Debate: What is Accomplished in the Atonement? (White vs Potter)

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The Debate Topic: The Atonement of Jesus Christ

The subject that we have before us this evening is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The specific statement is, does the atonement perfect those to whom it is applied? What is accomplished in the atonement?

Our two speakers are very distinguished. We have first on my left, to your right, Dr. James White. Dr. White is the author of roughly 20 books. He has written books that include Letters to a Mormon Elder, The Roman Catholic Controversy, The Potter's Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.

He is a Protestant apologist with Alpha and Omega Ministries in Phoenix, Arizona. He has done several debates for us in the past, and our hope is to have all our previous debates on our website in approximately one week.

So if you have not been able to participate before, you'll be able to go there and just click on the debates and listen to them in real audio. We also have with us Dr. Dennis Potter. Dr. Potter is professor of philosophy at Utah Valley State College.

He has a Ph .D. from Notre Dame University. He has been published in the Farms Review of Books and Dialogue, a journal of Mormon thought. He is the managing editor of Element, an e-journal of Mormon philosophy and theology.

And when you look at some of the editors that participate in that publication, it is an impressive list of LDS apologists, including Daniel Peterson and a number of others from down south of the border in Utah County.

Oh, one from northern Utah. But as I said, the debate here this evening is on the atonement. We will have opening statements of 20 minutes each, followed by 10 minute rebuttals, and then we'll take a break.

We'll come back from that and have questions between the speakers, and then closing statements of 5 minutes each, and then we'll take your questions. If you have questions, if you were not able to get a card, you can go ahead and write them on just a scrap of paper.

We'll take some of those during the break, and then we'll take some of them quickly up at the end of the closing arguments so that we can get as many questions in as possible. We will start with Dr. White.

Substitutionary Atonement and Imputed Righteousness

Good evening. It's good to be with you this evening. Thank you for coming out. We have an incredibly important subject to address this evening, that being the subject of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There can be few subjects that would bear as much importance, not only historically, but for any person who claims any kind of faith in the Lord Jesus than what it was that he intended to do, and what he accomplished in his atoning death upon the cross.

It is my belief, my very firm belief, that the Lord Jesus Christ took the place of his people, that it was his intention by dying upon the cross, through what the Bible teaches as substitutionary atonement, to bear in his body their sins, becoming a curse in their place upon the tree, so that, as Paul expresses it in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, he who knew no sin was made to be sin in our behalf, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

We cannot be made righteous. We cannot stand before the throne of a holy God without the work of Jesus Christ, without his perfect righteousness being imputed to us. I believe this is the biblical teaching, this is the inspired revelation of God, and since obviously when we discuss the atonement, we are discussing a matter of revealed religion, we are talking about something upon which there has been revelation given by God, then that revelation must determine the categories of our discussion.

And so the majority of my time will be given over to the biblical exegesis that demonstrates this, but then I would like to try, and I'm not very good at doing this, but I will try to reserve some of my brief opening statement to address some of the issues that I believe come up when the LDS position encounters the biblical revelation, especially in regards to other forms of revelation, and also address very briefly the relationship of divine revelation to human philosophy.

But first, I hope you have your Bibles with you this evening, because the Bible speaks much of the subject of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's look at a few key passages, and as we do so, I would like to mention to you, turning as you would please to 2 Corinthians 5 .21, which I just mentioned, I would like to mention to you the fact that the scriptures were written, the New Testament scriptures were written in what is called Koine Greek, the common Greek language of the day.

And that language is very specific, and it uses specific prepositions to indicate certain meanings to us. And this evening, one of the terms that we are going to discuss is the Greek term hupēr. Hupēr is a preposition that refers to taking the place of someone else.

Now, it can have other meanings as well, depending on how it's used, and the context in which it is used, but in the passages that we will be examining, we will specifically see that this particular Greek word is used of substitution, of the Lord Jesus taking the place of someone else, specifically his people.

If we look at 2 Corinthians 5 .21, He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. This is referring specifically initially to the Father.

He made him who knew no sin, this would be the Son, this is the perfect, spotless Lamb of God, who lived a life without sin, who was not under the guilt of sin, and it is the Father who made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.

