April 10, 2019 Show with Ken Samples on “Classic Christian Thinkers: An Introduction”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister, George Norcross, in downtown

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth,

who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this

10th day of April, 2019.

And I'm delighted to have back on the program, probably somebody, as far as

Christian apologetics is concerned, is my oldest friend.

Even before I knew and became close friends with Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega

Ministries, and most of the other theologians and apologists I know, my first

friend of them all, when I was a new Christian, or fairly recent Christian, was Kenneth R.

Samples, who became my friend in the late 1980s, and in fact, he came by my

invitation to preach at the church where I was a member.

I was thrilled that my pastor at the time, Mike Gaydosh, enthusiastically agreed with me that

we should invite Ken Samples to preach at what was then called Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, Long

Island, New York.

And Ken has been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, a former

panelist on the Bible Answer Man program, when there were multiple hosts of that daily

show, along with Hank Hanegraaff back in the 1990s.

And now, for quite a while, has been the senior research scholar at Reasons to Believe.

We're going to be discussing Ken's new book, Classic Christian Thinkers, an Introduction.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my old friend Ken Samples.

Well, hello, Chris.

It's good to be with you again.

It's great to be on your fine program, so thank you for inviting

me.

Well, the pleasure is all mine, brother.

And for our listeners that are unfamiliar with Reasons to Believe, why don't you give us a

summary of what that organization is all about, and what is involved in your post

as senior research scholar there?

Yeah, very good.

Reasons to Believe is primarily a science -faith apologetic organization.

And I'm the non -scientist on the scholar team.

I work with biologists,

a number of

theological and philosophical perspectives.

I've been with Reasons to Believe, I think, this summer will be 22 years.

And so...

Great.

And, well, you have, for quite a while,

been really...one of your passions is to convince, to urge Christians

to become better readers, to discover the classic Christian

thinkers, as your book is titled.

And, although you are a strong proponent, a strong advocate of Sola

Scriptura, obviously, as a theologically reformed and evangelical Christian

apologist, at the same time you recognize that we have been given gifts here in

the body of Christ on earth that we should not neglect.

And these gifts I'm speaking of are great mines of history.

It's kind of ironic that you will have some Christians

who will say, I don't need anything but the Bible.

They will distort the great pillar of the Reformation, Sola

Scriptura, and change it into something that never was intended to be, Sola Scriptura, as if

the Bible is the only thing that we should read and gain wisdom from.

But it's funny when people say that, I don't need anything but the Bible.

They typically have a pastor, and that pastor is exegeting what the

Bible teaches, at least you hope he is.

And you are unconsciously adding to the Bible

a man, a human being, who has flaws and sins.

And it is really absurd to view that one man or that board of elders in your own congregation

as the sole arbiters of truth and the only ones that should be

interpreting the scriptures for you.

That might be a minority today, but those folks do exist.

And this is a troublesome mindset that you have sometimes amongst,

probably predominantly, either some of your King James only fundamentalists,

who are hyper -separatists, and you even have that as a classic ideology and

practice amongst the cults, where only people in their organization can rightly

understand and exegete and explain the scriptures.

But obviously you do not believe that, and this book is living proof of that.

Yeah, that's a very important point that you've made, Chris, that, you know, the principle of Sola

Scriptura is that scripture is the supreme authority.

It's not that there aren't other authorities.

Tradition bears our attention, human reason,

the creeds.

There are numerous authorities that the

final court of appeals in all of our beliefs...

Occasionally I run into people, I did just recently a fellow who

was reluctant to read for it

because he thought he needed, and I

pointed out that Augustine quotes scripture 40 ,000 times in his writings,

and that even Thomas Aquinas, the very famous Catholic philosopher, has a very high

view of scripture, and so, yes, absolutely, there is truth

found nowhere else that is like scripture, and one of the reasons I

left the Roman Catholic Church and became a Protestant many years ago is because I think there is

something in scripture that I think we would...

We certainly wouldn't be benefiting...

I provide a beginner's guide to some of...

I choose nine, I selected nine individuals,

and I encourage people to know...

...ideas, their contributions, and then I close the book inviting people to

take a step further.

Maybe you want to read Athanasius' book on the Incarnation, Augustine's,

maybe you want to read Calvin's, and not

just take what people tell you.

The other point I want to make, Chris, is this, you know, that

I think an evangelical is that crisis is

we often don't know what we believe or why, but maybe even more importantly, we don't know how

we came to believe some of the things we affirm.

You know, we believe the Trinity, but we don't know how the controversies and the

heresies were addressed in the various councils, or the Incarnation, and

I would even say this, one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I know a lot of

evangelicals, say a lot, I've known some evangelicals

who actually consider Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism because they felt their

evangelical environment didn't open them enough to the history of the church

or the theology, so those are some of the reasons I wrote the book that I did.

Yeah, in fact, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the

opposite end of the spectrum of those who say, all I need is my King James Bible and I'm

fine, I don't need these great minds of history, well, number one, that would be an

arrogant claim upon yourself, even if it was an unconscious claim, that you are

the most brilliant thinker that has ever walked the face of the earth, and

therefore you don't need anybody to guide you into deeper truths of the scripture than you don't

already know, which is a very wicked

sin to have that level of arrogance.

But the opposite end of the spectrum is that you have many pastors today,

and you have many people in the Christian media feeding people

the words of contemporary authors, and I'm not slamming all contemporary authors, there are a number of

phenomenal, biblically faithful, brilliant Christian authors, and you're one of them,

but they are feeding them the garbage, really, of the

modern literary world within Christendom, and much of it is just

borrowed secular pop psychology or Wall Street

marketing strategies transformed with a very thin veneer of

Christianity, and things like that, that are trying to

pass as the best of Christian theology today, and this is the opposite problem,

but equally dangerous, isn't it?

