Ergun Caner Update, Robert Sungenis on Predestination, Calvary Chapel

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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 Tuesday morning, coming to you live via Skype from Leavenworth, Kansas.

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I'm in for 20, folks. Let me tell you something.

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If it's like this most of the time around here, it feels like I'm in for 20. When I landed, it was raining, sort of this drizzle type thing,

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I guess, would be the way to describe it. But then it stopped raining and for about an hour yesterday afternoon, sort of the sun came out.

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But other than that, it has just been gray. And now I understand what people in Seattle talk about when they talk about depression due to lack of sunlight.

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My goodness, I cannot wait to head toward Phoenix tomorrow and see the sun.

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I understand it's quite sunny and warming up in Phoenix, which I'm really looking forward to there.

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So we've been here speaking over the weekend. I'm speaking again this evening. I'm doing my new, well, it's not new.

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I'm doing a new version of my King James Only presentation tonight, a two -hour version. And what

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I've done is I've taken the old 1990s edition that I made in the 1990s that had all sorts of things.

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Remember how when we first got PowerPoint, every other slide was a new transition? Some new text effect, like, ooh, that looks cool, oh, that's great.

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And you had all these wildly colorful backgrounds and stuff like that. And things have sort of calmed down now as we go into the, well, into the next century.

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Well, I took all the text out of that and created the 2010 version, and then I imported a fair amount of material on the manuscripts from my

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New Testament Reliability presentation. And I tried it out yesterday morning, and the pastors seemed to enjoy it, and so I'll be making more of a public presentation.

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And no revolving gifts or black backgrounds and stuff like that. Going back to the old days of the

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Internet, yes, some of us are old enough to remember the old days of the Internet now, and before the Internet, for that matter,

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BBSs and things like that. But anyhow, Rich wants me to make sure to emphasize that we are not taking

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Skype calls today. We are not taking Skype calls because I'm the one on Skype, and so trying to juggle multiple people at the same time would be a little difficult while I'm traveling.

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So no Skype calls today. You'll have to use the regular phone number, 877 -753 -3341 is that phone number if you want to get into the program today.

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As we get started, a couple things. I'm extremely disappointed, obviously, in looking at the response of Liberty Seminary and Liberty University and Eric Cantor.

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I'm looking at his website. His bio remains down, as does, as far as I can tell, the statement that he posted on February 25th as well, that 404s as well.

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And so you have this strange situation of silence.

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Is this a retrenchment? Is this a situation where he's been told to just try to ride this out, it will pass?

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I can assure him it will not pass. Dr. Cantor needs to stand up before the students of Liberty Seminary in a public recorded fashion and address the questions that have been asked and to address them openly and honestly.

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That is the only possible way to deal with this situation. He has been asked direct questions about where he lived.

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He has made statements about coming here to the United States and, well, I always lived in majority

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Muslim nations before I came here. Sweden is not a majority Muslim nation. When did he live in Turkey?

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How long? If his brother, who is four years younger than him, was born in the United States, living in Turkey for four years, having moved there from Sweden or something, would be the only way to work that out.

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These are questions that need to be answered because Dr. Cantor has made these issues a part of his gospel presentation.

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It just amazes me how many people are willing to just close their eyes to that and say, hey, you know, you can join exaggerations and lies of the gospel and, hey, as long as you make people think you're a good guy, we don't care.

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I don't understand it, will never understand it, and if you can understand it, well, more power to you, but I can't understand it.

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So there are questions that have to be answered, and they need to be answered publicly and openly, and simply ignoring these things is not going to work.

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So we're going to keep an eye on that. If you go to ericancantor .com and look for any of his bio or anything like that, it's not there.

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You're not going to be able to find it, and that, like I said, is a very strange thing.

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Next, I was directed, I think Tom Askell retweeted a Phil Johnson tweet, and then

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I reposted it as well. Benny Hinn went nuts -a -burgers last month,

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I think it was last month. I'm not sure what nuts -a -burger actually does mean, but he went on a rant after Joel Osteen and Seeker -Friendly

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Churches, and you might say, well, good for him. Well, yeah,

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I would obviously agree with a number of the things that he said, but it's who's saying it and in what context it's being said that left me absolutely gasping for air that someone who is such a false prophet and such a manhandler of scripture would have the gall to be going after someone else who clearly is a compromiser, there's no question about that.

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But this is a guy who has talked about nine beings in the Trinity, and he's talked about placing dead people in front of TVs and they're going to come to life, and all the rest of this nonsense.

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So to put those words in his mouth, it's sort of like physician, heal thyself, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

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What an amazing thing to observe! That's what really I think caught most people's attention, is how just utterly strange that situation is.

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And so I tweeted it this morning, I don't have the specific

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URL in front of me right now, but it's going around the blogosphere and it's pretty wild, there's no two ways about it.