Now, it's very important to think about what that means. Does that mean that the Father caused Jesus' nature to change? Or that the Father caused Jesus to become something that he wasn't before? Or do we have a clue in the text exactly what's being referred to here in the second half that says, so that, with the purpose that, this was God's purpose in treating Christ in this way, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Now, don't be thrown off by that word might. That's not saying, well, this is doubtful, or it's a hesitating affirmation. This is simply a purpose clause. The purpose of the Father treating the Son in this way was so that he might treat us in a particular way.

And what is that way? Well, we have here that tremendous transaction, the imputation of our sins to Christ. We won't have time to develop all this this evening, but when you have opportunity, look at Romans chapter 4, the first nine verses, the tremendous discussion of the imputation of righteousness, the imputation of sin, et cetera, et cetera.

But he imputes our sins to Christ. Christ bears them so that we might become the righteousness of God, not on our own, not in and of ourselves, but only in union with Jesus Christ himself. It is in Christ.

All the blessings of God in the New Testament teaching are to be found in Christ and in him alone. And so we see Paul's concept here very clearly laid out. God the Father, God the Son, they are involved in this redemptive work, and it involves, as we see here, the treating of the Son as he is the one who bears sin so that we, who are the sinners, might become the righteousness of God in him.

Is that not also what we read in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 18? 1 Peter 3 .18, for Christ also died for sins once for all. And that is not a term that is to be understood distributively. That term, once for all, is a temporal adverb, one time.

Jesus Christ dies one time, once for all, the just for the unjust. He was just, and he dies in the place of the unjust so that he might become us to God. Again, there is a purpose in what the Lord Jesus does.

He dies for sins, once for all. He is the just one. He takes the place of the unjust ones for a purpose, for a reason, so that he might bring us to God. There is a separation that exists between God and man, and the death of Jesus Christ is the God-ordained means of healing that rift, of bringing men into fellowship with God.

This becomes very personal in a passage that many of you probably find to be tremendously helpful in your own private life, and for any believer in Christ, it is a tremendous passage. Galatians 2 .20, the Apostle Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who did what? Who loved me and gave himself up for me in my place. Hupere is the term that is used yet once again. So here you see the personal aspect.

The atonement of Christ was not merely in behalf of some nameless, faceless group. Paul could say, I have been crucified with Christ. How can he say that? He was not there, but in God's economy, he most definitely was there in the fact that he had been united with Christ, and when we are united with Christ, then his death becomes our death, his burial our burial, his resurrection our resurrection.

That is the nature of the intimate union of the believer with the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice, the Lord Jesus gives himself in my place for me. Well, this idea of the union of God's people with Christ in his death, then comes to full expression in the Apostle Paul's words in Romans chapter 8, beginning at verse 28.

Listen carefully as we read a section here. Romans chapter 8 verse 28, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified, and these whom he justified, he also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but here is the same imagery as before, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

Who is this us? Verse 33, who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies, who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

That work of intercession, the continuing work of the high priest, not in addition to his sacrifice, but the high priest would always intercede for those for whom he has offered that sacrifice. So again we have the very same language that has been used before.

And specifically when Paul talks about the golden chain of redemption in verses 29 and 30, this work that is all of God, he then says, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, if this is God's divine work, then who can possibly be against us?

And he will at the end of chapter 8 expand this into saying nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. But then he describes the Father as the one who did not hold back or spare his own Son, but did what?

In behalf of us he gave him over. And that Greek term paradidomi is used of the giving up of the sacrifices in the Old Testament. It is used of the giving up of Christ to go to the cross. The Son gave him over in our behalf, and who is the behalf that is spoken of here, but in the text itself, who will bring a charge against God's elect.

That is the teaching of the scriptures in this passage. Well, what then does this giving of him over accomplish? Well, we see it right here. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? How can they not be perfected?

It is a rhetorical question. Who can bring a charge against God's elect that will cause them to fail to receive the promised inheritance? And the answer is no one can. No one can come into the celestial courtroom where God the Father has been the one who has declared his people just in Christ Jesus.

Christ Jesus is the one who intercedes for them, always before the Father, showing his all-sufficient death in their place. Who can bring a charge against them? No one can. Therefore, they are obviously perfected by that work, and that is exactly what the writer to the Hebrews likewise said in Hebrews 10.

