanted to respond to Chris Pinto. We did one little section last week where I mentioned that I had run across a controversy.

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Somebody just dropped me a line, said, have you seen this? And it was something going back and forth between Pinto and somebody else.

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Like I said, I'd never even heard of Chris Pinto until just recently. Evidently, he's in the

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TR only, King James only type camp and has produced a video dragging back up old accusations, specifically the

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Codex Sinaiticus is a Jesuit conspiracy. And I guess Vaticanus is too.

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And I guess logically, every early papyri is also a fraudulent

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Jesuit thing as well. It would have to be, but we'll get into that later anyway. So last week,

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I just, what I found really odd was that someone pointed out that Chris Pinto has used

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William Schnabel and as a source in some of his videos. And I said, this concerns me because it's pretty obvious.

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We played some comments from William Schnabel and that this is not kind of source you should be responding or relying upon.

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It's not a solid, solid source, et cetera, et cetera. That's pretty much all that's been said.

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I mean, Chris Rosebaugh is the one who contacted me, said, would you be willing to do this program with this Chris Pinto guy?

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Respond to his allegations, the Sinaiticus is a Jesuit forgery, et cetera, et cetera. I said, well,

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I can't right now. I've got South Africa coming up. By the way, good news for a while there, it looked like Shabir Ali was not going to be able to be involved in the debates in South Africa, but he's redoubled his efforts.

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Looks like he's going to be making it now. So we've got lots of debates to do.

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And I think having a trip where I'm going to be doing, Lord willing, two unbelievable radio broadcasts, at least one, possibly two, and maybe if Justin can get to me early enough next week and confirm the possibility of the second one, both of those will be really important programs.

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I mean, debate level type programs. I remember the last time I was on Unbelievable was with N .T. Wright. So he does,

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Justin does have the ability of getting some big names for some big topics. And I really appreciate that.

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And of course, I appreciate the fact that I know that Justin Briarley does not agree with me in many areas, and yet he really likes to have me on.

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So you got to give him credit along those lines as well. Anyways, and then in South Africa, Bashir Vania, Yusuf Ismail, and Shabir Ali.

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That's a pretty decent lineup, let me tell you. So let me just mention, we're almost there, not quite, in raising the funds we need to get to South Africa.

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So please help us in this way if you want to see these debates take place all around the world.

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And of course, they then become available on YouTube and people all around the world watch these things.

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And the Lord really blesses. So please help us to get there. So I've got that coming up.

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And so I said to Chris, I said, yeah, I can't do it right now. Maybe once I get back from South Africa, get some work done on the book that I'm doing with Shabir Ali, et cetera, et cetera, we can think about doing something like this.

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But at the same time, I sort of thought, well, hopefully it'll be some type of a scholarly exchange so that I can sort of tie some of that preparation in textual critically and historically with my preparations for teaching church history in Kiev in February.

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You know, I've got to try to have some kind of direction in the time that I'm spending and things like that.

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So my concern was that after hearing some of this

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William Schnabel and stuff, that, you know, if Chris Pinto doesn't have the discernment to recognize that this is probably not the direction to be going, that the conversation might end up being more like we had with with Gail Riplinger than with Jack Mormon, let's put it that way.

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You know, at least Jack Mormon and I had a decent conversation. But I'm not sure that's after listening to this, that's going to be a reality or not.

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So anyways, that's pretty much all that's happened. I mean, what you're about to listen to is going to give you a very, very different idea than that.

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But that's pretty much been the entirety of the attention that I've had to focus upon any of that kind of thing.

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So yesterday, Alan Kirshner comes in the channel. Now, Alan is one of my bloggers. Alan does not work for Alpha Omega Ministries.

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Alan was on the program a number of years ago. He and I did an entire hour on the textual variant in Luke chapter 23.

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Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. I have mentioned Alan, for example, in the second edition of the

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King James Only Controversy. He is a graduate of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

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And Alan will tell you, I didn't ask him this beforehand. I didn't say

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I was going to say this. But Alan will tell you that years ago, when he told me in channel that he was going to Gordon Conwell, I private messaged him.

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And I basically said, if you become a liberal heretic, I will beat you to death. And in essence,

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I said, look, I'll pray for you, brother, that you stay strong in the midst of what

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I knew he was going to be going through. Because even though Gordon Conwell is considerably more conservative than Fuller Theological Seminary is,

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I'm a Fuller grad, for crying out loud. And so I know what it's like to do theological education in the context of warfare, of having to fight the fight.

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And it can be discouraging at times, but I know I'm awfully thankful that that's what the

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Lord had me do, because I cannot tell you how many times in my ministry since then I have been in the in the best position to respond to the claims of liberalism because been there, done that, got the t -shirt.

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Those are the books I had to read. Those are the professors I had. I had to fight that fight before.

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So anyway, he'll tell you that I told him that. I said, I'll be praying for you.

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Don't you dare get, you know, liberal on me. And so anyway, obviously, he did some pretty high level classes.

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And in the process, some, Gordon Conwell did some, you know, various schools will cooperate with other schools and offer classes where you can take them for credit in either program and things like that.

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And so he took some classes from Eldon Epp. Eldon Epp is a big name in textual criticism in the

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United States. Now, I guess what Mr.

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Pinto does not seem to understand is that you can learn from liberals. Once you learn what their presuppositions are, they are frequently very good on facts, just not really good on conclusions.

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They can be very careful scholars, but it's the worldview that you filter that stuff through that makes all the difference.

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And so, you know, I learned a tremendous amount from men in seminary who are not nearly as conservative as I am.

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And I came out a stronger Christian as a result. Now, Eldon Epp is a big name. I mean, other than probably in the

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United States, amongst conservatives, Dan Wallace would be the biggest name. But amongst others, it would be

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Eldon Epp and Bart Ehrman. So he took classes and, in fact, even wrote against some of Epp's positions in his research papers.

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And that's a tremendous opportunity to have. And that gives a person an even greater opportunity to comment on their claims that you know where they're coming from.

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You can argue better against them, etc., etc. So anyway, Alan comes into the channel yesterday and says,

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I can't believe this. And he drops a URL to one of the most recent

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Chris Pinto programs, and he says, listen from such and such a point to such and such a point.

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So I did. And we're going to listen. And again, what this tells me is that the person who is into conspiracy theories struggles to think in a proper fashion.

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They make connections that the rest of us don't make. Not because we're too blind to see them, but because we recognize that the cause and effect issue needs to be taken into consideration.

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For example, it'd be very easy to point out that I went to Fuller Seminary, and it'd be very easy to say that Mel White is associated with Fuller Seminary, and therefore it'd be really easy to say that I must have been influenced by pro -homosexual propaganda.

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Now ask any one of the people that I've debated on homosexuality, they'll go, you're nuts! He's a conservative homophobe, etc.,

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etc. But you see, the conspiracy thinker will just throw out connections and allow fellow conspiracy thinkers to come up with, to let them think that they made the connections themselves.

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They won't actually prove anything, because they know they can't prove that there's an actual cause -effect, there's an actual influence, etc.,

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etc. They just throw it out there knowing that the people that are sending them the money to keep them on the air are going to make the connections themselves and go, oh, that's great, ooh, wow.

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And so unfortunately, for example, we're going to hear that I've worked for the

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Lockman Foundation, which is true, as a critical consultant in the New American Standard Bible. Well, the Lockman Foundation allegedly, I certainly,

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I haven't even taken the time to verify this one way or the other because it is irrelevant to any rationally thinking person.

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Anyways, we're going to hear that the Lockman Foundation was founded by a Freemason. Now why throw that out there?

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Because you know that your people are going to go, ooh, oh, that's bad.

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That's bad. Now, does that mean something about what I did, textual critically, with the

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Lockman Foundation? No, but you just throw it out there, and people who think that way go, that's bad, you see.

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And you're going to hear a bunch of this stuff just thrown out there, some of which is just absolutely absurdly ridiculous, and then others just laughably ridiculous.

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So I'm not sure which one of those is worse. So here's

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Chris Pinto, and let's listen to what he has to say. But before we go into that,

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I want to respond briefly to some comments that I've gotten from you all about Dr.