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I have a duty, I guess, since I was just this morning directed to an article, it's a question -answer thing in essence, that was posted on Robert St.

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Genesis' website on Thursday, February 18th of this year. My minions didn't tell me about this until just today, the people who inform me of these things, especially while I'm traveling,

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I don't have time to keep up with all these websites, so some good folks out there let me know in regards to these things.

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I found it so interesting, I thought we would definitely want to address it today, and then maybe take your phone calls as well at 877 -753 -3341.

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This is question 225, James White and Beckwith, and this is a fellow who's written in to Robert St.

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Genesis by the name of Brendan, and I'm going to read and comment as we go along.

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Three things, opinion on James White conversions, apologetics, study bible, greetings Dr. St. Genesis.

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First, what is the matter with Dr. James White? I went to his website and read some of his arguments to try and understand his thinking.

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I think I succeeded in understanding his failure. After reading for a couple of hours, the word heresy began ringing in my head so much that it gave me a headache.

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Like G .K. Chesterton said, heresy comes about when you try and divide the whole truth into your own half -truth.

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For example, one of White's debates with you about justification, he kept referring to your view, the

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Roman view, as man -centered, and his supposed biblical view as God -centered. I'm no theologian or scholar, but what rings true to me is that justification and salvation depend on both

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God and man, a dynamic relationship like you explain on page 191 of Not by Bread Alone.

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I believe that is the natural understanding a reasonable person would arrive at if reading

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John's gospel and the New Testament in context, actually the entire bible. In other words, it is the whole truth.

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I'm not saying the bible is always easy to understand, but to come away with the understanding God has selected, no, created me for heaven or hell, and there's nothing

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I can do about it, after reading the scriptures, just seems alien and superimposed. Anyway, that's my argument from intuition.

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Well, there's the first part of Brendan's note. At times,

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I must admit, it is educational to listen to how people hear what you're saying or, more often, don't hear what you are saying.

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You will notice that I talk about the difference between a man -centered gospel and a

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God -centered gospel, and, of course, there is a major difference between a gospel that is centered upon man and his accomplishment, man as the one who decides whether this is going to happen or and a gospel where God is glorifying himself in the salvation of a particular people.

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Notice that Brendan thinks that what you need is a synergistic gospel, which, of course, is exactly what

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Rome has. It is a cooperation between God and man, and, you see, the middle is always right.

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It's never the extremes. We hear that a lot. Well, I don't want to go to one extreme or the other extreme.

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I want to be in the middle. And, of course, in the process, what you, in essence, are doing is you're saying that neither extreme is correct.

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The truth is in the middle. There are times when that is true, but just because there are two extremes doesn't mean that either of the extremes is wrong or the middle would be right.

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That is not even semi -clear thinking. You don't go, well, there's an extreme over there, there's an extreme over there, and so the truth is always in the middle.

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That may be something that might ring true about doing marital counseling, and there's always sin on both sides, but that's not how you deal with theology.

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That would be like saying, well, on one side, we have polytheists, and on the other side, we have monotheists, so the truth is in the middle.

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There's just a couple of gods. I mean, do you reason that way?

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With anything else, like the doctrine of the Trinity, or, well, there are people who say the

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Bible isn't inspired, and there are people who say the Bible is inspired, so therefore the truth is some of the Bible's inspired.

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I mean, we could really create a complete mess out of Brendan's thinking if we adopted this kind of thought.

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It is quite true he has adequately recognized the fact that Rome's view is a synergistic, a dynamic, a mixed relationship.

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It is not the monergism that I will be defending in debate against Dr. Syngenis in the not -too -distant future, but you'll notice he wants to claim the whole truth by taking the middle, but that is, of course, merely a claim that does not accord with reality itself, but he wasn't done.

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He continues on. White's problem is that he can't handle the whole truth.

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You can't handle the truth. No, he didn't write that, but that's just a little background. He can't handle the idea that both

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God and man choose, not God or man, even though a consistent reading of Scripture requires this view.

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I could go on and on, and I'm sure so could you, about the damage this half -truth does to other major beliefs such as the

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Incarnation and the Mystical Body of Christ. Predestination, without free will, turns these beliefs into a mere charade cooked up by God.

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Accepting a belief and understanding it are two separate matters. Arius likely didn't understand the full truth of the

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Trinity, so he rejected it, but not fully understanding is not a reason for rejecting it. As if it is a matter of not fully understanding anything.

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The question is, is the Bible teaching that man has this free will?

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And the fact is, the Bible teaches the exact opposite of that. The Bible teaches very strongly that while God holds man accountable for acting upon the desires of his heart, that the only free will

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I know of the Bible is God's free will, not man's free will. And in point of fact, the

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Scriptures plainly and repeatedly teach that man's will is enslaved.

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Jesus taught that the one who commits sin, the one doing sin, is the slave of sin.

