Yusuf Ismail's rebuttal to William Lane Craig

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July 25, 2013

Did another Jumbo Edition of the DL, starting off with a review of a William Lane Craig response to an inquiry, found here. Reviewed that wild and zany philosophy of Molinism, etc. Then briefly responded to an Ijaz Muhammad article, here, and then spent the last 45 minutes finishing up Yusuf Ismail’s rebuttal to William Lane Craig, which took longer than expected since it was one of those fast moving “machine gun” things where two dozen new topics are shot out at random (something I hope we can encourage folks NOT to do during the series of debates in South Africa in early October). By the way, a correction/confession regarding the program. I realized today that I have, in fact, listened to Yusuf Ismail’s presentation on the crucifixion, and what is worse, even mentioned it, albeit briefly, on the DL. I had listened to his encounter with Mike Licona a few months ago, and had even at the time noted that Sami Zaatari had pretty much followed his line in our debate in London. My error in not connecting all the names and debates together properly. Also, I did run the numbers as promised on the program: my book on the Qur’an is, in fact, longer than the Qur’an itself (88,000 words versus approximately 78,000 words). A trivial fact that I still find somewhat humorous.

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00:13: Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
00:20: 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.
00:28: Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
00:35: 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
00:44: United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
00:51: James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line, a jumbo edition of the program today. We'll be going to 430 my time, about the first 45 minutes, commenting on a couple of items.
01:02: My news folder is rather thin right now thanks to the death of the old reader.
01:09: Some of you know what I'm talking about. I used to use Google Reader like half the rest of the population did as my
01:15: RSS feed aggregator, whatever you call it. And then they decided to leave us out in the cold and we all started looking around.
01:22: I moved over to the old reader pretty much when Google announced that it was going to kill its reader.
01:28: And it took days and days and days and days and days and days and days to get it all put together. And finally
01:33: I had it and it's worked really well until over the weekend when they tried to upgrade their servers and all their drives died in the middle of things.
01:40: And now they're having to complete restore for backup. It's taken two and a half days so far. And all you can see on their site right now are pretty pictures of kittens.
01:50: You got to hate it when that happens. I forgot to tell you, you know,
01:55: I put the new shopping cart in last week. Yes, you did. And Saturday morning I had an interesting email.
02:02: The fellow says, hey, shopping cart looks really good, but I have no way to check out.
02:08: I forgot to put the button. Oh, oh, for the checkout thing. Cool. That's good.
02:14: All right. Well. These things happen. Yes. Okay. Well, that's a little different than having all sorts of drives dying and having terabytes of data gone and all that kind of stuff.
02:23: But anyways, that's where I get my stuff. And, you know, I look through that and then
02:28: I use what's called GetPocket .com. It allows me to, I just click on it and it saves it and it all puts it in one place and it's really nice.
02:36: So I don't have as much stuff as I normally would. And once the feeds come back,
02:41: I'm going to be missing a lot. And hopefully that'll be by this evening. I hope. But anyways, if you are a fellow old reader user, you know exactly what
02:50: I'm talking about. And Feedly hasn't been working for me either. So it's just like all the RSS guys, all the
02:57: RSS services have just died all at the same time. I think it's probably a government conspiracy thing, which is, you know.
03:06: I actually have an article in here about Glenn Beck, which would fit with the government conspiracy thing.
03:12: I won't go there. One thing I did have, which was rather interesting, is I was directed by someone to an article by William Lane Craig on ReasonableFaith .org
03:25: under the title of Is Mullinism as Depressing as Calvinism? And so this fellow writes in and Mike from the
03:37: US wrote in and asked a question of Dr. Craig. And I just want to look at Craig's response because it's, well, it's really interesting.
03:48: He says, So while I agree with you, Mike, that Calvinism has some pretty depressing consequences. It seems to me that your distress with mullinism is largely the unnecessary result of misunderstandings on your part.
03:59: So I think I have some relief to offer you for your distress. To begin with, it is inaccurate to say that on mullinism, quote,
04:06: God picks which world is created. And in that world, someone I know is not saved and cannot be saved.
04:12: End quote. That person who is unsaved can be saved and his being lost is the result of his free rejection of God's saving grace and is contrary to God's will for his life.
04:27: On mullinism, his destiny lies in his own hands. It's not clear what you mean when you say in no such world would that person ever be saved.
04:36: Obviously, in no world in which the person is not saved is he saved. But there are possible worlds in which that person is saved.
04:44: Perhaps you're asking whether there are feasible worlds in which that person is saved. Mullinism is neutral on that question.
04:52: What amazed me about this response was not only are you left going, what?
04:59: But I mean, I know what he's saying, but but over and over again on things that I think
05:07: Craig was rather clear in asserting in The Only Wise God, where he lays all this stuff out.
05:14: In this response, all of a sudden mullinism is neutral on all this thing, all this stuff. Let me remind you, remind you,
05:23: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
05:30: We have addressed this before, but let me let me remind you what we have said before.
05:37: Just keep up, because this middle knowledge stuff is becoming so popular. You know, Keithley's book and Amongst Southern Baptists, this is the way to deal with the issue is to just middle knowledge.
05:51: That just answers everything. I don't know almost anybody that actually understands it, but that's the way to go.
05:59: Let's just remind you, orthodox theologians had spoken of two kinds of knowledge in God, natural knowledge and free knowledge.
06:08: Natural knowledge is of himself, all possible actions. God obviously knows himself perfectly, etc.,
06:14: etc. Then free knowledge is the knowledge that follows his decree to create, hence omniscience of everything he has created.
06:24: So if God makes it, then God knows it, and God knows it perfectly. So natural knowledge is the knowledge
06:31: God has of himself, and then outside of himself is his free knowledge of everything else that exists, which is the result of his creative decree.
06:40: And then, of course, along comes Louis de Molina. There are actually some people running around now saying that actually
06:47: Molina was not the first one to come up with this, but that actually some Anabaptists came up with this.
06:54: And that's what some of the anti -reformed Baptists are positing these days.
07:01: But anyways, Molina, Louis de Molina, posited a middle knowledge between these two kinds of knowledge.
07:10: Now, it's middle not so much chronologically as it is logically, sort of like the superlapsarian, infralapsarian stuff.
07:17: That's not really a chronological issue, it's a logical issue. So that's why it's called middle knowledge, is it is a type of knowledge that needs to be put between the natural knowledge
07:27: God has of himself and the free knowledge of his creation. So it's logically prior to the decree to create, and that to me is one of the biggest problems.
07:39: Middle knowledge has to do with knowing what free creatures will do in given conditions.
07:45: Now, just to summarize the grounding argument that I think is unanswerable from a biblical perspective anyways.
07:55: Of course, most people who are serious proponents of middle knowledge don't really care about the biblical aspect anyways.
08:01: They're more concerned about philosophy. But anyways, how can
08:06: God have knowledge of what a free creature would do logically prior to his decree to create the free creature?
08:14: Because what the free creature will do is depend upon God's creative decree. Who I am, what I do, how I act is because of the way
08:20: God made me. So how God could know how I would act before he decrees to make me, it's his decree that defines who
08:26: I am. This is the big, big, big, big problem from my perspective. Mullinism seems to have some other source that determines the character of free creatures other than God himself, and that would be a bigger
08:37: God somewhere, I guess. Anyway, that's one of the big problems that I have with this.
08:44: So middle knowledge asserts that God knows, quote, what every possible creature would do, not just could do, in any possible set of circumstances.
08:54: End quote. The only wise God, page 130. This is William Lane Craig we're talking about, so I figure quoting him is the best way.
09:00: to deal with that. End quote. In the second moment of knowledge,
09:06: God knows which of the possible worlds known to him in the first moment are within his power to create.
09:13: Hence there are any number of possible worlds known to God in the first moment of knowledge which he cannot create because free creatures would not cooperate.
09:22: His middle knowledge serves, so to speak, to delimit the range of possible worlds to those he could create given the free choice which creatures would make in them.
09:30: So without question, only wise God, page 130, this middle knowledge, quote, delimits the range of possible worlds to those he could create given the free choice which creatures would make in them.
09:47: End quote. So the worlds that God could create are determined by the choices of free creatures, not by God. God evidently doesn't have a free choice outside of,
09:55: I guess the only free choice God has is what of the possible worlds he will create, or to not create at all,
10:04: I would guess. But as to the actual shape of those worlds, that is completely dependent upon the actions of free creatures and God has no control over that.
10:14: His control is limited to the choice of the world that he will create, all right?
10:23: So it says God knows which of the possible worlds known to him in the first moment are within his power to create.
10:28: So there are worlds outside of God's power to create and they're outside of God's power to create because of man's free will.
10:36: I mean, it is the ultimate exaltation of man's power.