I read to you very briefly verses 10 -14. By this will, or this testament, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Again, that is a temporal adverb, one offering.

Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins, but he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

For by one offering he has done what? He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. His work is what perfects them, not any addition that we can add to it. His work perfects those who are sanctified.

And so what have we seen just in this very brief review? We've seen that the scriptures teach the concept of substitutionary atonement, that our sins are laid upon our perfect substitute, that his righteousness is then imputed to us, that he bears in his body our sins upon the cross, and that as a result we are perfected, that no one can bring a charge against those who are in union with Christ in his death.

Christ at the Center of Christian Philosophy

Well, someone might say, that's very nice, that's a nice biblical presentation, but how do you relate that to all the questions that can be asked concerning God's sovereignty, God's power, the nature of man?

Well, I would remind you of the words of the apostle Paul when he wrote to the Colossians. There are many passages that would be useful to look at, but I just remind you of his words in chapter 2 verse 8.

He was concerned that the Colossians could be drawn away from the simplicity of the gospel, and he says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

For in him, that is in Jesus Christ, all the fullness of deity, theatetos, that which makes God God, dwells in bodily form. And so we have the assertion of the apostle Paul that our fundamental starting point must be Jesus Christ.

He has described him as the one who created all things, and for whom all things were created. And so if we wish to develop a Christian philosophy, a philosophia christiana, then we must start with the Dei Verbum, the word of God, the word of Christ.

We must define our parameters not according to what secular man might find to be interesting or acceptable. If we seek to honor him, then we must begin with acknowledging who he is, that he is the creator of all things.

Paul had described him in Colossians chapter 1 as the one by whom all things were made, whether in heaven or on earth, visible or invisible, principalities, powers, dominions, or authorities, all things created by him and for him, and he is before all things.

In him all things hold together. Any philosophy that does not start with the creator himself and recognize his omnipotent power as the creator of all things will be a philosophy that cannot possibly call itself biblical and cannot possibly call itself Christ honoring.

So we start with what's important, and when we build any type of theology or philosophy, we do so on the basis of recognizing the centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we address this issue then this evening, we're going to encounter, I think, some difficulties.

We're going to encounter some difficulties. For example, in considering the issue of the atonement of Christ, I appreciated the fact that in one of the papers that Dr. Potter has posted on his website, he was discussing what he views as the Anselmian view of the atonement, and one of the questions that was raised had to do with sins against an omnipotent or unlimited being.

And one of the footnotes, footnote number five, for those of you who'd like to look at it, says the following. One might think that this was talking about the debt that sin incurs. One might think that it is large because sinning against God is sinning against an infinite being, and so the debt must be infinite.

I do not think this will work for Mormons since God is not infinite in the requisite sense. I do not know what reason could stand in its place. Now that introduces us to, I think, some of the important issues that will undoubtedly, at least I hope, be clearly exemplified this evening.

And that is, I do not believe, as you have seen in the previous debates we've done, that the God who was behind the book of Romans or Hebrews or Galatians or Colossians is a finite being. I do not believe that he is an exalted man.

And therefore, there is a fundamental foundational difference between us in our view of God, and hence, a fundamental foundational different view in our interpretation of the scriptures as well. Now this, I think, will come up as we examine the issue of the atonement, because as I, again, appreciated in another individual with whom I was having this discussion a number of years ago here on radio in Salt Lake City, Mr. Van Hale, I do not know if he is here this evening, we were talking about election and things like that, and I was reading from Romans chapter 9, and Mr. Hale said on that program, well, if I believe what you believe about the Bible that is inspired and inerrant in everything that it says, and if I start with your presuppositions, then your position makes sense.

I just do not start there. Well, again, the issue is going to be, where do we start? Do we start with allowing the Bible to tell us who God is? Do we start with the God of the Bible? And if not, then how can we make heads or tails out of what the scriptures teach to us concerning the atonement?

You see, to say that God accomplished perfectly his intention in sending Christ to the cross means God must have a sovereign will, he must be the king of the universe, he must have a purpose that he is accomplishing, and as Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11 says, he must work all things after the counsel of his will.

