Western Rush to Moral Anarchy and Paul Williams at Speaker’s Corner

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Pretty well split the program in half, the first being on developments in the ongoing rush to rid Western culture of the last vestiges of civilization and morality, and the second focusing upon Muslim apologist Paul Williams and his comments at Speaker’s Corner in London. Would love to challenge Williams to defend his statements in public debate on May 13th in London!

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00:33
Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. Now, you will notice that Rich has been playing around again.
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Instead of two microphones down here, now we have one here. We used to have one up here.
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Every time we get one of these new gadgets, it's the best thing out there.
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It's always the newest and the best. Until something else comes along.
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And I, you know, I understand. I have my foibles and weaknesses.
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They mainly have to do with bicycling stuff. A closet full of cycling shoes and enough jerseys to wear one every day for a year, almost.
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They do collect over time because every time you go in a race or something, the big races, they, you know, it's part of what you buy and I never throw...
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I figure, hey, I might have some use for it someday, you know, I mean, it's in perfect shape and, you know, anyway.
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Same thing with gadgets. And I'm not sure how many microphones are hidden in various corners of the office.
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But now I've got a new one and it doesn't have the shield stuff.
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And, you know, it's just got a plain old pop thing, you know, but somebody want to mark down the day and see how long until the next best thing comes along.
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We had that purple one. Well, it was black and we had the same one for a long, long time.
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Oh, I think like 10 years. 10 years, probably. It was a fixture, really was, but it was before we started doing this stuff.
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So anyways, and now you have one too. That's nice.
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I actually have one that isn't laying on the table because the mount broke. Yes, yes, yes.
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Well, that's the one that used to be in here. Yeah, but this stand is temporary because I gave you my stand.
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That's what you're looking at in there. It's a perfectly silent stand. And if you think back, talk about reusing things, that is the original stand that we used when the office and the broadcast booth was at my house, and that was mounted to the top of your desk.
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That is the original stand. It endures. And why do you say it's perfectly silent?
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Because move it around. The springs make absolutely no noise. Well, the springs are covered in some sort of...
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Felt. The springs have felt on them. Yes. So it is a perfectly silent boom mic stand.
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Anything is not perfectly silent. There's nothing perfect in this world.
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Move it around. Get used to it. Get comfy with it. Oh, stop that.
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Anyway, there you go. New stuff. I don't know if you all listened to the briefing this morning, but someone in channel a couple days ago said that they hesitate to listen to the briefing anymore because it depresses them so badly every morning.
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And I understand. I get it. I wish we could do just positive stuff, but it's the world we live in, and adults...
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Adults are not always looking for their safe space. But at the same time, it does make you run to the psalter more often, or Isaiah, or one of the minor prophets or something.
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In fact, this morning, what Dr. Mueller was talking about was a...
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He was talking about a couple things, but one particular quotation was from...
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This is the United States Commission on Civil Rights, April 18, 2016. He said, someday we will look back upon this document and this particular line as a watershed date.
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And once again, all this illustrates the fact that, you know, you've heard it before.
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Elections have consequences. Well, but aren't elections representative of either the progress or degradation of a society?
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I mean, isn't having a presidential election every four years...
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I mean, think how much has changed just in the past four years. Think how much the leftists in our country are saying openly today that would have been an automatic destruction of their position or their possibility of election only four years ago, let alone eight years ago.
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So elections have consequences, but aren't they...
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an illustration, a delayed illumination of where the society as a whole has gone in that preceding period of time?
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Seems to me. And for example, in this statement, we know that the
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Obama administration has brought what would have once been identified as radical leftists into positions of power.
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Well, unless something really crazy happens this summer, which could happen.
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This has been one of the craziest political seasons ever. So I don't know.
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But as far as I can see, unless something really wild happens, such as an indictment of one of the two parties' candidates, and I don't even know that that would necessarily change anything, to be perfectly honest with you.
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I really don't, honestly. I mean, there was a day when that would have been it. But to be honest with you, as I look at people today, especially
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I look at millennials, I think for many of them, it's like, okay, state secrets.
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Game them all to the Russians and the Chinese. Doesn't really matter. You know,
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I'm more concerned in forcing everybody to use the same bathroom.
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You know, I think it's far more important that 45 -year -old men should be able to undress in front of 13 -year -old girls than anything about the state secrets of the
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United States, stuff like that. That seems to be where a lot of millennials are today.
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Their priorities are so completely upside down and insane that we're all just left going, what?
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What are you talking about? How did you get here? Anyway, here's the statement.
