Reeves/Perkins Debate

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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 good morning, welcome to a mega -sized edition of the

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Dividing Line, two hours of biblical and theological apologetics coming your direction.

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Four topics today, both of two related to the same topic and two related to a different topic.

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And so the first hour, mainly Reformed theology, second hour, we're going to be looking specifically at Trinitarian issues, which, by the way, is

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Reformed theology as well. Someone last night in the chat channel said, well, I like to read, or this morning,

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I like to read your non -Reformed books, and I wrote back, I don't have any non -Reformed books.

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You need to understand that. And that is the case. First half hour, we will be looking at Micah Coate's attempt to get around Romans 9.

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In the second half hour, we go back to the Fernandez -Comas debate and the rebuttals. In the next hour,

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I have decided to abandon the Perkins -Slick debate because of the sound quality.

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I was listening to the debate between Perkins and our

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Church of Christ minister friend, who, by the way, we may be able to arrange a debate maybe late next year, early the year after.

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I, again, very impressed with his performance in that debate, so I think it would make for a very good debate on the doctrines of grace.

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We wouldn't be debating the Trinity, we agree on that. But we will be doing that in the first half hour going to that, and it's actually a better debate.

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I was listening to it this morning, and, man, why didn't I do this? In fact, may I apologize to all of you who have not really been paying attention because you couldn't really hear what

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Mr. Perkins was saying anyways. So we'll switch over to that one. And it's more recent anyways, not by a whole lot, but it's a little bit more recent anyhow.

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And the sound quality, as you will see, is a lot better. And you'll actually be able to understand what's being said.

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And then in the last half hour, and I forgot to ask the person behind the control panel what his schedule is on Wednesday and Thursday this week, but last half hour, we're going to dive into the

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Samuel Green -Abdulakunda Trinity debate because that's, I need to be getting there.

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That's, I need to be focusing much more attention there than in other areas with the upcoming trip to Sydney and Brisbane for the debates going on down there.

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But I would like to sneak in some time where we just do that debate without anything else sometime.

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We'll just see what works out. So a mega deal today, two hours, get yourself a deep seat in the saddle, fire up your computer programs and let's get at it.

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First half hour then, looking at Micah Coate's attempt to get around Romans Chapter 9.

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I didn't finish up all the references to me. We'll get there eventually, I hope so. But Romans Chapter 9, we will now look at Romans 9, a rather simple interpretation for this complex area of theology

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I'm reading from this book, obviously. I will give a simple interpretation because my intent is not to offer a commentary on Romans 9, but to show how

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Calvinism pulls doctrine from this chapter and draws what I believe to be unbiblical conclusions. I just comment, you cannot give a simple interpretation that is not a commentary.

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I mean, that's what a commentary is. My interpretation will demonstrate that Calvinism's essential deductions are incomplete, although the middle of the chapter is the section most used by Calvinism.

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We will look at the chapter in its entirety. No, the entire chapter is what is focused upon by quote -unquote, reformed theologians in their interpretation.

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He then gives some basic background information about what's going on here, etc.,

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etc. And then he quotes the text down through verse 5.

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And of course, verse 5 is, "...of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to flesh, Christ came, who is overall the eternally blessed

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God. Amen." He says, "...why would Paul have great sorrow and continual grief for his Jewish brethren if he believed in a theology of unconditional election and limited atonement?

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Already chapter 9 contradicts the Calvinistic doctrine of determinism." No, it doesn't. Why? See, this is what is so frustrating about Mr.

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Coates' book. And I've had a number of people contact me, people who know Mr. Coates, and they said, look, he's gotten most of this from certain professors at Phoenix Seminary.

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I guess Phoenix Seminary is infested with anti -lordship professors, just radical, no repentance, tip your hat toward God, you're eternally saved, who are really radically anti -Calvinistic, which might explain why

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I've never been asked to do anything there for like, I don't know, decades now. But they'll throw these statements out and then not even bother to reason through the reason for this.

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I know that in his idea of what Calvinism is, remember, he posted the absurdity, and so he thinks we

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Calvinists really do think that God is an evil person and all this stuff, and he forces babies to be raped and all the rest of this silliness of the absurdity.

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But they'll just throw this stuff out, but they won't then substantiate it. Why don't you quote someplace where, because Paul would believe in God's, well, because Paul would believe in exactly what he's going to say in this text, that he would not have great sorrow and continual grief for his

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Jewish brethren. Why, since we don't know the identity of the elect, that is not a part of what is a part of Calvinism.

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We've never said, oh yeah, I know who the elect are, and therefore I don't have to worry about all this stuff. I can just be heartless.

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And even though I myself have been redeemed, I can just be heartless about other people who reject Christ and so on and so forth.

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Since we don't know the identity of the elect, and we know ourselves what

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Christ has meant to us, the darkness out of which he brought us, the redemption he's brought into our lives, how much he means to us, then how could we not desire to do what

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Paul did, and that is to proclaim the gospel to all men, whatever class, whatever nation, et cetera, et cetera.

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That's what we're called to do, and that's what we do. My belief in eternal election does not in any way diminish my desire to see others come to know

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Christ. It does explain, however, why I can present the exact same message to two people from the same background with very much of the same kind of personality, and one rejects and one accepts, without turning it into, well, it's just them.

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No, 1 Corinthians 1 makes it very, very clear. But to those who are the called, whether Jew or Gentile, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God.

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So he stops his quotation just to throw in further demonstration that he does not understand the system that he is attacking, and he has simply accepted what other people have told him and is utterly uncritical in his comments.

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That's just, that's the only way to put it. And by the way, some people have sort of commented, you know, the guy is only 32 years old.

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I mean, can you really? I mean, he's just a student at the Phoenix Seminary. I mean, come on, what's the problem?

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Anyone ever read the King James Only Controversy? It's a pretty big book, lots of research footnotes.

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It only took me four months to write, but I wish I could write books that fast now. I wasn't doing anything other than writing books back then.

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You know how old I was when I wrote it? 31. You know, that was my seventh book. So I had written seven books by the time

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I was 31 years of age. And is anybody going to, have

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I ever, when someone, can you imagine if, when Will Kinney called in, well, it says in your footnote, well, dude,

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I was only 31. Can you imagine that as an excuse? I don't think so.

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Don't think so, not going there. Okay, so then he quotes verses six through eight, which, of course,

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I would point out verse six introduces us to the thesis statement of what follows.

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But it is not the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they're the seed of Abraham.

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But in Isaac your seed shall be called. That is, those are the children of flesh. These are not the children of God.

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The children of promise are counted as the seed. Then we go with Mr. Coates' commentary. Because of the new covenant of faith and grace in which

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Jews and Gentiles are equally received into God's kingdom, we see that verses six through eight echo John's words.

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But as many as received him, then he gave the right to become the children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born out of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

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Paul writes that it is not the children of flesh who are God's children, but that is the children of promise who are counted as the seed.

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Well, he seems to be missing the fact that the assertion is there was always a distinction in God's purpose.

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It is not mere genealogical connection. There is a promise, and God guides the fulfillment of that promise, and he is free to do so as he chooses, as he chooses.

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The children of promise are not limited to just a physical bloodline, as Jews commonly thought. The promise is made by Jesus for becoming a child of God to depend upon God's calling and one's subsequent reaction, which, of course, is the exact opposite of what we're about to read in the next few verses.

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For this is the word of promise. Let me get back to it. This is the word of promise. This time I will come and Sarah shall have a son, and only this, when

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Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even our father Isaac, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand not of works, but him who calls, then dot, dot, dot.

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According to New Testament soteriology, salvation is clearly not of human works, but of God's grace through faith, as declared by Paul in Ephesians 2.

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It should be of no surprise that God's purpose by election would stand while the children, Jacob and Esau, were still in their mother's womb.

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Because we are not saved by works, Paul repeats the New Covenant proclamation that salvation is of him who calls.

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Accordingly, this lines up with the doctrines taught by Jesus that salvation is of him who calls. Calvinism assumes that the call must not be offered to all people, yet as we have already noticed,

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Scripture tells otherwise in such verses as. Now, he doesn't seem to distinguish between the effectual call and the general call.

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Obviously, they both exist in Scripture. Many are called, few are chosen. How do you understand that?

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But remember, Romans 8 comes right after what? I'm sorry, Romans 9 comes right after what?

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Romans 8. And what do we have in Romans 8? See, he skipped the eternal, the eternal operation. Yeah, that's really good.

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The golden chain of redemption, that's sort of, they sort of sound similar. They're very different. The golden chain of redemption where you had that word called used.

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And how is that called? Wouldn't that determine what calling means? That he's the one who's, you know, this is a matter of sentences after this.

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It is a part of the same argument. And does he go back to Romans 8? No, he's jumped completely out of the context.

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This is classical eisegesis. This is how you try to avoid what a text is talking about.

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So, if you follow Paul, Paul has said those who are called, them he justified, whom he justified, them he also glorified.

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Who are the ones that were called? Those who were predestined. Who are the ones that were predestined? Those who were foreknown.

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Verbal form. Those whom he foreknew. Active verb. Got to explain what that means.

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So, what he's done here is, the emphasis of Romans 9 is, their calling had nothing to do with them.

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It had nothing to do with what they did, good or bad. It's God's purpose in election that is standing here.

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And the men, Jacob and Esau, are the objects of the freedom of God's actions.

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And here you've got someone who wants to make God the object of our free actions. So, he's got to turn the text on its head.

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So, instead of defining calling by looking back at, is there anything about calling here in the context?

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Oh, there's calling right there in the context. Maybe we should let that determine what the word might mean, or at least take it into consideration as we seek to follow the argument of the apostle.

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Instead, he runs off to Matthew and John and places like that, and instead of dealing with Paul's actual statement.

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The question then that must be asked by non -Calvinists is, if God calls all, draws all, and desires all to be saved, why did he not call, draw, or in the end desire to elect

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Esau? Well, of course, if you say he calls all, then you plug that into Romans 8 and you're a universalist.

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If you say he draws all, you plug that into John 6 and you're a universalist. If you say he desires all to be saved, you just got to ask yourself the question of, well,

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I guess God just doesn't get what he desires. And that is what many, that's exactly what many Arminian will tell you, exactly.

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Some might answer that it was due to the foreknowledge of God, that God by his foreknowledge knew the future rejection of God's grace by Esau.

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I just point out that even if you go with a bare foreknowledge perspective, doesn't he know everybody's rejection of him?

