Oliphint/Jaros Dialogue

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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 the Dividing Line on July 4th.

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Yes, it is in fact July 4th here in the United States, which doesn't really mean a whole lot to anybody else if you live outside the

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United States. And we have a lot of people who live outside the United States that listen to us anymore, so we are thankful that you're listening.

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But what that means is I am alone here today. Now, Sir Brass said that he is actually coming in.

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I tried to write back and say, don't need to worry about it, we're okay, we're ready, we can handle this.

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And so it's going to be sort of plain Jane, I mean, we had the opening, we might have the closing,

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I'm not sure. But I'm just here all alone, my voice is echoing through the hallways.

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Well, we don't really have hallways, we have a hallway, I guess. But anyways, here

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I am, and it is good to be with you. All alone, first time we've ever tried this.

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Every other time we've done this, every other time I've been tempted and Rich has started going over stuff and then you click this and then you do that and then you pop that up and you turn this over here and I'm just like, you know,

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I think folks can probably survive without a dividing line for a little while.

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It's okay, and we just haven't done it. But I thought, you know what,

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I just hadn't thought about the fact it was July 4th, Rich has things to do, he has a family, right now

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I'm alone. My wife is in Georgia with the daughter and granddaughter and stuff, and so I'm just sort of lonely here all by myself.

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And so anyway, I thought, let's go ahead and do it because I can't guarantee a whole lot of dividing line stuff next week, but maybe if I can remember to save these files to my jump drive, not to my jump drive, to Dropbox so that I can grab them while I'm in New Mexico, maybe we'll be able to press on.

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Well, we'll see. Anyways, we will do our best. So we're going to get back. I got a lot, a great deal of response to the program yesterday when we started looking at apologetic methodology, so we will continue with that.

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However, I want to just make sure, I just mentioned I will be in Santa Fe, New Mexico starting on Sunday.

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I will be doing the Sunday morning service at the Gospel Life Community Church, and then we're going to be having a conference starting on Monday the 8th with a

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Q &A dinner. Now, Q &A dinner generally means that I don't get to eat much.

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I'll never forget when I did a Q &A lunch at Trinity University, I forget what it was, it was somewhere in Tampa, and they literally put a table out front and that's where I had to sit.

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And then the students came in and they got to eat and they got to ask me questions. They put food in front of me, which I never got to eat. It was like torture because I was really hungry and it was like torture.

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I could never eat because I was just being hit with questions. So anyways, hopefully that's not what that ends up being.

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Hopefully the Q &A part is after everybody, including the poor speaker, gets to eat.

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But then anyways, on Tuesday evening the 9th, Maintaining a Christian Witness in Our Secular World, and on Wednesday the 10th,

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Maintaining a Christian Witness in the Religious World. And so what I'm going to be talking about in those—well, look, it's what we talk about here all the time, but more on a personal level and obviously within the context of the

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Church. And I've spoken there in Santa Fe a number of times. The name of the

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Church has changed, Gospel Life Community Church, but this is the Church that I've been to many, many times before.

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Paul Scazzafava is the pastor there. And I love these folks, and for some reason they love me too. And so if I can do anything to be of encouragement to them,

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I encourage you, if you're in the Santa Fe area, Albuquerque, whatever, come on down.

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Great Church, and we're going to have a great time together starting on Sunday morning. That's assuming that my little

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Nissan Versa gets me across the desert there to Santa Fe on Saturday when

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I will be driving over there and praying for God's traveling mercy. So anyways, that's what's going on next week.

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And yes, I will be doing a great deal of riding while I'm in Santa Fe because Santa Fe is 7 ,400 feet above sea level, and that's a wonderful, wonderful thing to get to ride at high altitude.

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Before we get back to the apologetic methodology thing, I just wanted to briefly mention that when

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I got home, I think it was yesterday, at some point yesterday, I noticed on Twitter that there had been some back and forth with Pastor Bob Hadley.

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Remember, I mentioned Pastor Bob Hadley. This is weird because we have these security cameras, and so I'm seeing somebody doing something odd in the security cameras now.

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And there's no one else to go sort of like look and see what this person is doing other than me, myself, and I.

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And so that is very distracting to have that going on there and wondering, why is that guy wandering in there when he doesn't really need to be here?

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And so now he's hopefully he's just hiding in the shade because it's hot in Phoenix.

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But if all of a sudden I start playing music or something, which

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I'm not sure I could do anyways, but if all of a sudden the song starts and you hear someone yelling, be right back, that's what's going on.

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Because now he's leaning over and doing something over there next to the building. And so let's hope he's not lighting the building up or anything like that.

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But anyhow, what was I talking about? Oh, Pastor Bob Hadley. Yes, indeed. Pastor Bob Hadley.

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Remember his SBC Issues website? I had read some of his commentary against Calvinism, and I wasn't trying to review the whole thing simply because it was just this,

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I just can't understand how anybody can read the Bible and come up with this stuff. I'd seen there had been some back and forth, so I tweeted him just to let him know that I had responded to his article.

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Well, he responded to me, and this morning he sent me this.

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Now remember, Calvinists are terrible. Calvinists are mean. And Arminians are nice and loving.

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So here's what Pastor Bob Hadley sent me. Uh, since you reviewed my article on Calvinism, small c all the time,

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I reviewed your pitiful take on Titus 2, and then there's a link to his website.

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Well, at least he kept listening afterwards and heard at least something that I said.

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I don't think he really heard what I said to Michael Brown.

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I was reviewing the all and every stuff. But if you go to SBC Issues, it's www .sbcissues

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.com. Just read James White and Titus 2 and see if you can figure it out. Basically, I guess, well, right at the end here, it says,

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White's argument is really very simple. Since it is God's grace that is training us to renounce godliness and worldly passions to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope appearing with the glory of our great

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God and Savior Jesus Christ, that same grace saves us. Right. He says that statement is correct.

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The same grace that saves us is the same grace that sustains us and sanctifies us. Right. The mistake

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White makes is he tries to turn that around to say, the same grace that sanctifies us is the same grace that saves us.

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Oh, so White inadvertently, I guess there's two ins there, inadvertently slips the us who are sanctified is the same us that not are saved, but the same us that God's grace is extended to for salvation.

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So his conclusion is God's grace is reserved for the elect only, and therefore salvation is available for the elect only, and that simply is not what this text says.

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And of course, all of you sitting there going, what? He, he, he what? What? Because you all know what

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I said. If you listened, you know what I said. I said it's the same grace.

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And since the text limits the context of who is going to be looking for the appearing and who is taught to deny ungodliness, something like that, then clearly you can't just take that grace and make it the peanut butter grace that tries to save everybody, but only instructs us.

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And so, read this again. The mistake

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White makes is he tries to turn that around to say the same grace that sanctifies us is the same grace that saves us.

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It's right there. He put it out there. I think I might want to save this page because it's just, really?

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Wow. That is, there is, there is an incredible example of how tradition creates eisegesis.

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And it's tradition. I mean, this guy detests Calvinism. He doesn't know what it is, but he detests it.

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And it's just a visceral, there's just, there's no, you can't really try to reason with folks like that.

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You've got to leave them to the Lord. If they're brothers in Christ, God will work with them at his own time, own way, and you just sort of go on from there.

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So, I thought I'd mention that because it was really odd.

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Anyhow, I will not repeat the phone numbers right now, by the way, because I really can't take phone calls. I actually could. I could have, if I wanted to have one extra little complicating thing, but I wanted to keep it as streamlined as possible to try and make sure that we actually got it working.

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And I can see by people in the chat channel that it is working, but here comes the next trick.

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And I know it's already going to work, actually. I just realized that because I played the sound on the opening of this, but I wanted to, one of the things

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I was concerned about is that since most of what I'm gonna be doing today is playing what other people have said, then stopping and responding.

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And so I was like, really got to make sure the levels are good. Really got, yeah, Skype calls.

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Right, sure. So, we will see that.

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Someone's inquiring about the temperature in Phoenix today. I'm really not certain what the temperature in Phoenix is. I saw, I think, 106 when

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I left. Something like that. It's not bad. I mean, for us, that's average. 106 is average.

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So, 110 is just four degrees over average. So, it's really no big deal.

