The Real Intention of the Leftists is to Destroy Marriage

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First Dividing Line back from my time away in New Mexico and Colorado, so there was a lot of “Western Society is really falling apart” material to cover, including California demonstrating that the real intention of the leftists is to destroy marriage en toto (in this instance, the removal of the terms “husband” and “wife”). Then we took calls, including a call from Manuel on the doctrine of the Trinity.

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And welcome to The Dividing Line. If we are here, we don't know. We just had to reset the modem.
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The computer crashed twice. It's great to be back. Evidently, the computer would rather have
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John Samson sitting in this chair because it obviously does not like me because it isn't working too well.
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Well, John doesn't use computers. He uses, you know, paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And that's probably why he decided to start the ESV -only movement. And I've got to admit,
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I suppose this needs to be plugged in. Boy, which hole do
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I plug that into? We'll find out soon enough. The endorsements that John got for the
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ESV -only movement were... I thought the Ergen -Kanner one was just classic.
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That was good. It's good to know that when the cat's away, the mice will start heretical movements.
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There you go. But it's good to be back, even though I'll have to admit the weather sure was nice in Santa Fe and in Evergreen, Colorado and Boulder and places like that and at the top of Mount Evans and going over Loveland Pass and all those other things.
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And I was going to do a travelogue for you. Maybe I will yet in the future, but we have other things to do.
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And let me just briefly thank everybody that made the past two weeks for me possible. I hope you all found the debate with Bob Enyart to be useful.
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I've seen a lot of commentary about that and the presentations we did on the subject of response to the quote, gay
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Christian movement, end quote, though I don't obviously use that terminology myself.
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But we'll hold that off a little bit later. 877 -753 -3341.
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We have not tested the phones, but the nice thing is I actually do have connection to the stack.
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So that's one of the few things that's gone right so far, technically for us. So we'll see.
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We'll see what happens. That angle looks different. Did you move it or zoom it? It seems to be taking a lot more of the computer screen in that it did before.
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I don't know. It's just you didn't.
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Things got moved. No, I had to. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
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Just absolutely amazing, and I didn't get to comment on it, so Michael Brown did. I saw it the day that it happened, and as reported in the
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Huffington Post, California's same -sex couples may now be pronounced spouse and spouse, after Governor Jerry Brown, with a big ol'
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D behind his name, signed a bill last Monday eliminating outdated husband and wife references from state laws.
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The post also explains that Senate Bill 1306 was introduced by State Senator Mark Leno, big
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D, San Francisco, openly homosexual, to eliminate confusion and correct discriminatory phrasing in the
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California Constitution that contradicts state law. Of course, there have been a few folks out here, primarily ignored by the mainstream media, who have been trying to say for a long time that there is more to this than the surface -level, absurd, ridiculous, outrageous civil rights argument, which has been refuted so many times, and most eloquently by especially black women
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Christians, who can say, wait a minute, that's absurd, and it is, of course, absurd.
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The whole civil rights thing is completely absurd. But there's a reason for all of this, and there's a greater reason.
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It's not just that people are stumbling into this, and it's going to have bad effects here, there, and everywhere.
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But anyone who would want to destroy a culture and a nation that has been blessed by a culture that was informed by a
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Christian worldview, this would be the way to do it. To introduce a level of utter confusion that will fundamentally cripple human flourishing within a particular culture.
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And that's what we have here. There is nothing more basic in my recollection than to think of my father and my mother.
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And I know the difference between the two. I think about how, for example,
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I would misbehave as a child, and my mom would say, I'm going to tell your dad when you get home.
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Now, why was that relevant? Well, because my dad was the primary person responsible for my discipline.
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And if I got hurt, the first person I'd run to would be my mom.
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And that's natural, that's right, that's the way it should be. And I learned about compassion and empathy and things like that from my mom.
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I learned about what it means to be a man and to do the right thing and not to be ruled by emotion from my dad.
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I learned, I saw their interaction, and that was an appropriate thing.
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But I knew who a mother was, and I knew who a father was, and I didn't grow up in a culture of confusion at that point in time.
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But now in California, the leftist secularist nutcases are doing away.
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And some of us have said this is exactly what they want to do. They want to destroy marriage.
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If you do not have husbands, and if you do not have wives, you don't have marriage. That's all there is to it.
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Spouse A and spouse B is not marriage. No father, no mother, no husband, no wife is not marriage.
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Call it whatever you want, it's just not marriage. Never will be, never can be. And calling marriage that is absurd, ridiculous, stupid on its face.
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It's disgusting, it's depraved. And from a Christian perspective, it's downright sinful. It is an act of utter rebellion.
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There's no question about that. No question about that at all. So we already had heard about how, for example, in certain
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European countries, you have progenitor A and progenitor B. There was a day when our culture had enough common sense to realize that a nation that loses track of these things was a nation in great decline.
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But there is tremendous common sense that has been lost in our nation, and I believe it to be part of God's judgment.
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If you want an example, then, of what that has resulted in, you have
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California doing away with these things. And then just before the program, someone sent me a
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BBC article about Casey Stoney, why being a gay mum can help my
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England career. And she's a footballer and says, until last season, my partner,
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Megan Harris, was a footballer, and we played together at Lincoln Ladies, but her desire to be a mum far outweighed her ambitions in football.
