Reymond on Theodicy then Patterson's Calvinism Sermon

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desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line, beginning of a stormy night here in Phoenix, Arizona.
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We've got a nice big rain shower heading our direction. They say we can get up to two inches, which for Phoenix is a veritable
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Noahic flood. You've got to remember, in 2003, we had exactly 2 .54
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inches of rain the entire year. The whole year. And so to get two inches in one storm over the course of two days, especially given that we've already gotten more rain than we've gotten,
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I don't know how long, the weeds in my backyard have become living trees. They are truly an incredible thing to see.
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But anyway, at least it's going to hold off, I think, really coming down through the program.
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Why is that important? Because this program would not exist in Seattle. Because our phone lines, when they get wet, they stop working.
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That's just what happens, you know. So we should be able to get through it. 877 -753 -3341.
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I have queued up and ready to go the Next Page Patterson section, where he addresses compatibilism and things like that.
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I wanted to continue to do some reading, however. You may recall, a week ago
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Tuesday, I read a section from Robert Raymond's Systematic Theology on the subject of why
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God is not the chargeable cause of sin. And I would like to start off by reading another section, because it is directly relevant to what
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Dr. Patterson is going to be saying in regards to a biblical theodicy.
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This is the subject that comes up all the time. And people utilize this as the billy club to beat on Calvinism, and saying, we have a meaningful theodicy because we believe in free will.
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Somehow, making the creature free, in the sense of the liberty of indifference.
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Remember what we read last time? I think it's a good section to read. The liberty of indifference, a freedom to act outside of the decree of God.
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That is to act in one way or act in another, and it is outside of the decree of God.
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That is allegedly how you build a theodicy. Remember we played a clip from the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast? I may pull that one back up again, especially if it's still in my queue here.
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Yes, it is. I'll load that one up. Our computer is wonderful. And what was said was, you know, there's different ways of answering the problem of evil, but the
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Christian way of answering the problem of evil is free will. In fact, if you'll pop this up, let me go ahead and play that section.
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See if I can just track it down for you here real quick. And that's, of course, the idea that everything is a function of random processes.
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So there is no such thing as good and evil in that system either. It's all a part of random naturalistic processes.
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And then you have theism, and that is the only relevant response to the problem of evil.
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And only Christian theism can answer the question in a way that's satisfactory to us. And here's the way Christian theism answers the question.
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Okay, so he actually gave two previous answers. Now, here's
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Christian theism. How does Christian theism answer the question of evil? This is not it is not said here.
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Christian theism offers a number of answers. This is the statement from the
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Bible as a broadcast of how Christian theism actually does. So this is actually what started all of this. Christian theism acknowledges that God creates the potential for evil.
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And the operative word there is potential because he creates humans with freedom of choice.
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So we choose to love, to hate, to do good, to do evil, etc. And of course, the record of human history bears eloquent testimony as the event that you just chronicled does to the fact that humans of their own free will have actualized the reality of evil through such choices.
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So God creates the potential for evil, but we actualize that evil by the choices that we make, which leads to a further point.
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Without choice, love means nothing. And God is neither a cosmic rapist who forces love on people.
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He's not a cosmic puppeteer who forces people to love him. What God does instead is as the personification of love, he grants us the freedom of choice.
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And without that freedom, I think it's really important to recognize without having that freedom, we would be little more than pre -programmed robots.
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So there you have the form of the argument, as it is frequently made, against reform theology, defining
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Christian theism. The theodicy is God creates the potentiality for evil, but since you have libertarian free will, libertarian free will is that liberty of indifference.
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It is not under the sovereign control of God as far as his decree is concerned.
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And therefore, you have your theodicy. Now, of course, my objection to that has been repeatedly stated and not really responded to, and that is if God created with full knowledge of the result of what his creation would be, then he either created with a purpose for that happening, or he created with no purpose for that happening in either sense, in either case.
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He, as the one who created knowing what was going to happen, is responsible and accountable for making the decision to create as he created.
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It is not an answer to simply say, well, God gave us free will. Did God know what we were going to do with this free will?
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If you say yes, then you really haven't accomplished anything. At least the open theist at that point is consistent.
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He can say no. Now, of course, destroy is the entire essence of deity, if you want my opinion. But that's a whole other issue.
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Those who seek to hold on to both the sovereignty of man's will and God's exhaustive knowledge of future events really have a very difficult time making that work without launching off into some extremely complex philosophical paradigms that rarely have any connection whatsoever to the scriptures themselves.
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And so going back to Raymond's systematic theology here, under a biblical theodicy, theodicy, a response to the problem of evil, dealing with the existence of evil, given the fact that God decreed as part of his eternal plan that all men would sin and that only some men would be redeemed from the effects of Adam's fall, why did he do it?
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And a second question might be, is there any way we can justify his actions before men? I would suggest the following as the only possible direction was to look for a biblical and thus a defensible theodicy.