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And I'm going to be escaping this for a while in Santa Fe. Though they've got some highs in around 90 and lots of thunderstorms, which hopefully will be primarily in the afternoons because I will be riding in the early mornings.

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Anyhow, let's go back to yesterday. Got a lot of good positive feedback. You know,

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Sy Ten Bruggenkate was in channel yesterday when I started the program. I'm not sure if you heard the response

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I gave or the question that he asked me. But I did want to mention that the guys at choosinghats .com,

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I believe is the, is it dot com? I don't know. They'll mention in a moment here. At choosinghats posted an article this morning.

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Yeah, dot com. Thank you. But that's fast. I wonder why you all are hearing that so very quickly.

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There's almost no delay there at all. And he said, boom, that was quick. Anyways, posted a article this morning criticizing

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Sy for what he did at the atheist monument unveiling or whatever it is you call it that took place.

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What was it? Week four last, something like that. And, you know, I only saw a picture somewhere of an atheist ripping a toilet seat out of Sy's hand, if I recall correctly.

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And there was some discussion of it in channel. And so you might want to read that article.

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I think I would, I certainly would never have the freedom to do, put it this way.

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I would certainly never have the freedom to do it. Sy Timber and Kate did there. I that's not my that's not my style to do that kind of thing.

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I've debated David Silverman. And I think there's been a bunch of things recently that I think we just we need to recognize we will not be treated fairly in media.

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And so like what happened to Matt Slick, we will not be treated fairly in media. The media does not want to hear what we have to say.

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They want to mock what we have to say. So we have to, I think, take very seriously the statement of Jesus about being gentle as doves, but wise as serpents.

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In other words, we've got to keep an eye on how our actions could be used against us.

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Now, sometimes there's nothing we can do about it. I mean, from what Matt Slick says, you know, what he actually said was so radically edited that you couldn't even make heads or tails out of it.

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But still, if you could go on The Daily Show, you just know what they're going to be doing. And so when

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I did see, I didn't see most of it, but I saw part of it where this woman's walking down the sidewalk with him and saying, look out, it's a

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Christian. And, you know, I would have said, OK, we're done right here and now and that's it.

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And if, you know, if I get, I don't get contacts. Isn't it funny?

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You know, Matthew Vines is out there in the media, media darling. The guy who very quickly responded with a five hour refutation of his material, who actually teaches, has taught the biblical languages on the graduate level, has published a book, debated numerous times.

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They're not going to contact me because I'm not the person they want. They're not going to contact me.

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Um, so if I were to be contacted, which

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I don't expect to happen, but if I were to be contacted, I would say, well, no, thank you.

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But if you really want to do something, then it needs to be done live and it needs to be one -on -one and it needs to be equal time.

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Because what they do down in Australia, for example, on the Australian broadcasting system down there, is they'll bring a

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Christian in and they'll have like six people to oppose them, just to make it this wild, you know, fray, feeding frenzy type thing.

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That's what the media is about. And so I think we just need to be very, very wise as to how we handle these things.

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Now, I actually played this section yesterday, but it gives the context where it comes afterwards, so I really need to go back to it.

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Kurt Jarrus, of Real Clear Apologetics, is the individual dialoguing with Dr.

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Oliphant from Westminster Seminary and actually saw his, come to think of it, saw his

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Twitter thing this morning. I didn't get a chance to really send him anything to say I was going to be continuing this.

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I'm sure he's been apprised of it. But he says he agrees with what

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Dr. Oliphant is saying. And I know he doesn't. Now, I don't think he's being, you know, he's dissembling.

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He's not being dishonest. I just don't think he really understands what

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Dr. Oliphant's saying. He's not accepting the full context of it to see what the real differences are.

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And I was told on channel this morning that everything that I emphasize, that I said

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I would emphasize had I been in Dr. Oliphant's position, in other contexts,

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Dr. Oliphant emphasizes those very things. So it is good for brethren to dwell together in unity and all that kind of stuff.

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And I realize that I am an unbelievable radio broadcast veteran of many programs, ranging from Adnan Rashid to Anthony Buzzard to N .T.

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Wright for Crayon Outline. You know, I don't think there's anybody who's ever been on Unbelievable who's debated as wide a range of topics as I have.

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I've taken on husband and wife teams on Calvinism and hell and Muslims and Unitarians and N .T.

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Wright. Wow, that's pretty weird. Anyway, let me just play this section because this is where he talks.

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Kurt didn't put up much of a fight, okay? He didn't really defend his position or make a positive presentation of his position or stuff like that.

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It was pretty much, well, what do you think about this? This is sort of the one time where he sort of fainted with the right,

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I think would be the way to put it. So and so let's let's hear what he had to say.

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Yeah, I would agree with that two step approach that you mentioned. However, my concern is that in that second step, when you want to show people about Christianity, that what you're doing then is you're taking borrowed capital from these other apologetic methods.

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So you're using the same arguments there then. So what do you think about that?

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I mean, I mean, so essentially, it does fundamentally come back to making, you know, substantial arguments. Yeah, you could you could talk to someone and present kind of this presuppositional approach at first.

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I mean, some people do this excellently, even I, you know, I would implement the same method. But then you get to a certain stage where someone says, well, you know, how can we be certain that Jesus resurrected from the dead?

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And it's not just, you know, a conspiracy theory. And then you're going to be turning to evidential apologetics, you might write.

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I mean, now, Kurt cannot apply this methodology.

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This is not a matter of sitting around going, well, we have these different methodologies and we're going to judge them by their pragmatic results.

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And once in a while, use this one. And once in a while, use that one. This is what really concerns me, is that many apologists have this perspective.

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They have this idea that this is just one amongst many possible methodologies.

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For me, presuppositionalism, covenant apologetics, call it what you will, it is the method of apologetics that is demanded of me by the consistent exegesis of the

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New Testament text regarding the nature of God, the nature of man, the nature of creation, and the need to communicate the gospel to the lost.

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And so it's not, well, I could use this methodology. No, we can't.

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Because he affirms the capacity of the unregenerate man to just change his thinking.

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Well, I think I'll change the way I think. I think I'll accept that. Well, that's not what this methodology is about.

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It assumes that can't happen unless the Holy Spirit of God is involved. So I'm sorry, he can't just use this methodology.

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And we started responding last time to the issue of the idea of borrowed capital, and that this just shows a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental lack of understanding of what it is that we're actually saying, and the necessity of the methodology.

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And it's a shame. But Dr. Oliphant had the opportunity of responding. Yeah. Will presuppositional apologetics do all the work for you in that sense,

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Scott, in terms of the very particular nature of Christianity, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the resurrection, and all of that kind of thing?

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Does it make sense to say, well, we just assume all that? That is our presupposition when we come to this, when obviously the person you're speaking to doesn't presuppose any of that.

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Have you given them, even though you might be able to, you know, kind of pull apart their own worldview a bit and say, you can't really do this without a transcendent cause.

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That's not going to get you all the way to full -blooded Christianity, is it? Well, again, what do you do in evangelism? They're not presupposing that the cross of Christ is needed as an atonement for sin in order for their sins to be covered and them to be righteous before God.

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They don't assume any of that. Does that mean you refrain from doing it until they get reasonable enough so that you can talk to them about it? There's a point at which they have to understand, and you have to communicate the truth of the gospel.

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And again, the position here is not that you're saying to the unbeliever, I presuppose all these things, and you don't presuppose them, so there.

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That's not the point. The point is, as Van Til makes clear, we understand Christianity to be true from God's revelation.

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The only way we know anything is because God has revealed it, which means the only way anybody else knows anything is because God has revealed it.

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And as a matter of fact, Van Til makes this point as well, which I think is exactly right. Atheism presupposes theism.

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That is, for a person to be alive and to breathe and to articulate the words, I am an atheist, and assume that that predication has meaning, already presupposes who

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God is and what the world is like. Now, you don't say that to them. That's not the point I'm making here. It's not that that's your argument, but it is the state of things as they really exist.

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We were kind of talking at that last section about... Now, again, that's a radical epistemology.

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Radical, sadly, well, it's certainly radical for the world. The world's epistemology is focused upon the human being, and the human being is the center of all things.

