Show with Interviews from the 2019 G3 Conference Part 1: Sye Ten Bruggencate & Rich Pierce

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing

the Church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens

another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with

your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, Champaign County, Illinois, and

the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at

ironsharpensironradio .com.

As you've probably realized by now, this is not Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Nevertheless, I wish you all a happy Thursday on this 19th day of December, 2019.

My name is Eric Nielsen.

I serve as the webmaster for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I'm filling in as guest host while Chris

is attending the Foundations Conference in New York City.

For the past few years in January, I've had the opportunity to attend the G3 Conference and

man the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio booth along with Chris.

It's always a great time to meet the listeners of this show and to hear how God is using Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio in their lives.

I'm planning to be there again this year, Lord willing, so I hope that you will stop by the booth and

say hello to us.

Every year at the G3 Conference, Chris has taken the time to do several live interviews during the

conference at the Iron Sharpens Iron booth.

It's a really exciting dynamic with the noise of the conference in the background.

We are there face -to -face with men and women who are passionate about the ministries that they

are involved with and the way that the Lord is using them.

This past January, Chris did almost five hours of interviews with people like Si Ten

Bruggenkate, Rich Pierce of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Pastors Andrew Smith and Brian

Fairchild, Phil Johnson of Grace To You, Michael S. Miller, Pastor Austin Huggins, Andrew

Rapoport, and listener Daryl Updyke.

We hope to play several of these interviews over the next days.

In the first interview of the day, Chris speaks with Christian apologist Si Ten Bruggenkate.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here again doing another interview on site here at

the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor's booth at the G3 Conference in College Park, Georgia.

That's G3 2019.

And I have returning as a guest to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio my friend Si Ten

Bruggenkate who has been on this program before.

Si is the founder of Absolute Apologetics, and he is well known in the

apologetics community by anybody who's anybody as a champion of

presuppositional apologetics.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Si Ten Bruggenkate.

Well, brother, thanks so very much for having me.

As you can see, I'm losing my voice.

It's been a great time at this conference.

We've been talking to a lot of people, and it was just wonderful to see you again, brother.

Amen.

Well, the obvious question since it's been a while since you've been on the show, and

presuppositionalism is not a term that every Christian is going to understand.

And also, I have people who are not even Christians who listen to the show.

Right.

So why don't you define presuppositional apologetics?

In fact, even if you want to start before that, define apologetics and then define

presuppositional apologetics.

Well, apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which means to give a defense.

So if you're accused of a crime in ancient times and you're brought into court, you would give your apologia.

It's not apologizing for what you believe, but it's actually giving a defense of what you believe.

And the best way that I could define presuppositional apologetics is to give an example.

And I say if I am talking with an unbeliever, and I would put a fossil between us, for example,

then the unbeliever would look at that fossil and say, well, millions of years.

And the believer might look at that fossil and say, Noah's flood.

The same evidence, and we look at that, you know, you could have PhDs on both sides, and one will conclude millions of years,

and the other one will conclude Noah's flood.

But it's the same evidence.

Why do we have different conclusions based on the same evidence?

And of course, the person assuming it's from Noah's flood would assume it's thousands of years ago.

Correct, yes.

So same evidence, different conclusions.

Why?

Not because of the evidence, but because of the beliefs we take to the evidence.

Our foundational beliefs are pre -beliefs.

So our foundational beliefs are what we call our presuppositions.

So rather than examining the evidence, which we will interpret according to our pre -beliefs, I like to examine our pre -beliefs.

And I say that without God, you can't make sense of those beliefs, because the unbeliever wants to examine evidence to

determine whether or not it's true.

And I would say, fine, where do you get truth without God?

If we're just bags of advanced primordial slime, where do you get truth?

And they'll say our brains are evolved meat computers, for example.

And they'll say that our thoughts are the byproduct of the electrical chemical processes in our evolved brains.

And Doug Wilson comes up with the experiment and says, if you took a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and you shook them and you opened them, they start to

fizz.

Which of those fizzes would be true?

And of course, neither would be true.

It's just fizz.

But according to the evolutionary theory, the unbeliever must be fizzing atheistically, and I'm fizzing

theistically, and they want to say that my worldview is not true.

And I say, where do you get truth from?

Brain barf.

Now, the biggest competitor to

presuppositionalism is evidentialism, and perhaps if you could define that.

Well, I would say evidentialism would be using evidences and arguments in order to

prove to the person that God exists.

And of course, my question that I've asked, and probably previous on the show as well, where do you often hear evidences out in the world?

You would hear the term evidence used in the court of law.

And I say, in the court of law, who do you give evidence to?

You would give it to the judge or the judge and jury.

So if an unbeliever comes up to you and says they don't believe in God, or they believe in other God, and we give them evidences,

who are we saying is the judge?

We're saying that they are the judge, and in what seat in that courtroom do we place the Lord of glory?

We place him into the criminal's box, and we place God's defense attorney in their blasphemous courtroom.

And the problem is, we can win that court case.

God has given us wonderful evidences.

We can acquit God, but who's the judge?

And I think that's the great danger in evidential apologetics, because the Bible says everyone already knows that God exists.

The Romans won't.

So when somebody says to me, I need evidence for God, this is the question I ask them.

I say, which evidence could convince you of the God.

Who says you already have enough evidence?

I can recall years ago, I don't remember who it was, but a presuppositionalist

apologist, or perhaps it might have even just been an ordinary Christian who was a presuppositionalist, but he said,

everything is evidence.

Bonson said that, he said, we're the ultimate evidentialists, because we don't say special evidences point to God.

We say you cannot make sense of evidence unless you start with God.

So we say all evidences are evidences of God.

But I would say that any argument which merely concludes God is not a Christian argument, because

Scripture says from him and through him and to him are all things.

So I say God is not a God you can reason to.

He's the God that you can't reason without, because we have logic, we have science, we have morality.

I say who owns all of those things?

Jesus Christ owns them.

He is necessary for all of them.

And I'm not going to give those things to the unbeliever in order to argue against the Lord that I adore.

I refuse.

Now, when you consider the fact that some of our brethren in Christ who

even share our Reformed theology, and some of them are among the most brilliant of our

Reformed brothers, R .C. Sproul for one, John Gerstner

for another.

Of course, they're both presuppositionalists now.

But when they were alive here on earth, they were not only evidentialists,

they were anti -presuppositionalists, and even wrote a book, both together, on

that subject of opposing presuppositionalism.

Well, brother, since we're on this show, I'm going to give you an answer which I find quite ironic.

When I think of this answer, because I've been asked this question before, I think about you and your show.

Because Greg Bonson actually debated R .C. Sproul.

And it's one of the most wonderful debates that I've heard because they both loved each other.

They both agreed on 95 % of what they believed.

But they differed on apologetic methodology.

And I said, that for me was the clearest example of, wait for it, iron sharpens iron.

Because if Greg Bonson agreed with everything that R .C. Sproul said, what a dull conversation that would be.

Sadly, somebody has to be wrong.

And, of course, I will gladly attest to who I believe was wrong in that debate.

And I encourage people to look up that debate, Greg Bonson versus R .C. Sproul, and it was just a wonderful exchange.

Now, why does this even matter?

I mean, people will say that about a lot of things.

They will react to even the differences between Calvinists and Arminians.

They may even go as far as to say, what is the real big deal

about the Roman Catholic view of justification and the reformer's

view?

In fact, we know that there are people who say that because even people like Rick Warren, who is a Southern Baptist and

one of the top -selling Christian authors in the world, even he doesn't

think that that is all that big of a deal, the differences that we have.

Hank Hanegraaff, from The Bible Answer Man, didn't think it was that big of a deal and still

doesn't, in fact, convert it to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Norman Geisler doesn't really think the differences are a big deal.

But, of course, I'm going off track here.

We're talking about presuppositionalism.

But people will think that that's even less of a reason to be concerned about a difference that you

have with a brother.

My concern is that when I hear people arguing that way, I hear them arguing for a

God that I don't believe in.

And hopefully it's a God that they don't believe in either because in church we will say, nothing can separate me from the love of the

Father.

Tears streaming down our face.

What a beautiful verse.

Nothing can separate me from the love of the Father.

And then we go out into the world and the next day we say, I could be wrong.

But if I'm wrong, I die rot in the ground.

Worms eat my body.

If I'm right, I get to go to heaven.

If you're right, you die rot in the ground.

Worms eat your body.

If you're wrong, you go to hell.

What have you got to lose?

The day before we're talking about a certainty of God.

Nothing can separate me from the love of the Father.

The next day we go into the world and we say, I could be wrong.

If you could be wrong, you cannot say nothing can separate me from the love of the Father.

And I encourage people to look at all the evidential arguments.

They're all probabilistic.

And I don't believe, I don't worship a probability.

I say, can you imagine if somebody said that, you know, I have a wonderful, loving relationship with my wife.

