June 29, 2006

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Metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a
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Thursday afternoon, a warm and somewhat muggy afternoon here in Phoenix, Arizona.
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Muggy for us, certainly not muggy for the rest of you, but actually our monsoon arrived early, so what can
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I say? In fact, they just issued a severe thunderstorm warning for us, and according to the radar thingamabobbywobber
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I have on my desktop, there's a nice big line heading for us, but never fear, we live in the heat island effect, and as soon as those big thunderclouds start hitting all the asphalt, which we have surrounded ourselves with, they just crawl up in the fetal position and die right then and there, and nothing ever happens, so anyway, what can
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I say? Yeah, someone's saying muggy is more than 10 % humidity. Actually, it's 20 right now, and the dew point yesterday was like 64, which 55 and above is monsoon, and so it was getting there.
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You get up into about 72, and it's the same as New Orleans, so that's, you know,
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I know, we're not supposed to talk about this, the Chamber of Commerce wants everybody to think it's a dry heat all the time, and so I'll just stop talking about that.
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I was sent an article that I didn't get to last time from, what is this from?
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Baptist Standard, Roger Olson from the Professor of Theology at Baylor's George W.
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Truitt Theological Seminary, God is sovereign over his sovereignty.
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I think about that one for just a moment, God is sovereign over his sovereignty, would that be sort of like God is holy over his holiness, or God is loving over his love?
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That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but you know what's being said, and that is following, he's describing the various positions, he says, following Dutch theologian
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Jacob Arminius, who died in 1609, Arminians believe God is sovereign, in fact,
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God is so sovereign that he is sovereign over his sovereignty. And that, of course, becomes the foundation upon which he then says, those of us who believe in real freedom of will, liberty, and power, you always hear that, you know, we're the ones who believe in real freedom of will, because we believe in autonomous will.
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Now, God can't have an autonomous will, God can't even have an eternal decree that determines actions in time, but man has an autonomous will.
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So those of us who believe in real freedom of will, liberty, and power of contrary choice, that's libertarianism, see that as the only escape from making
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God the author of sin and evil. A God, and I would say, and the only consistent way to hold that is to become an open theist, but anyway, a
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God who determines people to sin, even if only by efficacious permission, is the ultimate sinner.
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And that's why you keep asking these folks, OK, could you explain then Genesis 50? Could you explain Isaiah 10?
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Could you explain Acts chapter 4? And you don't get a whole lot of discussion of that kind of stuff. A God who could save everyone because salvation is unconditional, but passes over many, setting them to eternal damnation, is morally ambiguous at best.
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No, he's not morally ambiguous at all. No one gets injustice, everyone gets justice or mercy.
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As John Wesley commented, if this is love, it is such a love as makes the blood run cold, which, of course, is also where Dave Hunt gets his stuff.
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But again, that's only, you know, since that's been responded to a million times, you can't find these folks dealing with those things.
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I don't know how to deal with it. Anyway, admittedly, he says, he just goes on from there, he then, of course, cites, the only verse is cited in the whole article, and it's a short article, but the only verse cited, guess what, are
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John 3, 16, 2nd Peter 3, 9, and 1st Timothy 2, 4. And we all have gone over those repeatedly many, many, many times.
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Now, just recently at the Southern Baptist Convention, there was a discussion that had been looked forward to for a long, long time between Dr.
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Albert Moeller and Dr. Paige Patterson. We have discussed
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Paige Patterson's sermons at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from a couple of years ago, and we have noted that at least
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Dr. Patterson is on a completely different plane, though we disagreed with his statements and did not find them to show a whole lot of interaction with Reformed apologetics and Reformed writings.
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At least they did not partake of the same level of, how should we say, rhetoric, empty rhetoric that we find in so much of the material that is out there.
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And so a lot of folks have been really, really looking forward to this great debate.
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And I knew it was not going to be a debate. I knew that it was not going to be a point counterpoint.
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It was going to be an expression of how much each person appreciates the other and how we should all work together in unity and that really the things that people want to hear, for example, just from that article, they want to hear both sides dig into Acts 4, 27 to 28.
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They want to hear both sides dig in the text of Scripture and let's see who's consistent here.
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Let's see who applies the same standards of exegesis. Let's let's go to the word. And I knew that there's just no way that could happen.
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There wasn't enough time for it to happen. And that just simply wasn't the wasn't the context for it to happen.
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And so as I've listened to it, it was almost exactly what I expected it to be.
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And I appreciate the fact that there was no rancor and I didn't expect there to be. I did not expect two presidents of Southern Baptist seminaries to be going at it fork and tongue in a debate.
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Didn't expect that at all. So it was exactly what I expected it to be. Of course,
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Dr. Moeller was there right after eye surgery. And, you know, we pray for Dr.
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Moeller and I more than most can at least have some idea of what he has gone through given the eye problems
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I had a few years ago after my LASIK surgery. And and the concerns about that. And I can tell you stories that will turn your stomach about the stuff that I went through.
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So I have some idea about what what, you know, goes on there.
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But anyway, I didn't expect a debate. It wasn't a debate. It was a discussion and it was it was a good discussion.
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And a lot of folks are looking at that going, boy, it's just too bad you couldn't do that with Ergon Kanner. Well, you know what?
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I would have loved to. And as I said in the blog today, I would have loved to have had a debate, at least that had that at least starting point with it.
