Dr. Brown's Top Ten List Against the Trinity

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded 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. And welcome to an unusual Monday afternoon edition of The Dividing Line, a jumbo edition.

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It's all we're going to get to do this week. I leave tomorrow. I'll be speaking in Hephzibah, Georgia, which is now,

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I know, just south of Augusta, Georgia. And I will be speaking Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings, traveling back on Saturday, looking forward to time with the brethren there, especially since not only do

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I get to speak and do all that wonderful, fun stuff, but at some point in time, we're going to be sending a few down the range.

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And did I tell you that one of the things I'm going to get to send down the range a little bit is a .50

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caliber Browning sniper rifle? Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

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I can't imagine what it costs for each trigger pull, but hey, you know, I probably won't fire it too many times, but we've all seen those beasts on television and I've always wanted to get to, you have to aim very carefully.

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No, no, no. That's something you shoot prone, man. Let me tell you something. That's on a tripod and everything.

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Yeah. Hey, let me tell you. After I took that bear with my .338, I had a black and blue mark on my, because it wasn't in my shoulder and I knew

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I wasn't holding it right, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. You're in a tree stand, the bear's over there. You got to, you know, you can't, excuse me, could you move over here, please?

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Yeah. Right. Doesn't work that way. You just do what you got to do. And that's what we did.

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Anyway, so we're going to be out of town the rest of the week and next week should be a normal schedule for the dividing line.

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And then October, just, it's just a mess. I'm going to be down in Sydney and Brisbane and I don't think anything's going to happen during that about 11 days.

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And then I'm home for three days and I'm down in Louisiana and who knows? So maybe all the jumbos and megas and everything else will just sort of even out and we'll be even after all that, because we've got a lot of traveling, a lot of traveling to do.

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Speaking of traveling, time's running out on the Defending the Faith Apologetics Cruise January 2nd through 8th in 2012.

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That's not very far away. We're only talking, what, a hundred days, a little over a hundred days and time's running out on that.

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And I'm looking forward to spending time with folks on that. I've really sort of, you know,

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I told Mike, I said, well, you know, use me, you know, I'm not like a lot of folks.

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Okay. One cruise I was like a lot of folks. When we were on the Zondam and I was sick as a dog, that was ugly.

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That was right after I debated Greg Stafford and man, oh, Sam Schmoon was on that cruise and I remember showing up to speak on the

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Deity of Christ and I literally looked like I had run into the room because I was just,

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I was sweating. I was so sick. I was so bad. And yet I spoke anyways. But I didn't spend a lot of time with folks on that particular cruise, mainly because they didn't want to.

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Why would they want to? They want to get sick too. But I basically said, hey, I will spend,

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I'll do what I can to be out amongst the folks and speaking. And we do these theology talks and all sorts of stuff like that.

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So time's running out on that. You'll see the banner ad on our website. Please click on that if you were thinking about doing that this coming holiday season,

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January 2nd through 8th of 2012. Right as I was getting ready to get started here,

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I had everything queued up. And this is what I like about the dividing line. This is what I like about getting to start it when we want to start it and doing it the way we want to do it and not having, you know, all the network issues and stuff like that and all that stuff is

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I'm all ready to go and I can change directions. I'm still going to be addressing the Dean Show Top 10.

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This fits in perfectly. But Sam Shamoon sent me an email and here is a video that was posted today.

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Now, I don't know, I don't know how Turretin Fan and Sam Shamoon, they're the two primary guys just out of the blue.

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They're always sending me emails or PMs or something like that about people ragging on me out in the

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Internet. I don't have those types of things set up to where I'm informed whenever anybody says anything about me because I'd never get anything done if I did, to be perfectly honest with you.

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But once in a while, you know, it's neat to be able to respond instantaneously.

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So the Assyrian Encyclopedia sent this to me and I want to play this video. The problem is the video starts off and evidently what happened here is

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Lane Chaplin, we can blame Lane Chaplin for this one, because he contacted me last week and he said, hey, you know, there's some videos of you that are just floating around YouTube and no one sees them.

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They've got almost no views because they're not linked to any of our channels so people can find them easily. And he said, would you mind if I grab them and post them on my channel?

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And I said, sure, fine, whatever. Of course, Lane does know that he owes a portion of his massive viewership and his many, many video views to me because I've let him do that.

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But that's okay. And people see more on his channel than they do on mine. So he grabbed a presentation that I did at Calvary Santa Fe on the

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Trinity and he posted it. Well, lo and behold, just today, the Abrahamic movement, and that's associated with Anthony Buzzard.

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And all of you might remember Anthony Buzzard. We've talked about Anthony Buzzard in the program many times before. I started, oh man, when was this?

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This was 2006, I think, maybe 2005, probably 2006 when

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I was preparing the debate Shabir Ali. I listened to a debate between Shabir Ali and Anthony Buzzard. And I commented then on Anthony Buzzard's big argument, the

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Psalm 110 argument that is not an argument at all. And then I've been on the

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Unbelievable Radio broadcast with Anthony Buzzard. And then summer before last, well,

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I guess last summer, I guess it's still technically summer, isn't it? For what, two more days, something like that? I, Michael Brown and I, took on Anthony Buzzard, another gentleman, on the subject of the

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Trinity on the Jewish Voice broadcast. And portions, anyways, of that are floating around YouTube, I think, somewhere.

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I've never actually seen the whole thing in chronological order, which I think is the best way to look at it. But anyway, yeah, in fact,

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I just now just looked over and one of the videos in the thing, the box that comes up after you watch a

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YouTube video, shows a picture of Michael and I sitting next to each other. And I'm smiling very nicely there, that's nice.

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So I'll have to click on that one sometime. But anyhow, I'm not sure who put that, probably the same folks.

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I want to play this video. The video takes from that Calvary Santa Fe presentation some basic statements that I make in regards to identification of Jesus as Yahweh.

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And the title is, Is Jesus Yahweh or is Dr. James White Wrong? Question mark, exclamation point.

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The problem is, while I'd like to just play the video and respond to it, I can't because the only audio portion of the video is me talking.

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The rest of it's all just written text. So I'm going to play it and you'll see, you'll hear some nice pretty music in the background.

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But I'm going to have to read you what it says and respond to it.

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But since it was posted today, and as my viewing of it had exactly 11 views, we are talking about it pretty quickly.

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So thanks to the Assyrian Encyclopedia for finding this. But here's

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Anthony Buzzard's, I assume Anthony Buzzard, Abrahamic movement, that's what he's associated with.

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Here's what he has to say. Now, three categories of evidence for the deity of Christ.

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The use of God in describing Christ. He is called God numerous times in the Bible. But especially with Jehovah's Witnesses, that's not where I go first.

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Because they want to argue about gods and a god and Moses was a god to Pharaoh and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

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I go to the second identification of Jesus as Yahweh. Because especially for a

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Jehovah's Witness, if Jesus is actually identified as Yahweh, the argument is over.

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All the stuff about a god, God, is irrelevant. If Jesus is Yahweh, Jesus is God, period, end of discussion.

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Is Jesus Yahweh or is Dr. James White wrong, exposing the smoke and mirrors that is

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Christian Orthodoxy? When speaking of the Trinity, we need to realize that we are talking about one what and three whose.

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We dare not mix up the what's and who's regarding the Trinity, the Forgotten Trinity, page 27. But later in the same book, in teaching how to counter a

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JW, Dr. White writes, We can agree that the Father is identified as Jehovah.

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But I believe the Bible identifies Jesus as Yahweh as well, and the Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh. Each of these three persons share the one divine name,

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Yahweh or Jehovah, the Forgotten Trinity, page 132. Saying Jesus is Yahweh does not work for both

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JWs and Trinitarians, not only because of its illogical, nonsensical formulations. One Yahweh in three

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Yahwehs or one what in three what's? But mainly because this is simply the

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Bible, this is something the Bible simply does not teach. I discovered that this identification of Jesus as Jehovah is a lot stronger than it appears at first look.

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We are not saying there are three beings Yahweh that are one being Yahweh, or three persons Yahweh that are one person

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Yahweh. Such would be self -contradictory to the Forgotten Trinity, page 27. So how many

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Yahwehs are there, question mark, exclamation point? For more information, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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So there is Dr. Buzzard, and you know, Sir Anthony should know better than this by now.