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Now, let me just stop for a moment and say, to me anyway, that is refreshing. And when
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I say it's refreshing, I am so tired of reading theology these days where the writers refuse to say something that strongly, where the writer refuses to say this is biblical.
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Instead, what you see today is very much what seemingly was going on the days of Christ. Remember when
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Christ preached, the crowds were amazed. Why were they amazed? He teaches as one who has authority and not like the scribes and the
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Pharisees. And how were the scribes and Pharisees teaching? Well, look at the Mishnah. Well, Rabbi so -and -so said this, and Rabbi so -and -so said that, and Rabbi so -and -so said this over here.
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Well, that doesn't answer any questions. And it doesn't really excite anyone. It doesn't give anyone passion. And Jesus didn't preach that way.
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And unfortunately, most theologians today write that way because it's politically correct.
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But the result is, well, not something that I would really want to invest my money in.
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But anyway, here is Raymond's biblical theodicy. The ultimate end, which
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God decreed, he regarded as great enough and glorious enough that it justified to himself both the divine plan itself and the ordained incidental evil arising along the foreordained path to his plan's great and glorious end.
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But is there indeed, can there be such an end? Yes, indeed, there is such an end.
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Paul can declare, I consider that our present sufferings, which are ordained of God, the reader is referred to 2 Corinthians 11, 23 -33, and 12, 7 -10 for a sampling of Paul's sufferings, are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
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And again, our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all,
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Romans 8 -18, 2 Corinthians 4 -17, and 1 Corinthians 2 -7. And what is that anticipated and destined end for us?
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It is this. Someday the elect will be conformed. The image of Christ, our highest good, according to Romans 8, 28 -29.
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But our conformity to Christ's likeness is not the be -all and end -all of God's eternal purpose. We have not penetrated
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God's purpose sufficiently if we conclude that we are the center of God's purpose, or that his purpose terminates finally upon us by accomplishing our glorification.
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Rather, our glorification is only the means to a higher, indeed the highest end conceivable that God's Son might be the firstborn, that is, might occupy the highest place of honor among many brothers,
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Romans 8 -29, and all to the praise of God's glorious grace, Ephesians 1 -6, 10, 12, 14, and to 7.
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The point of mentioning, he mentioned Adam, and I didn't bother to read it, it said that God's Son, not
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Adam, might be the firstborn. It says the point of mentioning Adam in the above sentence is this, from the comparison which
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Paul draws between Adam and Christ, Romans 5, 12 -19, as representative heads of two covenant arrangements, it is necessary to insist that had
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Adam successfully passed his probation in the garden, he would have been confirmed in holiness, passing from the state of being able to sin to a state of not being able to sin, and all his descendants would have received by legal imputation his righteousness.
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But then his descendants, you and I, learning of the outcome of his test, would have needed gratefully to look to Adam, still living among us, as our
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Savior from sin and death, and as our righteousness. God would then have been required eternally to share his glory with the creature, and his own beloved
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Son would have been denied the mediatorial role which led to his messianic lordship over men, and to his Father's glory which followed,
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Philippians 2 -6 -11. Accordingly, God decreed to permit the fall, having purposed to order it to his own glory,
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Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, Section 1.
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As for the others, someday the non -elect, irrevocably hardened in their rebellion against God, will endure
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God's wrath for their sin in eternal perdition, and this to the praise of his glorious justice.
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Consider, of Pharaoh, who is the Old Testament type and appalling example of the non -elect man,
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God declares, I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth,
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Exodus 9 -16, Romans 9 -17. It is evident from this divine declaration that Pharaoh, the enemy of God and of God's people, served the divine purpose in being instrumental to the display of God's power and his ultimate exaltation in the earth, and also in providing the backdrop against which
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God could, by contrast, make the riches of his glory, that is, his grace and mercy, known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory,
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Romans 9 -23. Consider another example, in Revelation 19 -1 -4, after eschatological
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Babylon the Great, the symbolic epitome of satanic and human evil, is destroyed, heaven is filled with the exultant shout of a great multitude, saying,
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Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments.
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He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.
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And again they shout, Hallelujah, the smoke of her goes up forever and ever.
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Here we have the ultimate end of all things in heaven on earth, the unabridged, unqualified glorification of God himself in the praises of his saints for his judgment against their enemies and for his stark, contrasting display to them, who equally deserve the same judgment of his surpassing great grace in Christ Jesus.
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And that end God regards as sufficient reason to decree what he has, including even the fact and presence of evil in this world.
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That, of course, as I mentioned, from Robert Raymond's Systematic Theology, A New Systematic Theology of the
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Christian Faith, a Thomas Nelson publication, and if you're looking for something to invest in, you might want to add that one to your shelf because it is a very readable discussion of many things, a number of things
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I don't agree with. People keep asking me, when are you going to write a Systematic Theology? My constant response is,
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I'm too stupid to write a Systematic Theology. That is, it would require a tremendous amount of work, tremendous amount of discipline and knowledge of a number of areas that I just,
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I recognize my weaknesses in. Now, I would be interested someday, possibly, in writing what might be called an apologetic theology.
