Debate Review w/ David Louis @apologeticsfromtheattic7131

The Apologetic Dog

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

01:59

Welcome to Apologetics from the Attic, the show that seeks to teach and defend the Christian faith in a post -Christian culture.

02:07

And now, broadcasting from an attic, in an undisclosed location somewhere outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, here is your host,

02:16

Dave Lewis. Hey, good evening everyone, it's

02:22

Dave Lewis here, Apologetics from the Attic, and we have a special episode for you today. We are going to do a debate review, and we're going to bring

02:31

Jeremiah on right away, without further ado, and get this thing started. What's up, Jeremiah? Hi, thanks for having me on.

02:38

I can feel that I'm in the attic as we speak. Yes, you're in the attic, and it's like 95 degrees up here, and if I run the air conditioner, it'll be too hot, so I just have to deal with it, but praise the

02:51

Lord. Hi, thanks for having me on. Yeah, man, thanks for coming on. So, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience, and those who will be listening in the future, and tell them who you are and what you do.

03:02

Absolutely. My name is Jeremiah Nortier. I serve as pastor and elder at 12 .5

03:07

Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. 12 .5 comes from Romans 12, verse 5, that just basically says, though we are individually one of another, we are one together in the body of Christ.

03:18

And so, we're a church plant of about three years, coming up in September, and David, in my heart, has just been blessed to be able to serve in this body with pastor and co -elder

03:29

Nathan Hargrave. And so, one thing that I've been also blessed to be able to do is to do apologetics within the local church, and so I have a

03:39

YouTube account. I'd love for anybody to go over there and check out other content at The Apologetic Dog, and people are like, why a dog?

03:48

And I'm like, well, the dog represents a guard dog, and embedded in the logo, you can see 1

03:53

Timothy 6 .20, that begins by saying, O Timothy, Paul says, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

04:01

So, we're guarding the gospel of grace. And the rest of the verse talks about how we stand on true knowledge, not false knowledge that possesses contradictions, and so the truth will vindicate itself, and we do that by standing on the word of God.

04:15

So, if people want to check out more of my apologetics ministry and content, please flow over to my

04:22

YouTube channel, and David, I have a website now, and so it's not super fancy, but it's a way that people, if they want to go support, there are ways of doing that over there as well.

04:32

Amen. That's great, man. And I remember in the debate at one point, I forget what part you talked about trying to muzzle the dog.

04:38

He was trying to muzzle the dog. You remember that part? Yes. You know why I said that? Because do you know the name

04:43

Sam Shimon? Yeah. Sure. So, he did not like my debate where I was just like, hey,

04:49

Mary, the mother of Jesus was a sinner in need of grace like the rest of us, and he's just like, you're a dog, and I'm going to muzzle you, and I'm like,

04:57

I kind of like the ring to that. I was like, I'm definitely going to, I'm good friends with Tim Bouchon, so he made the

05:03

Radio Free Geneva intro to Dr. White's Dividing Line, and so he's going to help me make something, and I'm just going to have a lot of soundbites like that.

05:12

Oh, yeah, that'll be one of them, yeah, like the Radio Free Geneva theme, yeah, that'll be great. Yeah, you got to have enough enemies like Dr.

05:18

White has to make it. That's true. Hey, they're starting to accumulate over time. That's good, man.

05:25

So, for everyone who doesn't know what we're doing, Jeremiah debated A .K.

05:31

Richardson. I hope A .K. tunes in and jumps in the comments. I tagged him on stuff, and he knows this is going on.

05:37

Oh, yeah. He has some ongoing questions for me. I watched his debate review the other night, and I loved it.

05:43

Yeah. He let me on there for 20, and A .K.,

05:50

if you're listening, you edited my phone call. You didn't play the whole context, the whole phone call. Oh, got him.

05:56

But it was fine. It was cool. So, it was just called the Free Will Debate, and I thought what we could do is we could just review the debate, and I have a whole bunch of timestamps in front of me, and just go through some of his points, and just go back and forth, and then anyone that's watching,

06:15

I'm not a super hardcore live streamer here, Jeremiah, just so you know, we'll be lucky to get 10 people.

06:23

Hey, you have an incredible backdrop. I'm kind of jealous of all that going on back there. Yeah, like those busts.

06:28

See that Augustin Luther Calvin bust above my head? It's legitimate. Now, that green commentary, is that Owen?

06:36

No, that's Spurgeon. Those are Spurgeon's sermons. We have that. No, no, no. You're talking about the white and green? The other corner.

06:43

That one? No, those ones are Spurgeon. Yeah, that's John Owen's complete works there.

06:49

We got some Spurgeon and stuff. I see it. This is where we do our service, so I just kind of set up studio right in front, but I love it.

06:58

Oh, that's legit. That's like your stage where you do everything from? I like that.

07:04

I like that setup. All right. So, I want to read a quote real quick. This is from Schaff, History of the

07:15

Christian Church, and it's on the Pelagian Controversy, but I just want to read this to set the stage.

07:28

He just starts contrasting Augustine and Pelagius, right? The soul of the

07:35

Pelagian system is human freedom. The soul of the Augustinian is divine grace.

07:42

Pelagius starts from the natural man and works up by his own exertions to righteousness and holiness.

07:48

Augustine despairs of the moral sufficiency of man and derives the new life and all power for good from the creative grace of God.

07:56

The one system proceeds from the liberty of choice to legalistic piety. The other, from the bondage of sin to the evangelical liberty of the children of God.

08:06

To the former, Christ is merely a teacher and example and grace and external auxiliary to the development of the native powers of man.

08:14

To the latter, he is also priest and king and grace and creative principle, which begets, nourishes and consummates a new life.

08:22

The former makes regeneration and conversion a gradual process of the strengthening and perfecting of human virtue.

08:28

The latter makes it a complete transformation in which the old disappears and all becomes new.

08:34

The one loves to admire the dignity and strength of man. The other loses itself in the adoration of the glory and the omnipotence of God.

08:42

The one flatters natural pride. The other is a gospel for penitent publicans and sinners.

08:48

Pelagianism begins with self -exaltation and ends with the sense of self -deception and impotency.

08:54

Augustinianism casts man first into the dust of humiliation and despair in order to lift him up on the wings of grace to supernatural strength and leads him through the hell of self -knowledge up to the heaven of the knowledge of God.

09:06

The Pelagian system is clear, sober and intelligible, but superficial. The Augustinian sounds the depth of knowledge and experience and renders reverential homage to mystery.

09:17

The former is grounded upon the philosophy of common sense. This is why

09:22

I wanted to read that, because AK kept saying, it's irrational, it's irrational, it's all irrational, which is indispensable for ordinary life, but has no perception of divine things.

09:32

The latter is grounded upon the philosophy of the regenerate reason, which breaks through the limits of nature and penetrates the depths of divine revelation.

09:40

The former starts with the preposition intellectus precedet fightum. The latter with the opposite maxim fightus precedet intellectum.

09:49

So intellect precedes faith or faith precedes intellect. Both make use of scripture, the one, however, conforming to them to reason, the other subjecting reason to them.

10:03

I could keep going on and on. And actually, this has become one of my favorite authors, like legit

10:08

Philip Schaaf. This is how he writes like in this whole church history volume. It's unbelievable. It's excellent.

10:15

But I just wanted to say that part because I think that because the way the way

10:21

I want to set this up is there's two layers to this debate and the way

10:27

I define it is looking at this issue from the top down and looking at it from the ground up.

10:35

And there's no question that looking at it from the top down where you have to, you know, use philosophy in certain categories to try to understand it, like the categorical ability that you were talking about and that kind of stuff, which

10:49

AK in his debate review was basically like, well, nobody understood anything he was saying, like that's a little that's a little.

10:56

No, I don't think it was. They act like I was making these things up out of thin air. Yeah. Yeah. And you weren't.

11:02

Oh, AK's on. Yes. AK's in the building. Round two, baby. Oh, AK, you got to get a better picture on there, bro, with your beard, bro.

11:11

What do you know? What is going on? Oh, wow. He's he's already blowing up the chat. Oh, my God. But he's already talking about the edited part.

11:21

I don't think he took that as a joke. Yes. By edited. I chose a portion that was a good stuff. I'm sorry.

11:29

I was I was messing with you. I was a joke. What were we saying? OK, let's just go back to ground up versus.

11:36

Oh, yeah. That part. OK. Yeah. So the the top down part, OK, like a guy like Tim Stratton, you know,

11:41

I'm saying like a Molinist and he's got he's got his opinions on stuff. But as far as I know, but that's the problem with these type of guys are late and like I never hear them do episodes on like, what is the gospel?

11:52

It's just always about attacking Calvinism. Right. But I'm assuming that those guys and AK would be included in this, that we agree on the gospel.

12:01

Hmm. But I want to show people that this issue coming from the ground up, if you don't get it right, it destroys the gospel.

12:11

Eventually. Yep. It destroys the gospel. And you kind of were getting at that when you were. I wish you would have had more time to to hammer him on the the principle of alternate possibilities thing.

12:22

You like that alternate possibilities. And I call that the ought equals can fallacy to help people understand it.

12:28

It means if the Bible says you ought to do something, that means you should have the ability to do it. And if you go down that road, you blow up the whole point of the press and Reformation, which was

12:39

Luther. There was a Bible he ought to do, but he couldn't do it. Right.

12:44

AK is OK with doing and like I'm just saying, like he's OK with abandoning church history to a degree like I want to be charitable, but I'm going to say a few things more in our episode that I that I was very

12:56

I didn't want to bring out in the debate. But I know a case deeper presuppositions being

13:02

Church of Christ. Yeah. And I told him we wouldn't market it as a Church of Christ debate with the

13:08

Baptists. Now, he didn't care making it about a Calvinist debate. And I thought, you know, I thought we were going to represent ourselves, but I'm like I'm OK.

13:16

Like it is what it is. And I want myself to explain to people what I mean. But Church of Christ are

13:24

Pelagians, and so that's why I knew I was going to get him on original sin.

13:30

I was I was going to make people at least question like he's not giving a clear answer if he affirms original sin.

13:37

And I I defined original sin not as total depravity, but as the impossibility of obeying

13:45

God's law perfectly. Even Layton Flowers, Tim Stratton, those guys are orthodox enough to say we affirm original sin the way that the church has always defined it now full on Pelagians.

13:55

In order to be consistent with ought equals can, then man possibly can live a sinless life.

14:03

Pelagius said that origin going back further, said man can sin in heaven. Well, in order to retain libertarian free will, this categorical ability, you got to be consistent.

14:15

And that's a tall order that does contradict many scriptures. So we're just saying it's not going to work.

14:20

And what I was trying to also explain to people is Jesus did not prove that it was possible to obey the law perfectly.

14:26

He was the only one who could do it. And so like you're getting at, these have gospel ramifications.

14:33

This conversation. Yes, absolutely. That's exactly my point. I remember I was on Layton Layton Flowers show.

14:39

I need to get late. He used to let me on his show all the time. Really? Back in the day. I'm hoping one day

14:44

I'm a Calvinist that he likes and we can, I can, I can actually text him. He gave me his actual number.

14:50

But I remember asking him one time, is it possible to not sin? And he like hesitates to say no.

15:00

He's like, well, you know, they'll say it's feasible, but it's not practically going to happen because we live in a sinful world.

15:07

Like, cause they know, like if they say no, it's, it's impossible to not sin, then now you're getting into, well, why is that?

15:17

Yep. Well, you know, because, well, anyway, I want to get into some, because AK will at least admit this in his review, he barely got to any actual footage of the debate.

15:27

So I want to beat him and say, we got through way more footage than he did. So let's start at this.

15:33

This is in his opening when he defines what will, what the will is, right?

15:40

So in the chat, please let me know if you can't hear. But I think we're set up to hear, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay, that's it.

15:57

That is way too surface of a definition of the will.

16:03

What is it? I'm not looking at the chat. Wait a minute, let me put the, let me put the screen on.

16:12

Let me share the screen real quick. You know what? Did you hear that? I don't think anybody heard it. I got to go back.

16:18

Oh, okay. So you played. Because I didn't even have the thing shared. Oh my gosh. Oh, there we go. I'm seeing something loading now.

16:24

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Nevermind. Hold on. Let me go back. All right. Now they should be able to hear. Definitions.

16:30

Okay. So the will. We talk about the will of man. What is the will? Pretty simply, it is the power of the mind to choose.

16:38

Okay. We're stopping there. So his definition of the will is the power of the mind to choose.

16:46

Okay. My first problem with this, there are several other constituent parts of a human being that more than the will and the mind and the other two constituent parts and make it very simple is the heart or the desires and the nature.

17:05

Okay. So, and I could go through all the Greek words, but there's four very distinct

17:10

Greek words that describe all four of those parts. And even our classical

17:18

Arminian friends would agree with us on this. That there are deeper issues going on in the human being that determine what the will does other than the mind.

17:27

Actually, this is the formula. This is Philip Melancthon. So who was with Luther in the

17:33

Reformation. Philip Melancthon said this, he said, what the heart desires, the will chooses, and then the mind rationalizes.

17:45

He's talking about the central man. But David, we're not animals. We're not determined by our desires, A .K. would say. And when

17:51

I was talking about will, the moment of choice, I'm saying, yeah, because reasons determine our desires and our choices.

17:59

And I would say reasons also touch the heart of man. And so we're going to get more into this, but I loved his analogy that does not work with fasting because we're not denying that there's conflicting desires.

18:12

We're not denying that there's conflicting reasons. And he says, see, that doesn't therefore determine your choice.

18:18

And we're saying, no, one breaks through. Why? Why do you not eat? Because the reason for fasting is stronger.

18:26

And that's what we'd call a formal cause of our deliberation.

18:31

Now, that's just the broken feature in his own system, because I don't want to jump too far ahead, but I want to bring,

18:39

I don't know if I can bring more clarity to the distinctions between categorical and conditional ability. Like I said, it doesn't originate with me, but there's a broken feature when someone just asserts the necessity of categorical ability.