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But I was not allowed to do that. And when I tried to establish some level of collegiality in regards to, for example, dealing with with Muslims, every attempt that I made as a fellow apologist or as someone who's who's taught in Southern Baptist seminaries for many years, over a decade, that was all rebuffed.
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That simply was not allowed. And so. Are there places this kind of discussion?
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Yeah, but if this is as far as it ever goes, nothing's ever going to be decided because there was really no, you know, one opinion versus another opinion, but never any real cross -examination.
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You didn't get into the text. You didn't deal with with the tough issues. And there was a great fear of saying, but you're being inconsistent here.
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That's where you're that's where you're wrong. And you're just not going to you're not going to decide important issues by just going, well, we both have two opinions, but let's just all get together and let's just all cooperate.
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Well, yeah, OK, that's fine. But eventually there has to be a place for this kind of discussion to take place and has to go deeper than than something that's just surface level.
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And so I did want to play a good portion of this. We do have a couple of phone calls, but I wanted to at least get started with this in the first half hour.
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Then we can go off that topic if we if we need to and then move on from there.
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But I did want to play these these sections. And so let's let's begin. I'm not going to play
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Dr. Moeller's presentation. It was a it was a fine presentation, but I wanted to go with with what
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Dr. Patterson had to say, respond to some of that and then listen to some of the questions. It seems like the Calvinists were unusually represented in the in the questions.
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They seem to be primarily questions asked from a reformed perspective. And there are some interesting things that were said during the course of that that part, too.
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So let's let's listen. Start listening into Paige Patterson's presentation. But as we know,
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Paige Patterson is an excellent speaker. He's very humorous. He's very interesting to listen to. And he starts off in that way.
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Well, thank you so much, my sweet, precious brother, Dr. Moeller. And we were expecting eight or 10 of you.
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And the question we are here to debate this morning is very clear. Did you come here by free choice or were you elected to be here?
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Across the years, I have come to have the most profound respect for my colleague,
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Dr. Moeller, my much, much, much younger colleague, Dr. Moeller, who oftentimes
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I listen to him as a much younger man and think, dear God, why didn't you give me that kind of a mind?
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And I bless the Lord for him in every way. He has actually there are two assignments that we are given this morning, as I understand.
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The first is to say how our particular view may accentuate the spread of the gospel.
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The second is to answer the question, how is it that two people who do disagree somewhat on this subject, though not as extensively as some imagine, can get along together like we do and be as close as we are?
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And I do hope and I know Dr. Moeller joins me in this hope that we will provide at least an example on that point, if on no other.
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I further would like to say how much I respect him because we were with him last night in the seminary president's meeting we always have before the convention.
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And he had just come in from surgery. He was miserable with the agony of the eye surgery.
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It was fine while it was going on. It's what happens afterwards. It's a little bit of a problem. I couldn't believe he came to that meeting, let alone showed up this morning.
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And that's one reason I respect him so greatly is because of the incredible courage that he always exhibits in every way.
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I want to begin with why it is that I appreciate so many of my Calvinist friends and brothers.
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And every one of these is applicable to Dr. Moeller, but to many others beside there, there are certain things that I always think of when
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I think of my Calvinistic brothers. First of all, I think of men and women who normally live very pious lives.
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And I thank God for that. Number two, there are people that know theology is important.
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I have very little patience with those who sometimes come among us who say, hey, look, we just need to follow
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Jesus and stop talking about this theology. Which Jesus is it that you're going to follow anyway?
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As soon as you began to say that, you began to theologize. That's not an honest approach to life.
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And I appreciate the fact that my Calvinist friends invariably know that theology is important.
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Number three, invariably, until very recent times, they have rejected the theology of the charismatic movement and certainly true of Dr.
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Moeller. And I appreciate that about my Calvinistic friends. Number four, they have understood that the purpose of everything is to glorify
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God. Number five, you will not find a Calvinist, at least not very often, that questions the full inerrancy of God's word or the absolute substitutionary nature of the atonement of Christ.
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Number six, I appreciate them because they are absolutely clear on the doctrine of salvation by grace, that which we tend to take for granted among Southern Baptists is that major issue.
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It is the continental divide of all religious thinking. On one side, you have the overwhelming majority of people in the world of every conceivable religious faith, including those who claim to be
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Christians who actually believe that there is something we can do to make ourselves acceptable to God.
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Over against that, you have a very few people who understand that salvation is by grace through faith alone.
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And I appreciate the fact that my Calvinist brethren never fumbled a ball on that issue.
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What concerns me about some of the present discussion with some Calvinists, not all
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Calvinists by a long shot, and in fact, hopefully with the fewer of them, but with some of them, number one is the logic that often here, if you are not a
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Calvinist, therefore you must be an Armenian. And I was grateful that Dr. Moeller said that I was not an
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Armenian. I am, in fact, a Texan. I wanted to stop that there for the laughter because you heard him change his pronunciation to Armenian, and we've had some fun with that one as well.
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But there is no question about the fact that, you know, when you identify a position as being primarily
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Armenian, the vast majority of the folks you deal with in the Southern Baptist Convention are going to be people who are inconsistent
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Armenians. That is, on the fundamental definitional issues, they're going to agree with the
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Armenian perspective in regards to the nature of the will and the nature of grace. OK, now, if you don't like Armenian and Calvinist, then let's use a much better term, which unfortunately got thrown out the door when
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I suggested it on on the correspondence with with Ergen Kanner, and that is monergist versus synergist.