I'm just not sure she exists.

You have every right to question that person's relationship, if not their sanity.

And so what I find is that people, when I debated that way, when I talked that way, I was talking about the God that

the world wanted me to talk about.

They wanted me to talk about a probability.

They didn't want me to talk about the certainty.

And I think Christians sadly gravitate towards that because a probability is not offensive.

Yeah, in fact, when I think about the most prominent

evidential apologists today, and I don't want to name names because they're not here to defend themselves if they disagree with

what I'm saying.

I'd love to have them on sometime to defend themselves.

We should arrange that, brother.

Arrange that.

Yeah, I would love to.

But very often their primary focus is to convince

atheists not in Jesus Christ and his deity or the Trinity or the

salvation that he provided for his people on Calvary through his shed

blood and his bodily resurrection.

It's typically just to prove to atheists that there is a God.

Right.

And to me that's, well, so many pagans believe that.

There are many people in false religions that believe that.

That is no real colossal achievement.

But Scripture says they know not that there's a God, they know the God.

They have sufficient knowledge of the God for their condemnation.

So if we try and convince them that there's a God using their autonomous reason, we've given up the very thing we're trying to prove

that their reasoning is not autonomous, that they need God for reasoning.

So we give up the argument at the outset.

We do it at a very high price because if you convince them that a God exists, they do it based on

their authority.

And we're trying to convince them that they're not the authority.

And I say that's a huge problem because even if you win the argument, you lose.

Now how would you define what is taking place

at a debate, for instance, between our mutual friend and brother, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries,

who is a self -professing presuppositionalist.

He's debating somebody like Bart Ehrman, an agnostic on the reliability

of the New Testament.

And Dr. White will use evidence in that debate.

He will bring up ancient manuscripts and he will discuss how

that we have more evidence that the New Testament is authentic than

we do any other written document in history.

We have more certainty or evidence that proves the reliability

of the New Testament or the authenticity of the New Testament than we do of the works of

Shakespeare and other things.

Now why would a presuppositionalist, when he is having an exchange on

that issue, it's not on the existence of God or the person and work of Christ, it is on something like

the reliability of the New Testament.

Why is that appropriate for him to be perhaps even using an overhead

PowerPoint?

Of course, James would be laughing at me now because he uses something that is technologically light years beyond that already.

And I don't know the name of it, but it's something that Mac created.

But if he's using one of these visual presentations, proving certain things,

how is that not a departure from presuppositionalism?

Are Canadians allowed to take the fifth?

Well, my point was, where does

presuppositionalism insist that we're not supposed to use evidence in every discussion with an unbeliever?

No, absolutely not.

First of all, you know that I love Dr. White.

I would consider him a friend, and he was here as well.

I got to see him, and I'm like a kid in a candy store.

Even seeing you face -to -face, I think it's really cool to be able to sit here because last time we did it on the phone.

And of course, I give a shout -out to my brother in Australia, Alan, who loves your show, because I do a lot of these podcasts.

Where in Australia?

He's currently in Brisbane, or I think near Brisbane.

So, Alan, how are you doing?

I'll have to give you a call sometime.

One of the things that Dr. Bonswell said, that evidences are helpful in clearing away

intellectual debris.

So some people have a certain issue about a certain aspect of scripture, and you say, look, I will

clear this away in order that we can get to a gospel presentation.

And you do that, and then they say, well, what about this one?

What about this one?

And I say, here's part of the problem.

Maybe I shouldn't say problem.

Dr. White is way smarter than me.

And the thing is, he can answer those type of questions, whereas I can't.

So I would say that I am an ultimate presuppositionist because a lot of those answers I don't even know.

And I would say to a Bart Ehrman, if you don't believe that the Bible is authoritative, by what authority are you

going to claim that the Bible is not authoritative?

Because it will have to be yourself.

So would I engage in a debate like that with Bart Ehrman?

No.

But I think it's wonderful also for Christians to see certain questions that are asked about scripture and how we

might answer them.

But I don't think that's necessary for our salvation.

And I think that when somebody watches a James White debate, it gives them great confidence in scripture.

I think it really bolsters their faith.

But I think a lot of people will also say, well, I can't do that.

And they'll watch me argue with somebody about the authority of scripture and say, well, I can do that.

He's an idiot.

You know, so I think what Dr. White does is something that I can't do.

And I think to the degree that I can do it, I think that I would probably not do it.

But I'm thankful for someone like Dr. White because who do I go to if I have a question about scripture?

I go to Dr. White's work.

You know, I go to something like CARM, for instance.

And I don't know, we've been talking with them quite a bit over the last couple of days.

And I say, you know, those are wonderful resources for Christians.

Would I engage an unbeliever on that level?

You know, probably not.

But I think next time you have Dr. White on the show, you could say how that jives with presuppositionalism.

But as you know, I love him dearly.

I was in the studio a little over a month ago and we had a great time together.

Yeah, and another thing that just popped up in my head is what it seems to be

indicating.

When a presuppositionalist is showing evidence for some

exchange with somebody who disagrees with them, it's usually to rebut or disprove a lie

that's being told.

Yes.

Like, for instance, the most typical lie that I have heard from Roman Catholics in

regard to patristics is that the Church Father is

unanimously consented on everything that the Roman Catholic Church has dogmatically

declared and teaches.

And that could be very easily disproven.

Exactly.

By saying, well, are you kidding me?

I could show you volumes and they could break out the writings of the Church Fathers and even show

them on a screen for all to see that there are many things that the Father has believed

that Rome does not believe and there are many things that Rome believes as dogma that many of the Church Fathers

did not.

Well, one of the things that Bonson brought up in his uses of evidence, and I think this would apply to Dr.

White, for example, is to embarrass unbelievers with their ridiculous objections.

Right.

Dr. White can do that.

I can't.

He can embarrass them with their ridiculous objections to certain elements of Scripture and I think that's a valid thing

to do with unbelievers and it's just something I can't do.

One of the things that I have personally found to be valuable in regard to

presuppositionalism is that if somebody is consistent in their approach, especially if you're

speaking to somebody who is your peer and you're talking about things like

God and salvation and the Bible, it prevents, of

course, nothing when we who are fallible, sinful humans are doing anything.

We can't be perfect in using the tools that we have to prevent something.

But it is more likely to prevent your opponent from dragging you into rabbit trails.

Would you agree with that?

That could be the death knell of nearly any conversation that we have with

those who object to Christianity.

It's typically when the person gets frustrated because the opponent demands

that you answer every question that they're throwing at you and they could be on a whole wide spectrum of things.

You know what's very interesting, and you'll see this.

Knowing the industry that you're in, there are a lot of evidential type apologetic radio

shows.

There aren't any presuppositional ones because the conversation is over very quickly.

There aren't any?

Well, there have been but they don't last long because I was on a radio show.

My friend was on the show the week prior and he was talking about certain Christian things from a more

evidential aspect.

All sorts of callers.

I was on the same show the following week.

Three hours, not one caller.

And the radio host was saying, I don't know what's going on here.

Nobody's calling in.

And I said, I know what's going on.

They don't want to be the next one.

And it's not because I'm smart.

That's what I tell people.

I'm a boiler operator by trade.

I'm a factory worker.

But I argue from the truth of Scripture.

And that's why, like I said, there's not any that I know of presuppositional radio call -in shows because they dry

up really quickly.

It's a radio show killer.

But your show is not one about apologetics.

It's a totally different type of thing.

But I think you'll see that.

And if there's a presuppositional radio call -in show, I'd like to know about it because I don't think there is one.

Wow.

Can you give us any updates on either debates that you've recently had or

ones that you have in the works that are up and coming or anything else?

It doesn't have to be a debate.

Well, I've been under a rock for a year and a half over personal things that we've talked about.

But that issue has since cleared up.

And I'm back in the game, so to speak.

And I've been pretty active in the last few months.

But I've been really convicted over just the last few weeks to finally write my book.

And now that I'm saying on this show, you know, it's out in the public.

People have to hold me to it.

And please pray for me as well because I quit my job 10 years ago to write a book.

And I've discovered since then I'm not a writer.

But I'm also very thankful that I didn't write it

10 years ago.

I'm thankful that I didn't write it five years ago because it would have been entirely different to the book that I have a real passion to write now.

So I've been on the road basically for the last 30 days.

And I was home only for a few days.

But when I get home, it's something that I really want to dig into and finally write that apologetics book.

And I have a few opportunities.

Even being at the conference here, a lot of people have asked me to come and speak.

And I have an opportunity to go to Japan in April, which I'm really looking forward to.

So no debates on the horizon, but not a lot of people line up to debate presupposition.

It's the same thing with the radio show, you know.

They don't want to be the next one.

Now, when you say you were invited to Japan, you were invited by a Christian group in Japan?

