Molinism and Michael Rood on a Jumbo Edition of the Dividing Line

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00:36

Good to have you along with us today. Someone just posted a channel, you know you're desperate for an answer when you look on the second page of Google.

00:44

That does say something about our society today, I must, I must confess, hey, next week going to be up in the

00:51

Sacramento area. I was just saying to Micah, who is up in that area, I was saying

00:57

I'm a little scared because the California Capitol is there and I'm not accustomed to being around that many unconfined crazy people and in fact

01:12

I just saw today there's a bill in the California legislature, as long as it gets to the legislature, it'll pass the legislature, unless it makes sense, to allow people to dine with their dogs.

01:26

Yeah, so that's California for you, nothing is too zany to get through the

01:35

California state legislature, it is, it's gonna be scary, but we'll be there, we're doing foreign missions work,

01:41

I consider this foreign missions work to go to Sacramento, ha, craziness, craziness.

01:48

And then a little while ago, Sam Shamoon tweeted an article that was just posted on Answering Muslims and I took a quick look at it and I noticed a quote from Yaya Snow, which

02:05

I found interesting. It says, I'm saddened to note that no Muslim country is in the list helping the

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Nigerian authorities find the missing girls. Let's think about that for a moment.

02:18

Um, last week I was looking around and I found a single one article written by a

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Muslim arguing from the Hadith, the Quran, the

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Sunnah, against what Boko Haram has done and is doing. A single one.

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And I even asked some folks, do you know of any, any articles?

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I mean, I would think that the Muslim websites would be flooded with Muslim scholars demonstrating that what

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Boko Haram is doing is un -Islamic, it's contradictory to the Hadith, it's contradictory to the example of Muhammad, it's contradictory to the

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Quran. I would think there would be a bazillion of those running around. I found one and then

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I looked a little closer and it was by an Ahmadi Muslim. Now who are the, who's that?

03:20

Well, from the Sunni perspective, the Ahmadi are not even Muslims. They are similar to, they would have the same, see the

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Ahmadi believe that there has been a prophet since Muhammad. So what defines

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Islam from the Sunni perspective is the absolute unrepeatability of prophethood after Muhammad.

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I mean, that's just, you might argue that next to Tawhid, and I would argue in some ways maybe even in place of Tawhid, in some people's thinking, the uniqueness of the prophethood of Muhammad is absolutely the definitional truth of Islam.

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And so, obviously from the Sunni perspective, the Ahmadi are not Muslims, they are the same as from our perspective what

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Jehovah's Witnesses would be, a cult, so on and so forth. So I think that's important to keep in mind and here it was, it was an

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Ahmadi that was, and they're known for being peaceful. I mean, I've told the story about running into the imam of the mosque on Long Island at one of the debates and he was a wonderful guy.

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And unfortunately, in places like Pakistan, the Sunnis beat up on the Ahmadi, killed them, persecuted them, things like that.

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But the one article I found arguing that what Boko Haram is doing is un -Islamic, came from Ahmadi, I'm really surprised,

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I'm really, really surprised. But Yahya Snow sort of points it out here,

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I'm saddened to note that no Muslim country is in the list helping the Nigerian authorities find the missing girls. I think part of that is because they're just scared to death.

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I mean, Boko Haram scares Al -Qaeda. So that tells you a little something about how radical these individuals are.

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But let's face it, people who kidnap little girls are the very essence of evil.

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Very essence of evil. I mean, there should be just a chorus of condemnation and the equivalent of excommunication.

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Because I mean, these people are the very essence of cowardice. Kidnapping schoolgirls?

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Really? How about trying to kidnap like SEAL Team 6, would you like to try that?

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A little more, you know, a little fair fight, you know? Try it, try that out. I mean, these people are so evil,

05:58

I can just honestly say that without the slightest hesitation. Not only is

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Hellfire where they're going, unless in some amazing way they are led to a knowledge of Christ.

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But I think if they found where the leaders of this group were, a Hellfire missile would be a very good idea.

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It really would be. I mean, these people are on the very same level as the

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Nazi SS and the Stalin and all those guys.

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They're just as disgustingly evil. And yet no one will use that terminology anymore.

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I'll tell you what, if we live in a world where you can't even identify that which is disgustingly evil as disgustingly evil, those who are disgustingly evil will take over.

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Because there will be no one to fight them. And that's what political correctness does, it rips the soul out of humanity.

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It makes me ill. Anyway, so yeah, we have that going on with Boko Haram.

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I grabbed this video, totally changing subjects here. I grabbed this video, I don't know, it might be a month ago or more,

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I don't know. Never got around to it. And the only reason I got around to it today is we're still doing all sorts of moving stuff around and working on my desk and things like that.

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And so I was moving stuff off my desktop, my computer desktop, on my new

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Mac, because you know how it gets all, well, this is too cluttered over here, I'm going to have to clean it up pretty soon.

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And you stick stuff into archive files and eventually, you know, it says, I'm out of hard drive space.

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And you wonder why. I don't know how it could happen. So I was moving stuff over on my new

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Mac and I ran across this video and I said, you know, I don't think I ever got to this.

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And so I put in Dropbox, open it up over on this side. And I started listening to this and I was like, oh man, this is, this is,

08:09

I need to, I need to cover this. Now I almost hesitate, I almost hesitate, because there's more in this video clip

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I'd like to respond to, but I just don't have the time to go into all the details. And I know what happens when you respond to one element of something, you don't respond to everything else about, ah, but you can't respond to him on this.

08:34

And I have a feeling this guy has probably got some, shall we say, interesting online friends who could, oh, someone's asking if they can get my shirt at Carla's site.

08:49

No, we, uh, uh, we, we only had, we only make these sort of like for you and I, basically, and we only done it a couple of times.

08:58

Um, you know, it's actually a nice place. The person asking though might be worth, worth getting something for it.

09:05

Well, we'll work it out. We'll work it out. Um, anyway, pop the phones up.

09:12

Why? Oh, okay. Well, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll do that eventually. Anyways.

09:18

Well, why is this guy prophetic and he knew I was going to be referring to him.

09:23

I, I don't know if that's a, if that's a good thing or not, but, um, did he, where'd they go?

09:29

There they are. Okay. Establishing connection with server. Still establishing connection with the server.

09:39

Connection failed. Isn't that great?

09:46

Try again. Huh? Okay. All right. Um, it's the live program. Establishing connections.

09:52

If it doesn't come up immediately, I ain't getting through. So you, uh, you might need to just, you just have to tag, you have to private message me, whatever it is you're trying to communicate to me because I can't bring the phones up.

10:03

So, uh, I'm, I'm sorry about that, but, uh, oh, okay.

10:10

Uh, you're gonna have to, yeah, you'd have to use that to let me know what's, uh, what's, what's on online. Well, we'll, we'll get, uh, is, does he need to get in immediately is, uh, all right.

10:20

I don't want to burn the guy's cell. We'll get back to the guy who's going to be mean and nasty to me later on, but, uh,

10:27

I've got a, got a call from, uh, from a fellow who has been in the, in the trenches literally.

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And uh, so let's, uh, let's talk to Rich. Hi Rich. Hey, how are you doing today, James? Or should

10:39

I say greetings, Colonel? Yeah, I prefer. I'm civilian now.

10:45

I've been retired for a few years, but I appreciate that. Well, but, uh, don't you ever once in a while go

10:50

Semper Fi? Yeah, I still get into that. I mean, it's kind of, it's different now,

10:58

I should say. All right. So, uh, I'm sorry we missed each other when you were out in our neck of woods, but I'm sure you'll be out here again.

11:05

But, um, you know, you've been, um, bringing up William Lane Craig a lot. And then you had that, um, fellow you debated on, uh,

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Calvinism, the, the no longer reformed guy, the young person, no longer reformed guy.

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You know, one of the things that's been bothering me for some time, I had, um, had a cigar with Mike Horton like two years ago.

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And one of the things he was talking about was he had, he had William Lane Craig into his, one of his seminary classes.

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And one of the things William Lane Craig talked about is how he believed his knowledge was univocal with God.