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A monergist is a person who believes that there is one force or power that accomplishes salvation. It does so without the necessary cooperation and addition of a second power.
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It doesn't deny there's a second power that exists. That second power will become dependent upon its operation to be itself operational.
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It is a monergistic thing that brings about salvation. It's God and God's power, God's grace,
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God's will alone. A synergist believes God's grace tries. God's grace enables prevenient grace.
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Grace empowers. However, grace cannot in of itself. It must work synergistically.
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Synergy, by the way, is a biblical term. It's a term Paul uses of fellow workers.
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It's not in this context a biblical term, but the term itself soon air gone. And so a synergist is a person who would give to the fallen will of man the capacity of making the final decision in regards to whether the death of Christ and the work of the
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Holy Spirit of God will be successful in bringing about salvation. Now, that allows for all sorts of there's there's all sorts of different kinds of synergists out there.
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You've got Roman Catholic synergists and you've got all sorts of Protestant synergists and you've got the Church of Christ and you've got all these groups.
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They're all united on synergism. Monergism then becomes the dividing line.
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And it's a nice, clear distinction. And for some reason, I would suggest to you, if someone does not want clear distinctions to be made, there might be a reason.
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You want clear distinctions made in theological discussion so that people can understand exactly where the two sides are coming from.
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And then once you have the understanding, the two positions, then you can bring them to the word of God. You can examine it. If you can't figure out what the positions are, then how can you ever get to that point?
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And so clarity in discussion is is very, very important at that point. And so it is not true that you must be either a
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Calvinist or an Arminian. Those are not the only options. If not A, then necessarily B is a philosophical fallacy.
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Number two, it is not true that all Calvinists do not accept the doctrines of grace.
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Sometimes it is people are led to believe that if you're not a Calvinist, you don't believe in the doctrines of grace.
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I certainly do. Number three, I'm going to stop right there. The doctrines of grace are generally being utilized to describe the five points of Calvinism.
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Now, that may be a broad description. And so maybe what he's saying is I certainly believe in grace.
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I believe doctrines that refer to grace and things like that. But doctrines of grace is shorthand amongst reform folks for the five points.
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And so I'm just not sure if he's unaware of that or just what that particular complaint there was. If you're not a
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Calvinist, you don't believe in the sovereignty of God. No, as a matter of fact, I believe God is so sovereign that he's able to make men free to make a response to him.
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Well, again, that sounds very good. And we've heard this from Dr. Patterson before. But what does it mean to be so sovereign?
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Is that actually a you know, that's what does that mean? What is that actually a meaningful statement?
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Does it does it carry any any weight to it? Can you can you fill that out?
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I don't know that you can. Now, I know what he's saying. He's saying is God is so powerful and God is so wise that in my perspective, he he has somehow made a way for for autonomous man to exist.
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But I just want to back up at that point and say the primary emphasis on the sovereignty of God is upon that divine decree that results in he being glorified for all that takes place in the context of his own creation.
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And if you take away that divine decree, if you change God into one who passively responds to what takes place in time rather than the the creator of all time itself and the events within time, then now you're going to have to answer all the tough questions that you want to ask of us, but you're not going to be able to then refer to purpose.
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Now, Dr. Patterson knows all of this. There's going to be a question asked later where an individual is going to ask him about Mullenism, about middle knowledge.
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And he gives seemingly off the top of his head a very good description of the
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Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina. He didn't give the background of which I thought was somewhat important. He mentioned William Lane Craig and he mentioned he doesn't really think that it works, but he talked about counterfactuals and and he says it just moves the mystery back one step and it really doesn't solve the question.
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And he did off the top of his head. So if he knows all of that, then he's got to know what we mean by sovereignty at that point and that we're connecting this with the issue of the decree.
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But that doesn't necessarily come out in this particular response. And not be challenged in his sovereignty.
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Number four, I am sometimes concerned about the antinomian tendencies that I find in a few
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Calvinists. These are people who so emphasize the doctrines of grace that apparently the doctrine of separation from the world has eluded them.
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And sometimes they will even advocate, for example, that it is perfectly OK to imbibe an alcoholic beverage regardless of what that industry does to stagger our nation and its families.
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And I don't appreciate that antinomianism wherever I see it. Now, that's interesting in light of the passage of the of the motion and the resolution regards the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
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But it's it's probably I would guess at that point that was a bit of a of a shot toward like the
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White Horse Inn and folks like that. And, you know, you I can understand the fact that sometimes there are some reform folks who may they wear it as a badge of honor.
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OK, that they can sit around and talk about this out of the other experience they've had with alcohol.
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But I understand what he's saying. But at the same time, I don't know that's really anything to do with Calvinism per se.
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I mean, get together with the Lutherans or something. And, you know, I mean, is that really a reformed issue?
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Are there not? Are there not Methodists who drink, too? I mean, I just I just found it really odd that somehow becomes connected with a discussion of Calvinism and non -Calvinism.
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It just didn't make much sense. And then I am concerned about our full revelation of ourselves to churches that wish to consider us.
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This is an admonition not only to Calvinists, but to people like me who are dispensationalists or to some of you who may be charismatics.
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Whatever your viewpoint and perspective is, it is absolutely a matter of integrity and honesty when you are dealing with a call to a church that you make that crystal clear.