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James White and comments that he is making on his radio program. Very interesting.

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Apparently there's a whole flurry of activity that's going on over there. Now there he says, over there.

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So I guess one segment talking about William Schnabel is the flurry of activity over there.

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Now he's going to talk about interactions that Alan has had with all sorts of other folks. One of the things I need to mention, Alan and I do not see eye to eye on many things, particularly eschatology.

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That's Alan's big thing. I mean, his ministry is called Eschatos Ministries, and he's into all sorts of eschatological stuff in regards to a premillennial perspective.

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You know, pre -wrath, post -wrath, I don't even keep up with all that stuff. I'm not a premillennialist,

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I'm an amillennialist, and all of you know I don't argue eschatology. I'm going to try to read

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Sam Storm's new book on amillennialism. Notice I said try. To be perfectly honest with you, it's like 10 hours long on my iPod, and I just don't know if I'm going to get through it.

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But I'm going to try, because I need to. But it's just not my field. It's just, you know, he's passionate about it, and I'm as unpassionate about it as you can get.

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So there's all these differences, but those differences, and I have other people on the blog team that are very different from me.

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I mean, Turretin Pham is obviously a Presbyterian. I'm not. I mean, we could have a long, lengthy debate about infant baptism on the blog,

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I suppose, if we wanted to. But the idea that because someone works with someone else, there must be unanimity of opinions and viewpoints is one of the major failures of the conspiracy theorist mindset.

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You know, like, ooh, Lachlan Foundation, ooh, Masons, ooh, James White, you just put them all together as if, can you document and prove any type of influence, any type of result of that?

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Well, no, but it's still there, see? And the conspiracy theorist loves it, just loves it.

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So notice it said over there, I guess that means on this program, there's a flurry of activity.

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No, there's not. I did one thing about Bill. It was primarily about Bill Schnabelin. What else is there other than what we're doing right now, which is responding to this amazing segment on Pinto's program.

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With his supporters in preparation for the upcoming debate in December.

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Now we got... That debate is a radio program with Chris Rosbaugh on Pirate Christian Radio, by the way.

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An email from one of our supporters named Darlene.

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Now this I found really, well, I guess the term is reprehensible. What he's going to do is he's going to let

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Darlene make these outlandish and absurd accusations. And then when I go, well, that's dumb.

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Well, I was just reading an email. If you're going to make the accusation, Mr. Pinto, just make them directly. That way you actually have to prove the point and you actually have to be responsible for it.

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So I found that to be, you know, I'm playing his actual comments. The funny thing is he never quotes me in any of this.

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Never responds to anything I said about Bill Schnabel and nothing like that. It's just all innuendo.

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And well, you know, Darlene says this. And it's just, you know, we still end up with my white army and my little elves and all sorts of stuff.

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It's just amazing. Who was talking about the connections there, because apparently some of you will remember that I did two shows several months back about a guy named

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Alan Kirshner. Alan Kirshner, the guy who said on his website that he, quote, he could be a homosexual

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Jesuit. Now here is what

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Alan said. Pinto had said,

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Alan Kirshner, Harvard divinity dupe. That's how he started. Harvard divinity dupe, because he took some classes there.

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So I guess I'd be a Fuller Seminary dupe. If you take any classes anywhere with someone you disagree with, that makes you a dupe.

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And he goes on and says, the foundation of his argument seems to be that because of his education from Harvard Divinity School, he presents an educated view of the subject and should not be questioned.

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But can Harvard University today still be considered an authoritative source for serious theological studies? Are most Christians aware that homosexual marriage was promoted by the leading figure of the

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Divinity School, Peter Gomes, the man known as Harvard's pastor? And has Mr. Kirshner's education really taught him anything insightful about the topics of the film?

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Or has he simply embarrassed himself by speaking about things he failed to properly investigate? To which Alan responded in one line, well,

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I could be a closet homosexual Jesuit. And then he goes on to say, Chris Pinto responded to my post, and I wrote this past week on his documentary film, et cetera, et cetera.

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Even Pinto's going to say he was joking. The point is, any type of accusation of conspiracy, when you don't have to prove anything, is easy to make.

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It's easy to make. It's much harder to prove. And serious -minded people don't make accusations until they can prove those accusations.

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They'll just throw them out there and then just let them hang in the air and let less serious -minded people run with it at that point.

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That's the difference. This guy, Kirshner, whose claim to fame is that he went to the

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Harvard Divinity School. That's never what Alan has claimed for himself. Talk about claim to fame, he doesn't make a claim to fame.

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His degree is from Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary, not Harvard Divinity School. He took some classes there under Eldon Epp, and that's it.

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And I believe Mr. Pinto knows all this. If he does, then it's reprehensible for him to misrepresent Alan in this way.

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Where they teach homosexual Christianity. Was that taught in Eldon Epp's classes?

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Was that even discussed in Textual Critical classes? I mean,

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I have a Master of Arts degree in Theology with honors from Fuller Theological Seminary, and I can guarantee you there were things being taught in the main campus ethics classes at Fuller that I never heard in my classes in the

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Phoenix Extension campus. I never heard them. So, should I be responsible for those things? Now, by the way, I did take an ethics class, and the professor came from the seminary, flew out from California to Phoenix, and at one point during that class, he came out from behind the podium, came out into the classroom, sat down in one of the student desks, turned it toward me,

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I turned toward him. The class surrounded us with their desks, and we debated abortion because he was for it and I was against it.

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And I can't tell you how many times I got to give testimony to the truth in Fuller Seminary because I was the only one who believed it, or at least

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I was the only one who defended it. I remember very clearly in a New Testament Introduction class that after the professor talked about why

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Fuller had abandoned inerrancy, I put my hand up and said, you know, I often feel like Fuller's token fundamentalist, but this is why

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I still believe in it. And back then, I was given an opportunity to do that.

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I don't know that I'd had that opportunity in Fuller any longer, but this was the 1980s, and I was allowed to give my defense.

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And after that class broke up for a break, a third of the class surrounded me in the hallway and thanked me for saying what they had been afraid to say.

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Now, I don't think Mr. Pinto has been in any of those situations, and I don't think he has asked

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Mr. Kirshner if he had the opportunity of doing similar things, which Alan testifies that he has had the opportunity of doing those things.

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But you see, for the conspiracy -minded person, the evil world always must influence the

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Church. The Church can never be salt and light. If you go to a bad seminary in the sense of theologically to your left, then you just must have been destroyed by it.

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You couldn't have had any positive—you couldn't stand for the truth there. Doesn't even seem to give that a second thought.

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And this was under the heavy influence of Peter Gomes, Gomes who had written his book—

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What evidence does he have that Alan Kirshner was under any influence from Peter Gomes at all? I'd just be wondering.

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About the Bible and homosexuality, it was called The Good Book, and Gomes was actually the professor of Christian morality there.

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And Gomes himself, during his time at Harvard, he's since passed away.

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Let me, because time is—I'm going to 1 .2, so I'm picking it up.

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But while he was still alive, he came out and openly admitted at one point that he himself was homosexual, and he taught homosexual

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Christianity, taught that Jesus would approve of homosexual marriage and so on. And this is the institution, the

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Divinity School now, not just Harvard University, but the Divinity School itself was teaching homosexual

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Christianity before and during the time that Mr.

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Alan Kirshner sought out his education in textual criticism in particular. So if you go to Gordon -Conwell, but you take classes that'll count for both over at Harvard, that means you buy everything that's being taught at Harvard.

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That is absurd. That is not rational thought. That is not rational thought. That's seeing connections that are not there.

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We all recognize that. At least we should recognize that. If you can't see that, then you're not thinking well.

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And that's unfortunately something we have seen over and over and over again in the King James Only movement. Have we not?

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Remember about two years ago when we had that fellow on, called in—what was his name ?—where he had put out this whole long webcast about how

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I had lied in my book, and then when I pointed out to him the footnotes said everything he said I'd lied about, and then he was wrong.