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There are many speculative explanations, which we'll not deal with here. The issue is that Calvinists assume, so in other words,

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I ain't going to answer the question, I don't know, but I'm going to tell you the Calvinists are wrong. I can't tell you what the real answer is, but I can tell you the

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Calvinists are wrong. There are many speculative explanations, which we will not deal with here. The issue is that Calvinists assume that the association of election, the above passage deals with personal salvation.

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Actually, let's see, Romans 9, they are not all of Israel who are of Israel.

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What does that have to do? What is, what's the promise have to do with here? Isn't the whole point the explanation of God's freedom in what?

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Well, God's promises have failed because there are Jews who reject Jesus. Well, if you reject Jesus, what's the result of that?

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What's the result of accepting Jesus? Isn't that personal salvation?

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Yet the context is far from personal. He had Jacob and Esau, nothing personal there.

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No, Esau didn't take that personally. Nah, come on, nothing personal here at all.

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It says nothing about salvation, especially as we know it in the New Testament. This will become more apparent as the chapter continues.

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This is called whistling in the dark. This is called whistling as you pass by the graveyard. This is called wishful thinking.

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This is not exegesis. This is eisegesis. This is, I don't believe what this text says. And so I'm just not,

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I'm just, I'm not going to worry about context. I'm not going to worry about following the flow of argument here. This same gentleman, if you're dealing with the resurrection of Christ, would never use this hermeneutic.

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Not once, he wouldn't do it. I sure hope they teach better hermeneutics on things like the resurrection of Christ at Phoenix Seminary than this.

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But when it comes to these issues, oh, oh, then we have to, it's okay to use a different form of hermeneutic at that point.

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Dot, dot, dot. It was said to her, the older shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.

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Many Calvinists use these verses to show that God does not desire all men to be saved, to not die for the sins of the world and so forth.

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I've never met a Calvinist that would go here on particular redemption. But Mr.

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Coate doesn't care about how we interpret things or how we understand things, just like Bryson doesn't and Hunt doesn't.

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They've got their form of Calvinism that they can beat up, and they've just got to represent it that way.

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And when you catch them grossly misrepresenting it, then they just get upset and don't answer emails like neither

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Mr. Coate nor Mr. Bryson seem to be doing these days. Yet we must make a distinction in verse 12.

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When Rebekah inquired the Lord, the Lord said to her, two nations in your room, two people shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.

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We see that God never told Rebekah whom he would love or hate. In reading

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Romans 9, 12 through 13, people often mistake the two verses as coming from the same

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Old Testament source. Well, I don't know any Reformed theologians or exegetes that do that.

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It would be nice if maybe he could quote some, but I doubt he could. It is important to note that it was not

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God who said to Rebekah, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. Rebekah would never hear those words.

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What God did tell her was that the two children in her room were two nations. The twins are estimated to have been born roughly around 1800

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BC, although in the time of Jacob and Esau, the Jewish nation of Israel was still in the first stages of becoming a distinct nation.

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It's not until 350 years later that God would give the commandments to Moses, bring Abraham's, Isaac's, and Jacob's personal covenant with God to a fully public and national level.

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This act would then cause the nations to separate from the other nations in the land. We now consider

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Romans 9, 13 where Paul says, as it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. Paul quotes this in the book of Malachi, written nearly 1 ,370 years after the birth of Jacob and Esau in 430

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BC concerning the two nations. And then he quotes from Malachi 1, and yeah,

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Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. Now, remember folks, always when you're listening to synergists trying to get around Romans 9, they'll all of a sudden be very interested in doing

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Old Testament exegesis, but the one thing they won't want to do is follow

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Paul's own argument. Remember Geisler? When he tried to deal with Romans 9, he broke it up into three different sections in his book.

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So he could never put it all together and see if his argument makes any sense. And lesser figures handle it even less oddly.

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The beginning of Malachi emphasizes the blessings upon the nation of Jacob and the lack thereof in the nation of Esau, which not only tells us that God was speaking about national superiority, not personal favoritism, but also gives us a good context in which to interpret the implications of the word hate.

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Now, I just stopped for a second. I know it's very common for people, you know, Geisler has tried it, everybody tries it.

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This is just national blessings because Malachi 3. Does that explain the question that Paul's addressing?

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Why is it that so many Jews have been hardened against the message of the

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Messiah? Well, it's about national blessing. What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with anything at all?

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You are manhandling Paul's own argument just to try to get around what he's actually saying.

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And he goes on, he talks about loved less and all the rest of this stuff that, okay, not even interested in arguing that.

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If you want to say hate here means loved less, I don't really care.

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The point is that God has freedom to apply his promises, his salvific promises as he sees fit.

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And he did not choose to follow the line of Esau. The blessing was to go to Jacob and that had personal ramifications.

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It's interesting, he then quotes D .A. Carson about this subject. And I just wonder,

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D .A. Carson has written so well on so many exegetical errors, almost every single one of which is found in Micah Coates' book.

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It's like, I'm going to go for D .A. Carson. He would absolutely rip me apart and his book on the love of God would contradict much of what

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I said, but hey, I'm going to quote him anyway. And he goes on and on and on and on about hating and hating and so on and so forth.

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Calvin supplied these Old Testament acts of God in dealing with nations to uphold their New Testament doctrine of personal salvation.

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Actually, Paul is the one who makes personal application before the twins had done anything good or bad.

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Not before the nations that came from the twins had done anything good or bad. That's Paul's application.

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That's where your problem is here. Is your problem is with Paul's interpretation, not anybody else.

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However, God does not save people according to nationality or ethnicity. Okay, as if somebody was saying they were. God clearly saves on an individual basis, not a national one.

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Even in the Old Testament, though, God's blessings were clearly with and upon the children of Israel. His work in relation to the world was meant to be intimate and personal.

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Okay, none of which changes what Paul was actually talking about then. Notice this. If his interpretation of 9 .13

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is correct, why does Paul then say, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?

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Certainly not. Well, wait a minute. We're talking about national blessings. We're no longer talking about what was back in verses 6, 7, 8.

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Somehow the context changed. The question changed. And now we're talking about national blessings. So the questioner here loses his mind.

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His mind explodes. It becomes goo. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness of God? Certainly not.

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For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.

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So then it is not of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Where did the nations go? Why does it say so it is not of him who wills?

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Why doesn't it say it is not of the nation that wills nor the nation who runs?

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Why is it? Why is it singular? Why is this personal? And why were the words from Exodus 33 spoken to Moses specifically, where Moses himself was chosen from all the people to have a special relationship with Yahweh at that particular point in time in history?

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Whether or not God hated Esau or simply did not choose him, our natural inclination almost automatically questions

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God's decision, judging it to be either good or bad. We might ask ourselves, is there unrighteousness with God? Paul quickly retorts, certainly not.

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But why would we ask if there is unrighteousness with God, given the previous interpretation that he gave?

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See, just not following anywhere here. The verse that Paul quotes is Exodus 33, 19, in which

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God says to Moses, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. The words of God spoken to Moses are somewhat difficult to understand.

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Really? At the time he spoke them, Moses was on Mount Sinai, asking God to reassure him by letting him see his glory.

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Then he quotes from Exodus 33, what we gather from the Exodus account is that because of God's compassion and mercy, he allowed

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Moses to experience a glorious blessing that no one had ever experienced before. It was not given to reward Moses's efforts or holiness.

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It was granted because God's goodness allowed it. Yeah, God is free to reveal himself to whom he chooses to reveal himself and not reveal himself to those whom he does not choose to reveal himself.

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Yeah, that's what it's there. As Paul states, it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

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Now, think about that. This simple statement should clarify the question, what shall we say then?

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Is there unrighteousness with God? Christians are saved by God's grace through faith and not by works. Moses was blessed as no one had ever been before by God's goodness, just as we

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God's children are blessed because of his goodness. If we consider this part of Paul's argument without bringing in the issue of salvation, we're talking about willing and efforting and mercy, but it has nothing to do with salvation.

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No, it's not. No, it's not about salvation. We can conclude that Moses was simply blessed above and beyond everyone else in the nation as they awaited

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Moses's return at the bottom of Mount Sinai. That's all he's talking about. It doesn't have anything to do with this mercy stuff.

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Get that salvation stuff out of here. It is important to note that just because God chose to answer

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Moses's request on Mount Sinai, he was not obligated to answer the individual request of his people below. God could give to and withhold blessings from his people without being unrighteous.

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Furthermore, it is not that he gives blessings only to his chosen people, nor that he withholds blessings from those whom he hates.

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Calvinists wrongly believe that God withholds salvation from those unfortunate people that he hates. As if God owes them salvation somehow?

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He withholds salvation from them. So, unrepentant sinners, God withholds salvation from them.

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What odd language that is. While this account of God's special favor towards Moses and Exodus reveals his sovereignty in his particular works towards men, it does not reveal the essence of TULIP theology.

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For one to consider God unrighteous for privileging Moses in allowing himself to be seen, while not allowing himself to be seen by others, would be like having an evil eye because God is good.

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Now, remember, what was Paul's argument here? If you only read

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Coates' attempt at ex -Jesus, you would never get to follow it. You would never get to follow it. Paul provides an apostolic interpretation to his words.

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I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So what is the apostolic interpretation?

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See, Coates goes back to Exodus 33. Well, this is just about, you know, this is just about God showing himself to Moses.

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Paul's interpretation is so that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

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What's the consistent argument here? Before the twins do anything good or evil, God's purpose in election.

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I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So it does not depend on the man running or the man working, but on the

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God who mercies. What's the contrast here? Seems pretty clear, but he's not done.

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He wants to give us a further example. Verse 17 for the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up that I may show my power in you and that my name may be declared in all the earth.

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Therefore, he has mercy on whom he wills and whom he wills he hardens. Now, if this is the same argument, this, you know, when we interpret this, this has been consistent from verse six onward.

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Same argument. Thank you, Paul, for giving us numerous examples. So far we've had national blessing and discussions about loved less and, and, you know, just, you know, well, he blessed

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Moses over here, blah, blah, blah, blah. The Pharaoh of the Exodus is now brought into the picture.

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In contrast to Moses, the Pharaoh was a man who was especially cursed by God. It would be very speculative to conclude that God's dealings with Moses and Pharaoh were done without their free will.

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Yeah, I saw free will in here. That's why I raised you up. Yeah, okay. Yet Calvinism assumes just that.

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Or maybe it's Armenians that assume free will and don't seem to recognize their assumption of these things.

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Pharaoh is mentioned as an instrument used by God to reveal his wrathful power, while Moses was used by God to reveal his glorious power.