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So she is the one who is pregnant. But not by you, huh?
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No, not by you. Can't be by you. Will never be by you. And so that's not your child.
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Yes, it is. No, it isn't. In fact, up until just a few years ago, people who wanted to have other people's children, we locked them up.
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When they snuck into the nursery and took other people's children, we recognized that was wrong.
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And now, see, when you look at this, and you see, one of the reasons
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I came out about my sexuality last February was because my partner and I were playing and having a family. And I'm so excited to say we are expecting twins later this year.
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That is like saying that I, you know, I rode up to top Mount Evans this past trip to Colorado.
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Never been that high. I remember watching the altimeter on my cycling computer, and once it went past 11 ,990,
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I knew that was top of Loveland Pass. And so I was going into rarefied air, literally.
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And wow, you really feel like you can just see forever. It is sort of the top of the world feeling.
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There's no question about it. And it would be like my going to the top of that mountain and looking out over the broad vistas, you can just see forever and deciding, you know what,
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I'm going to fly over all of this. I'm just going to jump off of this.
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You know, there's lots of places if you want to get a good start. I rode around a few corners where gone fast enough could have gotten a real good start.
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Terminal velocity would have been pretty ugly. And I'm just going to spread my wings and fly.
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Well, I can't do that because God didn't give me wings.
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Don't have them. Can't do it. It's against nature. I'm a human being, not a bird. But we've lost track of that nature thing of recognizing what we are.
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And so now you've got two women and my partner and I were planning on having a family. And I'm so excited to say we are expecting twins later this year.
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You know, when I told people that my wife and I were expecting, that had a special meaning.
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This is an insult to that meaning that I expressed to other men.
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Because what she means is we underwent an expensive medical procedure that has artificially begun pregnancy in one of us.
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And it's going to result in that child someday wondering who those twins actually someday wondering who their real father is.
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Because Casey Stoney is not a father, will never be a father, cannot be a father.
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And if they dare tell these twins that their actual mother who bore them is actually their father.
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Is that not child abuse on a level that is absolutely perverse? It is.
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It is absolutely amazing. So one of them decides that they're going to get pregnant while the other one keeps playing football.
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I am in a very fortunate position where I can become a mom in women's football without it impacting my career negatively.
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The selfishness, the absolute self -centeredness of homosexuality.
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It truly is narcissism, childish narcissism.
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It's just, well, it's not going to occur. I can become a mom. No, you won't. You're not a mom, never will be a mom.
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You may be taking care of kids, but you're not a mom. That word has meaning. And I've said over and over again, isn't there anybody anymore?
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Isn't there anyone anymore who actually values something called motherhood, fatherhood?
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Don't those things mean something? Well, just because they're coming up with a different meaning doesn't mean it impacts me.
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Yes, it will. What about these twins? What if you're a parent right now and one of your offspring falls in love with one of these twins raised by two lesbians?
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Remember last program, the program, well, last program I was on, or was it the one from Colorado? I can't remember now.
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But it was talking about the little kid who is undergoing sex change therapy at like age 11.
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So he won't go through puberty because he was raised by two lesbians. It's child abuse, plain and simple.
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That's all there is to it. You can deny it. You can close your eyes to it. It's amazing.
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Amazing. Professing themselves to be wise. This is foolishness on a level that is truly, truly difficult to begin to comprehend.
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It really is. It really is. All right, we have phone callers.
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The phone lines are open. 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341.
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And let's talk to Kyle. Hi, Kyle. Hi, how are you?
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Doing good. Hey, I've got a question for you. I've kind of become involved with some
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Mormon missionaries and, you know, we're just talking and getting to know each other. But, you know, the rubber eventually has to meet the road.
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And so I committed to them, I will read the Book of Mormon. And, you know, then I'm saying, okay, you need to read
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John. But I want you to come along with me as well. And I'll comment on it.
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Their leaders will only let that go so far, by the way. Well, I've met the leader, and I don't think he likes me.
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But, which actually, at the end of it, I'll be honest with you, I'm fairly heartbroken, because I really do care about these guys.
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Yeah, I understand. For some reason, I don't have the compassion for the leader. I don't know why.
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Well, I understand that. You see these guys as the ones who've been deceived, and those who have authority over them as the ones who have been doing the deceiving.
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I mean, I've run into some of the people from their ward when I take them out to dinner and stuff, and it's like, in my heart,
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I'm just like, let them go. Do what you want to do, but let them go. But, you know,
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I've seen some of the lectures you've given on YouTube that are very helpful. But rather than kind of jump into the standard things that I think people get into,
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I just started looking at it, and I tried to take some things that I'd seen where you're going through the
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Koran and saying, listen, the author of the Koran didn't really understand the Bible. And I think that you see the same thing.
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Have you seen the same thing in the Book of Mormon, where there's just, like, offhand comments, and you say, there's no way.
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You know, my point to them is, listen, Tom Clancy from book to book doesn't get his characters wrong. So the
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Holy Spirit can't, right? And so, on one hand, you know, there's offhand comments that, if I'm reading it correct,
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Jeremiah would have said that Lehi was a bad fig, because he left Jerusalem instead of accepting the discipline to go into captivity.