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His response was just this utterly irrational explosion. Remember that? What was that guy's name? I've forgotten what the guy's name was.

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Anyways, this is part and parcel of this mindset, unfortunately. We've seen it over and over and over again.

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It's a shame. From this institution and this environment, this is where he went to learn about New Testament textual criticism.

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Well, then we find out not only does he have his own website, but he regularly contributes to the

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Alpha and Omega website of James White. I wish he more often contributed.

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Will Kinney, thank you very much, was the name. I wish that Alan would write more often for me, because it would be very helpful.

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All my blog guys are very, very busy. But then we discover that in James White's second edition of his

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King James only controversy, his book, the second edition, he says in his acknowledgments, he says, quote,

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And Alan Kirshner provided invaluable resources and suggestions from his own knowledge of the textual critical field.

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Which was demonstrated very clearly when we had Alan on the program to discuss the textual history of the variant in Luke chapter 23 in regards to Jesus' words from the cross,

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Father, forgive them if they know not what they do. His own knowledge of the textual critical field, knowledge that he obtained at Harvard's Homosexual Divinity School.

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Harvard's Homosexual Divinity School. That's absurd. That is reprehensible. It's dishonest. It is meant only to impress the weak -minded, okay?

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That's just silly. It's irresponsible. No effort has been made whatsoever to demonstrate that in the classes that Alan took that crossed over that were at Harvard but were part of his program at Gordon College, no evidence has been even offered or suggested that those classes had anything to do with the promotion of homosexuality or anything like it.

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This is reprehensible, irresponsible behavior on Mr. Pinto's part. Just all there is to it.

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Just all there is to it. It's indefensible. It's indefensible. Now, we're not saying, we're not saying, obviously, that Dr.

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White is pushing homosexual Christianity. Well then, what are you saying? What are you saying?

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I mean, it would be pretty absurd. Everybody knows how strongly I have stood. You know,

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Barry Lynn, John Shelby Spong, Justin Lee, I've written books on the subject.

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But what are you saying? Well, obviously, that I lack the critical understanding that I shouldn't be listening to what

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Alan Kirshner says because Alan Kirshner has been utterly compromised by going to Harvard. And what's the assumption of that?

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That anybody who goes to Harvard can't think for themselves. The influence can only go one direction.

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You can't go to one of these places, know what you're going to be up against, and come out still believing. That's the assumption. It is false.

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It's a false assumption. You've just got to take the arguments apart, see what they're based upon.

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Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists don't function in that way. We're not saying that at all because we know that he speaks against it.

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Nevertheless, he is working with a guy who sought out a very strange education to learn about New Testament textual criticism, in our opinion.

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Well, your opinion is worth exactly what your opinion is worth. And since you haven't even admitted and been honest enough to say that Alan's work was done at Gordon -Conwell,

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I will just give that opinion the amount of weight that it's due. And a guy who jokingly says of himself that he might be a homosexual

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Jesuit. Which was said in response to your calling him a Harvard divinity dupe. Which one was meant to be serious?

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On his website. Which I find to be a very bizarre comment in any context whatsoever.

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Okay, now we're seeing here, because I didn't know who this guy Kirshner was. I had no clue. I just find out that he's attacking me, and then he had been attacking...

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So you need to understand something about conspiracy theorists. Any response to them, even if they have insulted you and thrown out all this stuff about you, if you respond, you are attacking them.

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This is, again, just common, you see it on the internet all the time, projection upon your opponents of your own activities.

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It is just the way things are. Jimmy DeYoung and Brannon House over at Worldview Weekend.

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Now I don't know what the argument is between Alan and these guys. It has something to do with eschatology, and that's why

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I don't care. Okay? Don't even know what the issues are, don't care what the issues are.

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It's in a realm outside of my interest, and it's in a realm outside of my conviction.

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I'm an amillennialist. None of them are, so I'll let them fight it out, but it has zippity -doo -dah whatsoever to do with me.

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You'll notice Alan has put nothing on Alpha Omega's website about any of the disagreements he has on eschatological issues, because he knows, he's respectful of the fact that Alpha Omega doesn't promote a particular eschatological viewpoint.

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We have historic premillennialists, and we have amillennialists and postmillennialists. Yes? We'd probably make a lot more money if we did.

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Maybe. Yeah, amillennialists aren't the biggest... We could steal a bunch of his followers. Yeah. Anyway, but notice, no connection there at all.

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And he was just general attacks at Worldview Weekend overall. But here's what Darlene says. Darlene says...

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Ah, now let's let Darlene do our slander and libel here, okay?

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Let's let Darlene throw it out there. This. She's talking about all this flurry of activity going on over there, and she says, if I recall,

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Alan Kirshner, who works with James White, did a broadcast mocking and attacking Jimmy de Young and Brannon House.

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Then, Alan Kirshner, who works with James White... Notice the repetition. I mean, he knows

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James White, and he's written articles for his website, and therefore, they're all just in it together.

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This mindset is, it's sad to observe, but it is unfortunately extremely prevalent.

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Did some blogging mocking and attacking John Whitcomb for saying infants go to heaven if they die.

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So this is... Now, listen to the quote that... Finally, a quote's going to be given.

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I think it's the only quote in the whole thing. But a quote's going to be given. Listen to what the quote ends up being.

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It's fascinating. One of the things that this guy Kirshner has done, in fact, he wrote an article on this where he said about Whitcomb, he said that, he said, quote,

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I hope that he agrees that all babies and children are deserving of wrath, meaning

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God's wrath. Okay. There's the quote. You disagree?

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So you're a Pelagian? You believe that children are born without a sin nature?

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They're not fallen? So you're a Pelagian? Is that what you're saying? I mean, that's all

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Alan said. You've got to deal with the reality that death comes to children, and death is the result of sin.

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You've got to deal with that. Now people come up with different ways of dealing with that, but you've got to deal with it.

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That's a fact. And so if you say something like this for these folks, you can't even say that.

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You're attacking somebody. See, it's attack, attack, attack, attack. If you disagree, attack, attack, attack, attack.

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The irrationality of this entire perspective is amazing. Apparently disagreeing with Dr.

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Whitcomb's assertion that if an infant dies, it will go to heaven. He or she will go to heaven.

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And of course, we certainly agree with that view. We look to the example of King David when his child with Bathsheba died at six months old.

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David says, I will go to him, but he will not return unto me. Where is David going? He says, well, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the

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Lord forever. That's not even very good exegesis itself. I mean, when it says, I will go to him, he will not go to me, it means he's going to the realm of the dead.

32:24

That's trying to read way too much. That's a very surface level type of exegesis in and of itself.

32:31

But the whole point is, everybody, if they're serious anyways, has to deal with the reality of on what basis can mercy and grace be extended to the fallen children of Adam, if you believe in the federal headship of Adam?

32:46

Now, Pelagians just reject it. We've talked about this recently when we responded to some stuff in the

32:51

Southern Baptist Convention on this subject. Not going to get into it today, but this is a very surface level response, and it's always a bad man because he disagrees with us.

33:00

Seen it many, many times before. Praise the Lord. The context of when

33:06

Jesus says, let the little children come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven, for of such is the kingdom of heaven, that is the

33:13

Lord Jesus Christ referring to infants, specifically. So that somehow proves something about infant salvation.

33:20

Again, bad exegesis. Really bad exegesis. It's talking about the kind of faith that a person is to have, the faith of a child, trying to make application beyond this, ignore the federal headship of Adam, stuff like that.

33:34

Not good presentation. Mr. Kirshner apparently has failed to consider the whole counsel of God, but now this is a guy making fun of the idea, apparently, of infants going to heaven.

33:45

All he said was, will you agree that infants and children are under the wrath of God, yes or no?

33:52

That's going to tell everybody, whether you believe in federal headship, whether you believe in original sin, whether you believe in total depravity, etc.,

34:00

etc. That's the question. Misunderstanding the question is not the same thing as attacking somebody or mocking somebody.

34:06

If they die. And then Darlene says, then Alan Kirshner started mocking and attacking

34:12

Chris Pinto over everything Pinto has ever done. Yep.