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We've discussed this, I've explained it to him, the fact that he continues to make these kind of basic category errors, and really the idea of trying to make us, well is it one

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Yahweh or three Yahwehs, as if we are identifying one Yahweh as the Father and one

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Yahweh as the Son and one Yahweh as the Spirit. He knows better. I mean, he's got to know better by now. Is he so blinded by his position that he can't even understand the other position?

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I mean, that really becomes bothersome after a while, it really does. And that's where the cultic aspect comes in, because when

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I respond to other groups, I can use their language.

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I can accurately represent what they believe in their language, in their lingo.

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And if they can't do the same thing back, that's probably indicative of some kind of a cultic deceptive element.

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He should at least be able to understand what it is we are saying, and hence to be able to formulate his objection in such a way that it's a meaningful objection.

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Because what are we, he just hates the one what and three whos. But what is that referring to?

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It's referring to the fact that we need, we have to, everybody, I don't care what their viewpoint, we've seen this with Roger Perkins, we've seen this with the

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Muslims, we've seen this with anybody addressing this subject, has to make a distinction between being and person because we live making the distinction between being and person.

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We recognize there is something called humanity. We recognize there is something called being a human, but we also recognize that there are individual human beings.

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We clearly, in our everyday existence, recognize the difference, the category difference between being and person.

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And so when we talk about what the Bible talks about in regards to the being of God, we're not saying the being of God is impersonal, like it's a rock, like it's an inanimate object, like you can separate the being of God from being personal.

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But what we are saying is that the being of God is shared by three persons.

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And if you want to talk about, you know, areas of focused self -consciousness rather than using the word person, whatever you want to do, as long as each of these persons can refer to the other, can love the other, can interact with the other, and be co -eternal because that's what the

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Bible teaches. That's what we see in John 17, as we see in Philippians chapter 2, as we see in John 1.

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And when people like Anthony Buzzard try to deal with these texts, they fail and they fail badly, just as Roger Perkins fails badly and the

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Muslims fail badly because they're not dealing with the text on its own foundation.

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And so it's not that there is one Yahweh and three Yahwehs or anything of the kind.

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While the word Yahweh is being used of the one being that is

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God, there are times when there's differentiation made. I mean, who was it that laid our sins upon the

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Messiah? It was Yahweh in Isaiah 53. Yahweh has laid our sins upon the

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Messiah. And yet, despite his ingenious attempts, but fully refuted attempts to get around Hebrews 1 and John 12, the

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Bible identifies Jesus as Yahweh, in distinction from the Father. And no one argues the

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Spirit isn't the Spirit of Yahweh. And so you have the biblical data right there, right in front of us, and you can try to confuse people and everything else if you want, but it doesn't work.

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Hey, you know, let's do something live here. Let's take a risk. And here's a clip from the debate that we did on the

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Jewish Voice broadcast. I've not seen it. I just saw it. I mentioned it beforehand.

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It's over here. Here's the link. I don't think you're alive when you're dead. That's a different point of view.

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Exactly. But when the Son of God dies, he doesn't live. I have a problem with that. Wow. Talk about taking clips without context.

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I mean, could we maybe put more than three words together in a row? Maybe? All the references we gave to the preexistence of the

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Son, they haven't been shot down, haven't been touched. The explicit references, like Isaiah 6, like Genesis 18, like these other passages, the other verses that we quoted that speak of the preexistence of the

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Son, tell us now that he was not created when he entered Miriam's womb, but now he takes on the role of Son of God as he comes into the earth in that form that his resurrection declared the

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Son of God with power. When he entered Mary's womb, did you hear it? When he entered from outside, is that what

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Luke and Matthew describe? I beg you to go back and read the synoptics and see if there's anything about anybody entering.

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No, no. That which is begotten in her, Matthew 1, 20, I want you to read the Greek, are conceived only.

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It's the same thing. But begotten. That which is fathered, brought into existence in her, is begotten. So, evidently, the very

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Son, who is described as the creator of all things. See, this is, again, the blindness of this kind of unbelief.

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Michael was exactly right. They never even tried to make a dent in the preexistence passages.

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They didn't even try. And so, unless you're going to cut the New Testament up into itty -bitty pieces, which is what, you know, theological liberals do, it's what the cults do, then what

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Matthew and Luke are talking about has to be informed by the entirety of divine revelation.

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And at least Buzzard would, I think, I think accept that. I mean, a lot of the sources he quotes are pretty liberal.

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And most of liberalism would say, no, no, no, no. What Paul believed is irrelevant. You know, you have to take each individual and only what they believed.

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There is no, you know, when James Dunn talks about unity and diversity in the

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New Testament, the emphasis is on diversity, not on unity. And you cannot look for a whole truth in divine revelation.

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And that's why the cults and false teachers are always attacking the authority of the

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Word of God so that you cannot have a consistent teaching that is pan -canonical, that comes from all over the canon of Scripture.

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You can't have that. You're not allowed to have that. And sadly, in many theological seminaries today, you're not allowed to have that either.

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It's the Son of God. It's a human being. And the Son was eternally preexistent. We've seen all the texts that say that.

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So I read, no, what I do is I don't start reading in Matthew. I start reading in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures. By the time

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I get to Matthew, I already see the preexistence of the Son. So, again, it's very clear. And John 1 makes it abundantly clear for anyone that might have missed it.

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The writer, St. Etoan, rests on knowing that the Son of God was the second human Adam. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, man capitalized.

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So by the one man's obedience, the many were made righteous. As if Paul's point in Romans 5 is that Jesus is a mere man and that the

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Son of God did not preexist over against his clear teaching in Colossians and elsewhere. Which, again, you can get away with if you're a good theological liberal and you don't think that Paul wrote

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Colossians or something like that or Paul contradicted himself or whatever. You can get away with all that stuff if you want to.

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You know, Dr. Buzzard knows I challenged him on Unbelievable to debate me one -on -one.

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And I'm still up for that because his exegesis is not survivable when it comes to cross -examination.

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It fell apart on the Jewish Voice broadcast. It would fall apart if we continued to do that kind of engagement.

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It really would. So, anyways, there you go. There's that. And I think it's fun to have an opportunity to immediately respond to things like that.

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And, once again, many thanks for the

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Assyrian Encyclopedia letting me know all about that and getting a chance to respond to it.

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Now, a couple weeks ago, I know it was his first week in September, I was pointed to, again, by the

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Assyrian Encyclopedia, to a Dean's Show episode with Dr. Lawrence Brown, who

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I believe is an ophthalmologist, if I recall correctly, retired U .S. Air Force. And he is a convert to Islam who says he tried very hard to be a

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Christian. Now, you know, we have talked about the Dean's Show before. And we have a standing challenge to Eddie of the

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Dean's Show, to many people who have appeared on the Dean's Show, to debate. And it's funny, Eddie says, we want to bring you the best.

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Well, then, Eddie, I think if you really, really, really mean that, you need to start either bringing better people on or you need to start allowing another voice to be heard.

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I'd be happy to have these people come on the program, but much more so, I would be happy to debate these people in full recorded scholarly debate on the issues that they raise, especially since the topic seems so often to be anti -Christian topics.

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The Trinity and things like that. Now, Eddie seems to be completely confused. And I guess

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I can understand why, if he's really believing what he's being told by all these people like Zakir Naik and Lawrence Brown and the former youth minister.

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Did I ever get done with his top ten? If I didn't, I apologize, and I should have. I remember starting that a couple of years ago.

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But, young fellow, I'd be happy again to debate in respectful but full debate on these issues.

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We'd be happy to do that and have done so many times in the past. But anyway,

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I started listening to this. Why is it that people are considered to be

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Christian scholars? This man's called a Christian scholar. And yet by his own testimony, he tried real hard to be a

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Christian but couldn't do it. And he never believed that Jesus was the Son of God. He never believed in the deity of Christ.

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Why do you call someone like that a Christian? I mean, I'd ask this of Eddie. He's the host of the program.

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And I've written to the Dean Show. And the folks who responded, Eddie didn't respond. I tried to write to Eddie, but he didn't respond.

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These other folks responded. And quite honestly, it was very obvious to me, English was not their first language. And it was very difficult to try to communicate with them.

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And I got the standard, well, to be perfectly honest with you, the very arrogant Arabic responses from a number of these folks where they just didn't understand what was being said or the challenges that were being made or anything like that.

