When Reformed Becomes Deformed, the Fatal Flaw of Molinism Pressed

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There are honestly a few things worse than when

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Reformed institutions abandon their foundations and become something other than what they once were.

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The association of Reformed theology, which I can't believe anyone could possibly really argue with this assertion, but Reformed theology requires the highest view of Scripture for even its formulation.

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As soon as Reformed men stop believing that God has spoken with clarity, the result can take place in a very short period of time or over decades.

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But there will be an inevitable collapse and corruption and a mutation.

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That's the ugly part, is when Reformed theology mutates because since it requires to be grounded firmly in Scripture, and hence to always have that objective foundation holding it in place, there are elements of Reformed theology that, removed from that, can become downright dangerous.

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And we already can point to numerous examples of apostasy over time.

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Numerous denominations that today are nothing but religious social clubs, they have no particularly

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Christian aspect to them. Those denominations once held to Reformed theology, and they do not any longer.

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But they say they do. That's one of the things to keep in mind. Just because a church has in its name Reformed, just because someone calls themselves

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Reformed, if they do not have the highest view of Scripture, and if they do not have a belief in the centrality of God's complete freedom to reveal himself and to reveal his attributes and his glory as he sees fit, they're not

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Reformed. I don't care if they're still sprinkling babies, I don't care if they're still taking wine and bread, none of that matters if you don't believe what those things are supposed to be representing and talking about in the first place.

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And so I say this because we are in an age of tremendous confusion.

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There are so many voices and so many contradictory voices out there. And it just seems that both inside and outside the church, critical thinking, logical thinking, consistency of thought is just being abandoned right, left, and center.

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Especially the younger generation almost seems to feel like there's something wrong when you demand that.

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I had a conversation with someone on Twitter this morning, a very brief one, and...

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That's getting really loud back there, getting an echo. And we were trying to talk about...

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All right. Okay. Something just happened and all of a sudden we're getting echo back and it's really difficult to handle.

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So anyway, I was trying to talk with this gentleman and I had made a comment, made a statement about certain subjects that we can't talk about any longer, that you're censored from talking about in social media.

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His response was pure emotion. It was, well, here's my experience type of stuff.

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And it just struck me that even though this man's a seminary graduate, this is the next generation.

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This is all they've experienced. This may be why they find reading the

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Reformers difficult or understanding what was happening in the Reformation difficult, because those individuals were not functioning on my experience determines reality context.

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And that's really, to me, one of the major areas that there has to be a work of the

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Spirit of God because education and everything else isn't going to change the reality of what we're up against in that context.

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So anyway, all of this to a comment here at the beginning of the program on sort of a blow up that took place over the weekend.

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I really couldn't comment on much. I was preparing for a debate that took place yesterday. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a few moments.

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But in regards to Kristen Cobes -Dumais, who is a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University.

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So some of you might go, what's Calvin University? Well, that's the old Calvin College. And I grew up, of course, with hearing about Calvin College.

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That was his name back then. And certainly many people go, well, there's

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Calvinism right there. There's one of those places that would be considered

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Calvinistic. But you need to realize Calvin University is an excellent example of exactly what we're talking about before.

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The history of the universities and seminaries in our land.

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A constant swinging to the left. A constant swinging to the left.

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And just look at what has happened with Calvin University. We here have Kristen Cobes -Dumais teaching gender studies at Calvin University.

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PhD from University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics.

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Most of you have heard of her only from a book that she wrote recently called

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Jesus and John Wayne. How White Evangelicals Corrupted a

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Faith and Fractured a Nation. So the fracturing of the nation is not due to the rise of secularism and the fundamental rejection of the foundations upon the entire worldview upon which the nation was founded.

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No, no, no. It is white evangelicals. Pretty much you need everything you need to know you can get from what you just heard right there as to where she's coming from.

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Well, what happened was Denny Burke asked her a question on Twitter and it's fascinating because this was, you know,

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Denny Burke had said that her work contains false teaching and that it weakens the ordinary

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Christian's resolve to trust scripture. And she says,

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I disagreed and suggested an unwillingness to interrogate how much of what passes for biblical is in fact deeply shaped by cultural, historical, and political lenses.