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That is, I've often argued that our apologetics, our system of apologetics, our means of defending the faith should be determined by our theology, not the other way around.
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And therefore, really the question that a lot of people would have is, well, what are the central aspects of our
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Systematic Theology that determine our apologetics? And so, therefore, writing something along those lines would be something that I would be interested in doing, but certainly not the other direction, not a
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Systematic Theology on the whole, because there's just too many things where I go, you know, it's difficult to go after that.
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But anyhow, there are other writing projects in the wings at the moment, but that's not what we're talking about today.
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Having read that biblical theodicy, and you may have noticed the preeminence of passages from Scripture in that discussion.
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Let us now go back to listening to the sermon that was delivered, I would say, approximately a year ago now at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is my recollection where this took place.
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And we were listening to Dr. Paige Patterson. We began reviewing this quite some time ago. I unfortunately did not have the time to look up every, well, not that I would even have the resources necessarily to look up every place.
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We have looked at the previous part of the sermon before, but we're heading back to it now.
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And he will raise some of these issues, and let's see if a response is provided to them that really takes into consideration, given the context, being the presentation in front of a theological body at a theological seminary doing graduate work.
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Certainly there, we would hope, be that level of care in representing the
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Reformed position, especially the doctrine of compatibilism. Let's see if that's what happens. The issues are very profound indeed.
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And as we wrestle with them to try to understand where human responsibility begins, and where God's electing providence should be seen as limited, or should it be all pervasive.
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Men have struggled now for some 2 ,000 years with that question. Well, there are some who come to a position that is commonly called compatibilism.
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These are people that want to argue that libertarian free will can be asserted for man on one hand, and on the other hand, we can still hold somehow to the electing providences of God, even a supraluxarian electing providences of God, and that the two are somehow compatible and can exist together.
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Now immediately, you sort of go, excuse me? Libertarian free will?
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In the sense of the liberty of indifference? Certainly that's not what we are referring to, and that is not what a compatibilist would say.
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The entire viewpoint of the nature of the will and the function of the will, especially in relationship to sin and creatureliness, would be different between a compatibilist and a libertarian.
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We do believe in free will, but not in the indifference concept, and that is the freedom of spontaneity rather than that of indifference.
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There's a difference between those two. So you'll notice sort of in passing there, there was a brief reference to supraluxarianism.
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The discussion by Dr. Raymond in his Systematic Theology on that subject is also very useful.
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I frequently, when people come into the channel and ask about that, refer them to that. Now I've even created a little pop -up that I just play and channel, and it summarizes what he has in his book, but it gives you an idea.
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But there is a little mention of that, and the assertion that somehow what we're trying to do is just basically assert that libertarian free will and the sovereign decree of God can be put together even as a supraluxarian.
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Evidently he feels that's somehow relevant, though he does not explain why, and that this is what compatibilism is.
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Now, of course, if I was a non -compatibilist, if I was a person who didn't hold that viewpoint, and I was speaking to a group of people, and I had the opportunity of responding to it,
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I would want to at least mention where they get their arguments from. I would at least want to mention, and those of you who listened to the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast last time I was on, December of 2003, know that I continually brought up the three passages that I feel are most central to the issue.
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And that is Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, Isaiah chapter 10, verses 5 and following, especially 5 through 21, and then
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Acts chapter 4, verses 27 and 28, where in each one of these particular passages you clearly have the conjunction in Scripture of the sovereign decree of God, you have
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God's purposes being fulfilled, you have God's predestining hand, and you also have the responsibility of men, the actions of men, the hearts of men, the attitudes of men, and Scripture gives absolutely no indication whatsoever of embarrassment or concern that somehow these are not compatible, that they are contradictory to one another.
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Instead, when it speaks of the actions of men, it very naturally does so flowing from the assertion of God's sovereignty, the assertion of God's total providential control over all human actions.
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And these actions that are described, by the way, range from the personal, where you have
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Herod, you have the brothers of Joseph, to national, nations. And so there's every level in between.
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You can't say, well, okay, I don't mind God having control of nations. I don't mind God turning the heart of the king wherever he will, as Proverbs says, but I have a problem if he does that with everybody.
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Because, you know, the king, he sort of controls the country, but if he does that to individuals, you know, that's a bad thing.
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That's not how, that's not what we're talking about here. These passages present this. They need to be exegeted and explained by a person who would, knowing that they are presented by compatibilists, would reject the compatibilist position.
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Unfortunately, that's not what we get in this particular situation. Well, unquestionably, there is certain truth in this, for if both doctrines are somehow taught in God's word, then we must conclude that they are compatible.
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And yet, I suggest to you that compatibilism, as a general philosophy, is, in my estimation, quite flawed.