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As we must note, it was God who had raised Pharaoh up. Again, however, the presupposition held by Calvinists is that God's raising him up was done so without Pharaoh's free will.

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Actually, the Calvinist perspective is that Pharaoh doesn't have free will. He has an enslaved will, as Jesus taught.

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He who commits sin is a slave of sin. And therefore he used Pharaoh to his own purposes.

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And in fact, was having to constantly keep Pharaoh from doing worse things than Pharaoh was doing. But the scriptures imply otherwise.

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Directly after God said to Pharaoh in Exodus 9, 16, revealing his sovereignty, but indeed for this purpose I have raised you up that I may show my power in you and that my name may proclaim in all the earth, the

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Lord said, revealing Pharaoh's free will, as yet you exalt yourself against my people in that you will not let them go.

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Oh, that means free will? So every act of sin means free will? That's the thinking of Michael Cote.

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Every act of sin reveals free will. No, it reveals an enslaved will. It is the will of man, and Pharaoh is held accountable for what he does.

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But you see, the will acts upon the desires of the heart, and Pharaoh's heart was corrupt, and so on and so forth.

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It was Pharaoh's choice to reject God's will, which he did repeatedly. And I guess it would follow that Pharaoh could have chosen to accept

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God's will and overthrown God's entire purpose. He could have stopped the despoiling of Egypt.

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He could have stopped the demonstration of Yahweh's sovereignty and power over these other deities.

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He could have stopped the picture of the Passover. All could have come to a screeching halt if Pharaoh had just done the right thing.

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Hmm, that's a shame. We know this because we see God pleading with Pharaoh multiple times in the

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Exodus account to obey his commands given through Moses and Aaron. So hey, if God commands you to repent, then you must have that ability to do that.

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How many times have we gone over that one? Then he goes into the hardening stuff, and it's amazing to me.

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Once again, he just repeats the same old, same old... These folks don't... He's got books right on his desk that refute all this stuff.

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Do they listen? Do they hear? Do they have ears to hear? No. Paul uses the word hardens here because in Exodus account,

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God hardened Pharaoh's heart multiple times. Non -Calvinists do not deny that God hardened or set Pharaoh's heart. But as already noted, this was done so in response to Pharaoh's repeated rejection of God's commands.

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This is more than just an assumption. The first reference... I love this. Just listen to this. The first reference to Pharaoh's heart being hardened is in Exodus 7 .14.

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So the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hard. He refuses to let the people go. The next reference is in Exodus 7 .22.

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So on to the third reference... Folks, it's just not true. And if he had read the section on Romans 9 and the

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Potter's Freedom, a book that he quotes in his bibliography and quotes in his book, that's not the first reference to it.

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That's not the first reference at all. The first reference is back in Exodus 4. And the

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Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt... This is before Moses has even said,

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Yo, Pharaoh, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I've put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

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Before Moses stepped first time into Pharaoh's presence on that return trip,

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God said to Moses, I will harden his heart. If you don't take that into consideration, if you're all the first ones over here in Exodus 7, then you are not even pretending to deal with the text seriously.

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Incredible. It is just... I'm sorry. I'm already past the first half hour and I'm not even through this.

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As we continue through these passages, we should note the lack of direct support for Calvinism's deterministic claims.

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I mean, we've already found him turn the text on its head, not following arguments, completely wrong about the hardening stuff, but we've not found any evidence as these verses elevate our understanding of God's sovereignty in his relationship to humanity's free will.

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Excuse me, your interpretation elevates man's free will in relationship to whatever it is you think

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God's sovereignty is. We have yet to see a direct denial of anyone's free will to maintain

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God's decrees. You remember the amazement that I expressed years ago when I first read

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Chosen but Free? And Norman Geisser can take a text like John 6, 44 and say, there's man's free will.

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No man is able to come to me. There's man's free will. Now we take Romans 9. He hardens whom he hardens and he judges whom he judges.

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He mercies whom he mercies. And we come up, there's man's free will. You're being stared in the face with God's freedom.

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And what you see is man's freedom. Wow. There is the power of tradition to absolutely turn a text upside down in light of your traditions.

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And remember Dave Hunt. James, I have no traditions. Well, there you go. Um, so far we can conclude that God does not save or give blessings to someone based on works, but according to his mercy and compassion.

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And though there are legitimate questions concerning how God's election interplays with human choices, they should not be raised the point of validating the unfounded conclusions of Calvinism.

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That's just, um, there's some questions here, but I can't answer them. So don't ask the questions.

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That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. Nothing, absolutely nothing here.

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Well, where is the answer to verse 18? He doesn't even attempt to deal with verse 18.

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He talks about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, but he's, he's gotten around that by, by completely avoiding the reality that God said he was going to do it.

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And he had a purpose to do it. He's avoided the fact for this very purpose, I raised you up.

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God had a purpose in showing his power in Pharaoh. And so that God's name

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I proclaim in all the earth. And does he deal with that? No, we just skipped right past that. And then you have verse 18.

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So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. Hello, there it is.

35:23

Where is the commentary? Where is the exegesis? Where is the demonstration of how this fits in with the argument going back to the national blessing stuff?

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Nothing, not even an attempt. You can not walk through this text as a non -reformed person without doing this.

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Geisler failed to do it. Hunt failed to do it. Bryson can't do it. Coates just following his professors. They can't do it either.

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You can't do it. He has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever with exact parallels.

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And as we've mentioned many, many times, mercy in here is a verb. Therefore, whomever he wishes, he mercies.

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Whomever he wishes, he hardens. Direct parallel cannot get past the two of them.

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That's God's freedom. And Micah Coates sees man's freedom when what you have is God's freedom.

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That's what tradition does. People are like, how can people miss this? When your tradition is this deep, when the glasses have become glued to your face, when you're a

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Dave Hunt, I have no traditions. Then you just don't see it. You just don't see it. And it's sad.

36:33

In the light of God hardening Pharaoh's heart, Paul raises some rhetorical questions in Romans 9. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who has resisted his will?

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Excuse me. Why would anyone ask that if Micah Coates is right in his interpretation? If his interpretation is, well, you know,

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Pharaoh hardened his heart first and, you know, it's just God's just responding. Then why the question of verse 19?

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It makes no sense. That's why some have even tried to say, well, this isn't really actually

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Paul's question. He's actually raising somebody. Remember, what was that guy's name?

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We had the very unpleasant Greg, Steve Gregg. Remember Steve Gregg? I can't even repeat today his really weird interpretation of verse 19.

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I did it, you know, I played it on the program years ago. We went through it on the program years ago. I haven't listened to it since then.

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I'm not going to try to pretend to do so. But he tries to cut it up into parts and say this really isn't what

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Paul is saying and stuff like that. But Coates doesn't go there. But Coates doesn't really answer the question, what's the connection between this question and his interpretation?

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So he goes on. In other words, Paul asks, if God has the ability to harden a person's heart, why would he later find fault with him?

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He must remember that whether God, we must remember that whether God hardens a heart or not, he is right to find fault with everyone.

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As the scriptures claim, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now, isn't it interesting? While that's true, he's saying this hardening is only based upon a person being a sinner.

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Is that God's response? Is that Paul's response in Romans 9 .20? Who are you, a man who answers back to God?

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Will the thing mold and say to its molder, why have you made me like this? That's interesting. But it's true, universal sinfulness, okay.

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But Paul actually goes higher than that. Because of this scripture and spiritual truth, the next question for who has resisted his will is answered.

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Everyone has resisted his will from Pharaoh to Moses. Everyone to one degree or another has opposed his will. Therefore, God has the right to find fault with everyone.

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Could God find fault with Pharaoh before he hardened his heart? The answer is yes. Yet some still press the question to whom

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Paul replies. But indeed, oh man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing form say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this?

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In order to understand this, we must figure out what like this means. What exactly is meant by this question and who is asking it?

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If we conclude as Calvinism suggests that God purposes or desires some people to be sinful and reject his salvific work, it is very difficult to maintain.

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How about we just assume what Paul said, and that is that God can raise someone up to demonstrate his power in him.

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That's Pharaoh. That's the context. Why skip that? It's very difficult to maintain.

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The Bible does not contradict itself. As we have previously covered in addressing each of the five points,

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God is not and cannot be the author of sin in any fashion. Could like this be interpreted as the general doctrine of mankind being born in a sinful state?

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Is this verse referring to the sinner posing the question to God, why have you made me like this?

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This option is also doubtful. The Bible reveals all of humanity as being equally fallen, while Paul's argument seems to deal with only a certain group of people.

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The ones that God has purposely chosen to demonstrate his wrath over against those he's purposely chosen to demonstrate his mercy.

39:59

There is God's freedom and election. But that can't be it. My tradition says otherwise. So out of many options for what the question might mean, the question is so clear.

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It's so obvious if you just follow things along. It's so obvious. There's no reason for confusion here.

40:17

Paul's rhetorical question is likely asked by those who can be likened unto Pharaoh. Whose actions are used by God to reveal his wrath and justice.

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Yeah, that's the non -elect. In the end, the reader can be sure only...

40:32

Listen to this. In the end, the reader can be sure only that although Paul's question can be understood in many ways,

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Calvinism's interpretation positions itself too far from orthodoxy to be right.

40:48

So I can't tell you what the question is. I can't tell you how this relates to what came before. But one thing

40:54

I can tell you is Calvinism is wrong. Because it's not orthodoxy. Because I get to define orthodoxy.

41:01

Wow, there's... How do you even...

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I'm orthodox. I can't tell you what the text says. But I know you're wrong because you ain't me. That's what you just got.

41:18

Paul continues in Romans 9. Let me just run through this real quick. I'm running out of time and we're just...

41:29

He quotes the rest of it. Well, these questions might seem to substantiate Calvinist theology. Do you think?

41:36

We must note that they are rhetorical. They're rhetorical. Despite the nature of these questions,

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Calvinists are still quick to draw from them doctrinal support. So hey, if it's a rhetorical question,

41:47

Paul didn't mean it to actually mean anything. Shall we continue in sin that grace might increase?

41:52

May it never be? That's a rhetorical question. You can't take doctrine from a rhetorical question. Oh, well, he meant it to be taken that way.

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Because Christians acknowledge that God can do as he pleases, for example, making a vessel for dishonor. Can he really,

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Micah? Honestly, can he do that? The Calvinist believes that God not only can do this, he does do this.

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You think? The problem with this understanding is it's plain contradiction of both scripture as a whole.

42:25

There's Dave Hunt. Every time you repeat Dave Hunt, but there are dozens of other scriptures and you go refute them over there, but there are dozens.