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Overly broad religious exemptions unduly burden non -discrimination laws and policies.
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Federal and state courts, lawmakers, and policymakers at every level must tailor religious exceptions to civil liberties and civil rights protections as narrowly as applicable law requires.
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So we all know it's happening right in front of us.
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Erotic freedom, the freedom to express sexual confusion, sexual ambiguity, to destroy all of the
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God -given parameters for human behavior, that is now one of the great moral goods in our society.
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And the ability to express disapproval of any of these behaviors is now one of the great moral evils.
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And the power of the state is being brought to bear to save us from the moral evil of religious belief.
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That's where we are. There's a lot of people who have lots of different ideas as to why it has happened and why it has happened at the speed that it has.
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I think from a Christian worldview perspective, we cannot help but recognize the issue of God's judgment upon a nation.
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And when people, oh, and I forgot to bring this up. I apologize. But in fact,
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I'm going to multitask here. Oh, how do, hmm.
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Let's see if, that's interesting.
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There we go. Politico, five hours ago. I knew it would come up eventually. Though I got numerous advertisements for remodeling my bathroom before I got to this.
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Trump, transgender people can use whatever bathroom they want, 421 -16,
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Nick Gass. This is at Politico. Transgender people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want,
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Donald Trump said Thursday. Quote, oh, I had a feeling that question was going to come up. I will tell you,
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North Carolina did something that was very strong and they're paying a big price.
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There's a lot of problems, the Republican presidential candidate said during a town hall event on NBC's Today.
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Referring to comments from an unnamed commentator who on Wednesday said North Carolina should leave it the way it is right now,
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Trump said he agreed. Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they're going through with all the business that's leaving, all the strife, and this is on both sides.
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Leave it the way it is, he said, referring to companies that have canceled plans to move or expand businesses in the state as a result of the law, which bans transgender individuals from using a bathroom that does not match their gender at birth.
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There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom they feel is appropriate,
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Trump said. There has been so little trouble, and the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic,
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I mean, the economic punishment that they're taking. Matt Lauer then asked whether Trump has any transgender people working for his company.
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I really don't know. I probably do. I really don't know, Trump said, answering that he would allow, say, transgender celebrity
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Caitlyn Jenner to use whatever bathroom she wanted. At Trump Tower.
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He added, you know, there's a big move to create new bathrooms. Problem with that is for transgender. That would be, first of all,
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I think that would be discriminatory in a certain way. That would be unbelievably expensive for businesses in the country.
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Leave it the way it is. Ted Cruz addressed the issue in a tweet, so on and so forth, writing, we shouldn't be facilitating putting little girls alone in a bathroom with grown men.
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That's just a bad, bad, bad idea. Well, first of all, as is normal, it's next to impossible to actually interpret what
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Trump is saying because you listen to the man and I, all right,
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I'll keep my mouth shut, but good grief. Sure, it'd be nice if people could speak with clarity, but it sounds like if he's saying
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Caitlyn Jenner can choose whatever bathroom he wants to use, and that's probably illegal in New York now, that he's bought into the whole, you know, and for him, obviously, the big thing is, well, look at the economic cost.
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Oh my gosh, it might cost money, and I'm a businessman. Well, there you go.
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There you go. That's, and we know where Sanders and Clinton are.
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After New York, it looks almost unstoppable, and who represents me again?
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I got nobody who represents me. Not that, I'm talking about, it looks like it's going to be
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Clinton and Trump, at which point I remind you all of the yard sign
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I put out, and I did put it out. Have you seen it? Yes, it was over there.
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Was it out there the other day? Maybe not. I've seen it on your website, on your Facebook page. But I literally have a sign in my front yard that has
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Trump, and it has Clinton, and it says, nope, nope -er. Please don't let it come to this. Well, looks like that's what it's coming to.
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That looks like that's what it's coming to, and we get what we deserve.
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Yes. You know, to put this in perspective for, I don't know, people that seem to not be able to just get it.
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I don't understand why people don't get this. But can you imagine if Ted Bundy is out there in this society?
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The Ted Bundys of the world are absolutely loving this. Of course. Ted Bundy, this never even occurred to him to be an option in his way of kidnapping young women and doing what it was that he did.
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There are so many serial killers out there, and these guys are all going to stand there and scratch their heads and go,
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I don't understand. How did this young woman disappear from the bathroom? And then another, and then another, and then another, state to state to state.