18:51

You can't answer the why questions. You can't. So we'll get more into that. Yeah, because,

18:57

I mean, so I'm understanding your distinction between categorical ability. Categorical ability, the term categorical means it's just only one thing, one, you know, there can be no distinctions.

19:09

So the one thing is you have to be able to choose A or B equally. All things being equal.

19:17

And check this out, categorical ability is libertarian free will.

19:22

Now I was being very strategic using categories, thinking AK probably doesn't know, because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of formulating a question simplistically.

19:34

And especially in his first question about 1 Corinthians 10, 13, because he thought he had a silver bullet. But what he's doing is he's assuming his position and he'll say,

19:43

I wasn't assuming, but I was presupposing libertarian free will. I'm like, this is not going to go down how you think, because every time we see ability, he's assuming libertarian categorical ability.

19:54

And so you notice I always said no, like I answered his question and then I would just qualify it with man doesn't have categorical ability.

20:01

And so I'm starting to rationalize his faulty question. And that's when we spent,

20:07

David, 18 minutes on one question. He broke his own rule. And I was like, I was thinking I can go all day.

20:13

I will explain and nuance every single time you ask the same question. Yeah. Well, I have a really good analogy to explain categorical.

20:21

What's the other ability? Conditional. See, that tells you how good I am on the philosophical side. I mean, I know the stuff enough to track it, but I'm more familiar with Jonathan Edwards, the natural ability versus the moral ability.

20:33

Perfect. Which I think is a similar idea. But here's how I explain this to people.

20:38

Imagine you walk up to a, like a cafeteria style buffet, right? And there's two options.

20:44

Option one is surf and turf and it's like this great steak and lobster, right? Option two is a vat of dog diarrhea.

20:53

It's bubbling and it's nasty and it's disgusting, right now. Do you have the ability to choose either one of those options?

21:05

Yes and no. Correct. Okay. Yes. In the sense of, and I think you could call this categorical ability.

21:12

You could choose either the dog diarrhea or the surf and turf like you have the ability in the sense of you could pick up the plate, you could walk up to the server and you could say, please put the dog diarrhea on my plate, right?

21:29

Or put the surf and turf. Okay. So in that sense, that's what Edwards would call natural ability.

21:35

Absolutely. You don't have a defect that somehow prevents you from making that choice, right?

21:41

But everyone remember Fear Factor with Joe Rogan? Oh yeah. Remember people would be offered, which I would do this by the way.

21:47

You offer me $50 ,000. I'll try to eat anything you put in front of me. Okay. Anything. Okay. I can keep it as long as it's not going to kill me.

21:55

Anyway. So remember Fear Factor, there was stuff that they just couldn't eat. As soon as you put it to your mouth, you would puke, right?

22:01

As soon as you smelled it, right? So in what sense do we not have the ability to make one choice over the other?

22:08

Because of our nature. Can I chime in real quick, David? Yeah. So, and I love the scenario you painted because this would not be categorical ability.

22:18

Categorical ability says all things being equal, I can choose

22:24

A or B. So what you do is you run a scenario and say, okay, I can choose A. That's categorical ability.

22:30

You run the same case scenario and say, I could choose B. But here's the thing. When we ask the deeper question, because we're made in God's image, why?

22:39

They can't stay with categorical ability. They have to fall onto what we would all say is conditional ability.

22:46

Well, because I had a reason for going against my desire to win $50 ,000 in Fear Factor.

22:54

And so you've left any true reason to try to fall back on categorical ability.

23:00

You've fallen on what's conditioned. And what's conditioned is there's a chain of sequence. There's a chain of cause and effect.

23:06

You have efficient cause, which as reformers, we say is God. But man can formally deliberate, compare and contrast reasons, influences, our desires of determining factor.

23:20

And then we can materialize a choice and then produce a final cause. And so even in the scenario you're painting, all that is conditional because we don't assume the irrationality of positing a libertarian categorical ability that is not explanatory.

23:37

It just asserts all things being equal at the moment of choice. I can choose A or B.

23:43

So I have another analogy of how to explain categorical versus conditional if you want me to give it a crack.

23:50

Let me bring this up because AK is asking a good question. Who determines your nature? So I loved on his program, always ask the

23:58

Calvinist who determines. So you've got to think what's built in, in compatibilism is an either or fallacy.

24:05

Because if we say God ultimately, efficiently determines all things, well then they will say then you didn't determine.

24:15

And the whole premise of compatibilism is no, it's rational that I choose and God ultimately determines our nature, our thoughts, desires, everything.

24:27

And they say, ha ha, that doesn't make sense. And we're over here like, show us the logical contradiction because we don't see it.

24:35

But here's where it would be a logical contradiction. And I don't think AK grasped this and that's okay.

24:41

We're ever learning, semper reformanda. But if we deliberated, made choices identically the same as God, there is a contradiction.

24:51

Because the way that we would make someone else choose to do something would be by force, coercion, manipulation, and we'd be wrong for it.

24:59

And so when we make the necessary distinction with God, we're saying the way that God interacts with his creation by sustaining the universe by the word of his power, it's different.

25:09

It's of a different kind. Can we use human language to try to talk about a truth that transcends our reality?

25:16

Absolutely. We're going to get into anthropomorphisms and analogical language. Man, I had this in the back pocket at the drop on AK and his head would have spun again.

25:24

That's okay. We'll get into that. So, yeah, I love it. I want to tell people if the

25:31

Arminian Pelagian says, well, who determines your nature? Ask him, are you talking about ultimately or conditionally?

25:37

And then watch him look at you like, you're making up stuff. And they're just like, hey, these categories matter because I refuse to assume the faulty premises of your worldview.

25:49

And so that's why AK didn't get the sting that he wanted in asking his question, because I was going to make him define terms.

25:56

And I listened to his debate review. He totally misrepresented what I said. He said, see, Jeremiah said that you can conditionally choose against what

26:06

God predetermines. I never said that. Go back and watch. It just showed me he didn't understand. And I'm OK with that because,

26:13

David, I had some people said, Jeremiah, I wasn't really quite getting what you're saying. And the nature of a debate, you can't always speak on that level that everybody's going to understand because I know

26:24

AK is. Well, I'm going to speak a level above that and make him run in circles trying to figure out where he's at.

26:31

And that's just the nature of it. Sometimes if you go watch James White debate or William Lane Craig, you're going to be introduced to new ideas and God willing, go look into those things and learn and grow.

26:42

So AK did exactly what I thought. It just worked out even better because I knew it was going to take me about 10 minutes to explain to him the difference between categorical and conditional.

26:51

But, David, it went 18 minutes and we were just on repeat mode and I know that I can do this all day.

26:58

I still got more bullets left in the chamber if he wants me to keep explaining these categories.

27:04

Well, let me throw a comment up here because you said that the plaguing Armenian will say you're just making stuff up.

27:09

Well, here. They are artificial, extra biblical, philosophical concepts. Oh, like libertarian free will that your boy defended?

27:18

Yeah. Or here's the other thing I bring up, though. So are you a Trinitarian? I would ask this individual.

27:25

This is a philosopher. He's Church of Christ. So a lot of people will say, I'm not Trinitarian. I believe in the

27:31

Godhead the way the King James Bible says. OK, so if they're saying that, because my point is the word homoousios in the

27:38

Nicene Creed is an extra biblical philosophical concept that was used to define the doctrine of the Trinity against heretics.

27:45

So that's that. So this is just pure fundamentalist biblicism. Yeah. But it's self -deceptive.

27:51

Well, we're not using any extra biblical philosophical concepts. Yes, you are. That's how you interpret reality.

27:57

And that's how you interpret the Bible. You have to use other words or you just sit there and read the

28:02

Bible. Right. Just sit there and read your Bible to us in the debate and you won the debate. No, you're actually explaining the

28:07

Bible in words that aren't from the Bible. You know, David, I want to give AK props because AK is not like that.

28:14

Now, AK, with all the love of my heart, he doesn't understand compatibilism. Now, I will give him he understands the five points of Tulip.

28:21

He doesn't understand compatibilism. But AK will not reason like this, this fellow here.

28:27

He is one of my biggest haters on my channel. And I love it. It only fuels the tank, maybe. But AK doesn't reason like that.

28:34

All right. So let me let me let me say how I so I think we complement each other well because you're you're you're better at the philosophical, which

28:43

I think is totally legitimate to understand this topic. I'm doing more of the ground up approach, like I said at the beginning.

28:50

So here's how I would answer this question. Who determines your nature, AK? Adam. Mm, I like it.

28:56

Adam determines your nature and he denies that. But who determined Adam's nature? OK, well,

29:01

OK, well, that's that's that's that's a legitimate question. My question. But we're we're post fall.

29:09

Sorry. We're post fall. We can't go back. The fall has happened. OK. And our nature is determined by our birth.

29:17

That's why we need to be born again. OK. Jesus said in John three, that which is of the flesh only can do what the flesh can do, that who is of the spirit can only do what the spirit can do.

29:28

That's what I say. We're not animals. No. So that's what

29:33

I would say is we're not animals. Our desire does not determine our nature. Hey, David, I've listened to over 20 hours of a case content leading up to this, but I felt like I knew him.

29:45

I just when he said one thing, I knew what I would want to say in exchange, like when he brought up everything in his debate,

29:52

I just thought, oh, yeah, we're in for a showdown tonight. All right, let's let's let's let's listen to some of this so we can say that we actually reviewed the debate because we're already 30 minutes in.

30:02

OK, but what about libertarian free will? Now, I will argue in this debate that libertarian free will is just a fancy way of saying real free will.

30:12

I will argue that if it's not libertarian free will, it's not really free in any meaningful sense.

30:18

But a definition would be that it is the ability to choose without prior or external causal determination.

30:29

In other words, your choices are ultimately up to you so that you are the ultimate chooser.

30:36

Nothing outside of you is necessitating your your choices now. Right. So what do you say to that?

30:43

Yeah, I like his definition because it's getting into so this this is categorical ability, all things being equal.

30:51

Right. At the moment of choice, you can choose a or not a or we could say a or b. The problem is when we ask, why did you choose a or b?

30:59

He's likely going to say, well, because the chooser chose a and then I'm like, OK, let me back it up on this.

31:05

Why did the chooser choose a or not a what he has to do? Because we're talking about rationality is he has to fall back on the conditional ability.

31:14

Well, because of influences, reasons and desires. And we're saying, aha, that's all that's sufficient for moral reason.

31:21

But he's left libertarianism. So I'm just saying there's a feature within libertarian free will that's irrational.

31:28

And this is the thing he says, that that's the intuitive position. The intuitive position is people choose to do things because of reasons.

31:35

That's that's what's rational. That's conditional. And that's going to fit into the divine determinism paradigm easily.

31:43

And so when they just say, well, who determined your nature? Who determined your choices? We're going to say ultimately,

31:49

God, but that's compatible with us deliberating and choosing according to our desires, wants, influences and all the rest.

31:57

And so you got to we I will say this, we have a burden of proof and I am totally OK. I just want to encourage people think about how

32:04

God chooses is different than how man chooses. And if you hold this creator creation distinction with every major doctrine as you're reading scripture, there's no contradiction.

32:17

And so I want to. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, that's huge. James White will say we have creaturely freedom. That's fine.

32:22

That's like you just have to start with that premise. Yep. Even the freedom we have, if you want to talk about the category of freedom for for humanity is categorically, fundamentally 100 percent different than God's freedom.

32:35

Yes. Now, check this out. I do want to say I know we got some more to review, but to me where AK is in fairytale land,

32:43

I'm not trying to be mean saying this is when he says God reacts to man. Well, you have a wrong view of God and you have a wrong view of man.

32:49

If you think God reacts to the creature now, that's important for his position because he needs man, all things being equal at the moment of choice to be able to choose

32:59

A or B, apart from reasons, apart from who God is. There's just an irrationality there because God is absolute.

33:07

And so when he goes to the the Potter passage, all these things, this is this to me, this is literally anthropomorphic.

33:15

Right. I mean, we're bringing God down to be a potter over clay. You know what I mean? And so I'm going to wait.

33:21

I'm going to explain to AK what analogical knowledge language is because it's a little bit different than anthropomorphism.

33:30

But we have different layers of human language and the most didactic language is still analogical.

33:37

Yep. And then my my ground up comment on this is, do we have the ability to choose without prior or external causal determination the ability to keep

33:47

God's law as sinners? Got him. Because that's where that's where this becomes a gospel issue.

33:53

Yeah. Because the inconsistency goes, OK, so if you in his position, he has to say yes or the whole thing collapses.

34:02

Well, yes, of course we can keep God's law and he won't because if he because he knows if he says no. Then there's a thing causing him to not be able to make a choice, which is to be sinless or, you know, which is that's why that's why he needs to just say, yes, it's possible, highly unlikely, even in heaven, in the glorified state, which is plenty of scriptures that tell us that there will be no unclean thing.

34:29

There'll be no wickedness in glory. But in order to retain libertarian categorical ability, you have to be consistent and say, well, the possibility is there.

34:40

Yeah. John Frame has a really good couple of pages on that in his one systematic theology really said that. Well, OK, AK, AK, I wanted to get to this.

34:48

Thank you for bringing it up. First Corinthians 1013 is about regenerate believers. That's all

34:53

I have to say. He keeps using that passage. And by the way, that's Tim Stratton's like AK -47 silver bullets passage.

35:00

Like he goes on and on and on about first like for Tim. First Corinthians 1013 just ends everybody like it's you.

35:08

None of you Calvinists can answer. First Corinthians 1013. To me, it was so easy to to not grant his worldview.

35:15

Well, it says you have an ability. It doesn't say you have an ability to categorically thwart

35:20

God's determined, unchanging purpose. It says God is faithful. Well, OK, we have a different understanding of who

35:27

God is. I am telling you how we rationalize and understand what kind of ability is compatible with God being faithful.