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But I would ask Eddie, if someone comes along and they say, you know,

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I tried to be a Muslim. I really tried to be a Muslim.

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But I could never believe that the Quran was the word of God or that Muhammad was a prophet. But I tried to be a

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Muslim. Would you consider this man an expert on Islam?

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Would you consider him a former Muslim? If he didn't believe that the

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Quran is the word of God and if he didn't believe that Muhammad was a prophet, then he wasn't a

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Muslim. There's no trying, is there? And if you don't believe in the deity of Christ, you're never a

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Christian, period. End of discussion. You can call yourself whatever you were.

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Whatever term you want to use, just don't say Christian because you weren't. You didn't try.

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You were a heretic from day one. I don't understand this.

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How come Islam gets to be so easily identified but Christianity, we try to identify, you've got these people, they're

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Christians over here and they can deny the resurrection, they can deny the crucifixion, they can deny the deity of Christ, they can deny the

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Bible, but they're all Christians because they use the name Jesus. Well, I guess that makes all Muslims Christians, too, because they use the name

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Jesus, too. Well, actually, they don't. They use Isa. But anyway, I mean, it's just it is debating via definition rather than via truth.

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Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And yet, these are the people that are constantly trotted out on the

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Dean Show. And I'm trying to think, has the Dean Show had anybody on it that actually does debate, that actually is willing to stand behind what they say?

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I don't know that Abdullah Kunda's been on there. I don't think that Abdullah Al -Andalusi or Bassam Zawadi or Shabbir Ali has been on there.

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Has Adam Dean been on there? I'm not sure. I'd have to look. I'd have to look that up to see if they have. But I know

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Zakir Naik won't. He won't stand up. He won't debate people that are actually capable of exposing his just grossly constant errors.

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Especially when it comes to the Bible. He won't take them on. Because all he's done is he's just borrowed everything from Ahmadinejad and repeats it for himself.

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He doesn't know it for himself. We would challenge him any day. He won't do it.

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We would debate him any day. He's been challenged and this challenge stands. And the only response he gets is, well, you've got to come up with 10 ,000 people to attend or blah blah blah blah blah.

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And we've said, well, we'll do it on ABN. More than 10 ,000 people watching that. Well, he's just very busy, you know.

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Yeah, well, okay. Zakir Naik could not do a meaningful scholarly debate if his life depended on it.

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He is totally dependent upon gamesmanship and showmanship and if he had to actually answer direct questions, could be held by a moderator to answer direct questions from the text or the

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Bible or the Quran, he would collapse in a quivering mass. That's what would happen.

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And that's why he won't do it. But anyways, we want to listen to the Dean Show. We want to listen to these top 10.

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Top 10 reasons not to believe in the Trinity by here on the program and then we'll go from there.

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You know, I just realized I totally forgot to bring in one of the books that I need to have. So maybe at some point

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I will be able to get someone to grab that for me while we look at this.

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There's a big pile of big pile of books near the lava lamp.

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I think at the very bottom is Harper's Bible Dictionary which is a wonderful source of information.

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It's one of the things quoted by Dr. Brown as if it's a theological source of truth. But anyhow, let's listen to the beginning of the program.

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He has his own private section there to hear his story. He was an atheist. He was trying very hard to be a

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Christian. The whole doctrine of the Trinity and many of the other tenets of Christianity didn't make sense and he ended up coming to Islam.

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Islam, the same way of life of Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah that complete and total adherence to God's laws.

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That complete submission and surrender to the one God alone and not his creation.

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So when we come back we're going to be clearing up the confusion about the Trinity. The Trinity is going to be giving us the top ten reasons why the

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Trinity is not valid when we come back here on the Dean Show. So here we've got someone who never believed in it always rejected it and he's an expert on it.

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He's an expert. Why is he an expert? We're not told why he is an expert but he's the answer.

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All praise be to Allah. It's a pleasure to have you back with us here at the

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Dean Show and I got to just describe a little bit about our past.

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We have your conversion story. We've done some shows with you in the past and you have at thedeanshow .com

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your own private section so people can read a little bit more about you. Get to know who you are. Watch some of your other videos. But in this week's show we're going to be talking about the

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Trinity. You have a DD Doctor in Divinity PhD in Religious Studies and you're very well versed.

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Some would consider you a Christian Scholar. So we want to talk to the expert. Christian Scholar? Why? Why would he be considered a

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Christian Scholar? We're going to hear him, for example, opining on the

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Kamiohanium as if this is... We're talking about stuff that first year Bible students know all about as if it's a great insight or something like that.

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Why is he considered a Christian Scholar when he's actually a... He never was a

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Christian and he's a Muslim. Why isn't... If the roles were reversed, wouldn't the

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Muslims be identifying him as an anti -Muslim Scholar? If the roles were reversed?

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Wouldn't charges of Islamophobia and all the rest of that stuff be flying fast and furious?

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I have a feeling it would. There's a lot of confusion about this Trinity. So we know that the

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Quran says that this is something that Jesus or none of the messengers never taught. The consistent message that God has always declared throughout time that he is only one, undividable, not three in one, one in three, just one.

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And we believe Jesus taught the same teaching, but there's some confusion about the Trinity. So you're going to be giving us today the top ten reasons why the

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Trinity is not valid. I don't want to waste their time, your time, to just get right to it. The top ten, please begin.

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The top ten reasons. Are you ready? Are you ready? Now, the top ten reasons.

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If I were asked to give the top ten reasons why the

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Quran is not the word of God, wouldn't you expect that in the giving of those top ten reasons,

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I would show some familiarity to some depth, at least some accuracy in having a knowledge of not only the text of the

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Quran itself, but of how it was revealed, the historical context in which it was revealed, the language in which it was revealed, its own apologetic, because as you may know, the

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Quran shows evidence that during the period of its revelation, especially during the

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Meccan period, there are many people who are saying, these are just old tales that we all know, this is nothing new, this isn't coming from God, we've heard these old tales before.

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That is found in the text of the Quran itself. There's a concern on the part of the author that the authority of this revelation would be undercut by its reliance upon previous sources, and so you would expect that if I were to give top ten reasons, maybe at least when

31:56

I point to sections that seem to be drawn from other sources that I would at least be familiar with what those sources are.

32:04

Maybe I might know a little something about the infancy gospels, because, well, you know,

32:09

Jesus does speak from his cradle in the infancy narratives, but they were written, like, in the 5th century, and that does appear in the

32:19

Quran, and the clay bird stuff, that goes back to the infancy gospel of Thomas, and it might be good if I've read those things and have them in their original languages and in my library sitting on my shelf and on my iPad and stuff like that, and maybe have some knowledge at least of how modern

32:41

Muslims defend the Quran, and some of the arguments that are used along those lines is, well, you'd at least expect something like that.

32:50

But what we get from Dr. Brown isn't anywhere near that.

32:57

It's not even close, and in fact it would strike me anyway, that if Eddie has been listening very well to those with whom he has had dialogue before,

33:13

I've heard better top ten lists. I haven't heard any good top ten lists, but I've heard better.

33:21

And it would seem to me that it would make him go, hmm, why is this guy not really up to snuff on this?

33:32

I mean, I'm just describing him as a Christian scholar, and yet well, let's start with number ten.

33:39

Okay, number ten, he says the word trinity is nowhere to be found in the

33:45

Bible. Now, the word trinity is not as important as finding the actual doctrine.

33:52

So, number nine. Now, whoa, hit the skids, stop the bus, however else you want to put it here.

34:04

The word trinity is not in the Bible. But he immediately says, but it's more important to find the concept than the word anyway, so why is that an objection?

34:14

Why is that an objection? There is a very, very simple response to this that my learned and rational

34:23

Muslim friends will recognize. And that is, there are all sorts of important theological words for Islam that are not in the

34:34

Quran. The concept of Ahad, the very term is found in, for example,

34:45

Surah 112. But Tawhid, the central defining principle of Islamic theology,

34:55

Tawhid, the unity of Allah, Tawhid is not found in the

35:02

Quran. Not that form of the word. Now, you can go, well, over here, and as soon as you go, well, over here, it tells us this, is that not what

35:13

I'm saying about the trinity? That when you take all of the biblical revelation as a whole, it teaches that there is only one true

35:21

God, yet it identifies three divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, and it differentiates between those persons, and that is the doctrine of the trinity?