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Oh, here we go. And all we can do is say, we told you so. Well, the real issue, of course, is this whole idea of, well, you don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
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And if you are a man, anatomically a man, but you wear a dress, you've got to be able to use restrooms.
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So we have to. And it's like, OK, so 99 .995 % of the population is going to be put into a situation where their rights are trampled on so that the 0 .005
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% doesn't have to worry about things. Like I said, common sense, totally out the window.
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It's gone. Moral and ethical anarchy, it's everywhere. And that's what you've got, and you've got it being promoted by the
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United States government itself. It is a truly amazing thing. I do want to just read one text here, and then we're going to move on to another topic.
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A lot of times people will say, well, come on. Where does the
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Bible say that we should be concerned about these things? I mean,
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I've got some libertarian friends, and I'm not a member of a political party.
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To be honest with you, I've said this before. I'll just be honest with you. The system's busted. I think the
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Constitution's done. The last, before Scalia's death, not only
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Obergefell, but the decision right before it on Obamacare, where the, including the
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Chief Justice, decided that they could look at a law and say, yeah, it says this, but that's not what they meant.
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They meant this, and because they meant this, we'll allow this to, words have no meanings any longer.
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It's busted the system. I don't know what's going to take its place, but it could get ugly in the transitionary period.
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It is a period of revolution. It truly is. We are going through a revolution, not just morally and ethically, but every moral and ethical revolution eventually leads to other things.
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Get used to second -class nation status. Get used to the degradation of our military forces.
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Get used to far fewer choices than you are accustomed to. This nation has been greatly blessed, has sinned against it.
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Those blessings are being withdrawn. Just the way it is. People like to ask, well, you know, it's a secular nation now, as if it was always intended to be.
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Where do you get this idea that God judges nations for what they do? Well, flip your
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Bible open, go to the Minor Prophets. Took me 12 seconds to get a clear, unambiguous example immediately.
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Amos chapter 1, verse 13. Thus says Yahweh, for three transgressions, the sons of Ammon, and for four,
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I will not revoke its punishment, because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their borders.
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Okay? So here the sons of Ammon have engaged in not only military aggression, but a form of military aggression that demonstrated a wanton, uncommanded, unwarranted disrespect for human life.
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They ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their borders. So I will kindle a fire on the wall of Rabbah, and it will consume her citadels.
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Amid war cries on the day of battle, and the storm on the day of tempest, their king will go into exile. He and his princes together, says
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Yahweh. So it's a judgment oracle, and judgment is going to come upon these people for what they have done.
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Now, again, I don't know what my libertarian friends do, but every society must have a moral basis.
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Whether it's openly stated or not, it's going to have a moral basis. What's happening in our society is the moral basis that had existed, not that was ever perfectly followed or anything else, but that had been generally agreed upon and provided a curb, provided some walls, has not only been abandoned, but rejected, and in essence, its polar opposite has been embraced in its place.
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So it was once evil is now good. What was once good is now evil. Well, not only are there going to be fundamental reactions to that within the society, but the reality is that God judges nations for what they do.
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Now, I'm not going to disrespect Amos 1 .13 by removing it from its context.
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It is a statement about one particular ancient nation that was judged on the basis of its lack of respect for life in comparison to enlarging its borders.
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I wonder if there was any exegesis of this in the prayer of Jabez. Enlarging the borders is a parallel text.
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I never read the prayer of Jabez. Some of you actually are young enough that you're going, what's the prayer of Jabez?
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Isn't that sad? Look it up sometime.
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Another one of those many fads that have grown certain
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Christian publishers and then they went away. Anyway, I don't want to disrespect the text, but at the same time,
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I can't help but looking at the moral principle because who were the prophets that were sent to the sons of Ammon?
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Where are the scriptures that were given to the sons of Ammon? And yet they're held accountable for recognizing the value of human life and the need for humanity to be the most important thing in the relationship of states, even when they're neighbor nation states.
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So is there an appropriate moral and ethical principle that we can derive from this that might be relevant to our own day?
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We rip open pregnant women, not in the same way they did in that day. Now we do it medically and we rip up their children just as certainly and just as clearly and just as soaked in evil as the
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Ammonites did to the pregnant women of Gilead. When you think about how midterm and late term abortions are done, it's the exact same thing except you don't kill the mother in the process.
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As far as child's concerned, same fate. Same fate. And one party in the
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United States, you cannot possibly have a leadership position in that party if you do not hold to the position that you can murder any child for any reason at any point during the pregnancy.
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I mean, you might as well call one party the party of Mulloch, because they are.