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Where do you stand? Where will you take the church? Otherwise, you become the cause of dissension in the churches of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. These are some of the concerns that I have about Calvinism, about some
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Calvinists. Now, there is a reason why I am not a
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Dorsian Calvinist. The Synod of Dort met from 1618 to 19, and they came out with the five points in reaction to those who were teaching otherwise.
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Some of the things that they said I cannot go along with. I cannot go along with the doctrine of irresistible grace, for example, because I think it makes salvation coercive.
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It means that God coerces people to be saved. Now, immediately, when you hear people using force, coercion, and all that, especially at this level of discussion, there has to be some means whereby somebody,
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Dr. Mohler or somebody else, could stop and say, no, wait a minute. Are you saying that resurrection is coercive?
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That is what cross -examination is about. That is why you have to have that in a debate for it to be a debate.
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Is resurrection coercive? Is regeneration coercive?
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Is the removal of a heart of stone, the giving of a heart of flesh, coercive? That is what has to be asked.
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Do not think that that is the case. I find no scriptural evidence for that in God's Word.
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And again, when I say my opponent has no biblical basis for saying what he is saying,
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I am then going to say, now, here are some of the passages that have been misused, okay?
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And if we are talking about free will, you know, I am going to go to the various texts they are trying to find and things like that.
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I am going to go to the best they have to present. Now, again, this is just a discussion. Looking at the time indexes here, it looked like they each had somewhere around 20 minutes at the most each.
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It looks to here that Moeller took about 17. And so, yeah, it almost looks like Patterson went longer.
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But anyway, Moeller may just may not have used up the whole time that he did, but that he had been given.
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But I recognize this is short. But to just simply say, I see nothing, that's, again, it just didn't accomplish anything because there's plenty of things we can talk about.
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There's all sorts of stuff we can go to and look at that, but it doesn't get discussed in a context like this. Number two, I also believe that the biblical case in favor of universal atonement is overwhelming.
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I shall present a little bit of that in just a few moments. Number three, I believe that there are two clear statements in God's Word linking
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God's electing providence to the foreknowledge of God. Dorsian Calvinists did not accept that foreknowledge was a matter as such.
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They redefined that. And yeah. Well, back up the truck there. Redefined that?
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You mean because they recognize the difference between the philosophical definition of foreknowledge, the acceptance of the reality that God has knowledge of all future events?
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Now, why he has knowledge of all future events becomes an issue. But the acceptance of that.
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But then the recognition that for God to foreknow, active verb, is different than for God to have foreknowledge, substantive, to recognize the difference between a verb and a noun and to recognize if it's an active verb, it means
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God's doing something, not receiving something, but doing something. And that every single time
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God does this action, the object of the action is personal, not facts, not history, not events, but personal.
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It's people that God foreknows, not what people do that God foreknows. How is accepting that biblical reality redefining something?
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The redefinition is what we have in, well, Dr. Patterson's viewpoint of foreknowledge, and not in Dort's view of that particular issue.
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But the Bible says, elect according to the foreknowledge of God. Finally, to me, it is necessary that God's justice be proclaimed and defended.
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R .C. Sproul, for example, in his book, Almighty Over All, says, quote, God desired man to fall into sin,
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God created sin, end of quote. That sort of Calvinistic expression to me is inconceivable because it puts
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God exercising a form of justice entirely different from that which he reveals in his holy word.
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Again, Sproul said, quote, it is his desire to make his wrath known.
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He indeed then, he needed then something on which to be wrathful.
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He needed to have sinful creatures, end of quote. This makes God in some sense the author of sin, and I cannot sustain that in the light of God's precious word.
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Now, again, this kind of argument, as common as it is, you know that if you would go back and you would read the context for Sproul, and you would read the context of these statements, that there is much more to it.
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There is going to be an extensive discussion of both ends and means. There is going to be a discussion of primary and secondary causes.
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There are going to be all sorts of discussions because if you go to the key text, there are the very same issues, especially when you go to Isaiah chapter 10, and you see
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God bringing Assyria against Israel as his instrument of bringing destruction and punishment upon Israel.
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This is his means of punishing a sinful people in light of the covenant that they made with him, and yet he then turns around and punishes
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Assyria because of the attitude of the heart that they had when they were being used as the instrument of God's judgment upon Israel.
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And so these things are there in scripture. You have to deal with them. It is not a matter of just trying to hide something.
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It is not a matter of trying to sneak something in. Those issues are right there, and we immediately turn the question around and have to again ask
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Paige Patterson, when God created, did he know that evil would exist?
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So how do you avoid saying that God is in some sense the author of evil? If God created all things and evil exists in his creation, then there has got to be some sense in which you do not just dodge this and just keep asking the question of other people.
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How do you deal with it? And free willism is not going to do it. I am sorry, but that has never succeeded to say, well,
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God created man with a free will and therefore evil came into the world.
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Okay, that sounds wonderful, but there is only one consistent way of holding that viewpoint, and that is to say
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God created man with a free will and he did not know man would fall. He did not know man would fall.
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So what does that lead you to? To open theism, of course. So that is why I say open theism is the only consistent way,
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I think, to be an Arminian. I think open theists are consistent Arminians. If you are an Arminian, if you are not a
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Calvinist, if you are a synergist, whatever terms you want to use, and you want to assert the idea that God knew exactly what was going to take place when he created, then you have to answer the question that did he create for a purpose or did he create for a purpose that was not fulfilled?