35:29

So, unless you're willing to use double standards, which if you are, is the immediate admission that you're not arguing truthfully.

35:41

When you use a different standard for me than you use for yourself, then you just lost the debate. And it is my assertion,

35:49

I have yet to debate a Muslim who did not do that. Every single Muslim I've ever debated used a different standard, and Dr.

35:56

Brown's going to be one of them, too, because the sources he draws from, there's no way he'd accept the same kind of liberalism about Islam that he does about Christianity.

36:05

He's enamored with liberal sources. I don't think he's enamored with liberal

36:11

Islam. I just don't find any of them to be consistent. And as soon as you adopt a different set of standards for me, then you've lost the debate.

36:22

And my Christian friends will tell you, my fellow Christian apologists who debate with Muslims will tell you that I'm constantly beating the drum that we need to use the same standard in criticizing

36:36

Islam that we use in defending Christianity. And yes, that means there are certain arguments we will not use that may have great emotional impact, but if we love the truth, we won't use them.

36:47

So we can look somebody straight in the eye and say, yes, I am seeking to honor him who is the truth by being consistent in my argumentation.

36:59

Yeah, it makes you unpopular, but that's the way it goes. It just has to be that way. It has to be that way.

37:09

So, that's what we want to do. Top ten, number ten, irrelevant.

37:15

By his own confession, it is utterly irrelevant that the word itself does not appear because we have never said that it does.

37:23

We have always said the doctrine of Trinity is derived from the fullness of biblical revelation.

37:32

That's what we've always said. We've not said that the Bible is some kind of systematic theology where you look up in the index in the back and, well, here's where you get this, and here's where you...

37:42

It's not a printer manual. It's not a computer manual. It is a record of God's self -revelation and his salvation of a special people.

37:55

And we derive our beliefs from the examination of that record. That must be understood.

38:01

So, number ten, irrelevant. Ten is done.

38:06

Ten is done. Let's take it to number nine. Ten is done. You don't find the word

38:12

Trinity anywhere in the Bible. That was simple. That was easy. But, as I said, the word is not as important as the doctrines.

38:18

The question is, do we find the doctrine in the Bible? We go on to nine, then. Number nine. Harper Collins, Encyclopedia of the

38:25

Bible, states, quote, the doctrine of the Trinity as such is not revealed in either the

38:31

Old Testament or the New Testament. Harper Collins, Encyclopedia of the Bible, telling us what?

38:37

Telling us, I'll say it again, quote, the doctrine of the Trinity as such is not revealed in either the

38:44

Old Testament or the New Testament. So, now we have... Now, I got...

38:49

I even ordered the Harper's Bible Dictionary, but that evidently isn't the same thing.

38:55

He has the Harper Collins. And it says, the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the 4th and 5th centuries is not to be found in the

39:05

New Testament. Nevertheless, the discussion above, and especially the presence of Trinitarian formulisms, 2 Corinthians 13 -14, which is strikingly early, and Matthew 28 -19, indicate the origin of this mode of thought may be found very early in Christian history.

39:19

And, of course, the preceding discussion went through a number of the Trinitarian passages, etc., etc.

39:25

It's very brief. So, you have Bible dictionaries. So, if I find some kind of secular work that would say belief in the prophethood of Muhammad was a later development,

39:42

I guess that just means that Dr. Brown will just believe it. Now, I've offered to send, by the way, and I haven't heard back from him yet in this,

39:50

I've offered to send Dr. Brown the forgotten Trinity, which would provide him with, well, a couple hundred pages of refutation of exactly what was just said, unless what was being said in that source, and I'd need to look it up, unless what was being said in that source is that a formal doctrine of the

40:11

Trinity, as in a creedal statement, such as the Nicene -Constantinoplean formulation, or the

40:19

Athanasian creed, or something along those lines, is not found in the

40:24

New Testament. Of course, no one says that it is. No one has argued that there is a creedal statement of the

40:30

Trinity in that form in the New Testament. So, if that's all it's saying, fine and dandy.

40:36

But, obviously, in the context of a top ten, number nine becomes irrelevant as well.

40:45

You know, we almost don't need to do the rest of this program, because that pretty much says it right there.

40:51

No, that's of course absurd. And, again, shows that either

40:56

Dr. Brown is not honest in his representation of Christianity, or is just simply ignorant of Trinitarian Christianity.

41:04

Which, again, if he always rejected it, fine, but be open about that. Say, you know what, I've just never understood this, so I didn't take the time to read

41:11

Warfield, I didn't take the time to read Hodge, I didn't take the time to read Trinitarians, I didn't go back to Augustine, I didn't deal with any of that stuff, because I just,

41:19

I could never accept it, and so I disbelieve it to this day, and that's why I've become a Muslim.

41:24

Just be honest about it. But don't pretend that there's nothing out there.

41:30

Don't pretend that Augustine didn't write on the Trinity. Don't pretend that Athanasius wasn't there. Don't pretend that the volumes and volumes of works on these subjects aren't out there.

41:42

They are. Just ignoring them does not make them go away. Let's continue.

41:49

So we're moving on to 8 now? We're going to move quickly. This is 8. We're going to 8? We get a duff roll, or the drum roll?

41:55

The duff, let's go, number 8. We'll just keep moving through these. The point then is, well, if the doctrine is not revealed in the

42:03

Bible, where did it come from? Now here's where it gets great, because, so now he's taken one secular source and said, well, that means doctrine's not revealed in the

42:14

Bible. He's jumped from a creedal statement not being found in the

42:20

Bible to, oh, well, that means that the doctrine's not in the Bible, which, of course, is inconsistent because if the term

42:26

Tawhid is not in the Quran, then the concept must not be in the Quran either, right?

42:33

Well, no, of course not. Not going to go there. But it's like these folks never, ever, ever think about the necessity of being consistent in the application of their thinking to their own system.

42:50

They'll apply one thing to everybody else, but, you know, for them, eh, it doesn't really matter.

42:58

The doctrine of the Trinity started with Tertullian in 220 CE. What does that tell us?

43:05

That tells us that the doctrine of the Trinity was dreamed up by Tertullian.

43:11

Who was Tertullian? Wow. The doctrine of the Trinity was dreamed up by Tertullian.

43:20

Now, the funny thing is, later on, he's going to start trying to answer biblical text.

43:26

Fails miserably. No exegetical capacity at all, but he's going to try.

43:33

So why bother trying if it was dreamed up by Tertullian? Now, of course,

43:42

I don't know anybody, honestly, I don't know a scholar in the world that would back up the idea that Tertullian dreamed up the

43:48

Trinity. He may have been the first person to use that terminology of Trinitas, but anybody, anybody who has done any reading in the

44:00

Apostolic Fathers would be embarrassed. I've taught church history, and if Dr.

44:07

Brown took my class, he just failed. He just got a big red X right through that essay question.

44:14

Because I, at least, would have exposed my students to the actual writings of the

44:20

Apostolic Fathers. In fact, a couple years ago, I taught a class on development of patristic theology for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

44:29

I had a great bunch of guys in this class. I mean, this was a special group. I know of at least one of them who

44:35

I think is just finishing up his Ph .D. at Southern and New Testament, and just a great guy.

44:42

And I could tell at that time he was going to go far. But this whole group of guys, we just sort of gelled together and had good, close, personal relationships, and the classes were great.

44:55

And what we would do is we would actually read through Clement's epistle to the

45:03

Church of Corinth. Technically, 1 Clement, though we're not really sure who wrote it, but it's from the

45:09

Church at Rome, the Church of Corinth. And we read through sections of Ignatius's genuine epistles as he was going to Rome to be martyred.

45:18

And we made note of the deep theological elements of these patristic writings that long predate

45:27

Sertullian. Not only their deep soteriological ramifications, the discussion of the elect and justification and things like that, but, of course, we likewise were very sensitive to the many places where we saw very clearly the same faith that we have in the identification of Jesus as God, Trinitarian formulae, the

45:49

Father, Son, and Spirit associated together in creation, redemption, and so on and so forth.

45:54

Especially in Ignatius. To say Sertullian dreamed this up is to demonstrate that you have no earthly idea.

46:03

Either no earthly idea of what you're talking about, or no honesty, because you do know what you're talking about and you're misrepresenting.