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And there's a comment where Nephi is bragging that just as Moses smoked the rock and provided water for all of Israel, so I'm doing blah blah blah.
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And that's the great downfall of Moses. He didn't go into the promise land, because he struck the rock instead of speak to it.
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You know, and I'm just like, there's these offhand comments that the Holy Spirit could not have inspired.
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You know, so there has to be different authors. And I'm just wondering if you've kind of taken that tactically and gone through the
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Book of Mormon. Yeah, but you've got to remember a couple things. First of all, if the two young men with whom you're speaking are like a lot of Mormon missionaries, though they've been encouraged to do so, they may not really have read the
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Book of Mormon. I mean, I remember years and years and years ago, at that time
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I was driving a 1964 Dodge Dart. No two body panels were the same color. My wife to this day just shakes her head when she remembers that particular vehicle.
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And we were up in Provo, Utah, and we pulled into the parking lot of the
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Provo Temple up there, and we ran into this missionary. Little did we know that right down at the end of the parking lot was the
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Missionary Training Center. We eventually went down there, but we ran into this missionary, and we started talking to him. He did not even know where the
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Book of Abraham was. He had never read it. So, you know, you can't necessarily assume a high level of knowledge of the
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Book of Mormon or its context on the part of an LDS missionary. It would help if they had it, but you can't necessarily assume that.
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Secondly, you've got to remember the eighth article of faith. We believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. We believe the
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Bible to be the Word of God, as far as it's translated correctly. So there is a fundamental assumption on the part of the vast majority of Mormons that if you encounter a contradiction, if you encounter something like that, then the problem is with the
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Bible, not with the Book of Mormon, because the Book of Mormon is the most perfect book of any on earth. I've also heard comments and references, well, it's basically we believe these three books, but we really want to submarine the
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Bible as much as possible. You know, it's almost like that's a ruse. I'm using the
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Word, the Bible, and I'm using Jesus' name to kind of get me in the door with some people, but that's not the focus that I'm hearing, and it's very disheartening.
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Oh yeah, there's no question about that. And by the way, keep something in mind, Kyle, about the leaders. Believe me,
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I know exactly how you feel about that. But those leaders were probably missionaries themselves, and what you're seeing is generation after generation of deception.
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You know, those leaders are just as, well, I think it's very well described by Paul, deceiving and being deceived.
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So they've been deceived, and as they've been deceived, they now deceive others, and then you become truly established, and then you become the one deceiving others.
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That's one of the horrible things about untruth. That's one of the reasons that you have such strong terminology in 2
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Thessalonians. If you will not love the truth, you'll be caused to love a lie, and we just don't take that very seriously.
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But no, that is a good direction to go, but eventually you cannot avoid going after the testimony and establishing the reality of objective truth.
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You have to eventually say to them, look, you know, the testimony, you've been taught to look to your feelings, to your emotions, to pray about these things.
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The reality is that the Scripture says the heart is desperately sick and wicked and deceitful. Who can understand it?
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Jeremiah 17, 9. And that there is a way, it seems, right into a man, but then there are the ways of death in Proverbs 14, 12.
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And you've got to introduce them to a meaningful biblical anthropology that hopefully the Spirit of God can use.
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You know, if the Spirit of God is working in that young man's heart, then they themselves will know that their entire heart is a source of constant deception.
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They know that they can convince themselves that what they're doing is right even when they know it's wrong.
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And so that's something that just has to be dealt with eventually, is getting them away from that very feelings and man -based judgment of what is true and what isn't, because that's the only way to eventually get them to start examining
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Joseph Smith and to see that Mormonism is an utter perversion of anything that Christianity ever stood for or believed down through the centuries.
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Well, and more than anything, I really just wanted to call just to say thank you. Especially kind of in some of the, one of the addresses
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I saw from you, you pointed out specifically that you may say a word and they will say a word, but there's different meanings there.
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So there's times when they can say something that is quasi -orthodox, and you go, wow,
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I don't really know that we have that much difference here. But when you start unpacking what you mean by those words, then you realize, oh, we're actually just speaking different languages.
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Big time. Big time. There's such a huge language barrier. If you don't know the language barrier, you'll sit there for hours talking, talking, talking, and then a few hours later realize, we haven't been talking at all, and that's a real problem.
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So, yeah, pray for them. You know, you may never get to see them again. I mean, I've had situations where I've really gotten to know missionaries, and they've been sent home, they've been transferred someplace else.
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Those folks, the mission president knows when someone has gotten too close to somebody.
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That's why they'll switch people up. Normally their tendency is they will not allow someone to meet for more than just a few times unless they're seeing real progress toward that person, expressing desire to be baptized.
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That would be different. But other than that, they know that if they allow this kind of relationship to go too far, it ends up bad for them.
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And so, you know, you can only pray for them. I've sometimes run into some of the missionaries that I had encounters with.
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Sometimes I don't. I've got to put them in God's hands at that point. Yeah. No, I understand.
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I understand. But anyways, thank you for the stuff, especially on YouTube. People do watch it, and it's beneficial.
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So thank you. All right. Thanks, Kyle. Okay. Bye -bye. All right. Bye -bye. Yeah, I still look at those missionaries when they go by.