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It's illusory. It does not really, ultimately answer the question.
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We are, if we adopt the view of five -point Calvinism, for example, ultimately pushed to some conclusions that are very uncomfortable.
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One of those is a fatalistic conclusion. If it's all been decided in eternity past, if every act of man has been scripted of God, then, in effect, we have no say in it, and it is impossible to avoid a fatalistic end.
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Unfortunately, that's all you're going to get. You're going to get the bland assertion that if you have the sovereign decree of God, then the result is fatalism.
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And, of course, fates, the fates, are those wonderful gods that determined what was going to happen, and fatalism, when it is utilized in this context, is not a positive term in any way, shape, or form.
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And, in point of fact, the argument is really based upon creating an emotion in people's minds, rather than actually dealing with the particular central focus of what we need to be talking about here.
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And I have frequently said that to try to describe the personal self -glorification of God through the creation of time and all things that take place in time as fatalism is a gross misnomer.
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It is a gross misrepresentation. It does not take into account the reality of what we are discussing.
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Why? Well, it should be fairly clear that the compatibilist is talking about a very personal decree of God.
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That is, God is the source of the decree. The end, as Raymond pointed out, is his own self -glorification.
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It involves our glorification. It involves our being conformed to the image of Christ. It involves the punishment of the justly punished reprobate, and so on and so forth.
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But all those things come together to the praise of his glorious grace. It is self -glorification on God's part, and God has chosen to do this in a particular way.
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And it really doesn't seem to me that non -compatibilists take a whole lot of—they don't really take answering the question why
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God does things very seriously, because in reality their position doesn't say
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God's doing a whole lot of stuff anyways. He's pretty much just in control of big macro things and tsunamis and earthquakes and things like that,
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I guess, even though there's some questions there too. But he's not really engaged in a providential way in the actions of man to begin with.
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So you certainly then have a problem coming up with why God created.
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Why did God create? And non -compatibilists come up with all sorts of odd and unusual ways of answering that question.
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Very, very frequently the answers to those questions are, in essence, focused upon man and upon unfulfilled desires of God.
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There are many theologians today who would wish to confess a God who has tried to do something, and his reason for being glorified was in his trying, not in his accomplishing.
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Sounds like the modern American educational system, and God got stuck in it. And he manages to get a
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B -minus, and we are just simply to glorify him for the effort, not for the perfection of the completion of that effort and that desire.
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There's all sorts of other questions that are raised because of this, but if Scripture is right, that what
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God is doing, that his ordering all things at the counsel of his will, and the fact this is all to the praise of his glorious grace, if that is true, then their theodicies and their discussions of the issues of evil, or of this term, using the term fatalism, simply do not meet the requirements of the ends that Scripture gives to us, that is,
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God's own self -glorification. Compatibilism does not, five -point
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Calvinism does not result in fatalism, it results in exclusive, self -glorifying providence.
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And if you don't understand what the difference is, then you haven't been listening or thinking about what the issues are.
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There is a vast difference between an impersonal fate of the future, and God's self -glorification that is done purposefully so that all things result in his glory.
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That seems to me very obvious. Maybe to others it is not, but to me that seems extremely obvious.
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That to describe God's chosen means of self -glorification through the redemption of a people in Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is all in all, and he is the center of all things, to describe that as fatalism is simply reprehensible.
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It's wrong. And a person who has seriously studied the issue should not do so. And yet many, of course, do anyways.
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So we continue on. It also is a problem for theodicy, for a justification of the goodness of God, because ultimately it makes
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God the author of sin, when the Bible explicitly says that he is not the author of sin.
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Well, that's all you're going to get on that one, too. That is, you just have the bland statement that if God is sovereign over all things, that makes him the author of sin.
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There's no discussion of secondary means, there's no discussion of any of the things that we read in Raymond, and am
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I really that far out of the mainstream to think that as you stand before an audience at a graduate -level seminary, that you would recognize that there are young men, and in this situation
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I'm sure young women, sitting in front of you who have read these things.
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They've read Raymond. He's in the library. They may have taken classes with odd professors like me, who raise these issues and talk about these things.
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So if you don't address them, and you just simply pass by them, isn't that going to be very painfully obvious to those who are truly struggling with these issues?
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It would certainly seem to me that that would be the case. It would certainly seem to me that would be the case.
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We'll have more to comment on this. We're going to take our break at the half hour, and we have one call online, and we'll try to mix it all in here.
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We'll be right back right after this break. A godly man is such a rarity today.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
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Deep theology today, but that's okay. That's all right. We do that every once in a while.
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Let me just a couple things. Let me point out something in the last break that is very, very important.
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Most of you who listen regularly, you heard last time we were talking about all the stuff that is going on in Seattle in August, the crews, the discussions that are going on.
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Oh, I just love to go to Alaska. Well, this will be my third time. And I can tell you something just, just coming from me here.