34:18

Yep. I'm sure we can find some place on Alan's website where he attacks Chris Pinto for walking across the street, for hitting a baseball with a baseball bat.

34:26

I mean, come on. Give me a break. Most especially his research on Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Actually Alan has responded.

34:34

But you see, in this mindset, in the Darlene world mindset, if you respond, you're attacking.

34:39

If you don't agree with us, and if you respond to that, then you're not attacking because you're on our side. The double standard is amazing.

34:46

She says, then James White, who works for the Lachman Foundation, founded by a Freemason and the writers and creators of the

34:53

NASB. Then again, really? News to me.

34:59

You want to try to demonstrate that there's something relevant here? Let's say the

35:05

Lachman Foundation was founded by a Freemason. You want to demonstrate, want to bring forth some evidence, reason logically, reason rationally, that something that was completely unknown to me has anything to do with any of the work

35:19

I've done. You want to try to do that? They can't do it. And they know they can't do it. And the whole conspiracy mindset functions on never getting any deeper than the absolute surface level, because there's nothing below the surface level.

35:35

There's no consistency. There's no essence whatsoever to the argumentation.

35:41

Joined Alan Kirshner in his mocking and attacking of Chris Pinto. When did

35:46

I mock Chris Pinto? Remember, this is before today. I mean, I suppose you could say I have now, because there's some pretty amazing things here.

35:54

But in the program before, we were talking about what? William Schnabel. And we were saying, you know, it's very troubling that anyone would use him as a source.

36:01

So that becomes mocking and attacking. See? Any response, any criticism, you're mocking, you're attacking.

36:09

But you can talk about Harvard Homosexual Divinity School, you can bring up any type of irrelevant thing and throw it out there specifically for the purpose of making comments about someone's character or belief.

36:21

That's not mocking or attacking. Double standard. And then she says, now a whole host of people have joined the white army in mocking and attacking mainly

36:31

Pinto and House. Who? What white army? How am I supposed to pay these people?

36:37

The white army. You just have to, you just have to.

36:46

I mean, these folks see their enemies behind every bush. It must be a scary life when you're a conspiratorialist.

36:56

Do you know where the white army is? Do we have a, you know, are we paying folks I don't know about?

37:03

It's news to me. It really is. I didn't know. Although I will say, I think they left one thing out, and it's very important that they should know about this, and that is that we live in Phoenix.

37:14

And everybody knows about the Phoenix Lights, right? And Arizona borders the state that has

37:20

Area 51. We're influenced by the aliens too. You know, unfortunately you just convinced at least three people in the audience of the truthfulness of that statement.

37:32

The white army, yes, the white army, which is based out of Area 51 and trained by Jesuits at Harvard.

37:40

There we go. In an apparent effort to tear them down in order to help Dr. White look better for his upcoming debate with Pinto.

37:47

There you go. There you go. I mean, and now we're going to get into the real reason for this accusation.

37:53

What we're going to hear is that this is all about the debate in December, okay?

37:59

And I'm needing to make myself look good. Yeah, yeah, you didn't even know about it, did you?

38:06

Just before the program, I played this thing. I played this for Rich, and I come walking in.

38:12

I'd gone to get a drink of water or something like that, and I came walking in and he goes, I'm looking at the calendar.

38:18

I don't have anything about a debate. What are you talking about? I had to tell him, oh, Chris Rosebaud's on the program, and we're going to discuss the

38:25

Sinaiticus stuff. And he said, oh, I didn't even know about it. So if you're in charge of the army,

38:31

I mean, I don't know.

38:38

People think we're just this huge, massive organization. It's just you and me sitting here.

38:45

That's it. You know, that's all there is to it. I think it's great that people think we have all this influence.

38:52

That's great. That's wonderful. Apparently, Chris Pinto is such a big threat to Dr. White that he needs an army of elves to prepare for the battle.

39:00

An army of elves. Now, I'm really hoping, I am really hoping we're talking here the elves from Lord of the

39:11

Rings, not the elves from cartoons and stuff. You know, they're these little bit of nothing, because the elves in the

39:17

Lord of the Rings, let me tell you, like Legolas and stuff, those guys, they are hardcore.

39:23

Okay. I mean, have you seen that guy shoot an arrow? Wow. So, I have an army of elves and minions and an army of white elves, evidently, must be the way it is.

39:44

And I need this because I am so nervous about a debate I haven't hardly even given thought to yet.

39:51

I mean, I'm going to South Africa and doing multiple debates with leading

39:56

Islamic apologists. And that's easy. But man, that Chris Pinto, dude,

40:02

I am so worried. I've got to get people together. Chris Pinto should be laughing right now at this.

40:10

He should be saying, Darlene, honey, you don't know what you're talking about. You got no clue as to where you're going here.

40:17

That's what he should be doing. Instead, he's using her to actually make the accusations for himself and everybody can see it.

40:23

And that's scary. End quote, our friend Darlene. All right. So, this is just some of the buzz that's going on out there.

40:31

These are the kind of comments that we are receiving from people. We're talking about things happening on the web with Dr.

40:39

White's ministry. Supposedly, all of this is... Now, remember, this is all about one segment that was focused on Bill Schnabel.

40:47

That's all there is. And they've made the connection to whatever Alan and these other guys' house. I think it's

40:52

H -O -W -S -E. I don't even... Again, it's all eschatological stuff, has nothing to do with me at all.

40:58

It's all been thrown into one big thing is, oh, look, oh, look. I mean, category errors, right, left and center.

41:05

And that's what conspiratorialists are all about. In preparation for the upcoming debate in December. Now, I've got to be honest with you.

41:11

Before any of these comments came along, before I ever heard anything out of Dr. White himself, there were...

41:18

Okay. Now, Lane's telling me in chat, it's Chris Rose -bro. I mean, that sounds stupid.

41:24

Hey, Rose -bro. I think it was Rose -ba. It should be Rose -bra. Rose -bro.

41:31

Big deal. It's... The guy's a pirate. Arr, Rose -bra.

41:38

That's how you should say it. That's a bunch of... Nuts in the channel. There were those who told me this was going to happen.

41:44

And I did not believe him. I kind of brushed it off. Now, did you catch that? Now, now he's... You know, people told me he was going to be like this.

41:51

Told me he was going to attack me first. There were those who told me this was going to happen. And I did not believe him.

41:57

I kind of brushed it off. I thought, no, come on. It just sounds almost juvenile. Juvenile.

42:02

The suggestion that James... Yeah. Now, this is a guy who's just read somebody else's loony email.

42:08

With conspiracy theory silliness. And what

42:14

I did, and by the way, never once quoted me, didn't respond to stuff about what

42:19

I actually said. My concerns about quoting a guy who claims to be a vampire, who have been a vampire. Remember, he even said that he could live off the blood of his coven.

42:28

And since he did the mass each day, he could live off that. So he actually believes that transubstantiation works.

42:34

You would think, if I was completely off, that you'd actually respond to what I said. Conspiratorialists never respond to what you say.

42:42

They respond to what they can hopefully make their followers think you meant. Not what you actually say.

42:50

That's one of the major, major differences. ...White would deliberately engage in attacks before he gets to a debate, even though I was told that this was his tactic.

43:01

I honestly did not believe it. Now... And now I can only wonder. Now I can only wonder from what?

43:09

No quotes about what I said about Shenabalin, no response to what I actually said. Instead, what you do is you throw all this conspiracy stuff out, and then you hope that your listeners are all on board with you, and they'll believe whatever you say.

43:21

I can only wonder exactly what's going on. But I have found the whole thing to be very, very strange and bizarre.

43:27

I continue to find it to be strange and bizarre. But we will keep going. We're going to trust the Lord one day at a time. And we will press on.

43:35

Praise the Lord. There you go. That was it. That was the entirety of that section.

43:45

My concern that I expressed last week has only become all the stronger. There is absolutely no...

43:55

Well, let me take it back. There was a use in debating Gail Riplinger. Because you never debate anyone ever again.