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And man, I'll tell you, I'm in that in -between time where over the next decade and a half or so, they're going to become the same age as my grandchildren.
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Right now, they're younger than—they're a good bit younger than my kids. Right now, they're almost 10 years younger than my kids.
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Yeah, when I see it. And when I first met with my first two
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Mormon missionaries, Elders Reed and Reese, I was younger than—I think
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I was right in between Elder Reed and Reese, if I recall correctly. So we were about the same age, but I was younger than one of them.
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Because I got married at 19, and my wife was 18. So we got a nice, good, early start.
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So anyway, let's continue on with Colin in California. Hi, Colin.
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Hey, how's it going? Can you hear me okay? I sure can. All right, great. I just wanted—well, first of all, thanks for everything you do.
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I really appreciate it. I wanted to make some comments in light of— You mean you're thanking me for riding up mountains on a bike?
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Because I do that. Yeah. And listening and studying while you do it, right? In fact, let me tell you,
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Colin, you know what I was listening to? It was one of the most amazing rides of my life. I rode from Evergreen to the top of Mount Evans.
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Now, most people don't know what that is, but Mount Evans is 14 ,160 feet above sea level at the parking lot.
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And you know what I was listening to all the way up that beautiful, fantastic, gorgeous mountain?
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Bob Enyard. Bob Enyard. And I will always remember that for the rest of my life.
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The one thing— And you'll remember exactly where you were when you said each and every thing? Almost. Almost.
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Almost. But it was—I would rather have been listening to some Spurgeon sermon or something, if I had to be listening to anything at all.
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But anyhow, go ahead. Yeah. So I want to make some comments in light of—
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It's a little late at this point, a couple months ago, all the stuff you covered. And I guess this would obviously apply to any non -Calvinist view of the knowledge of God.
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I wanted to respond to this accusation that comes along and basically says, you know, Calvinism's view of the sovereignty of God makes man into a quote -unquote robot.
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You know, first of all, I don't quite understand why a lot of Calvinists shy completely away from that accusation, because after all, they don't mean literal robot.
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All they mean is that God has determined all things, including our actions, which we fully affirm. I think
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I know why. I mean, we both know why, because it takes the humanity out.
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But it does so by misrepresenting where we're coming from, and I'm a little bit concerned that a lot of Reformed folks don't know how to respond to that.
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I mean, my standard response to that is, the Incarnation demonstrates that's not the case, because Jesus entered into our human experience, and he didn't become a robot.
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So obviously, the reality of our actions in time are meaningful to God, or he would not have decreed his own interaction with us in time.
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I think that's one of the reasons I took the open theism debate, is that that's one of the fundamental problems that Bob Enyard has, and his followers, is that he does not recognize the richness of Reformed theology.
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He takes the robot perspective as well. But I run into a lot of Calvinists that really don't realize the richness of what we're really affirming, because they look so much to the decree that they don't at the same time see that the decree is what makes the temporal interaction of God and his people and us with each other and justice and righteousness and everything else.
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That's what gives it the very matrix of meaning that it can have, and that's what allows
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Christianity to be different than the Greek and pagan religions where you had the fates. That was one of the things about Enyard that drove me crazy, is he thinks that we believe that God is controlled by fate.
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He's like the great Zeus or something. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Yeah, and I think that one of the things that the robot accusation stems from is this experiential thing that, well, as a human being, the only way
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I could get somebody else to do what I want is if I forced them or made them into a robot, and therefore that's the only way
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God can get things done that he wants, and I think it's just a false conclusion. But anyways, what
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I like to respond to that with really quickly is, we are creations of God. I won't even use the word create, but we might assemble a robot.
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But God is actually creating human beings, and I can assure you that the almighty God of the universe's control over you is far more exhaustive and far more extensive than any amount of control you could ever have over a robot, even if you programmed it to do exactly what you do.
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After all, you didn't create out of nothing the parts that make up the robot. You don't uphold its existence.
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You don't uphold the universe's existence in which the robot operates. So I mean,
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I actually think that the robot accusation is a little bit of an understatement. I mean, I appreciate the point you raised about stripping the humanity, because that's true.
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But really what they're getting at is the determination of the actions. But this brings me to my main point, if I could really quickly here.
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I would like to say that if Calvinism's view of the sovereignty of God makes man to be a robot, then the reverse is true.
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Because the Arminian's view of the sovereignty of man is actually making God up to be a robot. And this has come out many times before when you've covered
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Moanism, and you've said that it basically likens God to that of a supercomputer. And you're exactly right. And we've heard
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William Lane Craig, for example, say that, well, God is surveying all these possible worlds, which, of course, by the way, were not determined by him, but determined by something outside of him, and that he's choosing the best possible world.
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Well, why the best possible one? I mean, why not the second best or third best, or why not even the worst? And I think the obvious answer is, well, he's
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God, and so he's always going to do the best possible thing. And that's my point in all this, is that's where the problem lies, is when you place
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God into a reactionary position, you turn him into a robot. And the Arminian, when it comes to the foreknowledge of God, he's conveniently left out the fact that God is the creator, and that anything he's knowing about his creation is actually, he has to first know that he's going to create.