Yeah, we have, as you've said, we have a

lot of ideas in the modern world that past them are

not deeply anchored in secular ideas,

and

people recommending some of the great classics that really

are grounded in scripture, again, I'm thinking of some of

the great heroes, and if

you want to know how to talk to a Jehovah's Witness at your front door, and

another thinker, Augustine battled Pelagianism, we

have many people today, and lots of

other Christians, and I

have some very fine people

writing today.

I think that there are just some classics.

I view these people that I've written about as, really, my friends.

They challenge me, they point me back to the triune God,

and I see their flaws.

It also encourages me, because I realize that God can love even imperfect people,

and again, I draw that point that, you know, many

intellectuals, they are attracted to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy,

and I think sometimes because they feel that their local evangelical church isn't

well anchored in history, and that they're not exposed.

So I also include Luther and Calvin.

I don't think you can be a Protestant, really, without understanding the ethos of Luther.

What motivated him?

What was the crisis that led to him?

Then I write about Calvin, who I call the Reformation's greatest

systematic theologian.

Calvin is what

I think is what exposed a lot of my

evangelicals.

You're not stuck in the modern world with the authors we have

today, even though there are some...

Yeah, and before we go to each of the nine, or as many as the Lord will allow us to, because of our time restraints,

before we go through each of the nine classic thinkers from Christendom that you have chosen to

highlight in this book, this introduction for Christians to deepen

their understanding of Christianity, and to perhaps even broaden it,

to hear from brilliant minds from different backgrounds within Christendom, I wanted to

have something explained by you to our listeners.

One of the reasons that Protestants, evangelicals, are

paranoid about reading the Church Fathers, reading anything from the Patristics,

is because they actually have unconsciously swallowed the lie

of Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholic apologists, that the Church Fathers were

thoroughly Roman Catholic in their understanding of the scriptures and theology and

doctrine, when the truth of the matter is, many of the primary things that

separate Rome from historic Protestantism were not believed by the

Church Fathers.

Those things that, especially historically, the Reformers viewed as

heresies, you would not find these things amongst the majority, anyway,

of the Church Fathers.

Am I right on that?

That they wrongly have swallowed the lie

that the.

Yeah, I think it's very unfortunate that

certain Roman Catholics have tried to give the impression of complete

unanimity, and that unanimity is, in their

minds, repeating what modern -day Roman Catholics believe.

In a number of works, Jaroslav

Pelikan's 1960, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, is a delightful book.

Yeah, in fact, I bought that years ago, decades ago, by your recommendation.

Yeah, Pelikan points out in that book that when the

Council of Trent anathematized the Reformers, they were in effect anathematizing

part of

their own

more rigorous debate.

And, you know,

other historians,

when you read the Fathers, in some respects they are offering

ideas about Tom Odin's book, The Justification,

there's a deep consensus in the Fathers.

It's by grace, and they may not add, always, by

faith alone.

But Chris, I think it's very critical that we be careful that we don't read back into people

the controversies.

I mean, you look at somebody like Thomas Aquinas, he's a great Catholic philosopher.

There's a good bit in Thomas that is a

lot in Thomas, similar to Augustine, that is really a

classic form of Christianity, and both Thomas and Augustine have

enormous—I think it's very important that Christians know

their history, and I wrote this book beginning, who doesn't

have a lot of background, so that they can kind of take a first step thinking

through a lot of these thinkers.

Well, let me give our listeners our email address if you have a question for Kenneth R. Samples

regarding classic Christian thinkers, those men, at least in summary form,

who he believes have made the most significant impact on

Christianity lasting through the centuries until today, and some of these men,

or at least one of them, is from the 19th—I'm sorry, from the 20th century.

But there are a lot of Christians who have not yet really

discovered the richness of what these men have to offer the body of Christ.

So, if you have a question, our email address is ChrisArnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A

-R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside

of the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's go into the first name amongst the nine in your book.

Irenaeus, one of the church fathers that unfortunately you might have a lot of

modern -day evangelicals or Protestants or fundamentalists never

daring to pick up anything or looking through the internet for

anything written by this hero of the faith, and it would be to their great loss if they were to

ignore somebody like this because they wrongly think that he was as

Roman Catholic as the Council of Trent, and they would be very seriously wrong on that matter.

But if you could, tell us why you chose Irenaeus and something about him, where

in church history does he arrive on.

The scene, etc.

Yeah, Irenaeus's dates are 130 to 202.

Irenaeus is really only one generation away from the Apostles.

Irenaeus knew Polycarp, and Polycarp knew the Apostle John.

So Irenaeus plays a very critical role in kind of connecting us back

to ancient Christianity.

A couple reasons that I picked Irenaeus, I think he is

one among the church fathers, and so he lives in the second and early

into the third century.

Irenaeus, I think, really is an architect of orthodoxy, and what I mean by that is,

I think that it's very clear that the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Incarnation,

the Resurrection, the Atonement, clearly taught in Scripture, but there are many

elements that later had to be debated and worked through, and we see this in

councils, we see this in the creeds.

Irenaeus is a critical thinker.

I think he had a really advanced theology, probably Trinitarian, defended the

Incarnation, and of course probably his greatest contribution is he squares

off with one of the earliest and most destructive heresies.

He battles Gnosticism, and Gnosticism was a mixture

of pagan ideas, Eastern ideas, along with certain Christian elements,

but Gnosticism taught things like the God who created the world, Jehovah,

was kind of a sloppy God, but there was a God above him, and

so matter is evil, and spirit

is knowledge, a secret knowledge that Christians needed to

understand, or Gnostics, and Irenaeus battles this,

and really takes them to the mat.

Irenaeus does a great job of understanding what the Gnostics believe, critiquing

them, showing how the idea of matter was evil, what would that do to creation, what would that do to

the Incarnation, the crucifixion,

the

For example, he kind of develops this early idea of theosis.

Instead of thinking primarily of salvation in terms of the doctrine of Jesus,

he thinks in terms of an Eastern way of looking at human beings, that

human beings can be deified.