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And the human being is the center of all predication and all the rest of that kind of stuff. Sadly, it's radical for Christians too, or people at least who call themselves

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Christians. I'm not sure how it can be that way, but I think it's because we do not...

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Well, I certainly do. Many of you who've heard me speak know that I very, very often talk about how radical the

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Christian claim really is and that there's foolishness to the world. But evidently, I'm somewhat out of the mainstream at that point.

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And the tendency for many people is to seek to non -radicalize the

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Christian message. Turn Jesus into some type of guy who was a lot like Buddha or some great teacher and not really

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God incarnate, and this isn't the definitive revelation of God. But if you go to the New Testament, it's a radical thing.

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We're talking about... We're actually telling people it is in Jesus Christ that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him, all of them, not just a portion, all of them, and in nobody else.

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There's an exclusivity there that is absolutely offensive to the natural man, and properly so.

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And when you try to change that, you are fundamentally undercutting the reality of the

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Christian message, and we simply cannot do that. We were kind of talking at that last second. Now, of course, let me just mention again...

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I don't know why I'm so concerned about this. I guess because people... I guess because the canner stuff and, hey, you're editing stuff.

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I am playing this material at 1 .2 times speed so we can get through it faster, basically.

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So just... It also makes people sound so much smarter. ...section about how we practice...

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Not that these guys aren't smart. I'm just... Anyways... If they do evangelism, and Scott making this important point that, okay, we don't kind of lay out the whole foundation to a non -Christian at the point where we're talking in these sorts of terms, and so your approach might not look that different in actual fact at that level,

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Kurt. But what are the issues for you when it comes to your reservations around the presuppositional approach and your favoring of natural theology in terms of the way you would present the case for faith to someone who's perhaps skeptical?

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Yeah, so it seems like in how we would interact with a non -believer, it would be very similar. No, it would not.

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I don't... I do not know why Kurt wants to bend the two positions so closely to one another, but there is a vast difference in how you speak to people.

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When you grant to them autonomy, or when you deny to them autonomy. Believe me,

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I've been there, done there, got the t -shirt, there's a big difference. I mean, we're all in the same world, so there's obviously going to be some similarities, but it would just seem to me that in a context like this, it would be better to focus upon what the differences are than trying to constantly make it look like we're all just doing the same thing.

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In fact, we might use the same arguments. But my concern is more so with whether or not the presuppositionalist is remaining consistent with their methodology, with what they propose is the case.

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And then also... It's amazing to me. I mean, I chuckled when I first heard that, because the only reason anybody would be a presuppositionalist is because they desire to be consistent and to have consistency, but consistency between what and what?

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Consistency between their theological beliefs, their entire system of theology, and what it is that they are doing in apologetics, their goal of apologetics, their method of apologetics, their means of apologetics.

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That's where the consistency has to be. And of course, I think one of the strongest arguments for the presuppositional method is the fact that it's the only one that can be consistent.

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Because no matter how else you put it, if you're going to argue with people that the greater probability...

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The preponderance of the evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of a god, you have to admit that's not the

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Christian message. And at some point down the road, you're going to have to modify the conclusions you've led someone to to get them to Christianity.

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You're going to have to say, you know, we started off thinking there was some moral neutral ground that we could start with, but actually now that I'm trying to introduce you to who

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Jesus is, you can see that if Jesus is who we say he is, then there is no neutral moral ground that we can stand upon.

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There's nothing neutral. Jesus Christ created all things. And it's like, you know, a person would have a right to say, wait a minute, it's false advertising.

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You got me to agree to stuff? And now you're having to go back and say, well, didn't really mean it?

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So who's really being consistent? I think that's the whole reason for what we're doing here.

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Probably the Reformed theology that supports the presuppositional method, whether or not they're being consistent with that, specifically, as we brought up earlier in the show, this idea of inability.

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And so my concern is that, well, everything Scott said and how he would interact with someone is great.

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But, you know, suppose someone raised these objections, you know, about the resurrection of Jesus, how can they be certain?

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It seems then that perhaps the presuppositionalist will then begin going into the evidential approach. Either that or they'll just,

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I mean, maybe keep preaching at the person until, as Scott might hold, until the Holy Spirit comes and fixes their state so that they would accept the gospel message.

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And is that a problem for you? Do you feel that the role of, say, let's take the argument for the resurrection.

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Now, if someone was coming with questions, why do you believe that? You know, couldn't there be some other theory of why people believe

30:03

Jesus had risen from the dead? And you were starting to present a case for them for that. I mean, presumably you don't believe that just your argument is going to bring someone to faith.

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Kurt, you believe there must be a role for the Holy Spirit within what's going on. That's a great question. And, you know, we could have a whole debate then on the role of the

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Spirit in providence. But, and I wouldn't say it's just the argument itself. I mean, the argument itself is just some propositions.

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Scott and I earlier said that it's the person's will that is what makes them not want to believe they suppress the truth.

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Now, listen to this. Listen very carefully. He and I might have different models for why that's the case, you know, and what originally causes that, or if it's self -caused.

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But now, see, there really summed everything up for me is that Kurt Jarosz is so focused upon his apologetic methodology that he's just glossing over what gives rise to.

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It just seemed many, many of my apologist friends on that side of things seem to invest significantly more concern over the minutia of their philosophical arguments than they do over the broad spectrum of Christian theology itself.

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And my assertion is it's Christian theology that gives rise to the apologetic methodology.

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It's backwards. It reminds me of what a friend of mine said. He was at a conference that William Lane Craig was speaking at.

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And after Craig had spoken, my friend was manning a table, you know, a ministry table.

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I forget what ministry it was, but anyways, a ministry table. And Craig happened to come out and stand nearby so he could hear the conversations he was having.

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Of course, Craig is surrounded by all these young guys who are just, oh, we're all excited. And he specifically heard

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William Lane Craig say to the group around him, and I trust this guy's reporting.

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He's not trying to make stuff up. He said, in response to a question, you know, someone said, how can

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I be a better apologist? This is the single thing that you can do to become a better apologist today is to not read so much theology and read more philosophy.

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That's what he said. Don't read, don't be focused on that theology stuff. You've got to deal with the world's philosophies.

32:45

And, you know, my response would be 180 degrees opposite of what

32:54

William Lane Craig said. 180 degrees opposite. When I look at my apologist friends,

33:00

I say, what's the biggest problem I see in the apologetic community? Well, one thing that has always left me scratching my shiny bald head is, why is it that the vast majority of my fellow apologists cannot read, translate, or teach from the original languages of the

33:27

Bible? Why is that? Why is that? I don't understand that.

33:34

When people ask me, what are the classes that you took that helped you the most?

33:44

I always answer in the same way. Greek and church history. Greek and church history.

33:51

There are just few other classes I took that have had near the value to me in apologetic response, the ability to be on radio programs, taking phone calls on all sorts of wide variety of issues.

34:06

If you know church history and you can read the New Testament in its original language, you are way ahead of the game.

34:14

And yet, most apologists can't do that. Can't do that. They don't know church history, can't read the original languages.

34:20

And why? Because that's really not the important thing. The important thing is getting your arguments right and following the most recent permutation of the cosmological argument.

34:31

That's what you got to do. And I just shake my head and go, okay, all right, whatever you say.

34:41

But there are key issues just glossed over. Just glossed over. So the argument itself wouldn't convince someone.

34:50

It's a combination of, I think, a number of factors, the argument, the person's willingness to believe.

34:56

I mean, I'm sure Scott and I have interacted with plenty of people who are just simply unwilling to believe. And all of us have, I'm sure.

35:02

And I guess you can even get people who do believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but still don't accept him as their Lord and Savior. Yeah, that's right.

35:08

As Paul says, even the demons believe and tremble. Right. So when we're dealing with these truth questions, yeah,

35:16

I mean, so there's a number of factors of which we can debate, you know, and how the Holy Spirit works and through whom the

35:22

Holy Spirit works. So what are you saying? There's all sorts of things we can debate about.

35:29

Well, that's true. But the only reason that we can debate about them, is it because the Bible's not clear on it, or because you've allowed human tradition to become an authority?

35:38

I mean, is it really that unclear? Is Romans 8 really that unclear that those who are quarrying the flesh can not submit themselves to the law of God?