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I mean, so it all stems back, in the logical order of things, it stems back to his first knowing that he's going to act, because that's where anything that exists comes from to begin with, and I guess that would be the grounding objection you've raised before.
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Well, there's no question in my mind that I think what you're getting at here is that really, and I know my
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Molinist friends and my Arminian friends, if they would even use the term friends, are going to be upset about this, but there is a fundamental lack of trust of God expressed in both systems, because both systems are all designed around maintaining a way where man can control
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God rather than being fully controlled by God, because there's a lack of trust that God will do what is right in everything.
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The judge of all the earth will do right. And that's really what I see in this, is that the overriding thing in open theism or in Molinism, whatever it is, why did those systems come into existence?
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To protect not the freedom of God, but the freedom of man.
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And the result is to put constraints on God. Yeah, you can't have both God and man being autonomous in the same sense at all, because like I said, it's all about the reactionary position.
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If you don't start in the logical order of this entire discussion with God acting to create, then you're starting with man first creating.
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I mean, we're not going to use that term, but best possible worlds, where'd they come from? Man is coming first in that logical order, and then
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God comes along and foreknows it, and that's what really the problem is, because now he's just reacting in the best possible way that he can, and where's the freedom in that?
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I mean, really, that makes God a robot. And that's my point, is robot accusation can actually be flipped around very plainly.
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And it's not just the Molinists, even the standard Arminian. The Arminian might say, oh, yeah, well, that Molinism stuff, that doesn't work.
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We know that. But even if you take any given situation and have the standard Arminian, well, God knows how to bring good out of bad.
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Well, God being God might have a trillion different possible ways to bring good out of a particular bad, but he's going to choose the best possible way, right?
33:19
I mean, he's got to choose one of them. He's got to choose to act in one way, but what's the problem there? God's reactionary. Yeah, he's not reactionary, but you also have to ask the question, who gets to determine what the best possible way is?
33:29
At least a reformed person can say God has a purpose. That purpose is self -glorification, and he is going to work that out to provide that.
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And I don't know what the ultimate purpose is in an Arminian bare foreknowledge perspective.
33:47
And there's all sorts of disagreement amongst Molinists as to exactly, you know, why
33:54
I don't necessarily take the William Lane Craig view here and all this kind of silliness.
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And so, yeah, I think it is good to have a way of reversing the accusation.
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I certainly have suggested that in a number of contexts, especially in our culture today, but it's a good direction to go there, too.
34:16
All right. Well, I appreciate the time. Okay, thanks, Colin. Thanks a lot, Matt. Bye. 877 -753 -3341.
34:24
The video – I did not know this, but Berean Warrior posted a lot of the debate.
34:34
And I had only seen the one, my cross -examination of Bob Enyard. But the actual 15 minutes of my being cross -examined – now, yeah.
34:54
You want me to do that? All right, sure, fine. Manuel, go ahead. I'll be honest with you,
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Manuel. I doubt you could last 30 seconds without losing control, but if you want to try.
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We've done it before. We'll give it a shot. But we just have – some of you know that we've had a regular caller over the years and have tried to reason on the subject of the
35:23
Trinity and have always failed. But hope springs anew. Oh, that or my memory's bad.
35:30
That's probably more my memory's getting bad than anything else. Anyway, but I had hoped that this video was up there, and I found it just before the program started while Rich was running around trying to –
35:48
Did you look at amn .org? No. Why not? Because it was there. I didn't post it at amn .org.
35:57
Yeah, well, okay. I was on it. I had all three of the ones that were recorded by the end of that first day.
36:02
Well, I know that the entire – I know you mentioned you put the big one up. Is homosexuality compatible?
36:09
No, that's a different one, the one that they posted that has the entire debate. No, no, this was the day after the debate.
36:18
This one started rolling in, and he started working on the – he actually posted first. He attended my talk
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Wednesday night, and I didn't even know about this. Okay, well, he first posted you cross -examining
36:30
Bob. Right. And then he was working on – and I posted that. And while I'm posting that one, he's uploading
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Bob cross -examining you. And then later that day, someone else had recorded,
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I think it was Bob's intro and your intro. Oh, okay. No, Bob's intro and your close, something like that.
36:51
Yeah, well, so here's this section. Do you have it available?
36:57
Because I'm sending it to you. You've got it? Okay. I'm not sure how much of it I'm going to play, but look, here's the background.
37:06
One of the reasons I do this is to give you some of the background. This is the Brown Palace Hotel in downtown
37:12
Denver, beautiful place. I had never been there before, but I've seen pictures of it. It's sort of a landmark in downtown
37:19
Denver. So it's a good location. The debate was set up nicely. The moderator who's sitting here in the shot did not know me at all and did not –
37:34
I don't think he knew Bob. I'm not sure. But he was in between.
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And so he could be fair. But I just don't think he even knew what to do because we met beforehand.
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We stood right over – well, if you're looking at this video shot, it would be to my left.
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It would be the right of the camera, which is where my desk was. And we stood there, and we talked, and we had an agreement.
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And I said, look, when you cross -examination, what I ask – first I said we need to be very strict on the times.
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I said I will never go over. Here's my timer. Rich mocked me for buying my 15th debate timer or something because I didn't have one in my bag.