35:36

And so I could tell he was frustrated because he had that silver bullet, David. But it wasn't given that sting like he wanted.

35:43

Like to me, this is why I want to this is one of his earliest arguments. But he broke his own rule. He took 18 minutes and I was like, we can keep going, baby.

35:52

Yeah. All right. Let's let's go to the next timestamp I have. I want to get what

35:57

I wanted, because I don't think you address this because, of course, there's limited time. But the chessboard analogy.

36:03

Oh, this is one of my favorite. The firefighters burning a house down in order to put the fire out thing.

36:08

So let's listen to him say that. It's a short little part. Let's see. That's eleven thirty. That's hard to get a precise.

36:17

Here we go. In other words, God does not need to determine man's will in order to accomplish his own.

36:25

In other words, God does not need to determine the moves on both sides of the chessboard in order to win the game or to accomplish the strategies that he plans.

36:33

He leaves freedom for the other, the opponent of the chessboard, and he can still win and accomplish all his strategies.

36:42

Now, it's important to note that you want to talk about that, or you want to let it play, do you want to talk about the chess one first? Yeah, good.

36:47

Yeah. Because this is one of the easiest ones I've heard of this years ago. Number one, notice what he's doing.

36:54

He's using a human analogy between two what two people experience in playing chess.

37:00

We don't know how the moves are going to be played out in the middle.

37:06

But if you have a grandmaster chess player and you have a novice, it is certain that the grandmaster will win.

37:12

Yeah, but what does this do when you unificate on this human analogy with a human to God relationship?

37:20

Well, what happens? God does not know the moves in the middle. And so that analogy just shows that God is not omniscient.

37:28

And we'll get into his DeLorean analogy. Oh, yeah, the DeLorean said that. I thought, OK, no one can be mad at me anymore for me, saying

37:36

God looks down the tunnels of time and reacts to man's choice because that was literally his analogy.

37:42

Like anyway, I just I got so excited because I wanted to say so much with that. But the chessboard analogy, this is why it doesn't work, because God is the ground of all being.

37:51

He sustains the chessboard. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I don't grant man having categorical ability.

37:59

So throw all the analogies you want, and I will show you how they are disingenuous between who

38:04

God is and who man is. Yeah. So my point is, that's where I was right where I was going to go.

38:12

God. So in the analogy, it would be if the one chess player who's in God in the analogy is actually allowing the heart to beat.

38:20

The lungs to work, oxygenating the air that the person is actually moving the chess pieces.

38:27

And here's the other thing. And I put this, those of you who are watching, if you go to the post that was like the event, there's a little discussion thing.

38:33

I threw a few quotes in there. But John Owen. OK. And by the way, I have a goal.

38:39

I want I'm I'm currently reading John Owen's works, Calvin's commentaries and that church history set.

38:44

Like, I want to read the entire thing. They'll be like the rest of my life. But anyway, Owen, see?

38:50

So when when AK makes an argument like this, I've heard other guys, they just focus on one attribute of God, his sovereignty.

38:58

Like sovereignty, sovereignty, sovereignty, sovereignty. Owen brings up several other attributes of God that you don't really hear.

39:04

I mean, you know, you don't really hear this even from Calvinist. What about God's wisdom? Hmm. What about his counsel?

39:13

What about his immutability? Oh, OK, because all those things become in question when

39:20

God has to react. To human choices, and then here's the other one.

39:27

Address this real quick, if you will. God can know the moves without determining the person to make them.

39:32

So you hear this all the time. Yeah. If you assume incompatibilism. Yes. And so my whole point is you just don't understand who

39:41

God is. And so we're not saying that, you know, God doesn't have to.

39:47

Well, I'm saying, but if he's omniscient and he created this world,

39:53

I'm saying that has necessary effects of who God is and who man is. And so this is the thing, though, the way that this individual is using the word determined promise you it's the same way another human would try to determine the moves of another person.

40:08

They can't think in transcendent categories, because if God determines your moves,

40:13

David, then you don't really have any choice at all. We reject the initial premise that man and God are univocal and their ability to deliberate and welcome.

40:25

So can I can I address that a little bit more of why I keep saying the word univocate? Yes, sir. There's three categories.

40:32

So either God is wholly separate from man. And we would say that that there's no correspondence at all, that we can know things equivocally from God, wholly separate than God.

40:47

God is too far removed from us. Well, that contradicts the Bible, right? Because God can be known in a true way.

40:53

And so he's not wholly separate where there's no correspondent correspondence. We wouldn't have a revelation right now.

41:02

The other extreme. This is where Leighton and the flower patch kids live, along with AK and all the the rest is that there are certain things that man possesses that are univocal with God.

41:15

Meaning the best one is the ability to choose. They're going to say and they may not say it like this, but this is what they mean.

41:21

The way that God chose to speak the world into existence. We, too, can choose contra -causal free will.

41:29

I even remember Leighton saying this and I literally was like, oh, it hurts. He says the way that God speaks ex nihilo, this world from nothing.

41:37

Then we, too, can bring our faith from nothing. I'm like, this is the problem. When you bring

41:43

God down and elevate man, you have a unification. There are some features, some attributes of man that is one to one the same as God.

41:54

And I'm saying if you do this, there are devastating consequences to these necessary attributes of who

42:00

God is. God cannot be omniscient if you're going to retain this level of categorical ability for man.

42:07

Now, me and AK disagree with that, and I don't care. He can go team up with the open theist all he wants.

42:12

It doesn't bother me. You're going to hear AK say things like, well, God is not immutable in his nature or on toss just in his character.

42:21

And, you know, I almost wish I would have asked him, AK, do you think God is only immutable in his character?

42:26

I bet you he would have went. I'm not sure. That's a tough question, because the immutability of God, him being absolute, is necessary for God's simplicity.

42:38

You know what I mean? And so there's a middle ground and this is biblical, but we can know God analogically, meaning we can truly know him as reflecting his image.

42:49

That sounds familiar, right? Because we are made as image bearers of God. And so there's different levels of human language, right?

42:58

To me, at the lowest, we can almost start talking about analogies, illustrations, parables. These are communicating literal truths to us.

43:05

But the most didactic thing that we could talk about God is not one to one the same as God knows it.

43:14

It's analogical. Even the truth in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. OK, well, we have some type of human speech that is literally true, but it has to be analogical at the end of the day.

43:26

God knows that he created the heavens and the earth, but he knows it wholly together different than we do.

43:32

But there is a point of contact because that that proposition we can know humanly and then

43:39

God can know it eternally. Now, I almost guarantee you what I just said there. A .K.

43:44

says nothing can be known. But the problem is we're image bearers. So our most literal truth that we can understand,

43:51

God still knows it comprehensively. That's why we can only apprehend certain things about God.

43:58

Yes. So we got we got some stuff going on in the chat here. Oh, we got we got the free banker going on.

44:04

Yeah, we got Tyler Vela jumped in a bull in a china shop here coming in. But he makes a really good point here.

44:12

Let's imagine there are I think. What does he mean? 10 to the 110th power or whatever? There's this many possible chess game.

44:18

God chooses which game to actualized as the actual chess game. In reality, did

44:23

God determine what moves will be made in the actual world? Yep. So this this is where I said libertarian free will.

44:31

Like I don't know if he understands this, but libertarian free will says at the moment of choice, you can choose a or not.

44:38

Well, this is the thing. Even if I grant libertarian free will in the mind of God, father, son and spirit and eternity past, once God says, let there be and speaks the world, you're locked in at the moment of choice.

44:51

You cannot do other all things considered. And and I just said, well, you're confusing necessity with basically what you you could do.

45:00

And I'm saying, so are you telling me in real time if God knows you'll choose a and he spoke this world into existence, you can choose

45:08

B? Well, he's going to say you're confusing necessity here. And I'm like, no, no, no. We're talking about at the moment of choice, all things being equal.

45:15

You can choose a or not a. This is where the open theist realizes you can't be consistent with categorical ability.

45:21

Yeah, that's right. A .K. David, I get I get a little excited. No, it's good.

45:26

Well, A .K. should debate an open theist. I'd like to see how that goes. Oh, yeah. Chris Fisher or what's the other guy?

45:34

Will Duffy. Oh, that's the one. Will Duffy. Yeah, they're both sharp, man. I like Will Duffy.

45:40

They're they're both sharp guys, man. Yeah, I'm sure Velas cringes a little bit when I say that. So so,

45:46

A .K., I'll just be straight. I'm sorry, man. I can't. We can't bring you on.

45:51

We got to. Oh, you want a round two, A .K.? Yeah, well, that's that's your your your your your boy wants round two.

45:59

Yeah, but we can do another episode. I don't know if you want to win.

46:05

And I don't mind. I mean, I'm still recharging from the beat down that I received,

46:10

David. Yeah. So. OK, so I'm not going to keep putting up comments. So let's go to the next thing.

46:18

Well, I don't let's we guys, I don't know how much further it is, but what about the comment where God's like a fire department who burns down the house on purpose in order to just put the fire out?

46:29

What do you what do you think about that one? Was that one? Well, I didn't even address it because what you have to do is you have to exegetically defend the nature of man.

46:40

And I'm not going to give in to him saying we're not an animal. We don't you know, we're not determined by our nature.

46:45

Well, the thing I don't care. I mean, biblically, our will is bound. Our nature hates the things of God.

46:53

And so in that analogy, it's a human analogy. And so for one, I would say you can't unificate here.

46:59

But given the right understanding of original sin and understanding that Adam is our covenant head and that had a ramification on all of his posterity, man is in this fire and is

47:13

OK with it. And so, yes, we're to call all men everywhere to repent. But they basically give us the finger and say, we're not going to repent and put our trust in Jesus, you crazy person.

47:23

And so it's it's the wrong analogy. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, yeah. But you know what he's going to say?

47:29

Yeah, but God determined it. And we're going to say, and there's no problem because God determines differently than man.

47:36

Yeah. And my point, ground up guy, is to say, well, is that what you believe

47:45

God did with the fall of man? Did he know that Adam and Eve would fall? Or is that him burning down the house?

47:55

David, you're confusing necessity with certainty. So is this plan or is this plan

48:01

B? Is Jesus plan B or is God glorified even in the fall of man? You know, which really, you know, gets gets, you know, that's the problem is

48:10

God's not actually I mean, you know, like James White always said, the eternally disappointed God who wanted everyone to go to heaven.

48:16

But the whole thing burned down without his. You know, he didn't he didn't there was zero intention or even foreknowledge in the open theist,

48:25

I'll admit. Mm hmm. Now, I brought up an argument in my opening statement that AK never touched with the 10 foot pole.

48:31

So I want to repeat it here and tell me if he responds to it. But my libertarian free will contradicts the omnipotence and sovereignty of God, because what they're saying is for God to make libertarian free will, is

48:45

God having a self limitation? And so I pose the question. So God's omnipotent limitless choice is being limited.

48:54

I'm like, did you not hear the contradiction? What's going on? Well, God's sovereign enough to do that.

48:59

Well, what does sovereignty mean? God has transcendent power and reign to do what he choose to do without limit.

49:07

And so they and then he he knows that I beat him to the punch to say, well,

49:13

Jeremiah, isn't the incarnation Jesus limiting himself? And I'm like, no, he stayed divine.

49:19

He added humanity to his nature. And so I was poking fun saying, well, is this subtraction by addition?

49:24

Because you'll have to explain that to me. But that's that's key to their position. I'm pretty sure that Leighton and them try to do a similar thing because they realize that, well, in order for you to choose,

49:34

God can't choose for you. So God is limiting his choice. But yeah, not if it's a omnipotent choice, a choice without limit that he's limiting, because it's not that I'm putting

49:45

God in a box. God cannot deny himself. Yeah, like he's sovereign over his own sovereignty is what they'll say.

49:53

But but I mean, but really, I mean, that it that system is actually one step removed from dualism and paganism, which says there's good and there's evil.

50:10

And the good can only has to interact with evil. And they would never say that.

50:16

But what is the thing that limits God's sovereignty is it is libertarian free will. So either libertarian free will is this eternal principle.

50:25

The way I explain it is like God went before he created. He had to get this book out. How do you create a universe? What are the rules?

50:31

Rule one, you must give the creatures, the image bearers, libertarian free will.

50:36

And God was like, oh, man, that really limits my possibilities. Now, of course, the Molanist comes in and comes up with some explanation about why.

50:44

Well, you know, there's this whole system that we've come up with that, you know, eliminates the difficulties.

50:50

But, you know, the open theist just comes along and says, well, that's why this whole thing is ridiculous. You're all wrong.

50:56

You know, you're all wrong. God just doesn't know. He can't know. And that that eliminates the whole thing.

51:02

And that's why, you know, Layton Flowers, like James White says, would be an open theist if the Baptist faith and message didn't, you know, tell him he couldn't be.

51:09

And it's true because he has open theists on his program all the time. All right. Let's OK, where do we want to go next?

51:16

You want to do it's like a woman getting drugged is like. I want to play that one again.

51:22

I can't remember how I frame it. I remember that one. OK, 15 of five. But Tim Stratton uses this one all the time and Layton Flowers like it's like a date rape drug.

51:32

God's like the date rapist of the cosmic date rapist, according to the Calvinist. Not sovereignty, but.

51:42

So now as we begin to go to the Bible, you know, from front cover to back cover,

51:48

God is presenting middle choices and he's presenting them with judgment and punishment and he's holding them guilty.

51:55

But, you know, every bit of that is evidence of libertarian freedom. Why? Because I just want to stop.

52:00

And then AK is not as allergic to plagiarism as Layton Flowers is being called it. But that is exactly word for word what

52:08

Pelagius said. The Bible obviously has a bunch of choices and you're either judged if you don't do them or you're rewarded if you do.

52:16

That's what Pelagius said. And he furthermore thought he was defending God's honor. That's what a lot of people don't understand about Pelagius.

52:22

He felt that he was honoring God because God is an dishonorable being.

52:29

If he's giving us laws that he knows we can't keep. Like, why would a being do that?