Well, there's a fellow who goes to the Apology of Church, and he's a baseball player in Japan.

And I had a wonderful talk with him, and he's invited me to come there and help him with events.

No, he's an American fellow.

Yes, he used to play in the major leagues.

Because I know that they do import a lot of our athletes.

Yeah, he played in the major leagues in North America, and now he's very

popular in Japan.

And he has opportunities to share the gospel in Japan that missionaries who have been there for 30 years don't have.

And even before I met this gentleman, I've had a passion to actually talk to professional athletes

because they're the type of people who will get some part in the expression, snot -nosed atheistic

reporters to stick a microphone in their face to try to get them to look like an idiot, and they normally

succeed.

And I want to encourage people to argue to defend their faith in a powerful biblical

fashion.

And so I have a real passion, and I'm not talking about this gentleman in particular, but just in general to reach people

at that point who normally don't get people to talk straight with them because of who they are.

And I don't care who a person is.

I will tell them the truth in love, and I hope that people will really gravitate to that.

And one of the things I loved also doing was prison ministry.

In prison ministry, people don't have anything to lose, and you can tell it to them straight.

And I found that they eat it up.

And I've not done that with professional athletes, but it's something that I would love to do because I think that they also have people that don't tell it to them

straight.

And anybody who's familiar with my work will know that I'm not afraid to tell it to people straight.

Amen.

One of the reasons why I was pleasantly surprised to hear about your invitation to Japan is

that I can recall on the old Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio program out of New

York, when I'm in New York, I got an email from a Japanese woman after my

interview with a friend of mine who is one of the few

Christian experts that I've ever met that has a thorough knowledge of the

Unification Church.

And this woman was thanking me for having this interview because it just was an extraordinary blessing to

her because she was in that cult, the Moonies as they're known, and

she became a born -again believer.

In fact, she became a born -again believer through James White's ministry.

I don't even know if he knows this.

But she was devastated and depressed because she could not find any

church anywhere remotely near her that was not a Roman Catholic church

to join and to become a member and to worship Christ and so on.

And she told me in the letter that less than 1 of the population of Japan is

Christian.

That's correct.

And that's one of the reasons I desired to go there.

And I've been studying the culture a little bit and it's been very fascinating because they're very kind people and they don't like

controversy.

And I heard, I was talking to a Japanese missionary who came to visit my church and he was sharing the gospel with people on the train

and they agreed with everything he said.

Even to the point of saying that they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they agreed to it because they did not want to be

controversial.

And of course, the minute he walked out of their presence, they would have rejected everything.

So I want to go there and by the grace of God, hopefully blow it up.

Of course, I don't want people to think, not literally, but I want to go there and tell them I didn't come

here to share my opinion.

I came here to give you the truth.

And I'm thinking of writing a gospel tract that says 2 plus 2 equals 5.

I say, would you accept this?

If you go to a bank and ask for change for a thousand yen and they give you three pennies or whatever the equivalent is,

you would not, you know, at that point you would stick on an absolute.

You would say, no, that is incorrect.

And I say, well, this is much more important than change in a bank.

This is where you will spend your eternal destiny.

But the thing is, you know, I've talked to some dear brothers as well and they say, we have to respect, you know, their desire not to be

confrontational and thank them for it and congratulate them on it.

However, say at this point, if you agree with me simply to agree, then you're doing me a disservice and you're doing God a

disservice.

You need to examine this and you need to put your trust in Jesus Christ before it's too late.

And that's a certainty.

It's not my opinion.

I'd like you to list some things that you have available, resources

that you either personally created or are involved in,

or just things that you just strongly recommend.

Well, people can visit my website, which is ProofThatGodExists

.org.

And you can see on the front page, there's links to two films that we've done, How to Answer the Fool is one of them.

And another one is Debating Dillahunty, which is a documentary on a debate that I did with a fellow named Matt Dillahunty, a pretty

prominent atheist.

And if you go to the multimedia section there, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of hours of me

engaging people on the streets from hopefully a biblical presuppositional method.

And people can check those out and hopefully be edified by them.

And like I say, there's also a recommended books page where I encourage people to go and pick up books that I haven't written.

But I hope that by the end of this year that will change and I'll be able to recommend the book that I've written.

We need to take a short break to hear from the sponsors who make Iron Sharpens Iron Radio possible.

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This is Sy Ten Bruggencate.

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

And my friend Chris Arnson and I are excited to be attending another G3 conference together in Atlanta, Georgia.

Thursday January 16th through Saturday January 18th.

On a theme that is vitally important to all of us, worship matters.

I'll be on the speaking lineup with Eric Thomas, Joel Beeky, Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson,

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We now continue with Chris's interviews from the 2019 G3 Conference.

He is speaking to Cy Ten Bruggenkate.

Before we go, and we'll have you repeat your website again at the end, but I would like you to,

I know this might be somewhat difficult to

encapsulate a dialogue that demonstrates presuppositionalism,

but, and I know that conversations can vary amongst people, but I think that very often

there are repeated arguments that are typical when you strike up a

conversation with your average American, or North American in your case, a Canadian,

who has been brainwashed by liberalism especially.

There are often regurgitated, ridiculous

comments that are made, and perhaps I shouldn't have said that, they're not all ridiculous, there are people who have genuine

questions about things that they are baffled by, so I don't want to say that they're all ridiculous, but if you

could just briefly give us a run -through of a conversation, perhaps like meeting somebody on a

train or anywhere else, in a restaurant perhaps.

A number of years ago I did some evangelism with Living Waters, Ray Comfort's group there, and I was at an ambassador's academy,

and there was about 50 of us evangelists on a bus, and we went to Newport Beach, and people are

surprised to hear that I'm an introvert, but I am rather introverted, I don't really like crowds, and I was the

first off the bus, and I walked away from the crowd of evangelists who were about to share their faith, and this fellow came up to me on his bicycle,

he was in his 50s, he said, what's going on over there?

I said, I don't know, a bunch of crazy Christians sharing their faith or something, I don't know.

And he says, oh no.

I said, yeah, I'm one of them.

And he did exactly that, he started to laugh, it was a wonderful icebreaker, and then he said to me, two of my brothers

committed suicide, he got real serious.

He said, I shook my fist at God, I hated God, I swore at God, and then I concluded, there

could be no God, no God would take my brothers.

And then he showed me a book that he'd purchased a few days before at the dollar store, it was a book on Hinduism, it was in the

basket of his bicycle, and he opened it and he showed me, and it was underlined, it was dog -eared, he was loving this Hinduism, he

was loving this Brahman, this oneness of being, and he said to me, what do you think of Hinduism?

And Hinduism is one of the easiest religions to logically refute, but I didn't.

I said, tell me sir, is that the God you were mad at when your brothers committed suicide?

And do you know what he said to me?

Nothing.

He started weeping.

People do not go to other religions to find the truth, they go to other religions to run away from the God that took their brothers.

And I think that's, you know, it's a very simple discussion.

I've been training this woman in Pennsylvania, and it's happened to her twice, she does street evangelism.

A person would come up to her and say, I'm an atheist.

And she says, no you're not.

And they drop their heads, you know, a lot of times they'll admit that.

They might not admit it, but it doesn't matter, we speak the truth to them in love, and that's why we say it's a Reformed apologetic.

Because there's two types of people in this world, there's goats and there's sheep.

And nowhere in scripture does it say goats become sheep.

Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice.

So we need to give people sheep food.

And the problem is that the world rejects sheep food.

So what do most Christians do?

Here, let me give you some goat food.

No.

We keep presenting the truth of the gospel to them.

Jesus said, I will give you words and wisdom that your adversaries will not be able to resist or contradict.

Luke 21, 15.

And I say, I know why you've asked me to come and speak at a conference, because in John 10, 27 Jesus said, my sheep hear sighs, really good

argument.

He said, my sheep hear my voice.

And brothers and sisters, we need to get back to that.

We need to study our Bibles, and we need to answer people with the truth of scripture, because that's what God uses to

convert people.

And that's basically presuppositionalism in a nutshell.

Amen.

Well, perhaps if you could, before we go, and before you repeat your website,

if you could respond as a good presuppositionalist to the age -old question

that is probably the most often asked questions by those who are

either atheists, agnostics, or perhaps they just have a

very twisted religion that has some kind of belief in a

superior deity, but it's not the God that we know in the scriptures.

But they will say, and it somewhat hinges on

the conversation that you just gave us as an example, but the specific question is,

how could there be a God of love who permits the kind of evil

things that we see in the world every day?

You see, as a presuppositionalist, I look at what the person is standing on.

So they will say, how can there be a God who would allow the evil that we see today?

And I look at what they're standing on.

That question assumes that they believe in something called evil.

And I say, if you're just a bag of evolved pond scum, what is evil?

Because what one bag of evolved pond scum does to another bag of evolved pond scum is totally

irrelevant.