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But I can say one thing with absolute certainty. You go through the 137, 138 some -odd moderated debates that I've done since 1990, and you will find that there is one person who is very punctual.
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And I consider that to be an act of respect for the audience and my opponents. Bob was not overly punctual, even though he's a radio guy, which he knows all about hard breaks and things like that.
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But anyway, then I specifically addressed cross -examination, and I said you ask questions.
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You do not argue. You do not come back and make another point. You use your questions to make your points, but you are asking questions only.
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And we agreed to that. Let's listen to just a couple minutes, and we'll take the call. Let's listen to just a couple minutes of this, and we'll see very quickly how this was really going.
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Because a change would require an alteration in the actual divine being. There was no alteration, if you understand the doctrine of the hypostatic union.
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Change and action are not the same thing, and that's one of your fundamental misunderstandings of new ability. In all of your lectures and everything that I've listened to, you assume that if God acts in time, that involves a change.
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Okay, let me ask you a question. You said an action. Isn't God the
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Son today and forever in the future? Doesn't he have two natures, a divine and human nature forever?
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Yes. Okay, so that's not an action, right? That's a state. He took an action in choice.
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He took an action in today and forever. He has two natures. So you agree that eternally past,
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God the Son only had one nature. Of course. And today, God the Son has two natures. That's correct. And so you don't think that's a change?
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No, because it did not involve a change in the divine being, which is the only assertion we make in regards to divine immutability.
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The nature did not change. The Muslim debate you mentioned, 2013, that was titled,
40:32
Can God Become a Man? Which one are you referring to? I've done a number of them. Well, the one in 2013 that was titled,
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Can God Become a Man? And so you're asserting that when God the Son lowered himself and became a man, that was not a change.
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The divine being did not change in this. It was an action that God undertook. Okay, I think the only reason you're saying that is because you're struggling between the omnis and ems and God the
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Son becoming flesh. Is that a question? Okay, I'll go on to the next. Beginning with God's freedom.
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This question asks if God has libertarian free will. Jesus said that he could call on the
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Father to save him from the cross. Do you believe that the Father could have saved
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Jesus from the cross? If he'd eternally agreed to do so, yes, of course. At the moment that Jesus said that he could call on the
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Father to save him from this hour, do you believe at that moment that the
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Father could have saved Jesus? Again, you're asking a question about a decision that was made before the creation of time playing out within time.
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This is what I'm trying to explain to you. And so the divine decree will not be changed. If God had chosen to do things differently when he created, then he could have done things differently.
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But once time is created, that's the way it's going to be. Could God have decreed it differently when he decreed the way things would go?
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Could he have decreed it differently? God was absolutely free to glorify the Triune God. Father, Son, and Spirit could have chosen to glorify themselves in whatever way they find best.
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So God was free. The future was not exhaustively settled in eternity past until God decreed how many weeds would be outside in the parking lot.
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Of course. OK, so you reject that eternal, that exhaustive foreknowledge is an internal attribute of God because God was free to decree whichever way he wanted to.
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No, sir. You've misunderstood that again for many, many years. It's a misunderstanding on your part. It's not a misunderstanding on the part of systematic theologians that have recognized that the relationship between the before the decree and after the decree is not a temporal one.
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It's a logical one. And you want to insist, because you believe God is in time, to make it a temporal one. Once you don't have that misunderstanding on your part, then the entire question dissipates.
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Forgetting time, did God ever exist in a state when this future was not a requirement?
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God freely chose to create this time. Before that, again, requires a temporal element that does not exist in God's consciousness.
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So it's a question that is, again, asking to put God into a time parameter that the
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Bible doesn't put him into. So you're saying that God could have saved Jesus from the cross back before the family.
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But when Jesus said, Do you not know that I could call my father and he could send twelve legions of angels to save me?
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You're saying right then the father could not have saved Jesus because of his decree. Is that what you're saying?
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I obviously disagree with your understanding of the text. Well, right then we're talking. We're not talking about before the foundation here.
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When Jesus was in Gethsemane, are you saying then when
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Jesus said those words that the father could not have saved him then? The point of Jesus' words is that he was not under the control of anything other than the father.
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He was giving his life and he was doing so under the father's direction, in unity with the father.
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It was not a theoretical question about God being able to change parameters of time. Let's go to God's attributes of the biblical and the quantitative attributes.
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Okay, there you just get some sense. Actually, that wasn't overly bad, but it got worse if you've watched it later on to where I think there was one question where I got two words.
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I got two words out before he interrupted me because I wasn't going in the direction that his preplanned program took me, was supposed to take me.
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Again, I'm really glad it happened. I'm glad a lot of people found it useful.
44:49
I have gotten a few comments on the bright green bow tie and the jeans, but I thought that was a
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Colorado thing. What are you looking at? What, you hadn't noticed that? You hadn't noticed the bright green bow tie and the jeans?
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No, I actually did not notice the – no, didn't. I was kind of overwhelmed with the constant interruption.
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Yes, well, no, that's the jacket
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I got from Kevin and Howlin across from Trinity College in Dublin, and it's a beautiful trinity.