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The terms the Bible uses of slavery, bondage, needing to be redeemed, dead, incapable of hearing, incapable of submitting, these are all the terms used of the

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Scriptures to describe the natural man and his incapacity to either ascertain, fully understand, or act upon spiritual truths.

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Those are biblical teachings. They're right there in the text of Scripture. So it's not a matter of, oh, well, you know, there's

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Bible passages that say one thing, and then there's Bible passages that say the other thing. No, actually, there isn't.

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There is one truth, and the truth of God's sovereignty gives rise to and is prior to, in level of importance and logic, to anything that has to do with the creation, which is what we are.

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We are created beings. So it's not a matter of just not understanding the full truth of something.

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It is a fundamental disagreement as to what the actual revelation of Scripture is. But as we're going to see with some

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Genesis comments, that's irrelevant, because the church has spoken, and that's how you deal with these issues.

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We continue on with Brendan. Again, again, White divides and conquers the truth. I watched the full debate you had with him on papal infallibility.

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He divides the full truth into his own two realms, sola ecclesia and sola scriptura.

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In the end, White's errors are due to a false logic, a false application of the law of excluded middle, either this or that.

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This illogic permeates his work. You see a predictable pattern, and his errors end up only amplifying the real truth when you take a step back and realize it.

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Actually, you do realize White's error in logic yourself. In the last line of the note on page 190 of Not by Bread Alone, consistent logic demands that both the

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Lord's Supper and Calvary are anticipated by John 6, but neither is negated. I think if you have the opportunity in future debates with Dr.

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White, you should stress Dr. White's overall error in thinking to the audience in addition to the particular misinterpretations of the text.

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And so there's Brendan's assertion on that particular topic. And please do not

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PM me in Skype right now because that will make little noises that I am not able to turn off right now while talking, et cetera, et cetera.

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Uh, going back to Brendan here. Uh, the law of excluded middle, a false application of the law of excluded middle.

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Well, you know, whenever anyone has attempted to argue against my discussion of solo scriptura and solo ecclesia, they always end up proving my point.

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I don't see anyone who's explained how you can not have this particular concept in mind when you say that it is the

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Roman church. And the irony is, keep in mind, he doesn't defeat solo ecclesia. Robert St.

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Janice is going to illustrate solo ecclesia in his response in just a moment. But when you claim to define the extent of scripture, what is and what is not scripture, and the meaning of scripture, define what is and what is not tradition and what tradition does mean, how can you even begin to seriously claim that there is any kind of external authority outside of the church itself?

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I keep asking these questions and people write long and extended discussions that never get around to actually answering the question.

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That is the problem. So if Dr. St. Janice wants to raise that issue, that's fine.

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We can address it in the debate. Then he asks, and listen carefully, this is quite interesting,

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I think. This is very, very, very interesting. Next, do you have an opinion on Dr.

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Francis Beckwith joining the Catholic church? Maybe other successful Protestant apologists like William Lane Craig will follow suit.

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Perhaps even major intellects like N .T. Wright and J .P. Moreland? Okay, that may be a stretch.

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But what do all these names have in common? They all reject Calvinism.

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James White should pay better attention. Well, I am paying attention.

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I've been paying attention all along. In fact, that sort of proves my point, doesn't it?

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Let's point out a couple things. First of all, Frank Beckwith rejoined the Catholic church.

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Remember, he was raised as a Catholic. And when it comes to his views of man, natural law, and grace, he never left the

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Roman fold on those issues. Maybe other successful Protestant apologists like William Lane Craig will follow suit.

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Two things. We have addressed William Lane Craig's very weak, anemic, and unbiblical response to Roman Catholicism many times.

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In fact, when I was in London, that was one of the issues that I addressed. I played a response that Dr.

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Craig offered. On that very issue. But if he says maybe other successful Protestant apologists, is he identifying

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Frank Beckwith as a successful Protestant apologist? Frank Beckwith never made that claim for himself.

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In fact, he specifically eschewed being either a Protestant apologist or, for that matter, a

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Catholic apologist. So, the fact that he doesn't mention that he was once a

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Catholic. And then views him as having been some type of successful Protestant apologist. When even

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Frank Beckwith says, well, that's not really how I viewed myself at all. Makes you wonder just a little bit about Brendan's approach here.

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N .T. Wright and J .P. Moreland. Well, there's two different people, but that's interesting.

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But what do all these names have in common? They all reject Calvinism. Exactly. They, some of them are definitely swimming around out there in the middle of the

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Tiber River. Because they are inconsistent on those particular issues.

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A matter that I've brought up many, many times. So, there's Brendan's letter.

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And then St. Genesis' response is a little bit shorter. But this is, I think, very, very illustrative.

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And remember, Robert St. Genesis is a former Protestant. And so, we would expect an accuracy in his discussion of Reformed theology here that would be better than Brendan, who doesn't seem to be a former

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Protestant at all. R. St. Genesis. Brendan, what White fails to see is that the

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Catholic Church had already dealt with these issues many centuries ago. I immediately stop and say, what do you mean?