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I've never been on a cruise like this one. Every cruise that I've gone on before, you've seen a third of what we'll see on this one.
35:54
That's just all there is to it. So that's the first thing. Secondly, uh, Rich was talking to a friend and the friend laughed when he mentioned the cost because for Alaska, it is, this is, this is absolutely outrageous, outrageously low for a trip to Alaska, especially then you add number three.
36:16
And that is, you can go to Alaska on a lot of different lines, but you're not. In fact, you can go to Alaska with a number of different ministries.
36:21
And, and I'm not, I'm not, uh, saying anything about those are the ministries in any way, shape or form. Lord bless them.
36:28
Uh, they, you know, they're going to have a good time too, but you're just not going to get to do so with a conference beforehand, debate beforehand with John Dominic Crossan and with the on ship dialogue and discussion.
36:45
Just, it, it's going to be, it's absolutely positively unique. No two ways about it.
36:52
And, uh, so don't put it off. If you've been saying, I got to talk to my wife about that.
36:58
Talk to your wife about that. Don't put it off. Okay. Uh, because you know, we just, it's just gotta get that.
37:05
All right. Um, eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one. I can go ahead and take
37:10
Frank's call because it's directly related to compatibilism. Then we have another call about something completely different.
37:17
So I'm going to finish up this little section of, uh, Patterson afterwards, and we'll try to put it all together like that.
37:22
Let's talk with Frank, Dr. White. How are you? How are you, sir? I'm well, uh, compatibilism yesterday in channel.
37:29
We were chatting with a fellow who I think had a distorted view of compatibilism. And I was wondering if you could talk about, um, or, or briefly describe what kind of influence
37:39
God is, uh, is exerting in compatibilism. I mean, is man under God's, uh, you know, is there some kind of coercion involved in compatibilism or are we talking about two things, you know, where we're talking about a legitimate theological paradox and not two things which we can necessarily, necessarily logically, uh, connect.
38:01
I, I am uncomfortable with the term paradox simply because that is an assertion of, of contradiction.
38:09
And I see the reality of man's will and the reality of man's actions flowing from the recognition and acceptance of the divine decree of God, which conditions and creates the conditions in which his will can be, can be real.
38:28
And hence that truth of God's divine decree and creatorship is what leads to and provides the foundation of the truth of man's actions being responsible before God.
38:42
If that was not the case, uh, then the question becomes why is man accountable to, to God, especially since he's described as a slave of sin and all the rest of these types of things that, that are described of him.
38:56
Uh, if, if he's actually now a slave, you do not hold a slave accountable for doing what the slave holder tells him to do.
39:06
If the slave holder tells a slave to, to fight against you, you don't hold the slave accountable that you hold the slave holder.
39:13
And so if Satan had that kind of power to do as he's described in scripture, and there is no sovereign decree of God, and there is no,
39:20
God does not have the ability to, to, uh, constrain the limits of Satan's power and so on and so forth.
39:27
You would have no basis, uh, for being able to say that. So I, I do not see them as equal truths that are put together like the old, um, uh, uh, railroad tracks meeting an eternity thing that even
39:40
Charles Spurgeon used, but you know, no one, no one's confessing, no one's confessing the infallibility of, of brother
39:46
Spurgeon. But, uh, as I've said many times, if your train tracks ever meet, you crash, whether it's an eternity or not.
39:52
And so, uh, I do not see them as equal rails as people like to call them. The one depends upon the other.
40:00
Without the one, the other does not exist. And so, uh, especially when we're talking about what defines
40:06
God's act of creation, that has to flow from something that's about God, not something that's about the creation.
40:12
And, uh, so when we're talking about compatibilism, what we're saying is that a true understanding of why
40:20
God holds men accountable, which is what we read before the Dave Hunt explosion last Tuesday, um, why
40:25
God holds men accountable, the means by which he holds men accountable, the difference between the liberty of spontaneity and the liberty of indifference, all of, all of that stuff, um, is the, the idea that man acts in that way is compatible with the sovereign decree of God, that my
40:44
God is big enough when he creates to create in such a way that he can create creatures who have that kind of free will, not the libertarian indifference kind, but that kind of free will, hold them accountable and bring about his own glorification.
40:59
Evidently, the non -reformed God can't pull that off, that, uh, he, he's dependent upon the creature and, um, so on and so forth.
41:07
My God is big enough to do that without using chatty Cathy dolls and, uh, puppets and engaging in divine rape or doing any of the rest of that stuff.
41:16
Uh, in, in point of fact, he's big enough to do that in the same way that he's big enough to inspire scripture in a, in a plenary fashion, uh, while still using the writers and their styles and their vocabulary and their experiences.
41:30
And the result is still the inspired word of God, exactly what he desired it to be. So if you've got a
41:35
God big enough to do that, I don't know why you can't have a God big enough to do the other thing, but evidently there are some folks that, that struggle with that.