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They are. In order to enlarge their borders, economic, money, what drives the vast majority of abortions in the
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United States? Eh, you know, right now it's just really not convenient and, you know, it's a lot of money and just got promoted at work and, you know, just not the right time.
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Just not the right time. Yeah, this is an absolutely unique human being here. Yeah, there'll never be another one like...
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I wonder how many Beethovens have been aborted in the world so far.
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I really, I do, I think about that. Because when you look at the
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Bachs and the Beethovens and the Mozarts, we don't have much like that anymore, do we?
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I wonder how many were conceived that had that absolutely unique combination, genetically speaking, that were aborted, that were murdered in the womb.
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You do wonder. You do wonder. To enlarge their borders, money, economics.
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And so I will kindle a fire on the wall of Rabah and it will consume her citadels.
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There may have been some... I'm sure there were Ammonites that didn't engage in ripping open the pregnant women of Gilead.
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I'm sure there were some Ammonites that were very, very concerned about that and were really disturbed by it.
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But they suffered with their compatriots. They suffered with their fellow citizens, didn't they? When the judgment of God came.
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A lot of places like that in Scripture. A lot of places like that. I want to talk just briefly...
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Well, now let's go ahead and go with this. I have two videos queued up and I sort of decided, well, let's see how we feel as to which one we're going to go for.
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Yesterday I saw a link and I started watching and I said, oh, this is interesting. This is interesting.
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A couple of times over the years we have played footage from what's called
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Speaker's Corner. Speaker's Corner in London. Where primarily
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Christians and Muslims. There are others. But given the situation in the
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United Kingdom, primarily Christians and Muslims get together and argue.
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And to be honest with you, I tried to get there once when I was in London on a
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Sunday and there was a tube construction going on and the primary line that we needed to get there, we couldn't do it.
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My brother Roger and I went to it and we were looking at the map and it was like, well, to get back when we need to get back, it wasn't going to happen.
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So we didn't get to go. But for all my times in London, I've actually never been to Speaker's Corner.
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And while I've gone out with folks while witnessing in Leicester Square and stuff like that, it's not really my thing to stand on soapboxes and deal with hecklers and stuff like that.
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Obviously, I prefer a little more controlled environment. But there is one thing
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I want to point out. When I do speak with Muslims in a context such as Leicester Square or something like that, the arguments that I use with them are the same arguments
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I use in debate. In other words, I'm not two different people. I don't have my highbrow arguments for debate and my lowbrow arguments for the
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Muslim that I encounter on the street where it's very obviously clear to me, this person has not done nearly the study of even
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Islam that I have, let alone Christianity. That puts me in an easy spot.
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And some might give in to the temptation, well, I realize this guy is not going to be able to mount a meaningful defense.
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So let's go ahead and use some of the more spectacular arguments. Or there are people around me.
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So let's give in to the temptation to do a little fancy schmancy stuff here, assuming that the guy we're talking to really isn't going to have the best response.
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In other words, I think you can find out what a person really believes. There are some people that are a little hesitant when they're going to be hitting the send button to put on the internet because then it's there.
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It never goes away. Who will behave differently out there on Speaker's Corner?
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I don't want to be one of those folks. I want to be consistent. Well, as I said,
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I was sent a link to a recent, what looks like a recent, it was only put up a couple of days ago, so a recent encounter at Speaker's Corner.
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And all it tells me is that we have some Irish Christians and Muslim apologist
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Paul Williams. Now, Williams is an apostate.
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He was a member of an evangelical church that I've debated in.
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And he apostatized and became a Muslim. And he is a very frequent critic of mine, obviously, as I've been a critic of him as well.
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I'd like to take a look at some of the things he says here, but what I would like to do, and I have not been able to get in touch with him yet, but we have the opportunity in about three weeks from now in London to debate the very issues that are being discussed right here.
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And from my perspective, if Mr.
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Williams is willing to raise these questions to young men, at one point he even criticized a man, what are you, 13 or something?
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If you're willing to use these arguments with them, then you should be willing to defend them against me, right?
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So I would like to invite Paul Williams. We have the location. It's right there in London.
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No long distance travel or anything. On Friday, the 13th of May, I can give it to you the exact address.
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I believe it's seven o 'clock. We have an opening. And I'd like to challenge
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Paul Williams to debate the issues he's going to bring up in this video. Specifically, the worship of Jesus and prayers to Jesus.
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And if someone could send me, if someone has the best address for reaching
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Mr. Williams, I'd like to make sure that he gets this invitation as soon as possible, because we want to, if we can't, we've tried to get some
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Muslims to respond to the church that's putting it on to be there to do the debate.