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What do you mean I fail to see it? Is my rejection of Roman authority and Roman conclusions the same thing as failing to see it?

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How is that a logical response? If I were to critique Robert St. Genesis and say, well,

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Dr. St. Genesis just fails to see that Calvin already dealt with this issue. Is that an argument?

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Is that even a meaningful statement to say that someone has failed to see something when the reality is they're just rejecting what someone or some group has said?

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I don't fail to see anything. And the irony is the Church hasn't really dealt with this because what

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St. Genesis is going to say is the Church doesn't give us a positive answer. It just says, don't do this, don't do that.

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But it doesn't actually answer the question, which I think is highly instructive. Let's continue on. It condemned both man -centered views of Pelagianism and Semi -Pelagianism.

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It also dealt with the predestinarian extremes of Lucidus, Gottschalk, Wycliffe of Luther and Calvin.

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Now listen to this. Here's for all of you who have heard Roman Catholic apologists drawing you to Rome.

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All on the basis of saying, well, you know, we have this unanimity. We have this infallible guide.

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And, you know, we don't have to have, you know, we understand the truth because the

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Pope can tell us what the truth is and so on and so forth. Listen to this. The truth is somewhere in the middle and nobody has quite figured out what that middle is.

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End quote. The truth is somewhere in the middle and nobody has quite figured out what that middle is.

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We know what we can't say, but we are not quite sure all that we can.

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Say there is what Roberts and Janice says. So the infallible church led by the vicar of Christ with oral tradition, apostolic succession, the spirit living and guiding the church can't answer this question.

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It's not that. It's not that. But we really don't know what it is. This is the same church, my friends, that can tell you with dogmatic certainty that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven and can point to, oh,

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Revelation chapter 12. That's about it. This is the same church that can tell you about the

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Immaculate Conception, even though numerous popes had actually taught against that idea.

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This is the same church that has such amazing clarity on the dogmas regarding Mary.

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But when it comes to whether God can successfully glorify himself, glorify himself perfectly in the salvation of a particular people in Jesus Christ, well, nobody's quite figured out what that middle is.

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We know we can't say, but we are not quite sure all that we can say. This is amazing to me.

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And this illustrates to me in a very clear sense the absolute uselessness of the

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Roman Catholic document, dogma, I'm sorry, the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility.

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I was really struck with this during that year where I debated both Tim Staples and Robert St.

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Genes on papal infallibility. And has anyone noticed something? They didn't argue for the same dogma in the same way.

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In fact, they contradicted each other. How can that be if it's an infallible dogma?

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But during the course of that study, I came to the conclusion that this is a dogma without meaning, because while you might accept what the current pope says and you might even accept him to be infallible, once he's dead, the next pope can come along and if he interprets things differently, well, you've got to change your viewpoint.

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And you can never really know which one's actually right, which is very troubling,

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I would think it would be to most anyone. And yet that's what we're being told.

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Let me just repeat this again. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and nobody has quite figured out what that middle is. We know we can't say, but we are not quite sure all that we can say.

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I'm not sure why Dr. St. Genes has agreed to debate in Santa Fe in September on this subject if, in essence, he's saying we're not quite sure about this subject.

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We can reject your position, but we really can't tell you what the truth of this matter is, which is very strange.

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He continues on, White and men of his generation think they have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to theology, failing to see that many men before them had these issues.

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Now that, as I said, that is just a pure strawman.

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I am well aware of the arguments going all the way back to Augustine and Gott's chalk, and all of the historical discussions that have taken place on this particular subject.

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I have no intention of reinventing the wheel at all. But you see, in essence, from his perspective, it seems that unless you believe that the

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Bible is simply lacking in sufficient clarity to even address this issue, then you somehow are just reinventing theology.

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I believe the Bible is very clear on this subject, and that's why we'll get into the text, not mere dancing around the text as we're having here.

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But it is simply untrue. I don't know what men of his generation mean at all, but it is simply untrue that I believe

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I have to reinvent the wheel. I've spoken against that many times. Most of you who listen regularly know that. And I do not fail to see that many men before have struggled with these issues.

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Just because men have struggled with these issues does not mean that there is not a truth to be understood of those issues.

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With that, I'm going to take a brief break, finish up after the break with Dr. St. Genes' response to Brendan here on The Dividing Line, and we'll be right back.

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Secularism, false prophecy scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called

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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.

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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.

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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme

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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the

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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the

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Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's chosen but free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at AOMN .org.

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More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder -to -shoulder against social evils.

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They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements. And many Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the

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Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many Evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided

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Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,

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The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

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James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.

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Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at AOMN .org.

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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

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The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning

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Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30

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p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805

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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.