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It's got trinity on it. It's a green bow tie and jeans. I was sort of rocking the coolness there or trying to as best
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I can, which isn't all that easy to do because I'm not very cool, but I tried anyway. Okay.
45:46
All right. Speaking of trying, how many times have we done this?
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I don't know. I've lost track. Do you have any real calming –
46:02
We might need a theme song. You know what? We might need a theme song. We might need a theme song.
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Let me ask. Manuel, do you have a theme song? No, sir, I sure don't. Can you think of one?
46:13
The Revelation Song by Phillips, Craig, and Dean. Of course you'd want – in fact, let me ask you.
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What do you think about what happened with them and their signing that statement?
46:26
I don't – I'm sorry, Dr. White. I don't have any idea about them signing any statement. Because they – did they – in fact,
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Rich, did they perform at the convention? I never heard anything about it. I just realized the whole thing blew right past me.
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I don't know. They were supposed to sing at the Southern Baptist Convention at the pastor's conference, and they signed a statement that said that they did not disagree with anything found in the
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Baptist Faith and Message 2000 of the Southern Baptist Convention. So could you –
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What did the Southern Baptist Convention preamble or whatever it is, what does it say?
47:06
Well, that's just it, is I think they did it because even though it's Trinitarian, it uses language that I think you might be able to get around if you said it doesn't necessarily mean this or doesn't necessarily mean that.
47:20
That's the only thing I could figure out. But I don't think you'd ever sign it. I don't think you'd ever say, oh, sure, there's nothing in the
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Statement of Faith of the Southern Baptist Convention I would disagree with. I just can't imagine that happening.
47:32
You know, if it was just a bunch of passages of scripture, I would – you know, I'm not interested in signing anything with the
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Southern Baptist Convention, but – Well, I just didn't know if you had heard about it.
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I just wondered what your thought was. No, sir, I haven't. Okay, all right. So what do you want to talk about,
47:53
Manuel? Well, let's talk about the same thing we talked about last time and I got hung up on, because, you know,
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I think there's a lot of misunderstanding between Trinity and oneness here a lot of times, and I talk to a lot of people, you know, calm, calm people,
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Apostolic Friends Forum, oneness and Trinitarians, and there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding.
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So, you know, we might be able to clear some of those things up. I don't know. Well, I suppose, certainly on the
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Internet there's always a tremendous amount of misunderstanding, but I would – I think a lot of that's due to the fact that a lot of people on the
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Internet don't know a lot about what they're talking about. So what do you think we are not communicating on?
48:46
Let's see. Well, I think the barrier between the two of us is the person.
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Probably. Yeah. So that's probably the thing we need to talk about, and that's what
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I was hung up on. You hung up on me the last time was you said that I didn't get –
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I didn't answer your question. Well, ask me the question again. Well, I don't – how long ago was this?
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I don't – Yeah, you're right. It's ridiculous, because, yeah, it was a long time ago. I don't remember what our conversation was.
49:28
I remember that we've had a lot of difficulties keeping you calm, cool, and collected, so I don't remember what the conversation was about.
49:38
Well, I guess it gets a little emotional between the two sides. I can't – we can't say just one side is more emotional than the other side is.
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In our encounters, I think we can. Okay. There's a poster on Calm.
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His name is the Layman, and I think he says that he's a Trinitarian. I know he's reformed.
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And he came out with a bunch of group of questions, and I think those questions are really good. I think they're good for both sides.
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And do you want me to read the questions, or will I be taking too much of your time? We've got about six minutes, so –
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Well, it looks like there's three – I don't know, maybe three questions.
50:26
Okay. All right. It says, the first question is, did the Father and Jesus, the
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Son, exist in relationship to one another and in relationship with one another during the three days between the
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Son's death and Resurrection? A, yes. B, no. And the second question is, if your answer is yes, how did they exist in relationship to one another?
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Please explain clearly. All right, number three, if your answer is no, what exactly happened to the
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Son the Father had existed in relationship to and with before his death on the cross?
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Let's see. I think maybe that's it. Well, that's an interesting question, but I'm not –
51:12
I guess it would have some relevance to Oneness theology, but the reality is you're introducing a whole second area of discussion there, and that is, from my perspective,
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Jesus, post -incarnation, has a very unique nature, specifically one person with two natures.
51:37
And therefore, that complicates the question. I mean, I've always said the primary question in regards to Oneness theology is, did the
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Son, as a divine person, have relationship with the
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Father prior to creation itself? By putting it in time, it unnecessarily complicates the whole thing with all sorts of side issues.
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And I would think you would agree that that's – it would be much more to the point to ask the question, did the
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Son, as the Son, have relationship with the Father before creation itself?
52:18
Because now you don't have to worry about incarnation issues and things like that. Sure. Okay.
52:23
Yeah, that's fine, too. Of course, you know, Oneness does not believe the Son existed.
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I mean, there's some that try to skirt that issue, because they'll say the divinity of the
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Son is the Father. We believe everything that has to do with the Son's preexistence is in the incarnation.
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In other words, everything that is attributed to the Son in creation is because of the incarnation.
52:53
Right. And that the Son – the proper use of the term Son for you is of the incarnation of deity in human flesh, but not the idea of a divine person that existed prior to Bethlehem.