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So we have, you know, all sorts of standpoint epistemology and all of your woke nonsense that there really isn't an objective message of scripture that is communicable from generation to generation but it's all about lenses and all the rest of this type of stuff.

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Then to the surprise of exactly no one, Burke pivoted the conversation to inquire as to whether I believe homosexuality is sinful.

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Now, right there, I want to point out, there was no pivoting of anything.

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This is a logical, rational question to ask in light of what the topic was.

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And if you can't see that, then you really have no reason to be teaching anywhere but certainly not an institution that ostensibly has

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Christian commitments. She goes on to say, now

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I've repeatedly sought to demonstrate how even as historical research is always informed by a researcher's positionality, there are also professional norms and standards that mean that regardless of a scholar's views on any given subject, their work can be assessed on its own merits.

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Burke had made the statement that her work weakens the ordinary Christian's resolve to trust scripture.

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That's the context. It's amazing how many people, ostensibly scholarly people, who claim to be

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Christians, will default into a position that assumes the myth of neutrality and accept that and then bounce back and forth between the two different worlds.

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You can't do that. When you put your scholarship and that myth of neutrality before your commitment to the trust within the scripture, to faith that God has indeed spoken.

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In other words, believing about the Bible what Jesus believed about the Bible. That's a rather blunt way of putting it, but that's

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I think the best way of putting it. When you do that, you are weakening people's trust and reliability of scripture.

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Whether you want to or not, that's what you're doing. And the result is as we're going to see.

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So, Dr. Dumais wrote a lengthy response.

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It never really got to much of, you know, it's talking about Christian nationalism,

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American militarism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That people like Burke see my book as undermining the gospel may mean that they too have conflated some of these things, which would be

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Christian nationalism, Christian patriarchy, all the buzzwords. I mean, as woke as woke can be.

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I mean, you have to have a woke dictionary to follow all this stuff. Maybe we're just working with different views of scriptural authority undoubtedly any longer.

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There is a historical reformed view of scriptural authority and then there is the modern view and they are not the same thing.

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Obviously, my reformed tradition has long resisted a narrower selectively applied view of inerrancy.

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In other words, her leftist liberal apostatizing element of what was once reformed the reformed tradition.

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She recognizes is abandoning that which was foundational to the reformed tradition before that.

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So back to theology, she says. Burke points 1 Corinthians 15, 1 -5 is the heart of the gospel. Agreed, so much so that I refuse.

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Okay, so freeze for a second. 1 Corinthians 15, 1 -5, the almost creedal basic accounting of the events of redemption.

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Okay, if that was enough to define the gospel, then we don't need the rest of the New Testament, right? But that's where we start.

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But notice what she says. So much so that I refuse to use views on gender, sexuality, atonement theory, baptism, spiritual gifts, and the like as a way to preemptively exclude believers from the fellowship of the body of Christ.

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Now, when people read rhetoric like this, and this is rhetoric.

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We all, my just about teenaged oldest granddaughter is at that point in life where, and really

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I think even her younger sister, are at that point in life where I think they have the capacity already to be able to recognize the fundamental flaw in this

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Ph .D.'s statement. Why do I say that? Well, think about it. All you have to do is ask yourself a question.

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Is Dumais' position Paul's position? Because who wrote 1

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Corinthians 15? That would be Paul. Can we assume that Paul agrees with what

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Paul wrote? Even if Paul was not the one who initiated, if that is a pre -Pauline statement, and there is some discussion of that, the fact that he includes it at the beginning of that very lengthy chapter of his epistle would demonstrate that yes, he definitely agrees and embraces what is said there.

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So did Paul follow through with this kind of thinking?

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Well, first of all, by the way, gender, sexuality, atonement, theory, baptism, spiritual gifts, and the like, those are all different things.

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They're all on different levels of centrality, even as the apostle Paul himself dealt with these things.