And if your philosophical view of God or theological view of God is not big enough to fit those parameters, then I would suggest to you, you need to get a bigger set of theological and philosophical parameters, because the God of the scriptures says that he accomplishes his will in the heavens and the earth and the seas and all their deeps in Psalm 135 verse 6.

It is that God who says, when I stretch forth my hand, who can stop me? Well, no one can do so, of course. And so the issue tonight will be, from where do we draw our fundamental definitions and authority?

And especially as we discuss the very work of Jesus Christ, that issue will become center stage. I hope that you will listen carefully, and I again thank you very much for being here this evening. Thank you.

We will now have an opening statement from Dr. Potter.

Scripture, Philosophy, and the Limits of Proof-Texting

To begin, I must offer several important caveats to my remarks. Obviously, I speak for myself and not the LDS Church. I'm sure they wouldn't pick me as their spokesperson. Additionally, I'm a philosopher and not a scriptural theologian, so the bulk of my comments will be about philosophical issues.

Nevertheless, I should say something about my position regarding scripture, since the latter is central to the Christian tradition. I have serious philosophical concerns about the role that scripture plays in formulating theological belief.

First, I think that Professor White will agree with me that there's no room for proof texting in a serious debate about theology. This is where a particular passage is understood out of its context and in terms of an assumed theological framework.

Second, I believe that the primary purpose of scripture is performative and not propositional. By performative, I mean that scriptures are intended to be practical and cannot be understood independent of their practical setting.

By not propositional, I mean that scriptures are not intended to give us sophisticated philosophical and theological claims about God and salvation. I won't argue for this perspective, at least for right now, on scripture except to say that if scriptures were meant to be philosophical and theological, then the average believer would not really understand them.

Finally, as far as I'm concerned, the purpose of this debate is scholarly dialogue and not evangelism. I seriously doubt that anything I will say will convince any Reformed Christians in the room or that anything Professor White says will convince any of the Mormons.

I believe that considering our respective differences in the context of scholarly argument will be mutually beneficial and perhaps a bit fun. If I didn't think this, I wouldn't participate. That said, in order to answer our question, which I think is a philosophical question, does Christ's sacrifice perfect those for whom it is made?

We must first answer what it means to say that X perfects Y, something perfects something else, and we must be clear about the phrase for whom it is made. On the latter question, it should be clear that Dr. White and myself disagree.

Dr. White is a Calvinist, and I'm not. He believes in limited atonement, that is, the doctrine that atonement was performed for a limited number of people who are predestined to have it affect their lives.

This point is important because it is logically dependent on the view that the atonement's effectiveness is independent of anything that we do. That is because, according to the Calvinists, Christ's atonement alone perfects the elect.

My position is that our perfection depends on us as well as on Christ. I will argue that the Calvinist claims about the atonement are either logically incoherent or undefined, that they contradict what we know about God and man from the scriptures, and that they contradict our intuitions about the nature of morality.

So the Calvinist claim that the atonement is alone sufficient for perfection does not give us an adequate response to this question. Importantly, I am not arguing for Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism rather than Arminianism.

In fact, what I'm arguing for is just the minimal view that the majority of Christians hold in common, Mormons, Greek Orthodox, Catholics, and most liberal mainline Protestants, even a lot of evangelical Protestants that I know.

I take it that the gaining of justification is one part of perfection, and the gaining of sanctification is another part. For the purposes of this section of the paper, it doesn't matter which one we are discussing.

Calvinist claims seem to indicate that we should understand what it is for X to perfect Y in terms of the notion of something's being necessary for the justification or sanctification of someone. The use of the notion of necessity is clear in the statement of faith on the Alpha and Omega Ministries webpage, which states, I'm quoting from this statement here, I'll put the whole statement up, good works are a necessary result of faith, but are not to be considered necessary to the gaining of salvation.

Calvinists seem to make at least four claims about necessity in the atonement, firstly, in the above quote, Calvinist claims that good works are a necessary result of being elected, which is what gives us faith.

However, secondly, good works are not to be considered necessary to the gaining of justification. Additionally, given the doctrine of perseverance, Calvinists claim that the elect necessarily will be perfected, and finally, total depravity entails that one cannot do good works without being elect.