Now, that's not the Mormon idea, that's not the idea that you add another person to the doctrine of the Trinity,

but it is the idea that a person is transformed by the grace of God

into the image of Christ, and so theosis is there.

I might also say that Irenaeus has strong views about apostolic tradition,

but he is, I think, the very best theologian of the second century,

forward -looking, very courageous, in fact, he had the previous bishop

brutally martyred.

So Irenaeus had guts, and he practiced what I like to call the

golden rule of apologetics, and what I mean by that is, he treated other people's beliefs with fair

-mindedness, he didn't misrepresent them, but he always brought a solid

biblical and theological critique.

So I see Irenaeus as an early champion of history,

and I give all of the people very difficult—.

Yes, and some of the things that you brought up also are a reminder of why

Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura, because there is a very strong tendency

amongst Christians, whether you are a

Calvinist Christian, or whether you are an Arminian Christian, or whether you are a Christian that doesn't

describe themselves either way, if you are even a member of

the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, we have a strong tendency towards

hero worship, and although I believe that we should

have heroes, I do have heroes in the Christian faith, and I don't mean that I

idolize these people and put them on such a high pedestal that I don't behave like a Berean

when reading them, or if they're a contemporary figure, whether when I'm

listening to sermons or watching them on YouTube or something, we always have to

put our Berean hat on and test everything they say according to the Scriptures, but

this is a very strong warning that we have to offer to people, is just because

we are encouraging people to read a great hero of the faith, doesn't mean that everything they said was true,

and that everything should be read through the lenses of Scripture when investigating these men, correct?

That's a great point, and it's a point we should always keep in mind.

Look, you can disagree with Irenaeus, you can disagree with Athanasius, with

Augustine, with Aquinas, you can disagree with Luther and Calvin, Pascal, C .S.

Lewis, learning from these great Christian thinkers doesn't mean you swallow everything that they say.

But they have a lot of wisdom, and you know, one last point about Irenaeus, Chris, is there's a lot

of Gnosticism today, not only in the 20th century finding these Gnostic

Gospels in Egypt, the Nag Hammadi library, but you also have the Da Vinci

Code, you have Oprah and many people on her program who've written

Gnostic...

You're absolutely right.

You can disagree with Irenaeus.

I think he would encourage you to look at what he says and evaluate it

in light of Christians, finally, in Scripture.

But there are many things that these, you know, there's no new heresy

at one point or another, and I like learning from these guys, and they certainly

are heroic -type figures, but they're flawed in the blood and

righteousness of God.

This is our first break right now, and Ken, I forwarded to you an email from

a listener that you can read while we're going to a station break, and then when you return, you can

answer the question, but I will read it on the air right now, and then wait until you

return, wait until we return from the commercials before you answer.

His name is Grady from Asheboro, North Carolina, and he says, I find a lot of Christians today

don't like to read.

I blame TV and computer technology for this.

They are missing out on learning from the early church fathers, reformers, and Puritans.

Do you also run into this with Christians in the evangelical church?

We'll have you answer that question from Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina when we return.

If anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and as always, please give us your first name, at least

your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages with Ken Samples.

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, host of A Visit to the Pastors Study, and I am so thankful to be part of the advertising

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading.

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And I'm sure my guest Ken Samples will agree that Charles Spurgeon's quote that you just heard

during that ad is a perfect way to identify the theme

of today's program, that if you don't use the thoughts of other men's brains, it's the

proof that you have no brains of your own.

And we are talking with Ken Samples.

Ken Samples, the author of the book Classic Christian Thinkers, an introduction.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a

question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

I was just saying you probably did not hear the ad, although you may have heard it from your

many guest appearances on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

There's an ad for Solid Ground Christian Books that airs at least once daily, sometimes

twice or more, where we quote Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who said

anyone that doesn't make the use of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

And I thought that was a perfect way to describe or to identify the theme of

our discussion today with you and me.

And before the break, as you may recall, we had

a listener, Grady from Asheboro, North Carolina, write in a question, and I will read it again.

I find a lot of Christians today don't like to read.

I blame TV and computer technology for this.

They are missing out on learning from the early church fathers, reformers, and Puritans.

Do you also run into this with Christians in the evangelical church?

And I think that Grady is partially true.

I think that the way you discipline yourself with the use of TV and computers

is the key, because you can even find out much about the men that we are addressing today on

the Internet.

But anyway, if you could, Ken, respond to Grady's comment and slash question.

Yeah, I appreciate Grady's comment.

In fact, I want to read a little quote I have from my book from Erasmus, who was a Dutch

Renaissance scholar and theologian who debated Luther on the freedom of the human will.

But Erasmus, in reading, he says, quote, When I get a little

money, I buy books, and if there's any left over, I buy food.

Yes, I have heard.

That's a great diet approach, I think.

Put your books before your food.

But I'm really happy that Grady has asked the question that he did, made the comment that he did, Chris.

It's absolutely true that you have to discipline yourself to read.

And Christian churches should be

recommending good reading material for people.

One of the teachers that I came to know was Mortimer Adler, the great educator of the 20th century.

He has a great book on how to read a book.

I have discovered that many people really don't have a kind of a refined ability to

read and get the most out of various books.

But yeah, that quote from Spurgeon was terrific.

I mean, it's not that Athanasius or Augustine or

Aquinas or replace Scripture.

Those men would say Scripture is the powerful revelation from

God.

But yet, who wouldn't want to have insight from some of the best churches?

And who wouldn't want to have wisdom from the great Protestant Reformers, Luther and

Calvin?

And so I'm very big on encouraging people to read, helping

people to develop their reading skills.

And, you know, we're called as Christians people of the book.

And so we're a bookish people.

The Bible is God's book.

And so that's another reason I wrote my book, Classic Christian Thinkers, to encourage

Christians not to just hear what Ken Samples says about Luther and Calvin or Anselm and Aquinas,

but maybe to open up one of those books and read a little bit and benefit from it.

I can tell you the Confessions by Augustine, it has been

enormously helpful to me in my spiritual life, in my life of thought and

reflection.