10:41: It really is. It just gives me the creeps, and always will give me the creeps, and it gives me the creeps when reformed folks decide that, that sort of sounds like a cool idea.
10:51: I'm just like, oh, please. Indeed, God's decision to create a, quote, I'm sorry, end quote,
10:57: God's decision to create a world is based on his middle knowledge and consists in his electing to become actual one of the possible worlds known to him in the second moment.
11:05: So this middle knowledge actually becomes the basis of the decree rather than God's good purpose and God's will, then that's not it.
11:16: It's middle knowledge, which comes to God from some other source, evidently, because he doesn't decree what these free creatures are going to do.
11:24: Something else does. I don't know what, but something else does, and that determines what God can do.
11:30: Just frightening. Quote, given middle knowledge, the apparent contradiction between God's sovereignty, which seems to crush human freedom, and human freedom, which seems to break
11:37: God's sovereignty, is resolved. In his infinite intelligence, God is able to plan a world in which his designs are achieved by creatures acting freely.
11:46: Praise be to God. Only wise God, page 135. Well, whether that actually resolves anything by positing some third source of the solution, which is this source of middle knowledge, and so on and so forth, is a completely different issue.
12:06: Quote, accordingly, the very act of selecting a world to be created is a sort of predestination.
12:12: Given that God's middle knowledge is correct, God, in creating certain persons who will freely accept his grace, thereby ensures that they will be saved.
12:19: As for the unsaved, the only reason they are not predestined is that they freely reject God's grace. So, in other words, if God chooses to create a world in which, by his knowledge, he knows someone will be saved, then that's predestination.
12:37: But if he creates a world by which, by his middle knowledge, he knows that a person will not be saved, that's not predestination.
12:44: That's their fault. Okay? Quote, God gives sufficient grace to all people, everywhere, to be saved.
12:54: That sounds like the conversation we were having all the time in responding to Dr. Brown. God gives sufficient grace to all people, everywhere, to be saved, and he desires that they accept his grace and be saved.
13:04: Well, that is the absolute essence of the concept of prevenient grace and a grace that cannot save.
13:17: God gives sufficient grace to all people, everywhere, to be saved, and he desires that they accept his grace and be saved.
13:24: In fact, many of the unsaved may actually receive greater divine assistance in drawing than do the saved.
13:31: But they are lost as their own responsibility. So why God would give grace to those that he knows will not be saved,
13:38: I do not know. Evidently, God just likes giving grace. Aren't they going to be judged on the basis of how much grace they rejected?
13:45: So why would God give grace to people if they're going to be judged on the basis of rejecting more light?
13:51: I mean, Jesus specifically said, you know, Christian and Bethsaida, worse for them than Sodom and Gomorrah.
13:57: Why? More light. So if grace and light are at least somewhat related, then why would
14:02: God be giving more grace to people he knows cannot possibly be saved in this world that he chose to create anyways?
14:09: Quote, middle knowledge can thus provide an illuminating account not only of God's foreknowledge but also of his providence and predestination.
14:14: Does God then possess middle knowledge? I love getting to that question only after seven pages of speculation.
14:23: It would be difficult to prove in any direct way that he does, for the biblical passages are not unequivocal. That's for certain. Nevertheless, the doctrine is so fruitful in illuminating divine prescience, providence, and predestination that it can be presumed unless there are insoluble objections to it.
14:38: Awesome example of the vast difference between Reformed theology and that of William Lane Craig.
14:46: You can presume a doctrine based upon your interpretation of it being fruitful philosophically rather than driving it biblically, which just, again, should be creeping everyone out.
15:09: So there are some, quote, there are some possible persons who would not freely receive
15:15: Christ under any circumstances. Notice they're called possible persons. Again, how you know what a possible person does,
15:23: I don't know. Only if God coerced them would they believe in Christ, hence
15:30: God cannot be blamed for creating a world in which such people are lost. So somebody somewhere above the
15:40: God of this system created or formed these individuals and their persons in such a way that they would never, ever receive
15:53: Christ. And so I would say it's that God's fault.
16:01: Because if you just simply say, well, but you see, creatures are just, they just, they're self -existent.
16:06: Well, okay, so now we've got billions of gods. That's not a good thing. Don't want to go that direction. I mean, this whole idea of, well, the grounding issue, what's the grounding of this middle knowledge?
16:17: Where does it come from? Why is it that before God decrees to create something, someone, there can be knowledge of what that someone is going to be like and do outside of God's decree?
16:28: By making a middle knowledge prior to the free knowledge of God, logically, it is absolutely incoherent with Christian theology,
16:38: I would argue. It continues on. That was page 147. Same page.
16:43: There is no possible world in which all persons would freely receive Christ. There is no possible world in which all persons would freely receive
16:53: Christ. The universalists are helpless, can't do it, because of middle knowledge.
17:02: But this middle knowledge is what constrains God. So there's this power outside of God that constrains God. God holds that a world in which some persons freely reject
17:10: Christ, but the number of those who freely receive him is maximized, is preferable to a world in which a few people receive
17:16: Christ and none are lost. Page 148. Did you catch that? God holds that a world in which some persons freely reject
17:25: Christ, but the number of those who freely receive him is maximized, is preferable to a world in which a few people receive
17:31: Christ and none are lost. So in other words, he's now working on the statistics thing. So he goes on to say,
17:39: We have seen that it is possible that God wants to maximize the number of the saved. He wants heaven to be as full as possible, yet as a loving
17:46: God, he wants to minimize the number of the lost. He wants hell to be as empty as possible. His goal then is to achieve an optimal balance, to create no more loss than is necessary to actuate a certain number of the saved.
17:56: So God, last time I did this, I described, last time I went through this, it was what, about two years ago.
18:03: I went through this and I said, God is a big, simple computer program. He's a big, simple computer program.
18:12: And what's been programmed into him is sort of an algorithm. And he's examining all these possible worlds based upon this middle knowledge that comes from who knows where, not grounded in God's being, it comes from somewhere else,
18:26: I guess. And he's examining each of these worlds to see which one would give him the best results.
18:39: Maximum number with minimum number to go to hell. His goal then is to achieve an optimal balance, to create no more loss than is necessary to actuate a certain number of the saved.
18:52: So the number of lost is a necessary number. There just have to be that many people lost to get what
18:58: God wants as to the number of the saved. Now, he can't do any of this on his own.
19:04: God does not have the power to save anybody. He's utterly impotent, completely without power to save anybody.
19:12: He is completely dependent upon man. It is absolutely amazing. Like I said,
19:18: I know people who call themselves Reformed. I know professors who call themselves Reformed. It's great stuff.
19:23: We can make this fit in our system. Why? Why? I have no earthly idea why, but why?
19:34: Okay. But it is possible that the balance in the actual world is such an optimal balance.
19:42: It is possible that in order to create the number of persons in our world who will be saved, God had to create the number of persons who will be lost.
19:50: It is possible that the terrible price of filling heaven is the filling of hell as well, and that in any other possible world, the balance between saved and lost would have been worse or the same.
19:59: So God's just—well, remember, what's the direct quote from William Lane Craig? God has to deal with the cards he's been dealt.
20:07: God has to deal with the cards he's been dealt. You know? I mean, somewhere there's a higher God that determined who people would be, and the lesser
20:17: God has knowledge by middle knowledge what they will do, and that's all he can do. He's just stuck with it.
20:23: Now, everybody's going, that's not what Molinus believed. I know, but it's the logical outcome of it. They can fill volumes trying to solve the grounding issue and to try to explain where this—how the character and actions of free creatures can be known before God decrees to create them in the form they are, but it doesn't work.
20:44: It's just absurd. It is philosophical claptrap. It really is.
20:51: But it's just taking people by storm because they'll believe anything before they have to actually bow the knee to a sovereign
20:57: God. Don't—I'll accept anything as long as I don't have to be formed out of a piece of clay by the potter, you know, because that's just—especially for the particularly philosophically minded, that's just reprehensible.
21:18: All right. So page 150, the actual world contains an optimal balance between saved and unsaved, and those who are unsaved would never have received
21:29: Christ under any circumstances. So there's no world in which those who are lost would have been saved anyways.
21:41: At least, that's the idea he's presenting here. We have seen the doctrine of divine middle knowledge, while having some biblical support, ought to be accepted mainly because of its great theological advantages.
21:53: Page 151. And of course, I would say its primary theological advantage is the abandonment of the biblical
22:01: God. So having now reminded you of this, I found the response offered by Craig to be very odd in light of the quotes
22:08: I just gave you. Here's—going back to it, here's what he says.
22:15: To begin with, it is inaccurate to say that on Molinism, God picks which world is created, and in that world, someone I know is not saved and cannot be saved.