44:03

There is a reason in demonstrating the utter lack of rational thought processes inherent in Gail Riplinger's behavior.

44:16

That was okay. That was good. But as far as actually dealing with serious issues, there's no reason to debate someone like a

44:28

Gail Riplinger. Because remember, I point out to her the inconsistency of having her acrostic algebra.

44:39

Throughout her book, she talked about the NASB. But in acrostic algebra, she used NASV to make her acrostic algebra work.

44:47

And when I asked her about that, what was her response? Well, that's what the Lord calls it. The Lord calls it the

44:53

NASV. Now, you can't reason with someone like that. You know, where did you get acrostic algebra?

44:58

The Lord gave it to me. Well, there you go. I mean, there's your ultimate authority. The Lord gave it to me. There's no reasoning with someone like that.

45:06

And conspiracy theorists are not constrained by the rational use of logic and fact.

45:13

They have their conclusion, and then they'll do with the facts what they need to do with the facts. And so I'm concerned that this encounter in December is not going to be a meaningful discussion of the textual interrelationship between Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, P75, P66, the earlier papyri, the number of different hands that were involved in the production of Sinaiticus, the number of different hands over the years that were involved in the modification of Sinaiticus, the things that it should be focused upon, which would demonstrate the reality of the existence of the manuscript in the fourth century.

45:53

It's going to be this kind of stuff. Well, you know, the Jesuits have used it for this, and they've used it for that, and if you don't really believe that the

46:01

Bible is King James Version of the Word of God, and, you know,

46:07

I'm just not sure how useful that's going to end up being, but we'll see. We'll see. Absolutely, absolutely amazing.

46:17

I had some other stuff I was going to comment about, but I didn't think that was going to take that long, so let's get to it. I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow

46:31

John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the Word of God.

46:55

He died for all. Those who were elected were selected. Well, first of all,

47:15

James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. I think

47:25

I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

47:31

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing?

47:39

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

47:54

Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

48:08

I said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

48:15

It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

48:28

Read my book. And now, from our underground bunker hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look, save from those modern

48:53

Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

49:00

Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say, in His own eternal glory.

49:07

Yes indeed, Radio Free Geneva, for a number of months, well actually probably over a year,

49:13

I've been aware of a video presented by Dr. Jerry Walls against Calvinism, finally got around to listening to the presentation, and I started talking about this last week on an edition of Radio Free Geneva, we really want to get into it.

49:28

As I mentioned last week, my biggest concern with Dr. Walls, and the debate that I saw him and another person doing against southern seminary professors like Bruce Ware, was the fact that fundamentally his form of Arminianism is a philosophical

49:49

Arminianism. It is not a biblical Arminianism. It starts with certain philosophical presuppositions, and then, in my opinion, forces the scriptures to fit those philosophical presuppositions.

50:03

I believe we have demonstrated many, many times that true biblical Calvinism is just that, it is biblical, it originates from a particular exegesis of the text that is consistent, it's the same exegesis we use to defend the deity of Christ, the resurrection, the doctrine of the

50:22

Trinity, salvation by grace through faith, etc., etc. And so, there is a problem at that point, but I felt that this presentation was brief enough, and on a level enough that would allow us to engage what it is alleging and saying, that it would be very useful to folks.

50:44

And one of the reasons, honestly, I'll let my brother in Ukraine, who is listening, let you know that one of the reasons

50:51

I chose to do this was because I got a note from Nick in Ukraine, who mentioned that he's been listening to The Dividing Line ever since I taught the class over in Berlin.

51:02

Nick was my translator for the Ukrainian Brothers. Brilliant young man. I don't want to make him unnecessarily proud of his capacities, but anyone who can sit around for eight hours in a day and live translate me from English to his

51:19

Ukrainian Brothers, talking about textual criticism, I mean, that's really not an easy subject.

51:24

And still walk out coherent at the end of that day is obviously really sharp.

51:30

And I'm looking forward to meeting Nick and the brothers again in February when I teach in Kiev. But anyway,

51:37

Nick mentioned that one of the things that he had found most helpful since he started listening to The Dividing Line was when I went through The Calvinist Call -In

51:44

Show with Michael Brown. So responding to what Michael was saying, he found that to be very useful.

51:50

So I thought, you know what, especially for Nick and hopefully for many others, we're going to take the time to listen to what

51:56

Jerry Walls had to say and respond to what he had to say, because it certainly is on the web.

52:02

It's out there. He had some introductory statements, and then he started describing Calvinism.

52:08

We're actually going to listen to pretty much the whole thing. It's going to take a while to do this. I could have cut it up into portions, but I don't want to be accused of missing something.

52:15

And so I will be playing this again. I don't know why I'm so concerned about making sure

52:21

I mention this, but I guess it's because I don't want any of my stuff edited. I am playing this at one point to speed playback speed through audio note taker.

52:30

So he's speaking a little bit faster than in the video, but that allows us to get more done on the program.

52:39

It makes the breaks a little bit shorter, and we get things done faster. So let's pick up just a couple moments into Dr.

52:48

Walls' presentation. Great preachers like Spurgeon, Whitefield, and the like.

52:53

On the Roman side, probably St. Thomas Aquinas was a Calvinist, although that's debatable.

52:59

But the point is, this has been a powerful, powerful stream in Christian theology.

53:04

Now, what exactly is Calvinism? Well, the essence of Calvinism, as you probably know if you've ever heard of it all, is summed up in this famous acronym, the

53:16

TULIP. The T stands for total depravity, which is of course the doctrine that all people are affected by sin in all phases of who they are.

53:23

They're totally disabled by sin and are not capable of doing good apart from God's grace. Yes, I really wish that my

53:32

Arminian friends would give a fuller definition, because the reason for incapacity is due to the fundamental damage to nature that separation from God involves, that the suppression of the knowledge of God involves, that the twisting of the creator -creation relationship involves.

53:55

Most of my Arminian friends only focus upon a portion of total depravity.

54:02

Here he's emphasizing total inability, a lack of capacity, and that's good.

54:08

A lot of Arminians actually skip over that part. But the reason for it is due to our fall in Adam and to the resulting corrupt nature, which

54:20

I don't believe most Arminians really believe. In fact, he's going to say...

54:26

Secondly, unconditional election. Well, actually, he's going to get back to that in a moment. What he's going to say is that all

54:32

Orthodox theologians believe in total depravity. I don't believe that's the case.

54:38

I do not believe he believes in total depravity in the way that I do. I do not believe that Arminianism can actually...

54:45

If you're going to profess the concept of an autonomous will, then you can't really believe in total depravity.

54:51

It doesn't work. But God chooses to save some people unconditionally and passes over the rest who are thereby inevitably damned.

55:03

Thirdly... Inevitably damned because of the justice of God and the fact they're fallen in Adam.

55:09

And they love their sin, and as fallen creatures are reprehensible in the sight of a holy

55:14

God. That's normally not emphasized by the Arminian because I don't believe the

55:19

Arminian anthropology. And I'll have to be honest, I don't think the Arminian theology, theology proper, doctrine of God, is strong enough to make those assertions.

55:30

In other words, I do believe that Arminianism fundamentally compromises the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

55:38

You have to bring those two closer to one another. You can't emphasize the holiness of God so strongly or emphasize the fallenness of man so strongly if you're going to hold to an

55:50

Arminian perspective. Limited atonement, which is the claim that Christ died only for the elect or at least in a different way for the elect and the non -elect.

56:01

It needs to be emphasized that it's a substitutionary atonement. The substitutionary atonement is a reformed doctrine, that it flows from reformed thought and theology.

56:11

Fourth, there is irresistible grace. Now, this is not a woman that you just can't stay away from.

56:19

Okay? This is the idea that if God chooses to save you, you cannot resist it. You will be saved if he wants to save you.

56:28

That's not a good way of putting it. Irresistible grace simply means that regeneration is a divine act and as such, human beings, creatures, no created force can stop

56:44

God from accomplishing his purpose of bringing his elect into relationship with himself at the time and the way that he chooses to do so.

56:55

So, it's simply the affirmation of the power of God to be able to take dead sinners and raise them to spiritual life when he chooses to do so.