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If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,

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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

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And welcome back to The Dividing Line on a

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Tuesday afternoon. I have been instructed that I must announce the birth of Carla's kitties, which has taken place during The Dividing Line.

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And I was guilted into this by the fact that the first one was named Doc. And so therefore, congratulations to Carla and her kitties.

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I guess the sonorous tones of my voice caused the kittens to come forth.

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I don't know, but sometimes reading the chat channel while doing the program is a dangerous thing.

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But anyhow, we continue on. We are looking at Robert St. Genesis's response to an email that was sent to him.

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It's question number 225 on his website.

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And I'm not sure if I linked to it. I recall linking to it. I linked to a lot of stuff this morning. So maybe

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I did, maybe I didn't. I don't know. If the sun doesn't come out pretty soon, I'm gonna go crazy anyway. So it's just weird.

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Anyhow, we continue on. We had just read, White and men of his generation think they have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to theology, failing to see that many men before them have struggled with these issues.

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That's just simply a blatant falsehood. It's not representation of what I believe.

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I don't think anyone who's seriously read my works or interact with me would believe that that's an accurate representation.

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So we can simply dismiss that for the error that it is. He continues on, quote, The fact remains that the

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Church, capital C, is the final authority on this topic, and it has chosen to say that it is beyond our comprehension.

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I'm going to hold him to this in September, that he can't really tell us what the answer is. The Church has told us this is beyond our comprehension.

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This is a mystery even beyond that of the Trinity, I guess. It's beyond our comprehension. White, however, because he has separated himself from the

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Church, thinks he as an individual man in the street has the answer. Again, when

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I first saw this, I commented and channeled that I was stuffing a little more straw into the sleeve so that Dr.

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St. Genes could beat on it a little bit longer. Pure straw man argumentation that has little to do with the reality.

35:13

Obviously, I don't believe that Rome is the Church, first of all. And secondly,

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I don't view myself as an individual man. I am an elder in a local congregation. I have other elders, and I stand on the shoulders of giants in considering these things.

35:30

I read Church history and recognize my debt to those who have come before me. And so the idea of presenting me as the man standing on the street, an individual man out in the street, reinventing theology, having the answer.

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I don't know who Robert St. Genes is talking about, but anyone who knows me knows he's not talking about me, or if he is trying to talk about me, doesn't know much about me.

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That is for certain, and that does not bode well, I think, given the inaccuracy of these statements.

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At least as I have responded to Robert St. Genes in the past, as I have told his story, I have told it accurately from his own writings and his own materials.

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He continues on, When this happens, all kinds of extremes will result. And one of those extremes is the position that God predestines men to heaven and hell, and that man's free will does not influence that choice.

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Notice an amazing statement from someone who claims to have once been a

36:30

Protestant. Well, of course, there's many Protestants who make the same ignorant statement. But there you see it again, and I hope all my

36:37

Reformed friends recognize equal ultimacy when they see it and immediately challenge it. This is as bad as the criticisms offered by Calvary Chapel of these things.

36:50

And I just realized, I responded to that Calvary Chapel program. I apologize,

36:55

I have been traveling way too much. We will do our best on Thursday. Let me just go ahead and announce this.

37:04

Evidently, the co -host with Brian Broderson, by the way, for the past few programs is actually the president of Veritas Seminary.

37:15

I was unaware of that. And so just a few weeks ago,

37:21

I believe it was like March 2nd off the top of my head. Maybe it was after that. I've downloaded the file, and I think

37:28

I grabbed it. I think it's right as I arrived in Greenville. Yeah, March 2nd. And so I need to provide a response to that.

37:39

We'll do that on the next program. I apologize for having forgotten about that. I saw this Syngenis thing and decided to go that direction today.

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I already have the audio hiding in one of the many folders here on my desktop, on my computer, but we will respond to the attempt that they made to actually finally deal with First John 5, 1, 1

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John 2, 29, 1 John 4, 7. I think you will be amazed once again. I'm glad they tried, but I think you will be amazed at the mechanism that they tried to use to get around this.

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Basically, instead of the answer they've given before, which indicated that First John 5, 1 actually supports their position, now we're being told that it actually doesn't address this topic at all, and all

38:28

First John is talking about is how you can recognize Christians by looking at them. And so it'll be very interesting to go into that, because now you have a man who's the president of Veritas Seminary.

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He's a doctoral student right now. He has his master's degree from Southern Evangelical Seminary, Norman Geisler's old school, but many of the people who once were associated with SES are now associated with Veritas.

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I don't know all of the background of that, but I can tell when there's been a big hunken fight, and there's been a big hunken fight there, and so it's interesting to see who's on both sides of that particular issue, etc.,

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etc. So we continue on then. We'll do that on Thursday. We continue on with Roberts and Jennis here.

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As I mentioned, this is as bad as the Calvary Chapel folks who attempt to promote the equal ultimacy error, who try to make

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God's gracious act of predestining men into life the mere equative negative of predestining men unto death.