52:34

That's like the most retarded thing ever. And then, of course, Augustine comes along and says, what's the reason why God does that?

52:39

It's called grace. Right. That was Augustine's major contribution to historical theology.

52:47

Right. And then Luther and Calvin came along and took it to its next step. Grace. God is showing us we should cry out for grace.

52:56

That's why he gives us things, choices that inevitably lead to judgment.

53:02

You're just doing what you're determined. OK, that's fine. I'm talking ground up. I'm not talking top down. That's where I'm at with it.

53:09

Because I'm very pastoral with, you know, I'm not saying you aren't. But how does that work? I want people to understand that once you get, you know, the philosophical things important,

53:21

I'm not saying it's not, but once you get past that into the pastoral implications of this theology, it's bad.

53:28

Yeah. Just stop sinning. God's given you the ability. You have libertarian, like, and I'm sure that's not

53:34

AK's. He collapses back into like what you're saying when he's pastorally caring for somebody. I hope.

53:39

I hope he does. I hope he doesn't just sit there and lecture them and go, just use your libertarian free will. Look, I'm going to read 1

53:46

Corinthians 10, 13 to you 100 times, you struggling sinner in my church. Read it. Read it. Read it.

53:51

You know, I hope he doesn't do that to people. Right. Because that would be awful. But that isn't that what their theology would necessitate.

53:58

That's what you tell people. You don't need grace. You need it. That's that's God determining your nature. And you need you need liberty.

54:05

You need to just understand your libertarian free will. OK, now we're in the chat. AK said the veil.

54:12

Aren't you an atheist? So here we go. Now, Tyler is what's called an apostate.

54:19

And he he would not care if we called him that because he's pretty straightforward about his, you know, his journey, which

54:25

I appreciate that about him. But anyway, all right, let's let's go to the date rape drug analogy. Hold on. Responsibility and culpability presuppose libertarian free will.

54:33

Absolutely. Every aspect of your life, you can't make sense of somebody being guilty or punished for things they cannot control.

54:39

So if a woman's drink is drugged so that I have to ask you,

54:44

Jeremiah, who were you looking at during the debate? And you kept smirking. People were walking.

54:50

There was there was maybe maybe I'm missing it, but there was a couple of times where you were just like. There were people walking in, so I was waving.

54:58

Hi. And I have a buddy that I talk to almost every day as I was preparing for this debate. AK was saying things that I literally that's what it was.

55:06

Yeah, I just looking like, oh, you know what's coming next? And my buddy was like, yeah, you got to work on your you got to work on your

55:12

James White poker face during debate. So I would say this. I love James White so much that me and him are built different.

55:19

Yeah. Yeah. He's like the terminator of debates. That's definitely it.

55:25

She's she becomes in a state of mind by some man to do things she shouldn't do and wouldn't otherwise do.

55:31

If we find out about that, we don't blame the woman. We blame the man. Why? Because we presuppose libertarian free will when we hold people responsible.

55:39

He was the ultimate chooser, the man in the analogy. Otherwise, in Calvinism, God holds man responsible for what

55:47

God controls and decides. Remember, unchangeable and unchangeable means. All right.

55:53

What was the no mass thing? I think he speaks Spanish, so I like that.

55:59

No mass. I did like that, too, as you just threw that in there like nonchalant, like didn't even like say anything about it.

56:06

That was good. But so what do you think about that? Is is is determinism is compatibilism like God giving you a date rape drug?

56:13

No, because it confuses man with God, like no matter how much they assume their worldview,

56:19

I will remind them that is not who God is. And he will admit, oh, well, God is of a different kind and a different nature.

56:25

But the but the scriptures talk about God in human terms all the time. And I'm like, yeah, anthropomorphically, he's like, but that's just figurative language.

56:33

The truth is only from God's perspective. I'm like, good luck trying to say that you understand something one to one the same as God, because it can't be done.

56:43

One of my favorite passages is Isaiah 55 that says, God says, my thoughts and ways are higher than yours.

56:49

They're set apart. They're transcendent. He is holy and we are not. We are derivative. So this proves my point is when you look at a human relationship and you see a moral atrocity like that, you can't then say,

57:04

OK, that's what God's determination looks like. And when the moment the AK agrees that God operates differently,

57:11

I'm like, great. You've undercut your entire position because our relationship with God, we can understand truth from his word.

57:19

Thy word is truth. But it's still analogical because God comprehensively understands all things perfectly.

57:26

We don't. We can truly look to didactic scripture, but we can't unificate saying me and God understand this truth the same way.

57:36

So this is this is gets into another issue. Me and AK understand truth differently. If I say that my experience looks at the

57:45

Bible, looks at a situation, and I can say this is happening, that can be true or false.

57:51

But let's just say my experience, I'm saying I'm understanding it. God still understands it differently than me because he sees how it relates to the whole.

58:00

Everything that I look at is in parts and we can't unificate. We can't say it's equivocal.

58:07

It's analogical. And so the big thing that I didn't get to further clarify, I would have done this if he wanted to take more than 18 minutes,

58:14

I would have said that there are different levels to human language. And at the very top is analogical language.

58:24

Amen. No, that's good. I just I just think that once again, the ground up approach is just like this idea that in order to have libertarian order to have genuine freedom, right?

58:40

There can't be any type of anything predisposing us to anything, right?

58:47

Not even your reasons. How does that work with the fall? I still don't I still don't understand how he how he understands what the role of the law of God is to bring us to faith in Christ.

59:00

Because in his system, all the law of God is telling you is you can do it.

59:06

Just obey the law. So the covenant of works is telling us that we should be able to just obey the covenant of works.

59:12

I mean, right. We have libertarian freedom to do either sin or not sin, correct? All things being equal, baby.

59:18

So and that's why I want to explain this to the average person who does legitimately say there is a legitimate group of people who are like this philosophy stuff is way over my head.

59:28

So let me make it very simple for you. AK's position will lead to the idea that you are able to be sinless, that you can you have the legitimate ability to either sin or not sin, because that's called libertarian free will.

59:44

Now, your average Christian, their ears will perk up and go, well, that doesn't sound right. I hope their ears perked up when he said he denies original sin.

59:53

Now, he tried to play this song and dance where it's like, I just don't agree with your total depravity understanding of original sin.

59:59

I'm like, nope, nope. Original sin means you cannot perfectly obey the law of God. And I'm not talking about the bondage.

01:00:06

I'm just saying original sin predisposes us to be evil, not good.

01:00:11

Yeah, even in the classical, even in the classical Arminian sense. So, you know, my classical Arminian friends are as strong as we are.

01:00:18

Like Dan Chapa, if he's watching, they're as strong as we are in total depravity. Right. And original sin.

01:00:25

But AK is Church of Christ and they deny original sin. But AK's smart because he doesn't want to give off that, like, he wants to distance himself from the typical

01:00:35

Church of Christ. I get it. I see it. He doesn't speak the lingo. No, he doesn't. I appreciate that about him.

01:00:41

But he hangs on to their residue of the Campbellite movement, which they think that we are like Adams, like Adam was in the garden.

01:00:49

We're born perfect. But then we just get influenced by sin in this fallen world.

01:00:54

The environment. Yeah. Yeah. And so but that's that's their argument. They they hardcore and that's and that's similar to what

01:01:00

Layton Flowers does. So I don't know if you caught this, but when I talked to him about the principle of alternate possibilities.

01:01:05

Yeah. I phrased it in such a way that was going to give him trouble because I listened to so many hours of his content. I said, in order to be morally culpable, do you have the possibility to will and act otherwise?

01:01:18

Because what he'll do is just waste a ton of time making a meaningless distinction between will and action.

01:01:24

So I'm like, that's the whole point of possibility is you've got to have both in at least one moment of your life.

01:01:30

And so what's inherent in his system? And I hope you saw him struggle with that because he didn't he didn't want to say that it's possible for you to live a sinless life.

01:01:39

Did you see him contradict himself a few times? And I even told him, you ready for where we're going next? And he's like, well,

01:01:45

I could be wrong. I'm like, oh, get ready because that's where it goes. Yeah. And I'm glad I'm glad you brought that up.

01:01:50

Like I said, my that's when I got, you know, you know, the 18 minutes of categorical ability stuff like, you know, that was cool.

01:01:57

But, you know, well, I wanted to give him fits by thinking he had a silver bullet.

01:02:03

I'm like, this is the apologetic dog. That's not how it's going to go down. No, you you presuppositionalized them.

01:02:09

Oh, you like that? Yeah, you are. Are you by the way? We could get into that.

01:02:15

Some days of the week, maybe. Now, I think that I think the distinction is overblown between like Sproul and Bonson.

01:02:21

I think it's I think it's way overblown. But anyway, I could see value in both.

01:02:26

Now, I don't like the evidentialist, the hyper evidentialist stuff, I think is a little, you know, like William Lane Craig, but like Sproul and Bonson, I think they were a lot more on the same page.

01:02:38

Yeah. Then people blow those distinct. Anyway. All right. So here's how much time do you got, by the way?

01:02:43

I got all night. OK, so do I. So but no, just to let you know, so I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven time stamps to cover the scriptures he did in his opening, which

01:02:54

I which I wanted to do. And then I got four time stamps from his rebuttal.

01:03:01

And then we're and then that's because you know what he said. Calvinist struggle with exegesis. Yeah, he did say that.

01:03:10

Did you watch my debate with him on? Can you lose your salvation? I thought it was excellent. Well, I liked the format of that.

01:03:17

And I got that one. He wanted to have a he wanted to have an exegetical battle. But I wanted people to see in this debate, you're just going to assume your worldview.

01:03:27

And I know the inherent problems in his position. So, David, I was very happy with how the debate went down.

01:03:35

Yeah, yeah. All right. Here's OK. So 1 Corinthians 10, 13. So let's let's listen to his presentation on that.

01:03:42

In this chapter, Paul is addressing the Corinthians temptations to idolatry. In verse 13, he says, no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man.

01:03:54

But God is faithful. OK, God is faithful to do what? Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.

01:04:01

Now notice the word able. There's an ability man has, according to God's faithfulness.

01:04:07

He says, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it.

01:04:15

There's the word able again. Now, if libertarian free will is true, it kind of just stands as it says.

01:04:23

But if it is not, and the alternative of the debate is true, then when you succumb to temptation and you sin, it was unchangeably determined that you would.

01:04:32

So there was no way of escape. You did not have a human power to choose other than what you did. But the whole point of the statement is to say when you sin, you didn't have to do it.

01:04:40

That's why you're guilty. But if compatibilism is true, actually, no, when you sin, there's nothing you could have done because God is a lot powerful, more powerful than we are.

01:04:51

And it's an unchangeable decree. And the whole point,

01:04:56

Calvinism turns the text on its head because the whole point is to say you don't have to sin when you do.

01:05:02

There's a way out. Okay, all right. So before you go, the chat has too much stuff for me to catch up with.

01:05:11

But if you guys put like Jeremiah and then ask a question,

01:05:17

I can throw it up on the screen. If it's directly toward Jeremiah, you want to ask him a question like A .K.

01:05:23

or any of these other guys. Okay, go ahead. What do you think about? So what I want to encourage people to do is don't let the libertarian assume his worldview.

01:05:33

And I agree. Man has a type of ability. A .K. has a burden of proof just like I do.

01:05:40

And so this is what I love because I watched his debate review the other night and he said

01:05:45

Jeremiah changed his answer. He said that man has a type of ability conditionally to overthrow what

01:05:51

God has already. I never said that. Go back, listen to the debate. I was consistent with him just asking the same question over and over and over and over.

01:05:59

But what I did say is, no, man does not have categorical ability.

01:06:05

And I know, you know, A .K.'s, you know, speaking in a way that people can understand. But I wanted to meet him at the collegiate level of really pause him in his tracks.

01:06:14

That's why he spent 18 minutes. He broke his own standard. And I'm like, I can explain the different abilities.

01:06:19

And I appreciate you saying we want to speak from the ground up. But in a debate, I want him to realize that you can't assume your own worldview here.

01:06:28

Yeah. And so because to me, this is where it starts. God is faithful. Well, who is God? Well, A .K.

01:06:34

doesn't believe God is immutable. He doesn't believe that God is unchanging in his not only character, but his nature and his eternal attribute.

01:06:42

Like to me, that is so, so, so important. So we have different worldviews when we read the statement that God is faithful.

01:06:52

And also, I'm never going to let someone just read Libertarian Free Will that says that reasons do not determine our choices.

01:06:59

And you can say, well, I have conflicting reasons. Yeah, but one makes it through. Yeah, but I have the desire and a reason to eat because I'm hungry, but I'm going to fast.

01:07:08

So I just chose A there. I'm like, well, the reason to fast, that's what won the day. That's what necessitated your choice.

01:07:15

And so I'm just saying there's so many presuppositions. Don't let them get away with it. Tell them you're begging the question in favor of categorical

01:07:24

Libertarian Free Will. And I refuse to let you do that. Yeah, so what you're saying is you haven't established that that's true.

01:07:31

Oh, but just assuming it's true. Yeah, just let it speak for itself. It just it just flows so well with Libertarian Free Will.

01:07:38

Or it's the reasonable, rational approach.

01:07:46

Like that's how we experience life in every other quarter. So it must be true of God. So here's this.

01:07:52

Vela. Okay, this is a good one. Vela, this is beast. Why does

01:07:58

God have to make a way of escape if you have the ability to not sin already? I mean, that's just gangster.

01:08:05

So in the very passage, it's like God's making a way of escape so that you can make the choice to not sin.

01:08:13

But if his view is correct, God shouldn't even have to make an escape for you. You should just be able to resist temptation without him even doing that.

01:08:21

That's gangster, Vela. That's gangster. He's showing that. You need to become a Christian again. We're praying for him.

01:08:27

But Vela's saying the incompatibilist has bigger problems than the compatibilist here. Yes. And A .K.,

01:08:35

Jeremiah and I both, I don't know if you were responding to someone in the comments, but you can flood the comments all you want.