11:42

And I know that's a technical term, but I think it really, it fundamentally, um, identifies what

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William Lane Craig's problem is, as well as the person you talked to. It, you know, one of the things that, that's true, uh, been true of Reformed theology and actually handed down in Christian theology historically was that God is completely different than us.

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I mean, are, are the difference between the way we see things and the way that God understands things is theologically different in, in the, in the sense that we can have true theology, but it's creaturely theology and what

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God's theology or knowledge of things is, is as the creator. And one of the things that came out loud and clear in your debate with the, uh, former

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Calvinist is that he kept looking for analogs that he could understand. That he thought that analogical thinking was that he would have to see it exactly the way

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God would see it, or it wouldn't be, or it wouldn't be just. And when you look at the way William Lane Craig operates, um, it makes complete sense that if he thinks that the way he views a thing is the way that God's is, then you're going to start with philosophy, because whatever corresponds to philosophical, um, thinking in terms of what humans would consider to be just and true, then he's going to see that as something that's good.

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So he's going to proceed from there, and then he's going to, like a Procrustean dad, make theology fit into what he's already determined God is thinking on something, because whatever is in the mind of William Lane Craig is in the mind of God.

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And so, um, you know, when you, when you say that, well, that, when he says that's theologically fruitful, he's not looking for exegetical things, he's looking for, he's looking for scriptures that won't prevent him from the philosophical conclusions he's already come to.

13:30

And this is, this is, you know, like, one of the things you see in Calvin repeatedly is his insistence in the danger of what he calls curiosity, in terms of peering into divine wisdom outside of, outside of revelation.

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And one of the things he repeatedly says is that it's better to limp along, you know, with the thread of divine revelation than try to behold the divine majesty, because what happens is you enter into an inextricable labyrinth.

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And so, you know, all of these things, I think, in terms of how he approaches this, and you see it increasingly, is the idea that, you know, the way that we see things and the way that God sees things are the same.

14:10

And I just wondered if you've noticed that or given some consideration to that kind of divide there.

14:16

Well, I think really what you're talking about, though, very much soaked in the, in the language of the institutes a number of times there, is what

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I've, one of the things I was going to be getting to later today when I, when I respond to an article that's been written in criticism of me that starts off philosophy matters rather than theology matters, is this, this whole, the, the starting point and where we begin is, is all important.

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And it just strikes me that for the Christian, the starting point has to be

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God's revelation. Now, the, these individuals try to say, well, but, but the revelations in words and, and there's, there's all sorts of theories of language and theories of truth and theories of, of meaning.

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And, and there's all this other stuff that you've got to talk about as if when

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God said to Adam, do not eat of this tree, Adam said,

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I'm really not sure what you mean. Could we discuss the theory of epistemology that you're currently utilizing to provide this command to me because I might misunderstand it in light of this person's particular theory of the incommunicability of certain modalistic ways of thought and, you know, and, and they go running off into these areas rather than,

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I obviously believe that a Christian begins with God's revelation and then under the

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Lordship of Christ, you can examine all these other areas. But the, the concern

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I have is the God centeredness and the revelation centeredness of Christianity versus very much the man centeredness of man's philosophical systems.

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And, uh, that ends up and see the real concern I have with Molinism is that this ends up being imported as a, as a hermeneutical methodology, uh, as a hermeneutical concept that then ends up determining, uh, what we're going to believe.

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And it is just so foreign to scripture. It's so far outside of, of, uh,

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Christian thought all the way up to the time of the Reformation. Um, that, and, and it's, it would never suggest itself.

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The individual who is simply reading, uh, the scriptures and when I say simply reading,

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I'm not saying that anyone ever reads the scriptures without certain presuppositions, but the point is that you will never utilizing the same hermeneutical methodology that you use to demonstrate the deity of Christ, the doctrine, the trend of the resurrection or justification by faith or anything else.

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You will never come to Molinism by the consistent utilization of that kind of interpretation.

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And so to, to import this the way that they do, and then to basically sit back and say, and you know what, if you don't get it, it's just because you're not quite as up to speed as all the rest of us are, you know, it's, it all, and it really becomes a, a, a, a form of Gnosticism where you have to go through this certain, you know, these certain ceremonies called the graduate philosophy programs to, uh, be, uh, uh, granted the, the great insight to be able to understand finally the actual activities of God when it has so little to do with the, the text of scripture itself, uh, that it's, uh, it's an amazing thing.

17:47

Right. I mean, and I think that, you know, I, I guess why I keep coming back to this issue when

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I see it is, you know, in, in the Infallible Wood, it's a book from the 60s, um, by the, the staff of Westminster Seminary, and, uh,

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Van Till has a really interesting article in there, um, on, on natural revelation and the conviction that even, even, that all knowledge is by revelation, and that we stand in relation to the

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Creator in every bit that we have. And I think most people, including, and as evidenced by Craig, they look at the world as a data point, or the universe as data, that God and, and, and we are both dealing with the data points external to, external to God and external to us, and we each, just like God, have to figure out the data ourselves, and that's, and knowledge comes by the consumption of that data rather than it being by revelation, and that God knowing everything comprehensively, and so we have to stand as creatures and, and recognize our limitations, and know that the one who knows things comprehensively instructs what

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He reveals about it, and so that only by, only by special revelation to where we're redeemed to worship the

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Creator can we actually even understand the world around us, and then start to make some, some deductions.

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Anyway, I appreciate your time, it's just been bothering me, I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on that, but, you know,

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I think that, you know, backing up an issue, I just see that as, as one of the fundamental starting points that people think of, of God as just a bigger version, or a smarter version of them, rather than, than wholly other as Creator.

19:28

Right. Yeah, that has a, has a tremendous impact, and that'll come up a good bit as we look at an article

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I'm about to look at, so maybe you'll find that to be helpful, too. But hey, thanks for your call today, Rich! Thank you,

19:39

God bless you. All right, God bless. Well, that changes everything I was going to do. Instead of going to the video, we'll go ahead and review this article, and then hopefully have enough time to get to the video toward the end of the program, depending on how long we go.

19:52

One of the reasons we've sort of started doing 3 o 'clock our time, 6 o 'clock Eastern time is it gives us time to sort of make a decision as to how long the program's going to go, and fit everything in without having to rush.

20:04

So, we will see. Zachary Lawson wrote a blog article that, as I said, began with the line,

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Philosophy Matters, and then it says, James White missing the mark on Mullinism, and he's a nice guy, and he says he likes me, and he even put a picture of my book on the

20:29

Quran with him doing a thumbs up next to it. So, that's great.

20:35

But it is frustrating to me, and it's frustrating,

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I think, to a lot of people in the audience, how often these discussions of Mullinism seem to just cause us to pass like ships in the night in attempting to speak with Mullinists.

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And just as the common accusation is, well, you just don't know enough about philosophy.

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You know, I don't run around, I don't spend my time reading the newest blog posts, the newest published articles, but I have taught

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Christian philosophy religion for years, and it's not like I'm a complete idiot.

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I think one of the problems is for some of you guys, especially some of you younger guys, you think that the only way to address these issues is by, well, sort of the, if you ever read the

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Mishnah, you know what I'm about to make reference to, but the Jewish leaders would always make their points by quoting from somebody else.

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Rabbi so -and -so said this, and Rabbi so -and -so said that, and when you read the Mishnah, it just drives you crazy after a while.

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And there is a form of scholarship where you demonstrate your, your great knowledge by always referring to other folks.

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This generally leaves the average person that you're attempting to edify completely in the dark because they haven't read those things.

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My tendency in teaching on whatever it is, you know, later on, I'm gonna be talking about textual criticism.

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Well, I may make reference to some certain scholars, but I'll explain why.

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And unfortunately, a lot of my very philosophically minded, especially young male critics seem to think that you demonstrate your great understanding by how often you quote someone who's bigger than you are.

22:32

Anyway, we, we don't seem to be talking very clearly, and I'd like to respond to some of the things that were said in this, in this article.