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Even though God had intended – that was His purpose, right? God's purpose was –
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I've honestly – Emmanuel, I've honestly never actually asked a Oneness person that question specifically, because I do sense differences amongst various Oneness writers on some of these things.
53:44
There are, I think, different opinions. So I don't know if there's just one specific official perspective, but –
53:51
Sorry, I'm trying to be careful, because I don't want to mess this up in any way, shape, or form.
54:00
I want to be very careful and not make you think I'm going off on some way or something like that.
54:08
I would like to have a real conversation on these things. Well, we've still got a couple moments left.
54:14
From your understanding, was it God's intention when
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He created to enter into His own creation as Jesus of Nazareth?
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Was it His intention to do so? I mean, even from the start. I mean, when He created, yeah.
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Well, He made a perfect creation, and then man came in and messed that up, and I think that He knew that that was going to happen.
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As God, He would know that. So I would think that, yes, that was
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His intention. Okay. Let me try to press on that a little bit, because I'm not sure – are you saying that it was sort of a contingency in case man was going to –
55:04
Well, God knows what He's going to do. God knows exactly what He's going to do. He's not like –
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He doesn't waver like man does at all. I'm not saying it's some secondary contingency plan at all.
55:17
Okay, so – That would be ridiculous. So you would affirm that God has exhaustive divine foreknowledge?
55:26
Yes, of course He does. He's just like what you say. He's very sovereign. He's sovereign. Okay. But to say that, you know, that God – to me, you know, you were talking about Molinism, the ridiculousness of Molinism a while ago.
55:42
You know, God knows what He's going to do. Right. Well, no, okay, honestly,
55:49
I've never actually had an extensive discussion with a Molinist –
55:56
I'm sorry, with a Oneness person about their Oneness doctrine in regards to whether you believe in what's called the simple foreknowledge view, that God simply knows what's going to be coming, or if it's the result of His decree.
56:13
Because generally, as I look at the Gospel presentation, it seems to be very – strong emphasis upon free will, and so I would think there would be a hesitation.
56:27
We also think it would make God very weak if God just micromanages everything, and I think it would make
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God stronger if man does have a free will. I believe, you know,
56:41
I don't – I'm not here to argue those points. What I want to talk about is the differences between Oneness and Trinity.
56:49
Right. Because, I mean, you and I can talk about Calvinism, and you're more – you've had more debates and than I have, but what
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I want to talk about is the differences between three persons, and why we talk – why we say there's one person of God.
57:06
Right. I understand, but – and Rich reminded me, we got started late on the program, so we actually have about a couple more minutes than I thought we did.
57:13
But the reason I ask the question is that they are related, because from my perspective, it was the intention of the
57:24
Son, not the Father or the Spirit, but of the Son to enter into human flesh.
57:31
In other words, the Gospel was not a secondary thing. It was part and parcel of the whole reason why
57:40
Father, Son, and Spirit chose to create in the first place. And so all I'm asking is, from the
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Oneness perspective, was it God, because you don't have three persons, but was it
57:52
God, the Father's – or just God's intention, when
57:57
He created, was it His desire to enter into His own creation as Jesus Christ?
58:06
Was that part of the whole reason for creation in the first place? Well, I think that I've answered that.
58:14
Okay. There's no reason to go any further than that. I don't know everything. And I'll just admit that,
58:20
Dr. White. Okay. But everything attributed to creation is attributed to the
58:27
Son because of the Incarnation. And so we can go back and forth on that, but we just have to flesh out the passages.
58:37
We have to bring the passages out to talk about that. Romans 5 .14 says,
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Adam, who was the figure of him that was to come. Right. I believe that Adam was created in the perfect man's image.
58:52
And to me, that passage says that Adam was created in Jesus' image, even though Jesus was not back there but coming.
59:03
Okay. He did have that intention. That's what that passage looks like to me.
59:10
I'm not sure I follow exactly. That sort of sounds a little bit like the Son being in God's knowledge, being perfectly foreknown in God's knowledge, or something along those lines.
59:21
I've heard that utilized in Oneness talk before, and maybe that's what you're referring to.
59:28
I'm not sure. But, Manuel, we managed to actually talk for quite some time without having any issues.
59:35
And so because of that, then why don't you let me know?
59:43
Why don't you contact Rich and let me know a couple of texts, just about two, that you'd like to discuss in the future.
59:54
And we can arrange a day when we'd be able to discuss those things.
59:59
How does that sound? That sounds good to me. Okay. All right, Manuel. I think we got over a barrier there, and I think that's a good thing.
01:00:07
So we'll look forward to hearing from you as to what you'd like to discuss. From my perspective, I think the prayers of Jesus are a real important thing to discuss as well.
01:00:17
So maybe we can work something out along those lines. But, Manuel, I appreciate the call.
01:00:22
And we are wrapping up the program right now. Thank you very much for your call. Thank you, Dr. Watt. Okay. Bye -bye.
01:00:28
All right. Thanks for listening, folks. We got a little late start due to some technical issues, so we went a little bit longer.
01:00:35
But Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow. Same time, same station, if everything works.
01:00:42
And we'll be back with you again on Thursday. See you then. God bless. God bless. God bless.
01:00:56
God bless. God bless.