57:07

Now, the Bible says he does so through the preaching of the Word, the power of the

57:12

Word of God made alive in the heart by the Holy Spirit of God. So, there is a mechanism that God has chosen to use normatively.

57:20

I mean, if we want to start talking about infants and all the rest of that stuff, that's going to drag us off the subject at the moment. But, irresistible grace simply does not mean that there is not grace that man resists.

57:37

For example, we would argue that the law of God, that the giving of the law of God is a gracious act from God because he didn't have to do that.

57:46

He could have left us stumbling about in darkness, but he didn't. He's revealed his law, that law in a nation under the blessing of God is used to restrain the evil of man.

57:54

That's why we see man's evil being expressed more and more commonly in Western society now, simply because we see

58:04

God withdrawing his hand of restraint. And so, we have the Holocaust of abortion. We have the celebration of homosexuality.

58:11

We have the celebration of the culture of death or the culture of life. Things happening that would have just absolutely caused incredible shock before becoming more prevalent and more commonplace because of what's happening in our society.

58:26

So, God's law functions as a restraint, and yet that gracious act is resisted by man.

58:35

So, not all grace is irresistible. Only the specific act of God, when at the time of his choosing in an eternity past, he chooses to draw his elect unto himself, to bring about regeneration in faith, to raise him to spiritual life.

58:51

God chooses the very moment when that's going to happen, and when he brings that miracle about, it can no more be resisted than Lazarus could have said,

59:01

No, thank you. It's the taking out of the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh.

59:07

God chooses the time. God does it. The heart of stone cannot keep that from happening. That is the assertion of irresistible grace.

59:15

I'm not going to stop it. And finally, there is perseverance of the saints, which is the claim that those who are truly saved, truly converted, truly elect, they will persevere, they will stay true to the faith to the end of their lives and consequently be saved.

59:26

Now, the T and the P are held by a number of other Christians who are not total

59:32

Calvinists. In fact, total depravity would be held in one form or another by all Orthodox Christians. Now, again, notice one form or another.

59:41

I would argue that the Arminian understanding of total depravity is not total depravity.

59:47

If you can affirm that a person has libertarian free will as a dead sinner enslaved to sin, then you don't really believe in total depravity.

59:58

Now, you might say, well, but I believe in prevenient grace. Well, we'll get into that as the issue comes up. Though I will say,

01:00:05

Dr. Wallace does not give any meaningful defense of Arminianism. This entire presentation is utterly outside of a biblical context.

01:00:13

And he'll say toward the end, now, if you want to see how we deal with the biblical, you can go over here. That's my point is that you start with a philosophical argument, then you do with the

01:00:20

Bible what you need to do. That's one of the reasons I haven't dealt with his presentation in the past is because I already knew that's what we'd be dealing with.

01:00:29

But since it's out there, we go with it anyways. All right. Perseverance of the saints, the idea that once saved, always saved, is held by a number of Baptists who are not altogether

01:00:39

Calvinists. All right. So what really distinguishes Calvinism is what I call

01:00:44

Uli in the Middle. Unconditional election, limited atonement, and irresistible grace.

01:00:51

So that's what I'm going to be focusing on, particularly unconditional election and irresistible grace. Now, Uli in the

01:00:58

Middle, I like that, the Uli in the Middle, tulip, Uli in the Middle, unconditional. But I have a problem with that.

01:01:05

I have a problem because one of my primary responses to his criticisms is going to be that he does not take seriously the two points that come before Uli.

01:01:16

And you might go, well, there's only one point before Uli. Well, that's the problem. He's going to quote me a little bit later on.

01:01:23

He's actually made reference to me. No one who pointed me to this—well, let me take this back. I do not remember that anyone who pointed me to this presentation mentioned that I was actually cited.

01:01:34

I'm only cited once, and it's not even an accurate representation. But anyways, I don't remember anybody mentioned that to me, but I forget lots of things these days, so I'm not going to make a big deal out of it.

01:01:44

But the point is, since he does make reference to me, and he does make reference to Sproul, I know that both

01:01:50

Dr. Sproul and myself have emphasized the fact that to understand the

01:01:56

Uli in the Middle requires you to understand the two points that come before that.

01:02:02

The one point didn't used to be subject to argumentation, but it is now.

01:02:09

And that is the sovereignty of God. That is God's being God. God having knowledge, for example, of all future events.

01:02:19

I will argue once again, the only consistent Arminianism is open theism. I do not believe

01:02:24

Dr. Wallace is an open theist. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think that he is. And hence, he is going to argue against the sovereign decree of God.

01:02:38

And I will argue that therefore, to ascribe to God an exhaustive knowledge of all future events is irrational.

01:02:46

If you're going to say there's no decree, then you're going to say God created, but he didn't actually form the fabric of what's going to happen in time.

01:02:54

So he created, but he didn't really create. Which one is it? When did God learn what was going to happen?

01:03:01

If he created in a certain way, did he create it so that it would come to the ends that he wanted to come to?

01:03:07

You know, that gets us into Molinism. I can tell he's not a Molinist. And into all sorts of other theories that we won't be able to get into, because he doesn't really explicate those things in this particular presentation.

01:03:18

I'm sure he does at other locations. Anyway, oh, look at that.

01:03:30

Yes, Nick is listening live. That's cool. Hi, Nick. Sometime we'll have to have you on and you can tell us about the church in Ukraine and speak all sorts of different languages for us and stuff like that.

01:03:44

But anyways, I was just looking over at Twitter and Nick's listening live.

01:03:50

So I figured he probably picked up a podcast, you know, because what time is it in Ukraine right now?

01:03:55

I guess it wouldn't be about nine hours, something like that. Yeah, it wouldn't be too late.

01:04:01

Yeah, yes, I know. Yes, shiny object. I went off after it again. Yes. I just looked over. I saw it. It's like, oh, there's

01:04:07

Nick. Anyways, I really enjoyed my time over there. Those guys are great. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to go back not only to Kiev, but hopefully to Berlin and do that kind of stuff.

01:04:15

Those are just great guys. Really, really found them to be incredibly encouraging. Anyhow, did you know that Nick had to translate his students' papers into English so I could grade them?

01:04:25

I mean, that is really going beyond the call. That's all there is to it. You know, that is incredibly impressive.

01:04:33

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. My point is that the sovereignty of God, the nature of God, he's going to say toward the end, he's going to say the same thing that Dave Hunt said.

01:04:45

The issue here is the character of God. Well, it's not just the character of God. It's the nature of God. And when you bring together the biblical testimony on the nature of God as sovereign king, which is the first revelation

01:04:56

God gives, which then becomes the background against which his love is then so amazingly revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, you combine that with the sobering testimony of Scripture concerning the depravity of man and man's inabilities.

01:05:13

Oodunatai is the phrase that is found a number of times in the New Testament Scriptures. Not able to do these things because of his fallen nature.

01:05:22

You put those two things together and they provide you the basis upon which you must resist and reject

01:05:28

Dr. Wall's presentation. But he doesn't start there. He doesn't start with those things. And it actually says, well, you know,

01:05:35

Orthodox theologians, they all believe in a form of total depravity. Well, I say no, that's not the case.

01:05:41

And he's going to specifically reject the only logical outcome of total depravity, which is total inability.

01:05:48

So I can't agree with his statement at that point.

01:05:53

To help you understand these, let's begin by looking at a couple of passages from the Westminster Confession, a classic

01:05:59

Calvinist doctrinal standard. And here we have the statement. There we go.

01:06:06

Westminster Confession 3 -5. Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, have chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his free grace and love alone, notice this, without any foresight of faith or good works or perseverance in either of them or any other thing in the creatures, as conditions or causes moving him thereunto.

01:06:35

Now, you've got to at least be thankful that we actually are getting a full reading of the

01:06:40

Westminster Confession of Faith at this point, where at least Dr. Walls is trying to accurately represent the

01:06:48

Reformed position. He's going to say some pretty strong things about it, but at least we're not getting what we frequently get in so many books.