I say, in order to know what evil is, you have to have an absolute standard of good and evil, and you can't have that without

God.

So when you complain about evil, you're already borrowing from the God that you know exists in order to

call something evil.

So I'll look at their foundation, and I'll remove it from them.

I'll say, where do you get evil without God?

I'll be happy to talk about it.

Believers, this is a discussion I have with believers, because I try and reconcile how bad things happen

with a good God who has ordained these things to happen.

But I say, if you're not a believer, there's no such thing as evil.

There's no problem of evil to an unbeliever because there's no such thing as evil to an unbeliever.

If morality can be stipulated, which is the atheistic worldview, why can't anybody stipulate their own and say, well,

what you call evil, I call good?

So the very question presupposes God, and that's the God that I believe in.

I'm not going to put him on trial.

And I say, if you want to answer that question, fine.

You have to become a Christian.

Well, how about if we remove evil from the equation and we refer to things

that are called, even by weathermen and anchormen on news reports, secular news programs, they're called

acts of God.

People who die in the thousands, perhaps on some occasions millions,

from horrific things that occur like floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes.

You could go on and on.

Or disease, something that is morally neutral.

Disease is not a good or an evil thing.

It's just a thing that can harm or kill people.

How do you respond to the person who says, how could there be a loving God that permits such

sadness in this world that comes in the aftermath of the

loss of life through disease and these acts of nature or God, as they may be

called?

Right, well, they're quite simply moving the goalposts.

I say, well, what's wrong with any of those things?

An atheistic world, what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with acts of nature in which people die?

What's wrong with that?

But to a Christian, I say, we live in a fallen world.

These are results of the fall.

And the thing is, it depends on...

Because it's not a cookie -cutter approach.

Because people will approach me with all sorts...

They might have a genuine question as to why there's evil in the world.

By any means.

And I might tell them a story like this.

I'll say, would it be evil for a man to stick a knife into the chest of a 3 -year -old girl?

And they say, oh yeah, that would be evil.

I say, I'm going to give you a little bit more information.

This girl, she has a heart defect.

She's going to be dead in a week if she doesn't have surgery.

But she lives in a country where they have to pay for the surgery.

And they can't afford it.

So this girl is going to die.

The mother goes on national TV and says, I need help.

My daughter will be dead in a week if she doesn't have this surgery.

A world -famous heart surgeon sees that from half a world away.

Says, I'm going to do this surgery.

Pays for the flight to fly this girl to his hometown.

Pays for the hospital room.

Pays for the attendance.

This girl is on an operating table under anesthetic.

And the knife he's about to stick into her chest is a scalpel.

He's about to save her life.

I say, is that man evil?

And they say, no, it's the most loving thing you could do.

I said, 30 seconds ago you told me he was evil.

What's the difference?

The difference is now you have all the information.

I say, who has all the information?

I say, God has all the information.

So when I see even natural disasters, I trust in a God who works all things for the good of those who love him.

I say, what better reason than to put your trust in a God like that.

To know that even the garbage that happens in your life has a purpose for good for those who love him.

And I trust him.

Because I've had things happen in my life.

Even the thing that I was talking about the last year and a half.

I watched my father rot away for seven years from adult diabetes.

Lose both his legs.

And I went to, I remember the day that he died, I was in the funeral home.

And I said, you know, in a way I'm glad my father's gone.

Because he was in a lot of pain.

And the woman said, my mother had eight brain tumors.

And I was glad to see her go too.

I said, oh, you don't understand.

If my father wasn't a believer, I'd want him to live forever in that agony rather than die and go to hell.

But I don't know why my father experienced this pain.

But I trust God.

And you know what, so did my father.

And I know that he's with him today.

And that's a beautiful thing.

So why is there evil?

I give the same answer that God gave to Job.

Where were you, Job, when I created the universe?

Where were you, Job?

He goes on and on for two chapters.

And what does Job do?

He put his hand in front of his mouth.

I spoke too soon.

So in the ultimate sense, I don't know why there's evil.

But God does.

And I trust him.

Amen.

One final question that popped into my head that I didn't even think of earlier is

presuppositionalism, to your knowledge anyway, the exclusive property of Christianity.

Are there any other worldviews, religions, or even just secular humanism

where you have some apologist or representative of those

non -Biblical worldviews, non -Christian views who are actually utilizing some

presuppositional.

Methodology?

I've heard that there are some.

But people also say, you have a presuppositional view but how do you know that it goes to the God of the Bible?

I say, you don't understand what I'm saying.

I'm a presuppositionist.

I do not merely conclude the God of the Bible.

I start with the God of the Bible.

Now there are other worldviews like Islam.

I've heard that there have been Muslim presuppositions.

I've never run into one.

But then I would go again to their presupposition and I would show how their presupposition actually assumes the truth

of my presupposition.

And if you go to my website you can see how we deal with Muslims for instance.

But I would say to the Muslim, what does the Quran say about the Bible?

A lot of Muslims don't know that but the Quran says that the Bible is a previous revelation of Allah.

They say it's the Word of God.

And I say, well why don't you believe the Bible today?

They say, well it's been corrupted.

I say, oh really?

What does your Quran say about whether the words of God can be corrupted?

They say it can't.

I say, so you've got a big problem.

Because if the Quran is true, the Bible is true.

And because the Bible is true, the Quran is false.

And that's how I address something like that.

But you don't even have to get that philosophical.

Everybody should be able to do that.

So I really have a two -step approach when it comes to any objection.

That's not what the Bible says.

That's not what the Bible says.

I don't believe your Bible.

You don't believe it's true?

Step two.

Where do you get truth without the Word of God?

And if the Muslim says the Quran, then I might say, well what does the Quran say about the Bible?

And just expose the emptiness of their presupposition.

Now I'm assuming that you would object to the non -presuppositionalist

who may mock your approach or at least disagree with it

who says that we can't with integrity defend something if we

start with the notion that I believe this just because I

believe it and there is no evidence that I can use to prove it to you,

but I'm just saying that I believe it and I know because of my Bible that you believe it too.

And they may think that that's just maybe circular reasoning or just nonsensical or just something that lacks

integrity.

Because you could have silly answers from all kinds of religious people

as to why they believe things.

Like for instance, you may have a Mormon who just says that I believe in the Book of Mormon because I

believe in it and I had the burning in my bosom so I know it's true.

And that kind of thing.

A lot of people who object to the supposed circularity of presuppositionalism is they don't

see the circularity of their own position.

Because there's a very famous apologist, and I have a clip of him in How to Answer the Fool, where he's doing a class on apologetics,

and he says to the crowd, what can you not use to prove that the Bible's true?

And they all yell out, the Bible!

So I'll go to a conference and I'll stand on the stage and I'll say, what if I said to you I was the strongest man in the world?

I said, you might have suspected it already by looking at my physique.

What if I said I was the strongest man in the world?

And I said to you, what can I not use to prove that I'm the strongest man in the world?

Your strength!

That would be absurd.

If I was the strongest man in the world, I must use my strength or the claim.

Would be false.

So you're saying that at Christian events, Christians are expecting the answer.

The Bible is false.

Right.

But the thing is, we are not saying the Bible is true because the Bible is true.

But the thing is, the ultimate truth must claim to be true.

But what I'm saying as a Christian, reject this one and your worldview is absurd.

So I'm not merely saying the Bible is true because it claims to be true, which it must as an ultimate authority.

But I'm saying, if you reject this one, your worldview is absurd.

And I'll be happy to show you how that's the.

Case.

No, but perhaps you misunderstood my question or perhaps I misunderstood what you said.

But are Christians at events saying that you cannot use the Bible.

To prove the Bible is true?

How to answer the fool, check it out.

It's a clip in the film where he says, what can I not use.

To prove that the Bible is true?

And he's a Christian who's saying this.

Yeah, well, I don't know why I want to mention his name.

Go ahead.

Sean McDowell.

Oh, wow.

What can I not use to prove that the Bible is true?

And the crowd yells out, the Bible.

That's sad here because I know that at least on one occasion, James White was very impressed with Sean about something.

I can't remember what it was.

Can I take the fifth again?

Dr. White, we need to talk.

Well, perhaps it was something that had nothing to do with anything that you would disagree with.

That could very well be.

Well, one thing I think.

That we really...

And by the way, I'm not saying that he is applauding everything.

No.

Or even knows much about Sean McDowell.

He said that...

Do you remember, Eric?

There was some kind of an event or something that Sean McDowell was responding to in the media and

James was taken aback that he agreed with everything he said at that particular time.

Right.

But one thing I think that is important as well...

And this is the son of Josh McDowell.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

But one thing I think is really important too, and you'll notice at an event like this, I think there's too much animosity between camps.

And what we have to recognize is that if I have the proper view of apologetics, what do I have that I've not been given?

1 Corinthians 4 .7.

How dare I lord it over someone else?