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So far, they've either declined or won't respond to the church's inquiries.
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So if Mr. Williams is willing to travel to Speaker's Corner and say this to young Muslims, then certainly, if he's consistent, he'll defend the same assertions in public debate against me, right?
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Now, in the past, he said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, shouldn't debate him. He doesn't really represent the best of the other side. Did these young men you were talking to represent the best of the other side?
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I mean, I thought they did a pretty decent job, but it seems like you're willing to address these issues.
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You made the allegation. You invited them to stop committing shirk, to repent of it and to embrace
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Islam. So you obviously feel these are meaningful arguments. So let's debate them.
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Let's debate them. Let's take a look at what it sounds like and looks like to be at Speaker's Corner in London.
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Let's listen in. I believe in Jesus, I believe in Mohammed, I believe in Abraham, all the prophets and messengers of God.
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So I'm not focused on one individual, I accept that God in his grace has sent messengers to all mankind
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You're going to tell me now, right, that the modern day scriptures have been corrupted. Yes. Was it before the 7th century or after?
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Before. Before. So which scriptures are you told to believe? The Quran says, revert back to the people of the book.
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Which book? Now, very good. I don't know these gentlemen. In fact, if someone in the audience does,
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I'd like to know who they are. I'd like to commend them. This was an excellent approach.
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And it's an approach that I have suggested many times. It is based...
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Oops. Oh, I can actually... Hey, you know what I can do here? Let me see if I can get this to...
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Oh, it doesn't want to do that for me. Come on. I guess that's the smallest it gets.
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Yeah, I'm not getting an arrow that allows me to get any smaller. There's the
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Quran. Been over this before. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it.
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But Surah 5, 46. And we sent following their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the
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Torah, and we gave him the Injil, in which was guidance and light, and confirming that which preceded it of the
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Torah, as guidance and light for the righteous. And let the people of the Injil, the
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Alal Injil, judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what
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Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient. So, as we've said over and over and over again, and we've been given numerous interpretations of this text, if these words...
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See, you can't even say if these words. When you read... I'm writing an article on Surah 5 right now.
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It's painfully obvious that what's going on in Surah 5 here is that people are coming to Muhammad to judge between them.
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And hence, it has a relevance in about the year...
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What? 6... Let's say 625, because it's a nice round number. Sound good? 625, 630...
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Narrow time frame there. Something was going on in Muhammad's life, and amongst the people in Medina, in their interactions with the
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Al -Kitab, the people, the book, and specifically the Al -Anjil, this is one of the two places that's used in the
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Quran, that had relevance. These words had to have meaning at that time.
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Now, Paul Williams just said the corruption of the text took place prior to the 7th century.
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Now, given that we can document the existence of each one of the
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Gospels back into the 2nd century, given that we have early manuscript fragments, which are clearly of the same books, they're not of some different book, we have nothing called the
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Injil of Jesus. If there was a message given to Jesus that he was entrusted with passing on to his followers in written form that is something other than what we have in the
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New Testament, we don't have the slightest evidence of its existence. So Jesus must have failed, and certainly his disciples did.
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When did this corruption take place? What kind of a corruption was it? Are we simply talking about textual variants?
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That wouldn't make any sense, because even the Bart Ehrmans of the world recognize that even taking textual variation into account, it's like when the atheist asked
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Bart Ehrman, so in light of all these changes, what do you think the Gospels originally were about?
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It's like, about Jesus and his teachings and his death and stuff like that?
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Yeah, we know what the Injil, and people say, he was given a book.
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Well, which is more likely? That all the historical evidence of the most widely attested and earliest attested book of antiquity called the
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New Testament, that all of that is wrong and one illiterate guy 700 miles away in Arabia got it right nearly 600 and, well, 700 years later, approximately, once you're talking about the writing of the
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New Testament. Let's go all around numbers here. Half a millennium. Which is more likely?
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If there was evidence in the text of the
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Quran itself that the author was intimately familiar with, the Injil of Jesus, he was a prophet, why wouldn't he know?
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Or was intimately familiar with the Gospels themselves? Or anything else in the
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New Testament? We might have something to talk about, but there's no evidence of that. There's no evidence of that.
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We have lamented many times on this program the deep intertextuality of the
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Old and New Testaments and the chasm that exists between the
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Old and New Testaments and the Quran. And yet here in Surah 5, we're told, well, there's this chain, you see.