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And so throwing them all together in that way creates confusion and demonstrates confusion on Dumais' part, which could just be a part of the theology or lack of theology of her current tradition or whatever.

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But they are different. But the apostle Paul did view, for example, sexuality.

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And if we include under atonement theory, Galatians 1, atonement theory, as issues that define the fellowship of the body of Christ.

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The apostle Paul referred to pseudedelphoi, false brethren, twice in his epistle to the

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Galatians, churches of Galatia. And that means that there are people who claimed to be

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Christians, who sound like Christians, dress like Christians, talk like Christians, came to the fellowship, would even allow themselves to be persecuted.

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But they were pseudedelphoi. And that was an atonement, that would have in some ways in Galatia would have been considered to be a religious rituals argument.

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And Paul utilized that to exclude not believers from the fellowship in the body of Christ, but false believers.

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And so this is a situation where Dumais has been asked a simple question concerning the nature of homosexuality.

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There is only one consistent Genesis to Revelation understanding of the subject of homosexuality.

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Only one. Oh, I... Those who know me know

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I have spent far more of my life than I wanted to reading dozens of books, dozens of books presenting alternative perspectives.

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And they all fail. Utterly, completely, without question, fail. So there is only one biblical perspective on this subject.

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And you can tell by the language, as a way to preemptively exclude believers from fellowship in the body of Christ.

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The last sentence? We can spend our lives asking what right belief and obedient discipleship looks like in all these areas, and we should, but I'm going to do so in conversation and communion with my

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LGBTQ sisters and brothers in Christ because of the gospel. So there's your answer. It took 1 ,100 words to get to the final answer, which was no.

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No, I do not believe it's simple because I refer to LGBTQ sisters and brothers in Christ.

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You don't believe 1 Corinthians 6. You don't believe Romans 1. You don't believe 1 Timothy 1. You just don't accept those as divine revelation.

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Oh, I know. Well, I read a scholar. I don't care. I've read them too, and I've debated them, and they spin in circles, and it's not even worth showing respect toward much of what these people try to do.

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It's clear what Scripture says. It's plain what Scripture says. And so here you see the kind of rhetoric that each one of us, every person in this audience needs to be able to see through this kind of rhetoric when it comes at us because this is rhetoric that is designed to speak to the younger generation and to everyone who has been infected with a postmodern, emotionally driven way of thinking that does not come from a

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Christian worldview. It does not come from being trained in Scripture. You don't read Proverbs and get this way of thinking by any stretch of the imagination.

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But it sounds good to those people, and it does not take a Ph .D. in anything to recognize when a

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Ph .D. is simply piling it higher and deeper, and that's what you have here. When you make this kind of argumentation where you cite the

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Apostle Paul and then don't follow through and go, yes, and Paul was very clear in 1

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Corinthians 6. He makes reference to arsenokoitai. He's drawing directly from the

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Greek septuagint, Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20. In any other context, we would all recognize that if he was talking about something that was not particularly controversial, there would really be no argument about where he was driving these things, anything like that at all.

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And we've gone over this over and over and over again. Look it up. We've used the big board.

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We've done everything we can to make sure that people understand what the Scriptures actually say on these things.

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But the point is, here is where you have even something called Reformed Tradition being used to contradict and silence and undo direct biblical teaching.

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Now, would Calvin agree with this? Of course not. Of course not. That's absurd. And I would imagine that she would agree with that, that Calvin would not agree with her in this instance at all.

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But she might try to make some type of argument. That was because these were not the issues being discussed back then.

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I don't know if she would do the same type of thing that Kirk did in that debate a number of years ago here in the

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Valley, where the Holy Spirit's doing a new thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there is no question that there is a major, major, major difference between this kind of perspective and that which is found historically in the

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Reformed faith. So, point being, when you see people making claims that they are

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Reformed or so on and so forth, and they say things like that, look a little closer, you will be able to see fairly quickly what the real issue is.

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Now, I was disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to look at this and to listen to it.

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But I understand that Dr. Stratton is either doing or just did a live

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YouTube feed responding to the fatal flaw of Molinism.