22:39

He says, uh, uh, Molinism is rather philosophically robust, and one can't hear

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Molinism in its own language with philosophical misunderstandings. He says it is worth mentioning that in this latest podcast,

22:54

Dr. White's comments reflect a somewhat more accurate understanding of Molinism than came across in a previous podcast, which I addressed here and here.

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Well, notice something. Um, I don't think my views of Molinism have changed. The last podcast, what was

23:06

I doing? I was responding and reviewing a podcast by William Lane Craig, where he is specifically responding to criticisms.

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And so the clarity comes out primarily in what I was reviewing.

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That's very common. But to say it's rather, Molinism is rather philosophically robust. I would say it's just simply philosophically complicated, unnecessarily so.

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And in my experience, once you find a chink in the armor of one guy, most

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Molinists will say, yeah, but this guy over here has a different view on that. And then when you go after him, well, but, but have you read this guy over here?

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It is a constantly shifting target. Um, and when you say one can't hear

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Molinism in its own language, here's the problem, guys. If you guys just want to say Molinism exists out there and you all just go talk about philosophically fine, don't make application to the

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Bible. As soon as you bring it into the area of theology, now you need to change the standards that you use in the evaluation of merely philosophical concepts and discussions.

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And what you need to hear me saying is you guys who put philosophy first, you're promoting horrific eisegesis of the text and you're undercutting the theology of the revealed word of God on the basis of your robust philosophical positions.

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That's my problem. That's the issue here. Um, don't, don't say, well, you know, you're, you know, uh, the fellow who wants to be on next, if it's going to come on next week, he said, well,

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I just don't think you're philosophically trained enough to do good systematic theology. You know, this, this from someone who doesn't read any of the original languages, as far as I can tell, has never taught anything.

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Um, and yet as long as you've got your philosophy down, then you can do real systematic theology.

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That's backwards, upside down and dangerous. And if you want to say

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I'm a mean and terrible, horrible person for warning about it, fine. I think most people realize this isn't actually a, a bad thing to be, uh, to be discussing.

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Uh, someone, uh, mentioned a link. I don't, uh, if you just go to cap

25:32

Lawson, C -A -P -L -A -W -S -O -N .wordpress .com, uh, you'll be able to pull it up there if you want to look at it.

25:38

Um, I've obviously marked it up, so I just have the text. Okay. Uh, he says, um, the grounding objection, this remains

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Dr. White's biggest objection. Molinism and it permeates all of his other objections. By the way, uh, Zachary, have, have you read

25:53

Turretin on this? Um, I mean, I have a stack of books on Molinism that I actually, actually have, you know, dealt with, but again,

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I just don't do it that way. That's not how I teach. I sit there and go, well, you know, as so -and -so said, um, but it is,

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I think the fatal objection. He says, the grounding objection for those uninitiated is the rejection of middle knowledge on the basis that there is no grounding for counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.

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And Dr. White's words, how does God know what some creature, Sam, would do in certain circumstances?

26:30

Now, I think I've been a little clearer than that. Um, I really do.

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I think I've been real clear in, in, in saying that I believe that God can make statements about counterfactuals because there are certain statements in the

26:51

Bible that could be understood in that way. But the reason that God knows that the men of a certain city will do certain things given certain circumstances has nothing to do with Molinism.

27:07

Christians understood those texts just fine long before Molina came along because they all understood a basic revelation of scripture.

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And that is that God is our creator. And the reason he knows me and the reason he knows what

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I will do is because he decreed to create me in a particular fashion.

27:33

And so if you're going to say, no, no, no, no, that's not why

27:39

God will know what you would do. That's not, that's not why God knew what the men of a certain city would do.

27:45

That's not why you can say certain things about, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah and, and uh, if, if they had had the light and it has nothing to do with God's decree because of it's

27:57

God's decree, then the whole purpose. And it's the purpose of Molinism.

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It was created. The philosophical system was created to avoid the reformed, the reformation's emphasis upon the sovereignty of God.

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That's why Molina came up with the way he was obeying the command of the leader of the

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Jesuits to come up with a way around it. And that's what he came up with. So it's whole purpose is to provide a way around the sovereignty of God and provide a place for libertarian free will.

28:35

Okay. So if we, we can't have God's decree determining why he has knowledge of what

28:44

I would do because that's not middle knowledge. Middle knowledge says that between that knowledge

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God has of himself and that knowledge that comes from his choice to create in between are these true counterfactuals of libertarian freedom of creaturely freedom.

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And they are not determined. And this is what made the last, the last discussion by William Lane Craig so helpful.

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They are not determined by the will of God. They just are true. So there are things, not physical things, but things that have sufficient reality, whatever terminology you want to use, modals, all the rest, whatever you want to go into, fine, have fun, enjoy, but they have sufficient reality to constrain the actions of God because it is those true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom that determine the feasible worlds that God can bring into existence.

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He can't bring into existence a world where everyone's saved because of the content of that middle knowledge.

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And you, you might sit there and go, why do you keep trying to simplify things? Because I want everybody to understand what we're talking about.

30:06

That's why I'm not interested in impressing anybody. That's not why we do this.

30:12

If I was trying to impress people, I wouldn't be wearing what I'm wearing. Okay. You know, uh, we wouldn't have worried, you know, how many years did we have ceiling tiles on the back wall here?

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I mean, now we're trying to impress people, but you know, back then we weren't. Seven years. A long time. We wouldn't have done that.

30:29

So he goes on and this'll, this'll, this'll come out. It goes on to say, the grounding objection is from whence

30:38

Dr. White derives his card dealer argument. The card dealer argument is a rhetorical zinger that Dr.

30:45

White gets from conjoining the grounding objection with a bad analogy Dr. Craig made some years ago.

30:51

So whenever you don't like what Craig says, it's a bad analogy. You know? Um, how do you know it's a bad analogy?

30:58

It seemed to fit perfectly with what he just said in his most recent webcast. Why is it a bad analogy?

31:04

Where does that come from? Um, he says on Twitter, about to take me on task of DL, better be nice to me or I'll call him a hyper -Calvinist and go run high to Bruton Parker.

31:18

Um, you can call me a hyper -Calvinist all you want, used to that, uh, but I don't think they'd even want you at Bruton Parker.

31:24

So, uh, don't, don't worry Zachary, I'm, I'm just trying to, just trying to get you to hear what I'm saying too.

31:30

Uh, what? I, I, I understand that.

31:36

Uh, okay. Um, now I don't think it's a bad analogy. I think Craig is being just brutally honest.

31:44

He said in the most recent podcast he did that the truth value of those counterfactuals is not the result of the volitional action of God.

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So what is it? The result of that later on is going to go, well, that's a truth maker theory.

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The point is if it can constrain the actions of God, a

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Christian must be concerned about it. I would just,

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Zachary, do me a favor, put your philosophy books aside and just sit down in the quiet or if you need to have some

32:28

Bach in the background or something, that's okay. And just read

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Isaiah 40 through 48, just, just read it and ask yourself the question, is this

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God constrained in what he does by true counterfactuals that he did not volitionally determine the truth value of?

32:55

It just is. It sounds to me like a brute fact there. It sounds to me like you're saying there are just some things that are, and that's my objection.

33:07

That's my objection. And I'll be honest with you, Zachary, you didn't answer it here. Let's look at what you said.

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There are lots of moving pieces here, so I'll give a summary quick knowledge. Middle knowledge, God's knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom, i .e.

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what a person would do if they were in a certain, in certain circumstances. I would just expand upon that to say that these are not determined by God.

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And that's the big issue. Grounding objection. How does God know these counterfactuals, where they come from?

33:36

Yeah. Yeah. How does, how is there anything in this universe that is true to the level of constraining the possibilities of God's actions that are beyond his creative decree?

33:53

That's the issue. And that's about the simplest way I can put what Turretin said a long time ago.

33:58

You're going to talk about, oh, there's a, I'm all of us have answered this for 500 years. Yeah. And our objections have been around for 500 years too.

34:05

It doesn't mean that the objections have actually been answered. Dr. Craig's card analogy,

34:11

God has to deal with the cards he's been dealt. And that was specifically in regards to the limitations of the feasible worlds that God can actuate based upon the content of middle knowledge.