22:23: That person who is unsaved can be saved, even though he said in the book that there are people who, under certain circumstances, would never be saved.
22:30: And his being lost is the result of his free rejection of God's saving grace and is contrary to God's will for his life, even though, according to William Lane Craig's book,
22:39: God by his middle knowledge knew that this person, under the circumstances of this world, would never be saved.
22:45: On Molinism, his destiny lies in his own hands. It's not clear what you mean when you say, in no such world would that person ever be saved.
22:53: Obviously, in no world in which the person is not saved is he saved.
22:58: But there are possible worlds in which that person is saved, but I just read to you his own quotation, there are certain people who under no possible world would be saved.
23:11: Perhaps you're asking whether there are feasible worlds in which that person is saved. Molinism is neutral in that question.
23:18: The Molinist could hold that that person is unsaved in every feasible world in which he exists, but that is not inherent to Molinism.
23:27: The Molinist could hold that that person is unsaved. I think the point is that what he presents in Only Wise God is just one possible scenario.
23:38: One possible scenario. But as with so much of this probability
23:44: Christianity, you know, so often Craig's response to an argument is, well, we could see that the
23:54: Christian belief here is not impossible or irrational or implausible, and as long as you demonstrate that, then you've done enough.
24:07: You ask, do we then just assume that God has created a world in which everyone who can be saved in any world will be saved, and any who can't be saved won't be?
24:16: Obviously not, Craig responds, even though that's a logical outtake from reading his own book.
24:24: Otherwise, there would be an infinite number of people in the world. Now that I don't even get.
24:30: Really, your question seems so confused, it's hard for me to make sense of it. Either that or Craig didn't understand his aspect of it.
24:36: Maybe you're asking whether anyone who is unsaved in the actual world is unsaved in every feasible world, and the answer is that Molinism is neutral in that regard.
24:47: Maybe you're asking whether someone who is saved in the actual world is unsaved in some other feasible world.
24:54: Again, Molinism doesn't pronounce on this, but why not? As for the efficacy of prayer,
25:00: I agree with you that God would have factored human prayer into his decision -making and plan for the world, not that we change
25:07: God's mind per se. God's choice of a world may take into account the prayers people would offer in those worlds, so that prayer really does make a difference.
25:17: But then, oddly, you turn around and ask if it doesn't matter because God's creation decree already established salvation and damnation.
25:23: But, Mike, you already said that God's creation decree factored in those prayers, so obviously it does matter.
25:31: I'm trying to figure out how prayer would work in... I guess... Okay. So, if God, by middle knowledge, knows what a person is going to do, he's going to know under certain circumstances which people are going to pray, and therefore that will factor into the choice of which actual world he creates.
25:52: Do we have any Tylenol out there? I could use some after this. I have the suspicion that you're being deceived by fatalistic thinking, failing to realize that if we were not to pray, then
26:02: God would not have acted as he did. His acting as he did is a soft fact about the past, counterfactually dependent upon a later event.
26:12: That is to say, we have the ability to act in such a way that were we to do so, the past would be different than it is.
26:22: Someone on the channel just said, someone's been watching too much Sliders. You're still thinking like a
26:27: Calvinist, Mike, when you say, what if I'm one of those people who could never be saved and just thought I was? There are no such people according to Molinism.
26:35: I thought Molinism was neutral on so many of these things. God wants every person he creates to be saved, and furnishes sufficient grace to every person to be saved, if only that person will accept it.
26:46: So everyone can be saved. God just knew who would freely accept his grace and who would freely reject it.
26:52: Now wait a minute. The whole point, of course, is that God not only knows what every person would do in any given circumstance, but that he knows when he actuates this particular world exactly who it is who, in the circumstances of this world, will never be saved.
27:10: So I'm sorry, it is just such massive smoke and mirrors to get around having to confess the judge of all the earth will do right.
27:25: Anyway, so back to the topic, is Molinism as depressing as Calvinism? First of all,
27:31: Calvinism is depressing, and at least it makes sense. You can actually explain it to somebody without them banging their head on the table and losing their mind.
27:44: What time is it? Oh, okay, I've got enough time to do this before we move on. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:52: Fred Butler just distracted me on Twitter. The folks in the channel aren't distracting me, thankfully, but Fred Butler just did.
28:01: I need to discuss Chris Pinto's doc claiming Olive is a 19th century Jesuit forgery.
28:13: There is just so much stupidity on the net that, you know, what are you supposed to say?
28:22: I mean, that kind of accusation, especially in light of all the other manuscripts that are clearly related to the text type of Sinaiticus that have a completely different provenance than Sinaiticus does, is just so absurd that it's sort of like,
28:40: I need to respond to the people who say we didn't land on the moon, and I need to respond to people who are certain that the kinderhook plates actually demonstrate the
28:50: Book of Mormonism. I mean, there's just so much—anybody can make wild -eyed accusations, and there are many people willing to do so, especially people who, again, have a
29:01: King James -only bent to them and are clearly losing and disappearing from the face of the earth, but are therefore only becoming all the more wild -eyed in their accusations.
29:15: But it's just really weird that anyone would say something like that.
29:22: But anyway. And then someone else asked me to completely dive off the deep end, and what is our apologetic approach concerning the spiritual gifts and our charismatic friends?
29:40: Oh boy, that's a completely different subject. Anyways, one other article
29:45: I want to get to, and then I am now in contact with the
29:52: Muslim side of things down in South Africa. I'm becoming really excited about this. It is going to be the—right now, as it stands, going to be the busiest, most stressful trip
30:08: I've ever done, no question about it. Not only just the 24 ,000 miles of travel, but once I get to South Africa, basically
30:18: I hit the ground running and don't have any downtime at all.
30:26: You can start praying for my health right now, if you'd like, because we're looking right now at a minimum of half a dozen debates on this trip.
30:36: Half a dozen in one trip. That's more than we've ever even contemplated in the past, and it's going to be a challenge.
30:46: No two ways about it. It's going to be tough, it's going to be tough.
30:53: But I'm in contact with the folks, and so there's just—the two—it looks like,
30:59: I haven't absolutely confirmed this yet, but it looks like right toward the end of the trip, I'll actually have—Shabir
31:04: Ali's going to be coming down to South Africa right toward the end of my time there. So we might get together for at least one encounter—actually, some were talking about three.
31:14: I can't imagine debating Shabir three times in, like, two days. I mean, that's just—especially at the end of the trip,
31:20: I don't know how you do that. But of course, Shabir and I are co -authoring a book, so maybe we'll just do a discussion on some of the issues related to that,
31:29: I don't know. But the two individuals who I primarily will be encountering are two of the individuals with IPCI down there in South Africa that are well -known on the
31:38: Islamic side, and that, of course, is Yusuf Ismail, who we've been listening to and we're going to try to finish up today, at least that particular debate with William Lane Craig, which is ironic given what
31:48: I was just reading, and Bashir Vania. And so I want to get to some of Bashir's stuff.
31:56: But Yusuf directed me to a debate he did with David Secum on the
32:02: New Testament and made a lot of comments, a lot of statements concerning the history of the
32:10: New Testament that I really need to challenge, really need to correct many of them and put into a proper context.
32:19: And so that's one of the reasons I'm pretty much committed—obviously things could get in the way, schedules could get in the way, things like that—but
32:29: I'm pretty much committed doing jumbos between now and when I leave for South Africa, well, via London.
32:36: And it's the only way I can get the time to do the reviews. And the thing is, both
32:42: Bashir and Yusuf know I'm doing this and Yusuf was already listening. So that to me is good.
32:47: That to me is a very, very good thing, that they're listening. Again, how many people—how many people do this—first of all,
32:59: I do this to seek to obviously edify the audience, try to provide to the audience information, background.
33:13: I'm trying to edify Christians. Obviously if Muslims are listening, I hope they're hearing what I'm saying and are considering the things that I'm saying, etc.,
33:21: etc. But I'm also doing it for those that I'm going to be debating.
33:27: I want our debates to be the best debates they can be. And if there are fundamental issues of factuality and history and things like that that I can sort of deal with ahead of time so that we're not having to waste our time during the debate going back over stuff that isn't really going to be helping anybody, then it makes the debate better.
33:50: How many people do this? How many people go through and say to their opponents, this is what I'm going to say, this is how
33:56: I'm going to respond to the arguments you've done before, I would really like it if people did that for me. I would really, really enjoy getting that kind of information beforehand, but it's generally not how that works.
34:12: And so I'm really trying to do this, trying to be of assistance and help in a number of different ways.
34:19: But before we get to those, there was an article posted on thedebateinitiative .com,
34:25: the MDI blog, on the 17th of July, so a little over a week ago, by Ijaz Ahmed.