35:50

They are not able to do so? Is it really that unclear?

35:58

Or are there some pretty powerful traditions at work? Yeah, so my concern here is just with the presuppositionalism, if they're remaining consistent by not borrowing from these other arguments.

36:10

Now remember, what has Dr. Oliphant said all the way through this? What has he said all the way through this?

36:17

Because of our belief that Christianity is true, and therefore everything that exists is an argument for our

36:24

God. Because Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, every fact that is a fact is the fact that it is because God made it that way.

36:35

Then we can bring everything in. Because you're talking to a person who's created in the

36:42

Imago Dei. They bear the image of God. That means they cannot consistently interact with God's world based upon an ungodly worldview.

36:56

I mean, you know, I've told the story a million times about my encounter with Eric up at I think it was Bradley University outside Chicago.

37:04

The only reason I remember that is because Algo said it in channel yesterday. He said it was

37:09

Bradley. That sounds right. It was a guy's name. I knew that. Anyways, remember, I'm talking with Eric, the atheist, young guy, and I sort of let him talk, let him talk, let him talk, and eventually he gives me what

37:19

I need to respond to him. I dive in and I start identifying where he's been inconsistent.

37:26

He's the sophomore philosophy guy, you know, and there's nothing more dangerous or foolish than a sophomore philosophy student.

37:35

Remember what I used as one of my primary direct arguments with him?

37:42

His coat. His jacket. Yeah, if you haven't heard the story,

37:49

I was emphasizing to him that he was stealing from my worldview, he was stealing from my

37:55

God, that he was responsible to God for that, and that he was not going to be able to live consistently with his worldview.

38:06

He had actually made the argument at one point that he could not even prove that his jacket existed, and he had motioned to this nice brown or black leather jacket, and it was very cold outside.

38:15

You know how it can get in Chicago. Very cold outside. Windy and just that, you know, 19 degree air with the windchill thing, it just cuts right through you.

38:25

And so I said to him, I said, for example, you said you can't even prove that your jacket exists.

38:31

However, I can assure you of one thing. When you leave tonight and you walk out that door into that freezing cold, you will take your jacket.

38:40

Because my worldview explains why you will, and your worldview doesn't. And I pray

38:45

God will convict you every single time you borrow from his world to prop yours up.

38:51

And it was like deer in the headlights. This guy is expecting to get arguments about the cosmological argument or maybe a little ontological stuff or whatever else it might be.

39:02

And instead, I used his jacket as an argument. And yes, he did take his jacket.

39:09

And so Dr. Oliphant has said, we bring all this stuff in, but it's the way you, it's the presupposition upon which you do so.

39:22

I did not ever grant to Eric the autonomy to choose whether God exists or not.

39:35

And that's why I just don't think Kurt's hearing that.

39:40

Unless they thought that there was intrinsic value to these arguments. Yeah. Okay. So reassure Kurt here,

39:46

Scott, on why you don't believe there's an inconsistency in the way you're using different arguments to sort of complement the presuppositional approach.

39:56

Yeah, thanks. Well, let me just say again that I think that the main problem, the main problem, capital

40:02

M -A -I -N, out there is a misunderstanding of what a reformed approach is to apologetics.

40:08

And this goes all the way back to the time of the Reformation. But the approach that I teach, that Van Til taught, that we use here incorporates anything and everything that is going to be useful in the discussion of the truth of Christianity.

40:22

So we've always done that. It's not an inconsistency. It's what the approach does. But in incorporating those things, we don't do that with any supposition of neutrality or probability.

40:31

In other words, I'm never going to tell an unbeliever that the Resurrection is probably true 99 .9%.

40:37

There. That is really, really important. In fact, I outlined it. Listen to it again.

40:43

What the approach does. But in incorporating those things, we don't do that with any supposition of neutrality or probability.

40:49

In other words, I'm never going to tell an unbeliever that the Resurrection is probably true 99 .9%.

40:55

Now, why is that? Because they really, they push back on that. But why is that?

41:03

Why is it that Dr. Oliphant's not going to say that? Because once you start utilizing that kind of argumentation, you're no longer standing on the firm ground that says

41:16

God is the creator of all things. You have not only granted creaturely autonomy and, in essence, granted the creature the ability to judge the existence of God, but you have likewise said that facts really aren't facts.

41:29

God really isn't the creator. God really hasn't spoken in Jesus Christ. It's the old, you know, it's the incrementalism of the natural theologian where you try to get him to agree with a little thing and then a little something farther on, a little something farther on, to where the final commitment to gospel truth is the end of a lengthy line of human reasoning.

41:59

It's not based upon the certainty of Revelation. It is a lengthy line of human reasoning, and every person who's tried it has encountered individual after individual after individual that ends up taking a left or a right or a series of lefts and a series of rights somewhere along the way so that there is, in essence, no way to get them to where you want to go.

42:24

We've all seen it happen. Because it isn't. That's a false statement. It's not probably true.

42:30

It's absolutely true. And so what I want to do is try to approach people from the standpoint of the truth of the matter and not some probability quotient.

42:36

In the same way, I'm not going to tell people that Jesus probably atoned for their sins or that God probably exists.

42:42

On that basis, would you then not use, say, what I wrote at the beginning, this

42:48

Bayesian probability statistics surrounding the likeliness of the resurrection being the correct hypothesis for the empty tomb and so on?

42:55

I mean, would that just be a dead end for you? Would you use that, acknowledging that it may be helpful, but that you are actually coming from the point of view that, of course, there's no doubt whatsoever in your mind on it?

43:06

Yeah, well, there would be no reason to use it, partly because the probability calculus itself is skewed depending on a person's background knowledge.

43:13

So it has as much foundation as a person's background knowledge. And the second point is the only conclusion I could come to would be a false conclusion.

43:18

That is that Jesus probably was raised from the dead, and that's false. And it's not just because it's in my mind.

43:24

It's because that's what God has told us. And I think, again, we're trying to move people. You know, just to put it as simply as I can, the same way in communication of the

43:32

Gospel of Evangelism, if I don't tell the truth, then the Spirit is not going to use what I say in the context of a person's conversion or, you know, in a realm of life or a stench of death.

43:44

And so my goal in apologetics is not to win an argument. It's not to beat somebody intellectually.

43:49

It's to communicate the truth of Christianity, not theism, the truth of Christianity that connects with the truth that God has already given to these people by virtue of natural revelation.

43:59

So if I could connect those two truths, then from a human perspective, I've been successful, and then

44:04

I trust the Lord with the conversion. Yeah. Now, again, another major issue, and we've talked about it many times before, is why do you do apologetics?

44:16

And obviously, we all recognize that apologetics and evangelism are intimately connected.

44:22

I think they're absolutely necessarily connected. And sadly, in Western culture today, in light of the rapid development of rabid anti -Christian epistemology—and really, these days, epistemology?

44:44

I mean, just rabid Christophobia. It's not thought.

44:50

It's not like anybody's actually considering epistemology. It's just this amazing development that we've been observing and will be experiencing.

44:58

In light of that, I think it's going to be easier and easier to make the connection that when you're seeking to evangelize, that you are going to have to engage in apologetics, because the society in which we are seeking to do this is soaked, soaked.

45:16

It's marinated, absolutely marinated in anti -Christian, anti -God thought.

45:27

And in the Church, when God does, by His power, draw people to Jesus Christ, man, we have to recognize that a discussion of worldview issues, a discussion of what worldviews are, a discussion of the

45:46

Christian worldview, and what is it to have the mind of Christ, that cannot be for some kind of advanced class anymore.

45:55

That has got to be pretty much every Sunday, because we've got to realize our people are going to be coming into those services having been pummeled by the kinds of anti -Christian vitriol that is becoming the norm in Western society.

46:18

So, very, very important. Have to have to keep those things in mind. I very much appreciate

46:23

Dr. Oliphant's comments there. One last, very short section here, and we will finish up.

46:28

My goodness, I've spent 45 minutes. What am I? Yeah, anyways, it's really weird for me to see

46:36

Rich in the chat channel, listening to the dividing line. I think this may be one of the first times this has happened, actually.

46:44

Sort of strange, odd feeling, but at least I'm glad I've got the channel so that I can actually know.