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And believe me, I think the philosophical mire that you fall into to try to defend that kind of viewpoint is far worse than anything the
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Calvinist has to deal with. I mean, you know, the Calvinist, someone just quoted in Channel Isaiah 45 .7,
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the Calvinist will talk about the fact that God is sovereign over all things, and there is that sense in which he brings shalom and he brings rah.
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He's big enough to take those accusations while saying, I am not the one who creates in the sense of originating sin.
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It's man who loves his sin, not God. God's never taken some morally neutral agent, stuck a gun to his head and said, do evil.
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Didn't have to do that. There's much more to be talked about here, and surely, again, since Patterson is who
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Patterson is, he knows this. And so it's one thing to make this kind of objection, but it's another to make the objection and demonstrate that you have seriously listened to the responses to your objections.
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See, that's what makes a powerful presentation is when you can make a presentation that demonstrates you've heard what your opponent is about to say and you respond to his best arguments in your positive presentation.
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That's the best way to make an argument and to really convince people where you're coming from. Let's listen just a little bit more, and then we'll start taking our phone calls because we have three folks online right now.
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There are many other reasons why I cannot be called a Calvinist. Richard Muller, in his very fine article,
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How Many Points, that appeared in the Calvin Theological Journal in 1993, makes the point that if a person is actually a
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Calvinist, that he must embrace the whole portion of Calvinism, which includes church -state relations that we would not agree with and even the covenantal baptism of infants and the whole question of elect infants.
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And Richard Muller, I believe, to be exactly correct, and that's the reason why I cannot make myself out to be a
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Calvinist. Now, again, and that's actually a good place to stop because it leads us into our first phone caller, but in essence, isn't it ironic?
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Here we have a Southern Baptist over on one side of us saying you can't be a
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Calvinist because you need to buy the whole system, and that's church -state relations, so you need to believe what
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Calvin believed about a magisterial reformation, and then you also have to buy the entire concept of paedo -baptism, so you can't really be a
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Baptist and a Southern Baptist, and so you're just being inconsistent.
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And then on the other side, you have the Presbyterians saying the same thing, but the other direction, and that's always the position that reformed
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Baptists find themselves in, attempting to explain, depending on who it is you're talking to, exactly where it is in that spectrum that you wish to identify yourself as existing.
33:52
So, we will pick up with that. I will try to hopefully remember the specific point we were at.
33:58
I'm not using the uber -cool Q list that I was using with various of the other things in earlier programs, so I'll hopefully remember where that is and be able to pick up with that particular point.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number for you to call to be involved in the dividing line today, and that is the number that Randy called.
34:22
Hello, Randy. Hi, Dr. White. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, sir. Enjoyed your show so far this afternoon.
34:29
Very well done. Let me start by saying, actually, that I have a question with regards to infant baptism, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, you're perfectly capable of taking me out to the theological woodshed on any topic on the
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Bible. I would include this one here. So, I'm just going to ask you to go easy on me, because I know you're capable of it.
34:56
So, Randy, you didn't write to me this week? Oh, yeah, I did. I thought that. So, yeah, you had said to me that Presbyterians don't use or base their viewpoint of paedo -baptism on the oikos formula, and I had written back to point out to you that, as I said in my sermons, you had listened to my sermons from last
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Sunday, that the individual that I am debating on October 19, Pastor Bill Shishko of the
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Franklin Square Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a large portion of his presentation, in fact, he doesn't even like the term paedo -baptism, he likes the term oikobaptism, is based upon the oikos formula.
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I was just listening two days ago to his debate that took place during one of his classes for, I believe it's
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Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, against a Reformed Baptist elder, and that was central to his affirmative presentation.
35:49
I am well aware of the presentation from John Calvin in the Institutes of Christian Religion, Romans 4 .11,
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Colossians 2 .11 -12, which is what I'll be addressing this coming Sunday, the whole issue of circumcision and baptism and fulfillment and all the rest of those things, but I have to respond to the argumentation of the individual to whom
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I'm going to be responding in debate, first and foremost, which is why I began with those particular texts.
36:15
So I hope you understand this is not the first debate I've done on paedo -baptism, it'll actually be the third, and I have found differences in every one of the paedo -baptists that I have debated.
36:25
Now that, of course, would be the same with lots of Baptists. I would imagine, surely, that Dr.
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Patterson would defend baptism in a different way than I would, because I would come at it from a covenantal perspective.
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But the fact remains, I do know where my Presbyterian friends are coming from, and I wasn't trying to in any way avoid their primary presentation, which, from Calvin, is based upon the fulfillment of circumcision seen in baptism.
36:55
No, and I can appreciate that. I apologize for taking you out of context.
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I really didn't know where you were coming from with that.
37:07
I assumed, of course, that you were working with the premise that that was actually a major part of the argument.
37:15
Well, for Bill Shishko today, it is, yeah. Just one sec.
37:21
Yeah, okay, we'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, I've studied this through R .C.
37:28
Sproul and through his mentor, Dr. John H. Gerson, and, of course,
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I think it's safe to say they would probably agree that there's a lot of strength in those passages.
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So I can't deny that, but at the same time, I don't think that they would put too much value in them.
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And I think I've even heard Dr. Sproul say that those passages that refer to adult baptisms in the
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New Testament are largely irrelevant to the point. And to some degree, he might even say that about the passages that you quoted with regards to household baptisms.