46:10

Those are the only two possibilities, because you have to deal with Ignatius. You have to deal with his

46:17

Trinitarian terminology. You have to deal with his identification of Jesus Christ as God, his clear differentiation between the

46:23

Father and the Son. He's not a modalist by any stretch of the imagination. His Trinitarian gospel.

46:30

You've got to deal with this, and Ignatius dies 107 -108

46:35

A .D. Sertullian is not a gleam in his daddy's eye when

46:41

Ignatius dies, having taught these things. And so this idea that Sertullian dreamed up, it's just the only term for it.

46:51

It's absurd! I mean, this would be as absurd as saying that Tawheed was invented in the fourth generation of Muslim writers.

47:02

Just as absurd. Now, how would you refute that, if you're a Muslim listening to this? How would you refute the assertion that Tawheed did not exist in the original, from Muhammad, or the

47:15

Sahaba, or all the companions in the first generations.

47:23

Four generations down the road before anybody believed in Tawheed. How would you refute that? Well, you'd go back to certain writings.

47:31

You'd go back to Ibn Ishaq, and you'd go back to these things. Well, see here, it's made reference to here, and it's made reference to here.

47:37

That's what I just did with Ignatius. So if you would recognize the validity of refuting me that way, and it would be a valid refutation, then you must recognize that Dr.

47:49

Brown was just refuted. And refuted completely. And that so far, this far into the list, we've got nothing.

47:59

We don't have a single truthful word relevant to the doctrine of the

48:04

Trinity, do we? Nope, not a one. A lawyer in Carthage, around 200 years after the mission of Jesus Christ.

48:12

So this was not a doctrine that was written into the Bible. This was a doctrine that was derived by a lawyer, and we all know how much we trust lawyers.

48:20

Sorry, but I've got to throw that one in because I'd love to see what was in his fine print, but the bottom line is 200 years after the mission of Jesus Christ, that is when

48:29

Tertullian came up with the concept of the Trinity. I wouldn't even say that Tertullian gives us a full -orb doctrine of the

48:37

Trinity. Not in the sense of a creedal statement. Depending on which

48:43

Tertullian we're talking about, pre -Montanist, post -Montanist, and so on and so forth, but that's a whole other issue.

48:50

But the point is that the foundation has already been established that this entire presentation will be in error because it does not recognize that the

49:01

Bible is the reason the Trinity exists. It's because of what the

49:07

Bible says. And the Bible as it existed prior to Muhammad, which by the way, if Dr.

49:13

Brown should listen to this, and I would invite him to listen to this, I'd invite him to, he needs to do a whole lot more study than he has.

49:19

He needs to look at resources he has not looked at. You know, at least I went to Fuller Theological Seminary.

49:24

I had to read the liberals. I know where they're coming from. I've read their stuff. But you see, the liberals don't read the conservatives.

49:33

And that's why I can point out the holes in the argumentation. But you,

49:39

Dr. Brown, you got to realize something. Things like the Kamiohanium, 1

49:44

John 5 -7, is not, not, not, and never has been the

49:50

Biblical foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Oh, you might find, it seems Dr. Brown has run into a lot of ignorant

49:56

Christians. And there are a lot of them out there, of course, a lot of ignorant Muslims too. He's run into a lot of ignorant

50:02

Christians, and he takes them as normative. And so, you know what, there was a time when

50:10

I did use the Kamiohanium as my primary proof text of the Trinity. There was. I was 16.

50:18

I had just gotten my driver's license. I might have been 17 years of age.

50:24

Yep. And I was on an outreach visit at a

50:29

Baptist church, and I ran into a Mormon lady. She was in her 40s. And we sat there, and that was the primary verse we argued over.

50:42

It was 1 John 5 -7. But I was, like I said, 17. Now, if you want to take a high school student as normative, then fine and dandy.

50:54

But you see, as soon as I started studying Mormonism, I started studying my own faith to any depth whatsoever,

51:01

I immediately learned about the Kamiohanium, and I noticed modern translations, and it didn't take me long to have a good handle on why that is not the text you want to use.

51:16

But he may have run into just lots of ignorant Christians. That's all they know. Okay? That's fine.

51:22

What that means is, Dr. Brown is responding to ignorant Christianity. He's not responding to the best of Christianity.

51:27

And that, I thought, Eddie said at the beginning that we want to bring in the best. Then why are you responding to the worst?

51:38

I mean, you know, I think I have a ground for speaking to this, because I try to find the best.

51:46

I try to listen to men who seemingly have a real good handle on what they're talking about, and a range of them, from a very conservative voice like Yosser Khadi to a more

52:02

Sufi modern voice like Hamza Yusuf. And I've listened to hours and hours and hours and hours of these men's lectures to try to make sure that when

52:17

I talk about Islam, I'm talking about the best of Islam.

52:23

Now, sometimes I have to talk about the worst of Islam, but I'll identify in that way. I'll say there are some Muslims who will say this.

52:30

There are some Muslims who will say that. But I just don't get the feeling that that's what you get from the other side.

52:40

We're certainly not getting that from the Dean show in any way, shape, or form. Take it to step number 7.

52:47

So we already went from 10, 9, 8... And so far don't have a single dent in the doctrine of the

52:54

Trinity in the process. Take it away, Dr. Lawrence Brown. 7. Where did it go from there?

52:59

Tertullian came up with the concept in the year 220 CE. Where did it go from there?

53:06

Talk to Christian scholars. They will tell you the Trinity is an evolved doctrine, meaning that it was not a revealed doctrine.

53:15

It was a doctrine that evolved in the minds of the theologians who developed it.

53:21

Really? Well, I'm sure you will find a scholar somewhere who will say anything. I mean, I can point you to Muslim scholars that don't believe

53:29

Muhammad existed, but you probably say they weren't Muslim scholars. Well, I say that those who reject the Trinity aren't Christian scholars.

53:35

How's that? That's easy, isn't it? What you should be responding to is those who would say that while there is a development of the creedal statement over time in the early

53:45

Church, the basis upon which that development takes place, if you have even begun begun to listen to, for example, the debates at the time of Nicaea and after Nicaea during the

53:59

Aryan resurgence, read Athanasius in his work against the Aryans. What's he arguing from?

54:04

His mind? Is he saying that what he's come up with in his mind is the basis?

54:11

No, sir. Scripture. Scripture and more scripture.

54:16

A fundamental conviction that God has revealed himself and the record of that revelation is found in the divine scriptures.

54:26

That's where it came from. It's not, well, Tertullian came up with an idea and then other people just ran with it and it's all just from their minds and there's no revelation at all.

54:37

Baloney. Absolute baloney. He could no more prove this in the writings of the early

54:42

Church Fathers. He could no more prove this from Athanasius or anybody else as the man of the moon.

54:47

He couldn't do it. He won't even try because he's not aware of it. Just not aware of it. Council of Nicaea in 325 developed it further.

54:57

Hey, at least he knows when the Council of Nicaea is. Let's give him props for that. He's not like Khalid Yassin that doesn't even get the date of the

55:05

Nicaea wrong, even when he's lying about Nicaea allegedly taking out the Gospel of Barnabas and silliness like that.

55:11

Council of Constantinople in 381 ratified it and it became authoritative at the

55:18

Council of Chalcedon in 451. Ah, not quite. Chalcedon is the

55:26

Trinitarian issues were over by the time of Constantinople.

55:32

Chalcedon is a Christological council and it's dealing with two natures, one person, hypostatic union,

55:40

Eutychianism, Unomianism, etc., etc., which I know I need to get that stuff posted so we can get around to doing that class.

55:46

I was going to try to have that done by today. I'll try to get it done while I'm in Georgia. I'll do my best. So what are we saying?

55:52

We're saying over 400 years after the time of Jesus Christ was when?

55:58

How many years? Over 400. 400 years until? Council of Chalcedon was in 451.

56:04

So what are we saying? We're saying that over 400 years after the time of Jesus Christ, this is when the doctrine of the

56:12

Trinity became authoritative at the Council of Chalcedon. That leads us to number 6.

56:18

So you're talking about now we went from 10, we're moving on to 6, and all these...

56:23

So evidently, there can be no historical development, even though there's clearly historical development in Islamic theology, but there can be no historical development and if you have a final formulation, which includes

56:35

Christological elements, in 451 at Chalcedon, then somehow that means it was not revealed.