I think it's best for me to come alongside them and maybe come on your show and talk about it in a loving fashion.

Because what do we have that we've not been given?

And I think Dr. White is very well aware of that too from some of the stances he's taken, the type of opposition he's gotten from people who claim to

be brothers.

And I think that needs to stop.

I think we need to love each other, sit down, and look at Scripture as our ultimate authority to see which is the biblical, the

God -honoring methodology for defending our faith.

And it is actually jaw -droppingly amazing that a Christian would say

that we can't use the Bible to prove the Bible is true.

It robs the God -breathed words of Scripture

from their supernatural and miraculous power.

And I don't mean this, of course, like the Word of Faith movement uses it, using the words of the Bible

or even just words that they think are compatible with the Bible

as like a spell or a magic proclamation to change

something.

But there is a powerful supernatural element, especially we as Calvinists know this,

that God uses these words that He has breathed to remove hearts of

stone out of lost sinners and replace them with hearts of flesh and to open the

eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf.

Unlike some of our hyper -Calvinist friends who insist that God does not use

means to regenerate dead, lost sinners, we who are

historically faithful to what Calvinism in its majority has always taught and of course much

more than that with the Bible teaches, we believe that there is a supernatural thing that happens with the Word

of God when we proclaim it.

One thing people who are anti - Calvinistic, for instance, they say, why do you share the Gospel?

Why do you proclaim the truth to people if God has ordained where they're going to end up?

And I say, well, does God know if you're going to have a full stomach tonight?

And they say, of course He does.

They say, why do you eat?

Because God ordains the means as well as the ends.

But yes, as far as using the Bible, this is one of the analogies I use in my talks.

I say, what if I said to you that I had the fastest truck in the world and I was going to prove it to you by towing it down the racetrack?

You would say, isn't that tow truck faster?

So somebody.

Wants to prove the authority of Scripture and they want to use something else to do it.

And I'll say, fine, you do that.

What's your authority now?

It's not Scripture.

It's that thing that proved it.

And I say, then if you use something else to prove that the Bible is the ultimate authority, you've disproven your very thing.

You're trying to prove.

And it actually is, even if it's an unconscious effort, it's an

effort to prove that your power of persuasion or your intellect or your oratory gifts

are what are more important than the Scriptures.

I can even remember working for a radio network for 15 years where at

least one of the popular national.

Talk show hosts.

Had a rule for his live colon show.

You could not quote the Scripture.

And he did not use the Scripture to answer questions.

And he said that is a cop -out because it proves that Christians are too stupid to think

for themselves.

Now I think that there is wisdom in not relying upon your own wisdom.

But can you imagine if that person said, okay, you're the strongest man in the world and I want you to prove it, but you cannot use your strength.

You'd say that was absurd.

Why do Christians accept that when they say the same thing about the Bible?

It's crazy.

Yeah, it is insane.

Well, I'd like you now, Cy, to give again, repeat all of the contact information that our

listeners need to get a hold of you, to get a hold of your resources, and get updates.

Proofthatgodexists .org.

Proofthatgodexists .org.

Yes, that's my website, and they can contact me through that.

And if they want to have me come out and speak now that I'm doing this again full -time, I would love to

come out and speak to your church or small group.

I do have to tell people that I do have a minimum audience requirement of one.

Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to return to Honor, Chirp, and Zion Radio as our guest.

This time face -to -face, and I'm so delighted about that.

I look forward to seeing you the next time, whether it be a conference or other gathering, and hopefully the next time

where you are one of the speakers yourself.

Well, thanks very much for having me, brother.

And you know I love you, and my brother in Australia loves you, and I think you're reaching a lot of people with this show, and I really thank God.

For that.

And I thank God for you.

Thank you very.

Much, brother.

Thank you, brother.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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Criticizing.

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This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV, with Phil Johnson of Grace to You, inviting

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Go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com.

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm your substitute host, Eric Nielsen.

Today we are listening to interviews from the 2019 G3 Conference.

The next interview that we will be playing is an interview with Rich Pierce of Alpha and Omega

Ministries, who works with Dr. James White.

Well, it's my third interview on site here at the G3 Conference in

Atlanta, Georgia, College Park, to be more precise.

And I am thrilled to have, returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for the second time,

Rich Pierce, who is the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a man

without whose efforts and labors I'm sure even Dr. James R. White would agree

that ministry would crumble in a heap of ashes.

He is definitely just like my dear friend who was just sitting next to me a second

ago.

He had to get up and do something that I'm not aware of.

But Eric Nielsen, the webmaster of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I could not possibly

conduct a daily program and have the programs available to the

public in an archived fashion and all of that.

I could not do that without Eric's help, which he does on a voluntary basis, and I thank God for him.

But, Rich Pierce, it's such a joy to have you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Thank you, Chris. It's good to be here.

And for those very few people who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio who might not be aware

of Alpha and Omega Ministries, why don't you give a summary description of that ministry?

Oh, goodness.

We are at the core a Christian apologetics ministry, but at the same time,

over the years, what started out in 1983 as a ministry to

reach out to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses eventually brought in Roman

Catholicism a few years later and would eventually become where we had to

describe it differently.

And the description became theology and apologetics.

And now it's a lot more than just that.

It's teaching.

It's theology.

It's apologetics.

It's a defense of the faith on every aspect of the faith.

And we have found ourselves over the last several years dealing with

topics and subjects that I don't think we would have imagined in the early days.

And James is, as you know, has taken on Islam in the last 10 years.

When you and I met, the vast majority of information

that we had on our website, on our, I mean, you may not know this, you know, we got on the

Internet in late 1995.

Wow.

1995.

Before the Wayback Machine tracks, before it came along, we were on the Internet.

And so we go way back in that regard, but

the focus was Roman Catholicism.

It really became the central thing.

And of all the audio files, of all the debates that we had had, which again, you go back to

our trips to Salt Lake City, and it became this routine in Salt Lake City where we would somehow find

ourselves, James, on KTKK radio in Salt Lake City, crammed in this tiny

little room with three or four Mormons all in the air, no air conditioning.

And it's two or three on one in that environment, let alone the callers.

And that's really kind of where a lot of this started.

And then doing debates after that, we started incorporating debates with

Mormons.

And then Roman Catholicism came into the picture.

You had the privilege of, for a decade, arranging many of those debates that Dr. White had with

Roman Catholic apologists.

But the roots of that go back to, well, the fall of 1990,

or the summer of 1990, and then December 1990, James would have had, which would be

the two debates that are really the oldest in our archives, and that was the

debates with Jerry Matitix in Phoenix.

He was with Catholic Answers at the time.

And that was really, I think, the launching pad in not

only the debates, but our ministry to Roman Catholicism and what would snowball

into eventually the great debate series coming along.

And then somewhere along the line, in the late 2000s,

James just decided that he wanted to start looking at Islam.

One of the things that strikes me is James is one of these guys, he makes very hard work look easy.

He really does.

And I have had a number of folks ask me, when James is out of town, he's going to be traveling for the next two weeks,

and we're going to be silent.

I don't have dividing lines to do.

And when he's out of town, people will say, well, why don't you just jump in there, Rich?

You did the review on Layton Flowers and the Romans 9 debate, which actually was a review of the whole debate, not just

Layton Flowers.

But what you've got to understand is where James can come in, sit down in front of a microphone, and

hit the ground running, it takes me weeks of preparation.

And even with that, I can't measure up to his abilities and standards.

I just do my best and try to represent the ministry well.

But when he gets into a subject, what gets him to the point where he can do that

is he pours himself into that subject.

He doesn't just lightly study it.

Okay, so -and -so has written a book on that subject, so I'll go read their book, and now I know what I need to know.

No, he has to go to original sources, and he gets up to his elbows in it, studies it out,

and formulates an apologetic.

All of this is driven through the ability that seems to be

lost on our land.

And it's not just in the Christian church.

It is in our nation.

10, 15 years ago, we kept talking about the phrase, the dumbing down of America.

It was real.

It was true.

And we're now reaping the results of that, where you have what I call an

explosion of ignorance all around us.

And you wonder how in the world people, so many people, can be thinking so

disconnected from reality.

And it's because they have lost touch with the simple concept of critical thinking.

And it is the fact that he is such a critical thinker that he sets a high standard

for himself, and he sits down and he wrestles with these things, and he critically works his way through

it, and then formulates a critical apologetic.

It amazes me when I hear people talk about James being a meanie.

Because the problem is that we all see mean people.

We know what a mean person is, and the concept of ad hominem

argumentation is really a dodge.

It's not being mean.

But then there are those who are just plain mean.

Bomb throwers, we call them.

People who just want to make the other guy look as bad as possible.

James isn't that guy.

James, because he takes a subject on and does critical thinking through it, and then walks his

audience through that in such a way.