41:41
Yes. Yeah. And well, the fellow in channel was really a hyper Calvinist saying that, you know, God, well, he said he, you know, he, he tried to say he wasn't, uh, and I, I still haven't,
41:50
I honestly was not watching closely enough to really, um, I just did not have time to engage it that this is all there was to it.
41:58
But, um, uh, you know, I said something about hyper Calvinism on my blog and that always gets folks talking.
42:06
And it's interesting how many people were shocked that I would say something about hyper Calvinism and say something as strongly as I did.
42:13
But, uh, I, I really detest, uh, hyper Calvinism and what, and what it does. Cause I'm, I'm sick and tired of having to, uh, defend true
42:21
Calvinism against, uh, against that stuff. But anyways, that's how that works. Well, thank you for your time today, James. All right.
42:26
Thank you very much. Alrighty. And we will go ahead and since we're getting other calls, we'll just, um, uh,
42:35
I'm going to mark my, where I am here in the, uh, I don't want to lose, uh, where I am here and have to go back and listen to all this stuff all over again.
42:44
But, uh, we're about only about six minutes into the, uh, second of the MP3s. There's actually three
42:50
MP3s. So we're probably going to be at this, uh, for quite some time, uh, in, in responding.
42:57
We only got two minutes listened to today. That's a two minutes and one second. That's, that's, that's all we got done today.
43:03
But you know what? That's, that's okay. Uh, cause the phones duff be ringing. Let's head up to, uh,
43:09
Utah. Hi Charles. Charles. Hello. Hello Charles. Yes, sir.
43:15
Hey, how are you today? Doing good. Wanted to give you a little brief report. Uh, you've been talking the last couple of weeks.
43:21
I'm sorry to interrupt the, uh, current conversation there. You never know what's going to be talked about when you call in.
43:27
Uh, no, that's true. I could, I mean, I, I've been working on my Paige Patterson impression, so, uh, it could be that down the road
43:34
I could. Was there, is there anyone in Utah that would know the name? Of Paige Patterson?
43:40
Yes. Well, sure. I mean, if you're a, if you're a, if you're a, if you're a, if you're a, if you're a, if you're a Christian and if you've been around Baptist and if you've been around the block a few times,
43:48
I guess you're going to know who Paige Patterson is. And that's going to be a fairly small group in Utah though, isn't it?
43:54
Right. Just about as small a group as, uh, you know, black people. In Utah. Yeah. Right.
43:59
That's true. All right. Hopefully, hopefully my Paige Patterson impression would be a lot better than your
44:05
British impression. Well, you know, uh, I'm going to England next month and, uh, we'll just find out then just how really good it truly is.
44:14
I think you might want to lay off, uh, I don't, I don't know that that's the best way to endear yourself to our friends in the
44:21
UK by attempting to lay that accent on them. To be honest with you, now they're doing the, uh, now they're doing the human cloning business.
44:28
I'm not sure I'm really going to, uh, endear myself to them to begin with. So that's not a here or there, but anyways, what's going on with Dr.
44:35
Mao in Utah now? Well, I was, I was at the event, um, it was, it was some kind of event.
44:41
I mean, you know, outside of this, outside of this controversial stuff, it really was a pretty remarkable event.
44:47
The very fact that it happened, I mean, I was in awe of the very fact that this thing could be pulled together and that I could be sitting there listening to someone like Robbie Lacharias, uh, talk about the
44:59
Trinity as he did and things like that. Um, but of course it was a little bit marred because we had to have the preliminary comments by Mao, um, and we had to hear a whole bunch of nonsense also from, uh, from the
45:18
BYU guy. And all that was frankly a waste of time. Well, I should say it was boring.
45:23
You know, they went on way too long. It was a little bit self -congratulatory and I thought they were going to kiss on stage, frankly.
45:30
It was all real nice, you know? That would have pretty well brought the whole thing to an end, I think, right?
45:36
That particular point. Right. And, you know, Charles, I've listened to all of what took place up there and, uh, did you hear
45:44
Craig Hazen on Greg Kokel's program? Oh, no. You know what? I've not heard that.
45:49
I know that he came on there and I'd be interested to hear it. You know what's interesting about Hazen? I should let you say what you want.
45:56
No, go ahead. I was just going to say, no one's mentioning Hazen. Of course, now, when I left the place and I was just talking to some of the other believers that were there,
46:04
Mal was not the only one who was not appreciated in what he said. Of course, people were pretty mad at Mal for what he said.
46:12
However, Hazen did his own little number by a reference, as you know, that he made in his closing prayer.
46:21
But Hazen then sort of turned around because I read something a couple of days later that somebody sent to me which said that Hazen was distancing himself, as it were, from Mal.
46:32
As though to say, Mal speaks for himself, he's got to answer for what he said.
46:38
I don't want any piece of that. So he was all scuffed for it. I think if you go to str .org,
46:44
hopefully you can pull up the archive of that particular program. He was on for about an hour and I just found it fascinating.