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And the idea being, as I understood it, was that Jewish proselyte baptism, you know, in that you would have infants being baptized along with the entire household.
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And so to a Jew, this would have been a perfectly normal thing. They would have expected it.
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Quite possibly, anyway, they would have expected it. And so when someone comes, an apostle comes to baptize members of the household, there might be some reason to assume that that would include the infants of those households as well, just based on that.
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There's not a lot of strength in that, and I certainly don't see that. But I guess my question to you would be with regards to the case put by R .C.
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Sproul and Dr. Gershner that they believe is a connection between circumcision and baptism. And I can assume that you would disagree with that.
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Well, what you need to recognize is just as there is a connection between the
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Old Covenant sacrifices and the sacrifice of Christ, it does not mean that we allow wholesale connection between those two things.
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There is continuity and there is discontinuity. From the Presbyterian perspective, there is discontinuity between circumcision and baptism.
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How so? Well, first of all, circumcision was only given to males and baptism is given to both.
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Secondly, it was given at a particular point in time, whereas that same stricture is not applied in this context.
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And very interestingly, there was no requirement for faith on the part of either one of the parents for circumcision to take place.
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Yet for some reason, Presbyterians require faith of at least one of the two parents for baptism to take place, which
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I find to be great discontinuity. There's another major discontinuity that's relevant to what you just said.
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And that is, while circumcision would be applied to the whole household, a household in the
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Old Testament was not just people who were your offspring. It included your servants as well. And so there is a discontinuity as to the very definition of household in the
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Presbyterian understanding of the fulfillment, as they understand it, of circumcision and baptism. And so there's numerous issues of discontinuity there.
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And the Baptist simply says that in reality, the primary fulfillment of circumcision in the
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Old Covenant is regeneration in the New Covenant, and that that has to be given the primary role of fulfilling the meaning of circumcision, the removal of that flesh.
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That's why we are called the true circumcision, Philippians 3 .3. We are the ones who worship God in spirit and in truth.
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And so there's all sorts of issues that I'll be getting to in looking at Romans 4 .11 and Colossians 2 this coming
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Sunday in the sermons. Don't want to give everything away now or nobody will show up for church. But we also have a caller from Australia online.
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I want to get to him before he's completely bereft of all money. But there's all sorts of issues along those lines that I think need to be discussed, especially when you look at the widespread use of Romans 4 .11
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by Calvin in saying that since circumcision for Abraham was the sign of a righteousness that was his by faith before he was circumcised,
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Calvin simply takes that to mean that that was true for all Jews. And it clearly was not. That misses the fact that in the argumentation in Romans 4, he is pointing to Abraham at a particular point in time, and he's saying
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Abraham's circumcision represented this. There were all sorts of Jews for whom their circumcision did not mean that.
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And so to make his illustrative of everyone is one of the major problems in Calvin's application at that point.
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And so I think, honestly, when you look at Romans 4 .11 and Colossians 2, demonstrate that neither one of them requires the
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Presbyterian reading. You combine that with the household baptisms that, again,
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Acts, I think, gives a very clear indication that the pattern is belief, repentance, then baptism.
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And that to take one with Lydia and turn all the rest of them on their head at that point doesn't work.
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And then when you follow that up with Hebrews chapter eight, and if you've looked at the articles that I've written on that subject, the nature of the new covenant, which is the covenant in his blood and a consistent reformed understanding of the atonement,
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I think us reformed Baptists have a pretty good leg to stand on. But that's why we're doing the debate.
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And that's why I've mentioned to folks, hey, if you want to hear everything that Bill Shishko has to say, go to sermonaudio .com,
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look up Shishko, S -H -I -S -H -K -O, 23 Lessons on Baptism.
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I've downloaded them. I invite everybody else to do the same thing. I think Bill would join with me in saying what we want to have happen in this debate is that everyone will have a clear, sterling clear, minus all rancor, presentation of the two sides, interaction with one another, and then the ability to go to the text and to with the lights fully on, shall we say, deal with the issue.
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So that's really what we want to try to accomplish. And I hope that's helpful to you. Is it? Well, I mean, you've said so many things there that I could respond to.
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And obviously, I don't have time on your show here to do that. There's just so much there. And I don't have time to go to that.
43:42
But no, first of all, a
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Jew who was circumcised but was not a member of the household of faith, did not actually have faith in the covenant promises of God, was only a
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Jew outwardly, which was just as distasteful to God as someone who was not a Jew at all and didn't embrace the covenant promises of God.
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So yes, it's true that circumcision was for everybody who was of that household of faith, proselyte
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Jews had to. It was sort of understood in the given that they'd have to embrace the covenant promises of God.
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They had to have faith, certainly. Except their children would not. No, that's true.
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Their children would not. But the idea would be, of course, that the children would in time have faith.
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And that's actually the whole point, is that it was a covenant of the gospel of Jesus Christ that was given to these children, even though they didn't have the ability to understand the consequences of that at that age.
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Well, see, and that's one of the major differences between us, is that I don't believe you can demonstrate from the New Testament that baptism is pointing towards something.
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Circumcision did. Baptism points back. It is a sign unto us of something, not hoping for something.
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Circumcision was a sign of the Abrahamic covenant. What do you have happening?
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You have the promise that the seed would come and the nations would be blessed. Well, folks, once Christ comes, the seed has come.