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And I'm looking forward to hearing this because, as most of you know, if you saw the program yesterday, yesterday afternoon, right at this time, in fact, so 24 hours ago,

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Dr. William Lane Craig and myself, we did a dialogue discussion debate on the unbelievable radio broadcast.

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So that's two 26 -minute segments and a 15 -minute segment, okay?

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And like I said, I've done at least 14 or 15, maybe more of those over the past coming up on 20 years.

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And I made comments yesterday about Justin Brierley and how fair he was and so on and so forth, and it's been confirmed a number of times that program will drop on Friday.

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And so you'll get to watch it then. Justin posted a screenshot on Twitter this morning.

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I saw that, retweeted it. The subject was whether Calvinism or Molinism gives a better answer for the existence of evil.

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We focused upon moral evil, not so much natural evil. It sort of comes up a little bit, but not a major, major issue.

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And the fatal flaw of Molinism that I have identified up to this point and then identified in the conversation as well is the reality that the

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Molinist has no grounding for the very essence and substance of middle knowledge.

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And I personally am excited that if this conversation will push

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Dr. Stratton, Dr. McGregor, Dr. Craig to attempt to provide that foundation,

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I think that will only clarify things even more because I believe that yesterday in the discussion, this subject was clarified.

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And let me talk a little bit more about that in a few moments. I do,

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Justin made this statement. He felt that there had been great clarity, the contrast to positions had been very clearly expressed.

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You hear so many programs today where you get done and you're really not sure the two sides actually disagreed about anything.

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And sometimes that's because the two sides are actually closer than either side thought when they first started talking.

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Okay, that's fine. But in this situation, that's not the case. And that became very clear as we worked through the issues as much as you can in, what is that?

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That's less than half an hour of speaking each. Now, of course, there was give and take. That's what makes those conversations worthwhile.

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Without cross -examination, without that type of thing, it's not going to provide anything. But one of the things that I mentioned yesterday that I think is still very much on my mind as I think about it and as you prepare to get a chance to watch it in just a couple of days.

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One of the things that struck me was, and I made the statement, when I said, over the decades, I have criticized

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Dr. Craig's work repeatedly. And one of the issues that I have, and the focus of that criticism has been in regards to what we take as our standard.

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What is our ultimate foundation? What is more important, exegesis or philosophy? And I've told the story about how

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Michael Fallon was at a conference, and he was manning a table.

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You know how that works. And Dr. Craig was standing nearby with a group of excited young bucks around him.

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And Mike told me, I said, I heard him say, if you're going to go far as an apologist, if you're going to go into apologetics, you need to be focusing on philosophy, not theology.

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And I think that comes out almost just glaringly. For example, at one point, he offered to provide a biblical defense of Molinism, and it ended up being a syllogism.

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It wasn't even a biblical syllogism. There was no biblical text. There wasn't any exegesis to interact with. And I expressed my disappointment because Dr.

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Craig knows I think he already watched because someone associated with the program was sending material to him with my knowledge as I was doing these things over the past number of weeks here on the program to help him prepare for what my objections were.

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And that's great. That's fine. And so I have already discussed the one

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Old Testament passage, one New Testament passages that are frequently presented, and they were the ones he presented in The Only Wise God in his book.

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And so he didn't even mention them. The only biblical text he mentioned was the one that we've talked about a number of times about if the rulers this age had known, they would not have crucified the

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Lord of Glory. And so I responded to that. But it really came out with strong clarity.

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The completely different starting points that we have and that there's a vast difference, a huge difference, between saying this is derived from the consistent exegesis of the key text of Scripture that addressed this subject.

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So it comes from Scripture. The truth value comes from the positive statements of Scripture using consistent hermeneutical and exegetical principles and saying my theory doesn't contradict

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Scripture. Now, I don't even know how you use the term contradict Scripture. My theory is consistent with Scripture.