56:42

Even though the basis of that, even according to those who formulated those creedal statements, is that what they're doing is they're reflecting the teaching of Scripture.

56:52

Right? This is not something that came with the first man Adam or the prophet Moses Noah.

56:58

This is evolving. You're taking them off. You know, Eddie... I know Eddie's never going to listen to this.

57:05

I wish he would. He seems like a nice guy, but he just does not seem to be open to hearing anything other than one side of things.

57:12

Doesn't seem to be very open -minded. But if he ever were to, Eddie, no one is saying that Noah was quoting the

57:23

Nicene Creed as he walked into the Ark. We believe that Noah was a monotheist.

57:31

And we believe that Noah worshipped the one true God. But the revelation of the

57:36

Trinity primarily takes place in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which took place long after Noah's time.

57:46

And while we can find prophetic foreshadowings that are consistent with the fulfillment in the

57:53

New Testament, the specific revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity takes place between the

58:00

Tanakh and the Christian Scriptures. In the incarnation, ministry, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus the

58:09

Messiah, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which then creates the community from which comes the written

58:17

Christian Scriptures, which we know today as the New Testament. So you need to be aware of that.

58:23

400 years after Jesus left the scene, this didn't come with any of the prophets. This came from the mind of a lawyer over 200 years after the mission of Jesus Christ.

58:33

Bogus to the core. It evolved over another 200 years after that. It was ratified into the

58:39

Christian canon at the Council of Chelsea. It was never a part of the Christian canon. Or excuse me, actually ratified at the

58:47

Council of Constantinople in 381 and then became authoritative at the Council of Chelsea. So we're moving on to number what now?

58:54

This is number six. Number six. Take it away, please.

58:59

Everybody knows Hans Kohn, the leading theologian of the Roman Catholic Church. And he...

59:10

That... That should tell you a lot right there. Hans Kohn, the leading theologian of the

59:16

Roman Catholic Church. Now here's a guy who's been censored by Rome. It feels so strange for me to have to be defending

59:22

Rome at this point, but it seems Lawrence Brown is an equal opportunity offender on this level. Hans Kohn is not even a good

59:31

Catholic, let alone the leading theologian of the Catholic Church. In case you want to know who the leading theologian of the

59:37

Catholic Church... Hello! His name is Pope Benedict XVI Cardinal Ratzinger, Joseph Ratzinger, is the leading theologian of the

59:48

Roman Catholic Church. Hans Kohn is a... is a liberal even from liberal

59:56

Rome's perspective. Okay? So to quote Hans Kohn as if he's some kind of authority, really, really, really gives you an idea of the kind of sources that Dr.

01:00:11

Brown is really enamored with. In commenting, talking about throughout the

01:00:18

New Testament, quote, there is no doctrine of one God in three persons, quote, modes of being, no doctrine of a triune

01:00:29

God, a trinity. These are the words of Hans Kohn, okay?

01:00:34

If we don't trust him with regard to Catholic or Christian doctrine, I don't know who we can trust because he is one of the most authoritative voices on Catholic and Christian doctrine.

01:00:51

Okay, there you go, folks. I don't think Dr. Brown really realizes just how badly he just painted himself.

01:00:59

Hans Kohn, he's our number one source, and you just want to go, really? Okay. Even the

01:01:04

Catholics are chuckling at that one, and the Catholics rarely chuckle during the course of the dividing line. But they are today.

01:01:11

Do you want to hear it again? No, we don't want to hear it. There is no doctrine of one God in three persons, modes of being, no doctrine of a triune

01:01:19

God, a trinity. And he's talking about... Be happy to debate him on that one, too.

01:01:25

I mean, it's mind -boggling, the trinity, but this is mind -blowing that you're making it so easy to understand.

01:01:32

All we ask is that the people out there, they have an open heart and open mind, and the truth shall set you free.

01:01:38

Oh, the truth shall set you free. The words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, where Jesus is worshipped as God and claims to be the

01:01:47

I Am and identifies as a statement of faith, my Lord and my God when addressed to him.

01:01:53

Yeah, same gospel, Eddie. And now you're quoting the truth shall set you free in regards to Hans Kung, a 20th century liberal, censured

01:02:06

Roman Catholic liberal. There you go. Number five?

01:02:12

Take it away. Harper's Bible Dictionary. Harper's Bible Dictionary says, quote, the formal doctrine of the

01:02:18

Trinity the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the 4th and 5th centuries is not to be found in the

01:02:27

New Testament. That's the one I read earlier. That's the one I read earlier, and here is where we do catch him in not quite giving you everything, because let me give you the rest of it.

01:02:42

He doesn't continue on to say, nevertheless, the discussion above, and especially the presence of Trinitarian formulas in 2

01:02:48

Corinthians 13 -14, which is strikingly early in Matthew 20 -19, indicate that the origin of this mode of thought may be found very early in Christian history.

01:02:55

Notice, given those are Biblical passages, that mean that would be, according to this source, before Tertullian, right?

01:03:04

Yeah. So even this less than conservative source, he skips the previous discussion of Trinitarian texts and then doesn't read the portion of the quote that would actually refute, what was it, point number 8,

01:03:22

I think it was, something like that about Tertullian. This is on page 1099 of the old version of this particular book.

01:03:33

This one is copyrighted long ago.

01:03:41

1985. 1985. Society of Biblical Literature. SBL. As everybody knows,

01:03:47

SBL is just the standard of conservative believing Biblical Christianity.

01:03:52

Well, no, not really. Not to be found. Not to be found. The formal doctrine of the Trinity, as it was defined by the great church councils of the 4th and 5th centuries, is not to be found in the

01:04:04

New Testament. Yeah. There's no creedal statement of the Trinity in the New Testament. No one's ever claimed that there was.

01:04:11

And the article is actually saying, it goes back to much earlier thought, but you know, we wouldn't want to necessarily really explain that because that really wouldn't help us on the

01:04:23

Dean Show. And that's number 5. That's Harper's Bible Dictionary. Wasn't with the first man Adam, with none of the prophets, and after the...

01:04:30

Of course, he's not saying any of that. He's saying the formal creedal statement of the later councils.

01:04:37

You won't find the formal creedal statement, but the essence, the argument, the biblical evidence is there, and long before 220, by the way, which is what his guest is pawning off on us as the actual origin of the doctrine of the

01:04:52

Trinity. Jesus left the scene 400 years later. You mentioned some attorney. Now, we know how attorneys work. Tertullian.

01:04:57

Yeah. We're going to take a break and we're going to come back for number 4 of the top 10 reasons why the

01:05:03

Trinity was never the teachings of any of the prophets, and it's not valid. And it's not valid, evidently.

01:05:10

We're on the Dean Show. We don't want to waste your time. We don't want to waste nobody's time. We're giving the facts, not the fiction, and let's continue on with number 4 of the top 10 reasons why

01:05:19

Jesus, peace be upon him, never taught the Trinity, and his Trinity is not valid. Talk to us. Okay.

01:05:26

We just talked from Harper's Bible Dictionary. Let's go to number 4, an even more authoritative source, the

01:05:33

New Catholic Encyclopedia. You're getting the picture now, folks.

01:05:42

Dr. Brown's not big on original sources. He's big on these secondary, tertiary, modern, liberal collections.

01:05:53

Go on to the original sources. That takes a lot of work. The formula itself does not reflect the immediate consciousness of the period of origins.

01:06:05

What does that mean? We're talking about the period of origins. In other words, during the time of the mission of Jesus Christ, and the recording of the manuscripts that formed the foundation of the

01:06:17

Bible, and the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, the formula itself, referring to the

01:06:23

Trinity, does not reflect, does not reflect the immediate consciousness of the period of origins.

01:06:29

Which is why Jesus is described as God numerous times in the New Testament. He's worshipped.

01:06:35

He's said to be the creator of all things, preexistent. He's king of kings and lord of lords, the I Am. The Spirit is the one who sends out the apostles.

01:06:47

I thought it was only Allah who sent out apostles, and even Islamic theology. Yeah, there's just nothing there.

01:06:54

I mean, you have the clear distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Jesus is called the Son of God, but not in the sense that the author of the

01:07:01

Koran misunderstood that concept. Oh yeah, there's just nothing there. Nothing there at all.