45:15
And so to make baptism something that's looking forward to a hope for fulfillment of faith, that's where I go, sorry, again, as I pointed out, there's some real discontinuity in the
45:29
Presbyterian application in regards to the objects and things like that. But why can't this be discontinuity? Um, Abraham received the gospel beforehand.
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So he was looking forward to a gospel that was yet to come. And we've received the gospel and the promise of a gospel that has already come.
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He was looking forward. We're looking backward. And that's the point they're trying to make. Except that circumcision was a promise that the seed would come through that household of faith.
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The seed has come. The blessing has come. Baptism isn't looking forward to something to where you go. Well, we give it to someone in hopes that they will have faith.
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That's one of the major differences between us. But we could go along on this for a long, long time. I do appreciate it because we're going to be going along those lines when we do the debate.
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But like I said, I hope you understand, we've got a caller from Australia. So you can't imagine what that's probably costing right now.
46:22
So I need to move on. I'll let it go at that. And I'll keep listening. And I'll actually take Dr. Shisco's information and try to study that as well.
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There you go. He's on sermonaudio .com. S -H -I -S -H -K -O. Thank you for your time. Thank you. God bless.
46:35
Bye -bye. Let's save a man some money here and go to Enoch. Hi, Enoch.
46:42
Hello, Dr. White. How are you, sir? I'm pretty good. I was just encouraged to give you a call because I was told
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I wouldn't be able to call you for quite a while. Why is that? Well, because apparently you're going away somewhere.
46:56
Well, yes, I'm going to the UK next week. But I'm only going to be gone for a week and be back after that.
47:03
So anyway, what can we do for you? Okay. Well, let's give you a bit of background.
47:09
But I've just basically become a friend with a
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Muslim. And we've talked a couple of times on different things that they believe.
47:22
And one thing that has come up, which I can't talk much about, is that there's writings that they believe and trust in that say that, well, that really sort of say that they can't trust in what the
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Bible says. For instance, that there's a writing that says that Jesus swapped places with somebody else before he was crucified.
47:54
Yeah. That wasn't actually Jesus that died. Well, what they're saying. It's hard to talk to them about that, you know.
48:01
Right. If they don't trust the Bible at all. Right. Well, because they've got other things that they trust in more than the
48:09
Bible. Yeah. Enoch, let me let me mention if you're not familiar with it. You understand what
48:14
I mean? Yes, sir. We did a debate against an Islamic apologist by the name of Shabir Ali.
48:21
I can't hear you, sorry. You can't hear me. Well, I'm trying to respond as you can't hear me at all. We are doing the best we can.
48:31
We've got as loud as we can. Can you hear me at all? I can hear you a bit, just very lightly.
48:38
I'm very sorry. It has to do with phone lines and stuff. I'll tell you what
48:43
I'll need to do, Enoch, is I'll try to give you a response right now, but I'll also let you know that you can listen to the program on an archive as soon as it's loaded, and you'll be able to hear me a whole lot better at that point if you can't understand what
49:01
I'm saying. But what your Muslim friend is probably referring to is a fraudulent book called
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The Gospel of Barnabas, and that book was written around the 15th century.
49:18
It is acknowledged even by many Islamic scholars to be a clearly fraudulent work.
49:25
It is not in any way, shape, or form the work of Barnabas, and it is very common, unfortunately, for Muslims to accept that kind of fraudulent writing as long as it agrees with what
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Muhammad said. And what you might find useful is the debate that I did with Shabir Ali, who is a
49:52
Muslim apologist, on the reliability of the Gospels just last month in Los Angeles.
50:00
If you look on our website at aomin .org, you'll find the MP3s there, and we discussed a lot of these foundational issues regarding Muslim attacks upon the
50:12
New Testament. So you might want to take a look at that debate. That'll be useful to you.
50:18
And then, basically, what you need to do in talking to this
50:25
Muslim friend of yours is to challenge them to use the same standards for the sources they will accept as they use in regards to defending the
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Quran. They would never allow something like the
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Gospel of Barnabas to be used to deny the validity of the
50:53
Quran or Muhammad or something like that, but they'll accept anything as long as it attacks the
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New Testament. And so they're using a real double standard at that point. And the point that I kept making to Shabir Ali, and I believe it is a very valid point, is that inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument.
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And since they have to use different standards to attack the New Testament than they use to defend the
51:20
Quran, that demonstrates the problem with their particular position. Okay?
51:26
So take a listen to that debate. I think it'll help you a lot. Have you seen answeringislam .org?
51:35
No. It's answering -islam .org, and if your friend raises particular issues, use the search engine at answering -islam .org,
51:48
and you'll find all sorts of stuff there that would be useful to you, okay? Okay.
51:54
All right. Well, thanks for calling, Enoch. All right. God bless. Thank you. Bye. Bye -bye.
52:00
Ah, well, you know, technology is still... It's... You know, there's only one phone line coming in here, basically, and that's...
52:08
That's shame. All right. Let me back up here, and let's talk to Charles.
52:14
Hi, Charles. How are you? Hi. I hope you don't mind. We jumped over to Enoch there, but I can't imagine what that was costing him.
52:21
Hello? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Okay. Let me briefly give you a quick background of my question.
52:27
Then I'll ask the question, and I'll just let you answer it. I've been finding websites trying to say that Augustine was lost for believing in baptismal regeneration.