And again, if you read his books, The King James Only Controversy, if you read The Potter's Freedom, if you read

all these different books that he's written, James is able to take complex theological concepts

that normally live in a place that's known as the ivory tower.

And Scholar A chats with Scholar B, and they use really big words with one another.

And James can do that.

He doesn't have an interest in doing it.

He wants to be able to take those concepts and bring them to the average Christian, the common

man, who, like me, is blue -collar.

And I don't have the education, not even close, that he has.

But yet I can read one of his books.

I can listen to him on air.

And I can comprehend the need for the rebuke.

That's not being mean.

There are times when that's very called for, and it's necessary.

And it's too far between those times that our leaders

in this day and age resort to that.

But at the same time, James has the ability to take that complex subject and bring

it, not down, but bring it in such a way that you and I can understand it

on a peer level with him.

And that's what makes his work so unique.

So he does the critical thinking thing, and then he brings us along with him in that process,

not only in his debates, in his teaching.

Well, last Friday, no, two Fridays ago, we had James, we did a dividing

line where he is teaching on the TR from Covenant

Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

The Textus Receptus.

Yeah, and he's going through the Textus Receptus stuff.

I don't think we have enough of James in the classroom on video.

We need a lot more of James in the classroom.

And technology has brought us to a place where we could actually do something really amazing.

And here we have Owensboro, Kentucky in a classroom, and they could turn a camera on, actually two cameras, from what I

could tell, okay, and get the audio and pipe it out to me in Phoenix,

Arizona, and I can put that out to YouTube in a

dividing line format.

I just think that's amazing.

But that's James in the classroom, too.

People need to understand.

They think, you know, this guy, he's just so deep, he's just so, his head's so big.

It's not.

He has the ability to take the complex and bring it, bring

us all along with him is the best way I can say it.

And it seems like the time before we talked, I had my current stumping blocks, and this is my stumping block this time

around, and that is the concept of critical thinking.

Now, I'm going to really thrill you here, Chris, because I'm going to use a

name that I'm, like it or not, I've gotten rather

tied to, and that is Dr. Leighton Flowers, okay?

I reviewed the Romans 9 debate, and if you go back and listen, I reviewed the whole debate.

There was a couple of times where I even pointed, James could have done this and James could have done that along the way.

Yeah, I'm one -sided.

I get that.

And Leighton Flowers is a, I guess he could be accurately described as an anti -Calvinist Southern Baptist.

Sure, but I'd rather not.

Okay.

I want to, what Dr. Flowers, I think, failed to grasp in

that review was my bigger picture, a

reason for reviewing it, and that is I think we can do better.

I think Dr. Flowers can do better.

I think he could have done a lot better in what he did in that debate, and he should have done a lot better in what he

did in that debate.

I'm looking at the work product.

I come from that old -fashioned background where you roll up your sleeves and you do the

hard work, okay?

And like I said, I'm that blue -collar guy.

I know how to swing a hammer.

I know how to do the heavy lifting, and you've got to do it, and you've got to do it right.

And especially what if somebody else is going to come and check your work afterwards?

You better do it right.

The work product shows up in the result, and the problem with

what Dr. Flowers did there in response to me, he got really upset with me and how I

was handling his work product, and he took it personally.

That's my review of his response.

I think he took it personally, and because he took it personally, he couldn't see the fact that I kept

pointing to one simple concept.

The way that you handle the Scriptures is a reflection of how you

view the Scriptures.

I'll say it again.

The way in which you handle the Scriptures is a reflection of how you view the

Scriptures.

If you come to the Bible on any subject and your approach is

Tetris, you think you have the liberty to simply take

concepts and jumble them all up in order to formulate a pattern that you like

that comes to your liking.

And that applies to me.

It applies to everybody out there.

If that's your mentality, you're doing it wrong.

You're doing it wrong.

I would personally love to see Dr. Flowers get out of the

Calvinism subject, and I would love to see him actually engage

in something that would require a critical thinking analysis.

And I mean, this is a tough...

In my view, this is a tough nut to crack.

I would like to challenge Leighton Flowers to review and examine and

get into the teachings of Dr. Michael S. Heiser.

Explain to our listeners who that is.

Dr. Heiser, in my view, and from what I've seen, and maybe somebody can come up with a better one than

this, but in my view, Dr. Michael Heiser is the expert in ancient

Near Eastern studies in the world.

I'm sure somebody's going to come up with somebody that...

He is a living individual.

Yes, he is.

And Dr. Heiser has developed, as a result of this,

some interesting teachings as a result.

And my layman's view on this is that he's taken the

Bible, he's taken the Old Testament specifically, and he's incorporated the things and the knowledge that he has

in ancient Near Eastern studies, and he's overlaid the Scriptures with that.

And in that process, he extrapolates

his version of Psalm 82, his Jewish trinity teaching,

and several other different things that are uniquely his, in my view.

They really are.

But the fact of the matter is, Dr. Heiser is a complex man, he is a critical

thinker, and he is no small nut to crack.

So the point would be, it would require Dr. Flowers to take him very

serious in order to unpack what it is that he

teaches and why he teaches it.

When I first met James, I'm going to say late 1986, he was teaching a Christian

training class.

And in addressing subjects like Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, etc.,

he had a saying that, our goal is to learn about the other group,

what they believe, and why they believe it.

It is vital for us that we, in interacting with these people, understand what

they believe at least as good as or better than they do.

And then we understand, learn why they believe it.

We go to their sources, their original sources, and we unpack these things.

And it's through that kind of an approach, again, back to critical thinking, that

equips me, the layman, to be able to go out to Mesa,

Arizona, or to Salt Lake City, Utah, and stand on the corner of the Mormon

temple there and no matter who comes my way, I at least have the

fundamental basics of what they believe and why they believe it, and now I have the

ability to give them a Christian answer.

And with that, I can bring that in direct contrast to what I should be

able to expect them to respond with.

The idea is, just like in a court of law, what kind of question does a lawyer ever ask?

One that he already knows the answer to.

You never ask a question you don't already know the answer to.

And the same goes with sharing the gospel with a cult group or a false religion.

You never ask a question you don't already have the answer to.

Now, that's not a perfect world.

It doesn't always pan out that way.

But the point would be is that you want to have a circumstance where you

are already ahead.

Now, we also had analogies like what I call the freeway analogy.

When I'm talking to a Mormon, for instance, my favorite subject is to talk about theology.

I want to talk about who God is.

So you've got three core central subjects, theology, Christology, and soteriology.

I want to talk about one of those three things, but my chief thing is I want to camp out in Isaiah 43,

44, 6, and 8.

I want to talk about who God is and how he's revealed himself, who he's revealed himself to be.

So you're going along your freeway of talking about God, and the

Mormon shifts gears, and suddenly you find yourself going on an off -ramp.

We're no longer on that subject.

He's changed subjects on you, and now you're going somewhere else.

The idea is I'm going to go with him, but I want to control that off -ramp in such a way as

to either be on Christology or soteriology.

Now, I may find myself sitting there talking about polygamy.

They don't usually do that, but let's say for whatever reason some guy comes walking up, and he

doesn't like Mormons, doesn't know me, and he starts yelling about polygamy.

And now he's totally derailed my conversation.

I'm on the side road, and I'm looking for the next on -ramp to get back to where?

One of three things.

Who God is, who Christ is, what salvation is.

That's where I want to get back to.

Now, for me, personally, if I can use one of the other two to get back to my favorite

subject, who God is, then I'll do that, but I'm going to follow that

instead of hitting the brakes and going, no, no, no, no, no, no, we can't back up the truck, and threatening,

we've got to back up the truck, and I'm not going to talk about that subject.

It's got to flow.

It's got to flow, and you don't get there by simply reading somebody else's work

and deciding you can go out and suddenly be successful doing this.

But again, that comes back to critical thinking.

You know, you hear that noise?

That noise?

Right there.

That noise.

That noise.

People really get surprised when that ring, they

call our number, and I actually answer.

I thought I was going to get a recording machine.

Well, today they get a recording machine because I'm on the air with you.

But that's what that noise is.

We actually answered the phone at Alpha Omega Ministries, and I actually took the email off,

got rid of all that.

It's like, you know what?

Let's just go back to the basics because there's so much in two -dimensional interaction that we

lose track of it, and we lose the contours of conversation.

So I just put the 800 number in.

Anyway, see?

That was an off -ramp.

See what I'm saying?

We just got derailed, and now I'm going to get right back onto my subject because I'm going to find the next on -ramp to where I can talk

about Mormonism and who God is.

The idea, though, is that the critical thinking processes that

my generation was really the tail end of that value

is vital.

It's vital to our communication.

It's vital to our communication with each other.

And back to my hope for Dr. Flowers is

Dr. Heiser's work, if he will focus on the work product of

Dr. Heiser and not on the person of Dr. Heiser.

I really believe that what could come out the other end, if he does it right, could be of great

value to the Christian church.