01:08:42

We don't read motives into anybody's anything of anything. We're not those type of people. I can tell

01:08:47

Jeremiah is not either. So no, I love A .K., and we had a really good time.

01:08:53

No, he's great, man. He's a great guy. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I will be the first to say A .K. is a smart dude.

01:08:59

And I'm the one that's trying to get him to debate Dr. White in the upcoming future. So I just want people to know that I think the world of A .K.

01:09:07

A .K. is not ready for that. But A .K., I'm not bringing you on to answer

01:09:12

Vela's question, but Vela will come on my program and I can have you on, A .K. That's the next program.

01:09:19

It's Vela, A .K., you, me. Oh, geez. Vela's like, come on my show and be scrutinized.

01:09:27

These guys are hilarious, bro. All right. You got anything else on 1 Corinthians or we can go to the next one?

01:09:33

The next one's Ezekiel 18. The last thing I want to say is I hope, even though I spoke in a way that was probably over most people's heads, they can go back and listen to it over and over again and go look at the literature and the philosophy to show

01:09:44

I wasn't making up stuff. But what I want people to see is, oh, Jeremiah is not going to let A .K. assume his own worldview.

01:09:51

Of course, I believe man has an ability, but the question is what kind? Yeah, that's right. You gotta defend that, baby. Now, you were clear about that.

01:09:56

The other thing about these debates is, and I've heard James White say it 50 ,000 times, the debate is simply the first step for people in the audience to start thinking through an issue.

01:10:08

That debate's not the end -all, be -all about what is going on.

01:10:14

All right. So Ezekiel 18 is his next one. Okay. Ezekiel chapter 18. Now, speaking about rebellious

01:10:20

Israel, God says, cast away from yourselves all your transgressions in which you have committed to make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

01:10:27

Now, why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the

01:10:32

Lord Yahweh. Now, this is a judgment passage, as most of it is in the prophets. So God is saying the end result is going to be your death in judgment.

01:10:41

I don't desire that. Stop doing what you're doing. But that makes sense if libertarian free will is true, because they don't have to do what they're doing.

01:10:49

They can choose to stop. But if the alternative is true, they're doing exactly what

01:10:55

God determined that they would do. But God is saying, you stop doing what you're doing to get a different result, that I would desire more.

01:11:03

But if Calvinism is true, of course, and libertarian free will isn't true, then God would be saying, stop doing what

01:11:10

I have unchangeably determined that you would do so that the end result that I determined for you would not come to pass.

01:11:16

You see, it's a rationality. And the human mind is naturally trained to detect error by irrationality.

01:11:27

It's always a way to detect error. Always, in every aspect of life. Okay, I got a bunch of stuff to say, but first of all, let me go first.

01:11:36

First of all, A .K., is there such a thing as revelation that transcends human rationality?

01:11:43

Is that a category that you believe in? That can't be our standard.

01:11:50

Humans have a natural just reasoning ability. Really? Really? I mean, anyway, that can't be the standard.

01:11:57

Here's the other thing, just about the text. God tells them, get yourself a new heart and a new spirit.

01:12:12

So do we have the ability to do that, A .K.? So our libertarian freedom, we can actually give ourselves a new spirit.

01:12:19

It's like, obviously, this is the law. God is commanding them to do what they're—and it is exposing their sin and bringing judgment upon them.

01:12:30

That's the part that's left out. Okay, go ahead. Well, I'll just be brief on my end. That's why when he asked simplistic questions, assuming incompatibilism, of saying, you know, doesn't

01:12:41

God just ultimately determine your decisions and your decisions doesn't matter? Use the application in any text.

01:12:47

Well, then what I'm going to do is distinguish who God is and who man is in such a way where people go, okay, that's a good point, because it's taking away the assumption in his worldview where it seems like it's unreasonable, but we just kind of parse out who

01:13:02

God is and who man is in that relationship. And he's losing that sting of, man, that just seems irrational.

01:13:10

That's why we spent 18 minutes on one question, because he wasn't getting that silver bullet reaction that he was wanting.

01:13:17

Yeah, yeah. All right, next one is 2 Peter 3. Okay, so 2 Peter 3. Now, this is the passage about the delay of the

01:13:25

Lord's coming. In verse 9, it says, The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

01:13:37

I want to focus on the word patient. God is patient. The amount of time that goes by seems to be long because God is being patient.

01:13:46

And verse 15 says, And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation. Now, I got to ask the question, well, first,

01:13:53

I'll say that I believe this is a libertarian free will verse because God just says what it says. But if libertarian free will is not true,

01:14:01

I got to ask the question, what is God being patient with? Because all things that occur were determined by God.

01:14:07

So God is being patient with the very things that he determined. So ultimately, God is being patient with himself.

01:14:12

I find that unreasonable. I think that's a libertarian free will verse. Go ahead.

01:14:19

So this to me is so easy to illustrate. How would we say God is being patient if he transcends time and is eternal?

01:14:27

Yes. We can only describe this in human terms and how it's analogous, right?

01:14:34

Because you got transcendent God bridging the gap in some way, transcendent revelation.

01:14:41

And so it's just easy to say, well, the only way we can say that eternal God is being patient is with human language as he interacts with real time.

01:14:50

But when AK assumes God is like a just bigger version of man, I've heard Vela say Zeus. Then you got problems.

01:14:59

But if you don't unificate, make God, certain attributes of God one to one, the same as man, all this contradiction stuff goes away.

01:15:07

And so I take the stronger stance that in real space time, we can truly say that God is being patient for the elect.

01:15:16

Now, I think it's also true that we can understand in some way the heart of God does not take pleasure in the way that we understand pleasure in the death of the wicked.

01:15:26

But God is being patient. All history is his story in a redemptive story, him saving an undeserving people.

01:15:33

So he's just going to smush all these categories together. And I would just say the compatibilist, we just need to stretch it back out and remind people who

01:15:43

God is and who man is. That's right. Yeah. If you want a good, I remember R .C. Sproul, I think it's the

01:15:49

U in his, what is reformed theology? He does a great exegesis of 2 Peter 3.

01:15:55

If you want a very good exegesis of why the U is the elect and the any and all have to do with God's gathering the elect.

01:16:04

In the Potter's Freedom, he talks about the big three versus the Arminian Jews, and this is one of them. Yeah, it's one of them.

01:16:10

And then what was the other thing I was going to say? It lost me. Okay, next. I lost it.

01:16:17

I lost it. The next one is Jeremiah 18. Jeremiah 18.

01:16:23

God reacts to man. Okay, I have to say something that's going on in the chat.

01:16:30

Now, AK is accusing Vela of begging the question. Oh, that's just great, though.

01:16:35

Vela, you got to admit, someone telling you that you're begging the question. That's just epic. That's just great stuff.

01:16:41

And then Vela's like, how have I begged the question? And then he's telling, he's okay, it's good. Okay, Jeremiah 18.

01:16:49

In Jeremiah chapter 18, I'll paraphrase this, but I think we all know the story about the potter. He tells Jeremiah to go see the potter at work, and Jeremiah looks, and the potter is making a vessel, and then the potter changes the shape of it.

01:17:01

And it says, and he changed it as he wanted to. What's the analogy? Did the potter make a mistake?

01:17:06

No, actually, it goes on to say, God says, here's what I will tell nations.

01:17:12

If I tell you that I'm going to pluck up and destroy, if that nation repents of the evil, then

01:17:18

I will repent of the destruction that I promised. I'm paraphrasing. Likewise, if I promise blessings to a nation, if it turns from its righteousness,

01:17:26

I will repent of the blessings that I promised it. The whole point of the figure of changing the vessel in the middle of work, that means

01:17:33

God is going to change. Oh, well, God's going to change. God is more than happy to react.

01:17:39

He's got no problem with that. And he says, if the nation turns into wickedness, I will change the plans

01:17:44

I have for it. That's not determinism. Otherwise, the nation is doing exactly what he determined them to do in the first place.

01:17:52

But in the analogy, remember that the vessel is shaped and changed in the middle of the work.

01:17:58

If determinism is true, the vessel should have been the same way from the beginning. OK.

01:18:05

OK, a lot of stuff there. Let me go first. Just exegetically, right? Just exegetically. I want everyone to understand.

01:18:10

OK. After that word is given to Jeremiah, right?

01:18:16

About the potter and that, right? Then it says verse. This is the NIV, by the way.

01:18:22

This is just my Bible I've had for 20 something. I still like the NIV 84 edition. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem.

01:18:29

So look, just exegetically. I'm sure you'll do the philosophical thing, which is good, but exegetically, right?

01:18:36

That's the word Jeremiah got. Just Jeremiah. As he watched the potter at his vessel, like making the vessels, right?

01:18:45

But this is the word that was given to the people of Israel, OK? This is the word that God tells

01:18:51

Jeremiah to give, right? He says, now that you've seen that, I've shown you what I'm doing, right? Here's what you're to say to the people.

01:18:58

Look what it says. Now, therefore, to the people of Israel and say to those, this is what the Lord says. Look, I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you.

01:19:06

So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions. OK, so same thing, right?

01:19:13

But look what the next verse says. But they will reply. It's no use.

01:19:19

We will continue with our own plans. Each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.

01:19:25

So is that word going to result in activating their libertarian free will? No, it's judgment.

01:19:31

OK, I'm done. No, he doesn't see that. He said this many times.

01:19:37

This is a judgment passage. This is a judgment passage. Well, what a judgment passage does is it doesn't activate people's libertarian free will.

01:19:44

It brings judgment because they are sinners. And it would be true if they repented, then this judgment would not come upon them.

01:19:55

But philosophical language, we're saying, of course, if they do that, that's true. That's all that's necessary for us to be morally culpable for what we choose to do.

01:20:04

Who ultimately determined? Well, God, he's of a different kind, and that's OK. We're not going to let you assume incompatibilism when we're trying to rightly understand who

01:20:13

God is, who man is. And he used a lot of anthropomorphic language in this analogy.

01:20:20

I guess God hops in the DeLorean and tries to go figure out what they're going to do and then backs up and tries to make his decisions along the way.

01:20:28

Yeah. All right, Jeremiah 19, which this is where I would love to see A .K. go up against an open theist.

01:20:35

Yep. You know, he would just be a sitting duck. I'm sorry, A .K., you would be a sitting duck against a sharp, open theist on this verse.

01:20:42

They would just push you to be like, A .K., just be consistent. It never ends. God doesn't know. God didn't know. Things don't enter his mind.

01:20:49

There's things that God doesn't know. Jeremiah chapter 19. Now, concerning rebellious

01:20:55

Israel, this is a pretty bad practice of theirs. They burn their own children in the fires to a false god,

01:21:02

Baal. God says, they have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons, and the fire has burnt offering to Baal.

01:21:10

A thing which I never commanded, nor spoke of, nor did it ever come upon my heart.

01:21:22

Now, what does it mean that it never came upon his heart? It doesn't mean he never thought about it or knew about it, because he actually talked about it before.

01:21:29

No, it's a contrast between the outward expression of speaking and commanding. He said, I didn't command it, nor did

01:21:36

I speak it. In other words, I didn't outwardly tell them this was my will, nor did it come upon my heart, meaning it wasn't a secret, unspoken desire of mine.

01:21:45

They didn't hear me command them. They can't use that excuse. They didn't hear me speak about it, so they can't use that excuse.

01:21:51

And it certainly wasn't some silent intention I had for them. If libertarian free will is true, it makes sense.

01:21:58

It makes sense for what it says. But if the alternative is true, of course, it originated in God's heart.

01:22:05

It originated in his heart. It's completely the opposite of what the verse is saying.

01:22:13

So, Jeremiah, is your position that it originated in God's heart, that they should sacrifice their own children? He uses,

01:22:22

I think, the LSB, which I actually think is an awesome translation for this, because, and I don't know if this is strategic on his part, but when it says

01:22:30

God never decreed it or entered into my mind, well, everybody has to pause and interpret this verse, because are we going to give homage to the open theists that say, see, this never entered into God's mind, right?

01:22:44

And so this is where it says it never came from his heart. Well, this is where we distinguish as Reformed theologians.

01:22:51

You got this decreed will of God, and you have a revealed will of God that breaks the language barrier, if you will.

01:22:59

We know things analogically. And in some way that we can truly understand,

01:23:05

God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked and all this gross sin. Now, was it necessary in a world that he wanted to create that would have an ultimate end to the praise of his glorious grace to put all of his attributes on display from father, son, and spirit?

01:23:21

Absolutely. But within that, God is communicating that he did not reveal this to the people to do.

01:23:27

He never commanded it to them. They are acting wickedly according to their depravity. And so, like you said, if he makes too much of this verse, he actually undercuts what grounds he is standing on, right?

01:23:45

Okay, anyway, so I pulled up my Bible works. I still use Bible works, even though there's no updates to it, because I just haven't got used to accordance in the interface.

01:23:53

But ESV, it says it did not come into my mind. New American Standard, enter my mind.

01:23:58

Net Bible, which is a good one to check translations. NET, enter my mind. NIV, enter my mind.

01:24:04

King James came into my mind. Geneva Bible, it never came into my mind. Authorized Standard, it never came into my mind.

01:24:11

New Living, it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing. New King James. So, it's interesting that the legacy standard.

01:24:18

Now, you know where the word heart is used? Cardia is in the Septuagint. Interesting.

01:24:24

And this is where I want to tell AK and them, this is anthropomorphic. God doesn't have a heart like man.

01:24:32

But God can tell us things that bring him pleasure and displeasure in ways we can understand.

01:24:39

But God is eternal and of a different kind. And so, I will remind him that all day long, because me and AK differ.

01:24:48

I believe God does not react. When God says that he is displeased with sin, he is communicating to us in some way that he is against sin.

01:24:57

And yet, we know it's necessary because he declares the end all the way from the beginning. Okay, Corey Snyder.

01:25:03

I got to throw it up because AK was responding to it. If each side was a food, Jeremiah served us waffles.