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That is not what we believe, and no serious person, I believe, would want to promote that kind of a perspective.

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You only promote that kind of perspective when you want to muddle people's thinking and not actually come to a knowledge of the truth.

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So the idea that God predestines men to heaven and to hell equally in that way is an error, and that man's free will does not influence that choice.

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The question is, does man have that free will in light of the clear biblical teaching that he is the slave of sin, that he is not able to subject himself to the law of God?

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These are the words of Scripture. They have meaning, and some council and some church that comes along hundreds, if not a thousand years later, cannot change the meanings of those words.

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But remember, this is the same Roberts and Jennis who, when I emailed him a number of years ago asking him about the conflict that existed between John Paul II's inclusivism and the statements of preceding councils, informed me that my error was that I think that I can interpret a council of the past that is only up to the church to do.

40:55

And so even though you can read the very words of these councils and you can look at the writers of these councils and you can read their own writings, their letters, their defenses of what they said, you can establish what the meaning was within the historical context.

41:15

That is irrelevant. That doesn't matter what they meant. What matters is what the church says.

41:21

You know, what's frightening is that a lot of these folks, you know, they stand against the degradation of the

41:29

United States Constitution by those who ignore original context. They say, that's terrible, that's horrible.

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But when it comes to church, oh, the church can do that all the time. You don't get to determine what

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Florence meant. Only the church gets to interpret that, even if it means completely redefining the very meanings of words.

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And is that not, folks, is that not sola ecclesia? You bet it is.

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When the church is the final arbiter of all these things and the church's decisions cannot be tested by scripture, you have sola ecclesia, which once again proves that what

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I had said was accurate and correct in the first place. Continuing on, this position seems logical to White because he can't figure out how

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God's predestination can fit with man's free will. So he thinks he only has one option, get rid of free will.

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No, that's backwards. I don't believe the Bible teaches man's free will.

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I believe it teaches man's creaturely will and that God has an autonomous will.

42:39

You see, that's the basic position. But again, maybe

42:44

Dr. St. Genes has been out of Protestantism so long he no longer remembers what he once believed or maybe never believed those things in the first place.

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Who knows? I don't know. Other Protestants, however, attempt to solve the problem by getting rid of predestination.

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The Catholic Church says they're both wrong and rightly so, but doesn't actually answer the question because it can't and it doesn't know and it can't give you a positive, clear explanation.

43:21

It can make entire dogmas out of one verse, even one phrase, and tell you with certainty those dogmas.

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But the problem is there's just too much biblical revelation about this election thing and so we can't tell you what it is.

43:38

What an amazing illustration of how sola ecclesia never clarifies the gospel, it always muddles the gospel.

43:48

But there's a little bit more interesting here and I haven't seen Rich telling me whether anybody's called in or not, so I don't think anybody has.

43:56

But since I don't have a separate window up, that doesn't necessarily help anything. This was very, very interesting.

44:06

This was really interesting. After talking about how I'm the one that has separated myself from the

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Church and I'm the lone man making up theology as I go and all the rest of this stuff, listen to this last paragraph.

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Because remember, Robertson Janus is not in the mainstream of Roman Catholic apologetics any longer and there are many

44:32

Roman Catholic apologists who would quite simply dismiss him as being anywhere near the center of what

44:40

Roman Catholic apologetics is. So check out this last paragraph. Now think about that for just a minute.

45:27

Think about what's being said here. Now again, I sort of feel sad for some of my

45:33

Roman Catholic friends as I look at the state of degradation of the leadership of the

45:39

Catholic Church, things coming out even now concerning the broadening scandals that have been suppressed through political maneuverings and so on and so forth.

45:51

It's very clear that there's a lot of corruption in the Roman Catholic Church and most definitely there is a tremendous amount of theological corruption.

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I have pointed for many, many years to Boston College. Go to Boston College and think of what's being taught there and the theology that you'd receive and things like how different it is from the perspectives that would be presented to me by Robertson Janus or any other

46:19

Catholic apologist for that matter. But what does Rome do about it? What did

46:24

John Paul II do? We watched this for years. One year, a conservative encyclical to keep the conservatives happy.

46:31

The next year, a liberal encyclical to keep the liberals happy. You throw a bone over here, you throw a bone over there, and you try to keep people from fighting with one another.

46:40

That's the unity of modern Roman Catholicism, an amazing thing to consider.

46:47

And so again, he doesn't mention that Beckwith had been a Roman Catholic and had sojourned for a while in Protestantism without actually adopting specifically and particularly

47:00

Protestant presuppositions on important issues. He just views him as someone who has joined and he'll never go back because he's seen the muck and confusion of Protestantism.