34:24

Is it not? Dr. White's card dealer, since God doesn't determine the truth of counterfactuals of freedom, they must come from something or someone else who is the card dealer.

34:33

He's the one we should be worshiping. Yeah. We need to identify what has determined, because look,

34:42

Zachary, biblically, would you want to debate honestly, would you want to debate that biblically the reason

34:53

God knows us is because God made us seriously?

35:02

Would anyone want to, I'm totally talking to Christians here. If you're a non -Christian philosopher and you just like to play games of the epistemology and stuff like that, then

35:12

I'm not talking to you. If you want to be a Molinist or whatever, you go do what you want. I'm talking to Christians here.

35:19

And you're going to tell me that the reason God knows what

35:24

I'm going to do has nothing to do with his decree that made me.

35:37

That's not what the Psalmist thought. He knew that God's intimate knowledge of him was due to the fact that he created him.

35:46

He made him. And he did so freely see theology matters.

35:54

And it trumps philosophy mattering because it determines the categories in which philosophy can be true or false from a

36:00

Christian perspective. And I'm saying to you, God's word says,

36:06

God knows me because God decreed to make me the way he did. So if you're telling me that my experience in this actuated world is not based upon God's freely choosing to make me and put me in this position and gift me with the gifts he's given me and call me the services he's called me to give.

36:32

But instead it was just the best he could do. I mean, that's just the cards he was dealt.

36:37

He picked them up and he said, oh, okay. That's not my God. That's that's not my

36:45

God. That's not the God I see in the Bible. So now in this divine line,

36:53

Dr. White makes the comment, where do these counterfactuals come from? Apparently that's not a question you can ask for the Molinist.

36:59

What's rather bothersome is that the grounding objection has been answered several different ways by several different Molinists in the past 500 years since its development.

37:08

Well, that's nice. That to me is not a good thing. That's a bad thing. In other words, if there was one single response, that would be easier to deal with.

37:20

And it might speak more highly of the truth value of the theory. And as a

37:25

Christian, if this theory is actually relevant to my interpretation of the Bible and my understanding of God and his purposes in this world, then there shouldn't be 47 different ways of defending it.

37:40

So Dr. White clarifies that he is arguing against WLC's version of Molinism, which I think is the main one

37:45

I need to be responding to for the simple reason that it's the one being most widely promoted and utilized.

37:53

I will just focus on responses WLC has provided to the grounding objection. So what are they? All right. Burden of proof.

38:00

Craig posits that it's actually the grounding objector and not the Molinist who shoulders the burden of proof.

38:06

Now this is amazing to me. Just again, if you go and read the article, there would be a lot of folks who would say you should not even try to attempt to discuss something like this on a webcast.

38:17

I don't care if we can see it, put it up, whatever. This is, this is just, no,

38:23

I don't believe that. I, I know we have, we have students in the, we've got a 14 year old from Canada in channel right now.

38:33

Uh, we've, we've got people from every age group all the way up into the, into the sixties and all sorts of, of, of backgrounds educationally.

38:43

And I think this is something that we can think through, but we'll give you a bit of a headache night, but it's certainly worth thinking through.

38:50

And I think most folks in the audience can immediately go, what do you, what do you mean?

38:57

The grounding objector has to shoulder the burden of proof. You're the one saying that there are true counterfactuals that exist outside of the realm of the decretive work of God.

39:14

But you see, here's where, again, I come at this and Zachary, I'm not questioning your

39:22

Christianity, but I am questioning whether you're being consistent with it.

39:27

I come at this as a Christian and a Christian begins with what certain fundamental revelations of what the word of God says about God.

39:38

And if you're going to come along and say, well, actually, even though the Bible never mentions anything about this, there are actually these true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom that God did not visual, volitionally create, but it's your burden of proof to disprove their existence.

39:52

I go, ah, you may be a high powered philosopher,

39:58

Dr. Craig, but I think everybody can see that you're ducking that one as a

40:04

Christian. You may get away with that in your peer reviewed journal someplace. But you're not going to get away with that within the

40:12

Christian community. New. It says, because the grounding objection is a rebutting defeater as opposed to an undercutting defeater.

40:20

It must have more warrant than the Molinus assumption that there are true counterfactuals of freedom,

40:26

Craig 2001. Okay, so that's supposed to, in some way, alleviate the problem that what we have here is an extra biblical philosophy being crammed into the biblical text, making claims that the

40:43

Bible never gives. And from the philosophy perspective, you go, doesn't matter. We're not concerned about that.

40:49

From the Christian perspective, we are the Christian perspective. We are. If you're going to make that again, if you just want to keep this out here in the theoretical realm and never bring it into the theological realm, then you can do out there what you want.

41:04

But we all know that's not what Craig does. That's not what the Molinus do. So I disagree.

41:12

He then provides three reasons to warrant the Molinus assumption. Let's look at the three reasons. One, we appear to have count to know counterfactuals and employ them in our daily lives.

41:21

In fact, our plant plans are inextricably linked with such counterfactuals. An example would be if I were to pull out in traffic,

41:27

I would make it across the intersection and quote, utterly irrelevant. Why?

41:33

Because God's knowledge, as Brother Rich noted in his call, is not analogous to ours, especially when it comes to God's knowledge of his own creation.

41:47

And how many times do I think I have counterfactual knowledge? I will make it across the intersection.

41:53

Bang. Oh, well, I was fallible. Can God be fallible? So I don't see how this is relevant.

42:04

Further, God's knowledge of counterfactuals expressed in scripture is due to his decree, which makes it irrelevant to a defense of Molinism because middle knowledge cannot be a part of God's decree.

42:15

Right? Okay. Number two, it is plausible the law of conditional excluded middle holds for counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.

42:25

Well, okay. And what is that supposed to mean? Well, if you look up the link that Zachary was kind enough to provide for us there, what are we talking about?

42:36

Well, Alan Plantinga has argued that there are true counterfactuals of libertarian free will of the form were currently to have been offered the bribe, he would have taken it.

42:45

Some, though not Plantinga himself, have attempted to help Plantinga argue for this conclusion on the basis of the subjunctive conditional law of excluded middle that says that for any two propositions,

42:56

P and Q, one of were P true, Q would be true. And were Q true, not

43:02

Q would be true is true. Therefore, even if Curly is not offered the bribe, either he would take it or he offered it or he would not take it where he offered it.

43:11

What's the point here? The point is, again, from a Christian perspective, the reason God knows whether Curly is or is not going to take the bribe, which happens to be a sinful act, by the way, in most situations is because God in his decree created

43:26

Curly to be who he is. And until you show me biblically,

43:32

Mr. Christian philosopher, sir, lots of Christian philosophers say, I do philosophy under the

43:38

Lordship of Christ. Good. Then you need to be an exegete first. Don't talk to me about your great submission to Lordship of Christ.

43:47

When you can't exegete your way out of a paper bag. You show me exegetically from the scriptures where God's knowledge of what man does is not based upon his decree to having created man, but is instead based upon this concept that you've come up with little knowledge.

44:09

Number three, counterfactual statements are used in scripture. For example, first Corinthians 2 .8, now the rulers this age understood this for if they had they would have not crucified the

44:16

Lord of glory. Again, what's the basis for that? If you're simply assuming, if you're simply assuming that this means that Molinistic middle knowledge exists, true counterfactuals that are not the result of God's creative decree.

44:38

Then explain to us why there are extensive discussions of God's creation in scripture that never even come close to this.

44:48

In fact, what I was going to do before I go any farther, I wanted to look at just one text from that tremendous section

44:59

Isaiah. Just one text. In fact, what I'll do is I'll switch over to Corinthians here.

45:05

You're most welcome. Just one text. Let me blow it up a little bit here so everybody can see what's here.

45:16

Isaiah chapter 41 verse 21. Here you have the trial of the false gods.