I'd say the same about Athanasius.

I would say the same about Luther and Calvin.

So reading is critical, and we're made in the image of God.

And that is one of the abilities, I think, that comes from being image bearers.

You know, the—oh, by the way, Grady, you have won a free copy of the book we are addressing

today, Classic Christian Thinkers, an introduction by Kenneth R. Samples.

So please give us your full mailing address in Asheboro, North Carolina, so we can have that book

shipped out to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.

They will be shipping it out to you at no charge to you or to Orange Reference Iron Radio.

And we thank Reasons to Believe for providing us with these free copies of the book to

give away.

One of the favorite—what's the word I'm looking for?

A favorite slogan or idea in our modern day, and it

has been true for a couple of decades at least now,

and it is wrongly used, that children, or anyone for that matter, but I

think it's specifically targeting or addressing children, that

be yourself no matter what anybody else says.

Don't be too frightened or ashamed to be yourself.

And even if you are the only one that you know that thinks the way you do, you remain

steadfast and be true to yourself, etc.

Now, there is an element of truth in that that I will address in a second, because it has something to do with the

next name in your list, but unfortunately the way that our modern anti

-scriptural culture views that is that even if you are

involved in something that has been viewed as morally

inappropriate or even wicked for centuries, that you should do that

and identify yourself with that activity or thought process or quote -unquote lifestyle no matter what anybody says.

And of course, we as Christians would be repulsed and condemn that

notion.

But on the other hand, you may have children that are the only Christian kids in the

neighborhood, and they're the only ones that say anything in defense of Christ,

and they're the only ones that read the Bible, they're the only ones that attend worship services, and they may be mocked

for that, they may be outcasts for that, they may be even beaten up for that.

Then they should have as their hero, or at least one of their heroes, one of my favorite heroes, Athanasius,

where the phrase Athanasius Contramundum comes from, which means Athanasius

against the world.

And if you could tell our listeners, Ken, why Athanasius has that

slogan connected to his name, and before that even tell us something about the time

from which he has appeared on the scene of Christendom.

Yeah, very good.

Athanasius, Chris, I would say is probably the most respected

of all of the Church Fathers.

And what I mean by that is Athanasius, you know, I sometimes ask myself the question, is

there a universal Christian voice?

Well, of course, Scripture is the universal Christian voice.

But, you know, there are thinkers like St. Augustine is extremely popular in the

West among Catholics and Protestants, but Augustine is not necessarily

high on the list in Eastern Christendom among Orthodox.

Athanasius, on the other hand, is enormously popular in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Roman Catholic

tradition, he's considered a saint in both of those Church traditions.

And Protestants view him as one of the great defenders of the deity of Christ.

His dates are 296 to 373.

Athanasius, by the way, was an Egyptian man, and he attended the Council of Nicaea

that dealt with the great controversy, the heresy of Arianism.

Arius said that Jesus was not equal to the Father, but he was

a creature, and so the highest creature of God, but not equal to God,

and so a denial of the deity of Christ.

To give people a modern context, Jehovah's Witnesses would have a Christology that is

very, very similar to an Arian view.

Well, Athanasius, as a young man, went to Nicaea, and for 50

years, Athanasius battled Arianism, because even though the Council of Nicaea and other

councils condemned Arianism as a heresy, there were still pockets of

the Church that entertained it, bishops who were sympathetic to it.

And Athanasius battled the heresy.

He came up with arguments, biblical arguments, arguing for the deity of Christ,

defending the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, so essentially affirming the doctrine of the

Trinity.

And again, Athanasius was five times, he

was pushed to a particular area, and he is, in

many respects, the person who kind of was the champion of

defending the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the deity of the Spirit.

And this idea of Athanasius Contra Mundum,

interestingly enough, Chris, when I was four years old, I was baptized into the Catholic Church at St. Athanasius

Parish, Long Beach, California, and on the front of the door, it said,

Athanasius Contra Mundum.

I could barely pronounce Athanasius when I was a young boy, but had no idea what Contra Mundum

meant.

But that's Latin for Athanasius Against the World.

And so at one of the peaks in which there was a real struggle between Nicaean

Christianity versus Arianism, the Arian bishops kind of

taunted Athanasius and said to him, the whole world is against you, don't you know that,

Athanasius?

Don't you know the whole world is against you?

And Athanasius said, very calmly, he said, is the world against Athanasius?

And many scholars, many scholars, both Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox, would

tell you that God used the deity of

Christ, and without him, it's hard to see how a biblically -oriented,

historic Christianity would have been able to survive.

So yeah, like all people, he has speed of clay.

You may not agree with everything Athanasius thought.

But he also held a view of theosis, rather than

a more, clearly, he's got

guts.

And there are so many things that we can learn from him.

And one of them is that when it comes to essential Christian doctrine, Christians cannot

back down.

And Athanasius never backed down.

Amen.

And I think that Athanasius is also a very valuable

tool in the arsenal of Protestants, because I think that he and

his life and his actions were a clear

dismissal, or should I say, they eradicate

the notion of papal inerrancy and papal primacy

existing in his day, because he clearly did not go to councils and bishops or a

pope.

I don't even believe there was a pope, despite what Rome thinks at that time.

But he did not go to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church

as being the final arbiter of what truth was.

He went to the Scriptures.

In my book, Chris, I bring up some of Athanasius' arguments.

For example, he would argue from the Scriptures that only God can save us.

Jesus saves us, therefore Jesus is God.

He looks into the Scriptures, and in fact, one of the things I encourage people is

to read some of Athanasius' arguments, and when Jehovah's Witnesses knock on your door,

present some of those ideas.

Another point, Chris, that I think is critical is Athanasius is also very important in terms of

identifying the canon.

He mentions the 27 books of the New Testament, and says, this is

the New Testament canon.

Now, there were other people who identified those books before him, but he plays a

critical role in identifying the New Testament canon.

So Athanasius is a person you don't want to miss, whether

you're a Protestant, a Catholic, Orthodox, an Evangelical.