01:06:55

We're not getting a George Bryson presentation here. At least Westminster is being quoted. And as the

01:07:01

Calvinists see it, all to his glorious grace. Now notice, the Calvinists are saying,

01:07:07

God does not look ahead, foresee that some people will have faith and choose to save them on the basis of he foresees they will have faith or that they will persevere in good works or anything like that.

01:07:17

It is utterly unconditional. In other words, it is utterly free.

01:07:23

Utterly free. God is under no constraint. Grace cannot be demanded.

01:07:32

Justice can demand things based upon the law. And justice demands the condemnation of all people.

01:07:38

Grace and mercy has to be free. It has to be free. Oh, by the way,

01:07:45

Nick says it's 10 p .m. I was close. I was close. ...choose you because he knows you will have faith. It's the other way around.

01:07:50

If God chooses you, you will have faith. If he doesn't choose you, you can't have faith.

01:07:58

Now, why? When it says, if God chooses you, you will have faith. As the result of the gracious work of the

01:08:05

Spirit of God who renews us in the image of Jesus Christ, a person who is freed from the tyranny and slavery of sin will have faith.

01:08:13

Why? Because Adam had faith. I mean, it's natural for the person who's renewed and brought into proper relationship with his

01:08:23

God to have faith in that God. And so it is a part of the work of the

01:08:29

Spirit of God, just as repentance is something. And it's ongoing.

01:08:35

I am so thankful that the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit of God in the hearts of believers is faith and repentance.

01:08:41

It's amazing. That has to be something we can do ourselves. Aren't you glad that it's the work of the

01:08:49

Spirit of God to work repentance in your heart? You know about those sins that can so easily ensnare us, as Hebrews chapter 12 says, and that it's the work of the

01:09:03

Spirit of God that brings conviction for those things and causes us to loathe those sins and desire to be rid of those sins.

01:09:09

That is a lifelong work. That's a lifelong work. That's why so much of the holiness tradition has become so legalistic in history.

01:09:20

It's because once you remove faith and repentance from the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer, then it becomes something that anybody can do, and therefore you just need to do these things.

01:09:29

You just need to try harder. So let me just replay this again.

01:09:35

If he doesn't choose you, you can't have faith. Why? You see, part of the argument that Arminians give is that this isn't fair.

01:09:46

This isn't fair. But why is it? Because we're talking about saving faith here.

01:09:53

There are people who have a temporary faith. There are people who have a false faith. They believe for a while and fall away. Jesus talked about the parable of soils.

01:10:03

But the point is, why can't a person have faith? Why did Jesus say what he said about those who are drawn by the

01:10:13

Father and those who are not? Why did Paul say in Romans chapter 8 that those who are according to flesh cannot please

01:10:22

God? What is the background? See, this takes us back to what total depravity really means, and that's why

01:10:27

I say Dr. Wallace doesn't really believe in total depravity. Because he says you can have faith.

01:10:33

That as a dead rebel sinner enslaved to sin, you can, having a heart of stone, do what only a heart of flesh can do.

01:10:42

Because I say to you, saving faith is a function of the heart of the flesh. I think that's a very important observation and correction to make.

01:10:54

So it is, alright? So, that's a good statement of unconditional election. Now, here's a good statement illustrating irresistible grace.

01:11:04

Alright, again, Westminster Confession. Now, I think, I listened to this, but I think he's projecting this.

01:11:11

That's why there's a delay there, probably switching slides or something. All those whom God hath predestined unto life, and those only.

01:11:19

Notice, this is just for the elect. He is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, effectually, to call.

01:11:26

Now, there's in Calvinism this notion of two different kinds of call. There's the effectual call, which is only for those that are saved.

01:11:35

That's not an accurate way to put it. First of all, he's right. I don't think anyone can make heads or tails out of the

01:11:40

New Testament text if you do not differentiate different kinds of calling. I mean, there's calling to service, there's calling to salvation, and there's a general call to the gospel.

01:11:50

And if you try to put all the references to Kaleo and its various forms together on a piece of paper and say they all have the same meaning, you will conclude that there is no way of understanding what the

01:12:03

New Testament is saying. So this isn't any, ooh, those Calvinists are coming up with something weird. But I can't agree with this type of terminology.

01:12:13

There's the effectual call, which is only for those that are saved. Well, the effectual call is the outworking of the decree of God to save, specifically, the elect.

01:12:26

And so it results in the only people who are saved. It's the work of regeneration.

01:12:32

That's the effectual call. It's irresistible grace. It's God's powerful grace that brings to spiritual life the elect of God, yes.

01:12:40

But it almost sounds like this is only for the saved, as if they're already saved and they get this calling. No. Effectual call is the same thing as that irresistible grace.

01:12:50

It's effectual, and the call is gracious, so you put it all together, and it's all talking about the same thing.

01:12:57

And then there's the general call, which goes to everybody. We're going to see this later on.

01:13:02

So the Calvinist says, God invites everybody in the sense that he says, whosoever will may come.

01:13:09

But only some people, the elect, get this effectual call. Right.

01:13:16

That's exactly right. And, immediately, I have to ask the question, why would

01:13:23

God, in his sovereign justice, go to the effort of extending this supernatural grace, which, by the way, part and parcel of the

01:13:38

Christian understanding of this, is that the only reason there is this kind of grace is because of the incarnation, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

01:13:47

So this type of saving grace had to be worked out in redemptive history.

01:13:53

Why would God save any undeserving sinner? Not, why wouldn't

01:13:59

God give this to everybody? You see, if you look at salvation from a theistic perspective rather than an anthropological perspective, if you start with God, most of the

01:14:12

Arminian arguments end up sounding extremely petty. Because, my argument is,

01:14:18

Arminianism is primarily focused upon man. It starts with man and ends up having to alter

01:14:24

God's character to fit what is comfortable for man. And, unfortunately, the vast majority of people start off thinking, well, if God can extend saving grace to everyone, why doesn't he do so?

01:14:41

And the idea that, well, because God's under, cannot be under any obligation to do so, and it's

01:14:46

God's purpose to demonstrate the full realm of his attributes, which includes his wrath and his power.

01:14:54

That's what Romans 9 says. What if God, willing to make his power known, and to make his name known, did these things?

01:15:05

And that's really where you get down to where the rubber meets the road, and that's where people really go, well, I just don't want a

01:15:12

God who would be so concerned about the proclamation of all of his attributes to all of the universe.

01:15:22

Well, that's the God of the Bible, and that's the God of the cross, and that's the God of the resurrection. But that's not the

01:15:28

God of Western humanistic philosophy and self -centeredness.

01:15:36

And there's going to be a lot of folks who don't like that God, there's no question about it. No question about it. Alright, so here's how it's described.

01:15:43

Effectually, to call by his word and spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature. Now notice that, to effectively call by his word and spirit.

01:15:50

What did I say earlier? Use the exact same terminology. The word and the spirit. The reformers were strong on that, that's clearly the teaching of the

01:15:59

Bible. To grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away the heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh.

01:16:09

Radical regeneration. Renewing their wills, and by his almighty power. Renewing their wills, notice the will needs to be renewed.

01:16:18

I don't believe that's something he believes. Determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ.

01:16:30

In other words, conforming them to the image of Christ, making them a new creature in Christ. It's all biblical language. Yet so, as they come most freely.

01:16:42

That is, because they've been changed, because they have a new nature. This is something they desire to do.

01:16:49

I mean, that's, you know, it's like Lazarus walking out of the tomb. He wasn't, I've jokingly said, you know, maybe things were really bad in Lazarus' household.

01:16:59

And Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth. He says, no thank you. You don't know what it's like to live with those sisters.

01:17:07

Ain't gonna happen. Because you see, that's based upon man. It's God, it was

01:17:12

God's purpose that Jesus be glorified. It was Jesus' purpose that the Father be glorified. In what he did that day.

01:17:18

And God will be glorified in the way he chooses to be glorified. That is what the kingship of God means.

01:17:25

Interesting. Being made willing by grace. Okay. This is interesting, isn't it?