42:33

It's like nailing jello to a wall. Both scripture as a whole and its declaration of the nature of an all loving and good

42:40

God. So there you go. My God, Micah Coates' God isn't big enough to do what the

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God of Romans 9 does. So it can't mean that. Those are just rhetorical questions.

42:57

Oh, my. To understand these passages, one can regard the vessel of dishonor or wrath as a type of Pharaoh.

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That's exactly Paul's application, isn't it? No, actually it's not. Paul then writes that these vessels were prepared for destruction.

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In the same vein, the vessels of mercy can be understood as representing the children of Israel who endured with much long suffering as slaves under Pharaoh.

43:23

Yeah, that explains why the children of Israel are rejecting the Messiah and others are not.

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Sure. See, he just keeps changing the question, changing the question. Why? Because he doesn't believe this text of scripture.

43:37

He just doesn't believe it. He's not under subjection to it. He's not under subjection to this passage of scripture.

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So he's just going to twist it until it says something other than what contradicts his theology.

43:50

And so, these vessels of honor or mercy are those which he had prepared beforehand for glory, even as whom he called, not of the

43:57

Jews only, but also of Gentiles. I thought that was all the elect there, but anyways. At first glance, this verse would seem to imply that if God prepared beforehand those vessels of mercy whom he called, not only the

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Jews, but also Gentiles, then he must have likewise prepared those vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Well, you think the

44:15

Potter thing might have something to do with that, which you sort of just skipped over? You know, the Potter from the same lump?

44:22

You think maybe the second sentence has something to do with the first sentence?

44:28

Maybe? This understanding would seem logical and would indeed fit the systematic theology of Calvinism.

44:36

And it just happens to fit the exegesis of the text of Romans 9. However, we do not read that God created beforehand those vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

44:44

Oh, no, no, we don't. We don't read that. That is a Calvinistic assumption. I mean, where did, you know, if you weren't a

44:51

Calvinist, you never would have assumed that in a sentence after talking about the

44:57

Potter having the right over the lump to make some vessels for honor and some for dishonor, that in the very next sentence, there would be no connection between that sentence and what comes afterwards.

45:08

No, only Calvinists think like that. The text only says that he prepared those vessels of mercy whom he called beforehand for glory.

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This is different from the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Here's about the one time he tried to do exegesis in this book.

45:26

This is a man that, according to what we see on the web, claims to have an MDiv, Master's of Divinity. In this verse 22,

45:34

Calvinists avoid the original language. Did you know that Calvinists avoid the original language?

45:40

You're looking at me rather shocked. I mean, you're thinking of all of these commentaries written by Calvinists based on the

45:47

Greek text and how many, how many times have we had people call in or write in and you elite,

45:52

Dave Hunt, you elitist, you elitist, you use that Greek stuff and you think you need to know

45:58

Greek and you talk about Greek. You're all a bunch of elitists. You don't really believe the Bible. You don't believe, you know, we get that all the time.

46:05

But now, now Calvinists avoid the original language. Now, if you're going to make an outrageous statement like that, do you think, in fact, you laughed so loud,

46:19

Rich, that Figge says he could hear you laughing in the background or was that, was that, that was the rookie. Okay. That was the rookie laughing.

46:25

We really need to get that door jam of soundproofed. It is, it is, okay.

46:33

We need the door soundproofed then. Um, how many commentaries are there?

46:44

How many times have I commented on the original languages at this point?

46:50

And by the way, the phones are open, right? I want to make sure Micah Coate knows that he can call in.

46:56

He, in fact, there's a ring, there's a phone, there's a, oh, they're working. Okay.

47:02

Mr. Coate, um, yeah. If you want to back up your statement,

47:10

Calvinists avoid the original language. It seems that you forgot to give your references here.

47:17

Because in the very next sentence, the word prepared or fitted in verse 22, Strong's 2675 is completely different from prepared in verse 23,

47:29

Strong's 4282. As explained in the commentary on these verses in the

47:34

Nelson study Bible. Okay. Now just stop for a moment. And this is where everybody's getting, oh, you're so mean.

47:41

You're so mean. Folks, if this man turned this paper into me as a seminary professor, it's marked off.

47:49

Big red line. That's not what is acceptable on the graduate level in a seminary.

47:56

It's not. And if he got away with this at Phoenix Seminary, shame on Phoenix Seminary.

48:06

How many times in discussing this have we talked about this very issue?

48:13

I mean, we could, we play all the dividing lines from 98 onwards, takes us what, about how long?

48:19

About a month? One month. 24 seven. And if you go back over those, you will find over and over again.

48:27

And you know, I bet if I look at the Potter's freedom, there's going to be discussion this very issue. Where's, where's my copy here?

48:36

There it is. There it is. Let's, and I forgot to look at this. So I'm going to,

48:42

I'm going to take a look at it. Page 205. Now this is the current edition. I don't think he had the current edition.

48:49

And I spent quite a number of pages on this. Dealing with the interpretation of it and so on and so forth.

49:01

Hmm. Why are there vessels prepared for destruction? Because God is free.

49:06

Think about it. There are only three logical possibilities here. Either all vessels are prepared for glory, universalism. All vessels are prepared for destruction.

49:13

Or three, some vessels are prepared for glory and some are prepared for destruction. And it is the Potter who decides which are which.

49:19

Why is there no fourth option? One which the pots prepare themselves based upon their own choice? Because pots don't have such capacity.

49:25

Pots are pots. Since God wishes to make known the riches of his grace to his elect people, the vessels prepared for mercy.

49:30

There must be vessels prepared for destruction. There is no demonstration of mercy and grace where there is no justice. The vessels of wrath, remember, like being vessels of wrath, would never choose to be anything else.

49:42

And they detest the vessels that receive mercy. Indeed, during the writing of this book, I encountered an unbeliever who, upon hearing me mention the wrath of God, mocked and said, ah, yes, the wrath of God, I like it.

49:50

This is the attitude of the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Then I went into responding to CBF.

50:00

And I'm wondering, did I put those here in the back? Yes. Footnote number two.

50:08

Hmm. I gave it a direct quote right there. There is the reference to AOMIN .org

50:14

slash LenskiRep .html. I'm afraid that URL is going to be changing, isn't it?

50:21

And there you have a direct reference to my interaction with Lutheran scholar

50:28

Lenski's using this very argument that he is using here. So we do talk about the original language.

50:34

Do you want to say something, sir? Of course, you include the Strong's Numbers, I'm sure. I, you know, I didn't include the

50:40

Strong's Numbers. I'm sorry. I just, no, I didn't do that. Normally in The Power of Freedom, I just gave the

50:46

Greek. I'm sorry. Yeah. So anyways,

50:53

I'm going to stop there. Because we've, I think we've demonstrated exactly what's going on here.

51:02

And once you get, once you get to the statement, in this verse 22,

51:08

Calvinists avoid the original language. No, Calvinists do not avoid the original language at all.

51:15

So, the difference between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy is not an issue of the underlying terms.

51:31

It's an issue of interpreting in context. What if God, willing to make known, to demonstrate his wrath and make known his power, endured with much patience, vessels prepared.

51:55

And that is katartidzo, prepared for glory.

52:05

Yes, he does that. And you're saying, well, but you see those vessels of wrath, they, that's not, it's not a direct parallel.

52:15

Of course, it's not a direct parallel. And only as long as you insist,

52:21

Mr. Cote, in being deceived by the likes of Hunt and Bryson, who are willfully ignorant of the subjects that they are addressing.

52:33

And I say willfully ignorant. They will not allow us to define our terms. As long as you are deceived into thinking we believe in equal ultimacy.

52:40

And that the act of bringing someone into salvation is identical to the act of reprobation, which

52:48

I don't believe, and which you cannot demonstrate because one is an extension of mercy and grace.

52:53

The other is not. That's the only basis you would have upon which to say that they need to be parallel.

53:00

Well, you're, you say God's just predestining some to hell and some are predestined to heaven. It's just the same thing.

53:06

No, it's not. And if these were parallel, identically parallel to one another, that'd be a problem.

53:13

But they're not, they're not. Vessels prepared for destruction, verse 22.

53:26

And then, of course, a different term is used for those vessels of mercy prepared for glory.

53:34

But only if you start with your own misinterpretation of what it is we're saying.

53:40

Could you say, what? That argues against your position. No, if you just listen to the text, the potter has a right to glorify himself in what he does with the clay.

53:51

And how he chooses to do so. All right, there's that.

53:58

And I went way, way, way beyond the time frame I was going to do for that. But I guess when you're reading a text, that's just sort of how it goes.

54:09

So to be honest with you, I think I'm just going to move into the next topic, because we've spent nearly an hour on that.

54:19

And I'll get to the Comus Fernandes thing the next time around. It's just the best that I can do.

54:25

I went over time, and I just couldn't find a convenient breaking spot there. So that's all there is to it.

54:33

All right, it gives me a little more time on these. As soon as you hear this, you're going to go, oh, thank goodness for the quality of the audio.

54:44

Because though we did the best we could to clean up the audio of the Perkins slick debate, it was just bad.

54:53

And I think that Perkins is clearer, not just audio -wise, but argument -wise in this debate anyways.

55:01

And again, I could play Mr. Graves' presentation, because I felt that it was very well done.

55:10

But we want to interact with the position of the audience. Not just merely present the positions that we do.

55:16

I might actually play a portion of his rebuttal, so you get some sense of this. But that's interesting.

55:24

An earthquake in DC, that's interesting. There was one in southern

55:29

Colorado, 5 .3, I think, this morning. So that's a decent trembler.

55:38

I haven't felt anything. Well, the one I read, the headline said 5 .5,

55:45

and then the body said 5 .3. So maybe they added them together. 5 plus 3, 5 .8,

55:53

whatever, who knows. But Virginia, 5 .9, wow. 5 .9

55:59

in North America is pretty, that's a mover and a shaker. That's pretty interesting. I didn't feel anything.

56:06

But anyway, all right, we press on. So there will be some repetition, but there is much more depth in Perkins' opening statement in this debate than in the

56:18

Slick debate. And so I think it'll be very, very useful. So let's dive into this.

56:24

And we will be listening to Roger Perkins' opening statement. This was March of this year.

56:34

Why didn't I hear anything? I'm bound by the rules of polemic dexterity to answer his questions first.

56:39

So let me go ahead and deal with his questions. At the crucifixion, no, that's mine, excuse me,

56:46

I messed up already. From whom did the

56:51

Holy Spirit receive authority? And he made a big play on the word authority to speak in John 16, 13.