46:51

Yep, still working. Yep, it hasn't stopped working. I just hope it's recording.

46:57

I hope somebody out there is recording it, because this may be the only time it's ever heard, because I'm pretty sure that I started it, but you never know when you're doing it solo.

47:07

We'll see. So, Scott, I think you're conflating two issues. I agree with you, you know, the crucifixion happened, but the question epistemologically, how do we know that it happened?

47:19

And so here, this is where... Oh, the resurrection. Well, yeah, the resurrection, or you could, I guess... Now, this is a good place to stop, to end, because this is right toward the end of the program, anyways.

47:31

But I want you to hear this. In fact, I've told y 'all before,

47:38

I use this program called Audio Notetaker from Sonocent, I think it's called, to cue these things up. It is the best program for doing this kind of stuff in the world.

47:47

Of course, I'm not sure how many people do this kind of stuff, but over on the side, I can put notes that identify as the blocks of audio.

47:56

And so I can assign a color to these blocks of audio. And so here's where he talks about this, and I can put a note over on the side.

48:04

And I will tell you, the comment in the notes section right next to Dr.

48:11

Olyphant's response here is, kapow. Now, that's not a Vulcan word.

48:17

No, that has nothing to do with Amik Time or anything like that. Oh, man, I just really demonstrated that I'm a complete tricky.

48:23

But anyways, it's kapow, as in the comic books. You know, when

48:29

Batman hits somebody, kapow! Yeah, there you go. So here is the one real kapow moment right toward the end of the program that, well, you'll hear.

48:44

He's a crucifixion, huh? You know, when we do history, this is where we get this Bayesian probability theory coming from the evidentialist approach.

48:50

So the question still remains, you know, how do we know on what basis can we think that this is historically true?

48:58

And I just think that a lot of people are going to find your response to be wanting and unconvincing that, well, you just got to, it almost comes across as if you just have to believe.

49:08

Whereas these robust probability arguments, I think, lend to credibility that, yeah, these are reliable.

49:14

And that's all we need to know, that it's reliably true. And then we can let the Holy Spirit work in us to give us this 100 % certainty that it is true.

49:23

Now, the kapow's coming right up, but I do want to comment. It's reliably true.

49:31

It reminds me of how William Lane Craig and Mike Licona and this whole

49:37

Biola group try to get around the defense of the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture by saying,

49:45

Now, I'm not presenting in my debate today, I'm not presenting the Bible as the Word of God, and we don't have to talk about that.

49:52

We don't have to talk about alleged contradictions and stuff like that. I'm just presenting these as reliable historical documents.

50:01

And then they go from allegedly reliable historical documents to the deity of Christ, which, of course, is a divine revelation that would require not just reasonably reliable historical documents, but an actual divine revelation.

50:20

And their opponents catch them on it. They catch them on it. As well, they should. I'm like, yeah, go atheist on that one.

50:30

And that's what you should do. These are reliable. We'll work on that certainty stuff later on.

50:36

Okay. Okay, here's the kapow, and it's barely, it's less than a minute long, so here we go.

50:42

Yeah, well, you know, Richard Muller makes the point in his Post -Reformation Reform Dogmatics Volume 1 that the most significant reconstruction of the

50:50

Reformation from the Roman Catholic position was in the area of epistemology and in the question, how do we know?

50:56

And reformers made clear that we know only by virtue of God's revelation. So the epistemological question moves us inexorably to what

51:03

God has said. It doesn't move us to a probability calculus, which itself is relative to the person who's doing the calculus and their background knowledge.

51:11

And that's going to vary from person to person. Now, you probably, I'm afraid the vast majority of the audience did not, would not have read that as a

51:23

TKO. Okay, but I sure would have, if you really know what

51:32

Dr. Oliphant just said. I think it was just either being too nice or too scholarly, because,

51:38

I mean, the majority of people listening have not spent much time with Richard Muller and Post -Reformation

51:46

Dogmatics and all that kind of stuff, but, and probably, you know, I mean, these volumes are expensive, maybe they don't have them in their long -ass library, whatever it might be, but what he just said was,

52:01

Mr. Jaros, you sound like a Romanist. That's what he just said.

52:08

He just said, you know, the questions you just raised, the objections you just raised, that's what the

52:15

Jesuits came up with to fight the Reformation. And of course, he's right. That's exactly right.

52:23

Um, but I'm not sure that Mr. Jaros was aware of that. But this is,

52:30

I mean, is it really any amazing coincidence that William Lane Craig has made such amazing statements about Roman Catholicism?

52:43

We've covered him over the years, you know, for a while I was reviewing his Sunday School Lessons and things like that.

52:54

He's made, you know, when he talked about the Council of Trent on Justification, well, you know, I can see this, you know,

52:59

I've got a little bit of a difference there, you know, just this playing footsie with Rome.

53:06

Does it all the time. And then, of course, what is Mullenism? What is the very essence of his apologetic and theological methodology but an invention of the

53:16

Jesuits? And it's funny, you have these radical fundies out there who are strongly anti -Roman

53:26

Catholic, but they're also strongly anti -Reformed. And they love to try to make the connection between Calvin and Romanism on the basis of Augustine, you know,

53:36

Dave Hunt and stuff like that. Where if they were really thinking about it, and they're really serious about it, what they would do is look at this and go, whoa, wait a minute, these folks are really borrowing from the

53:57

Roman Catholic system. And they're borrowing from the Roman Catholic worldview and the

54:02

Roman Catholic view of man. Yeah, that's true. That's quite true. But that's why

54:09

I called it Kapow. I put, Oliphant identifies Jairus' epistemology as Romanist and anti -Reformed.

54:18

Of course, he didn't use those terms, but that's what I said. So yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

54:26

So once again, I appreciate all the very positive responses that we have gotten from many people over the past couple, just since yesterday, on this particular subject.

54:42

Obviously, it is a subject that we have addressed many, many, many, many times over the years. And that's one of the reasons, probably,

54:47

I don't address it repetitively, but it is important.

54:54

And we do need to do it with regularity because of the fact that individuals do struggle with this particular concept, and they wonder why there are so many different kinds of apologists out there and why there seems to be little clicks.

55:14

And I've had a lot of people who said to me, well, there's this big apologetics conference coming up here, and these are the folks speaking, and I even asked them why they hadn't invited you, and they looked at me really strangely.

55:28

And I have to explain to them that I don't, I do not get invited to, I don't even get invited to many reformed conferences, for that matter, because I'm considered a loose cannon or, you know, whatever.

55:44

Sadly, a lot of folks will believe what they hear about me rather than actually taking that up with me and finding out whether it's true or not.

55:50

But certainly, when it comes to apologetic conferences, yeah, I'm very rarely invited a speaker for the obvious reason that I am

55:59

Reformed, and then consistent with that, I am very much into the appropriate apologetic methodology that consistently flows from Reformed theology.

56:12

Whatever terminology you wish to use for that, presuppositionalism, covenant apologetics, whatever you want to call it, it is what we have been discussing on this particular program.

56:22

So we'll try to remember that probably every three or four months or so, it would be good to do a program on that.

56:31

Look, I'll be honest with you, the topic material of this program is driven by current events,

56:40

Supreme Court decisions, you know, things like that. People forwarding me blog articles, news articles, dropping

56:49

URLs into the channel five minutes before the dividing line starts, whatever else it might be. And so people providing information, my own reading, my own

56:57

RSS feeds, things like that. And then, of course, what it is I'm studying, what I'm studying as far as preparation for debates, what

57:04

I'm studying as far as preparation for preaching, and that kind of stuff.

57:12

And that's pretty much, you know, I do not have some list that says, well, the last time you talked about presuppositional methodology was such and such.

57:19

I know I have. And some of you actually run the

57:24

Wayback Machine, and you could tell me when. There are people like, yeah, Algo does. Algo remembers every one of those programs, which, again, frightens me.

57:36

Every once in a while, I'll wake up at night, cold sweat, and the first words out of my mouth are

57:41

Algo. And then I try to get back to sleep. But anyway, that really doesn't happen.

57:46

I was actually making that up. I hope you realize that. I just about said the phone number, but that would be really silly.

57:53

No reason to do that. I actually think it might work. I think I might have had the phones queued up there, but I'm not going to.