34:32: He is someone I have criticized a number of times, especially in regards to the videos that he has posted on YouTube.
34:45: But I found this to be an interesting article, but just illustrative of the kind of argumentation that we encounter so often from many on the
34:54: Islamic side. It's how true Christians should reject the New Testament. True Christians should reject the
35:02: New Testament. No true Christian should be forced to believe the New Testament is necessary to be believed in as the
35:07: Word of God, Holy Scripture, if one is to be considered a believer in Christ. It must be made absolutely clear that the following information is common knowledge and should be taken as maxims.
35:22: In other words, I'm not going to prove any of these things. And here's six points. Number one, the only scripture accepted before Christ's time by the
35:31: Jews was their Old Testament. Agreed.
35:39: Including the fact they rejected what are called the Apocryphal Books. So if you accept this,
35:44: Ijaz, then you'll never be raising the issue of the Apocrypha anymore, will you? I find many
35:50: Muslims to do that. Well, what, there's a difference, there's more books in the Catholic Bible than the
35:55: Protestant Bible. Well, but if you understand that the Jews, to whom the Oracles of God were committed according to Romans chapter 3, never accepted those books, then you're not going to be raising that issue anymore,
36:08: I'm sure, because you want to be consistent. Got to be consistent. Number two, the only scripture accepted at Christ's time by Christ was the
36:15: Jewish Old Testament. Um, be very careful here, be very careful.
36:23: How do you know this, Ijaz? Well, because the Gospels tell us that. And do we know what the
36:34: Tanakh looked like at that time? Yes, we do.
36:40: We have the Dead Sea Scrolls. We have entire copies of the textual tradition that existed, textual traditions that existed at the time of Christ.
36:52: So if Christ was a prophet and he accepted the Tanakh, then you have no basis for rejecting it, right?
37:02: Including Isaiah 53, including the form that it has, the prophecies that it has.
37:09: We won't hear anything more about the corruption of the Tanakh if, number two, it's accepted by Ijaz Ahmed, right?
37:16: The only scripture accepted at Christ's time by Christ was the Jewish Old Testament, yes. And we know what that Old Testament was. We know what it looked like.
37:24: So just looking for consistency. Just looking for consistency, right? Number three, the only scripture which existed after Christ's time during the time of the disciples was the
37:33: Jewish Old Testament. Um, no. Obviously not. Now, remember, he says this is to be taken as a maxim.
37:39: Uh, no. That's not true. The Gospels are written at a much earlier time than liberals would like to say.
37:50: And if you say otherwise, prove it. It's all theory. And there's all sorts of theories about when the
37:59: Quran was put together by liberals, too, and I doubt you accept them. Um, the fact of the matter is that at least
38:08: Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written during the period of the eyewitnesses, minimally. And John, later in that period, and I would say he was an eyewitness as well.
38:19: So it is untrue that the only scripture which existed after Christ's time during the time of the disciples was the Jewish Old Testament. This is not true.
38:25: Number four, the only scripture which existed after Christ's time during the time of the presbyteries was the Jewish Old Testament. Untrue. Number five, the only scripture that existed after Christ's time during the time of the patristics was the
38:33: Jewish Old Testament. That's not only untrue, it's starting to get downright silly, given the patristic testimony to the scriptures, citation of the scriptures, so on and so forth.
38:42: Of course, what he means by patristics, I don't know. The standard utilization of that term would go as late as the time of Augustine, which of course is ridiculous.
38:52: At no point in the above time periods was it ever mandatory to believe in a gospel to be able to believe in the Messiah. Obviously untrue.
39:00: The gospel is exactly what formed the Christian community, and it is the misunderstanding of many
39:07: Muslims, many Muslims, that when you're talking about the gospel, that that is different than what we have in the gospels.
39:17: There is a category error in the mind of Muslims, brought on primarily by a modern interpretation of the
39:22: Koran, that the Injil was given to Jesus, and so they interpret that as a book that no one's ever seen.
39:28: So Jesus was given a book, but Jesus failed and all of his followers failed to actually preserve it.
39:35: It was sent down, not solved by God, contained light and guidance, but not only could
39:41: Allah not preserve it, but neither Jesus nor his disciples were faithful enough to preserve this
39:48: Injil either. There is no evidence of this whatsoever other than the later interpretation of the words of a person from 600 years after the time of Christ, in a different language, who had no first -hand knowledge, but that's what you—that's what we have.
40:04: So he goes on to say, "...with the above having been said, it should go without saying that the onus is upon those who take the New Testament as inspired scripture to explain why they believe themselves to be superior to Christ and his disciples."
40:15: None of us believe that we are superior to Christ and his disciples. The New Testament came from the disciples of Christ, and record for us the words of Christ, upon which your own argument was dependent, but you maybe didn't notice that.
40:27: I say this because while they hold it mandatory to believe the New Testament as scripture and the word of God, Christ himself never mandated this, nor did any of his disciples or those after him.
40:35: Obviously, if you take this to its logical conclusion, then nothing Jesus said was relevant. Nothing Jesus said was relevant.
40:42: So it's really, really a really bad argument, but it's what's out there on thedebateinitiative .com
40:53: from Ijaz Ahmed, and you might want to take a look at that. All right, we're going to queue up a break here, if we could, and then
41:05: I am going to come back and we are going to finish off Yusuf Ismail's rebuttal to William Lane Craig, and then we're going to shift over to a debate between Bashir Vania and Jay Smith, and that'll be on the subject of the
41:26: Bible and the Koran, and we have one on salvation, and we have Yusuf Ismail's debate with David Segum on the subject of the
41:33: New Testament as well. So we have lots and lots to get to, and we'll be right back. What is
41:47: Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book Chosen But Free? A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
41:55: No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
42:07: In his book, The Potters' Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potters' Freedom is much more than just a reply.
42:14: It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed it is a defense of the very
42:20: Gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
42:29: Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the Gospel preached by the
42:34: Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potters' Freedom, A Defense of the
42:39: Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org.
42:47: More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils, they are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements, and many
43:00: Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many
43:08: Evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided
43:13: Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,
43:20: The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.
43:30: James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.
43:38: Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomen .org.
43:44: This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
43:55: The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the
44:02: Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning
44:08: Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30
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44:23: North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
44:31: If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,
44:38: where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
44:49: You know, I was just thinking about that Chris Pinto thing, and it reminded me of something else.
44:56: There are people who theorize that Muhammad did not exist. You might be familiar with Robert Spencer's book, and you know that David Wood debated
45:06: Robert Spencer on that very subject. And it has been painful to listen to certain
45:14: Muslims debating on this subject as well, because so far
45:19: I know that there are Muslims out there that are capable of presenting this kind of argumentation.
45:26: They just haven't had the opportunity of doing so, I guess. But the reason that I don't buy into this
45:33: Muhammad was a made -up person theory is because there's too many strands of historical information, especially found in the
45:46: Hadith. Now, don't get me wrong, I think a large portion of the Hadith give clear evidence of later editing and redaction and clear evidence.
45:55: For example, when you read the Sunni Hadith of the whole
46:02: Sunni -Shia split thing going on and succession issues and all that kind of stuff, it's all there.
46:08: I think it's very clear. But given that there is a core of historical information there, the idea that you could have this huge conspiracy that could create all these personalities, and you've got people sitting in smoky rooms thinking up, well, let's come up with someone named –
46:29: I think I like the name Abu Bakr. Oh, that's good. And I'm going to come up with someone named
46:35: Umar. He's a big guy and he kicks in doors. The idea that that kind of stuff could be put together from all these different sources into what you have today just strikes me as incredibly naive, very, very naive.
46:53: In the same way, the idea that someone could come up with a document such as Codex Sinaiticus and it represents and has textual connections to manuscripts that have been found all over the world, again, requires this massive conspiracy theory, you know.
47:13: And of course, it's always good to have the Jesuits. The Jesuits, you know, they're here and they're there and they're everywhere.
47:20: It's real easy. But it's just so historically naive to come up with that kind of stuff.
47:28: It's just amazing. Someone just asked, could you discuss the
47:33: Quranic argument from science? Well, it depends which one. But again, the better Islamic apologists don't even go there because they recognize that anything that is considered to be some kind of,
47:46: I mean, you know, the formation of the child in the womb that's described there.
47:52: I mean, I've actually heard people seriously trying to, well, this is just like modern science. No, it's not.
47:57: It's poetry, for crying out loud. And I'm just as hard on the people who try to read into the
48:02: Psalms some kind of thing like that as I am on the people who abuse, literally abuse the
48:10: Quran on that level. But yeah, there might be there's whole books on that subject and maybe someday we'll do something like that.
48:17: But I don't have that information in front of me. All right. Anyways, we need to get back to Yusuf Ismail. I've just been hired by Mutato to do voiceovers for Toy Story 4.