57:01

Now, Mr. Reeves, I'm sure that you were not remiss to overlook the fact that the word authority is in italicis.

57:08

Did you miss that? The word authority is in italicis. You know what that means, Mr. Reeves? That means it's not in the original manuscripts.

57:15

It was added by the translators. So it's really a moot question. But the context was that the whole context was the spirit of truth.

57:23

Now, I'm going to be dealing with the spirit of truth here in just a little bit. Question number two. Now, let me just comment on that briefly.

57:32

That's not answering the question. John 16, 13. When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

57:40

For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

57:46

Now, clearly, the reason that this question was asked, evidently in this debate, they exchanged questions that you had to answer in your presentation, which is interesting,

57:57

I suppose. I guess there's some usefulness to that. And what you, the

58:05

Greek says, For he will not speak of himself, whatever he hears, he will speak.

58:22

Okay, if the spirit of truth is the

58:27

Father, as the spirit of truth is in Oneness Theology, then who is he hearing from that determines what he speaks?

58:39

That clearly was the question. That clearly was the intention of his opponent's question, is that this shows a distinction between the spirit and the

58:52

Father, because he's asking, on whose authority does he speak? He does not speak of himself.

58:59

So, remember, this is the Father, who is the spirit. So, he hears something, and he speaks it.

59:07

Who's he hearing it from? The Son is not a divine person in Oneness Theology. So, who does

59:13

God hear from, and he repeats his speech? I think that's a very fair question, and it didn't get an answer from Mr.

59:22

Perkins there, at all. That's not an answer. And doing the condescending, you know what that means?

59:27

You know what that italics means? Mr. Perkins, try it with me, and I will just read the text to you in Greek and ask you to translate it.

59:37

Okay, I mean, I'm straightforward on that. Don't, don't, don't be coming over. You know what that italics means?

59:43

Because I'll just pick up the Greek New Testament and say, here, read that. And we'll go from there.

59:49

For two, who made himself of no reputation in Philippians 2, 7? Well, the Bible says

59:54

God, who being in the form of God, there's not one thing in the text. Now, we heard a lot tonight about what the text says.

01:00:02

Well, we're waiting for that word, persons, in the Bible. We didn't see that. And I'll submit to you tonight.

01:00:08

Now, you know, one of the things that bothers me about my, my oneness friends here is they love to, and again, this is the red meat stuff.

01:00:17

This is where you keep your base revved up, but it doesn't have any actual argumentative value to it.

01:00:23

We heard nothing about persons. They use the distinguish, they use the categories of being in person all the time.

01:00:31

They just don't express it. They just allow it as a given. But they use it all the time.

01:00:36

When you talk about Jesus, when you talk about the oneness view of Jesus, they have two persons in that one person.

01:00:48

They make a distinction between natures. They use all the same areas of, of, of definition that we do.

01:00:57

They just won't admit it. But then they'll take shots at us for actually being open and clear in our definitions.

01:01:04

That does not, that does not help communication. If you're going to tell me that Jesus was two persons, and it's his divine nature preaching, speaking to his, his, or his human nature speaking to his divine nature in his prayers, well, is it not a valid?

01:01:20

Bible doesn't talk about natures with Jesus. I mean, what does that accomplish? It accomplishes absolutely nothing.

01:01:27

Before this debate is over with, you will not see that. Now, again, we heard what the text said. Well, we want to see where the text says persons.

01:01:35

It doesn't say that. It said to him being in the form of God. Thought it not in robbery to be equal with God.

01:01:41

If that's two, then that's two gods outright. Now, immediately, and, and over and over again, and, and this,

01:01:50

I, I just don't think he can get away with this. I, I don't think he can get away from this because it's just, it's part of his system.

01:01:59

But immediately, you hear the absolute refusal to allow for the distinction the

01:02:08

Trinitarians make between the being of God and the persons.

01:02:14

Now, they make that distinction. They may be Unitarians, but they make that distinction too when they talk about creatures, and they talk about Jesus, and they talk about human beings.

01:02:25

Roger Perkins is a human being on the level of nature, but he's not me on the level of person. He makes that distinction.

01:02:31

He recognizes it's a valid distinction to make. And the question is, does the Bible reveal that those distinctions need to be made about God?

01:02:37

And it does. But refusing to acknowledge them, then, then you say, well, that means there's two gods.

01:02:44

No, there's one being of God, but there's clearly here a distinction of persons. This, there is someone before the incarnation who did not regard equality with God, something to be held on to at all costs.

01:03:01

Who was it? All the one this person has is a plan and plans do not give consideration.

01:03:12

That's what the Greek term means to give consideration. Plans do not consider anything.

01:03:18

Plans are impersonal. The reason to look at Philippians 2, and I will look at it closely in our debate.

01:03:27

Mr. Perkins, you had better be ready to go through it word by word, not just in Strong's and not just in Thayer's, but you need to understand what every word means in the original language, in its grammatical form, in its syntactical relationship with everything else.

01:03:50

Because that's how you do exegesis. Very, very important.

01:03:56

The text says nothing about persons, and he's going to have to supply that into the text in order to come up with that. Who is the me of Hebrews 10 .5?

01:04:04

This is an Old Testament prophecy, the me. Now let's take a look at this, because this was, I was, again,

01:04:12

I am looking forward to meeting Mr. Graves. He did a very good job.

01:04:18

And there were only a few times, and he might find it interesting, I suppose it would be interesting for me to go through his presentation and suggest the very few improvements that I would make.

01:04:29

There were just a few times where I just felt that if he brought the terminology out more clearly, he sort of assumed a few times that his audience would know what he meant.

01:04:39

And if he had just explained the terminology just a little bit, it would have been just a little bit sharper, but the verses were great.

01:04:45

And I just preached on Hebrews 10 .5. I found this very, very interesting. Look at Hebrews 10 .5.

01:04:52

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.

01:05:02

And so the question he's asking is, who's me? Who's the me? Think about it.

01:05:12

A body you have prepared for me. Now, you can go into the difference between the Hebrew and the

01:05:17

Greek here. Go listen to my sermon on Hebrews 10 if you want to hear how I dealt with that. But yet you still have to deal with Hebrews 10 .5.

01:05:25

A body you have prepared for me. Is this the body speaking? To say, well, this is just prophetic, doesn't change anything because there's still someone speaking.

01:05:36

When Christ came into the world, when would be the first time that Christ could speak from a oneness perspective if we're talking about the human nature separate from the divine nature?

01:05:48

It would be after his birth. So who is the me saying a body have you prepared for me?

01:05:57

If you use terms like you and me, that's personal language.

01:06:03

Those are persons communicating. And that is a very, very valid question to ask.

01:06:11

Let's see how Mr. Perkins responded to that question. Me is the same one that had a body.

01:06:17

That would be the Messiah. Number four, the me is the same one out of body. And that would be the

01:06:22

Messiah. Right. So who prepared the body for the

01:06:28

Messiah? Well, that would be the father. So who's the me?

01:06:35

Well, that's the Messiah. So the Messiah could speak prior to the incarnation. No, no, no, that's it. He's just a plan.

01:06:42

I thought that was a very telling, very telling insight. Who tasted death in Hebrews two and nine?

01:06:49

Jesus did. Number five. There is a reason why he was asked who tasted death in Hebrews two nine.

01:06:58

Because, you know, we see him for a little while who was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus crowned with glory and honor because the suffering of death.

01:07:05

So by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. There is great question as to whether a oneness person can say that Jesus, as Jesus, tasted death.

01:07:19

Because from their perspective, Jesus is two persons and it was only the human nature that tasted death.

01:07:28

We believe that Jesus is one person with two natures. And of course, over and over again, the issue had to keep coming up.

01:07:35

Well, death is not, you know, he's going to, Perkins is going to say, we got a God who was dead for three days, assuming inappropriately that death is non -existence or a lack of consciousness or something other than what death actually is.

01:07:50

But again, the reason of the question should be fairly straightforward and again, shows the distinction in the person.

01:07:57

Was the spirit committed into the hands of a father in Luke 23, 46, divine?

01:08:03

No. So the spirit, when Jesus said, in thy hands,

01:08:08

I commit my spirit. This is just the human aspect of Jesus, praying to the divine aspect of Jesus.

01:08:16

And so his human spirit is being committed to the other half of him in Luke 23.

01:08:22

I will be dealing with that at length here in just a second, but I'll tell you what, what

01:08:27

I like is that, in fact, I'll go ahead and deal with this. He says that at the, in answer to my questions, at the crucifixion of Jesus, I asked, did deity as literal deity?

01:08:41

Now that's important. Did deity as deity literally die?

01:08:47

He didn't answer it, but then later on he came back and he said, yes. Deity as deity died.

01:08:53

So now we have dead deity, ladies and gentlemen. Well, if deity can truly become flesh, that flesh has to be able to die.

01:09:05

If it is the choice of that person to give his life. Remember, one of the things that really bugs me, and I think it's, we might have enough time to get to it,

01:09:12

I'm not sure, is he goes into this, believe it or not, believe it or not,

01:09:20

Roger Perkins quotes Merv Griffin. That's the second time you've looked at me like that today.

01:09:28

I'm throwing out some weird stuff for you today, aren't I? He quotes Merv Griffin and he creates this complete straw man, complete straw man presentation about God forcing his child to come down and do his own work.

01:09:47

And it really, really, really bugs me. And maybe we'll get to it if I don't, if I stop interrupting him, we will get to it.

01:09:55

But here's part of it. You got dead deity, folks, got dead deity. What you have is the second person of the

01:10:05

Trinity giving his life on Calvary's tree, the life of the

01:10:12

Messiah, Jesus, not just a man suit. It's not just something dwelling inside a man.

01:10:22

The word became flesh. This is where balance is required.

01:10:27

And where oneness has lost that balance and has become heretical in the process. The oneness of the person of Jesus does not mean that his flesh became a mixture of divine and human.

01:10:47

There is no mixture of the natures. But the union is so perfect and complete that it continues to this day and becomes the assurance of our union with God.

01:11:05

Because what is the means of our union with the triune God, but our union with Christ himself?

01:11:14

Sometimes people think that this whole thing about the Trinity is just, ah, that's for theologians to argue about. And we'll leave that to people who like to sit around and argue hypostasis and personae and usia and essentia and la la la.

01:11:31

But folks, have you ever thought about the fact that part and parcel of the very guarantee of your union with God, and hence your possession of eternal life, has to do with the reality of the incarnation itself.

01:11:50

And oneness theology has no true incarnation. It only has an indwelling. That's not incarnation.