You want to know about Athanasius' life, and I want to encourage you to pick up his

book, On the Incarnation.

Great, and we have to go to our midway break right now.

Our midway break is the longer than normal break, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in

Lake City, Florida, airs this program, Iron Sharpens Iron, twice daily in a pre -recorded format,

and they need to localize Iron Sharpens Iron to the Lake City, Florida area

with their own public service announcements and commercials.

So while we air our commercials right now, that are heard globally,

the Grace Life Radio will be airing their own.

Use this time wisely, write down questions for Ken Samples on classic

thinkers of Christianity, or classic Christian thinkers.

And also, use this time to write down information provided by our advertisers, because

the more frequently and successfully you patronize our advertisers here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, the

more likely we are going to exist longer, because we rely upon the dollars that

come from our advertisers.

We cannot exist without them.

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They'll be more likely doing that if they are getting patronized by our listeners.

So please remember to write down as much of the information that you can from our advertisers, and also write down questions for

Ken Samples and send them to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

And as always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Don't go away, we'll be right back after this station break with Ken Samples and classic Christian thinkers.

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Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Ironson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program with a little less than an hour to go is

Kenneth R. Samples, and we are addressing his book about

probably the nine of his favorite Christian thinkers of history,

Classic Christian Thinker as an Introduction.

And if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at

gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a

personal or private matter.

We will get to as many of our listeners waiting to have their questions asked and answered as possible, but

before we go to our listener questions, I just have some important announcements to make regarding upcoming

events that I hope that our Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio listeners will attend, if at all possible.

The first event is in Northern Ireland, Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and it is

a conference on the original five points of Calvinism in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the

canons of Dort.

This is being held at the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and the speaker

is my friend David Engelsma, who has been a guest on this program a number of times.

The conference begins this Saturday, April 13th, and it also

continues on Wednesday, April 17th, and Wednesday, May 1st.

If you would like to attend this, if you happen to live in the United Kingdom, or specifically in Northern Ireland, or you're able to get there,

you could get more information at cprf .co .uk.

That's CP, which stands for Covenant Protestant, RF, that stands for Reformed

Fellowship, .cu .uk, cprf .co .uk.

Then, after that, the Dort 400 conference is being held

in Hudsonville, Michigan, at the Trinity Protestant Reformed Church, April 25th through

the 27th.

That is Thursday, April 25th, through Saturday, April 27th, and the

speakers include Professor Ronald Kamenga, Professor Barrett Gritters,

Reverend Brian Huizinga, Professor Doug Kuyper, Bill Langerak,

and Reverend Mark Shand, and Reverend Angus Stewart.

About half of those men have been guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and if you live in Michigan, or

you can get there, I would strongly recommend that you attend this conference.

It's absolutely free of charge, also, which adds to its value, and

the ability of our listeners to attend, even if you cannot afford to typically register

for conferences that involve a registration fee.

So, I hope that you can attend this conference that is being held April 25th through the 27th in

Hudsonville, Michigan.

For more details, go to Dort400 .org, and Dort is spelled D as in David, O -R -D

as in David, T -400 .org, so don't forget that second D in there, D -O -R -D

-T -400 .org, and please tell the folks there, if you attend or if you register,

that you heard about the event from Chris Arns and on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Then, after that, Iron Trip and Zion Radio is having our Spring Pastors Luncheon,

featuring my dear friend Dr. Tony Costa, who is Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist

Seminary.

He is going to be speaking on how the Dead Sea Scrolls vindicate the reliability of the scriptures.

That's Thursday, May 23rd from 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle

Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

This is absolutely free of charge to all men in ministry leadership, whether you are a pastor or an elder, and I

believe those are the same office, by the way, a deacon, a leader in a parachurch organization,

any man in ministry leadership is welcome to attend absolutely free of charge as long as you register for

free before the event.

And you will also be leaving there, if you attend, a very heavy sack of free books that have been

donated to us, free brand new books that I have personally selected for every man in

attendance that have been donated by nearly every single major Christian publisher in the United States and the United

Kingdom.

They have donated to us 100 copies of each book I have selected so that every man in attendance,

as long as we don't have any more than 100, will leave with a copy of those books.

So you'll be leaving with a couple of dozen free books.

And, of course, the lunch is free.

Everything is free.

There is no ulterior motive.

There's no hidden agenda.

My precious late wife, Julie, who also thought very highly of my guest today, Ken

Samples, and had the privilege of dining with Ken and I on a couple of occasions.

She is the one that started these pastor's luncheons, and she insisted that there be no ulterior motives and

that nothing be sold there.

Everything is free of charge, and I wholeheartedly agreed with her and have carried on her tradition after she has entered into

eternal glory with Christ.

So if you want to attend this free luncheon, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

I am sure that you are going to be blown away by the gifts and the brilliance of Dr. Tony

Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary.

Every person that has spoken to me, and I'm not exaggerating, every person who has spoken to me, who has seen and heard

Dr. Costa at one of my events, has raved about how wonderful he is.

So please try to come if at all possible.

Then, right after that, from May 28th through the 30th, I am heading to

Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

That's Tuesday through Thursday of May 28th through the 30th.

And that is for the East Coast Ministers Conference of the Banner of Truth on the theme, I Believe in the Holy

Spirit.

The speakers include Jeff Kingswood, Terry Johnson, David Vaughn, Steve Nichols,

Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas.

If you would like to register for this conference, go to banneroftruth .org,

banneroftruth .org, and scroll down to East Coast Ministers Conference.

And please tell the folks at Banner of Truth that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

And please look for me, ask around, do you know where Chris Arnzen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio is when you are there

at the East Coast Ministers Conference?

Because I would love to meet as many in the Iron Trip and Zion Radio audience as I possibly can who may be attending this.

Every time I have attended, I have met people who listen to the show.

So I hope to meet you either for the first time or to be reacquainted with you

if I have met you before.

So that's banneroftruth .org, banneroftruth .org.