So I'm going to put these four claims in a form that makes their logical structure perspicuous. You're going to have to forgive me for this. I'm actually a philosophical logician. That's my area of expertise.

I can't help but do this. Okay, so suppose that S is some particular person. Then let the letter E represent S is elect. W represents S performs good works. We can say that God performs good works through S, which amounts to the same thing for the Calvinist.

And then J represents S is justified. Given this, the four propositions entailed by the Calvinist view have the following logical form. This is one through four here. First, it is necessary that if E then W.

Second, it is not the case that it is necessary that if W then J. Third, it is necessary that if E then J. And fourth, it is necessary that it is not the case that W and not E. By the rules of logic, we can draw the following inferences from one and four.

Okay, first I'm going to suppose that W is true, which is just to suppose that someone is elect, at least one person. Six, E follows from five and four. Seven, but then J follows from six and three. So if we suppose that W then, if we suppose that if W then, I'm sorry, so if we suppose W, then J follows by rules of logic and necessary truths.

So it is necessary that if W then J. But that contradicts two. The four Calvinist claims are logically inconsistent. The last claim is this. It is necessary that if S performs good works, then S is justified.

The claims are logically inconsistent. I imagine now, and you can go through that, check it with your logic textbooks, which I'm sure you all have with you. It's a logically valid argument, right? I imagine the Calvinist responding with the claim that the term necessity is not used in quite this way in her texts.

Indeed, she might say that although good works are a necessary consequence of being elected, and being elected is a necessary and sufficient for salvation, good works are not the cause of salvation, but a result of being elected to salvation.

From a philosophical point of view then, the problem is causation. But what does it mean to say that X must precede Y, and yet X is not part of the cause of Y? This is what the Calvinist is committed to.

She says that works necessarily precede salvation, and yet works are not part of the cause of salvation. In and of itself, this seems incoherent. Or otherwise, she needs to give us a philosophical account of causation that is entirely different than all the traditional accounts.

A different response is that although good works are a necessary consequence of being elect in some sense, they're not a logically necessary consequence of it. If not, then we might say that being elect is logically necessary and sufficient for salvation, and doing good works is not.

However, a proposition is a logical necessity if and only if its opposite is a contradiction. There's no logical contradiction in saying that S is saved on the basis of good works alone. Indeed, in an article in Faith and Philosophy that's coming out this month, I argue specifically that it's morally incoherent to say that we cannot do what is right.

It is impossible for us to do what is right. This is because it is incoherent to hold someone morally accountable for something over which she has no control. There might be something else that Calvinists mean when they say that works are a necessary result of being elect, but not necessary for salvation.

However, what they mean is not at all clear to me. So I must conclude that either the proposition is meaningless or it is logically incoherent. Okay, now the three people who followed that can verify the extent to which the argument works.

I understand that that was a little bit over the top. These arguments are easier. I had to make the first argument because it's my central reason for rejecting Calvinism. But let's suppose that the Calvinist claim actually does make sense.

It's logically coherent, which I don't think it is. In that case, I argue that it is inconsistent with the fact that God gives us commands or imperatives. Indeed, since a moral person who gives an imperative assumes that it could be obeyed, it follows that God's commands can be obeyed.

To begin, I think it is very clear from the Scriptures that God gives imperatives. Examples include the Ten Commandments, God's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and Jesus's imperatives from the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain.

God tells us to do things. Now, when A tells B to do S, it is a presupposition of the discourse that B can do S. For example, I say to my daughter, get out of the bathtub. In my case, this is an appropriate imperative because Cicely is quite mobile.

She's not physically challenged. But suppose that she were, then it would be immoral of me to command her to get out of the tub. This would be analogous to the Calvinist claim that we can do no good even though God commands us to do good.

One might respond with the claim that God doesn't just command us to do things, but he also provides a way for us to do it. God enables us to do good. Of course, Calvinists, unlike Arminians, claim that God enables only the elect to do good.

The commands are presumably universal to all humanity. Nothing else would explain the Calvinist evangelical zeal to condemn sin in the world. This means that the commands apply to everyone, but God only enables some to accomplish them.

This is like my saying to Cicely and Chloe, my other daughter, get out of the tub when they are both physically challenged, and I decide to help Cicely alone. Clearly, this would be morally wrong. Thus, this is a very difficult problem for the Calvinist position.

