Two Very Diffferent Calls on the Dividing Line

And welcome back to the Dividing Line, let's go to our phone callers and let's talk with Corey.

Hello, Corey, how are you? Can you hear me well? Yes, I can.

All right, give a shout out to my boy, John O 'Hanlon, he's one of your nauseous followers.

He put me up to this, that he wants me to call in to face you, because he gets all his knowledge,

I guess, from you and some other people at some other website. When you speak about the book of John, and when

John says that God is love, then when you look in the book of Corinthians, and it says that love has no memory of wrongdoing, so does that mean that we can sin all we want?

Because God forgives everybody, and everybody's going to heaven. Well, first of all, that is an amazing use of scripture to tie things together that are completely different contexts, first of all.

Secondly, God does not forgive everyone, forgiveness is found only in and through Jesus Christ and faith in his name.

And thirdly, clearly not everyone's going to heaven, because the Bible says that there are those who abide in the wrath of God.

So I say that because the Bible says that. Do you believe the

Bible? The Bible says what I just said. The Bible says... You see, the problem with the cafeteria of the

Bible is that you guys can pick and choose everything that you want out of it. And that's exactly, that's not, that's not...

Okay, Corey, there's something called exegesis. It is where you actually handle the word of God properly in a way that allows you to understand what its original authors intended it to say.

And that means... And that involves looking at the original languages and the original context and honoring the text so that you can actually say, this is what they meant, not this is just what

I want them to say. And your presentation demonstrated that you don't engage in meaningful exegesis of even a historical text, whether you believe it's the word of God or not,

I don't know that you do. But you can't just simply take a text and throw a few things together and say, aha,

I mean, I could take any email you've written, pull a sentence from here, a sentence from there and turn you into anything

I want to. That's just absurd. That's not how people reason. That's not how you do any type of honest discussion of anything, is it?

The book isn't confusing, sir. It is only those people who have a reason to turn it into something that is confusing, as you seem to do, that are confused, that are confusing about it.

If you have to learn another language to sit up there and read the book, obviously it must be set up to be confusing.

I've known a lot of people who have fully understood the message of God's word because they honored it and actually wanted to know what it was saying and allowed the authors to speak for themselves who never learned a word of Greek or Hebrew.

But it is extremely helpful in the proclamation of the word because, obviously, English didn't exist when the

Bible was written. We are living in a world where the language we use came into existence after that document was written.

And it is a simple matter of honesty and factuality and logic and rationality that if you're going to do in -depth study of an ancient text in any university, you would need to learn about its context, its background, and things like that, which is why

God also gave us a church where people are able to do that. And then we regularly instruct others that have not had the opportunities we've had in those very things.

I do that every Sunday morning, in fact. Okay. You understand there's no logic in the

Bible. Where is there any logic? There's no logic. Well, that's such a basic statement that is so broad that how in the world could

I even begin to respond to it? I find the biblical presentation of the Creator and His purposes in creation and His purposes in Jesus Christ to be eminently logical, to be the very definition of logic.

And in fact, I would challenge you that without the Christian God, you can't even tell me what logic is to begin with without contradicting yourself at some point.

But that's not even what you're talking about. You're making some kind of other wild accusation here.

No, I'm not. Okay, so do you have... The what?

Semetic. Semetic? Semetic science. Semetic science. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Okay. It's the original religion from Africa. The original religion from Africa?

Yes. But you can look on the walls of the caves and see the stories that were taken from their story and made into the story of Jesus.

Oh, really? You mean the Egyptians or something like that? Which of the many alleged sources of the life of story of Jesus are you talking about?

Osiris, maybe? Yeah, there's so many. Why are there so many? What's, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Corey, Corey, first of all,

I've looked at every possible one that I've been able to find, a legend source, and find these to be so grossly bogus, it's almost laughable, but I'm not gonna laugh.

But I just wanted to point out the illogic in what you just said. Okay. How can there be all these different sources for the same story, given how different the religions were?

Are you seriously suggesting that the Apostles sitting there in first century Judea took religions from Africa and Egypt and Babylon and Greece and Italy and and maybe the

Hindus and and they just put them all in a big old pot and stirred it up and said here the Jews will believe this and create the story of Jesus is that what you're really suggesting?

Forced upon people? Okay, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa,

Corey, Corey, Corey, Corey, whoa, whoa, whoa, we've got to have some rationality here on the program.

You just went off Glenn Beck and Tea Partiers without even addressing my question.

How on earth could someone, how, how on earth can you say that anyone was forced to believe in Christianity when

Christianity was a persecuted religion until 313 AD and people died to believe in it?

What do you mean it's not true? It's a historical fact. The Edict of Toleration in 313,

Emperor Constantine made a religio licita. You're not aware of these things? Corey, Corey, yo,

Corey, Corey, hello, Corey, hello, Corey, Corey, Constantine had nothing to do with the books of the

Bible. The Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the books of the

Bible. You cannot provide me one scintilla of historical evidence that the

Council of Nicaea had anything to do with the canon of Scripture whatsoever.

It's a myth. It is absolutely... There are a lot of people, a lot of scientists and stuff that believe that, and you're like the only one.