That's the East Coast Ministers Conference, May 28th through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at the Elizabethtown

College.

Then another conference I will be going to, God willing, on December 19th and the 20th in New York

City is the Foundations Conference.

The Foundations Conference is a conference of Family Radio.

I'm sorry, not Family Radio, although I love the folks at Family Radio since they have repented of Harold Camping's heresies

and have become totally transformed as a new network.

This is Sermon Audio who is running the Foundations Conference.

And as I said, that will be on the 19th and 20th of December.

That's Thursday and Friday of December 19th and 20th.

And they have a remarkable lineup, as always, at the Foundations Conference.

First of all, they have Dr. Stephen J. Lawson who you every day hear promoting New

Covenant Church NYC, a sponsor of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

He is the founder of One Passion Ministries and one of the finest preachers alive.

Paul Washer, another extraordinary preacher, is on the roster.

Reverend Jeff Thomas, another extraordinary preacher and author, a retired Baptist from

Wales, who I have really been blessed by hearing him preach and reading what he has written.

One of my favorite preachers is a young man who I think is going to become a household name over the next decade because he is so gifted

and powerful, Reverend Armin Tomasian.

Richard Caldwell Jr. and Andrew Quigley, two men I have not yet heard preach, but I am

sure if Sermon Audio selected them for this conference that they are very gifted men.

So, if you would like to attend this event on Thursday and Friday, December 19th and

20th in New York City, go to thefoundationsconference

.com thefoundationsconference .com and you will have all the information that you

need.

Last but not least, if you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to

ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card by doing that and we really urgently

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We have really hit another very scary financial pit that we are falling

into and this happens about four times a year when our

donations nearly dry up and we are getting a little bit anxious.

I know that we are never supposed to be anxious, according to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but being a sinner and being a human being, I get

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Please never, ever, ever siphon money away from your regular giving that you are accustomed to to your local church where you are a member

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Never do that.

Never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Those two things are commands of God providing for church and home.

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If you want to advertise, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

As long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we really do need your

advertising dollars.

Also, if you do not have a local church that is biblically faithful where you are a member and

you're not prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

So please rectify that situation if you need help finding a church, even if it's where you're going on vacation.

I've helped quite a number of people find biblically faithful churches.

Some of these folks have joined these churches and others have visited them when they

are on vacation.

So please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put something like, I need a church

in the subject line and I will help you find a church from the lists I have of biblically sound churches all over the world.

And also, you could use that email address to send in a question to Ken Samples at

chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

If you've just joined us, Ken Samples is the Senior Research Scholar at Reasons to Believe.

We are addressing his latest book, Classic Christian Thinkers, an Introduction.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Ken, we have a listener from Cork, Ireland.

Mary from Cork, Ireland says, Hi Christopher, I had to study the European Reformation by

Carter Lindberg.

It's an excellent book and I learned a lot from it, but I would like to read it

again when I have time.

I also love Stephen Wellham's book, God the Son Incarnate.

It is also an excellent book.

Who is your favorite author and why?

Yeah, that's great on Mary's part.

I'm going to answer her question.

I would say, of course, outside of Scripture, which is the greatest of

all the great books given by God,

really stand out to me.

St. Augustine's book, Confessions, I would say one of the

most influential books I've ever read in my life.

I try to read it once a year because Mortimer Adler, the great educator

and the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the great books of the Western world, he said a

classic is a book that you can never exhaust.

And of course, that's especially true of Scripture.

I mean, who could ever exhaust the book of Romans or the Gospel of John or the Psalms,

for example?

Well, I see the Confessions as a classic.

It is a book that always challenges me, teaches me.

Sometimes I think Augustine is not just writing about himself, but he's writing about me.

He's writing about all sinners who need the grace of God.

And other books, I like Pascal's Pensees.

I'm a big fan of Mere Christianity by C .S. Lewis.

And I take ten books in the last chapter of my book, Classic Christian Thinkers, and

give you a summary of these classics that are written by the scholars and thinkers that

I've written about.

Well, thank you, Mary.

And we normally don't send out books overseas to

people who win them on Iron Trip and Zion Radio because the cost would be astronomical

for cvbbs .com to send books overseas because we have a lot of listeners

overseas.

But we are very happy to know that you are visiting the United States, so we will make sure that you

get a copy of Ken's book when you are here in the

United States of America.

Thank you so much for joining us and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the

Republic of Ireland and beyond.

We have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.

I'm sure enjoying today's show and feel uplifted hearing about the fathers of the church.

My question to Brother Ken is this.

When our son was in seminary, he was encouraged to read fiction as well as history and theology

books.

Would Brother Ken recommend this, too?

And if so, what nonfiction book would he recommend?

Well, since I know C .S. Lewis is on his list, I have a feeling that's going to be connected to the answer.

But, Ken, if you could respond to Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.

Yeah, I appreciate Linda's very helpful question.

And I certainly would recommend both fiction and nonfiction.

I think there are some great Christian authors through the centuries that have

been very thinkers.

Chris mentioned C .S. Lewis.

C .S. Lewis is a unique apologist because, in certain respects, he's a literary apologist.

The Bibles of Narnia, for example, are some of the best -known literature in the world.

They've sold over 100 million copies.

In that children's stories, you have some powerful literature that

conveys the truth of historic Christianity.

Even Lewis's friend J .R .R. Tolkien, who was himself a Roman Catholic, has

written The Lord of the Rings.

I think there's a lot of really good literature.

Again, many Christians have been literary authors.

Dickens, numerous others.

So I think that there are some really good books.

C .S. Lewis wrote a book, Until We Have Faces, which is one of

his novels.

Lots of really good books out there that you can read, and

many of them include both fiction and nonfiction.

Well, thank you, Linda.

You've also won a free copy of the book we are addressing by Ken Sample.

So please make sure you give us your full mailing address in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, so that

CVBBS .com can ship that out to you free of charge.

And we thank Reasons to Believe once again for providing us with these free books.