01:11:58

The Holy Spirit indwells me, but the Holy Spirit is not incarnate in me. That's different.

01:12:06

The word became flesh. And you've got to deal with that. And it's vitally important.

01:12:11

I hope you hear how important this is. I'm not just trying to equip you. The next time you run into a heretic on the street, you'll be ready to go.

01:12:20

The reason you should be ready to go is because you're thinking about these things, because you see the positive everyday application of why these things are important.

01:12:31

We have dead deity. Number two, I asked him, is each divine person in the Godhead omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent?

01:12:38

And he said, yes. Of course, they have to be, because we're talking about what's, what is omnipresent about God?

01:12:45

The persons or the being. And if each person shares fully in the being of God, of course.

01:12:52

But then he comes up with this really bad argument. Only a

01:12:57

Unitarian would think of this one. Jesus, the body of Jesus, Jesus as the

01:13:03

Son cannot be divine, because he's sent by the Father, and you can't send a omnipresent spirit, because he's already there.

01:13:14

So since the Son was sent, then he couldn't be divine. Because God's omnipresent. And again,

01:13:20

I was very impressed with his opponent, because he came up with the exact same response

01:13:29

I would have come up with. In fact, I think I will at one point play his rebuttal. Actually, you know what

01:13:35

I was thinking this morning while I was writing? I did a really quick ride this morning. I need to write to him and ask, would you mind if we played the two days of this debate before the next time we do this?

01:13:46

Just announce, okay, we're going to start at such and such a time before the dividing line. If you'd like to hear the entirety of this debate, so you have the whole context, rather than just getting these snippets,

01:13:57

I bet you he'd allow me to do that. On the way back, that's what I mean. We'll play on the way back.

01:14:03

I'll get his okay first. I'll write to him. And who knows?

01:14:09

Maybe he's listening and could write in and let us know even today, and then we can schedule it. But I'd like you to hear.

01:14:15

We both came up with the exact same response. And that is, excuse me, but doesn't the

01:14:24

Father and the Son send the Spirit? And if the Spirit is the

01:14:29

Father, then you have deity being sent by flesh. And the whole thing about omnipresence would be just as valid an argument against Perkins' point.

01:14:42

Because if the Son cannot be sent, because he's allegedly omnipresent, and therefore he can't go someplace he isn't already there, then how could the

01:14:51

Father and the Son send the Spirit? Because the Spirit's already there. And the Spirit is the

01:14:56

Father. Doesn't make any sense at all. But we both came up with the same response to that.

01:15:03

So now he has omnipresence being sent where it's not already at.

01:15:09

Omnipresence, ladies and gentlemen, is not sent anywhere. It's already there. That's what defines it as omnipresent.

01:15:16

Number three, does each divine person in the Godhead possess their own distinct mind or center of consciousness apart from the other two divine persons?

01:15:24

He answered yes. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a three -minded God tonight.

01:15:30

This is a big thing for Roger Perkins, is he's hoping, I guess, that you transfer the human concept of mind to deity at this point.

01:15:42

But obviously when we talk about the mind of the Father or the mind of the Son, we're talking about the ability to distinguish between the persons and the ability of the persons to distinguish between themselves.

01:15:56

So if you have a person who says, glorify me in your presence, Father, the glory which

01:16:02

I had with you before the world was. The very fact that you can use personal pronouns, that's what we're talking about, is that there is a self -consciousness.

01:16:13

Now there is a divine mind, a singular divine mind, but there is also the Father's will and the

01:16:19

Son's will and their knowledge of each other. And so if you want to talk about it in that way, that's fine. You see, what he wants to do is take the limitedness of our minds and try to create this distinction upon which he then argues polytheism.

01:16:34

The mind, that is what he has told you. He answered outright, yes, we have each person has their own mind.

01:16:42

Number four, I asked him, was the Spirit of Jesus committed into the hands of the Father in Luke 23, 46? He said yes, and I'll be dealing with that here in just a moment.

01:16:50

Number five, I asked him, did the Old Testament Jewish prophets, now seeds on that,

01:16:56

Jewish prophets understand their God to exist as three divine co -eternal persons?

01:17:01

I cannot believe my ears. He said yes. You heard it.

01:17:07

He got up here and he said that the Jews believe in three divine persons in the Godhead.

01:17:12

I would love to know when they lost that revelation. Go ask any Jew today if they believe in three divine co -eternal, co -existent persons in the

01:17:21

Godhead, and they'll laugh you to scorn. Now, immediately when he gets back up, he's going to point out that he's not talking about modern

01:17:30

Jews. Now, I would not make the statement that Isaiah had a fully formed

01:17:37

Trinitarian understanding of the nature of God. Why? Because I believe the revelation of the

01:17:43

Trinity took place when again? What's the thing I've been beating the drum on over and over again? In the incarnation of the

01:17:48

Son, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that the Old Testament prophets did not receive revelation that clearly contains evidence of the doctrine of the

01:17:59

Trinity that will be revealed in the coming of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

01:18:05

But I would not have answered by saying, oh sure, they had an open confession of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, because those roles, those relationships had not yet been revealed in the incarnation and the outpouring of the

01:18:20

Holy Spirit. But then he jumps to modern Jews. You just don't want to go there. Because as I've pointed out before, if you make them your standard, well, they didn't believe

01:18:29

Jesus was on the side, they reject the cross, there's just all sorts of things that you can demonstrate an inconsistency at that point.

01:18:35

And I'm going to be dealing with that here in just a minute. So, person. I tell you, I'm very intrigued by his definition of person.

01:18:44

And he defined person as individuality. Self -conscious with their own mind, individuality.

01:18:51

So, ladies and gentlemen, we have God the Father, who is an individual apart from, because remember now, he defined the word distinct as not the same as the other.

01:19:02

Therefore, God the Father, with his own mind, is not the same as God the Son, with his own mind, who is not the same as God the

01:19:10

Father, with his own mind. Each is not the other. They're all distinct, separated from one another.

01:19:15

And by definition of the own words that he gave, yet we still have one God. Yes, because the being of God and the persons of God are distinguished logically, rationally, and biblically.

01:19:31

And Mr. Perkins cannot discuss this issue without using the very same distinctions. Can't do it.

01:19:37

It's not possible. The being of God is eternal and unlimited and is shared fully and completely by three divine persons.

01:19:45

Yes, that is what we're saying. We are saying that you can distinguish between the Father and the Son because they have willed to allow us to be able to do so.

01:19:53

They have taken different roles in salvation. And there are activities in relationship to one another that are different from one another, whereby we may distinguish them.

01:20:08

Yes, that's exactly right. We're Trinitarians. You're Unitarians. Why don't we focus upon what's really important?

01:20:15

Instead of all the rhetoric, the real issue is, did the Son, as a divine person, pre -exist his birth in Bethlehem?

01:20:22

If that is true, oneness theology is false. Period. End of discussion. You can try to beat the drum over here and over there and everything else, but the issue is, if the

01:20:36

Son, as a divine person, pre -existed his birth in Bethlehem, oneness theology is false.

01:20:42

That's it. So you can sort of guess what I'll be focused upon in Brisbane. Lord willing, coming up in not all that long a period of time from now.

01:20:53

And a long flight. And it'll be a long flight for Mr. Perkins, too, because he's coming from the

01:20:59

U .S. to do this. Like I said, I was amazed by that. Hey, we're going to take a quick break. Allow me to get some sustenance here and then come back with Abdullah Kunda and Samuel Green on the

01:21:12

Trinity. You'll be hearing a lot of the very same arguments we've been hearing from Roger Perkins, coming from Abdullah Kunda.

01:21:20

Interesting. We'll be right back. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the

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01:23:24

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01:24:15

Thank you. And welcome back to a mega dividing line.

01:24:27

We still have approximately 36 minutes left in the program today, and I move on to something

01:24:34

I've been wanting to get to for quite some time, and I just on a personal level need to start doing more of.

01:24:40

It will help me with my book writing, help me with my debate preparation, and that is getting back to responding to Islam and listening to Islamic arguments.

01:24:50

But it is fascinating. I've pointed out numerous times that when I'm in Sydney and Brisbane, I'll be doing again exactly what

01:24:57

I did back in 1999, 12 years earlier. In one week, I'll be debating a Muslim and a oneness proponent on the subject of the

01:25:06

Trinity. Same topics, almost identical topics, time frames, everything very, very odd and very interesting.

01:25:14

But anyway, oh hey, Lashan's listening live today. Isn't that great? We both saw at the same time.

01:25:22

Hi, Lashan. How you doing? Yay. Lashan's one of our favorite conservative commentators and listens to the

01:25:31

Dividing Line, and I'm sure that causes some of our conservative readers to go, man, she's weird.

01:25:37

That guy is strange. But anyhow, so we move on to Abdullah Kunda, and I thought this was an excellent debate.

01:25:44

Samuel Green and he have been getting together fairly frequently down in Australia, and I wanted to respond because this is directly relevant.

01:25:53

I wanted to respond to this for the very same reason I've been responding to Roger Perkins, and that is I want

01:25:59

Abdullah to be able to hear. And look, I can't force

01:26:05

Roger Perkins to want to understand what I believe. I cannot force

01:26:11

Abdullah Kunda to want to understand what I believe and therefore to respond more meaningfully to what

01:26:17

I believe, and hence not bring up side issues that are not relevant to what I believe. I can't force them to make these really good debates with me, but I can make the opportunity available.

01:26:31

And that's what I'm doing. And in the process, that hopefully will demonstrate why we do what we do in these debates.

01:26:41

It's not about trying to make somebody look bad. It is about giving the best debate that we can.

01:26:49

And that's why there are some people I'm not going to be debating again in the future because you know what? They didn't show any interest in doing that when we debated the first time.

01:26:57

But there are others that I will be debating because they have shown that. And so that's where it comes from.

01:27:03

So let's—sound quality not quite as good as the last one we were listening to, but not as bad as the

01:27:11

Perkins Slick debate. Somewhere in between. Let's listen to Abdullah's presentation.

01:27:16

Good evening, everybody. And in particular, thank you to the

01:27:21

Christians for coming tonight. This is the first opportunity that we've actually had to host one of these events for Samuel.

01:27:29

You know, it sounds better when I'm writing. It really does, because that's difficult.

01:27:35

But hopefully you can amplify it a little bit because his voice isn't quite as—Samuel's a little bit easier to understand, but we're not interested in listening to Samuel because he does have, you know,

01:27:45

Abdullah does have an Australian accent. But it's amazing. I can listen to that and understand just fine hurtling down South Mountain at 35 miles an hour.