46:53
I found it fascinating to listen to because I tried to put myself in the position of a BYU staff member or something, listening to this take on what happened that night.
47:03
And it just seemed very, very, very odd to me the way that it ended up coming across.
47:09
So you might find it very interesting to go listen to it. Because one of the things he kept talking about was, yeah, Ravi Zacharias is saying all these things, but basically he says, and you know what,
47:18
I don't think the Mormons had a clue what he was talking about, except for the BYU guys, and they didn't like it.
47:24
But everybody else was, you could hear people, you could see people nodding, you could hear people agreeing with what was being said.
47:32
When he was saying things that in point of fact were completely opposed to Mormon theology, it just seemed to me that the way in which it was being stated was that the majority of Mormons just have no idea what was going on.
47:44
And I found that very odd. You know, I would agree with him, that no one's going on.
47:50
The problem here is that it comes off as really disingenuous on the part of the evangelicals, and I would rather be straightforward.
47:59
Now, I had a conversation with a guy about this, and he wasn't too knowledgeable on it, but he said, well, tell me what you, he said, you know, we've had events like this before.
48:08
I mean, of course, you would know. You've been down here. You've had debates with people. And the guy would ask me, what's the difference, what's the difference from that?
48:16
The difference is that these guys almost sound like they're faking it, as though in the interest of being nice, in the interest of being friendly, they're saying things that I think if I were a
48:31
Mormon, if I were a knowledgeable Mormon, I think I would say, I'm not buying it. I don't think, I don't think you guys are telling the truth.
48:37
And then if, God forbid, I heard an interview later where the guy was changing his tune and saying, oh, those
48:45
Mormons, they don't know anything. They're just, they're just ignorant. I would think, I would think that you're kind of two -faced.
48:51
See, I prefer the debate style, like what you've done when you've come here. Yeah, at least, at least they know exactly where I'm coming from, and I'm going to be the same person with them no matter what the context is.
49:01
That's what bothered me is, as I was listening to this interview, I'm hearing terminology like, you know, this will open up the door for us to move in to give the coup de grace.
49:09
And I'm like, what? I mean, again, I'm putting myself in the position of these
49:15
Mormon scholars that I know, okay? And we've done radio programs together in studio.
49:21
I don't think they'd ever do that again. They don't like me. But not because, you know, you can listen to the tapes, it's not because the way that I treat them or respond to them, they just, they would, they just don't like the idea that I'm not going to compromise on those things.
49:34
And I'm trying to put myself in their shoes, and I'm like, wow, this would really bother me. I mean, this would really offend me that someone would speak this way about what took place there.
49:45
I would think if you're going to sit up there on that stage, that there's going to be certain things expected of you on the other end, and they've been sort of backpedaling away from that.
49:54
At least that's been my impression. But to be honest with you, I haven't heard much more about this in about a month now.
50:00
It's sort of dying down a little bit. Is there something new going on that I'm not aware of? Well, there have been a few things passed around.
50:05
I mean, Mal's got a lot of, you know, a lot of work to do, I guess, because he's been trying to make people understand that he, most of it, of course, has come from the fact that he sort of made a sweeping statement.
50:20
And there are so many good, solid, credible people who have written books about Mormonism and so forth.
50:29
And part of what he said when he apologized en masse for all of us was that, I mean, the implication there is that everybody from yourself to, you know, a number of good, solid, credible ministries that have never said an ill word about Mormonism, but have only gone about it in a scholarly, you know, with integrity, with good research.
50:52
He almost made it sound as if they're all Ed Deckard times 20. Oh, but he didn't almost.
50:59
He did. And when he then tried to repair things in an email afterwards, he made specific reference to Dave Hunt, and no one's going to, you know, find me exactly rushing to Dave's defense these days.
51:15
And I've, you know, I was on KTKK radio in Salt Lake condemning
51:20
Godmakers 2 and the excesses in those things, so I've been consistent at that point.
51:25
But he then gave as his second example the presentation of the Orthodox official published viewpoint of the exaltation of a man to godhood that is a part and parcel of LDS theology.
51:40
He then gave that as his second example on the basis of the fact that in his conversations with liberal
51:46
BYU professors, they're not quite as fast to affirm that as Joseph Smith was in the
51:51
King Fault funeral discourse. I mean, that is, to me, where the credibility exploded as far as Richard Mao is concerned, because you just don't do that kind of thing, and he did.
52:03
I didn't know if he has come out with any statements since then. I wonder if Mao's a little bit naive, in a sense, because, as you're saying, those
52:12
BYU guys, they don't represent anybody here. I've lived here long enough. I know all kinds of Mormons.
52:18
I've got them all around me. I've neighbors, they're friends, they're everywhere. I engage with them all the time in conversations, and the number of them that I meet that share views with people, you know, like everybody from Millet to Robinson to Dennis Potter and some of these other guys you've talked with,
52:37
I've talked to some of those guys, by the way. Was Dennis Potter there? No. Oh.