45:25

Tremendous section, very important section. It's interesting because what makes this so important and so illustrative is the fact that what's going on here is similar to what

45:40

Bill Craig was doing, which made the review of his last webcast so useful. Here what

45:46

God is doing is God is challenging the false gods that the people are tempted to follow to demonstrate the fact they're really gods.

45:56

And so Yahweh says in, I don't know, Yahweh, set forth your case, says

46:02

Yahweh. Bring forth, bring forth your, bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.

46:08

Let them bring them and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome.

46:21

So here's the challenge that Yahweh makes to the false gods.

46:29

Bring your proofs. Here would be a proof of the one true God is that God can do what he's challenging the false gods to do, but they can't do.

46:43

Tell us what is to happen. Tell us what is to happen.

46:49

Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome.

46:56

And so the challenges tell us what's going to happen in the future.

47:04

But not only that, tell us what happened in the past. And if you, if you're going to know, if you're going to think upon these things that we may know their outcome, that means there has to have been a purpose, a purpose.

47:23

That's what God challenges the gods to do. Or declare to us, tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know you are gods, do good or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.

47:32

There is a tremendous amount of sarcasm as God berates these false gods who are not the creator, who cannot accomplish what they want to accomplish.

47:47

And yet God says, I do whatever pleases me in the heavens and the earth. Whatever pleases me,

47:55

I do. Hmm. You remember that text?

48:01

That's a, let's take a look at it real quick. Psalm 135, 6, whatever

48:09

Yahweh pleases, he does in heaven and on earth and the seas and all deeps.

48:14

Zachary, what if it pleased God to actuate a world in which everyone was saved?

48:26

Now I'm not saying that that would have pleased God. I'm simply saying, what if it did? Is the

48:34

Molinus God being described here? Whatever Yahweh pleases, he does based upon what he knows is feasible to him based upon middle knowledge, which he did not volitionally determine the content of.

48:49

Or you can actually limit this to, well, you see, and this is what Craig said. I'm not,

48:55

I'm not, I'm not putting words in his mouth. He said in the last podcast, God is sovereign in the sense that he is free to actuate whichever of the feasible worlds he chooses to actuate.

49:09

You think that's, you think that's that? I don't, I don't think that's what that means. I don't think that's what that means.

49:18

Anyways, we go back to the article cause I noticed that the clock is moving very, very quickly. Um, moreover, the

49:26

Molinus project itself is one of defense and not one of theodicy against the notion that God's sovereignty and human freedom are mutually exclusive.

49:37

Now, if I understand what's being said there, not one of theodicy against the notion that God's sovereignty and human freedom are mutually exclusive.

49:47

Uh, I would like to know what kind of human freedom is being referred to here. I think I, I know libertarian free will, but I'm sorry, you cannot shirk the responsibility of answering for the result of the insertion of your philosophical system into the exegesis of the word of God and hence into the creation of a theology of God that is substantially sub -biblical.

50:12

You can't avoid it. So when you say, as long as it is epistemological, epistemically possible, epistemically possible for these counterfactuals of freedom to exist, the

50:24

Molinus is successful. Wow. Why? It must be easy to win those debates.

50:30

And I've heard Craig do this. Well, it's possible. Therefore, may

50:36

I suggest that that is a significantly sub -biblical standard because the gospel isn't something that's just possible?

50:44

I mean, do we really stand in front of our people and say, well, you know, it's possible. Sure. Some things, you know, when you've got certain texts of scripture and that, well, it's possible we could understand this way.

50:54

It's possible we could understand that way. Okay. I understand that. But we're talking here about the very essence of the

51:03

God we worship. Are we really limited to that level?

51:08

As long as it's epistemically possible for these counterfactuals of freedom to exist, the

51:15

Molinus is successful. Well, I know and I can't win a debate because when you got standards like that, thus the grounding objector is pushed from saying, where do these counterfactuals come from to saying it is impossible for these counterfactuals to exist, which is a considerably stronger proposition.

51:35

I reject this game. This is a game.

51:42

It's absolutely a game because we have seen nothing so far and we haven't, we're not done, but we've seen nothing so far that would give us any ground, any warrant as a

51:53

Christian looking at biblical revelation to believe that there is something true in this universe that God did not decree to be true, but we're being told, well, if it's possible we win, you have to accept it.

52:06

And now you have to prove the impossibility of what we've asserted without evidence. I congratulate my

52:14

Molinus friends on coming up with an amazing standard there, but I ain't buying it.

52:20

And I think most people in the audience that have ever bought a used car ain't buying it either.

52:27

Ain't buying that. Second. What? Hmm. You're not going to touch that one.

52:33

Okay. All right. It's possible. It could be new in a, it was in some possible world, in some possible world.

52:42

This car runs well. Okay. Just keep that in mind. But Molinus should sell used cars.

52:47

They'd be doing, they'd be doing great work. We're going jumbo today in case you hadn't noticed, uh, not, not much of a choice here.

52:56

And if I don't hurry up, uh, we're ending up going mega. Uh, so, all right.

53:02

The grounding objection, ill -defined. Now this one I found somewhat humorous given how ill -defined

53:09

I find most of what the Molinus say. But anyway, second, Craig, along with many Molinus points out that while the grounding objection is one of the largest and purportedly potent objections against Molinism, it is easier raised than defined.

53:22

Um, folks in the audience, have I not defined it pretty clearly? Uh, Rich, do you get it?

53:30

You got it. Okay. Um, folks in channel, I, I, I just, I just need a witness here.

53:35

Uh, do you, do you understand why I've got a problem with, uh, the idea of true counterfactuals that God did not volitionally determined to be true and that these can constrain the range of actions that God can undertake?

53:55

Uh, anybody in, is, is that, I'll go gets it. Well, they're, they're working in a 30 second.

54:01

I know that. I'm waiting. World. They're, they're, they're possible. They're a 30 second to 45, 20 to 45 seconds possibly.

54:09

I got it. I got it. Okay. I'll go gets it. As long as I'll go gets it. We're good. Uh, that's, that's all that really matters.

54:16

Um, I, I'm sorry. I think we've, I think Turretin was clear on it and I think this is just a, um,

54:26

I think it's a ploy. Sorry. Sorry. Um, he remarks, quote, the irony is that this allegedly powerful objection has virtually never been articulated or defended in any depth by its advocates,

54:38

Craig, 2001. I'm not going to sit here and go, you know, the temp,

54:45

I am going to sit here and go this, the temptation crosses my mind, uh, that, uh, Dr. Craig may not have ever bothered to read

54:51

Turretin because he was just a theologian. Um, and we know how

54:57

Craig thinks what Craig thinks about theologians there. They're not philosophically advanced enough to do what they really need to be doing, but maybe he hasn't.

55:05

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Someone in channel says,

55:11

I still have no idea what a counterfactual is. Okay. So while it may be easy for people like Dr.

55:17

White to cat casually say, where do these counterfactuals come from? And I've just always just casually said,

55:22

I've, I've never tried to explain it. When pressed for precision,

55:28

Craig claims, no one, no one has stepped up to the challenge. And if Craig says it, it must be true.

55:35

So there you go. Uh, we need to, we need to, I don't think I have Turretin in here, but, uh, when, when we get done, we're burning it, got all three volumes up in smoke because, and all that stuff the

55:48

Turretin fans has posted on his blog about this, just, you know, uh, no one has stepped up to the challenge.

55:55

While I think William Hasker has made some progress since Craig's original 2001 article, Dr. White certainly has not been precise in his formulation of the grounding objection.

56:04

Yeah. I've been, I've just been completely fuzzy about it. I just raise it as a rhetorical device. Um, no,

56:11

I think we all, I think we all know that. So, um, then there's a discussion of truth maker theory.

56:18

So far, Craig has argued the burden of proof has been misplaced by the grounding objector. We have seen that there's no reason to believe that.

56:24

Then he argued that the grounding objection itself is not well -defined, untrue, precise counter argument, but more or less just rhetorical flourish.

56:35

Now again, I don't know how many debates Dr. Craig has done. He may have done more than I have, but I think,

56:43

I think the Dr. Craig and I are in the top five right now of living

56:50

English speaking apologists as to number of debates. I think that's, I think that's fair,

56:55

I think that's fair. And I can recognize when someone who's good at debating is, um, using language to avoid a point and that's what's going on.