And this book, again, is Classic Christian Thinkers, as an introduction by our guest, Ken Samples.

Thank you so much, Linda.

And I want to thank also you and your husband, Glenn, for being

regular supporters, financially, of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

We rely upon your generosity to exist.

So we thank you in ways that are inadequate in the English

language to convey the deep gratitude that I have for folks like you who

listen to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio and want us to exist and who generously give to us

as often as they can.

Thank you so much, and God bless you.

Let's go on to probably one of the greatest giants of

Christendom.

In fact, many people would argue, and I think many people with great wisdom and

discernment would argue that in regard to extra -biblical thinkers,

Augustine is the champion of them all.

But if you could tell us about why you included Augustine and about what time in

Church history does he appear on the screen.

On the scene, not on the screen.

Yeah, very good.

Well, I would agree with you, Chris.

I think St. Augustine is arguably the most influential Christian thinker outside

of the New Testament authors.

He is a huge figure influencing Catholic thinkers.

But Carl Truman, a good, solid Presbyterian theologian,

Augustine is probably as important to Protestants as he is to Catholics.

So he is really the most influential Church father and

casts a big shadow in Western Christendom.

He's not terribly well -liked among the Eastern Orthodox.

They see him as rather pessimistic in his view of original sin, not fond of his views

of predestination.

But Augustine is born in 354, dies in 430, so

he lives in what we call late antiquity, really as the Roman Empire

is beginning to crumble.

Augustine is born in a little city called Tagaste in North Africa, that is today in

the country of Algeria.

Augustine has a great story.

His mother, Monica, is a Christian.

His father is a pagan.

When he's a young guy, his mother kind of teaches him about Christianity, but

he's very rebellious.

They go out and steal pears.

Augustine says not because they're hungry, but because they wanted to do something illicit.

And you see these stories coming out in the Confessions about Augustine being a restless

and rebellious kind of guy.

He's enormously talented.

His great skill is in the area of rhetoric, speech, and debate.

He opens up schools in Carthage, in Rome, and in Milan.

And Augustine really walks away from the faith.

He has a relationship with a woman in whom he is not married.

They have a child.

He really embraces a thick lifestyle.

Augustine wants to work for Caesar.

He wants to be a spokeman.

Caesar can sell religion like Manichaeanism

in philosophy.

But Augustine really comes to a short end in all of that.

None of these pursuits, the pursuit of Manichaean religion,

of hedonism in Neoplatonistic philosophy, is

not enough.

And about the age of 30 years old, early 30s,

he bumps into a great

speaker and preacher.

That's the initial attraction that Augustine has to him.

Ambrose helps him with the standings of Christianity.

And ultimately, he has a conversion where he hears the child's voice saying in Latin

the words, Tolle lege, tolle lege, take up and read, take up and read.

And Augustine picks up the book of Romans and

reads a passage in Romans 13 about turning away from the things of the flesh and put

on Jesus Christ.

And his son are baptized.

And then Augustine becomes ultimately a priest and a bishop, and

he writes more than 5 million words.

In fact, he is the most prolific author in the entire

ancient world, Latin or Greek, 5 million words.

He becomes really an incredibly important person.

He tackles the Pelagian heresy.

Pelagius was a British monk who

taught that you could be saved apart

from grace.

Augustine goes after that with all of his power in mind,

solely by grace, not by works.

He also takes on the Dontetist controversy, another heresy in church history

that relates to the issue of

areas of very deep.

He writes a book on the Trinity called On the Trinity, writes The City of God, which

is a critique of Greco -Roman civilization.

And again, while it may be a bit

of an overstatement, I don't think it's much that Augustine's writings influenced

not only people like Anselm, who was Catholic, Thomas Aquinas, who was Roman Catholic,

but Augustine influences Luther.

Remember, Luther is in the Augustinian order.

Luther, 100 times.

He quotes Thomas Aquinas 100 times.

He quotes Augustine 4 ,200 times.

Cranmer, the great reformer connected to the Anglican tradition, strong Augustinian.

He is a theologian, a philosopher, a writer, an apologist.

I really don't think you can understand Western Christendom

without the influence of this great North African church father.

And even a 19th century Baptist hero, Charles Adams Spurgeon,

had a great admiration for Augustine and thought of him as a

hero of the Christian church.

So that's a lesson to be learned from some of our fundamentalist

Baptist friends who would entirely reject Augustine, who at the same time

simultaneously claimed to love Charles Adams Spurgeon.

Spurgeon was influenced greatly by this great hero of Christendom.

We're going to get to our final break, which is a shorter break than the last one.

But before I go to the final break, I do want to read a question

from Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says, I

didn't hear you mention this earlier.

I tuned in late, so forgive me if you already said this, but what theological background does your guest

Ken Samples come from?

Great question, and we'll have Ken answer that when we return.

And if you want to join us, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen, and this is the last about 20 minutes or so of our discussion today

with Kenneth R. Sample, Senior Research Scholar at Reasons to Believe.

We are addressing his latest book classic, Christian Thinker.

It's an introduction.

If you want to join us on the air, please do so quickly at chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

And please give us, as always, your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

And as you may remember, Ken, Susan Margaret from Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, wants to know your own

personal theological background.

Yes.

Susan and I was raised in what I would call a nominal Roman Catholic family.

My parents were in the early 1960s, and so I was baptized as a

small child.

By early 20s, I became an evangelical Christian.

I got to know Walter Martin, who was a world famous

in the area of cults and new religious movements.

He had a big influence on my early evangelical process.

I was an evangelical for a time, attended a Lutheran church, and then I became

Reformed, attended a Dutch Calvinist church for almost 20 years.

Now I think my preference would be to be called a Reformed Anglican.

I like liturgy, but I love the Reformed

elements that are found in the Anglican tradition.

So that's kind of a little quick trip of my own theological...

Thank you, Susan.

And you've also won a free copy of the book, Classic Christian Thinkers, An Introduction.