48:30: Well, I was doing some voiceover stuff there. I appreciated his kindness in saying that, especially given he's such an expert.
48:39: I mean, anybody who can go, oh, like Milo can on a regular basis in the middle of songs is very, very good.
48:49: Anyhow, no one understood that. But we'll have to play some Milo music again in the future and reintroduce everybody to the great farm boy rock star.
49:01: All right. Let's get back with this is an interesting portion to start with Yusuf Ismail.
49:08: It's also interesting to note that the earliest source to mention the appearance of Jesus is Paul. He says, for example, in the book of Corinthians, So I delivered you unto first of all, which
49:18: I also received. How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve.
49:23: Then he was seen of about the five hundred brethren. Now, I just point out that even some of the most vociferously critical scholars of the
49:37: New Testament, who in no way approach the text in a context of faith, recognize that this tradition to which
49:48: Paul makes reference in first Corinthians chapter 15 is pre -Pauline. That he is using the language of tradition here, paradosis, and to suggest, as it seems,
50:04: Yusuf is, that Paul is the origin of this, goes against everything that you will find in even some of the most critical analysis of Paul's writings.
50:24: Now, obviously, first Corinthians is earlier than, say, Luke, but both are dependent upon previous traditions, going back to the—I just don't think there's any question that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is part and parcel of the most primitive element of the
50:46: Christian tradition. I just, I can't see how anyone could possibly argue that. I can name names, many, many names of scholars that hold that position, and they happen to be believing scholars.
50:59: In other words, their worldview happens to coincide with the worldview of the authors of Scripture, and Muslims as well.
51:06: Again, I just find it very, very odd that the primary sources utilized by our
51:12: Muslim objectors have a worldview other than the Muslims themselves have, and that have a worldview other than the writers of the text they're now analyzing have.
51:23: I think that says a great deal. At once, of whom the greater part remain unto this presence,
51:29: Jesus appeared unto the twelve. Which twelve did Jesus appear to, Dr. Craig? Because at that particular point in time,
51:35: Judas Iscariot was long dead. I don't think this is a valid argument, Yusuf, for simple reason that the disciples were called the
51:43: Twelve. It was a name that had been assigned to them, so much so that you see in Acts chapter 2 the reestablishment of that specific number with the drawing of lots.
51:54: I personally don't think that—I think that they—that action, by the way, in Acts chapter 2 was not something that God commanded them to do.
52:03: I believe the twelfth apostle was Paul, and I don't think the drawing of lots had anything to do with that.
52:08: But the point was that by that time, the Twelve was a name for a group.
52:18: And if six of them had been killed, they still would have been called the Twelve, and they would have replaced six because there was something about the
52:24: Twelve. And that comes through all the way through the Book of Revelation, where you have the Twelve foundations and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
52:30: So I think this is just missing the point that the Twelve was the name of the disciples, the group of the disciples, not a, well, we counted the number and there were exactly twelve.
52:42: Well, Judas is gone, so it can't be called the Twelve anymore. That's not a valid objection. There were only eleven left, and Matthias was chosen at a later point in time.
52:51: Paul had no personal knowledge, and he's delivering, first of all, what he received at Jerusalem from James and Peter. And so the list of appearances seem to be in chronological order.
52:58: For the words after that suggested, but it's noteworthy to mention, that Paul does not mention any appearance to Mary Magdalene or any other woman, nor does he mention the appearance to Ananias.
53:08: Why would he have to? Again, when I hear these objections saying, well,
53:15: Matthew said this. For example, Matthew and the resurrection of the dead, and they're going into Jerusalem, you know.
53:23: If this had happened, certainly Mark and Luke would have said it. Why? Why? Why must every gospel be a mirror image of the other?
53:34: If they are mirror images of each other, then there's no use in having them, right? Why does any individual author not have the freedom to choose one information he includes in a story and the detail of that information?
53:49: Why? I'd like an answer. You can assume it. You can just throw it out there and say, well, that's just how
53:54: I see it. But once you say that's how I see it, I go, well, I don't see it that way, and I don't see any historical reason to see it that way.
54:01: And again, if we're going to do this to the synoptic gospels, remember, what about the parallels in the
54:09: Quran? Why does one surah record Lot saying certain things that it doesn't say in another surah?
54:18: Because, see, it's easy for me to go, well, because Mark includes more information on particular incidences than Matthew does.
54:27: Matthew tends to telescope. They have different audiences, etc., etc. I can explain that. If there is no human finger in the
54:34: Quran, this is all just coming from God, then how do you explain differences in parallel accounts?
54:41: The liberal Muslim would say, this is poetic license, this is putting things in a different way, etc.,
54:49: etc. But once you have demanded that these are the very words of God, then once God has said it perfectly once and he says it differently the next time, is it imperfect the next time?
55:02: Why does he include different words, different ways of rendering the same actions and events, for example, not only with Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah, but in the creation story and the fall of Iblis?
55:17: There are differences, major differences. Went through them in the book, went through them in the book, looking at the
55:23: Arabic text, tried to be as accurate as it could be. And you just have to be fair.
55:34: You have to use the same arguments. If you're going to say, well, the Synoptic Gospels must be identical, then every recording of every event that is told more than once in the
55:43: Quran has to be identical. Right? Well, maybe not.
55:49: Now, the point is that Paul would not have omitted to mention this proof in support of the fact of resurrection if he had known of it.
55:55: No, it doesn't follow. It does not follow, especially given the fact that he is giving a summary statement of the tradition and not an exhaustive accounting.
56:08: I mean, that would be like saying, well, since Paul knew of some of the 500 and he didn't name any of them, he would have known some of their names by name.
56:16: But since he didn't name them, then it must not have happened because it has to be exhaustive.
56:24: No argument has been provided to explain why it has to be exhaustive. And again, the funny thing is, oh, by the way, by the way,
56:34: I almost forgot. I ran the numbers, remember, at the end of the program last time.
56:40: I sat in here and ran the numbers. Now, here's the information
56:47: I'm going off of. The best source that I found. Now, what
56:53: I did is I used accordance to count the number of words in the Nesiallon 28th edition and the
56:59: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, current edition of that. And according to accordance, there's 138 ,206 words in the
57:06: New Testament and 427 ,047 words in the Old Testament. Now, obviously, you could you could argue about that, like, well, do you do you include im in Hebrew when it's prefixed to a word?
57:22: Is that a separate word? It's all sorts of stuff. But let's let's just go with with the numbers here.
57:31: 138 ,206 in the New Testament, 427 ,047 in the Old Testament, the best source I could find.
57:36: I do not have there. There just isn't an accordance for the Koran. The best app
57:42: I have found on my iPad is called My Koran, but it still doesn't have the power of an accordance or anything like that.
57:49: The best source I could find indicated that there are 77 ,430 freestanding words in the
57:57: Koran. 77 ,430. So that means the
58:04: Koran is 56 % as long as the New Testament. So just just slightly over half. And as far as the
58:12: Bible, total words in the Bible, 565 ,253. That means the Koran is 14 % as long as the
58:20: Bible. That is one seventh the length of the Bible, one seventh the length of the
58:26: Bible. And, of course, it is much younger. It is about one fifth as old as the oldest portions of the
58:35: Old Testament. So you have a small document, even from the
58:43: Islamic perspective, one author. There are obviously scholars that would disagree with that, but we'll go with the
58:50: Islamic perspective. One author, much smaller period of time before codification via printing.
59:01: It's only 14 % as long as the Bible itself. And so why do
59:08: I point this out? Because so often in these debates, and this is something
59:16: I need to be better at pointing out to audiences and we'll try to do so in the future. So often in these debates, you do have the apples oranges problem.
59:26: Where you have a direct comparison of the transmission of the Koran or things like that directly one -on -one with normally the
59:34: New Testament, but sometimes the Bible as a whole. Unfortunately, the majority of people in the audience do not have the background information to be able to analyze those assertions in a proper way and to recognize, wait a minute, you can't just make a one -to -one correlation between the
59:57: Koran and these other books. You have to take into consideration, both the other books being compared are multi -authored.
01:00:09: They are not written at the same time. They're written over an extensive period of time, 1 ,500 years rather than 22, much longer.
01:00:21: It would seem to me that it would be a far greater miracle to be able to present the unity of the messages found in this library of books called the
01:00:36: Bible. It doesn't seem like much of a miracle that one author with a short book manages to stay on topic.
01:00:45: I've done that and that wasn't a miracle. So that strikes me as something interesting.
01:00:55: In fact, you know what? You know I'm going to have to, now you know what
01:01:00: I'm going to have to do. I'm going to have to look at my book on the
01:01:07: Koran and see how many words it was, because I can find out. I've got the word document. I should see how many words it is.