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Well, how do you determine something that's consistent with Scripture? But the idea is that we can derive from out here all these principles and then we try to fit them together and just, we're not pulling it out of Scripture, but we're laying it on top of Scripture and hopefully it doesn't just like fall off and fall into pieces and we can make it look consistent.

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That's good enough. It's not good enough for me. I don't think it's good enough for anyone who really takes this stuff out into the real world on multiple fronts.

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And I can just be very thankful that I know that that's not going to be consistent for someone who is honestly asking the

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Spirit of God, lead me, thy word is truth, sanctify me in thy truth.

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Not your philosophy is truth or anything else. Thy word is truth. For someone like that,

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I'm very confident about what the results of that particular conversation is going to be. That really came out, especially when

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Dr. Craig says, nowhere does the Bible say that God sovereignly decrees and ordains all that takes place in time.

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And he said that multiple times. And I couldn't help but think of so many texts of Scripture.

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So thankful for cold water. With lemonade in fact. Let's just think of one.

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I've put it up here on the screen. Let's allow

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Nebuchadnezzar to help us out here.

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Daniel chapter four, pagan king. But he's a pagan king that God has done tremendous work in.

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In the sense that he has taken his rationality from him. He has humbled him. Humility can give you tremendous insights.

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Daniel chapter four, but the end of that period, I Nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me.

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So for those of you who are really into, I want to be very, very reasonable.

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I want to be very, very rational. Okay, my reason returned to me. And when your reason returns to you, what happens?

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Well, I blessed the most high. Now this is a pagan man. And praised and honored him who lives forever.

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So something has happened to where there has been a revelation in the life of Nebuchadnezzar.

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And he now understands that there is a most high and that he lives forever and ever.

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And he is to be praised and honored. And he says in poetic form, for his dominion, his dominion, his kingship, his authority is an everlasting dominion.

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And his kingdom endures from generation to generation. Again, you've got your standard parallelism here.

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And his kingdom endures from generation to generation. But please note what this powerful king who had pridefully looked at all that he had amassed and then lost all of it.

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And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.

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I could not help but think more than once yesterday of the incredible effort being put into making sure that the inhabitants of the earth, by their very nature, before being created, that their free will actions are the key foundation of everything

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God does. Everything. For a world to be feasible in Molinism, for God to create it, is all determined by humans.

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Not by God, by humans. They are the delimiting factor.

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Did that come from Scripture? Was Luis de Molina, the

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Jesuit who had been tasked with finding a way to subvert the sovereignty of God in the gospel being preached by the

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Reformation, it was changing nations and hearts in Europe. Was he contemplating what

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Nebuchadnezzar said? All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.

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Or are they accounted as everything? So if the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth.

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Hmm. That sounds a lot like Ephesians chapter 1 and Romans chapter 9.

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Huh. He acts, he does, what?

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According to his will. His will, not ours, not the inhabitants of the earth.

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His will, in the host of heaven, so even above the earthly authorities, but it always, just as in Psalm 33, we could have gone to Psalm 33 and done the same thing, and among the inhabitants of earth, because there's so many people who want to say, oh yeah, well, of course

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God reigns in heaven. He does whatever he wants in heaven. But you see, we are the kings here on earth.

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It's our actions that are ultimate here upon earth and among the inhabitants of earth.

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Well, okay, you know, okay. So he orders things in heaven and he orders things on earth.

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We're not saying God doesn't order things, but no, that's not what Nebuchadnezzar says. And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done?

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What have you done? No one can say to God, what have you done?

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And yet, the primary argument, you're going to hear it over and over again, that Bill Craig made yesterday is, if you believe as Calvinists believe, then you make

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God the author of evil. You're saying to him, what have you done?

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Now, I don't think that that's a fair accusation on two levels.

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And I, of course, brought both those out in the conversation, but isn't that what's going on here?

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Or say to him, what have you done? The inhabitants of earth cannot ward off his hand.

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They can't stop his activity. They are accounted as nothing and they cannot say to him.

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See, a lot of people say, oh yeah, we can say that. No, that's the whole point. No one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done?

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So there is a freedom that's right here. He does according to his will.