01:27:54

So it's—that's odd. Samuel's the one who came up with the language to put together. So I'm hoping that we're going to return also to tell the particular

01:28:03

Christians a little bit. You know what? It's only playing one channel. Aha!

01:28:09

Maybe this will be better. Now we've got two channels. Our topic—I assume you all know what it is, otherwise you wouldn't be here—is not an easy one.

01:28:18

We're not discussing a simple topic. And certainly 25 minutes of me talking and 25 minutes of Samuel talking is going to do very little justice.

01:28:29

And indeed, some of the things that I say, in particular to the Christians, are almost certainly going to offend you.

01:28:36

That's not my intent. And I can assume that some of the things that Samuel will say will at the very least seem very alien to us

01:28:44

Muslims. But again, that's certainly not going to be Samuel's intent. We've both,

01:28:51

I assume, worked quite hard on trying to present very complex topics in essentially what is 25 minutes.

01:29:00

You can return that work by just thinking at least a little bit about what—

01:29:09

That you are actually the adjudicators of this debate. We're going to call the debate an adjudicator. That is someone who determines who's the winner and who's not.

01:29:19

And that's basically you all, each individual with the right factor. So please do consider very carefully what it is that we're talking about.

01:29:39

You have to listen. You have to think. Very much the kind of opening that I frequently have, if you have enough time to do it, to encourage the audience to engage the subject and not just simply sit back.

01:29:53

What is the point? And why would we want to discuss an issue like this? Well, basically because both of our scriptures tell us to.

01:30:02

It says in the New Testament, in the Gospel according to Luke, that Jesus instructed people, Love the

01:30:08

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and love him with all your strength and with all your mind.

01:30:15

Essentially, Jesus was paraphrasing something that's said in the Old Testament, but the point here is quite clear.

01:30:22

In order to love God with our mind, we need to know him. In order to love him with all our strength, we have to work towards something.

01:30:28

We have to make some sort of effort. And obviously also with our heart, we have to have something that we're directing the love towards.

01:30:35

And indeed, we basically say a very similar thing. In the Qur 'an we're told, in the rough English translation,

01:30:41

O followers of earlier recollection, come unto that tenet which we here hold in common, that we worship

01:30:47

God alone and associate no partners with him, that we ascribe divinity to no others, and we take no board aside from God.

01:30:57

And we're told to say to you, in particular as Christians, that if you don't want to come onto that tenet, that's fine, but please at least acknowledge that we as Muslims are the ones that are superior to him.

01:31:07

We'll talk about that a little bit more in the next couple of minutes, but also maybe more throughout the night.

01:31:14

So why would we have a debate like we're going to be having, or why would we have debates like we're having with Samuel Greene, and so on and so forth?

01:31:21

Well, because both of our scriptures command us to do these things. We present a

01:31:27

God whom we know. We present a God whom we desire to worship. You can't worship a

01:31:32

God you don't know. So far, total agreement. I want you to bear that in mind particularly when we consider knowing

01:31:39

God through the mind, loving him through the heart, and actually worshipping him with our strength, our physical strength.

01:31:47

As far as my presentation is concerned, it's going to centre mostly on the knowing

01:31:53

God, loving God before your mind. And to quote the greatest companion of the

01:31:59

Prophet Muhammad, Abu Bakr said, I know

01:32:04

God because of God, and without him I would not know him. And comprehension of him is to know that you cannot comprehend him.

01:32:12

And what did Abu Bakr mean by this? He meant that first of all, without revelation, without creation, we would not know God. Without the means that he's put in place for us to know him, we can't know him.

01:32:21

That's interesting. A quote from Abu Bakr there. Sometimes, especially when the quality is not real good, the

01:32:27

Arabic names and things like that, get lost. But Abu Bakr was one of the companions of Muhammad and he's basically saying,

01:32:36

I know God because of God. And there are parallels in Christian theology. In fact, there's parallels to the debate that takes place amongst

01:32:44

Christians as to the priority of revealed knowledge over natural knowledge and so on and so forth that there are similar debates amongst various branches of Islam as well.

01:32:54

And likewise, full comprehension is to know that we can never as created beings comprehend an uncreated

01:33:03

God. I want to stop here for those of you... Now, I want to point that out because I think that one of my criticisms of all of my

01:33:14

Muslim friends is that they will use different standards for the

01:33:21

Christian view than they do for the Muslim view. He's just said appropriately, properly, that we can never truly comprehend in his fullness an infinite

01:33:33

God. And yet, he's going to make some statements that in essence are how can we understand this?

01:33:43

Therefore, how can it be true? And I just wonder if he's consistent at that point.

01:33:48

And when they come up, we'll remind him of what he said there. Now, again, my presentation tonight is only going to focus on one part of that, i .e.

01:34:26

the nature of the Divine Being, and in particular His Oneness, God is One. So, this debate is the

01:34:34

Trinity versus Tawhid, and that's going to be the second book in the series that I'm going to be addressing. So this is very, very relevant to what

01:34:40

I'm studying and writing in. So, moving on to that point, what is

01:34:46

God's Oneness? What does it mean that God is One? Well, we don't believe that He's One in terms of the number

01:34:52

One. We consider One more on the lines of an indivisible

01:34:57

One, unlike anything else. Now, Abdullah is really into this aspect of the

01:35:06

Oneness of God is not a numerical Oneness. Well, okay. I mean, the unity of, from a

01:35:13

Christian perspective, we believe in the Oneness of God in the sense that the Being of God cannot be divided.

01:35:20

You cannot divide up the Being of God into three parts or ten parts or a thousand parts or anything else.

01:35:27

Each of the Divine Persons fully shares in that One Being, etc., etc.

01:35:34

But I'm not really sure about this one's not a number, because the fact there's one

01:35:41

God means that atheists are wrong because they have zero. And the fact that there is one

01:35:47

God means that polytheists are wrong because they have multiple gods. And so what's wrong with the fact that One is

01:35:56

It? Exhaust the category. I'm not really sure where that argument really gets its traction.

01:36:05

Now, the best mathematical example that I have a representation that I can give of that is actually infinity.

01:36:13

Okay, for those of you that don't know that symbol that looks like the 8 on the side is the mathematical symbol for infinity.

01:36:20

That's what we're talking about when we say that God is One. Because infinity cannot be broken up.

01:36:26

Infinity cannot be divided. Infinity cannot be subtracted. And indeed, we'll discuss that in a little while.

01:36:31

I want you to at least be able to learn from this first little bit here that dividing infinity by three is needless.

01:36:40

Now, I'm not going to say that's necessarily the concept that Christians have, but I want you to at least grab that now as we move into the mathematics.

01:36:48

Dividing infinity by three is meaningless. Now, I am not a mathematician.

01:36:54

I have been told by some who are that there are forms of mathematics where you can add and subtract infinities and do all sorts of stuff with infinities.

01:37:06

I don't know. I did as much math as I had to do to get through my biology degree and said, ah, that's good enough for me, and that was never my biggest strength.

01:37:17

But just to correct any misapprehensions, we do not divide the indivisible being of God into three.

01:37:27

We distinguish by revelation between the three divine persons, but that does not mean that the being of God is divisible or can be diminished or can be quantified by any numbers along those lines.

01:38:06

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01:38:36

I'm not sure I like the term plausible. I would actually think that from an

01:38:43

Islamic perspective, it's not an issue as to whether the Trinity is more or less plausible than Tawhid.

01:38:51

The question is, what is divine revelation on the matter? Is there a clear divine revelation as to the nature of God?

01:38:59

And the Muslim would say, yes, there is, and it's not the Trinity. And the Christian would say, yes, there is, and it is the

01:39:05

Trinity. And since you come after us, this is why the question of the accuracy of the

01:39:13

Quran's understanding of Trinitarian theology is so problematic for the

01:39:18

Muslim. It's because if you're coming after us and your own scriptures say that in our scriptures is light and guidance, and clearly what

01:39:27

Muhammad meant by that was he was holding the people who had those scriptures responsible for reading what was in them.

01:39:33

So you can do all this corruption stuff you want, but we know what the

01:39:38

Torah looked like in the days of Muhammad. We know what the New Testament, the Injil, and if you want to say, well, that was just some book given to Jesus.

01:39:46

Well, you can't even find that. We know what the Al -Anjil, the people of the gospel, understood by gospel in the days of Muhammad.

01:39:55

And so that's why, again, I think it's such an important issue. And the answers that I've gotten, even from the guys that I have respect for,

01:40:04

I just haven't found to be very compelling. It almost seems like, well, you know, we just sort of look at it this way type of a thing.

01:40:12

That's not the best kind of response. We'll start off by looking at mathematics. Now, I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible.

01:40:18

I hope that I don't lose anybody. If I do, drop points down now and speak about your questions and answers.

01:40:24

So here we get into mathematics. Again, I guess

01:40:31

I can understand why someone would want to do this. It's not a long portion, but once you recognize, and I don't know if this debate took place before or after I sent

01:40:40

Abdullah my book on the Trinity, but again, just as Roger Perkins refuses to recognize the distinction between being in person, and hence refuses to recognize the very essence of our monotheism,

01:40:57

I don't think that at this point in time, anyways, Abdullah fully understood that issue either.

01:41:03

We would say that God can only be represented as a singular whole, not as a divisible whole.

01:41:10

Why? We would say that God can only be represented as an indivisible whole, not a divisible whole.

01:41:17

You don't even have to just look at my book. Go read Burkoff. Go read

01:41:22

Hodge. Go read Raymond. Go read the systematic theologies.

01:41:28

Go back as far as you want. Go back to the Athanasian Creed. Indivisible is right there.

01:41:37

It's one of the first assertions concerning the being of God. Cannot be divided.

01:41:44

Simple, non -complex. It's right there.

01:41:49

So, even mathematically, from creative mathematics, the infinity is not something that can be divided.

01:41:57

It can't be subtracted. It can't be multiplied. It can't be added to. Infinity in simple terms is bigger than any number that we can conceive.

01:42:05

Now in mathematics we have countable infinities. So we can say count from one to, in whole numbers, one, two, three, four, five, up to the end of the numbers that you can reach.

01:42:17

That's a countable infinity. As you can perceive about starting at one, it's going to go on and never end.

01:42:23

We also have uncountable infinities. So if I were to say, I want you to count starting from one, but including every decimal point up to two, you would never actually be able to do that because you'll never finish decimal points, etc.