Not only are Calvinist claims about our inability to do good works on our own inconsistent with morality, they're inconsistent with the very logic of grammatical imperatives. We can reason with imperatives.

For example, I can say, be on time for your airplane. To be on time, you must be there two hours before your flight, so be there two hours before your flight. This type of argument once posed a significant problem for philosophical logicians since the logical validity of an argument is traditionally explained in terms of the possibilities regarding the truth of the statement.

That is, an argument is valid just in case if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. However, an imperative is not the kind of statement that can be true or false, so what should we do with arguments that involve imperatives?

The late Oxford philosopher Richard Harris solved this problem by developing a logic for imperatives. The basis of the logic is that each imperative, to each imperative, there is associated a propositional claim that can be true or false.

So, for example, be there two hours before your flight is associated with you arrive two hours before the flight. The imperative only makes sense if it is if it is possible that it be obtained according to that logic.

It would not be just to hold someone accountable for something that they could not avoid doing. So, for example, if a tornado comes along and sweeps me into Mrs. Fraser's flowerbed, I cannot be held accountable for the destruction of her property.

On the other hand, if I am walking by her flowerbed and decide that I hate her flowers and stomp on them and destroy them, then I can be held accountable for this action. The reason that I can be held accountable in the latter case is that I could have refrained from the erroneous action.

The principle that I should not be held accountable for actions over which I do not have control is central to our notion of a just legal system. But Calvinism states that we can be held accountable for what we do not have control over, for it states that we're totally depraved because of Adam's sin.

This sin is in the past and thus outside our control. Nevertheless, it implies that we can do no good on our own. If so, then supposing that we are not elect, for example, we're depraved Mormons and thus not good Christians, we are held morally accountable for something outside our control.

This is inconsistent with our intuitions about moral accountability and with our view that God is good. Okay, so what should I do with Paul? Paul has some writings that Calvinists really like. Traditionally, Mormons tend to not like them as much, although with increasing frequency, Mormons are taking Paul's writings more seriously.

Stephen Robbins and Robert Millett, James Faulkner. Professor White no doubt has some arguments in favor of Calvinist doctrines about the atonement on the basis of Paulian texts, which we've already heard.

So what should I say in response to these? One approach that is quite rational and which you're not going to like is the following. Mormons believe in continuing revelation and this implies the denial of the doctrine of inerrancy.

It is logically consistent with continuing revelation that past revelation is wrong. Suppose that Professor White's interpretation of Paul is correct. It follows from this and my arguments above that some of Paul's views about salvation are just wrong.

This wouldn't bother me too much. A better approach for this audience, at least, and actually for almost all LDS audiences, which would not accept what I just said. That's one of the ways in which I'm more liberal, notes that there are many interpretations of Paul, including those of liberal scholars, those of the open theists, those of Arminians.

The latter two, there's evangelicals that are open theists and Arminians. Now I've argued that the Calvinist view is one, logically inconsistent, two, inconsistent with the fact that God issues imperatives, and three, inconsistent with some of our most basic moral intuitions.

This then gives us a strong textually independent reason to think that one of these other interpretations of Paul is more plausible than the Calvinist interpretation. Otherwise, we need to just conclude that Paul's position is illogical.

I think I would rather choose the view that Paul's position is not so irrational. This leads me to think that the Arminian or the open theist interpretation of Paul is more plausible. I emphasize again that I'm not a scriptural scholar and so I can add nothing to that textual debate.

There are plenty of other people who have done so and I would just be repeating what they've already said if I got into that. But what I can say is that we better hope that the textual debate does come out and doesn't come out in favor of the Calvinists, since that would entail that rationally we should reject Paul's theology and hence Christianity.

Professor White, I'm sorry, Dr. White, are you a professor somewhere? Professor White, I was using doctor throughout and that was a typo, sorry about that. Professor White claims that if I said that Christ died substitutionarily in the place of every single man and woman in all the world, then I would be forced to either say that everyone will be saved or the death of Christ is insufficient to save without additional works.

I've already given arguments that two is true. But I also want to point out the problem with the central assumption of White's conditional claim. The notion of a substitutionary atonement is itself very problematic.