52:43
I didn't know if he might get into the tabernacle with his backpack that said, no war in Iraq. Potter doesn't care one bit about the
52:52
Mormon church. You probably got that idea. I've spoken with him personally about these things, and off the record, he's very forthright, as are a lot of them.
53:03
No, Potter doesn't think, he doesn't buy into it. I look right in that guy's eyes, and I'm telling you, if he believes in Mormonism, then you do.
53:13
There's no way he does. But that would have been on the third overhead that we didn't quite get to. Right, right.
53:19
Right. I mean, that was an impressive showing that night.
53:25
I thought, you know, somewhere Alvin Plantinga just threw up. Yes. Well, I can guarantee you,
53:32
Alvin Plantinga would have used PowerPoint or would have put the argument and the conclusion all in one overhead.
53:38
Well, what makes it worse is that he was, you know, his degree comes from Notre Dame. Yes, yes, yes. But there was a recent thing
53:46
I caught a few days ago. I think it's part of the aftermath of this, and that is, there's been some emails floating around and some problem with, there's been some infighting.
53:54
And this is an unfortunate side effect. This thing could have been so good if, had they just started the thing up and said, ladies and gentlemen,
54:02
Ravi Zacharias. Right. It would have been very sweet. But here's the thing. Now, there's enough bad blood, if I can call it that, some of the people who have been who have toiled away for years trying,
54:17
I mean, in every possible way to reach Mormons and doing it legitimately, to have gone through that now, having heard that there's enough of something in the air that, for example, last week or a week before sometime, the gentleman who runs the
54:34
Standing Together ministry, his name is Greg, and a nice guy, an ex -Mormon, a long -time minister in Utah, a great guy with a heart of gold.
54:45
Well, he's continuing to bring people into Utah to try to bring, so he was bringing a group of college students who are
54:52
Christians, I believe they're from Biola. From Biola? Biola, yeah. That's actually a program that began a number of years ago.
54:58
Right. And it's a great program. He had them at BYU recently, and, you know, doing the standard kind of thing, trying to make some dialogue happen, make some friendships and everything.
55:08
Well, a reporter, a female student reporter, reporting on it for the school paper, quoted
55:15
Greg on a couple of occasions, and you know how these people do.
55:21
Oh, yeah. You speak with them for two hours and you get two sentences. Oh, sure. They quoted him saying something about how, you know, we've got to, there are certain compromises that can be made in terms of our views of Scripture, something like that.
55:34
Well, you can well imagine the kind of firestorm that came from that.
55:40
Since then, Greg has said she misquoted him and he has called the school about it, but of course there are some, you know, there are some
55:49
Christians who, having already turned a suspicious eye to him, they're not sure to believe it.
55:56
And all this is very bad for the Christian cause here, because now you have this sort of disagreement.
56:02
Now Greg has to watch everything he says. Well. Because if he even uses the word compromise, even in the best context, there are people ready to swoop in on that.
56:12
Yeah, you know, I heard about the beginning of this exchange program where students go from BYU to Biola and students go from Biola to BYU.
56:21
I heard about this when it first started. In fact, I think
56:28
I heard about it from one of the students who was going to be participating in it, and this was in December of 2003.
56:39
And, you know, I said at that time, that student, I said, man, you know, I've seen too many problems as a result of this.
56:48
I mean, you know, do you really know what you're getting into here? Do you really have a full idea of what's going on here?
56:55
And I just tried to be somewhat, you know, concerned about that. But I remain concerned, to be honest with you, about that program simply because if it is not placed in the proper biblical parameters, proper biblical context, it would be a very dangerous thing.
57:13
It would be a, it could be a disastrous thing. And I, since I don't know the preparation that both sides put into preparing their students and really what their purposes and directions are, it's extremely difficult for me to be overly excited about it.
57:33
I don't know what you're talking about. I heard about, I saw something on one of the email lists about the recent visitation and about what the students did, how they attended talks and they saw films and, you know,
57:45
BYU putting on the full press forum. What I'd like to know is what did they do before they went over there?
57:51
Who are they reading? What perspectives are they given? Because if they're only given the liberal
57:56
BYU viewpoint and then they hit the real Mormonism, then they weren't prepared.
58:02
That's the whole problem with that. And that's a bad thing. So, hey, anyways, Charles, thank you very much.
58:09
Alan, sorry we didn't get to you. That half hour goes so fast when I take my break late. And that's a mixture of the dividing line.
58:17
And that's why you tune in on Tuesday for the next edition of The Dividing Line. We appreciate you listening very, very, very much.
58:24
If you weren't there, there wouldn't be any reason to do this. Would there be? There wouldn't be. We'll see you next week, Tuesday, on The Dividing Line.
58:30
God bless. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:35
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59:42
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59:47
that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.