57:11

When you start talking about arguments that you really haven't responded to as rhetorical flourishes, you're primarily referring, you're primarily trying to bring the audience along with you and you're, you're hoping no one's going to notice it.

57:26

Maybe the time will go fast enough that no one will really catch it. It's not just a rhetorical flourish.

57:37

So what can be said on behalf of the grounding objection? I've said the grounding objection seems to assume a particular theory about the relationship of truth and reality.

57:44

It does. I mean, I suggest that it's the one suggested by the Bible, especially when the

57:52

Bible specifically addresses God as creator and God's accomplishment of what he desires, whatever he desires in time, not just, well,

58:07

God could choose to actuate or not to actuate. That's a very, very, very, very narrow range.

58:14

That's not what the new Testament or the old Testament teaches about the range of God's freedom. Yeah. Yeah.

58:22

Nice big, nice big, yes. Whatever the Lord pleases. You can put up there in Hebrew too, for those who read, well,

58:29

I've not run into too many Molinists who actually read Hebrew, but anyway, the theory presupposed by the grounding objection appears to be a certain construal or version of a view of truth as correspondence, which has come to be known as the theory of truth makers.

58:47

And at this point, this is where most people stop reading because it goes off into all sorts of interesting stuff that again, this is where if, if Zachary, if you wanted to make this something that really would have communicated to me, this is where you would have gone through the

59:05

Bible, unless you think the Bible is irrelevant to this. I mean,

59:12

I would love to see a Molinist actually go to the text of scripture. You know,

59:20

I happen to think for example, that the doctrine of justification by faith is vital for Christians to understand and know something about their relationship to God.

59:31

So I wrote this and it's almost 400 pages long and it was read it knows that gets pretty deep into the text of scripture last starting about chapter eight or nine, a lot of original language material.

59:54

How come there's nothing like this for a Molinist because there isn't, oh, there's all sorts of long

59:59

Molinist books, but you and I both know that, that Dr.

01:00:08

Craig, even in those few times where he has addressed possible biblical foundations for Molinism has at the end admitted that he's not asserting that any of these texts actually teach

01:00:20

Molinism, but that they are possible indicators. Let me just say for great clarity,

01:00:29

I do not believe that there are possible indicators of the Trinity or the deity of Christ or justification by faith and like that.

01:00:37

That's what the Bible actually teaches. Yeah, that's what the Bible actually teaches. So he talks about Baal and stuff like this and four o 'clock, oh goodness.

01:00:54

A proper understanding of truth makers then invalidates at once the crude construal of the grounding objection expressed in Robert Adams' statement of the problem.

01:01:04

And again, in Alfred Fredoso's and Thomas Flint's respective formulations of the grounding objection, quote, counterfactuals of freedom are supposed to be contingent truths that are not caused to be true by God.

01:01:15

Who or what does cause them to be true? So evidently there's a, you can adopt a criticism of a certain theory of truth that then invalidates the crude construal of the question that every

01:01:36

Christian naturally asks when the Molinist says, oh, there are these contingent truths that are not caused to be true by God.

01:01:43

Evidently we're just operating on a very naive theory of truth to ask that question.

01:01:49

Which is why I said earlier, evidently this is not a question you can ask a Molinist because when you ask them, they will fly off into some next to impossible to understand discussion.

01:02:03

Well here, let me just give you an example if you haven't looked at it. That the relation between a truth maker and a truth bearer is not causal is especially evident if we require truth makers for negative existential statements like Bale does not exist.

01:02:18

According to Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simmons, and Barry Smith, not only Wittgenstein, but indeed almost all other philosophers who have investigated the relation of making true have felt compelled in the face of the problems raised by negative propositions to adopt an ontology of truth makers as special non -objectual entities, having a complexity which is essentially logical.

01:02:39

Obviously, a fact like Bale's non -existence, which is sufficient for the truth that Bale does not exist, is not a cause of anything.

01:02:49

Okay? Now, I actually understood what that said, but there's one little problem. The reason we know

01:02:56

Bale doesn't exist is because God says so. It's God's word.

01:03:03

It's revelation. That's why Mullinism and Christian philosophy are two places here, and you all don't seem to want to bring them together to where this becomes subject to that.

01:03:14

The reason that we know that Bale does not exist is true is because God's word says

01:03:19

Bale does not exist. But you're telling me that there are things that are true that God did not define to be true and that constrain him, but you don't want to tell me where they came from and you want to describe as crude construal of the grounding objection that I asked the question.

01:03:37

You're ducking it because you don't have an answer. You don't have an answer. You fooled yourself into thinking you have an answer, but you don't have an answer.

01:03:49

All you can do is object to the objection and blow smoke in the process. It goes on to say, or to put it more simply as Alvin Plantinga did, it seems to me much clearer that some counterfactuals of freedom are at least possibly true than that the truth of propositions must in general be grounded in this way.

01:04:10

What Plantinga is saying is that there's more probability that some counterfactuals of freedom are at least possibly true than it is true that propositions must in general be grounded in this way.

01:04:28

Wow. Really? You really consider that to be consistent with the biblical proclamation that God makes about truth in his word?

01:04:39

And even then, it seems to me much clearer that some counterfactuals of freedom are at least possibly true than that the truth of propositions must in general be grounded in this way.

01:04:50

White seems to actually endorse this highly controversial system by positing that for every truth, there is a truth maker called card dealer.

01:04:59

However, I highly doubt that White has delved deeply enough into man's philosophy to know what kind of theory of truth he endorses.

01:05:07

They've got to take the shots. They've got to take the shots. Doesn't matter how many classes I've taught on the subject. Got to take the shots.

01:05:14

Because I won't play that game. I keep going back to this word and I keep saying to Christians, don't be fooled by this stuff.

01:05:23

Don't be fooled by it. It leads you to nowhere. I've never seen it lead to anything good.

01:05:30

And I, the number of young men I have seen who've gone off into non island and they're not serving

01:05:37

God anymore and they're not church men and they're not Orthodox anymore is legion because they would not listen to the warning of the word of God, not to be led astray by the philosophies of men.

01:05:50

Yeah, I do use that terminology, Zachary. I do. Because Paul did.

01:05:56

And the fact that you used it to take a shot at me, I leave that for you to think about. I leave that for you to think about.

01:06:08

I may not be as smart as you, Zachary, but if you're going to promote a theory that says that God can only do certain things because something else exists and the leading proponent of it is the one who says

01:06:22

God has to deal with the cards he's been dealt, don't look at me and insult me by my going, who dealt in the cards?

01:06:30

It's a valid question and you have not answered it. You didn't even come close. Lots of verbiage, no answers.

01:06:38

Lots of verbiage, no answers. All right. A sort of miscellaneous comments, conclusion, and then shifting gears.

01:06:48

I'm going to blame Rich for all this. Not you, Rich. The other Rich. And he'll be fine with that.

01:06:55

Oh, by the way, my biggest blunder, and I had a bunch of people went after me on this.

01:07:07

Now White calls this natural law, which I think is a misnomer, and then conflates this with physical laws. Excuse me.

01:07:13

Hello. Wasn't it William Lane Craig that put the laws of logic together with two plus two equals four?

01:07:23

Hello? I mentioned Avogadro's constant. That's just a more complex form of two plus two equals four.

01:07:30

He's the one that made the, oh, but he's so stupid, but Craig is so brilliant.

01:07:35

He's the one that put them together. Take it up with him. Take it up with him.

01:07:42

Anyway, a sort of miscellaneous comments. Early in his critique, White mentions that what he does flows from who he is and who he is is what

01:07:51

God made him to be. And from this fact, God knows the counterfactuals of freedom concerning James White. In other words,

01:07:57

God knows what I would do because he made me and he made me to be the way that I am.

01:08:04

Interestingly enough, this comment is completely consistent with the conceptualist model of divine knowledge that Molinism generally presupposes.