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God has freedom as creator and Nebuchadnezzar came to understand that.

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After what? His reason returned to him. So it is absolutely reasonable to recognize

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God's utter freedom and the fact that since he is the creator of all things, we who are his creations cannot ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done?

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You say, but people do and they have no basis for doing so. They have no basis for doing so.

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So if a pagan king can understand that God is what? He is free as one who has dominion and a kingdom.

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And that's, we've said this. We started a few weeks ago, a month ago now, when

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I started working through some of these texts and providing the foundation of the decree, the freedom, the eudachia of his will.

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This is God's expressing who he is. And there's a vast difference between expressing that God is free to judge or to bless, to raise up or to cast down in any way that in the end is going to be praised with his glorious grace.

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There's all the vast difference between saying that and saying that there is this thing called middle knowledge and it delimits what

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God can do. And the reason that we should worship God is because, man, he's able to think of all these different worlds and all these different possibilities.

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I mean, he's like a massive quantum computer working the biggest

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Lego puzzle ever and praise him for that. That's not the same thing.

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That's not the same thing. One is not the expression of what is pleasing to the very heart of God.

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That's what we have here. That's what we have here. So as I was thinking about those things and then we have the classical text and I'm not sure why it shrinks when

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I go from one to the other, but it did. But at least I'm able to see it. It might be a little bit good enough.

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Problem is seeing this one over here. Let's see if we find the right one. There we go. All right. Romans chapter 9.

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And we're not going to go back over all the stuff that we've demonstrated over and over and over and over again. But when we get to Paul's answer to the objector, the objector says a thing molded.

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On the contrary, who are you? Oh, man. So the objector is a creature. He is answering back to God as if he has a foundation of doing so.

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He is the thing molded. Have you thought about that?

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The thing molded. The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this?

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Can I just ask you just honestly, is this how a

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Molinist speaks? Not can a

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Molinist stand on his head and spin it 360 revolutions per minute to find a way to try to fit something in here.

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But if you come to this text and you listen to Paul and you derive your meaning from that, are you going to find anything in here that says, well, you see the thing molded in our view are these, these are persons and God knows what they're going to do in any given situation because he has this knowledge of subjunctive conditionals that are true.

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But he does not control those subjunctive conditionals and they do not arise from men either.

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It's just is. There is a, the joke we had on the debate was the essence of James White.

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And Bill even said at one point, well, you know, you could have been born in a different time in a different place, different language.

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And my response was that wouldn't have been me. I am who I am because God made me to live now in this place, gifted me and placed me in this place.

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That's what makes me who I am. And if there is an essence of James White to where I could be a seven foot tall

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Asian basketball player in, in 2475, then there is no

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James White, right? Can you see that? So I am the thing molded.

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I have a molder. And just as the illustration goes on to the potter and the clay, are you telling me that there is an essence of pot of what it means to be ceramic so that, so that there is a certain pot that will always be a pot in whatever given situation?

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No, no, whatever, whether it's a vessel for honorable use or for common use, whatever it is,

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God has the right to determine the nature of what he forms, what he molds.

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And it has no existence. It has no essence outside of his decree to create it and to define it as it is.

43:14

It's always been Christian belief that God gifts men in different ways.

43:23

And so they're just all sorts of things. I don't know how long it took me to watch that one.

43:33

Oh, now the, the, the guy that free, you know, free solo, the guy that climbed

43:39

El Capitan free solo. It took me forever just to be able to watch.

43:48

Have you seen, have you seen, watched free solo? You haven't watched free solo? You're kidding me.

43:54

It is really, I have now watched almost all the great climbing movies just to get over the fact that I could not watch free solo at first.

44:04

I mean, my knees would start aching and, and, you know, Oh, because this man without ropes, without ropes, they did this without ropes, is hanging on the side of El Capitan.

44:17

He's like 2000 feet up in the air. And he's at a point where he has fallen with ropes over and over and over again.

44:28

Everybody knows this is the toughest part where he has to, he's hanging on like this and he has to do a karate kick over to this other thing and then hold on to it and then scramble up from there.