01:25:09

Compatible, rational. AK was a bowl of spaghetti. Incompatible, irrational. I could find two ends.

01:25:15

I couldn't find two ends that connected. And then he said it was a

01:25:22

Freudian slip or something. All right, okay, here we go. Respond to AK here. Yes, it originated in God's heart if he unchangeably determined it.

01:25:31

Blatant contradiction. Well, if you assume incompatibilism. But, I mean, reformed theologians, we recognize that God can communicate through the language barrier to created man in ways that we can understand.

01:25:45

And so, when he says it originated in God's heart, AK, what does that mean? Does God have a heart like man? Oh, well, no,

01:25:52

Jeremiah. But the Bible gives us plenty of anthropomorphic terms to describe God. Exactly.

01:25:57

That's what he's doing here. He's telling us this does not bring him joy or pleasure in a way that we can understand and relate to what that means.

01:26:05

But God is eternal between Father, Son, and Spirit. And so, both can be true.

01:26:11

We don't assume incompatibilism and the either or fallacy going on. God can only determine or man.

01:26:17

We're saying both can be true in different ways and it works together. Yeah, the way I respond to something like this would be to say, okay,

01:26:27

AK, let's internally critique your view. So, this actually happened in time that they were sacrificing their babies to Baal, right?

01:26:41

So, if it wasn't in any sense, let's not use the word determined because you've determined this.

01:26:47

If it wasn't, let's use the Molanus word, actuated. If the reality in which babies were actually sacrificed, if God actuated that reality, he chose to bring that particular reality into existence.

01:27:03

You can't avoid that he's somehow determined it. Now, you can try to push it back several layers and say, well, there's these layers of...

01:27:12

It's like Gnosticism, really. How did Gnostics get around the pure spirit being not being the author of evil?

01:27:23

They put layers of what they called eons between the eternal pure spirit being and there was lesser gods.

01:27:32

It's the same idea. I have God, I will insulate him from having any connection to babies being sacrificed because I don't believe that he is immutable, unchangeable, wise, has eternal counsels that he's working out.

01:27:54

So, in other words, it's the open theist, once again, that'll walk in the room and be like, Calvinist, Molanist, AK Richardson, late flight, you're all full of crap.

01:28:03

The only way you can get God off the hook for this is that he didn't know it would happen, right?

01:28:09

That's the only consistent way you can... Like James White says, the only consistent Arminian is an open theist.

01:28:15

That's the consistent position. You're just conflating necessity with what they possibly could do with certainty.

01:28:23

That's what you're doing. That's what I got in the debate.

01:28:29

Did it enter God's heart before creation for them to sacrifice their children? No. But did

01:28:36

God know they would do that, AK, before he created, and he chose to create anyway?

01:28:42

You have the same problem as the Calvinist if you assert that God knew it would happen.

01:28:49

But it's very hard to get someone to see that, by the way. It's very difficult to get someone who's committed to synergism and libertarian free will to get that very simple argument.

01:28:59

If God knows something's going to happen from all eternity before it happens, he created the universe in which that evil would happen.

01:29:08

So he is responsible in some sense. You can say, well, I'm not like the Calvinist, but you still have to answer the question and you just avoid it.

01:29:18

Well, it's just you Calvinists that have the problem. I don't have the problem. And that's why God raised up the open theist by his sovereign will to blow that apart.

01:29:28

I have a question for AK. Do you think that that is being anthropomorphic, saying it never came from God's mind or a heart?

01:29:36

Does God have a heart? Yeah, that's right. Okay, next one. Unless you have anything else on that. We got one of the big three.

01:29:44

He only used two of the big three. I know, I was kind of surprised. I was waiting for 1 Timothy 2 .4,

01:29:50

I believe it is. Yeah, yeah. Wait, I lost my

01:29:56

YouTube. You weren't willing. Oh yeah, pray for all people. Yeah, he desires all to be saved.

01:30:03

All right. Now, Matthew 23, verse 37. I think a lot of people knew this was coming.

01:30:10

Jesus said, that's a James White reference for sure. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

01:30:19

How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you did not want it.

01:30:26

Now this is a judgment passage once again and judgment came in 80, 70, 40 years later. But he says, this judgment is coming because you did not want it.

01:30:38

But if compatibilism is true, he didn't want it. But he left that part out. In fact, he said the opposite.

01:30:43

He said, how often I did want it, which means it didn't happen if it was often. But he's saying you didn't want it.

01:30:50

Otherwise he's going to bring judgment upon them for what he willed for them to be willing to do. John.

01:30:59

Think that's on that. Yeah, I mean, this is a judgment passage. I'm not going to sound like a broken record just saying he's confusing

01:31:07

God with man merely here. But usually the assumption is saying, well, you see, they were not willing.

01:31:15

That means that they could have chosen otherwise. And as Calvinists, we understand men born totally depraved their whole life before regeneration is they resist the will of God.

01:31:27

And so the difference is AK doesn't think God can work through someone's will. Because if you only have human categories, well, if you limit someone's will, you're applying force or coercion or manipulation.

01:31:40

And we're saying, but yeah, the ground of all being he can work categorically different than man. And so he can work through someone's will where they're no longer resisting, but now willing.

01:31:52

So to me, that's usually a verse that tries to defeat like irresistible grace or something like that.

01:31:57

Yeah. Couple of good comments from Vela. Could God prevent it? This is back to the child sacrifice.

01:32:04

Yes. Why didn't he? Because he didn't want to. He willed it on any view. Even if your view is permission allowance is still willing that it happens rather than not happen.

01:32:12

That's a good point. So AK, in your view, did God know with perfect foreknowledge before he created, before he actuated the actual universe that exists, that the

01:32:24

Israelites would sacrifice their children? Hey, David, and that's the risk that God took for love.

01:32:30

Yeah. The God who risks, isn't that the name of the book? Which by the way, is the functional theology of most evangelicals in America.

01:32:39

They just don't know it. Is there any will in God's mind before creation from the sacrifice of children?

01:32:46

If so, is his will in his heart and mind? Once again, it's the anthropomorphic.

01:32:54

And then David, open theism doesn't rescue God. He didn't know before, but surely he knew as it happened.

01:33:04

And he didn't know it will have redemptive outcomes. It still doesn't stop it. I just,

01:33:11

I pray AK becomes reformed before contemplating open theism. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

01:33:17

Okay. Okay, we got one more. He ended with John five.

01:33:24

Chapter five, Jesus is speaking to the unbelieving Jews. It has a lot to say.

01:33:29

In verse 34, he says, but I say these things so that you may be saved. Okay, so he teaches

01:33:37

God's words and revelations so that they can be saved. That means they are enabled to believe by the things that he says.

01:33:46

Now the problem is just six verses later in verse 40, he says, and you are unwilling to come to me that you may have life.

01:33:57

Libertarian free will, if it's true, it kind of just says what it says. They could believe because of what he teaches and what he says, but they're not willing to do it.

01:34:06

I mean, right there, he does even, he does do what you like. Well, libertarian free will, it just says what it says. Well, no, you're, you're reading that.

01:34:13

You're assuming that and just saying it's a given. Without arguing for it, yeah.

01:34:19

Yeah, the only comment I want to make, because I mean, we've already addressed this type of language and terminology, is on one of his programs, he was dealing with John 6.

01:34:29

You know, we like to go to John 6, 44, right? He says, oh, but just read at verse 45.

01:34:34

They're learning from what the prophets had told them. And then he goes on to say something else interesting.

01:34:40

Now this is consistent with Church of Christ theology. As he says, there's nothing supernatural with the word of God.

01:34:46

You can read it, you can understand it, you can choose to obey it. Libertarian fashion, right? And that broke my heart.

01:34:52

I just thought, okay, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any other, than a sword.

01:34:58

And it's living, breathing, it's theanustos. And I just thought, this is a supernatural work.

01:35:05

And he would say it's inspired, but I'm just saying this is different than all other books that exist in our world.

01:35:11

And so the Church of Christ, they are the hyper cessationist. I don't know where AK's at on their issues, but many

01:35:20

Church of Christ do not believe in an ontological indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Like I said,

01:35:25

I don't know where AK's at in this, but they deny what you see in Acts. In every single respect, we do not possess the

01:35:31

Holy Spirit in us. What they say is when you read the words of scripture and those scriptures are in your mind, that's what the indwelling of the

01:35:39

Holy Spirit looks like. But you gotta think, they don't believe in original sin. So why would you need some type of supernatural regeneration for your nature to change?

01:35:49

And so it just, it kind of hurt my heart when he just kind of off the cuff said, there's nothing supernatural, reading and taking in the word of God.

01:35:57

And I just thought, sad. Yeah, and then, you know, the John 5 is just in an entire context of the gospel of John.

01:36:06

And, you know, what I would point out, and just a little plug for my channel, if you go into my

01:36:12

YouTube and look up, you know, I think I called it the Calvinist exegesis of John 5 or something like that. But, you know, later on,

01:36:20

Jesus explains why they're not coming to him because they're not his sheep, right?

01:36:27

And they can't hear his word, et cetera, et cetera. But remember the miracle that happened before this whole teaching of John 5, there's a paralyzed man laying by the pool and Jesus gives him a word, right?

01:36:40

A command. Yeah. Take up your mat and walk. Now, did that man have the libertarian freedom to obey that command?

01:36:52

No, he's paralyzed. There you go. Okay. So what had to happen first,

01:36:59

Christ healed him. And the passage is actually very clear.

01:37:04

He's healed first, then he gets up and takes his mat and walk. So that's, and some people, when

01:37:11

I've taught this, for some reason, that like physical healing analogy breaks through a little bit, because I'll even lay on the ground while I'm teaching it and pretend like I'm a different guy who heard

01:37:23

Jesus say that to the guy next to me who actually got healed. And I'm trying to make my legs work and obey the command of Christ.

01:37:29

It's not working because he only said it to that guy. So you could hear the word, right? Get up, take your mat and walk, which is equivalent, by the way, to believe in me, repent and believe in the son of God.

01:37:41

It's the same idea. Because in John 5, then Jesus is teaching after the Pharisees get all mad at him and the guy snitches him out and stuff.

01:37:49

The Pharisees go, or Jesus says to the Pharisees, there's coming a time where the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear shall live.

01:37:59

That's intentionally supposed to make you go, wait a minute, the dead can't hear. They're dead.

01:38:06

Just like the paralyzed man can't walk. He's paralyzed. Well, what has to happen before the dead man can hear or the paralyzed man can walk?

01:38:15

There must be, oh, wait for it, regeneration or they must be born again first. I mean, that's the whole theme of the gospel of John.

01:38:21

I mean, we don't have time to weave through. Some of you who are interested in this, Google the doctrines of grace in the gospel of John.

01:38:29

Wasn't that Lawson? It's a great series where he goes through the gospel of John exegetically and shows all the doctrines of grace in the gospel of John, it's really good.

01:38:38

All right, that was it for the scriptures. Okay, so four more timestamps and then, see, you're an hour earlier than me.

01:38:47

I keep forgetting that. It's 10, 10 over here. All right, so we're going pretty far ahead.

01:38:54

We're skipping your opening. Okay, this is, no, this is his closing.

01:39:03

Isn't this his closing? No, no, no, this is his rebuttal. My bad, this is his rebuttal. 5147.

01:39:09

I just like this comment about the used car dealer. Remember that one?

01:39:15

Oh, yeah, I do. I wanted to hear what you said. You can choose anything you want, but just black. Yeah, that thing. Hands off and say, you make the choice, but I will hold you responsible since you are the one making it.

01:39:26

I don't get the problem. And now, compatibilism, now Jeremiah said and is often said that you are free.

01:39:34

We believe in free will, they say. To do your heart's desire. Are you free to do your heart's desire? I got to ask the question. Who chooses your heart's desire?

01:39:41

Do you have any control over your heart's desire? No, your heart's desire is not within your control.

01:39:47

Never was. And so if God determines all things, then when they say you're free to do your heart's desire and other ways that it has been said is you're free, but only free to sin because you're an unregenerate sinner talking about unregenerate sinners.

01:40:04

To say you're free, but only free to do this, I find. So he doesn't believe that, that unregenerate people are free to only sin.

01:40:10

I guess he just rejects total depravity and original sin outright. He is a walking

01:40:17

Pelagius, right? I mean, now when I pressed him on, now Pelagius would have just owned, but yeah, of course you can live a perfect sinless life if you try really hard.

01:40:26

He understands that's a hard sell to people that are listening or he's not thought through it. But yeah, he believes that we're all recreations of Adam before the fall.

01:40:37

And that's inherent in Pelagianism and Church of Christ teaching. Yeah. So, and that's, and like you said, like that's a direction

01:40:44

I'd like to take this just historically and just, I think your average person can understand like the problem with this better, because at least there's a lot of people in the church who are discipled well enough, maybe not in the philosophical angle, but just the straight gospel angle.

01:41:00

This doesn't sound right. No, it is true that when you're not regenerated, you can't, you don't have the ability to -

01:41:07

Most people agree with what you just said. But what's inherent in his theology is you can choose to do otherwise.

01:41:14

You can actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And even like, let's say we're talking about the pastoral care and counsel of a

01:41:22

Christian who's struggling with sin, right? That is your counsel. You're teaching them how to use the means of grace to change the desires of their heart by the means of grace through the power of the

01:41:36

Holy Spirit, right? I hope he agrees with that. And he doesn't just pastorally counsel someone and say, listen, you just need to start choosing the right thing with your mind and your rationality.

01:41:48

It's not about your heart. You know what I mean? That's where it gets to me. It's like, what are the, I always do that with Leighton Flowers too.

01:41:53

And he doesn't like it when I'm like, Leighton, so do you get up there before you evangelize and say, God, there's people in this crowd that are just judicially hardened and there's probably nothing my preaching is going to do.

01:42:04

And there's other people that I don't really know what I'm praying for you to do, God, because it's up to their free will.