01:42:37

Hopefully I haven't lost anybody with that. But the simple point to understand is that even in our human understanding of mathematics, infinity cannot be divided, it cannot be subtracted, it cannot be multiplied, it cannot be counted.

01:42:51

That's the main point. It cannot be counted. So, I'll re -establish again that we believe in a unity that is indivisible, even in thought.

01:43:00

Again, so do we. That doesn't have anything to do with what the doctrine of the trinity is.

01:43:07

The unity of the being of God is indivisible. It doesn't have anything to do with what you can or cannot add or subtract infinities.

01:43:15

It has to do with the fact that God has revealed himself to be one in that area.

01:43:21

The question is, has God revealed himself to be one in the area of person? And see how this is completely directly related to everything that Roger Perkins is arguing.

01:43:31

From a 180 degree different perspective, I think that's why it's somewhat useful to have both of these in contrast with one another because you're going to hear many of the same arguments being used to prove the exact opposite conclusions.

01:43:49

Because Abdullah Kunda believes Jesus is merely a Rasul. He's a prophet of Allah. But Roger Perkins believes that Jesus is the

01:44:00

Father and the Son, and that he's God.

01:44:06

So you've got completely different conclusions, same arguments, against the doctrine of the trinity.

01:44:14

Hopefully that will shed some light on the issue, make it a little bit easier for you to understand.

01:44:20

Okay, conceptually, it is indivisible. Having said that far, three is a real number.

01:44:28

And no matter what way we look at it, essentially the trinity is limiting

01:44:34

God to that number three. Essentially, the trinity is limiting

01:44:40

God to that number three. Is Islam limiting God to the number one?

01:44:48

Is the assertion of God's, that God can reveal himself, is that somehow a limitation?

01:44:58

That's not a limitation. That's the only way we can speak about God, is that he has revealed himself to us.

01:45:06

The trinity is not limiting God to three. The trinity is saying that God has revealed himself, and that that revelation reveals to us that from eternity past, there has been

01:45:19

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the one God indivisible,

01:45:24

Yahweh, that name being used for the Father, that name being used for the Son, that name being used for the

01:45:30

Spirit, the Spirit of Yahweh. And that is not a, that is no more a limitation than any claim of possessing revelation from God is a limitation.

01:45:44

Now there are people who will say, you can't put God in a box. What they mean by that is, I refuse to believe what

01:45:49

God has revealed about himself in scripture. And I don't, and obviously a

01:45:56

Muslim can't say that. A Muslim can't go there. And so, again, just looking for consistency in application of terminology and argument.

01:46:05

It's limiting God to a real number. To say three distinct personalities is to say that the number three has some degree of divine attribute.

01:46:14

Number three has some degree of divine attribute just because that happens to correspond to the number of divine persons?

01:46:22

Does that make one a divine, has divine attributes because you believe there's one divine person?

01:46:29

I don't see that there's a consistency in the argumentation here. Okay, it doesn't make sense.

01:46:36

We don't believe in the number one as a number in counting, as I said. And to quote another companion of the Prophet, peace be upon him, he said when explaining to some students, a false understanding of God's unity is that a person should say

01:46:53

God is one and be thinking of the number in counting. This is false because that which has no second cannot enter into the category of a number.

01:47:03

Do you not see that those who say that God is in a trinity fall into this infidelity? So basically the argument is we are going to redefine one so that it just simply means what we want it to, and if you say there are three divine persons, even though that's really not what the argument is about at that point, then you have some sort of infidelity.

01:47:25

Now, you know, you can quote companions all you want. I understand for a Muslim they have special authority.

01:47:32

But obviously for me, I want to go what's the evidence that these individuals had any accurate knowledge of the doctrine they're saying is in error, that they're saying is what says infidelity.

01:47:42

I imagine that's probably Kufr. In the original Arabic, I don't know, but I'm just guessing that that's just the translation in English.

01:47:50

And what evidence is there that these men actually accurately understood what it is we believe?

01:47:59

Because if they had no accurate understanding of the distinctions that we ourselves make and demand on the basis of scripture, then how much weight can we really give to their statements?

01:48:13

Why should their statements be given weight? You say it's a huge limiting factor and indeed, to quote a single verse from the

01:48:21

Quran, say that he is God, the unique one, and we'll actually be breaking down this verse a little bit more as we go on.

01:48:30

The trinity, when we can see history and say that the whole concept of the physical God as he's presented in the trinity.

01:48:39

Now did you catch that? The whole concept of a divisible God as we have in the trinity.

01:48:45

That is a fundamental contradiction of the doctrine of the trinity.

01:48:52

Mr. Kunda, just simply, and I know he listens, may be listening right now, don't know, but I would invite him to abandon this misapprehension.

01:49:07

We believe that there is one God and the being of God is not divisible, is not complex, is simple, and is shared fully by three divine persons, the

01:49:20

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You've got to at least address what it is we really do believe.

01:49:28

And so to identify the trinity as a divisible God, rather than saying, well, you believe there's one true

01:49:36

God and you believe that for eternity this one true

01:49:41

God has existed in three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they are distinguishable from one another, but they are not separable from one another.

01:49:54

That's something different to argue against. And you've got to argue against the reality.

01:50:01

I try because I seek to honor truth to argue against what

01:50:06

Islam really teaches, and that's not always easy to do because I'll find differences between Muslim apologists, and that's why

01:50:14

I try to listen. How else would I be sitting here doing what I'm doing right now? I've listened to this debate four times, at least.

01:50:24

So I try to listen to understand what my opponent believes because there are going to be distinctions between them, and hence to try to address them in a meaningful fashion, but you have to do that the other direction as well.

01:50:45

So the trinity came into existence because of an inability to believe that God could express himself in this way.

01:50:55

God could reveal himself in this way. He's giving us his understanding of what prompted, because see from an

01:51:03

Islamic perspective, it wasn't the New Testament revelation, even though it's pretty clear the New Testament does teach these things, and that's why

01:51:10

Muslims say it's been corrupted, but it came from this other stuff, and it's interesting to see what this other stuff, the theory that he presents is.

01:51:23

The concept of the Logos is not unique to Christianity. The concept of the

01:51:28

Logos is not unique to Christianity. Now, at this point, sometimes you look back over your life, and when you were going through something, you sort of wondered why, and then years later, you know why, and the

01:51:47

Lord's never allowed me to have a lot of the world's goods, and don't think ever will, and as a result, when

01:51:55

I was thinking about going to seminary, right as we were getting ready to possibly go to a particular seminary, we discovered that we were going to have a kid, and kids really mess with your finances.

01:52:11

And so we couldn't go to that seminary. We had to stay here in Phoenix, and back then, there was exactly one seminary program in Phoenix.

01:52:19

That was it. If you wanted to go to seminary, well, I'll take that back. I guess you could have gone to the Keno Institute, could have gone to the Roman Catholic one, but and that was

01:52:28

Fuller, and that's why my first master's degree, Master of Arts degree in Theology, graduated with honors,

01:52:36

Fuller Theological Seminary. Well, you know, Fuller was different back then, a lot different than it is today, let me tell you that much, but it was way off to my left even then, way off to my left, and that's why, you know,

01:52:49

I look back and I go, man, you know what? I'm awful glad I had to go through that. It wasn't easy at the time, and I didn't enjoy it, but one of the things that we spent a lot of time on at Fuller was all the historical background issues to the

01:53:03

New Testament, and especially Lagos Christology and the background to it, and Philo, and all sorts of reading in the intertestamental

01:53:13

Jewish literature about their views of Devar and Kul and all the rest of this stuff, and I've read a lot of that stuff, and yeah, it's been years,

01:53:23

I might not be quite as fresh as I once was, but it's pretty common stuff in scholarship today.

01:53:30

And there's all sorts of theories about the origination of John's use of Lagos in the prologue of his

01:53:40

Gospel. There's Philo and there's the Greek sources, but one thing is without question, nobody had ever presented a personal

01:53:51

Lagos. The Lagos of Greek philosophy was a rational ordering principle.

01:53:59

It was not a person, and what would have caught any Greek up short immediately who knew

01:54:07

Greek philosophy was John 114. What?

01:54:21

The word became... What? That's what makes it unique.

01:54:28

Now, not only that, but I think it's very, very clear that while John would have been familiar with the

01:54:36

Greek philosophical use of Lagos, there is much stronger evidence that the

01:54:43

Devar language of the word and wisdom in the

01:54:50

Old Testament is much more in the background of his use of Lagos than a

01:54:58

Plato would be, or something like that. Now, he's writing in Greek, so he's going to use something that Greek speakers are going to hear and understand, but there's much more evidence of that, and if you don't even bring up the word -wisdom motifs from the

01:55:19

Old Testament coming through the Septuagint, then you're not even starting to give a serious examination of what it is

01:55:29

John is seeking to communicate in his use of Lagos in the Prologue of John.

01:55:36

In fact, Greek philosophers have been talking about this concept 600 years before Jesus was even on the planet.

01:55:43

You'll see there that I've quoted Heraclitus, who was the first thing in terms of history that we can confirm anyway, that said that all things come to pass in accordance with the

01:55:53

Lagos, in accordance with the word. Now remember, in all of this, the word is impersonal.

01:56:04

It's not a person. It's not the expression of God, in that sense.

01:56:10

It doesn't exist personally with the Father. It is a rational ordering principle.

01:56:48

I thought Philo was an Alexandria, which is why he's called Philo of Alexandria, which is not

01:56:54

Palestine. And so he concluded, around about the same time as when

01:57:09

Jesus was born, that the Lagos executes creation, specifically, that the word is what creates, because God himself cannot come into contact with her.

01:57:19

This whole idea is born of the concept that God is so alien, so different to us as the creation, that he cannot actually even come into contact with us.

01:57:30

He needs to prepare or get an intermediary between the two.

01:57:38

Which, of course, would be radically different than the Lagos of John.

01:57:43

Because what is the primary concern on John's part in the description of the

01:57:49

Lagos? The Lagos became flesh. And you look at 1

01:57:55

John, his epistle, what our hands have touched, what we have seen concerning the word of God. So, is the suggestion being made that John took this from Philo?

01:58:06

Well, if John was familiar with Philo's use, he certainly rejected it, because the

01:58:12

Lagos of John is completely personal and became flesh. So you can't see this as the origination of these concepts in any way, shape, or form.

01:58:22

We will continue on. I will let you know on the blog how we're going to handle doing some more of this this week.

01:58:28

We need to get everything in by Thursday this week. And so, we'll do our best to do so. Thanks for listening to a mega two -hour program today.

01:58:36

We might even see it tomorrow. Who knows? God bless. ... ...

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