01:08:13

No it isn't. The whole point of what I was saying is that this flows from God's decree.

01:08:21

It's not a middle knowledge. It's decreative knowledge. How can that, how can that be consistent?

01:08:28

The Molinist can reply that God's self -contained innate knowledge contains such extensive accounts about every possible individual essence that God knows just what that creature would do in any circumstance.

01:08:39

To my knowledge, this is the position of Craig and even Louis Molina himself. No, it's not.

01:08:45

If you want to say that this is self -contained innate knowledge, great. Sounds wonderful. That means God learned something, right?

01:08:52

Because he didn't determine it, but he's eternally known it. So there was not a point in time where he came to learn it, but he's eternally known something that he did not determine.

01:09:01

It's not a part of his free knowledge of himself or of the creation of his decree.

01:09:07

So where did it come from? The objection is still there. But now you have knowledge within God that he doesn't determine and that can constrain his actions.

01:09:17

Okay. I thought that was the whole point of middle knowledge was to get it away from the decree.

01:09:24

So there is no consistency whatsoever. It's nice to see that Dr.

01:09:29

White is addressing Molinism and giving it more attention. I find his criticisms intriguing, albeit misguided and outdated. I also am happy to see him getting closer in accurately characterizing the actual tenets of Molinism.

01:09:41

Actually, Dr. White's rejection of Molinism is rooted in basic philosophical misunderstandings, including ignorance, the responses to the grounding objection, confusion about the nature of abstract entities, and failure to understand the distinction between contingent physical laws and necessary logical laws.

01:09:53

Well, I think we've responded to all that and we still got our objections and I think we always will.

01:10:03

But I'm, we'll see you next week. We'll see you next week. I'm still looking for that, uh, that fella who will, um, actually go to the word of God, go to the

01:10:14

Bible, and, uh, talk about that. Oh, sorry, can't do that. I was,

01:10:20

I was moving. I'm moving it over. Okay. Here's what

01:10:25

I was going to get to earlier. I'm going to have to be a little bit quick. We've only got, uh, about, uh, 18 minutes left in the program.

01:10:31

As I was saying, I ran into this clip, um, quite some time ago and just happened to look at it today.

01:10:39

I said, you know, let's, let's take a look at this. People keep asking me about the

01:10:44

Hebrew roots movement. Oh, I, I didn't, uh, I haven't switched over to it.

01:10:50

Uh, there. Um, I, I don't, there's too much, no one can ever answer every question there is about everything that's out there.

01:11:02

It's just, there's just, there's too much. Anybody who claims they can is pulling the wool over your eyes. Um, Michael Rood.

01:11:12

I hadn't really never, I think, I think I had seen one thing about him sometime. I don't know.

01:11:19

He's got a big beard. He's got a big beard. Um, he's written a book, the chronological gospels.

01:11:25

Now I actually thought about going online, getting the Kindle edition, but he wants the same amount for the

01:11:31

Kindle edition as he wants for the book. And it's 40 bucks and I ain't paying 40 bucks. If someone would like to send it to me, maybe I'll do more response to him.

01:11:37

But I ain't, I ain't paying that kind of money. Uh, I mean, he's selling some scholar's pack for 300 and some odd bucks and I, I'm not going to,

01:11:44

I'm not going to, uh, assist in, in that way. But I forget who it was.

01:11:50

It might've been somebody in Twitter. I don't know. Um, who, uh, sent this to me.

01:11:58

I don't remember how I ran across it. Sorry, I'm getting old, but he makes some claims about John six, four.

01:12:05

Now, this is why I wanted to play it for you is here. You've got some weird, uh, it, the whole, his whole thing is that Jesus's ministry was one year long and it fits into the 70 weeks and, and all the rest of this stuff.

01:12:18

And it wasn't two years or three years or, okay, fine. There's been all sorts of arguments about this, but it doesn't work because of John six, four doesn't work.

01:12:28

So what do you do? You get rid of John six, four. Here you have an example of someone grossly abusing, grossly abusing textual criticism to prop up an unbiblical theory and in the process, destroying the only foundation for anyone who's going to follow him for believing the trustworthiness of the new

01:12:53

Testament. I think it's reprehensible and I want to respond to it, but we need to look at it. So here we go.

01:13:00

Now, John six, four, we have texts. The one that I quote in this particular book, this is in the museum at the home of the

01:13:11

Archbishop of Canterbury. H .R. Scribner, one of the most respected Greek scholars of all time says this singular manuscript, minuscule manuscript that's in the

01:13:21

Lambeth Palace Museum is by far the most important manuscript in all that museum.

01:13:26

Why? It goes back to a family of manuscripts. They go back to before the words of John six, four were added to later text.

01:13:38

See, we have no originals. We have. Okay. Now, so what he's saying is that the proper reading, which deletes

01:13:49

John six, four is found in a single, and we're going to find out here, 14th century manuscript, a single 14th century manuscript.

01:14:01

That's the only place it's found. But allegedly it goes back to this earlier family of manuscripts we don't have anymore.

01:14:09

Okay. That's, that's the allegation he's, and he's saying Scribner backs him up on this. I've found evidence of that.

01:14:15

But anyway. Families of manuscripts that are copies of copies of copies of copies. There is another manuscript.

01:14:21

Now, where have we heard that before? Copies of copies of copies of copies. You know where that comes from?

01:14:27

Bart Ehrman. That is in Germany. And on my trip over there this, this spring, because I have a daughter that's going to be having a baby over there in Germany.

01:14:37

And so we're going to go over there and secure that manuscript as well as the one there so that we have the actual photographs of this, but the words that are added to John six, four and all the later manuscripts and the feast and Passover, a feast of the

01:14:53

Jews was nigh, was not in any of those manuscripts. Now that brings up an interesting question.

01:14:59

Okay. Now, so it appears because this manuscript came. Now let me just mention,

01:15:04

I think this fellow's hairstyle is just, is, is awesome. I, I, I, I don't, don't, don't y 'all think?

01:15:12

The 13th century, correct? So you're saying that because some people are arguing that well Obviously that that verse was in there before the 13th century and this is the first one to your life.

01:15:22

Okay So, how do we answer that? It's a family manuscript. Okay, so i'm really glad he brought that up because what he's saying is uh, now

01:15:30

I think it's 14th century, but They're saying 13th century Uh, this is a real late text.

01:15:35

There's all sorts of texts before it And so he's saying how do we answer that? And so, uh, let me back it up here just a second

01:15:43

Okay, so how do we answer so it's a family manuscripts in other words It's a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy because you can't go much before the that the

01:15:54

See, we don't have any manuscripts of the first four centuries Now did you catch that?

01:16:02

We have no manuscripts in the first four centuries We don't have p52. We don't have p66.

01:16:07

We don't have p75 p45. We have none of the papyri Uh, they they all do not exist

01:16:13

And depending on where he's thinking here, maybe even sinaiticus and vaticanus don't exist budos

01:16:20

Good solid scholarship there exist. They're dust. Okay, so you have copies of copies of copies

01:16:27

So here is one thing that we see There's john chapter 2 and 3 is passover.

01:16:33

John chapter 12 is passover if the manuscripts in the first 300 years had another passover in john 6 4 right in the middle none of these

01:16:48

The historians for 300 years would have been so stupid as to not understand it would take well over two years to fulfill three passover so one of his assertions which

01:17:02

I Have not verified and I have reason to question in light of what he just said

01:17:07

Uh given that his knowledge of early church history is clearly grossly deficient um Is that nobody?