01:42:10

Are you even asking God to do anything while you preach? I mean, that's where, I think that's an

01:42:15

Augustine thing where he said, it's one of the church fathers said, someone's real theology comes out in their prayer life.

01:42:23

Not necessarily in their theology. That's the Spurgeon thing too, where he says, you've never heard an

01:42:29

Arminian prayer, a consistent Arminian prayer. He says, oh dear God, I thank you that my free will made me better than the other person.

01:42:39

And I know Lord that, yeah. It's - Now I can hear AK in the background of my mind saying, well, you're just determined to do whatever you're determined to do.

01:42:47

And it's the assumption, the smuggled in premise of what I've been saying philosophically of categorical ability, which we consistently reject.

01:42:56

We're basically saying, well, of course, we deny libertarian free will, right? Yeah, exactly.

01:43:02

Okay. I'm sorry. There's a whole bunch of comments, but it's - I can't look at them because I'll get too distracted.

01:43:10

Yeah, I'm getting distracted right now. I'll have fun going back and looking at them. Okay. So we didn't get to the car dealer part yet. And irrational.

01:43:15

It's like a car dealer telling you, yeah, you're free to choose any color you want for this car, but you're only free to choose black.

01:43:22

Well, that's not what freedom means. And by the way, whatever you do - What do you think about that?

01:43:28

Yeah, I mean, it's the same song and dance. I mean, it's not an analogy that's actually an internal critique of compatibilism.

01:43:35

That's the whole - I was telling somebody else that me and AK are like two ships passing in the night.

01:43:41

Yeah. We're using similar vocabulary, but we mean totally different things. What he's doing is taking an analogy in his worldview and saying, see, over there in compatibilism, that doesn't make sense.

01:43:50

And we're like, you have yet to properly understand what we're saying and represent it and show internal inconsistencies.

01:43:58

That's why I had five arguments, right? The first four were internal defeaters for AK's worldview.

01:44:05

And quite honestly, the only one we kind of got into a little bit was the omniscience of God. He did not touch the omnipotent sovereignty problem that I posed for him.

01:44:14

Because I think he knows an omnipotent limitless choice is a contradiction to say that it's limited.

01:44:21

I mean, that's how you have to unpack omnipotence and sovereignty in that way. And so I'll hand it to AK.

01:44:28

He's got some better analogies going on than Light and Flowers. Like, I think he's really coming up with some doozies.

01:44:37

Yeah, but so ground up thing, just basic, what

01:44:44

I'm looking at is, what if you hate a certain color of a car from your heart, but the guy offers you, here's a car, you can have it.

01:44:58

And you go, I hate that car. Well, that's what it's like when God commands the unregenerate to repent and believe or keep

01:45:06

God's law. Or Light and Flowers gives an analogy. I love this analogy because he uses

01:45:11

Donald Trump in it. And it's just so perfect. His analogy is, if I'm holding my cell phone here, and it starts ringing and it's

01:45:20

Donald Trump, he says, well, I have the ability to pick up that call and talk to Donald Trump.

01:45:28

There's nothing stopping you from doing that. And his analogy breaks down. Well, what if you hate Donald Trump from your heart?

01:45:35

So he's basically saying God calls and there's nothing hindering us. This total depravity thing just makes

01:45:41

God's offer not genuine and all that kind of stuff. But God's call does provoke the sin in a sinner's heart.

01:45:50

And that has to be overcome by his grace. But that category is just not there in their thinking. Just a quick comment.

01:45:57

So these analogies need to then shift into an exegetical battle over the bondage of the will.

01:46:04

Because that's exactly what you're saying. Because if we're right, if the unregenerate man completely hates the things of God and cannot do anything pleasing to them, it doesn't matter what options you present in front of him.

01:46:16

He's just going to do what his desire and will and reasons to deliberate to do.

01:46:24

And so then we're gonna get into another little battle of talking about, well, are we like animals that just do what our nature is?

01:46:32

We're gonna say there's something else in there. Reason is one of those determining factors that impacts or necessitates the will or the moment of choice.

01:46:43

So yeah, I didn't address analogy because I knew the deeper issues that we needed to get into.

01:46:53

Yeah, you made me think of the bondage of the will. I just thought of Luther. Somebody put a comment in the actual debate quoting

01:47:01

Luther and bondage of the will. I don't know if the whole thing. God foreknows nothing by contingency.

01:47:08

That is what is merely predictable as being possible, but that he foresees purposes and does all things according to his immutable, eternal, and infallible will,

01:47:15

Ephesians 1 .11. Yeah, this is Luther. By this thunderbolt, free will is thrown, prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces.

01:47:23

Those therefore who would assert free will must therefore deny this thunderbolt or pretend to not see it or push it from them.

01:47:30

That's not good. Yeah, that's Luther and bondage of the will. Okay, so we got... Okay, I thought this was interesting.

01:47:37

This is where he's comparing the image of God to us being made in the image of God, and that gives us libertarian free will.

01:47:45

So that one is 54. I've only got a couple more. We're going late in flowers length of time here.

01:47:52

Oh, critique style on James Watson. Yeah, he can do a four -hour video like standing on his head. All right, 54.

01:47:59

All right, here's this one. God's attributes. God is in a different category than we, and thus our freedom to choose cannot be like his.

01:48:06

This is where he's rebutting that you said that. Oh, yeah. Well, I think that it can.

01:48:13

If God says, here's a creature, he's going to have the ability to make choices, and I'm not going to tell him which ones...

01:48:19

I'm not going to determine which ones he makes, then we can be like God in that respect, because nothing determines

01:48:25

God's choices. Why can't he make us like that? Now, God can do much more.

01:48:30

I mean, there's so much more to God than we can. Obviously, the comparison isn't the same in every respect.

01:48:36

But in regards to nothing outside of us determining our choice, I believe we could be like God in that respect.

01:48:43

Why not? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He didn't give an argument. Let me say something first.

01:48:49

So, okay, there's all kinds of stuff. Take it out of theology that limits our choices that we can't make choices

01:48:57

God could make. I can't fly through the air right now. I can't walk on water like Jesus.

01:49:03

I can't part the sea. Like, come on, just at a basic level, like, okay, it's called creaturely freedom.

01:49:11

And he is kind of admitting it. You can tell even in his own eyes. Like, well, I have to still say that there's a difference, but for my purposes, there isn't.

01:49:19

This is kind of the crux of the whole debate, is we are saying, I will push you to consistency if you acknowledge the creator -creation distinction.

01:49:29

And I'm saying, once you erode that away, if you unificate God and man at any level, then you're going to take away from God.

01:49:37

And so we've already been talking about his knowledge goes out the window. In some respect, if you take away his wisdom, his counsel, his predetermination, those are connected very intricately.

01:49:49

They're distinct, but they still are related together. Something that he never addressed was the omnipotence.

01:49:54

And here's the thing that he just admitted to everyone. I thought, you know, I hope people take note of this. He believes

01:50:00

God can react to man. And that reminds me, that's because man can react to man.

01:50:07

And so when he goes to anthropomorphic texts, Jeremiah 18, he's proving my point that this is anthropomorphic, telling us something about God.

01:50:15

But when he gives those conditionals, those ifs, I'm saying, come over to the compatibilist position. We can truly make sense of what's going on without damaging who

01:50:24

God is and who man is. Yep. All right. And then there's two more. This is the statement about God's foreknowledge.

01:50:31

Hmm. Now, God can do much more.

01:50:41

I mean, there's so much more to God than we can. Obviously, the comparison isn't the same in every respect.

01:50:47

Oh, it's common. But in regards to nothing outside of us determining our choice, I believe we could be like God in that respect.

01:50:53

Why not? Now, concerning God's foreknowledge, it is this common argument that, well, if God foreknows it, then it really isn't a choice.

01:51:02

I mean, you can't choose otherwise. You know, if libertarian free will is true, it is argued, then God's foreknowledge could be falsified.

01:51:09

Well, that's not true. In fact, I think he may have misspoke, or it may be what he understands, but I would disagree with it.

01:51:16

At one point, he said, if God foreknows something, then you cannot do otherwise.

01:51:22

Now, the word cannot is what he said. I may not get it verbatim otherwise. That's a switch of the premises.

01:51:28

No, if God knows what you will choose, then you will not choose. Not cannot, but will not.

01:51:34

God just simply knows what you will choose, but what you can choose is very different.

01:51:41

You see, think about it. God knows that A .K. can choose, can choose between A or B, but he knows

01:51:48

A .K. will choose B. Well, if he foreknows it and he can't be falsified in his foreknowledge, then it is certain that A .K.

01:51:55

will choose B, but it's just as certain that A .K. could have chosen A, because what you can do and what you will do is not the same thing.

01:52:03

If I have a DeLorean and I go to the Super Bowl next year and I see who wins and I come back,

01:52:08

I now know who wins. But my knowledge does not determine who wins.

01:52:14

Foreknowledge is not causal. It does not determine anything. Just like for past knowledge does not determine the past, future knowledge does not determine the future.

01:52:22

God simply knows what you will do. He also knows simultaneously what you could have otherwise done.

01:52:28

And remember, anyway, all this... All right, can I get first cracks this time?

01:52:33

Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I love this part so much. Now, A .K. doesn't understand the argument, because once God says, let there be, and speaks this world into existence, the point,

01:52:45

A .K., is at the moment of choice. This is where the open theist feels the weight of this problem, because not only does

01:52:52

God know what you will not do, but you cannot, all things being equal, choose to do otherwise.

01:53:01

Inability, you can't. You cannot do it if God foreknows, but his knowledge is related to his causation.

01:53:10

They're not the same. But he said, let there be light, and spoke this world into existence. And I brought this out in the debate,

01:53:17

David. I just said, you're locked in. The moment that God spoke and caused this, I'm not saying that knowledge is determination.

01:53:25

I'm saying they're inextricably linked together, because once the moment God speaks this world into existence, ex nihilo, from what was in his mind,

01:53:34

I'm using an anthropomorphic term, then everything is locked in, and you don't have categorical libertarian freedom at the moment of choice.

01:53:45

All right, how old are you, Jeremiah? Okay, ask me that. I just say, how old do

01:53:51

I look? 30. I just turned 31, and it's all downhill from here.

01:53:57

The only reason I'm asking that is because do you understand Matrix references, the original trilogy? I understand them a little bit.

01:54:04

Okay, see, I'm old, dude. I think I'm 41. Oh, you've got a decade of experience.

01:54:09

But anyway, the Matrix has a great part, because the Matrix fools with several philosophical things in it, but one of them is the relationship between free will and determination.

01:54:19

And there's this scene where Neo's sitting next to the Oracle who's like this prophetic figure who actually ends up just being part of the system.

01:54:25

But he says to the Oracle, she offers him a piece of candy. And he says to her, you already know if I'm gonna take this piece of candy, so how can

01:54:37

I have a choice? Right, and you know what she says back to him? It's deep. You didn't come here to figure out if you're gonna make the choice or not.

01:54:46

It's why you made the choice you made. I was like, that's deep. But anyway, so AK, I think

01:54:51

AK's still, yeah, he's still on here. Are you really claiming that God's knowledge of the future is like you getting in a

01:55:00

DeLorean, going 88 .7 miles an hour and having a flux capacitor?

01:55:05

Like, that's really where like now this, you know, the analogies of I'm like God, that's where it really broke that.

01:55:12

Like, that's breaking it down big time. AK, that is not how God has knowledge of the future. The same way that Marty McFly got to the sports almanac.

01:55:23

Like, I love you, AK, but that's making Layton Flowers analogies look good.

01:55:29

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's, oh, wow. OK, we got we got one more,

01:55:34

Joseph and his brothers. Which, you know, to me, this is the only he didn't touch.

01:55:41

Did he touch Axe 427 and 20? I don't remember him touching. He didn't touch that with the 10 foot pole. So and then here's where he's

01:55:48

I mean, because those are our strongest passages. Biblically is Joseph. I make you proud when

01:55:53

I read those. Yes, they're the best ones. And Isaiah 10. I didn't because he was prepared to talk a lot about Isaiah 10.

01:56:01

So I tried to pick the best, the best. But you're right. Let's see, 5711 here.

01:56:07

So here's here's his here's his rebuttal to Joseph, the story of Joseph. Now, Joseph and his brothers.

01:56:17

Let's talk about that. For example, that's, you know, so the passage in Genesis says what

01:56:23

Joseph says, you know, what you meant for evil, God meant for good in saving many people alive. That's that's that's my verse.

01:56:31

That's my view. See, I believe. So what did I say about my summary view that God works out his counsel through evil and evil men?

01:56:37

But that text says what I believe in libertarian freedom, what you see, what's what it would have to say to establish compatibilism is that God determined what they willed in the whole thing.

01:56:49

When Joseph says what you meant for evil. Now, what Calvinism has to establish is that God determined what they meant.

01:56:57

But it doesn't say that. All it says is they meant one thing. God meant another. That's my view, because it is man who's doing his own purposing and intending.

01:57:09

So, A .K., question. Could God have failed to get Joseph into Egypt? You're conflating necessity with certainty.

01:57:19

Yeah, well, I mean, that's the whole point. I mean, that's the most ground level point. Like, could could could. So God, I guess, could have.

01:57:24

He was hoping that the brothers would do what they meant to do. I mean, hopefully, hopefully they did.

01:57:31

If they didn't. Yeah, I don't know. But the other thing is, that's just not that's just not good exegesis. The text clearly says they had an intention for evil and God's intention in their intention was to bring about what actually happened.

01:57:49

Yeah, because I also quoted right before that the Genesis 45, which

01:57:55

Joseph is saying, y 'all didn't really bring me here. And Joseph is speaking in an ultimate sense.

01:58:00

But ultimately, God brought me here. And so if people go back and listen to my opening speech,

01:58:07

I said, look at Joseph's brothers making the sinful temporal choice, because I'm always retaining that category distinction between God and man.