58:03

I mean, because I can control the phones from in here. I just don't think I opened up the phones out there.

58:09

So it'd be sort of silly for me to do that. So I won't tell you what the phone number is. But we do have, believe it or not, we still have another half hour on the program today.

58:19

We're going for a jumbo today, and that's going to allow me to get back to some of the comments of Yusuf Ismail.

58:26

And someone might say, are you being consistent with what you just said about all the rest of that stuff and how you deal with Islam?

58:35

Well, I certainly believe that part and parcel of a demonstration of the incoherence of an entire theistic system is to engage with its argumentation, especially because the argumentation of Islam against Christianity and against the deity of Christ, against the

58:51

Trinity, is inherent to its own scriptures. That is, it is part and parcel of the text of the

58:58

Quran and of the Sunnah of Muhammad, the Hadith, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's part of exactly what it is.

59:09

Rich just says, he forgot how to shut it down, so he just has to keep going. So evidently, I'm going to have to be here until tomorrow morning when

59:18

Rich gets in. Yeah, live DL until tomorrow morning. Yeah, we ought to try that sometime.

59:23

You know, we've never done a telethon. Remember telethons?

59:30

Do people do telethons? Because remember the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon?

59:36

That was big when I was a kid. Man, that was big. Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

59:42

That was big TV, which meant, of course, that was before cable and stuff like that.

59:51

But we ought to do the Alpha Omega Ministries Telethon Radio Webcastethon.

01:00:02

How long could he go? Call in, and when you make a donation to Alpha Omega Ministries, he has to go another certain amount of time and try to make sense for 12 hours straight or something like that.

01:00:25

It was sort of like, what was that recently in the Senate? The Rand Paul did the filibuster.

01:00:33

That would be fun. We could do the—we would not call it

01:00:40

Praise -a -thon. No, no, no, no. That would—no, I draw the line someplace. But once you wipe out the

01:00:47

Ministry Resource List, then I leave the air or something like that. Or if you wipe out the Ministry Resource List, then

01:00:53

I have to stay on for another two hours and find something else to put on the Ministry Resource List while talking to you all the same time. That would be sort of fun.

01:01:02

But yeah, well, yeah, I guess you would need—well, we could live stream it. We could do video, and that would be sort of cool.

01:01:11

Hey, if it works for NPR and they get tax money, and I guarantee you we don't, so why not?

01:01:18

That would be sort of fun. We'll have to think about that sometime. I said think about it. I didn't say we'll do it.

01:01:23

I just said we'll think about it. Anyhow, going back to the Yusuf Ismail debate, I need to make more progress here because I also want to get to the

01:01:32

Bashir Varna debate as well. And October is approaching at amazing speed.

01:01:39

I didn't do a British accent. I did not do a British accent. I can do a wonderful British accent.

01:01:46

But these days, my best accent is my German accent because, well, when you live over there for a while, it helps a lot.

01:01:59

And maybe I'll have to just do the rest of the program at some point in time in German.

01:02:05

That would be very, very interesting. But we will not do that. Sehr interessant, yeah? But we will not do that at this particular point in time because we don't want to have everyone stop listening.

01:02:16

We need to get back to Yusuf Ismail. I'm going to slow this down because his accent is such—I'm going to go back to 1 .0.

01:02:24

Because his accent is such that I think for some folks it's a little bit hard to understand what he's saying because he speaks quickly enough as it is.

01:02:32

So I'm going to take that back to regular speed. Craig, when Jesus faced death on the cross, according to Christian belief, did he face it with a human belief that he would be raised on the third day?

01:02:46

Or did he face it with the infallible knowledge that he would be so raised? If he believed with human faith in God's power to raise him, then he himself was not

01:02:55

God. But if, on the other hand, he faced death with the infallible divine knowledge that he would be resurrected, then he was not taking any real risk.

01:03:04

Not taking any real risk. Where is it in Christian theology that the validity or reality of the cross is based upon the risk being taken?

01:03:14

This really reminds me of how often I have heard

01:03:20

Muslims quoting from Psalm 22 and completely misunderstanding what's going on when

01:03:27

Jesus says, Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani? And if you haven't seen it, the two debates in Dublin from back in February, that same question came up in both audience questions, question periods in both debates,

01:03:41

University College Dublin and Trinity College. And check out how I responded to that. I think every

01:03:48

Christian, certainly if you are a regular listener to The Dividing Line, you should be ready to give a response to that.

01:03:56

You really, really should. You should be able to hit that one. You should be hoping that that objection comes up.

01:04:05

Seriously. Um, because it is a wide open door, wide open door to the gospel.

01:04:14

Really, really is. In letting himself die. Because if the divine nature in him knew he would be raised, but Jesus did not know that, then it was not his divine nature.

01:04:25

If the divine nature knew something he did not, then we are back to two persons. So explain that to me.

01:04:33

To say someone is both perfect and imperfect at the same time is to say that X and not Now remember, we already pointed out last time that we were listening to Yusuf Ismail, we've already rejected, uh, identified, refuted and rejected the perfect imperfect material.

01:04:47

He is assuming that if it's creaturely, it's imperfect. And therefore he's created a contradiction that actually does not exist.

01:04:54

But that's part of the argumentation we've already dealt with. Not X can both be true. And that's obviously abandoned logic.

01:05:02

Let's look at this. The story of the fig tree. Jesus was hungry. Now, I will,

01:05:09

I will be honest. Uh, you know, I want Yusuf Ismail to listen to these, uh, these programs and to hear what

01:05:18

I'm saying. I want to have the best debate we can have in South Africa, but I will be perfectly honest with you. Yusuf, if you listen to this.

01:05:24

When I hear a Muslim raising the issue of the fig tree, and believe me,

01:05:34

I've, this has been going on for a long time now. I can show you the video from 1999 where he had a

01:05:39

Muslim person ask this question during the question and answer period. It just demonstrates to me that they are, they are not doing their homework.

01:05:50

They're, they're just not doing their homework. They're not opening their ears. They're not hearing.

01:05:55

They're not understanding. They're just going with what they've, the traditions they've been taught within their own about what's wrong with the

01:06:01

Christians. And that's no more respectable than Christians within the

01:06:07

Christian community, just going on what they've heard about Islam. So it's

01:06:16

Seeing in a distance a fig tree leaf. He went out to find if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves because it was not the season for figs.

01:06:24

Then he said to the tree, may no one eat fruit from you again. Now, the problem

01:06:29

I've got with this is that it's easy to understand that the human Jesus felt hunger and that the human

01:06:35

Jesus did not know it was fig season and so mistakenly expected the tree to have fruit. It never says anything about being mistaken.

01:06:43

Even his disciples didn't understand what it was Jesus was doing. And it just, it's just frustrating.

01:06:52

I mean, it's almost, I can't, I'm going to have to put some thought into trying to find a parallel bad argument against the

01:07:03

Quran. I'll have to go find some bad Christian books on the Quran or something to try to come up with one.

01:07:09

But it just, it's so frustrating when someone, because it's not all that difficult.

01:07:16

I mean, if you've been following the arguments of the synoptic gospels, it's pretty obvious why

01:07:22

Matthew and Mark talk about the fig tree and the cursing of the fig tree, what the fig tree represented, going into Jerusalem, the

01:07:30

Jewish leaders appear to have fruit. They don't have fruit. The cursing of the people, the destruction of AD 70, it's all right there to anybody who really wants to honestly deal with it.

01:07:42

And it just strikes me that when Muslims use this argument, they are demonstrating that they don't want to honestly deal with the

01:07:47

New Testament text. And maybe they've just never heard a good response to it in the past.

01:07:53

I don't know. But it's frustrating. The divine Jesus would have known all of this. Now his miracles or the cursing of the tree, they say, are performed by his divine nature.

01:08:04

Okay, so let's assume that the divine... No, it's performed by him. He's one person. This dividing them up, going, well, is that the divine nature?

01:08:11

Is that the human nature? Is something that the scriptures never do, and you're only doing it because of your presupposition that says that God can never become flesh in the first place.

01:08:19

The divine Jesus cursed the tree. But why? Why ruin a tree, which in Mark's view was a perfectly good tree?