47:10

And yet here you have Robertson Janus who is frequently at odds with leading

47:16

Catholic apologists and there's no confusion in Rome. Those last words, at least in the

47:24

Catholic Church, we know the truth exists. We just have to find it above all the heretics in the church who try to hide it from us.

47:30

Well, wait a minute, Dr. Janus, how do you know those heretics aren't the vicars of Christ? How do you know you're not the heretic?

47:38

When it says, notice, we will continue to see a lot of people leave the Catholic Church because of the heresies that are being taught by many

47:47

Catholic leaders who ignore the truths they have received from the historic

47:52

Catholic Church. No, wait a minute. That sounds like private interpretation to me.

48:00

Isn't that private interpretation? Isn't Dr. St. Janus determining what the historic

48:06

Catholic Church is, what truths it has passed down? I thought Catholic leaders determined that,

48:12

Dr. St. Janus, and you are not a Catholic leader, are you? Are you a priest? Are you a bishop?

48:18

Are you a cardinal? Has the pope assigned you to some particular position of leadership?

48:26

Some would say you're the one who separated yourself from the church. How are we to know?

48:33

It's private interpretation. It seems that Robert St.

48:40

Janus feels that he can determine what the truths of the historic Catholic Church are, and therefore identify modern

48:47

Catholic leaders who are ignoring them. But when we then ask how you know what those truths are, you're told to go to the church.

48:55

But the only way you can go to the church is in its current leaders. Ah, the catch 22 of sola ecclesia.

49:06

There it is again. The incapacity of the modern Roman Catholic apologists to explain why it is that it's the liberal theologians that the pope places upon the commissions, and it's the liberal theologians who have new takes and new understandings on the old dogmas.

49:25

Now, I agree with Robert St. Janus that modern Catholic leaders are ignoring all sorts of things that used to be taught by the

49:35

Catholic Church. I agree a thousand percent. Um, but that does not change the reality that I can do that.

49:45

I can address that particular subject, and I can say, Well, it's very clear to me that this was taught by this particular council, and the modern

49:55

Roman Catholic Church is ignoring that. That's I can do that because words have meaning. But Robert St.

50:01

Janus tells me I can't do that because only the church gets to tell me what those councils meant. But then Robert St.

50:06

Janus gets to tell what those councils meant and identify modern Catholic leaders as heretics.

50:16

That's odd. That's odd. Anyways, let's go ahead and take phone call.

50:21

That's the end of Robert St. Janus's notes, and it is going to be interesting to encounter

50:28

Robert again in September of this year. And but we're gonna switch gears here because here in the last few moments we have in the program we're going to get to talk with Todd in California.

50:41

Hi, Todd, how are you? Hey, very good, James. It's good to talk to you. I've been enjoying your ministry this last couple months, and I really have a lot of respect for you, but once I found out that you're not a

50:53

Harley rider but a bicycle pedal pusher, my respect went off the charts. Well, actually,

51:00

I have a Suzuki C50 as well, so I ride a V -Twin, but yeah,

51:05

I spent a lot of on the back of a Felt T23, and it's an

51:13

American Schwinn. I know Schwinn, you immediately go, ah, but this was an American -made Schwinn with Dura -Ace all around.

51:20

It only weighs 17 and a half pounds. That's my climbing bike, so those... Well, Felt is good, and I have your 50th birthday picked out since I'm a pedal pusher myself and got about 60 miles in yesterday, and I'm about to go out again today.

51:33

I was thinking of Durango, the Iron Horse. Are you familiar with that one? I think

51:40

I've heard of it. It sounds like something worse than climbing Mount Lemon, though, was for me only a few months ago.

51:46

Well, it's about 48 miles, and it's 5 ,600 feet of climbing, and you climb up to about 10 -5 and then 11 -5 and descend down into Silverton.

51:57

Wow, see, the descent would scare me to death. That's what I'm going to try to descend Mount Lemon sometime this spring, but that's 26 miles and 6 ,232 to the top, but you're only getting up to about 8 ,800 at that point, so not quite as high as far as sucking the oxygen.

52:17

Once I got past 7K, well, I was really feeling it. Well, you know, the whole thing on this is to be...

52:23

When I go out cycling, I like to be in better shape than anyone I'm with, so when we're climbing hills, I can have a monologue and start talking to them about the existence of God and who

52:31

Jesus is, and they can't answer back. Well, unfortunately, you wouldn't be able to monologue with me about anything.

52:37

I'm way too heavy to be a climber anymore, but I was once, and I can still leave a few people behind, but you'd undoubtedly leave me behind.

52:45

No, it'll be fun. We'll get Rich out there, too. Yeah, right. Rich is laughing hardly in the studio,

52:51

I'm sure, right now. Now, just from what I was given in private message,

52:57

I've heard your voice before. Yes, you have. I was the one that called Brian Brodeson and Patrick Perspective, mainly when you were in London.