01:17:14

Up until the time of constantine constantine gets blamed for everything again Uh up to the time constantine, uh believed the jesus ministry was more than one year

01:17:25

I've never heard that asserted before I can't deny it or confirm it Uh, but that's the argument that he's making right now

01:17:32

It's simple mathematics You have the testimony Of all of the early church fathers and historians saying his ministry was about one year

01:17:42

And the manuscript of john that they were reading could not possibly have had john 6 4 in it

01:17:48

Now we come to the real breaker now the assumption there obviously is what? That everybody who wrote in the early church was absolutely spot on in their knowledge of the bible

01:18:00

Haven't done much reading of the early church fathers. Have you? No, not really, uh, we could

01:18:08

We can point out a lot of problems that one right here on this particular situation we have

01:18:14

In all four gospels the feeding of the five thousand takes place at the end of the summer When the 12 apostles return from their paired assignments throughout the villages of the galilee

01:18:24

Okay, that's when the feeding of the 5 000 takes place all four gospel authors

01:18:31

Record that one miracle. It is the only miracle recorded by all four gospel authors

01:18:37

It happens in the middle of yeshua's ministry And with all of them recording it it gives us a singular moment in time that everything can be coordinated at that very moment

01:18:49

Now the next chapter in john chapter 7 yeshua is going up to the feast of tabernacles

01:18:55

The same chapter in matthew he's going to the feast of tabernacles the next chapter in matthew mark

01:19:00

He's going to tabernacles the the next chapter in luke. He's going to tabernacles because it's at the end of the summer the next feast is tabernacles and They added scribes added and this is universal this happens

01:19:16

We can take you back now. Listen. This is universal. I mean this guy makes bart ehrman look like a conservative

01:19:23

Show you the manuscript we've got about 5 000 extant manuscripts on the planet in the greek language

01:19:29

And we can show you where scribes added things in they left things out.

01:19:34

They took things out They moved entire sections such as uh, the woman in the trial of adultery in john chapter 8

01:19:41

It's in john chapter 7 in most of the older manuscripts And so we can um, no, it's not he doesn't even have a clue what he's talking about there

01:19:51

The percocet adultery is there in john But in family 1 and family 13, it's actually found in luke

01:20:01

I think that's what he's trying to make reference. I I who knows he's talking fast and When I talk fast,

01:20:08

I make mistakes. So so as he maybe I don't know but The the ah, we can show you all this

01:20:13

All these scribal changes that scribes are just moving stuff around all over the place all for what?

01:20:20

for his particular theory Wow that these things were moved and that they changed them

01:20:25

They didn't change many but when they did change them this one They got caught red -handed because when you know the feast, you know

01:20:32

Yeshua is not going to stay in the galilee and feed thousands of people with leavened bread during the feast of unleavened bread

01:20:39

He's not going to go to the capernum synagogue two days later and preach to a full house When everyone is supposed to be at jerusalem for the feast three days later

01:20:48

Now No more textual argumentation after this but I would point out that um

01:20:55

The vast majority of poor people in capernum would not be able to make the journey to the feast anyways

01:21:00

But but what you've got here Uh, let me let me go back to uh accordance here so you can see what we've got here.

01:21:08

Here's here's the textual evidence and You'll notice over here

01:21:13

There's your deletion mark right there and it goes down to right there and so that's indication that this verse

01:21:22

And the passover the feast of jews was near. That's all john 6 4 says It is there is one manuscript that is listed as uh, and then then pc a a few others

01:21:35

So it's actually that would probably refer to the other manuscript he's talking about in germany someplace interestingly enough cntts does not list it

01:21:42

Um, but here's all the manuscripts that contain um john 6 4

01:21:49

And the vast majority of those are prior to this one manuscript 1634.

01:21:54

Now, it's interesting accordance has manuscripts not listed so I'm a little behind on this.

01:22:01

This is this is the older version The one thing on the ministry resource list that hasn't uh, it doesn't move

01:22:08

Is this? Uh, it is it is you didn't tell me

01:22:15

You've been busy Okay. Well, thank you. I'll have the new edition soon. This is the old edition, but this is the print edition

01:22:22

This is all of this is the list Uh of manuscripts and so I had to uh had to look it up this way

01:22:29

Uh to find out what we've what we're looking at here because for some reason even accordance didn't have this

01:22:34

So, thank you to whoever bought that for me, I thank you very very much we will get it ordered asap Uh, 1634 gospel manuscript 14th century um, and it's interestingly enough from mount mount aethos

01:22:49

Doesn't verify Uh where it is right now. It actually says it's mount aethos.

01:22:54

So are you sure it's at mount mount aethos? I don't know actually gone up there. Uh, no, I don't want to go there.

01:23:00

You don't want to go there Um But at 14th century

01:23:06

I I looked in Metzger the ollins.

01:23:13

I I a lot of my textual stuff is right here on the shelf behind me and there are

01:23:22

Manuscripts Such as 1739 1881 miniscule manuscripts

01:23:28

That we can tell our copies from much earlier manuscripts which greatly enhances um the

01:23:40

Value of those manuscripts. I saw no evidence whatsoever that 1634 is one of those manuscripts none so If someone's really interested in this i'll tell you what if someone wants to send me this book

01:23:53

It's 40 bucks. I ain't spend that much money. Don't send me this book I'll look at scrivener's citation.

01:23:59

I can track that down And see if there's any value to it, but my concern here

01:24:06

Is this is the same situation you have and there's where i'm going to offend some folks But the same situation we have

01:24:13

With the defenders the kama johannium you decide

01:24:20

That you are going to absolutely this is a hill to die on I am going to absolutely uh defend

01:24:28

This one text If you defend the kama johannium What you end up doing is destroying the foundation upon which we can defend the integrity the tenacity

01:24:42

The accuracy of the transmission of the text in new testament. That's the problem Same thing here

01:24:48

What you just listened to michael rood do Was to establish his particular theory in his book.

01:24:56

He's selling for 40 bucks He just sounded like bart ehrman

01:25:03

He just took the ehrman route now bart ehrman would never buy what he just said bart ehrman say you're nuts

01:25:10

Uh, I can guarantee you and guarantee you that bart ehrman would say no, uh, john 6 -4 is rich How can we know that because it's found in both p66 and p75 the two earliest manuscripts we have the gospel of john now you'll notice in uh in accordance here in cntts

01:25:32

Uh right over here that uh p75 is listed separately. There's there's p66 p75

01:25:41

There's some damage there because you can see That section and then this section is missing.

01:25:48

So maybe there's damage to the page. I I think I have p75 We could look it up uh graphically but Clearly the the verse was still there.

01:25:58

It's just it's just damaged. So p66 p75, uh sinaiticus uh vaticanus alexandrinus all

01:26:07

Long predate the period he was talking about and they all contain john 6 -4. So ehrman would say not even a question uh

01:26:15

Not not based upon some 14th century ministry No way um, so So here you have the gross abuse

01:26:27

Of the manuscript tradition to promote a particular perspective And this isn't the first time we've seen it but he's got a pretty pretty slick presentation and my concern is

01:26:44

I get a lot of folks. I I encounter this a lot Or as long as somebody shows some knowledge of the biblical languages

01:26:51

And they've they've got some book. They're hawking It just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of discernment amongst a lot of believers at that point.

01:26:59

It's a shame It's a shame so Be aware of these things. I don't know what else, uh, michael rude teaches

01:27:07

I claim the expertise on the guy, but I can guarantee you uh when it comes to uh When it comes to that section

01:27:13

That was a that was a horrific presentation Uh, you can you can argue all you want about the chronology of the ministry of jesus it's been an argued subject for a long time uh, but That perspective was uh was way way way off So there you go.

01:27:33

I wanted to actually get to a couple other things. I had mentioned one of my tweets I apologize. I there was a there was a statement from uh, rachel held evans.

01:27:41

I was gonna get to And uh, there was also what was this other thing there was this really wild um statement from Ed what was her name?

01:27:53

Marilyn, robinson. There is a religion news .com article. Marilyn robinson on guns gay marriage and calvinism

01:28:01

We'll get it's still in my it's still in my pocket list So maybe on on thursday and then remember on friday.

01:28:08

Michael brown's going to join us and we're going to talk about his new book Uh, can you be gay and christian?

01:28:13

uh Appropriately coming out around the same time as matthew vines as well. So he'll be with us on thursday

01:28:21

Uh, we'll give you the time on that. I forget exactly what we decided We've decided at the time. I just can't remember what it was. I don't want to say without uh without having confirmation.

01:28:29

So Uh with that, thank you for listening to the dividing line today, uh, and we will be back lord willing on thursday