01:08:26

Come fixed season, the tree would have fruit and others would have eaten from it. Because it represents the nation of Israel, which, of course, appeared to have fruit.

01:08:37

But it was only show as all the conversations Jesus is going to have in the temple precincts and the parable is going to tell and the interactions he's going to have with the

01:08:46

Jewish leaders will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. The reason was that the human

01:08:51

Jesus made a mistake. But why did the divine Jesus act upon the mistake of the human

01:08:58

Jesus? Why does the divine Jesus... It's amazing anyone could read the text this poorly, this badly.

01:09:09

I mean, these are the same folks who will accept the redaction critical methodology of examining the

01:09:16

Synoptic Gospels and saying, well, you know, here Matthew is showing embarrassment for something

01:09:22

Mark said. Well, then why on earth would this still even be there? This is a complete misreading of the text that nobody in the early in the early context who read these things would have ever come up with this reading at all.

01:09:37

This is eisegetical reading to the nth degree. To act upon the mistake of the human

01:09:42

Jesus. Does the human mind in Jesus guide the divine nature in him? Actually, there's no warrant for all the speculation, for scripture nowhere says that Jesus has two natures.

01:09:53

Some will say that everything is possible with God and that we are using words here with... Yeah, let's not worry about, for example, the ease with which the

01:10:01

Apostle Paul could say, and they crucified the Lord of glory. Now, exactly how do you do that?

01:10:08

Unless the Lord of glory has a human nature to be crucified, and yet the Lord of glory himself is not by nature human, right?

01:10:18

I mean, there seems to be two natures there. They crucified Lord... Well, anyways. But the meanings, that's true.

01:10:24

Everything is possible. But if you tell me God did such and such a thing, that's fine. But you cannot say that God did and God did not.

01:10:32

He is and he's not. Jesus is all knowing and he's not all knowing. Jesus is all seeing and he is not all seeing.

01:10:40

Therefore, I would say impossible. See, Randolph Ross concludes. So the question is this, is that Randolph Ross continues on this particular point that...

01:10:51

Again, I just point out that Yusuf Ismail has to draw from a naturalistic worldview and a naturalistic author as a

01:11:00

Muslim to make his arguments against the New Testament. And I continue to await the first consistently

01:11:08

Islamic apologetic. Because all

01:11:13

I'm encountering ever since Itzar al -Haq in the middle of the 19th century is

01:11:20

Islam saying, you know what? We can't argue against Christianity on our grounds.

01:11:25

We will argue against Christianity on the world's grounds. And then we will reject that kind of thinking in defending the

01:11:32

Quran. And once you admit you have to use those double standards, the debate's over.

01:11:39

If you want to wish to redefine some words, that's fine, as long as you can tell us the new meanings.

01:11:45

The usual practice, however, seems to be to say that while one cannot say precisely what these new meanings are, one is nevertheless sure they fit together in a way that makes sense.

01:11:54

That's simply an effort to duck the requirements of logic. Are you basically saying Jesus is X and Jesus is

01:12:00

Y? X and Y being two unknowns? That's basically to say nothing at all. This is a individual called

01:12:09

William Ellery Channing, one of the many Christians who have moved to that scriptural position that Jesus is human. Now, notice again, we don't get the right to define

01:12:18

Christianity. If you do not believe in the deed of Christ, you're not a Christian. If you do not believe that Muhammad is a prophet, you're not a

01:12:25

Muslim. But they, of course, will claim the right to define Islam. But we don't have the right to define

01:12:31

Christianity. Double standards again. Says where do you meet in the New Testament the phraseology which abounds in Trinitarian books in which necessarily grows from the doctrine of the two natures of Jesus?

01:12:42

Where does the divine teacher say this I speak as God and this is a man? This is true of my human mind and this of the divine.

01:12:50

See, that's one of the problems in reading heretics is heretics don't get it either. Where do we find in the epistles a trace of the strange phraseology?

01:12:58

Nowhere. It was not needed in that age. It was demanded by the eras of a later age. This is an interesting figure.

01:13:05

This is actually Dr. Craig's doctoral advisor, John Hick. He authored a book with a number of theologians called

01:13:12

The Myth of God Incarnate. And in it, what John Hick has come to the conclusion that basically like many theologians, many practicing theologians, that Jesus himself was just simply a man, a prophet of God.

01:13:26

Anyone who still has doubt on this particular matter should read that particular book. And no, he's not a modern -day

01:13:32

Hindu, Dr. Craig, as you seem to suggest with Dr. Butterwee. No, but he is a modern -day heretic and not a

01:13:40

Christian believer. That's pretty obvious. He is someone of standing and this book has been co -authored by many other learned theologians.

01:13:47

In fact, I'm quite... Notice, if you're a liberal, you're a learned theologian if you actually believe what the

01:13:53

Bible says and you're a fundamentalist. So if you're consistent, then if you're a liberal

01:13:59

Muslim, then you're a learned theologian. But if you actually believe what the Quran says, then you're just a Salafi or fundamentalist or something like that, if you're consistent.

01:14:08

But that's the problem. We don't get consistency. I'm interested to know which biblical scholar of note today, within one of the major seminaries, in fact, subscribes to the view that Jesus is divine.

01:14:20

Wow! Wow! Well, we could spend the rest of our time on that one.

01:14:30

But seriously? Really? How about the entire staff of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, the entire staff of Westminster Seminary in Escondido, the entire staff of Trinity Theological Seminary, the entire staff of Dallas, the entire staff of Masters, right there, if we just started reading all those names, that would take up the rest of our time right there.

01:14:53

How about just that? I mean, it is amazing when Muslims get the idea that real

01:14:59

Christianity, don't they recognize as supernaturalists themselves, don't they recognize that they are contradicting their entire worldview by elevating these people to be representatives of Christianity?

01:15:19

I mean, here is a man who actually believes that Jesus formed little clay birds and breathed on them, they flew away.

01:15:30

Show me any serious theologian in any university who believes that,

01:15:35

Yusuf. To be consistent, you'd have to do that if you're going to make this type of argument.

01:15:41

Otherwise, why are you making this kind of argument? I mean, I realize if all you're concerned about is getting your followers excited, then this is great stuff.

01:15:53

But I'm one of those folks that keeps reminding Muslims, one of the 99 beautiful names is Al Haqq, the truth.

01:15:59

You got to be consistent. And the inconsistency here is amazing. I'll put the open challenge, and this is a beautiful church.

01:16:11

If you can show me one verse in the New Testament where Jesus says, I'm God, or where he says, worship me. Or in the context of tonight's debate,

01:16:18

I am both man and God. I'm prepared to be baptized tonight. I don't speak for. Okay, that's obviously borrowed directly from Akhmeddida.

01:16:29

We have pointed out the vacuous nature, vacuous, empty nature of this so many times.

01:16:40

That it's, you know, to demand specific words is irrational. And to ignore, as Yusuf Ismail does in this debate, the entire body of testimony in the

01:16:52

New Testament to the deity of Christ is just not meaningful argumentation.

01:16:59

Listen to my debate with Abu Alrub, Sheikh Abu Alrub, and Jalal Abu Alrub, and you'll see exactly how this works, because he said the same thing.

01:17:13

You cannot begin to read the New Testament documents and come to the idea that Jesus is merely a prophet.

01:17:23

So many things he says and does, all the ways he is described, point us to the fact that when the early church confessed that Jesus Christ is

01:17:35

Lord, and confessed that he was the eternal Son of God, and then confessed that he was homoousius, of one substance, of the

01:17:43

Father, this was not something that they were making up. This was the ancient understanding from the apostles themselves.

01:17:53

It is what the New Testament teaches. There is no question about that. Paul can say that in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and call him our great

01:18:01

God and Savior. There's no question, even from Bart Ehrman's perspective, that at least

01:18:06

John clearly believed in the deity of Christ and taught the deity of Christ. But there is absolutely no question either that the

01:18:13

Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Luke present Jesus as a divine person.

01:18:21

The Son of Man from Daniel chapter 7 is specifically put into the lips of Jesus Christ in his trial, so much so that the

01:18:31

Jews, even though Bart Ehrman can't get it, the Jews got it and tore their clothes and said, what need is there of further testimony?