01:17:32

Being made willing by grace. Why? Because we are slaves to sin. And God is under no obligation.

01:17:39

Whatsoever. To extend this kind of supernatural grace based upon his own self -giving to anyone.

01:17:47

If you say he is under obligation, then you're saying God is not free and God is not God. That's what you're saying.

01:17:56

These last lines that I got in blue. Notice. He determines them to that which is good.

01:18:02

And yet they come most freely. Now, obviously, part of his focus here is upon the nature of freedom.

01:18:14

He's going to say this is not the most important thing, but it must be understood. He's actually going to accuse me of saying that I say it's the most important thing.

01:18:20

And I've never said that. He doesn't give any quotations. He doesn't give any citations, anything like that. Any honest reading of the

01:18:27

Potter's Freedom or God's Sovereign Grace or any of the books I've done, any of the debates I've done would show that I always emphasize, first and foremost, the character of God.

01:18:34

I always emphasize the biblical revelation of God's holiness and justice as the foundation, first and foremost.

01:18:42

And that everything flows from that. It's a theistically oriented belief, not a man -centered belief. I think everybody who has read my materials fairly would recognize that.

01:18:54

Now, if you're moderately thoughtful, you're going to say, Whoa, Jerry, what's going on here?

01:19:01

Determining them, yet so as they come most freely.

01:19:06

Not somewhat freely. Most freely. Being made willing by His grace.

01:19:13

Now, here's what I want to emphasize to you right at the outset here. If you're going to understand Calvinism and critically interact with it and be an intelligent advocate or opponent, you have got to understand this point.

01:19:27

A lot of people who talk about this don't have a clue about this point. Don't understand it. And what's at issue here is the concept of freedom.

01:19:35

Now, I can tell you a bit about this myself, autobiographical. I remember years ago, when I was in seminary, I had this good friend who was a

01:19:42

Calvinist. I went to Princeton Seminary and he came to Princeton Seminary, too, and he was finishing a PhD in math at Princeton University.

01:19:49

He was real smart. And he and I used to argue about this for hours on end. Hours and hours. And it always just was really perplexing.

01:19:56

It just seemed like we just kind of passed each other at night like two ships. I could never quite nail down what he was saying and he could never quite. And I didn't,

01:20:02

I could never understand what was going on. Later, I came to understand, here's the problem. We were operating with two different understandings of freedom.

01:20:09

And neither one of us really understood at the time. That's why our conversation just kind of passed each other. Now, let me make this very, very clear.

01:20:16

The deepest issue in this debate is not the nature of freedom. Now, Calvinists like to say it is.

01:20:24

R .C. Sproul likes to say, Arminians are all about, you know, Patrick Freedom, give me liberty or give me death.

01:20:30

It's all about human autonomy. James White likes to say this kind of stuff all the time.

01:20:36

Okay, there it was. And by the way, he said Patrick Freedom. He meant Patrick Henry. I've had that happen. I'm not going to pick on that.

01:20:42

But I did find it sort of funny. Patrick Freedom is actually Patrick Henry. But anyway, give us freedom or give us death.

01:20:51

Look, I'm actually in agreement with him here. This is not the central issue. But I do believe that it is determined by what you believe about God.

01:20:59

And I believe that the problem with Dr. Walls and his Arminianism is that what he believes about God is determined first and foremost by what he believes about man.

01:21:09

And I think I'll be able to substantiate that at the end of this. I think he's going to reveal that.

01:21:15

And that it's not first and foremost provided by an honest examination of the biblical text and what

01:21:20

God has done in time, in his hardening of the hearts of people and the destruction of nations and the fact that he deals with Israel alone and the vast majority of the people outside of Israel never even receive light.

01:21:33

All that stuff is just put off to the side because of philosophical presuppositions.

01:21:39

And that is a real problem. It just isn't right.

01:21:45

This is not the deepest issue. It's critical to understand the deepest issue. If you don't understand this, you can't understand the deepest issue.

01:21:53

So there, I'm just not right. I'm all wrong. But there are no citations. And everybody knows that actually that's not what I said anyways.

01:21:59

But I'm used to that. It's just sort of my lot in life. But the difference in freedom is not what divides

01:22:06

Calvinists and their opponents. Something much more important. We'll get to it later. But you've got to understand the freedom difference to understand the deepest difference.

01:22:17

So here is what we need to look at more. What is the Calvinist understanding of freedom? Well, before I get to that, let me give you the common sense view of freedom, which

01:22:23

I take it most people hold, and it's the libertarian view. And here's what a libertarian says. A free action is one that is not determined by prior causes or conditions.

01:22:37

So, if there are to be any free acts, there can be no divine decree. Again, I can see how the open theist

01:22:45

Arminian can come to this conclusion, because Arminianism really demands open theism. You've got to have a

01:22:51

God who just wound this mess up and said, I'm going to do my best to get something good come out of this, but here we go.

01:22:59

And so you have no purpose in evil. The existence of evil is the possibility was known to God, but maybe not the extent of it.

01:23:09

But you basically have a God who is very much like a man who is doing the best he can to manage a bad situation.

01:23:21

That's what you've got in an open theistic viewpoint of God. What is being said is, well, the common sense view is, if it's going to be free, then there has to be the ability to do something other than that.

01:23:35

We can't have the idea of, if God has all knowledge, and God has a decree, and that man operates within the creaturely realm, none of that.

01:23:46

God and man have to be on the same level here, and there cannot be a divine decree that fixes the fabric of time, because that just turns everybody into a robot.

01:23:56

So you have to have this unidimensional, simplistic view of the relationship of God's decree and creative action and man's activity.

01:24:08

It has to be very, very simple, surface level. The idea that we are held accountable at a deeper level because there's more to it than this?

01:24:17

No, can't have that. Compatibilism? Nope, can't have that. Though he's going to talk a lot about compatibilism here in just a moment.

01:24:24

As he makes the choice, the agent has the power to choose A and the power to choose not

01:24:32

A. And it is up to him how he will choose.

01:24:39

I take it most of you would say, well, yeah, if I'm free about who I'm going to vote for in a presidential election, let's say, or something like that,

01:24:46

I've got to be able to choose both guys. I've got to have the power to choose both. If I can only choose Obama, I have the power to choose him.

01:24:53

But not Romney? Is that a free choice? I don't think so. Most of us would take it that freedom requires this.

01:24:59

Now, here's what you need to get. The Calvinist doesn't agree with this view of freedom. For the

01:25:04

Calvinist, freedom is a different matter altogether. We can call this view, and it is called, soft determinism or compatibilism.

01:25:12

And here's what the soft determinist compatibilist holds. There is no logical inconsistency.

01:25:19

And what would I say? Most of you, well, those of you who have listened long enough, you know exactly why that would bother me.

01:25:29

I agree, there is no logical consistency between God's divine decree and man's responsibility before God.

01:25:36

But why do I believe that? I believe that, first and foremost, because I am forced to believe that by the biblical text itself.

01:25:49

There are just too many texts where clearly

01:25:55

God's sovereign decree is accomplished and man is held accountable.

01:26:01

Genesis 50 -20, Isaiah chapter 10, Acts chapter 4, over and over again, we cannot make heads or tails out of these texts.

01:26:10

My Arminian friends have to stand on their heads and spin in circles to come up with some way of understanding these texts.

01:26:18

It is not the natural reading of the text in any way, shape, or form to read it in a non -compatibilist way.

01:26:25

And so it's not just, well, we're using laws of logic here to drive a philosophical thing.

01:26:32

Fundamentally, we believe this because we encounter so many places where the Bible functions on the basis of our understanding.

01:26:42

So I think that's a good place probably to stop right there and pick up the next time on the next

01:26:48

Radio Free Geneva as we continue on with our review of Jerry Wall's presentation against Calvinism.

01:26:57

I hope this has been useful to you. I hope it helps you to understand what the real issues are and hence allows you to be more effective in your understanding of the

01:27:06

Scriptures. Thanks for listening to Dividing Line today. Lord willing, we'll be back regular time on Tuesday.

01:27:12

See you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:28:17

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