01:01:14: I wonder if it's as long as the Koran itself is. I'll bet it is. I think it was around, if I recall correctly, it was around 85 ,000.
01:01:24: And the Koran is only 77. That reminds me, I'm wandering here for a moment too, forgive me, but it reminds me when
01:01:32: I was in seminary, I had Dr. David Hubbard for Old Testament Prophets, Prophets, I can say Prophets, and he had just released, oh, it was, remember that Old Testament commentary series?
01:01:44: Some of you still, I still have a bunch of them in my library, that had this Pepto -Bismol colored, they're hardbacks, that has
01:01:52: Pepto -Bismol colored paper covers on them. Just most, who came up with this idea?
01:01:58: I do not know. It was just disgusting. They've come up with a much better cover since then. But Dr. Hubbard had written the commentary on Ruth and it had just come out right before my class with him.
01:02:10: He's a very good teacher. And it was,
01:02:18: I don't know, I think it's about, it's over 300 pages long. And how long is
01:02:24: Ruth? And somebody finally in class got the got the nerve up to sort of raise the issue of how do you write a 300 page commentary on a really small book?
01:02:39: I mean, isn't that just sort of the very essence of scholarship, you know? And he did laugh about it.
01:02:47: He chuckled about it. He says, yeah, I've pointed out that that is pretty insane to write a book this length on Ruth.
01:02:54: But anyway, it just sort of reminds me that if in fact I have written a book on the
01:02:59: Quran that is longer than the Quran itself, this will only substantiate the accusation of many of my critics that I talk way too much.
01:03:09: In fact, Harold Green had once commented on my verbosity. And so given that I've written as many books
01:03:17: I have, I guess he knew what was coming. But I just thought I'd mention I'm going to look that up.
01:03:23: I'm going to try to do that. Without to establish that particular fact. And so he says that if Christ be not written, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
01:03:31: So it follows as a matter of course that James and Peter must also have been ignorant of those particular facts. No, again, this is the assumption here is is completely false.
01:03:40: The assumption is that a brief statement of a tradition must be exhaustive.
01:03:48: The whole point to have a summary statement like this is so that it doesn't have to be exhaustive.
01:03:56: That's the whole point. What does Dr. Craig say about the 40 so -called contradictions that exist in the resurrection account?
01:04:02: And I can point them. Well, Dr. Craig won't even bother to respond to them because Dr. Craig's view of inerrancy,
01:04:09: I think, is minimal, minimized, minimus.
01:04:18: Mini, mini. I want to return what I use. I just think Dr. Craig is really uncomfortable with that concept, really, really uncomfortable and does not defend it.
01:04:29: Now, I probably know more about the accusations against the synoptic accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection than Yusuf Ismail does.
01:04:50: And we are going to be running headlong directly into every single one of them, as I am teaching through the synoptic gospels.
01:04:57: And we are now starting the crucifixion accounts. We're just about there. We'll be there probably by the end of the year.
01:05:04: We've been doing the synoptic gospels at PRBC since 2004 or five, something like that.
01:05:11: I don't know. It's been it's been a long time. We're coming up on a decade, believe it or not. Of course, it's not every
01:05:18: Sunday. I'm not there every Sunday, as this October is going to prove for certain with all the traveling that I'll be doing.
01:05:24: But it is very easy to make accusations.
01:05:32: And to just and especially in a debate to just throw these things out, as long as all you want to do is get your side to go, oh, yeah, because I know your side's not going to look into this.
01:05:44: Your side's not going to fairly analyze the materials.
01:05:54: Now, I really hope that the issues that I raised in whatever
01:06:01: Christian needs to know about the Koran does not partake of that kind of argumentation. There are a lot of arguments that people have made against the
01:06:09: Koran that I did not raise because I attempt to be fair in applying the same standards in both directions.
01:06:22: I would be very interested in whether Yusuf Ismail or Bishar Vania or these others have they, it seems, it could be very interesting because in this other debate,
01:06:35: Yusuf makes some comments at the end of the debate with David Secum about what he calls fundamentalist
01:06:40: Southern Baptist Christians. He seems to think the only people who believe in inerrancy anymore live in the south of the United States and they're
01:06:46: Southern Baptists. And I'd like to introduce him to the faculty of Westminster Seminary, either
01:06:55: East or West and all sorts of other folks that are not Southern Baptists and don't live in the south anywhere to disabuse him of that.
01:07:02: But his basic idea is that Christianity that's dependent upon the inerrancy of the Bible is passing away.
01:07:08: It cannot survive the modern era. And, of course, secular humanists would say Islam that depends on believing the
01:07:15: Koran is the word of God. Muhammad's prophet cannot survive the exact same examination, clearly, which he would not accept.
01:07:21: Again, got to have those equal standards. But he's going to make that kind of statement at the end of this other debate.
01:07:30: And so it would strike me that he's probably not reading sound conservative scholars, especially on the subject of the crucifixion and resurrection narratives, the in -depth studies of the synoptic
01:07:44: Gospels and their relationship that have been published, because those aren't the most popular folks. So he's not going to be reading, you know,
01:07:52: Carson or Bach or people like that. I would recommend that you do so. But probably that's not what he's looking at.
01:08:00: Does Dr. Craig deny that these contradictions do not exist? I do not deny that the allegations exist.
01:08:07: I deny that anyone has been able to substantiate them, given the level of information we're given. So often these accusations assume things that are not, that are facts, not an evidence.
01:08:17: And as an attorney, that would be something that I would point out to Yusuf Ismail. Does he subscribe to the idea of the inerrancy of the
01:08:23: New Testament? I do. What does he have to say about the fact, importantly enough, that, for example, in Matthew and Mark, the discrepancies regarding the instructions to the woman are that they were directed to inform the disciples that Jesus had gone before them to Galilee.
01:08:37: But in Luke there's no such injunction at all. And in John we find no words. Why does
01:08:42: Luke have to give the same information? What if Luke wants to focus upon a different post -resurrection encounter?
01:08:49: Do you really think any one of them is giving an exhaustive catalog of everything that happened during the post -resurrection period before the
01:08:56: Ascension? I mean, there's just, there's so many assumptions that are not even, not even in an attempt to establish these things, that it really makes me feel like Yusuf is getting this from some other source.
01:09:10: This isn't coming from a fair analysis of the text that doesn't start with the assumption that these people are contradicting each other.
01:09:21: That's not where it's coming from. Which could even seem to answer to the command in Matthew and Mark. The persons who came on the sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection were in Mark, Mary Magdalene, and some other woman.
01:09:30: In Matthew, only the two men. Now, by the way, this is sort of, and by the way, again,
01:09:36: I have it at 1 .2, so it's a little bit faster. So it sounds a little bit more rat -a -tat -tat than it would have at just 1 .0
01:09:45: speed. But given the topic of the debate. I would have to agree at this point with William Lane Craig, who is going to pretty much appropriately complain that this is the, at the end of my presentation, machine gun spraying tactic, that you know that there is no way that your opponent is going to be able to even begin to address these things.
01:10:15: And I would point out that in a formal debate, if there was a judge and jury and the rules being followed, this would not be allowed.
01:10:27: This is the introduction of alleged facts that were not raised in that, first of all, are not on the topics of the debate and were not raised in the opening statements.
01:10:39: This isn't rebuttal. This is sort of machine gunning stuff. And I hope that that doesn't happen in a couple of months.
01:10:47: We go down there. I hope that we stay focused upon this, because I think someone could listen to this and go, eh, it sounds like someone's concerned about their arguments.
01:10:56: And so they're doing the, you know, mow down everybody type thing at high speed just to distract from from the focus of the debate.
01:11:06: So I hope that doesn't happen. In Luke, the two Marys and also some other woman in John, only Mary Magdalene to whom, however,
01:11:12: Peter and the beloved disciples are added. In Luke, Peter alone went to the sepulcher. By the way, that's not true about John's rendering, just in passing.
01:11:21: I mean, obviously, Mary comes and John and Peter go and visit separately.
01:11:26: So that that wasn't even really an accurate representation of John's discussion.
01:11:32: This particular passage seems to be spurious and seems to be interpolated to harmonize with Paul.
01:11:37: So I don't think it's a red herring to introduce the issue of the resurrection at this particular point in time when we're dealing with solely the divinity of Christ.
01:11:43: If you are saying that the resurrection vindicates the radical claims made by Jesus, but then you're going back to the whole argument which we raised earlier on, that in that case, why would
01:11:53: God want to raise him from the dead? Because you are conceding that Jesus died as a blasphemer. Well, we dealt with that last time, remember,
01:12:00: I pointed out the error of the argumentation that it was the false
01:12:05: Jewish accusation that Jesus was a blasphemer being conflated with Paul's discussion of his dying as a curse because he is hanged upon a tree.