01:58:18

And so I will say this. When we look at Genesis 45 and Genesis 50, 20, I'm saying compatibilism best explains those verses, because I will agree with AK a little bit.

01:58:30

None of those independent verses grounds compatibilism. I'm just saying compatibilism is the best explanation of those.

01:58:38

That's why I put all my eggs in the basket of Isaiah 46, 10, because Leighton won't do what

01:58:43

AK does. Leighton is going to try to make the case that the end from the beginning is talking about something other than exhaustively all events in space time, because obviously

01:58:53

AK realizes the ramifications of that. I've heard I do a lot of work against full preterism.

01:58:59

They want to say that this is talking about the beginning and end of ethnic Israel at 70 AD. And obviously, the bird of prey from the east is a reference back to King Cyrus, right?

01:59:09

Well, they talk about this is the end all the way from the beginning of this prophecy. Now, David, I was prepared.

01:59:16

Like I said, I put all my eggs in this basket. I think this passage is the best for grounding from God's revelation divine determinism.

01:59:25

Now I do that, as you saw me kind of walk through the text. And I think it's in verse 11.

01:59:31

I have my Bible here, but it's shut. But when God says the second time when he uses the word purpose, I have purpose and I will do it.

01:59:38

This is a different word purpose that he used in the verse right before in verse 10.

01:59:43

I will accomplish all my purpose because that's really talking about God will accomplish his pleasure. The second term talks about I will accomplish my predetermination.

01:59:52

And so you can see multiple times in Isaiah, the same word for ordained is God's predetermination.

01:59:59

And I actually say, how does God declare the end from the beginning? How does God know that no created thing will thwart his purpose because of his predetermination?

02:00:09

That's how. And I know everyone gets mad because they just say we read, you know, divine determinism into the text.

02:00:16

I'm like, Isaiah didn't. He and oh, the thing I was going to say earlier is how do I know that the end from the beginning is talking about space time?

02:00:24

When you go back to Isaiah chapter 40, this kind of begins this context with the greatness of Yahweh.

02:00:31

When he says the nations are like nothing, they're like dust. And he talks, he contrasts Yahweh with idols made by human hands that can't do anything.

02:00:42

And then he talks about where were you from the beginning when God laid the foundations of the world?

02:00:49

In a few verses later, it talks about the complete, limitless understanding of God all the way to the ends of the earth.

02:00:58

Now you have a comparing and contrasting the beginning with the ends of the earth to earth's end with all the way from the beginning of the earth's foundation, the beginning.

02:01:09

And so the point is the ends of the earth, I really looked into this. The Hebraic rhetorical device is called a merism.

02:01:17

A merism is a type of synecdoche that takes two contrasting parts that represent the totality of the whole.

02:01:26

And so this is being established earlier in the context with Yahweh being compared to idols made by human hands.

02:01:34

So my point is, this is talking about exhaustively everything. God declares it before it exists.

02:01:39

And at the moment of choice, all human agents cannot do differently than what

02:01:44

God has eternally declared. Amen. Had to get a little bit of the salt bae in there.

02:01:51

So AK, you're tenacious, brother. I'll give you that. He's still trying to get on. Oh yeah.

02:01:59

Dude, AK, I think he is one of the sharpest guys that's on the internet.

02:02:04

And that's why I wanted to debate him. I hope this doesn't sound weird, but I've done a lot of debates on Marlon's channel and Donnie's channel.

02:02:13

And there's been a sense, and I think it's just kind of who I am. I go all in to these things, really study in depth.

02:02:20

And of all the debates that I've done, there's just been a sense of being underwhelmed. And I knew that was not going to be the case with AK.

02:02:29

Because he's the man. And we've done about the same amount of debates. And so I was excited to bring some philosophical terms into this because I knew

02:02:38

AK was going to be checked a little bit on that. But I absolutely loved it. People have asked me weird questions like, who won, who won?

02:02:44

I'm like, number one, you never declare victory. That's just petty, in my opinion. But everything you could hope in a debate,

02:02:51

I think you will get in our debate. Two people that are unbending in their positions going toe to toe.

02:02:57

Absolutely. Yeah, that definitely came through. So what I'm going to do, AK, is

02:03:03

I'm going to send a Facebook group message to you, me, Jeremiah, and Tyler Vela.

02:03:10

And that'll be an epic program. That'll be an epic. I may bring a thing of popcorn with me. That'll be an epic, epic smackdown.

02:03:17

Apostasy will be hurled everywhere and all this stuff. And you're just begging the question of incompatibilism.

02:03:24

We'll bring Colton Carlson on too. Colton is the man. I actually called him before the debate, and I got him to answer my questions for about an hour and a half.

02:03:33

I mean, I think Colton is the man. Oh, no. I mean, when it comes to the philosophical end, the dude's just thinking, he's like that Bignon guy.

02:03:43

So when you scroll down on my video, you see those two books that I tell people to go look into?

02:03:52

That's Beyond's book, Excusing Sinners and Blaming God. I sent that to AK and said, hey, now

02:03:57

I said this. I hope people don't get mad at me. But I said, if you want a book that's better than James Wyatt's The Potter's Freedom for what

02:04:03

I was defending, here's Beyond's book. And that's not to knock James Wyatt in any sense, but Beyond is a

02:04:13

Calvinist French philosopher. So he's the one that lays out these categories that are in the literature.

02:04:20

And basically, it just shows you how to interact with the incompatibilist. So AK already shut it down.

02:04:28

He doesn't want to talk to Vela. Oh, AK. I did not think that you would freely choose to say no to Vela.

02:04:36

Well, it's his mind and his rationality kicking in. But he secretly has a desire to do it, though, that he's fighting right now that he doesn't have control of.

02:04:45

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. All right, you got any final thoughts? Because we're at two hours, and my wife's probably like, this dude.

02:04:53

I got permission. I can truly use the word permission. Oh, yeah, I don't have. Well, I guess

02:04:58

I do. But David, thanks for having me on. Like I said, when you were messaging me, I thought, oh, man,

02:05:04

David Lewis, I've watched your stuff for years because you were on the gospel truth kind of early on many years ago, right?

02:05:15

Yeah, my first debate ever was with Paulman, David Paulman. Oh, my goodness. You know, I'm actually a fan of Paulman.

02:05:22

Yeah, I love Paulman. He unfriended me. Did he? Oh, man. Yeah, because, you know, I like to joke around.

02:05:28

Like you saw that in the debate with AK. You know, I just I want to break the tension. I want to keep it light.

02:05:34

But I understand these are serious things. But I want to build friendship. Anyway, so me and Dave, maybe we'll be friends again one day.

02:05:42

He used to co -host a show, Apostasize or. Proselytize.

02:05:48

Proselytize that's changed to Faith Unaltered. And they had me on to talk about not too long ago. So I didn't know if David would be on there.

02:05:55

But anyway, I just want to thank you, David. I just want to remind the audience, please go check out the apologetic dog.

02:06:01

And I have a couple more debates coming up in the future. In August, I'm debating an

02:06:06

Anabaptist. I believe he is on baptismal regeneration in September. I'm getting to speak at a an eschatology conference of all things on the resurrection of the dead.

02:06:19

And then I'm going to have another debate that's still in the works. We haven't nailed down a date yet, but I believe it's in October.

02:06:25

I'll be debating this Church of Christ on baptism, of course. And lastly, in February, I'm going to be speaking at a conference once again on eschatology, more of an apologetic against full preterism.

02:06:39

If you haven't heard of it, people, you're OK. You're not missing out on anything. It just says that Jesus Christ already returned at 70

02:06:46

AD and we're living in this post -redemptive era. And it just it's a bunch of craziness.

02:06:52

But are you a partial preterist? So I tell people this, this is a hard question because you just got to go deeper into what that means.

02:07:02

Like if we just look at the Olivet Discourse, I am OK with saying when he says this generation.

02:07:09

Yeah, there was a lot of things to fill, perhaps in that first generation. But that day, that future day where the parrhesia is supposed to happen and Jesus in the incarnation didn't even know that's future.

02:07:21

And so I think I think there's still a good conversation to have what's in the past, what's in the future. And I'd say where my heart rests in is in all the essentials that are shared by all the

02:07:30

Orthodox. So I think I would lean in the partial preterist way of thing.

02:07:37

Yeah, I mean, I've been looking into it. I don't know, but I've been following the Gary DeMar stuff and trying to. Oh, my goodness.

02:07:43

Channel and he said, absolutely not. Yeah, he's not going to do it. But you know, but my the way

02:07:49

I view the fact that you have to call something partial is a problem to me. Like you have to even add that word to your position.

02:07:55

But I think partial preterism versus full preterism is similar to Presbyterians who argue about you can't give communion to to chill.

02:08:04

Like it's like the consistent thing, probably with the hermeneutic is full preterism.

02:08:11

Like in my opinion, like just the same way the consistent hermeneutic should be. You should give covenant children communion.

02:08:18

You really should. I mean, those guys have like Doug Wilson is right. Those guys are correct. And are you are you historic pre meal?

02:08:25

Yeah, yeah. Well, well, I don't know. See, I'm still I'm like James White was

02:08:30

James White totally like gets where I'm like when he's like, you know, there was a time in his for a long time where he just was like.

02:08:39

You know, eschatology. That's how I feel about it. But yes, the reason why this is even been dumped in my lap is in my hometown,

02:08:47

Jonesboro, Arkansas. There are two churches that are preaching full preterism from the pulpit.

02:08:52

So everybody's recruiting the apologetic dog. What do we do? And I'm like, dang, I can't just be dispensational pre meal anymore because team

02:09:00

Johnny Mac, I have to study these issues out and war against heresy. Yeah, I mean, the thing that so that I was listening to them are and just the one interpretation where they just totally lost me is when

02:09:13

Jesus ascends into heaven in Acts one. And he says in the angel says, why are you staring up in heaven?

02:09:21

He will return the same way he came. They go. See, see, it will be a secret return. It'll be a secret return.

02:09:26

Only a few people will see it. That's 70 AD. I'm like, OK, you guys are I'm just done now. I can't. Yeah, well, that's there.

02:09:32

They mangle First Corinthians 15, which talks about the resurrection of the dead that will be at his

02:09:37

Parisia. They have to reinterpret the deny future bodily return. They have to say this is somehow talking about old covenant

02:09:45

Israel, a very dispensational hermeneutic because they have to have that at the end, which is always 70

02:09:51

AD in their mind. I mean, I know we're getting off topic a little bit. Oh, OK, well, no, this is good, though, because you're you're one of your biggest fans says he'll take your side on this debate.

02:10:01

It's funny anyway. A .K., everyone keep an eye out for my response to this review. Good night, guys. And I'm going to be in the chat asking to come on a hundred times.

02:10:08

I need you to deny me every time. OK, just to get me back. And then your boy, full preterism is belched out from the pit.

02:10:17

I will support any Calvinist willing to demolish full preterism in the debate. All right, we got a team debate. Thank you.

02:10:23

This is maybe the nicest thing. Think, oh, yeah, software has said to me.

02:10:31

So we have we have we have achieved some. OK, so here's what I want to hear. Here's I'm going to take us out with.

02:10:37

I'm taking us out with the A .W. Pink quote. All right. So some of you guys in our Calvinists, if you don't even know what

02:10:43

A .W. Pink's all about, you're about to you're about to learn. But just so everyone knows, A .W. Pink died on an island with his wife saying he was the only true

02:10:51

Christian. Everyone else was apostate. I don't know if people realize that A .W. I didn't realize that. Yeah, yeah. If you read his biography, he's he had some issues toward the end.

02:11:00

I know I have Calvinist friends that are like that, sadly, that think they're the only regenerate people and they meet in a living room and like they're the true true.

02:11:08

Anyway, streams. Yeah. OK, so here here's the quote. The sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of God.

02:11:14

What do we mean by this expression? We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the

02:11:20

Godhood of God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that he is the most high doing according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth so that none can stay his hand or say unto him what doest thou?

02:11:37

Daniel 435. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that he is the almighty, the possessor of all power in heaven and earth so that none can defeat his counsels, thwart his purpose, or resist his will.

02:11:48

Psalm 115, 3. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that he is the governor among the nations.

02:11:54

Psalm 22, 28, setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires and determining the course of dynasties as pleases him best.

02:12:02

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that he is the only potentate, the king of kings and lord of lords.

02:12:07

1 Timothy 6 .15. Such is the God of the Bible. How different is the

02:12:12

God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom? The conception of deity which prevails most widely today, even among those professed to give heed to the scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the truth.

02:12:26

The God of the 20th century is a helpless effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man.

02:12:32

The God of the popular mind is the creation of maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present -day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe -inspiring reverence.

02:12:46

To say the God of the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, that God the

02:12:54

Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ, when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellow men are dying in sin and passing into a hopeless eternity, is to say that God the

02:13:05

Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue boldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion.

02:13:14

To argue that God is, quote, trying his best to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let him save them, is to insist that the will of the creator is impotent and the will of the creature is omnipotent.

02:13:26

To throw the blame, as many do upon the devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purposes of God, then

02:13:32

Satan is almighty and God is no longer the supreme being. Bam! A .W. Pink, baby.

02:13:39

Go on monergism .com and you can download every A .W. Pink thing there is, and chapellibrary .com.

02:13:47

So have you ever heard of Chapel Library? Oh, dude, it's like the Calvinist infiltration tracks that you can get.

02:13:55

Spurgeon little booklets, pink booklets, J .C. Ryle booklets, it's all kind of stuff, it's good.

02:14:02

So anyway, so thanks everyone for joining us, Jeremiah. Thanks for joining me, man. This was a great, I don't know what

02:14:08

AK thought of it, but he tuned in for the whole two hours and 15 minutes. I think he's still on there. And yeah,

02:14:14

I'll plug you, AK. Will everyone keep an eye on it? What is AK's channel called anyway? Do you remember? I think it's just his name.

02:14:20

Yeah, just, yeah, it is. Well, there it is right on there. All right, cool. Well, Jeremiah, we'll tune out here.