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And Allah has sent down the Torah to Moses and he's sent down the
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Injil to Jesus and he's sent down the Quran to Muhammad and there's this confirming of what came before and yet when we actually start digging into it there's this huge chasm that exists between the
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Old and New Testament and the Quran. The author of the Quran does not know the content of Old and New Testament with deep familiarity.
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Does he know oral stories? Sure he does. Not nearly as much as the New Testament. And he's very confused in the sources that he thinks are
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Old Testament and the sources that he thinks are New Testament, too. I mean,
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Gnostic Gospels and Jewish non -canonical sources and stories are mixed together sometimes in the same context without any recognition of the author of what was what.
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And so, with that in mind, then, how could these words have meaning?
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Let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. I've mentioned it before.
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I'm going to be brief. Fihi, in the Arabic, only has one antecedent and it's the Gospel. And if it was the situation
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Muhammad himself was facing that means that the Al -Alanjil were being told to judge but was in the
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Gospel. Now, there has to be a Gospel by which to judge.
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And I've had some people say, well, yeah, but there's parts. How are you supposed to know which is which? If it's all corrupted and you can't tell anymore which is which then how are you supposed to judge?
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Well, you judge by what's in agreement with the Quran. Well, then why not just judge by the Quran? It doesn't say that.
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We're to judge by the Gospel. It seems very clear the author of at least
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Surah 547 thought that the Gospel existed in the days of Muhammad which takes us back then to the question of the discussion here.
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OK, let me explain. The Quran says very clearly that Jesus himself was given the Injil.
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The Injil is the Gospel. Of course, yeah. Now, the Gospel... He was given it. OK, let me...
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That's a revelation that was given directly to... I've got quite a few questions for you now, and I want to know what you are. Well, I'm not here just to answer your questions.
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Well, I'm asking some of you. I'm asking... I'm here to ask you a question or two as well. Because it's not an interview this unless you're going to pay me lots of money.
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So, the Injil was a revelation given by God to Jesus to preach to the
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Jews and Jews only as the Quran says. Now, what we have in the... No, wait a minute. The Gospel is given to Jesus to preach to the
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Jews and the Jews only as the Quran says. Now, again, let's hold
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Paul Williams accountable and consistent for what he's saying.
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Many Muslims will look, for example, at the Gospel of Matthew, and they will say, well,
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Jesus sent out the 70 to the Jews only. Only go into the cities of Jews.
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Don't go into the cities of Gentiles, so on and so forth. Okay? And then they'll ignore the fact the
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Gospel ends with the proclamation to take the Gospel out to the entire world.
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And so they'll cut up the Gospel into pieces without any textual basis for doing so, without any historical basis for doing so.
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And so here you have... We're going to take the Quran and we're going to make its understanding normative even if that requires us to reject portions of the
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New Testament. This is obviously anachronism. This is looking at things backwards.
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And what we want to point out is that when
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Paul Williams rejects, for example, the historical reliability of the
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Gospel of John, the scholarship that he depends upon for his arguments would never accept the argument he's using now.
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When you quote liberal scholars to try to say that the Gospel of John is ahistorical, are any of those scholars going to accept the argument that you just gave?
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Well, no, because they're not Muslims. But would they accept it on any principle at all? Would they even accept it having any level of validity at all?
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Well, no, you have to accept the Quran. So you're arguing in a circle. Right? You're arguing in a circle here.
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You're not really presenting an argument that's meant to convince a
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Christian who's thinking clearly. You're just throwing words out that you wouldn't probably use in a debate, but you figure, we're at Speaker's Corner, lower level of dialogue.
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Is that what's going on? That's really a question that I would have. They are four
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Gospels written by unknown people according to your own scholars. We do not know who wrote the
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Gospel of Matthew, or Luke, or Mark, or John. Now, notice, now we are pantomiming
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Bart Ehrman and saying your scholars. So, I know of a well -known
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German Muslim scholar who questions the existence of Muhammad as a historical individual.
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So, it would be fair for me to go to Speaker's Corner and say to the
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Muslims I'm speaking to, according to your scholars, we don't even know whether Muhammad existed.
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Right? And what's going to be the response of 99 .99 % of Muslims?
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Not our scholars. They're not Muslim scholars. If you question the existence of Muhammad, if you question that he was the final prophet, which if you question his existence, you obviously question he was the final prophet, you're not a
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Muslim. Why are you calling him a Muslim? Well, he self -identifies as one.