01:12:15: One, Jesus takes voluntarily. The other is a false accusation. So the resurrection is not a vindication of a, quote -unquote, blasphemer.
01:12:25: It's a vindication of one who was not a blasphemer who actually predicted his own resurrection. I really, if we don't fit it in this time, we're already, all of us, talking about the fact there's too much to be done, too many topics that the folks in South Africa would like to see addressed.
01:12:44: But I really do believe that IPCI, as a group, needs to get together and say, all right, if not this time around, we probably already have the,
01:12:57: I mean, there's already advertising being done, as far as I understand, or will beginning for these debates.
01:13:04: But one debate that needs to be done with someone like, well, with someone like Yusuf Ismail, because I've done it with Shabir, but Shabir holds a completely different view than the vast majority of Muslims do.
01:13:18: Now, to be honest with you, just off the top of my head, I'm sorry if I've forgotten, because I probably have. I'm assuming that Yusuf Ismail holds the standard
01:13:28: Sunni view of the crucifixion based on Surah 4, verse 157.
01:13:34: Remember, Shabir holds to the idea that Jesus was crucified but didn't die. I don't know if Yusuf has specifically,
01:13:43: I would assume, given that he follows the Aqama -Deedat crucifixion -crucifixion thing, that he would hold to the substitution concept.
01:13:51: Anyways, the point is that, from my perspective, the Qur 'an sets itself against the entirety of documentary history in the words of Surah 4, verse 157.
01:14:07: Shabih al -Lahm flies in the face of all of history. All of the sources that Yusuf Ismail quotes in his debates would condemn his position in denying the crucifixion.
01:14:21: All of them. So, we need to have a debate on Surah 4, verse 157.
01:14:30: Is it Mubinun? I do not believe that it is. I think I can demonstrate very clearly that there have been various strands of interpretation of that text.
01:14:39: And why is there no Hadith commentary on these 40
01:14:46: Arabic words? But more importantly, why should we take these 40
01:14:53: Arabic words and overthrow the entire United Testimony of all of history from the first century in regards to the crucifixion of Jesus?
01:15:02: And if we do that, does that not demonstrate that when
01:15:08: Muslims utilize argumentation against the
01:15:14: New Testament documents, based upon naturalistic materialism and a naturalistic view of history, that they then turn around and say, but we will not care one whit about what you have to say when it comes to crucifixion, right?
01:15:32: We will openly, purposefully embrace a double standard here.
01:15:38: We will gladly do so. And what does that mean? Definitely need to address this issue of the crucifixion, because I've said it before,
01:15:50: I'll say it again, on this point, the Christian holds the historical ground without question.
01:15:58: Without question. And in the one debate, you know, like I said, I debated Shabir on this, but Shabir's perspective is a little bit different.
01:16:06: I did debate Sami Zatari on this subject, and his approach was simply to attack the resurrection, connect the resurrection, crucifixion, attack the resurrection.
01:16:18: So attack the supernatural aspect and not really defend the idea that the Quran stands against all of history here.
01:16:29: And why should you take the words of one man, 600 years later, who had no connection to the original events?
01:16:36: I've utilized the illustration before. What if some prophet came along, some guy who called himself a prophet, 600 years after Muhammad, can't speak
01:16:45: Arabic, lives in France, but says that Muhammad never went to heaven, never had the heavenly vision.
01:16:55: And why should you believe that? Because he says he's a prophet. Would you believe him? I've actually had some
01:17:00: Muslims say, well, as long as he was a prophet, it's like, whoa, have you thought that one through? Just an illustration.
01:17:09: You cannot now say, well, look, he never made his blasphemous points. You are conceding that he died as a particular blasphemer.
01:17:16: And it's quite interesting to note that Dr. Craig admits that the weakest part of his hypothesis is that it is ad hoc in that it assumes that God exists.
01:17:23: In other words, it's not a historical hypothesis. It's not a naturalistic hypothesis. It would be so impossible for Jesus to be raised by God.
01:17:30: It's only on the hypothesis that God exists can you then submit to the hypothesis that God would want to raise
01:17:37: Jesus from the dead. And then we would want to have a God who would want to raise Jesus from the dead. But again, we go back to the issue, why would
01:17:43: God want to raise him from the dead? Why would God want to raise a blasphemer? He raises the
01:17:48: Messiah, who Isaiah 53 had said would give his life as a ransom for many, to vindicate that Messiah and to exalt him to the right hand of his majesty on high so that all those who believe in him and are united to him can have eternal life.
01:18:06: That is the reason for the resurrection. It's interesting to note that Bart Ehrman, who, by the way, says that it is the most firm element, most firm historical fact of Jesus' life, was his crucifixion by the
01:18:28: Roman authorities. OK, so here's Bart Ehrman, who says the crucifixion is the strongest part of the historical story of Jesus.
01:18:38: Just to keep that in mind. Discussion about the so -called blasphemous claims in the New Testament. I just have to paraphrase the comment.
01:18:44: He said that the claims are not particularly blasphemous. If you look at the context of the New Testament, and indeed the Old Testament, this word,
01:18:50: Son of God, had no divine connotation to it. Now, this, again,
01:18:55: I think comes directly from Achaemenid primarily. You know, God has sons by the tons, etc.,
01:19:01: etc. This is a common Islamic error, as if the mere utilization of the term of sonship is used of Jesus in the same way it's used of everyone else.
01:19:14: When you look at not only the Jewish reaction to Jesus' utilization of the intimate language of father and son between himself and the
01:19:22: Father, but when you look at monogamies, when you look at the use of definite articles, when you look at the fact that his sonship is distinguished both in nature and time from all these other uses of sonship, it is not by any stretch of the imagination unusual to conclude that the sonship presented in the
01:19:46: New Testament is different, it is unique, and should not be paralleled to any other.
01:19:53: I don't even think this is really arguable, and I really don't think that for the majority of believing
01:20:01: Christians that this really carries much in the way of weight. In Romans 8 .14,
01:20:06: you read the expression, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. In other words, every Tom, Dick, and Harry who follows the will and plan of God is a godly person.
01:20:14: No, that's—Yusuf, here, you know, once you all start trying to dig into the actual text, this is where we run into some very, very serious problems, because most of us, at least most of us listening to this webcast, know
01:20:33: Romans 8 pretty well. And in fact, right now, in our church services at Phoenix Forum Baptist Church, Pastor Fry has gotten to Romans 8.
01:20:44: He's at about Romans 8 .17, 18, around in there. And so we know this text really, really well, and we know the flow of the text.
01:20:54: Those of us who are ministers of the gospel, seminary graduates, professors, we have translated this text, could read this text directly from the original without too much difficulty.
01:21:08: And as a result, when we hear you say any
01:21:13: Tom, Dick, or Harry means he's a godly man, you're not following Romans 8 very well.
01:21:20: You're not following the argument of the epistle. The presence of the
01:21:28: Spirit of God in the life of the elect is described by Paul, for example, in Ephesians 1, as the arabon, the down payment.
01:21:38: The Spirit is what unites the body of Christ together. Everyone who is in Christ partakes of His Spirit, the very fact that sometimes it's the
01:21:45: Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. They're used interchangeably, another evidence of the clear deity of Christ in the thinking of the apostle at this point.
01:21:55: And when it says that in Romans 8 .14, that those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God, it is not only that leading the
01:22:04: Spirit in the confession of the faith of Jesus Christ, but that presence of that supernatural presence of the
01:22:09: Spirit that forms the body of Christ and is the evidence of our adoption into the family of God.
01:22:16: That is not a natural sonship on our part. That is an adopted sonship that could only come about because the eternal
01:22:28: Son of God was made flesh and provided the way of redemption through His voluntary sacrificial death.
01:22:39: And so it is not Paul's point that everyone who is led by the
01:22:44: Spirit of God is a godly man. That is not what
01:22:49: Son of God means in Romans 8. That is a utterly invalid reading to say, well,
01:22:57: Son of God just simply means a godly person. Might you find some place somewhere where it might have that meaning?
01:23:05: Even if you did, it is a linguistic error on a fundamental level to assume that as long as you can find the meaning of a word one place, that that meaning is transferable to every other context.
01:23:24: No one reading Romans 8 in its context would come to the conclusion on the interpretation it was just given.
01:23:31: Nobody. Nobody. It's indefensible. It's indefensible.
01:23:40: And it's because I know this happens so often, that's why I try, I fail, but I try to not engage in that kind of interpretation of the
01:23:52: Quran as well. Just trying to be consistent. Just trying to be consistent.
01:23:57: In the language of the Jew, he's a son of God. In Genesis chapter 6, verse 2, it says, and when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bade children unto them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, mighty men of renown.