Excuse me, sir, name me a single church historian who's published anything who says that the

Council of Nicaea had anything to do with the canon of Scripture. Name me one. That's because, sir, you are wrong, okay?

You are simply, documentably, historically wrong. Constantine did not have anything to do with the canon.

The Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the canon, and I wrote a paper on that subject, which is available if you'd like to read it, called

What Really Happened at the Council of Nicaea. I would suggest you take a look at it.

I watched your video about it, and it just seems like you just always... Well, Corey, if you would give us some rational arguments, maybe we could respond to your rational arguments, but so far you've given us nothing.

Okay, I'm giving you plenty of rational arguments. Okay, for those people who say Jesus was all -knowing, omniscient, and omnipresent, why wouldn't you...

Excuse me. Hello, Corey. Omnipresent? Yes. You really think that someone during Jesus' ministry said he was omnipresent?

Nobody said that. Did he take on flesh? He took on flesh, but his father was omnipresent, right?

Okay, the father, but not the son. Are you Trinitarian or not? You don't believe in the

Trinity. I've defended the doctrine of the Trinity against Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many, many others, sir.

He's not part of the Father, sir. Sir, he's not part of the Father. The Father, the

Son, and the Spirit together share in fullness the one being that is

God. He is not, quote, part of the Father, end quote. What?

Why? Which I just said he's not.

I just said that the three persons share the one being that is

God, yes. That doesn't mean he's part of the Father. Excuse me, but Jesus gave his life voluntarily.

As he himself said, no one takes my life from me. I give it of my own accord.

Yes, it does. In fact, I think for the vast majority of folks listening today, not only does it make sense to them, but what they're also demonstrating, seeing, is that you're very, very confused and have gotten hold of a lot of really bad information.

Okay, if you think about it logically, if I'm God, if I'm the Father, what sense does that make?

I go and get stabbed and killed. That's fatal masochistic. It has absolutely nothing to do, sir, with going to heaven.

It has to do with giving your life a ransom for many so that... ...you've

invested more than sufficient time in demonstrating that Corey is not quite really being honest with...

Well, in fact, that wasn't what you had put on the screen at all as to what you wanted to talk about.

It was like, phew, way off into the na -na land very, very quickly. Yes, but let me make it clear, he's a realist.

Is that what he said he was, a realist? I asked him, are you oneness? He says,

I'm a realist. A realist, okay. What does that mean? He says, are you... But he doesn't like Glenn Beck and he doesn't like the

Tea Party. We did get that part. And he says, I'm a realist. There you go. He says,

I believe in God. Okay, all right, we've done enough there. Let's talk with Mike in Wisconsin.

Hi, Mike. Hey, Dr. White. How are you doing? Good, how are you doing? Recovering from the last call.

On another note, I just wanted to thank you and encourage you.

You have been, God has used you mightily in helping me grow as a

Christian, theologically. And I just wanted to call and just thank you very much.

I mean, you don't know how much you've helped, I mean, over the years. Well, first of all,

Mike, you're making me feel very old here all of a sudden. Yeah, a long time. Yeah, I'm 23.

Okay. And soon after I became a Christian, somewhere around I was like 16, somewhere around there.

Soon after I came to the Calvinistic doctrines of grace through Potter's Freedom.

And I've read that many times. Actually, I could go on and on. Basically, I just wanted to thank you and just from the lesser to the greater, encourage you.

Well, Mike, that's obvious. I find that extremely encouraging. We're a small ministry, and when we hear from folks, it is always a reason to continue to press on.

It's also a reason to continue to take some of the lumps that you take when you address some of the issues that you do, because hopefully one of the things that you have seen over the years as you have listened to the dividing line or followed the debates is

I absolutely am committed to the necessity of being consistent in my handling of Scripture and consistent in what

I speak on. And I really hope that that's something we communicate clearly, especially to young men and women who are making decisions about the rest of your lives.

Having that foundation and being committed to truth is just absolutely vital, and I hope that comes across.

Absolutely. That's one of the things that you try to be consistent in your actions and in your debating and so forth.

I wanted to say something, too. I notice an evangelistic element in your debating that I really appreciate.

It's not just this academic arguing all this abstract stuff and all this historical stuff.

That is there, and it's very scholarly, but just the evangelistic element. Like, for example, in one of the debates you did with a

Muslim, you said you're borrowing his air. And that is just the power of the proclamation of the truth, because really there is no debate when it comes down to it.

You know what I mean? And just the proclamation of the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. And it's just proclaiming

His truth. Well, just don't let any of my critics who are constantly saying that I don't preach the gospel, don't let them know about that so that we can keep doing that.

But obviously that is something that I do seek to do, especially when

I have those in the audience that hold the position I'm debating, is to try to bring the truth of God to bear upon them.

Not in the way that I'm cheapening the debate by saying,

OK, I've got you here, so now I'm just going to preach at you. No, I want to be honest about doing the debate and the subject.

But if there is a way to make a presentation to bring that truth home, so they're not just walking out of the place with, oh, that was an interesting dialogue.

But no, you have to do something with what you've heard this evening. Yeah, that's something that I've attempted to do, and I'm glad at least someone has noticed it.

Yeah, absolutely. Just, you know, God is using you mightily in people's lives that you don't even know about.