01:07:09

Because the Catholic Encyclopedia says so. Now, you can even read further elsewhere in the

01:07:17

New Catholic Encyclopedia. It states, quote, among the apostolic fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.

01:07:29

Which, of course, is entirely bogus, which demonstrates that Dr. Brown doesn't read the apostolic fathers, because we've already mentioned how many times

01:07:37

Ignatius, who is one of the apostolic fathers, does exactly that.

01:07:44

Identifies Jesus Christ as God, uses Trinitarian formula. Hmm. Well, you can either believe secondary sources written by liberals, or you can go to the primary sources and discover that sometimes these folks have an axe to grind.

01:08:00

And then you have other folks like Dr. Brown who just repeats their errors. Nothing.

01:08:06

That's a very strong statement for a Catholic reference work to make.

01:08:12

Why? That among the apostolic fathers... Why do you think that? Don't you recognize liberalism?

01:08:17

Well, I guess not. If you think Hans Hans Kung is the most authoritative voice in Roman Catholicism, then he's the only focused upon the wild left side of the spectrum.

01:08:28

Okay, the ones from which the religion, you know, was passed on to future generations, among the apostolic fathers there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.

01:08:42

That's number four. The New Catholic Encyclopedia refuting the Christian doctrine, the

01:08:48

Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. We're moving on to number three. I'm going to dig into you and I'm going to ask you some very serious questions, but I want to get through these so we don't waste no more time.

01:08:57

Let's go into number three. Number three. The first commandment. First commandment.

01:09:04

Not to place any partners beside God. That God is one God. And that jumps to number two.

01:09:10

Well, well, well, well, well, and he's going to slow him down and stop him there too. The first commandment.

01:09:16

Do you think the Trinity violates that? You must misunderstand the Trinity then. We don't put any created thing on a par with God.

01:09:28

Now, I realize that there's a great probability, a very high probability, that Dr.

01:09:35

Brown never understood and does not understand to this day, the doctrine of the Trinity. That is not unusual.

01:09:41

Because remember, he said he tried to be a Christian, but could never accept this. Well, most of the people

01:09:46

I've met that said I could never accept it, well, it was because they never really understood in the first place.

01:09:54

And I've met many a person who absolutely refused to accept a meaningful and clear definition when faced with it, which gives you some idea of the spiritual ramifications, the spiritual origin of this confusion, which is not really confusion at all.

01:10:14

We just went from three. We're going to number two. Wasting no time with Dr. Lawrence Brown. Let's go to number two.

01:10:21

Why does it jump to number two? Because number two is the words of Jesus Christ. Three places in the

01:10:26

Bible, Jesus Christ is quoted as having said, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the

01:10:32

Lord is one. He doesn't add any modification. He doesn't add any explanation.

01:10:38

If ever there were a place to explain the Trinity, that would have been it. If you ask any Christian to explain the essence of God, they'll say,

01:10:46

Well, God is one, but he's three, he's three in one, and they will try to explain. And and this is an expert.

01:10:57

I'm sorry, Dr. Brown, if you're listening to this, I have I have real problems with this kind of shallow sophomoric representation of my faith, and I have grounds to complain, because on this program, and these listeners listening to this program right now can confirm this, and of course the

01:11:16

Wayback Machine running 24 -7 can confirm this as well. We have spent entire programs seeking to accurately represent

01:11:28

Islamic belief. We did an entire program where we did nothing but read all the 25 places in the

01:11:40

Quran where the name of Isa appears, and we read the context, and we wanted to understand what was being said, and why it was being said, the way it was being said.

01:11:49

We even read them in chronological order, and we've played portions of lectures by Sheikh Azhar Qadhi, and we've talked about the fitrah, and we've talked about the connections between the

01:12:03

Islamic concept of the fitrah, and the mithak, and what is found in the

01:12:08

Imago Dei, and Romans 1, and I've spent hours listening to classes on hadith sciences, and what's a

01:12:19

Sahih hadith, and what's a Hassan hadith, and the chains of narration, the isnad, and the memories of the narrators, and all this kind of stuff.

01:12:28

Because you see, Dr. Brown, we as real Christians, which you never were, actually believe truth matters.

01:12:36

And so, we will bend over backwards to try to accurately represent even the people who are denying our faith, so that when we give a defense, it is a truthful defense, and a consistent defense, all for the honor and glory of our

01:12:57

Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, who said He was the way, the truth, not a life, not just for the

01:13:04

Jews, but for all people, yourself included, sir. And that's why

01:13:10

I can be rather bothered when you don't even take the time to accurately represent the doctrine itself.

01:13:19

Now, I don't know if you understand it. I can't tell from what you're stating. It doesn't seem to me that you do. But if you do accurately understand it, there is absolutely no reason for you to be speaking in this way.

01:13:32

None. Yes, Jesus repeated the Shema more than once,

01:13:38

Shema Yisrael Eloheinu Yahweh Echad. But that very same

01:13:45

Jesus, in the very same books where He quoted those words, talked about Himself as the resurrection and the life, talked about Himself as the judge, talked about Himself as the one by whom anyone can have true knowledge of the

01:14:03

Father, to whom all authority had been given in heaven and earth. Not just amongst the Jews, but all authority had been given to Him in heaven and earth.

01:14:15

And in those very same books, men bowed down and worshipped Jesus. And Jesus did not rebuke them.

01:14:23

Which, if He had your Unitarian interpretation of the Shema, He would have to have done, but He did not do.

01:14:30

Which means Jesus did not interpret, Dr. Brown, those words the way you do. So why do you interpret them that way?

01:14:39

Well, because of somebody who lived 600 years later. But not because of Jesus. Try to keep those things in mind, sir.

01:14:47

If they explain it that way, why didn't Jesus Christ? Why did Jesus Christ say, Hear, O Israel, the

01:14:53

Lord our God, the Lord is one. Period. Because that's not all He said on the matter, sir.

01:15:01

This would be like my isolating a few of the early Mechanzuras and overthrowing everything else that Muhammad taught on the role of prophethood based upon that.

01:15:14

Would you allow me to do that? Why not? You're doing it. You're doing it to my New Testament. Why can't I do it to your

01:15:19

Quran? Consistency, sir. You see, inconsistency, sir, is the sign of a failed argument.

01:15:27

And the inconsistency of your arguments and your sources is the telltale and obvious sign of the error of your apologetic.

01:15:36

We'll stop. Nothing more. Because there is nothing more. Nothing more.

01:15:42

If He had wanted to explain, that would have been the perfect spot. He didn't say it once.

01:15:49

He said it three times, or at least it's recorded three times. Mark 12, 29, Matthew 22, 37, and Luke 10, 27.

01:15:58

Look them up. You'll find that He's not only saying this, but He's saying that is the greatest commandment.

01:16:04

So that's number two. Now, before we go to number one, people are just going to have to wait. I want to ask you, now, you went from being an atheist, that means you didn't believe in God.

01:16:14

Right. And you said you were trying very, very hard to be a Christian. Now, is it because of this and these things, this confusion here, that you weren't able to truly be a

01:16:26

Christian? Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of people out there understand, because a lot of people, they want to believe.

01:16:33

They believe, they have a core belief. They believe in God. They believe in the chain of prophethood. They believe that there were books of Revelation.

01:16:40

But they identify the same thing that we are talking about here. They identify inconsistencies.

01:16:47

They identify contradictions. They identify division between what the

01:16:52

Scripture says and what the Church says about the Scripture. And, of course, we haven't seen any of that so far.

01:16:58

None. Which means, if he isn't even aware, if his arguments do not even give us evidence of an awareness on his part of what the other side has to say, of what meaningful

01:17:11

Christian apologists have written, what meaningful Christian theologians have written on these subjects, then he never even gave time.

01:17:20

He came into the faith with a set of presuppositions and was unwilling.

01:17:26

That's why they even talk about, well, I tried to be a Christian. No, you didn't. You were a heretic at the time, an unrepentant heretic at the time, and then you moved on to another heresy from there.

01:17:37

I mean, that's the only thing that a Christian leader could say. There's no evidence that, well,

01:17:43

I embraced the Christian message and I sought to understand why these things were true.

01:17:49

No, he didn't seek to, he's never accepted them as being truthful to begin with. That's just painfully obvious from what's being said.

01:17:57

They recognize inconsistency between what Jesus Christ said about himself and what other people say about Jesus Christ.