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He could, he could go to any mosque in a Target store. Mixing categories there, but hey, that is the problem with the
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West, isn't it? Because very obviously, this particular scholar who identifies as a
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Muslim would not be allowed to do that in a Muslim country. And in fact, to be honest with you, in many
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Muslim countries, would probably find his life forfeit for the things that he said, which is why he's not in a
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Muslim country, by the way. Well, at least not at the moment. I mean, Germany is changing rapidly.
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But be that as it may, the point is you have the freedom in the West to do these things, and this type of argumentation, your scholars, let's just,
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I'm so tired of Muslims quoting liberal scholarship and saying, well, if you don't accept this, then you're not in the cutting edge.
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I don't want to be in the cutting edge. The cutting edge is, is flying headfirst into total apostasy.
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I don't want to be in the cutting edge. Don't want to be there, have no reason to be there whatsoever. But again, as has been demonstrated over and over on this program, the
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Muslim wants to use one standard for the Christian and a completely different standard for the
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Muslim. So if you like the left -leaning, skeptical, quote -unquote,
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Christian scholarship, then you should like the left -leaning, skeptical Muslim scholarship too, right?
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There's not as much of it because there's not as much quote -unquote scholarship in total, numerically speaking.
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I mean, just look at the literary output of English -speaking countries versus Arabic -speaking countries, and it's just simply, you're comparing apples and oranges to even start talking about percentages and stuff like that.
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So there's much more opportunity and freedom to express unorthodox views and call yourself a
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Christian than there is for a Muslim. No question about it. But the point is, why not deal with believing
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Christian scholarship if you are a believing Muslim? Doesn't that make sense?
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Then you have a direct correlation. You believe God has spoken?
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Yes. Well, so do I. Let's look at the scholars who believe God has actually spoken. But that's not what you get.
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Instead, you get this kind of, well, there's these four Gospels. Well, here's the problem.
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Where does the author of the Quran demonstrate that he understands that there are four written
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Gospels which communicate the Gospel to us? From whence will we derive our understanding of the idea that the author of the
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Quran understood Christian usage of these things? Specifically, that we would speak of the
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Gospel singularly, but at the same time, we would recognize the existence of the
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Gospels, and that the Gospel is communicated to us not only in the
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Gospels, but in the rest of the New Testament as well. Where is the evidence that the author of the
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Quran understood these things? Or is it not much more likely that the author of the
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Quran was confused about these things, and that by your exalting him or whoever it was to the position of defining this, you are creating anachronistically categories that have no place in the conversation?
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That's... yeah. These are not the Gospels given to Jesus. These are
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Gospels about Jesus written by unknown people a generation later. A generation later.
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So, again, we've got to make sure. You know, the Hadith evidently are okay if they're a generation later, but Gospels, you know, if they're inspired, if they're not solved or sent down, it doesn't...
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When does it matter when they're written? Again, so here you have... It's a generation later, and so that introduces the possibility of change and so on and so forth, like we were talking about in the last program.
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But for the Muslim, the Muslim accepts the idea of revelation.
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And so if you accept the idea of revelation, how long later is irrelevant, isn't it? I would think it would be, but again, it's...
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We use a different standard for you than we use for ourselves. That's just how it has to go because we can't apply the same standard one way or the other.
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If we want to know what the Gospel of Jesus was... Oh, by the way, there's something else. I'm sorry. I apologize.
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I'd really like to know, does Paul Williams believe that Muhammad is prophesied in the
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New Testament? And if so, where? Because the assertion of the
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Quran is that we read of the unlettered prophet in our scriptures. And that was in the days of Muhammad.
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And men are held accountable for suppressing that. So something must have survived. So do you get to anachronistically look back and go, oh, well,
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John 14 and 16, well, in some form because, you know, if you've watched the debate we did in London with Shabir, he used the form -critical approach to John 14 through 16.
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But do you just get to... Well, you know, if it substantiates Islam, then it's accurate.
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If it contradicts Islam, it's been changed. And I know that that's an argument that is circular and requires you to accept my position first.
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I get it, but I don't care. Live with it. Is that what we have? I'd be really interested in knowing where Williams is on that.
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Him by God, we can check God's final revelation to mankind, which is the Quran, the holy
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Quran. And that tells us what Jesus preached. And if you check... That tells us what Jesus preached.
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25 times, the name of Jesus appears in the
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Quran. I need to count. I need to count the number of words attributed to Jesus in the
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Quran. I can guarantee you, if you put them in a line, it would not take you 100 seconds to read them.