Listen to that.

Rich Pierce thinks that Leighton Flowers could contribute something of great value to the church.

And I say that after doing six episodes

dismantling the Romans 9 debate and his presentation on it.

I think he handled it in such a way that, frankly, his side has no choice but to

handle it that way.

And I think it's really unfortunate.

But again, I really wonder if after having gone through that kind of a thought

exercise, rolling up your sleeves kind of work that will

leave you sitting in the corner rocking yourself, if you're really

engaging in Dr. Heiser's work and thinking it through, the end result will

be a Dr. Flowers that comes out the other end suddenly realizing the

argumentation that he's been using isn't enough.

It isn't.

And it's going to take another subject of great difficulty for him to come to that point.

But that would be a critical thinking exercise.

I've noticed over the years of arranging debates for Dr. James R. White,

as you were mentioning earlier, he does something that his opponents, I'm not going to say that they've

never done, but it seems to be fewer and farther between that they have done this,

whereas Dr. White will try to read anything and everything

that his opponent in the debating arena has written or if they don't have anything

published that they've written, listen to their lectures or sermons or whatever the

case may be.

He wants to know what his actual, what

the arguments are or the beliefs are of his opponents, what that person really

is teaching and believing, not what the

enemies of his enemy or the opponents of his opponent have said about his

opponent or his opponent's theology, whereas the

debating opponents that James has faced, it is apparent that they have not

really taken the time to read anything that James has written.

If they are opposing the doctrines of sovereign grace, reform theology, Calvinism, actually reading

in depth what those great heroes of that system of

theology have taught in reality, they are typically saturating

their minds only with what the enemies of reform theology have written, and it's not just reform

theology.

It could be any subject that James is defending.

There seems to be a lopsidedness there, and I think a lot of what you were just saying is a result of that.

What you're talking about there, when you were describing that, I immediately thought of the debate with Peter

Stravinsky.

On the one hand, there's two things I want to point out there.

You have a perfect example of how James takes his opponent very seriously,

wants to devour every bit of that man's work product that he possibly can

so that he can learn what does this man believe and why does he believe it.

I want to know everything I possibly can about it.

But it doesn't end there.

That's the thing.

He then turns that over into developing an apologetic

response to that thinking, to that man's own belief system.

And so when you watch the debate with Father Stravinsky, you see a

very frustrated man, and he's frustrated by only one thing, and

that is, this guy seems to know everything about me and I don't know anything about him.

That is very true.

We will return to this interview with Rich Pierce in just a moment after a word from our sponsors.

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Welcome back.

We now return to our interview with Rich Pierce of Alpha and Omega Ministries who

was talking about Fr. Peter Stravinskas.

For me, I get phone calls.

I answer the phones at Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I get phone calls where people will object.

Why are you always picking the low -hanging fruit?

Now, I don't think that Peter Stravinskas is low -hanging fruit,

but there's an element to this that we can't control.

We can't control whether the other side brings their A game or their D

game, whether we're really dealing with the first string or we're dealing with a long bench.

Okay.

You pick a guy like Stravinskas, and you expect to get the A game, and when he doesn't even

take you seriously, it makes for a lesser debate.

The standard here is that we desire.

We have not always held up to this, and Steve Tassi is a perfect example of how low we've

gone simply by taking a friend's word for it.

But the circumstances for our desire is that

we are up against a guy who's bringing the very best that the other side has to offer.

That guy's doing the same kind of work that James is doing.

He's over there with his sleeves rolled up.

He's devouring everything that James has ever written on this topic, knows inside and out

what James is going to say and why he's going to say it, and has developed an

apologetic in response.

If you actually had a circumstance where we could put a debate on where both sides did that,

I believe in boxing you call that a battle royale.

The fact of the matter is the result would be the very best

informative debate that the audience, which is who this is for, that the audience can get

out of it, that you put up on YouTube and people watch over and over and over.

You ever watch that movie that just has so many intricate points that you have to watch it

over and over and over to catch it all?

That would be one of those debates.

And unfortunately, Peter Stravinsky didn't bring his A -game that day.

He didn't take James seriously.

And instead of the Roman Catholics deciding, hey, you know what?

We've taken this guy way too for granted, and we shouldn't be, and we need to

redouble our efforts.

We need to be offering up the best guy that we have to offer, and that guy needs to be doing this kind of work, and

if we have to help him do it.

Instead of doing that, they just shut it down.

They make the slanderous accusations that James is not worthy of debating because

he is hostile and mean.

Hostile and mean.

In other words, he cared enough to do his homework on your guy and make sure that he had

an answer for every single question that would possibly be asked.

He came to it prepared, and that's mean and hostile, and that's wrong.

And you're just not worthy of our time.

That's the best way that they can get around facing him without

giving the appearance of weakness or ineptness.

The two times that I was very happy to see people

see through that slanderous attitude towards James

were when Peter Kreeft years ago had accepted an invitation

of mine to debate James, and he backed out, and I was not

satisfied or comfortable with the genuineness of the reasons.

So after pressing Dr. Kreeft on it, he finally admitted to me, well,

I was warned by some of my colleagues in Catholic apologetics that I would be

entering into a professional wrestling ring if I were to be debating James,

that he is a brute, and he's nasty, and he's not scholarly.

So I said to Dr. Kreeft, I said, do you think that bearing false witness

is a sin?

He said, of course.

He said, why are you doing it now?

And he said, what do you mean?

I said, have you ever seen Dr. White in a debate?

No.

I said, well, do you think that you should be embracing this description of him and even telling me

this description of him without any firsthand knowledge?

He said, you're right.

He actually admitted.

Critical thinking.

You're challenging the critical thinking of him.

In fact, you, at my request, sent him videos when we actually used videos.

Of several of James' debates.

And Peter Kreeft called me back maybe two weeks later.

He said, I owe you an apology.

I owe Dr. White an apology.

The descriptions that were given were utterly false.

He is not mean -spirited, and he is very scholarly.

In fact, the reason I am now declining your invitation is because he is

light years above me on this particular topic.

It would not be a suitable match.

Totally rare.

The other time, St. Joseph's Communications, a very sweet young Catholic lady called me years ago

and said, are you the one from Long Island that organizes a lot of James White's debates?

And you said, how did you get this number?

That's an inside joke about James' first comments to me.

I said, yes, I am.

And this young lady said, well, I work for St. Joseph's Communications, and Scott

Hahn, Dr. Scott Hahn.

Katie Delladonna.

Probably.

Katie Delladonna.

And she said, we love James White.

We think that he's awesome.

Obviously, we disagree with him on many things, but we think he's awesome, and we would love to have him debate Scott Hahn.

And I chuckled, and I said, so would I.

I said, but you're never going to get Dr. Scott Hahn to debate James White because he's already

denounced Dr. White as being mean and unscholarly.

And this young lady said, I can't believe that.

Neither of those are true.

We've seen James debate many times.

He's just awesome.

I said, well, I'll tell you what.

I'm going to have Rich Pierce send you a video or two of James White debating, and I want you to sit

down with Scott Hahn and say, please watch these debates with me and point out where

James White is mean and unscholarly.

She called me back a few weeks later after receiving the videos, and she said, I owe you an apology, Mr. Arntzen.

You were right.

Not only will Scott Hahn not watch the debates with me, he won't even touch the videos.

So, I mean, this perpetual slander.

I'm going to presume that that was the interaction that would eventually produce the

debate with Tim Staples in 1997 when he was with St. Joseph's Communications, and

that's where my first interactions with Katie were.

And every now and then, and usually it's the folks under, down the line,

they're doing the heavy lifting, and she's one of them, that is, she's just

an honest, hardworking gal, and trying to do her best job that she

can, and she's not afraid to call it like she sees it, and actually

see it for herself.

So while we're having this conversation about those who won't take the time, there,

yes, are those who will take the time, but usually they're not in the

primary role of decision -making and process.

But like I said, to her credit, she

was very good at her job.

And thorough.

And so there are those that will do that.

But fast forward to today, and all of what's on the table, whether

that's Islam now, part of the equation, trying to get, and

I know I'm naming some names here, but in some regards, I think I owe some apologies,

and maybe he'll be listening to this at some point.

John Sorenson of Catholic Answers.

We, two years ago, two years ago last night, had a debate here

with Trent Horn, and John Sorenson was key in making that happen, the head of Catholic

Answers.

And he's wanted and done everything he can possibly do to

make Catholic Answers available for another debate.

And there comes a point in time where your schedule and all the different things that we're involved in, it's just

so busy, now you're sitting back going, you know, I really wish I could have.

I really wish I could have.

And that's one of them.

Whether it's going to be Jimmy Akin, which can be hard because he doesn't like to fly,

or Trent Horn again, I would love to see us be able to put something together

for next year with them.

And I want that out there publicly.