01:18:39

You've heard the blasphemy yourselves. They understood who the

01:18:45

Son of Man was in Daniel chapter 7, and it was, I think

01:18:50

I put a video up, I know I did a sermon on the subject, a couple sermons on the subject, just hop, skipping, and jumping through the

01:18:57

Gospel of Mark and the number of places you come to in what's allegedly the most primitive gospel that scream out the deity of Christ.

01:19:09

I truly look forward to the opportunity of defending this divine truth and certainly hope and pray that Yusuf Ismail and the other

01:19:23

Muslims in the audience will hear, will examine their traditions, what they've been taught, and will hear what the truth actually is.

01:19:33

For my Muslim brethren here, I don't speak for any, but I'm saying show me one particular verse where he says that.

01:19:41

Is there any greater than God? Does anyone believe anyone's greater than God? Jesus says, my

01:19:47

Father is greater than I. In John, my... That is the last half of a verse,

01:19:54

John 14, 28. The first part of the verse said, if you loved me, you'd have rejoiced.

01:20:03

When I said that, I'm going back to the presence of the Father, for the Father is greater than I am. So the point is that Jesus, having come forth from the

01:20:11

Father, having accomplished that which the Father intended for him to accomplish, is going back into the presence of the

01:20:20

Father. And if you were going to read this in the same way you would demand, rightly and morally, that the

01:20:27

Quran be read, then you would read John chapter 17, where Jesus likewise states that before creation itself,

01:20:38

Jesus existed in the very presence of the Father and shared his glory. That's why he's going back to where he was before, and that's why if the disciples loved him, they would rejoice.

01:20:51

It is an abuse of the text of the Bible to take sentences and cut them into parts and ignore the previous part of the sentence.

01:21:10

I try my best not to do that with the Quran, because I honor the truth. I ask my

01:21:16

Muslim friends, stop doing it to the Bible, if you honor the truth. Our Father is greater than all.

01:21:22

In Numbers 23, 19, God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.

01:21:28

Yes, Numbers 23, 19, a text I've used many times with Muslims. But of course, if what you're saying is

01:21:34

God is not a man, has something to do with the Incarnation, then you don't understand what we believe, do you? Because we do not believe that God has eternally been a man.

01:21:42

We believe that God has eternally been God, and he created mankind, and that he has the power and capacity to take on a perfect human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, and that's what he did.

01:21:52

And so Numbers 23, 19 has nothing to do, nothing to do whatsoever with the

01:22:01

Incarnation of Christ. God is not a man that he should lie. He's God able to do everything.

01:22:08

Yes, Jesus says of myself, I can do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of the

01:22:15

Father that sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that bear witness, another.

01:22:22

I mean, if you are— John chapter 5, again, being abused. That's why we have entire videos on YouTube about that as well, because if you actually read

01:22:33

John chapter 5, you're going to discover that it starts off with Jesus claiming in John 5, 17, the right to work upon the

01:22:45

Sabbath the same way the Jews understood God did. My father's working until now, and I am working, and the

01:22:52

Jews understood he was making himself equal with God. And the entire rest of the discussion is not how Jesus is merely a prophet.

01:22:58

The entire rest of the discussion is how there is an absolute unity between the Father and the Son, that the

01:23:04

Son is not some separate deity. He's not out there trying to get followers for himself, that he does exactly what the

01:23:09

Father has assigned for him to do, that there is a perfect unity between the Father and the Son. But it also says that you must honor the

01:23:16

Son even as you honor the Father. Do you, Yusuf Ismail, honor the Son as you honor Allah? And you know the answer to that question.

01:23:25

So you don't believe what Jesus taught in John chapter 5. That's why you have to assert that it has been corrupted, even though you have absolutely, positively, not a scintilla of textual evidence to even begin to suggest that what is written in John chapter 5 is not what the

01:23:46

Apostle John himself wrote. John, the

01:23:52

Gospel of John, earliest attested of the Gospels. If you're going to say, well, it wasn't written by a real disciple of Jesus, then we just simply have to ask the question, where are the disciples of Jesus that you think were the true followers of Jesus?

01:24:11

What did they write? Show us the first century documents of the true followers of Jesus, Mr.

01:24:16

Ismail. Or did they fail? Have you ever looked at what the

01:24:22

Quran says about the true followers of Jesus? Hmm, interesting question to consider.

01:24:28

Saying that his humanity, his divinity was purely incidental, then why is it he goes out of his way to emphasize his humanity?

01:24:36

God knows everything, of course. Jesus says, but of that day and hour knoweth no man, know not the angels in heaven, neither the

01:24:43

Son, but the Father. I see in the lecture which I will be dealing with in the rebuttal section, Dr. Craig seemed to suggest that, well, look,

01:24:48

Jesus is now placing himself above the angels. But I think you're reading into scripture.

01:24:55

Well, there certainly is. I've pointed out many times, and maybe

01:25:01

Algo would be able to tell me how many times we have dealt with Math 24 in this statement in regards to Islamic apologetics.

01:25:08

I certainly have lost track of it. But one of the things that I have pointed out, and maybe Craig has pointed out the same thing,

01:25:14

I don't know. But one of the things I have pointed out, repetitively, is the fact that no

01:25:22

Muslim who believes the Quran could believe Jesus ever said the words of that text.

01:25:27

Isn't that interesting? One of their favorite verses, they would have to, if they were consistent, say, well, no, we don't really believe

01:25:35

Jesus ever said that. Why? Real simple. Jesus would never have referred to himself as the son who is exalted above angels in the way he does in Math 24, if the

01:25:51

Islamic understanding of Jesus is correct.

01:25:58

If the Quranic Jesus is the real Jesus, then no, he could never have said that.

01:26:05

So why is it that you have to quote verses that you don't even actually believe

01:26:12

Jesus said? It strikes me as very odd. And maybe that's what

01:26:17

Craig was saying, too. I don't know what he's referring to. But besides that, in the Quran, we are even told that man is placed on a higher level above the angels.

01:26:25

Why? Because he basically has a choice of free will, which angels don't have. So man is seen as higher than angels.

01:26:31

So in other words, if you were to agree with that, Dr. Craig, then you'd simply be confirming the Islamic belief. I think if, to be really honest there, he would have to deal with the use of the term son.

01:26:42

Especially in light of the Quranic teaching that to ascribe a son to Allah is a great evil.

01:26:48

It causes the mountains to quake and the entirety of creation to be turned upside down.

01:26:53

I mean, it uses very poetic language to express just how wrong it is to ascribe a son to God.

01:27:02

But of course, the real question is, is the understanding of the author of the Quran, of the nature of sonship, even slightly relevant to what

01:27:10

Christians believe? And of course, we've demonstrated many, many times it is not. Which, again, raises the rather obvious problem.

01:27:18

And that is, what did the author of the Quran understand? Which the Muslim says is irrelevant because the author of the

01:27:24

Quran is God, and therefore God understood everything. But if the author of the Quran is God, then God would have understood what

01:27:30

Christians believed about the relationship of the father and the son, and would have criticized in a meaningful fashion. But where in the

01:27:36

Quran do you find that criticism? Wherever we find the issue of sonship raised, that's not what we find.

01:27:44

We find a very physical understanding, rather than a meaningful understanding of the relationship of the father and the son, how it's eternal.

01:27:57

It's a relationship issue. It's not a creation issue, all the rest of these kinds of things. Well, somehow we made it through a jumbo dividing line today with only me at the controls.

01:28:11

Now, if you're listening live, there is a possibility you will be the only ones who will ever hear this if I didn't get things recorded right.

01:28:20

But if so, well, hopefully it was useful to you anyways. And I would be disappointed if that was the case, but hopefully it will not be the case.

01:28:30

But thanks for listening to Dividing Lines today. I think we will be—I'm going to try my best to do

01:28:41

Dividing Lines the regular time next week, as much as possible. But they will be

01:28:46

Skype Dividing Lines, and they'll be from New Mexico. So we'll see. I'll do my best.

01:28:53

Gotta recognize—well, I know I can't do it Thursday because I'm traveling Thursday. We'll try to do it on Friday once I get up to Evergreen, Colorado.

01:29:01

So that's how we'll try to figure that out. But thanks for listening to Dividing Lines today. We'll see you sometime next week.