52:35
And as you know, Dave Hunt tries to use that guilt trip of John Calvin, and I've been agonizing over it. Just wondered what your thought was about the
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Church Fathers who had a form of baptismal regeneration. Well, stay with me just a second.
52:48
When you say agonizing, what do you mean? Well, I'm just plain as devil's advocate.
52:55
For example, a Roman Catholic would say, well, if you endorse Augustine and Calvin, and you say that people preach another gospel.
53:02
By the way, Dan Corner tries to use that on Augustine for preaching another gospel. They call it double standards, that if Calvin believed in baptismal regeneration, it can still be saved.
53:15
Why is it that we can say that other people who teach it are lost? Right. Well, first of all, it is very highly arguable that Calvin believed in baptismal regeneration.
53:25
I would recommend, someday we will have available the presentation that Pastor David King made at our conference in Los Angeles, which
53:36
I don't think is even yet available in MP3 format, or is it? Is it available?
53:42
But the video isn't. What's his name again? Pastor David King gave a presentation on that very issue,
53:50
Calvin's doctrine of baptism, at our 2004
53:56
Los Angeles conference. My last understanding was, and maybe I'm wrong, but my last understanding was that that had not yet been made available.
54:05
He's saying no, because my recollection was you were having sound issues and never gotten to it, and so Rich is looking very upset now.
54:13
We have a presentation. Let's put it that way, on that subject that you need to sort of keep your eyes open for, and it would be useful to you.
54:22
But secondly, there's a vast, I tried to address this in regards to Dave Hunt, and I've tried to address this in regards to other people.
54:33
Augustine's theology, and this is, I've only got three and a half minutes, and that's not enough time to do this, but Augustine's theology, as B .B.
54:41
Warfield put it, the Reformation inwardly considered was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.
54:53
Now, I will not defend Augustine as having been consistent. He was inconsistent with himself.
54:59
There's no question about that. However, I also would say that most of my Southern Baptist friends are inconsistent with themselves, too.
55:07
Does this inconsistency mean that you are to be thrown out of the kingdom of God? I do not believe that that is the case.
55:13
Secondly, Augustine lived long prior to the Reformation, and there is a difference between being a person who is inconsistent out of ignorance and being a person who is inconsistent because of the acceptance of false teaching and false doctrine in light of truth that is well known.
55:29
There's a very big difference between those two things, and unfortunately, people who look back at the history of the church do not recognize that.
55:36
Augustine, for example, had no Hebrew and was only semi -able to handle any
55:41
Greek whatsoever. He misunderstood, for example, what the Greek term dikaiosune and dikaio meant because he took it from the
55:49
Latin. Now, someone living today wouldn't have those excuses. There is no reason for a person to be ignorant of those things today.
55:56
And so to follow somebody in a teaching in light of the clear truth that is available, that's very different than someone in a situation who was under persecution or people like that in the early church.
56:09
And so one of the problems I have with Dave Hunt is he does not contextualize the early church writers, and he does not recognize that there's a vast difference between someone who has maybe a quarter of the
56:20
New Testament and is living in fear constantly of being caught by the
56:26
Roman soldiers and thrown to lions, who has no place they can go for instruction.
56:31
There's a vast difference between that person and a person who has access to everything that we have today.
56:38
And so unfortunately, Dave Hunt doesn't allow for that differentiation and doesn't allow for a fair reading of Augustine to recognize that what he said in regards to election and predestination, it's totally contradictory to what he came up with in the earlier
56:52
Donatist controversy in regards to baptism. But there are reasons for that that he doesn't even begin to delve into, and I think it's very unfair.
56:59
Yeah, you've got the same problem with his contradiction on perseverance. When he says there are some regenerate people who can fall away from one end of his mouth, but the other end, he affirms perseverance.
57:10
Well, he affirms, if you're talking about Augustine, he is affirming perseverance of the elect, not of the baptized.
57:19
So would you say that maybe his concept of justified might have had a different climatical? It certainly did, because he took it from the
57:26
Latin, not from the Greek. He was not aware of what the actual Greek root would have indicated.
57:33
And so, yeah, there's definitely a problem with Augustine on his doctrine of justification at that point, because he was ignorant of the backgrounds that someone doesn't have to be ignorant about today.
57:45
But again - I'll just say real quick and I'll go. You've got the same problem with St. Thomas Aquinas, who's mixed baggage. How he introduced
57:51
Greek philosophy, he even taught you can merit heaven. He's even more problematic than Augustine at that point, because, well, for a number of reasons, but also because of what he does with the issue of the sacrifice of Christ and the issues that surround that.
58:06
So there's a whole lot more to it than even that. But hey, we got as much of it as we could in towards the end there.
58:12
I appreciate your patience. Thanks for calling in. Look forward to David Cain. All right. Thank you. Bye bye.
58:18
Hey, really sorry, Adam, didn't get to you today regarding foreknowledge, but we will press on as best we can and we'll not be here next week.
58:29
As I mentioned, the Tuesday, July 4th, I'll be speaking at the Metropolitan Tabernacle School of Theology in London.
58:37
And then I think Thursday is Thursday. Am I up in Glasgow? Or is that Friday? Well, anyways, we're gonna be heading up that direction.
58:42
So we won't be on the air next week, but we will the week after that. Lord willing, see you then. God bless. That's AOMIN .org,
59:49
where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks. Join us again next