I'm not afraid to put that out to say, look, you know what, despite the busy schedule, despite all the sometimes,

whether that's black Hebrew Israelites or Iglesia Ni Cristo or some of the

other wild things that we've been taking on of late, they can

get you steered away from back to your roots.

And I don't ever want to lose track of those roots, and I want to be able to work something out

with John Sorenson to where we can get another Catholic debate going again, no matter

whether that's in San Diego, wherever.

We need to do it, and I want him to know that I'm interested in doing it, and I haven't lost track of them, and we're certainly not

dodging them.

And that's unsolicited.

He didn't accuse me.

I just want to put that out there.

So there's just so much going on.

There really is.

I mean, from here, here at G3, James is going to leave here in

Atlanta on Saturday night, and he flies to Samara, Russia.

And it's a place so cold that they're furnishing his they're bringing the parka for him,

okay?

But you have men of God there that

need solid seminary -level instruction.

They just do.

And it's not like there's a seminary around the corner.

And so TMAI, the Masters Academy International, is doing the heavy lifting to make

sure that these men have a place where they can get quality training, learn critical thinking,

and really get in -depth.

And they bring these men in.

They're bringing Dr. White in for next week to teach there.

And then after that, if you've heard the dividing line, you know about CBGM.

Sometimes the labels.

I'm going to stick with CBGM for now.

It'll come to me in a minute, I'm sure.

I know a little bit more about CBGBs, the punk rock club in Manhattan that closed down

a number of years ago.

No, this is not that.

But he is going to be traveling from Russia then on to Munster,

Germany, to do some work in the CBGM category.

And this is vital work.

This is the ability to use

computers in such a way as to take a fresh look at

textual criticism.

This is my layman's description of it.

I'm sure the guys in the ivory tower would describe it quite differently than I do.

But the best I understand it is, is it's able to look at manuscripts in a way that we can't really do

in categorizing using the naked eye and examining the documents and

categorizing them as we have historically categorized them in families based on

location, text type, antiquity, et cetera.

All those different categories and putting them into families and tracing them through

almost a genealogical method where CBGM, I don't

understand it.

All I know is it's looking at it in a way that we've never looked at it before.

And it's supposed to drill down and get us even a more precise

way of examining and evaluating these texts and measuring them.

And the whole concept of text families might just go flying right out the window with it to

where a whole new concept and way in which we look at these and tie them together

will be the result.

I'm excited about it, and he's excited about it, and he wants to be a part of it.

And before we conclude, can you mention one or two, if any,

topics or concerns that Alpha and Omega

Ministries will be addressing in the near future, that you're aware of anyway, that are

perhaps different from the norm or perhaps even completely different than

anything that's ever been addressed before?

So wait a minute, after black Hebrew Israelites, there's a norm?

How does that work?

You know, I mean, Iglesia Ni Cristo is still chasing us around, and it's like, you know what?

We've got bigger fish to fry.

It might be even something within our own camp.

It might be something that's erupting in Reformed theology.

Well, you just throw that hook out there, and I'll bite.

The big thing is, and this is what the conference was about last night,

is what I call the infiltration of the social justice

movement into the Reformed community.

And I was very pleased with how the conference went last night.

I thought that all the presenters did a very good job and laid it out quite well.

I've been really kind of spending the last few weeks preparing myself for this conference, getting

up to my elbows so that I understand it as best I possibly can.

And even as late as yesterday, listening to some new recordings that I had not heard of before,

of these fellows teaching their subject.

Again, coming back to examining what they believe and why they believe

it.

Remember something.

I didn't mention this before.

Why do I keep making that distinction?

The reason I make that distinction is that commonly in apologetics, we only focus on what they believe.

We then take that information, compare it to what we believe, and you're wrong, and this is why.

You can't understand what they believe until you understand why they believe what they believe.

And that's where the two have to go hand in hand.

And so as we unpack the, whether you want to call it social justice,

or whether you want to use all the different words like,

drawing a blank on them at the moment, intersectionality, and virtue

signaling, and on and on and on, and some terms that just kind of being woke.

You know, I'm sitting there listening to this last night, and I was listening to this individual talk about this in this

way, and I thought, and I'm not talking about our conference last night, I'm talking about the recording I listened to, and

I'm like, you know, if I were to push this thinking just a little bit farther, I could show

an equivalence between the concept of being woke and regeneration.

I'm sitting there asking myself the question, do they make a distinction, and if so, why?

I don't know the answer to that yet, but I'm seeing a parallel at the very least,

and we need to answer this.

We need to answer this with exegetical, expository

means.

That's why in all of what was presented last night, the anchor

guy got up there, James, and what did he do?

Did he go through intersectionality again?

Did he go through any of the other terms that had already been gone through?

No.

The anchor to the whole presentation was Colossians chapter 3.

If we don't go back to the Scriptures and show where the Scriptures answer these beliefs

and show from the Scriptures, here's what they believe, here's why they believe it, and here's what the Scripture

presents and why it presents it, and how from the Bible we see

what the apostle Paul has to say to us and why he has to say it.

I'm mindful of my wife and I, the last year, have,

believe it or not, I'm 58, and I've never actually done a chronological study of Scripture.

She just asked me last year, can we do this audible thing through an app?

And I thought, you know, I've never actually done that.

That would be awesome.

Let's do that.

So we've been walking through the Bible together over the last year daily, and

a concept hit me, and you know, you ever get those biblical narratives?

It's like, you know, it should have clicked with me, but it never occurred to me before.

As Reformed men, we talk about Genesis 50 a lot, don't we?

We talk about Joseph in Egypt, and we talk about him, God putting

him there so that many would be saved alive, okay?

Phone just keeps ringing.

And so that many would be saved alive, and that this would be the process through, the channel through

which God would keep Israel alive.

And, okay, so we want to look at the evil of this being Joseph's brothers,

selling him into slavery, okay, and all the things that we did.

And then we get to Genesis 50, and his brothers are freaking out because dad just died, and now Joseph's going to

use all of his power to come down on us like a ton of bricks.

And his answer is, what you did was evil, but God meant it for good,

that many would be saved alive.

Don't you see it?

Don't you see it?

Fast forward to Moses.

Where's Israel at when Moses comes on the scene?

They're all enslaved.

How did they get from where they were in Genesis 50 to fully

enslaved?

Well, guess what?

What was Joseph doing for Pharaoh during that time?

Joseph is the bean counter.

Joseph is filling up the storehouses with food because there's a famine coming.

How did Joseph know about the famine?

God told him about the famine through Pharaoh's dream, okay?

Okay, I'm seeing God's hand all the way through here.

It's woven all the way through, okay?

So he fills up the storehouses, and then the famine comes.

And what happens?

We don't often talk about this aspect of it.

What happens is that this segment of the population runs out of food, has sold all

of its property off, doesn't have anything left, and they go to Pharaoh, and they say, we're

going to starve to death now.

We've bought all the food we can because we had belongings.

We've spent all of our money.

We got rid of all our belongings, the whole nine yards, okay?

They start with their land.

Hey, Pharaoh, we got this land.

Okay, you can buy some food and land, okay?

So now Pharaoh owns their land.

They come back later.

They're starving again.

Hey, Pharaoh, okay, tell you what, I own you now.

And Pharaoh, they then put themselves into indentured slavery in order to stay

alive.

Eventually, except for Pharaoh's priests, which had an exemption in the law,

in Egyptian law, that allowed them to not be taxed, the

Egyptian government had to feed them, and they got to keep their own land, except for them,

when the end of the story comes to the end, all of Egypt is enslaved, and Pharaoh owns

everybody and everything.

Now, wait a minute.

What did Pharaoh use to buy that?

Oh, that's right, all of that food that Joseph was used by God to store up.

Fast forward to Moses, and we get to Moses coming on the scene, and we don't think

about the fact that everybody's a slave.

And Moses stands there and says, let my people go.

All of that.

All of that slavery.

Four hundred years of slavery of more than just Israel

was brought about providentially by God to bring the people of Israel

alive through this whole process that one day they would come to the sea and it

would part, and they would leave Pharaoh and his army behind.

And that's where we're going to have to end it today, because I have to meet with Family Radio for a special lunch,

a special dinner, I should say.

But I really appreciate your time, Rich Pierce.

We cannot wait another year before you're back as a guest.

And we want to make sure that our listeners know the website is AOMIN .org for Alpha and Omega Ministries.

AOMIN .org.

A wealth of information will be found there.

And send our regards to Dr. White.

And we look forward to having him back as well.

God bless you, brother.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us at the G3 Conference edition of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

You're very welcome.

Well, we are out of time for today.

I hope that you have enjoyed hearing these interviews from the 2019 G3 Conference.

There are more of those to come, so please continue to listen to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio over

the next few days.

And as Chris Arnzen always says, I want you to remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a

far, far greater Savior than you are a sinner.