01:24:08: God tells, I will declare, declare unto thee, the Lord, that thou art my son.
01:24:14: This day have I begotten thee. In fact, if you look at my particular slide here,
01:24:20: Ephraim is described as a firstborn. Adam, described as a son of God. David, described as a son of God.
01:24:25: And again, the only thing that would make any of this relevant is if you actually believe that every usage of a term or phrase is identical to every other usage of a term or phrase in an entire library of books written by 40 different authors over 1 ,500 years.
01:24:42: And I simply say, I can't imagine anyone even attempting to make the argument.
01:24:49: Certainly no linguist, certainly no one trained in exegesis or hermeneutics would ever make that kind of argument.
01:24:57: So I would just suggest that it needs to be rejected and probably not repeated.
01:25:02: So if the son of God was a blasphemous claim, we would find that, look, in ancient Jewish terminology, this is in fact how
01:25:09: Jewish prophets were basically addressed. There seems to be no problem. Now, the text here contains its own refutation.
01:25:17: Because think about it. Who took Jesus's words as blasphemy in this sense?
01:25:22: The Jews. You don't think they knew about all these other uses? Of course they did.
01:25:28: But they recognized that's not how Jesus was doing it. They recognized it, but Yusuf isn't recognized.
01:25:33: The problem with that, I simply asked the question, show me a particular passage where Jesus says,
01:25:39: I am God, or where he says, worship me. Dr. Craig says, well, look, he doesn't have to say that. Well, why not? What will he try?
01:25:44: Okay. Now, I want to finish this up. I may not. We're getting close to time here, but I do have to just once again.
01:25:52: There is no worse argument against the deity of Christ than that argument. There just isn't. It is vacuous.
01:25:57: It is empty. I have called upon my Muslim opponents over and over again, please think this through.
01:26:03: I know Akhmed did not repeat it a thousand times. All that means is he made a thousand errors. And we've refuted this over and over and over again.
01:26:13: You're setting yourselves up when you use this kind of argumentation. You truly are.
01:26:19: The evidence for the deity of Christ is so overwhelming. The Jesus of the
01:26:25: New Testament speaks of himself in so many ways that is completely and totally impossible, impossible for a mere man to speak.
01:26:40: And yet I, you know, when I debated, um, uh, yes, yes.
01:26:50: Uh, Abu Alrub, Sheikh Abu Alrub, it was, it was so easy to debate him because this was all he could do.
01:26:59: Jesus never said anything like this. All I've got to do is get up and just start rattling them off. There are so many.
01:27:06: The I am passages of Jesus. We can go through all of those. The passage where Jesus is worshiped, the passage where Jesus does all these things that to put those words in the lips of a mere mortal man produces utter blasphemy.
01:27:21: It's to, to demand a particular formulaic statement is utterly invalid.
01:27:30: It's utterly invalid. Uh, can we just hold on just a second? Cause I'm just that close to let's, let's, let's hold the music.
01:27:36: Let, I want to finish this off so I can start with, uh, Bashir next time. Trying to hide. Was he so afraid of his divinity?
01:27:42: Why did he go out of his way to emphasize the opposite? Why did he go out of his way to say, my father is greater than I, my father is greater than all.
01:27:49: I can of my own self be nothing. String of a contextual statements that have been dealt with many, many times.
01:27:56: Yusuf, please look up my video on YouTube on John chapter five. It is completely invalid in a contextual use.
01:28:03: John 14, 28, just about to address it on sermon audio. I'll send you the link probably might be this
01:28:09: Sunday. I want to get to it this Sunday. I'm going to be specifically dealing with John 14, 20. I've dealt with it many, many times before I do in the forgotten
01:28:16: Trinity as a complete misuse of John 14, 28, the father is greater than I am because the son has taken on human flesh and he's saying to his disciples, you'd have rejoiced.
01:28:25: I'm going back into the presence of my father, back into the presence of my father. He's preexistent.
01:28:31: He's going back to where he was the object of the worship of angels. That's what John's whole point is in John chapter 12.
01:28:38: You've missed that. You have to deal with these texts in their context. Just string them all together.
01:28:46: It sounds real good, but only to those who realize you're not actually dealing with the text in a proper fashion.
01:28:53: Here I judge in my judgment, just why does he do the opposite all the time in every single particular passage? And by the way, when
01:29:00: Jesus talks to himself about himself as a man, as a prophet, as a king, we believe all those things. Jesus is just so much more than the
01:29:07: Muslim perspective. In respect of the issue of pagan mythology, it's interesting to note that. Now here, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:29:15: Okay. I'm going to, I'm not going to bother respond to this. I'm just going to simply say this. One of the things that's really concerned me because I listened to this other debate is, is
01:29:24: Yusuf Ismail really hammers away on the Mithra stuff and, um, uh, and, uh, all that kind of stuff.
01:29:37: Um, that would be a really good debate. I realize that that is not specifically an
01:29:43: Islamic debate because I've met many Muslims who would not attempt to draw those parallels.
01:29:49: It's certainly never asserted in the Quran. So it is a, it's a ploy that does not necessarily have a
01:29:56: Quranic basis to it. But I can honestly say that there is no possible way on any logical level that anyone could win a debate against a person who's at least done their homework.
01:30:09: And making the assertion that Mithra, Osiris, um, any of these alleged individuals are in any way, shape or form parallel to the parallelomania.
01:30:23: It's, it's been refuted for decades, but it's, it's, it's internet level stuff. And it's too easy to refute and it should not be repeated by anyone who would take the time to really honestly examine the historical sources.
01:30:41: It just shouldn't be repeated. You'd find solemn victors, for example, Dr. Craig said, you cannot appeal to pagan mythology or try and find those particular parallels, but people like solemn victors, those ancient sun gods,
01:30:51: Mithraism, look at these individuals. When were they born? On the 25th of December. And what's the source? What's the earliest source for Mithra being born?
01:30:58: After Christians are already celebrating that date. Mithraism borrowed from Christianity hundreds of years after it happened.
01:31:07: They never tell you that part. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Maybe they don't know. Maybe they didn't do their homework.
01:31:13: But that Mithra stuff is some of the most bogus stuff. I would love to debate that.
01:31:19: I just would say to Yusuf, don't even bother. Just stop using it. It's, it's just, it's just bad, bad stuff.
01:31:26: It's, it's as bad as anyone. Well, anyways. When did they die? What miracles did they perform?
01:31:31: In fact, Bart Ehrman, in fact, makes reference to an individual called Apollonius. Have you read all of Apollonius of Tyana?
01:31:39: I have. I had to, you know why I had to? Because I debated Robert Price. And Robert Price loves
01:31:45: Apollonius. So I've read all Apollonius of Tyana. And if you think, one of the best arguments is that Apollonius is actually made up to try to parallel Jesus.
01:31:58: But you're talking about something that comes after the time of Christ. And still, the fundamental difference is all these were pagan deities.
01:32:11: I would think that Muslims especially would be so sensitive to that element. Because Muslims should know that if you believe in the oneness of God, if you believe in monotheism, it completely changes everything.
01:32:23: They can see that when they're talking about their own faith, they can't see it when they're talking about Christianity. And so you can look at Mithraism and Osiris, all the rest of this stuff, all these wildly polytheistic things, and somehow parallel that with the monotheistic
01:32:36: Jesus? Absolutely amazing. Who predated Jesus, who had some similar characteristics to that.
01:32:43: Apollonius did not predate Jesus. That exhibited by Jesus. So I think that in the rebuttal,
01:32:49: Dr. Craig has not answered any of the points that I'd initially raised, nor did he deal with the most important question about what capacity did
01:32:57: Jesus adopt when he died on the cross? Was it, did he have, did he believe in human faith and God's power to raise himself, or did he have the infallible divine knowledge that he would be resurrected?
01:33:07: Thank you. Okay, we got through it. So hopefully that's useful.
01:33:13: The actual recording quality of the other debate is much, much better.
01:33:25: So it'll be a little bit easier to listen to. For example, let me just play you just a brief clip here, just to give you an idea. Who is this person, born to a virgin, born miraculously, who is he?
01:33:34: Now there he was actually talking about Apollonius of Tyana. I just clicked somewhere and that happened to be where it was.
01:33:40: But the quality will be a lot easier, which I think it'll be, which will be good. So anyway, thank you for listening to The Vying Line today.
01:33:49: It's, I'm heading to Southern California tomorrow night, Grace Life at Grace Community Church in Southern California, speaking on Islam.
01:33:59: Amazing. So Lord willing, we will see you all there in Southern California, only to be there for,
01:34:06: I mean, turnaround time is less than 24 hours. But Lord willing, be back next week on The Vying Line.
01:34:11: We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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