So please give us your full mailing address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, so that CVBBS .com can ship that

book out to you free of charge.

Now we are up to a hero of history that is

probably on your list, I would guess, the least known of all of the

men that you have on this list, Anselm.

I know that you mentioned Anselm earlier, but if you could give us more details on Anselm and when he arrived

on the scene in Christendom.

Yeah, Anselm is a very important Christian thinker.

His dates are 1033 to 1109.

So now we have moved away from the Church Fathers, and now

Anselm would be part of the Middle Ages.

And Anselm is born into a Catholic family.

He is close to his mother, rather distant from his father, is

interested in spirituality and becomes a

priest, ultimately becomes very influential as

the Archbishop of Canterbury, which today we would associate with the Anglican tradition,

but at the time Anselm would have been in the Roman Catholic tradition.

Anselm is known for a number of things.

One of them is that he is part of the scholastic movement of the Middle Ages,

and scholasticism was really attempting to show that

the Christian revelation was consistent with reason.

That is, if you looked at the doctrine of the Trinity or the doctrine of the Incarnation or the

doctrine of the Atonement, that while these were theological mysteries, meaning that

they are truths that the human mind cannot fully comprehend or exhaustively

understand, but the scholastics would argue that those doctrines nonetheless were compatible

with reason.

And so Anselm looks at the question, for example, in one of his very famous books

called, in Latin, Cur Deus Homo, translated, Why the God

-Man or Why Did God Become Man?

And Anselm develops the idea that the Incarnation is critical to

Christianity, that because Jesus is a single person who has both a divine and human

nature, he can then reconcile God and man.

He represents God and man and can reconcile God and man.

In that book, he develops a theological view of the Atonement not

nearly as influential or as strongly biblical

-based as we would see in penal substance, but nonetheless

a very important idea.

And so here you have Anselm delving into the realm of theology, dealing with the

doctrine of the Incarnation.

From an apologetic point of view, and of course the Greek word apologia, we get the word

apologetics, means to give a reason to defend.

Anselm's probably greatest fame is his very fascinating,

interesting, controversial argument for God that we would later call the

ontological argument.

And the ontological argument essentially says that God is a being then

which none greater can be conceived.

God is a perfect being.

But Anselm reasons if God is perfect, he would have to exist not just as an idea in the

mind, but he would also have to exist as a reality.

Because if he only existed as an idea, then you could think of

a greater perspective, and therefore he argued that God exists.

Now, the upshot of this very complicated and very controversial idea is essentially

this, that Anselm was reading Scripture, Psalm 14, and he came up

with this argument out of his prayerful reflection.

And essentially it argues that to deny God's existence, remember what the psalmist

says, the fool who said in his heart there is no God, Anselm argues that there is a

logical contradiction in denying God's existence, and that this

ultimately leads to an affirmation of a perfect being existing.

I think Anselm was influenced by Augustine in some of that thinking.

Not all Christian thinkers have been enamored with the idea of the ontological argument.

Even Thomas Aquinas was critical of it.

But many others have been deeply fascinated with it.

Today you have people like Alvin Plantica, a very influential Christian philosophy

associated in the Reformed tradition, who defends an ontological

argument.

So for the last thousand years, and I have a degree in philosophy and I've spent a

number of years teaching philosophy, over the last thousand years in Western civilization,

people both in theology and philosophy have been debating and critiquing

and studying Anselm's ideas.

Anselm was also very devotional.

He left a lot of

reflection

in that area.

It's true that Anselm is a Roman Catholic, and so you not only have prayers to the

Trinity, but he also offers prayers to Mary and the Saint.

This is a reflection of...

But Anselm is a remarkable thinker, and one that has a deep

influence, and I think in terms of both

theology and philosophy and apologetics, he is one of the bright lights of church

history.

Yes, and some of the things that you mentioned always bring me back to the need to be Berean.

I have, as you know, Ken, come out of Roman Catholicism.

I was raised in it, just as you were.

And I am very protective of those that I know and

love still within Roman Catholicism, and I have a great deal of problem with, let's say,

what you might call modern -day ecumenism that sees the differences on

the gospel and on things like prayer to the saints as being trivial.

I don't think that they're trivial.

But at the same time, I agree with the philosophy, for instance, of

classical Christian education, that we should be well -rounded in our

understanding and of our knowledge.

We should be reading those people that we might not necessarily

agree with on all things, just so we have a broader scope of knowledge.

And of course, wouldn't you say that we should, especially with new Christians, they have to be

guided, or should I say they should be guided, by discerning elders

in their own congregation, that they might not just pick up ideas from somebody that they love reading and

then adopt them as a doctrine of their own,

because of the fact that great men have failed greatly and miserably in many areas.

So wouldn't you say that people have to always remember to be Berean and the guidance of godly elders

and discerning elders is very helpful?

I mean, one of the points I make in this book, we've looked at Irenaeus, Athanasius,

Augustine, and Anselm.

To learn from them and to respect them doesn't mean that we have to agree with everything that they say.

Just as we're critical, Paul says, test all things, hold on to

that which is good.

John says, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

The Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians.

Why?

Because they put even Paul to the test.

And again, there are going to be things in some

of the Flick orientation, maybe even some of the early would have

ideas like theosis that would be closely connected to Eastern

thinking.

But that doesn't mean we can't learn from them, nor does it mean that we can't criticize them.

And Christians need, I think, to learn from the very best thinkers throughout Church history.

And again, I don't want evangelicals to feel like the history of Christianity

belongs exclusively either to the Eastern Orthodox or the Roman Catholics.

Protestantism had deep roots in the theology of Nicaea, the councils.

Protestants saw themselves as Catholics, but not Roman Catholics.

Well, I want you to return as soon as possible to address the other five figures from history

from your book, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Blaise Pascal, and C .S. Lewis.

So perhaps if you could remain on the phone after we go off the air so I can schedule another

date with you.

But I want to thank you so much, Ken, for being on the show again.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than

you are a sinner.