01:18:05

They recognize that we are, you know, we are

01:18:11

Who are these people he's talking about? He's talking about the theological liberals. Well, how in the world do you go from accepting what theological liberals have to say about Jesus to accepting

01:18:20

Islam? I mean, those same theological liberals, do you really think they believe Mohammed was a prophet?

01:18:26

Did he split the moon in half? Did he went to Jerusalem in one night's jersey on a journey on a flying horse?

01:18:33

Really? They would accept those things while rejecting the biblical testimony of the deity of Christ.

01:18:39

Really? I don't think so. Defining in Islam, we are defining the problems in the

01:18:48

Christian canon where that contradicts the Christian scripture. Just hold on one second.

01:18:56

Someone says he didn't have the holy ghost in him. He wasn't full of the spirit. Is that what you're saying?

01:19:01

He who? Me. Well, there wouldn't be any question that we're not talking about someone here who actually believed and then stopped believing.

01:19:13

We're talking about someone who never did believe. So there's no question on a spiritual level that there's never been a spiritual understanding of the gospel, the need for the crucifixion of Christ, redemption, justification by faith, resurrection, any of those things.

01:19:28

You're saying, okay, I can't understand because I don't have the Holy Spirit inside me. What do you have to say about this? How can you fight an argument like that?

01:19:38

To me, it is such a nonsensical argument. Why is it nonsensical?

01:19:45

Because you have all of these people walking around claiming to have the Holy Spirit inside them. Who told them that they have the

01:19:51

Holy Spirit inside them? A man? Well, maybe the fact that I can travel the earth and speak in churches all over the place and have incredible unity with people from different cultures and backgrounds and we all believe that Jesus is

01:20:07

Lord, that he's the Messiah, that he was crucified, buried, and rose again on the third day, and that the entirety of our current and future existence is completely dependent upon our relationship with him.

01:20:18

It might have something to do with the supernatural nature of things. Somebody in their congregation, a priest, a pastor, a minister, or whatever, has told them, you have the

01:20:29

Holy Spirit inside you. Okay, but why do you trust this man for telling you that? You know?

01:20:34

Is he a prophet? Didn't seem to be much of a strong answer there, did it? Does he have some special connection to God that allows him to tell people that they have the

01:20:43

Holy Spirit inside them? You know, take the evidence I present, and you weigh it for yourself.

01:20:52

It's not for me. And so far, we've got absolutely nada. We don't have anything.

01:21:00

It's for you. Okay? I'm not asking for your money like a televangelist. I'm not saying send your bucks to thedeanshow .com.

01:21:10

I'm not asking for your money. I'm not asking for your prayers. What am I asking for?

01:21:17

Alright? You weigh the evidence. You decide for yourself. This is about your life, your righteousness, your hereafter.

01:21:26

That's all it comes down to. You ready for number one? I'm ready for number one. Can we get a duff roll? Go ahead.

01:21:34

Number one. The reason why we should not believe in the Trinity is because when we completely analyze the

01:21:43

Bible, there is no evidence to support the Trinity in the first place. Well, there you go.

01:21:53

There's no evidence at all. None. There's nothing there. I don't know how in the world

01:21:59

I wrote that entire book on the subject of biblical evidence, but there's nothing there. There's just nothing there.

01:22:05

Now, he's going to try he's going to try to address a couple texts, and unfortunately, he's going to end up going after he does not understand what the biblical evidence is.

01:22:18

There's just no question about that. But, there you go. None whatsoever.

01:22:24

No evidence whatsoever. Now, that's a strong statement. Let me give you some examples.

01:22:30

If you go to a Christian and you ask them, what's your primary evidence for the existence of the Trinity?

01:22:36

The first thing that they're going to trot out is they're going to say the first epistle of John chapter 5, verses 7 through 8, where it is said, for there are three who bear witness in heaven, the

01:22:46

Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. There you go. Dr.

01:22:52

Brown, you don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity. You don't know how it's defended. You've not done your homework.

01:22:58

You've not done scholarship. Because I challenge you, sir, to go to B .B.

01:23:06

Warfield, to go to Charles Hodge, to go to Birkhoff, to go to Robert Raymond.

01:23:17

There's lots and lots of books we can direct you to, and you show me where any of them made as their primary text the

01:23:26

Kamiohani. I just challenge you to do it. Show me where the Council of Nicaea made the

01:23:33

Kamiohani, their primary text. If that's what you just said, go to any

01:23:38

Christian. Like I said, I did make that mistake myself.

01:23:44

I was 16 or 17 years of age. So if what you want to do is say, well, you go talk to an ignorant

01:23:50

Christian who's never studied the issue, doesn't know anything about history, they might quote this to you, unless, of course, they grew up on the

01:23:56

NIV and they don't have it in there anyways. But this is not the primary text in any stretch of the imagination.

01:24:09

And Dr. Brown, I hope you will take up my challenge to debate. I've got a group right now, honestly, in New Jersey that wants to set up a debate.

01:24:21

They want me to lecture on Islam, but they also want to combine it with a debate. And I've given them your name.

01:24:27

I said, well, let's do this. But if you're going to bring up the

01:24:32

Kami Ohanian, sir, you need to at least take the time to read what I've written about it. And you need to take time to find out what the real historical evidence on the subject is and its actual role in regards to a proof text for Trinitarian belief.

01:24:52

Because it is not in any way, shape, or form why we believe in the

01:24:57

Doctrine of the Trinity. It's not. And I managed to write an entire book on the subject.

01:25:04

Biblical evidence of the Doctrine of the Trinity. I never had to mention the Kami Ohanian at all. I wonder how

01:25:10

I managed to do that. Hmm. And these three are one. Okay?

01:25:16

And they will even say it to you that way. Eddie, these three are one. That's how they're going to say it.

01:25:22

Well, that's how they say it. How do the scholars say it? The fact of the matter is that the scholars recognize that the

01:25:31

First Epistle of John, chapter 5, verses 7 through 8, is an insertion.

01:25:37

Of course it is. It does not exist in any of the ancient manuscripts. It was written into the margin by a scribe, probably, who in the process of copying the manuscripts wrote it in as a personal insertion.

01:25:52

Somebody liked it, they took it from the margin, they transported it into the text. Well, as to why it ended up in the text, that's due to the conservative nature of later scribes not knowing whether that marginal note was exactly that, a marginal or explanatory note, or if it had been something that had been missed in the original copying and then put back in.

01:26:13

Which did happen more than once. But it was the conservative nature, which is a good thing of the scribes, because if they weren't conservative, then they could have missed things, but they didn't.

01:26:23

That's why the text expands, not contracts, so we're not missing any of the original. That is relevant to the tenacity of the text.

01:26:31

You can't do that. If that's the Word of God, you can't play with the Word of God. Eddie, those scribes weren't trying to play with anything.

01:26:39

Put yourself in their position, sir. If you're reading someone's handwritten manuscript of the Gospel of John and you come across a marginal note.

01:26:48

Now, let's say earlier you had found a place where they had skipped over something, then they wrote it in smaller letters in the margin.

01:26:54

They found it later on, they inserted it, and you include it as your copy. Now you come across this. This person's dead. You can't go back and ask them, what are you going to do?

01:27:00

Are you going to keep it out or are you going to put it in? Thankfully, they put it in. Because if they hadn't, then they would have been prone to losing things.

01:27:10

We haven't lost anything. As it has been very, very well said, in dealing with the text of New Testament, it's like having a 10 ,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and we have 10 ,050 pieces.

01:27:22

It's the extra 50 that we need to identify. We've got all the originals. And that's a good thing.

01:27:29

It's a very good thing. But I ask you a question, Eddie. When Uthman had those manuscripts burned, after he made his final version, why did he have them burned?

01:27:42

No, don't tell me it was just out of respect. He was concerned about people having different readings.

01:27:48

Ibn Masud, he was very concerned about it too, wasn't he, Eddie? Are you being consistent,

01:27:55

Eddie, in your understanding here? Or are you even trying to understand? That's the question. We've still got about five minutes in that program to get to.

01:28:05

I will try to make note of that and get to it the next time we are together on The Dividing Line, which, Lord willing, should be a week from tomorrow on Tuesday, the 27th of September.

01:28:17

Lord willing, looking forward to seeing all my friends down in the Georgia area this coming week. We'll see you then.

01:28:23

God bless. ... ...

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