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So you're telling me that that tells us what
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Jesus' message really was? That that's sufficient for us to know what
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Jesus... And think about this from a historiographical perspective. We're being told that as long as you have revelation, a source can be 600 years after the events, and as long as it's a revealed source, it will remain an accurate source.
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But when it comes to the Gospels, if it's a generation later, it's inaccurate.
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What's missing there? Well, aside from the obvious consistency thing, well, the revelation thing.
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Except that the Muslim has a book that tells him that the Injil was
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Nutsal. It was sent down. And that we're to judge by it. And if we don't judge by it, we're the worst of the unbelievers.
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There you go. Let me finish. If you check what Jesus actually preached with what's in the
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Quran, you'll find a remarkable convergence. Of course, but don't you think that 700 years later, it would take a few ideas out of the
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Bible? Don't you think that 700 years later, you'd have different information? The Quran is the word of God himself.
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Well, and I would, again, I appreciate the brother, but I would disagree with that one.
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Because what he's assuming is a level of familiarity with the
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New Testament text and the part of the author of the Quran that just didn't exist. It is so painfully obvious to me that the author of the
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Quran had no earthly idea what was contained in the Book of Romans or Colossians or Philippians or the
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Gospel of John, for that matter. So I would not agree that, well, sure he could take some ideas out of the
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Bible. Well, obviously the author did. There's all sorts of oral stories that the author of the
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Quran has borrowed, but they were oral stories.
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I think the most consistent understanding from a source perspective is that the author of the
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Quran is primarily dealing with oral origination. There doesn't really seem to be any comparison of manuscripts or analysis of things like that at all in anything he writes.
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So don't give credit where credit is not due at that point.
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How did Muhammad get the Quran? First off, please. Like to Jesus, it was revealed to Muhammad over a period of time.
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To an illiterate man who couldn't read or write? Yes. So he had to tell somebody to write it? Yes. So how did he know if it was true when he finished writing it?
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Because it was fed back to him. How did they know? How did they know they could give their own ideas? If I tell you to say 3 -2 -1
56:46
How do I believe a Quran like that? Let me explain. If I say to you, remember 3 -2 -1, you bring that back to me now. Now, I've got to admit, there's...
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It's not really my argument, but the point is when you make the
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Quran the result of a single person's work but then admit that that one person was illiterate and then turn around and try to use form -critical argumentation against the
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New Testament, the burden of hypocrisy just becomes too big.
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It's going to drag you down, you know. And so, once you become the hyper -skeptic on the
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New Testament, you really become a glowing hypocrite when you then become the hyper -believer that one illiterate guy could receive and memorize all of these revelations but then he couldn't actually check it unless he got what you read back.
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Now, I would... There's all sorts of questions as to how much of the Quran was revealed during Muhammad's lifetime as far as being written down or anything like that.
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So... But I appreciated at least the... And we didn't get very far in this because I wanted to get into...
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I didn't get into it, but I wanted to get into the stuff where he's talking about prayer to Jesus and stuff like that because Williams makes some major errors, major errors in his representation of what's in the
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Bible. It was shocking. And maybe we'll get to that, especially if... Who knows? Maybe he'll say, oh, we have an opportunity on 13th of May?
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Let's do it. Be here in London. Let's... I will stand behind anything I said to those young men in public debate there in London.
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That would be... That'd be great. That'd be wonderful. Let's do it. Let's see if that's gonna work out.
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Let's see if that's gonna work out. Well, anyways, there you go. A little bit of a grab bag of things on the program today.
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And allegedly, the sound quality is absolutely excellent.
58:59
And so when I do my radio voice and remind you that we're going to Alaska in September.
59:07
Alaska. Alaska. Yes. Because we wanted Michael Fallon to do his, you know, to reprise the most famous spot we've ever had on the dividing line.
59:20
And I just... I can't get him to do it. So maybe I'll have to do this because I've got a little sinus action going on here.
59:30
I was gonna say, next time you get sick, you get that Barry White voice. I'm sort of working on it a little bit. So you could sort of throw a little extra bass in there.
59:39
And I can talk about going to Alaska in September for the Apologetics in the
59:45
Sight of God conference. And you need to hit aomin .org and check it out and join us in September.
59:52
It'll be a great time. And if you say it with a voice like this, it's much better than doing it like this.
59:58
So we'll do it that way. So anyways, thanks for watching
01:00:03
Dividing Line today. Lord willing, we'll be back. Yes, next. I've got one more week before I leave.
01:00:09
Yes, I leave a week from Tuesday. So big trip coming to South Africa, London, and about an hour outside of Belfast.