53:06

I listened to you, and you wanted someone to ask them about the Ezekiel 36 passage. So I've been sitting, like I said in that message,

53:13

I've sat under Calvary for 18 years, but now this last two months I've been in a Reformed church, and there's a guy by the name of Jason Robertson.

53:20

He knows you a little bit. Really neat guy, Reformed Baptist, and I'm just loving being in a

53:26

Reformed church. I've bought several of your books. I just had a hard time sitting in that environment, as I've become more

53:35

Reformed in my thinking. Yet, at the same time, I wanted to present myself to these guys as kind of like them a little bit, so they didn't get on the defensive, which

53:44

I'm sure you noticed with that. But you're right, they didn't take my question. Yeah, well,

53:50

I knew that you had noticed that. I mean, I had no way of contacting you, but I did ask, you know,

53:57

I'd love to get a chance to talk to you for the obvious reason that it just seemed like there wasn't any more comment that came from you.

54:06

I don't know if you had already been taken offline or just what it was, but it was just so painfully obvious that they got to the end and said, well, that's all we need to say about that.

54:16

And yet, if you had still gotten there, but excuse me, but did we forget Ezekiel 36 here? And that's exactly what it is.

54:24

With Pastor's perspective, they filled so many phone calls that you can ask your question, but then they basically mute you off unless they want you to come back on.

54:32

Right, right. So I figured that's what had happened, but it was so clear that no answer had been given whatsoever that I'm glad when

54:44

I saw the PM that you had heard that. And I'm not happy when that happens.

54:52

I don't want people to misunderstand me. I think it is, however, indicative of what the real problem here is, and it also seems to be an indicative of what's going on in a lot of Calvary chapels, where if you ask these questions, you get muted as well.

55:08

So in other words, the radio program somewhat reflects what takes place in the polity of the

55:13

Church, and that's a bad thing. These things need to be discussed openly, they need to be discussed biblically, but only one side wants to have the dialogue, the other side wants to have a monologue, and that's unfortunate.

55:26

Well, even in the Church that I attended for so many years, I mean, like I said, the pastor, they're all great, they're just great brothers in the

55:34

Lord, but I cannot, in that Church, have these type of dialogues, because people are not even informed enough to even understand them to begin with.

55:44

And my pastor, he would not want to debate the thing, he doesn't want to do that.

55:50

Out of my bike ride yesterday, I happened to stop about 40 miles into my ride into a 7 -Day

55:56

Adventist Church, that's another subject, but I sat down and ate some oranges, and I saw the pastor putting up John 648 on top of his billboard facing the freeway with a long extension pole, and he goes, oh, the old universal negative passage, and he goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, not really, though.

56:14

And I asked him about the Ezekiel passage, what he thought of it, and he went off in the same way, we're all given a measure of faith.

56:21

He couldn't answer the question. Yeah, that is the tradition of, unfortunately, many, many people, and when you start challenging traditions, they become extremely either agitated, uncomfortable, or want to change the subject.

56:38

And the problem is, as I've said many times, Calvary Chapel tells people to study the Scriptures and to find answers from the

56:45

Bible, and that's why Calvary Chapel will continue to create Reformed folks, because as long as you take them seriously, you're going to end up having to ask questions that their leadership doesn't want to answer.

56:55

And it's not just about these things, I mean, Calvary Chapel has a given understanding of Church order and things like that, that they won't allow to be examined, but the

57:05

Bible actually addresses those things, and so it's going to continue to cause those issues until there's some kind of a paradigm shift within the movement itself, which may be coming in the not -too -distant future.

57:15

You know, I think that's very possible, because guys like myself are, again, you know, as I listen to you now,

57:21

I listen to R .C. Sproul, the different ones are all Reformed. I'm getting better educated, so we're able to move along now, and we're starting to get challenged, because out here in Southern California, all we really have is the

57:34

Calvary radio station, and there's two things that they're very dogmatic on, and that's the

57:39

Arminianist position and their dispensational theology. You know,

57:45

I mean, now I'm studying Covenant theology, which before, you just can't do that. Yeah, yeah. When you just close off the conversation and don't deal with those things, that's not the same thing as actually answering anything.

57:58

So, hey, Todd, we're out of time, but thanks a lot for your call, and who knows, maybe someday we'll get to get a ride in, and I'll suck your wheel.

58:06

Love to get a ride in with you, man. Love to, sometime. All right, thanks a lot. God bless. Bye -bye. All right, bye -bye. All right, that's it for the

58:13

Dividing Line today. I'm up at, I don't know what time in the morning, to get home very, very early on my flight to Phoenix.

58:19

I'm looking forward to seeing the sun again and getting out on my bike as soon as I get there, in fact, and then

58:25

Thursday we'll do, the Dividing Line, we'll play that Calvary Chapel Pastors' Perspective clip, and take your phone calls.

58:32

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

59:18

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602, or write us at P .O.

59:24

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

59:29

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.