44:40

Okay. Let me, you're going, did he just completely lose his way? No, I could never do that.

44:51

I could never do that. I, I would have fallen off 20 feet off the ground.

45:02

Um, not possible, completely impossible. I have not been given those gifts.

45:10

Now I don't think that guy, um, could teach a Greek class or debate or do stuff like that.

45:18

We are different. God has, God makes men to differ, not middle knowledge.

45:25

God makes men to differ. God is the molder. God is the potter. We are that which is molded.

45:33

We are the clay. God is the one who determines who we are. And the decisions that I make are based upon how

45:39

God has made me not something that no one knows where it came from. We'll talk a little bit more about that.

45:49

So you ha you would not read this and come up with middle knowledge at all.

45:54

You would come up with God is the sovereign creator. But that wasn't even why

46:00

I wanted to look at Romans nine. It's this. What if God, although willing, okay.

46:09

I want to, want to make sure that we see this. What if God, there is

46:14

Thelon. Thelamitos is the term that is used Ephesians chapter one, the Eudekaia to Thelamitos.

46:20

Thelamitos, uh, no, Thelamitos, but Ephesians one, his, uh, will, but here, what if God willing to make known, willing to make known what his wrath, his wrath.

46:47

Now let's just be honest right off the top for the vast majority of Christians.

46:55

This is not a priority. And they've never, ever, ever, ever, even in a position of prayer, come to a point of saying to God, well, maybe in the context of their anger with somebody,

47:15

God make your wrath known, but come to an understanding that God is glorified when his wrath is demonstrated.

47:28

The Israelites knew this because they were constantly reminded of the

47:35

Passover and the Passover taking place in history was a repeated demonstration of the supremacy of Yahweh over the

47:48

Egyptian gods. God was making his wrath known. And I was watching, um, the 1950s

48:00

Charlton Heston, Ten Commandments movie recently that still stuck with that scene where the

48:07

Pharaoh comes back and says, his God is God. Yeah, exactly right.

48:16

But I was struck again with the death of the firstborn.

48:23

Not only it's prophetic application, all the rest of that stuff, but how many

48:31

Christians really, really, really, really believe that killing those little children glorified

48:37

God? How many of you even be willing to stand in front of an audience and say that today?

48:45

How about even be willing to stand in front of the church and say that today? But you, you don't have a, you don't have an

48:55

Old and New Testament teaching if you aren't willing to say that. God desired, he was willing to make known.

49:05

He, God has the freedom to determine the mechanism and the way by which he is going to glorify himself.

49:19

And in this case, make known his wrath. There is nothing that limits this.

49:30

There is nothing outside of God says, well, you can't do it that way. And you can't do that. I'd like to, you know, you can't do it that way.

49:36

Why? Because of middle knowledge. Hmm. He wants to make known his wrath, demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power.

49:50

To make known his power. Does God have the freedom to do that?

50:00

Does he have the freedom to do this as he chooses?

50:09

What the scripture is saying is clear, but the danger is you create a philosophical system and you lay it over top of this and all of a sudden, whoo, it's gone.

50:29

Your philosophical system has just made it go away. I'm afraid that's what we have taking place.

50:37

Now it was a nice effect until you said that.

50:47

And then it's sort of like when people explain jokes after that, the effect is gone. Thanks. Right. Rich is here to keep me humble and to ruin my nice effects.

51:02

Okay. Now let me do something here.

51:11

There we go. I'm going to make this into a blackboard.

51:17

It is a nice background and all, but I was going to turn it off beforehand and now it is a blackboard in the old fashioned style of blackboard.

51:29

In fact, since it's an old fashioned style of blackboard, we need to use old fashioned color chalk.

51:34

How's that? And if you're as old as me, try to think as I write and hear the chalk upon the board.

51:46

If you're younger, all you will hear is a dry erase marker on the board.

51:52

Right. That's sort of sad. But anyway. All right.

51:58

So here's one thing I want you to keep in mind. Theodicy.

52:12

Theodicy. What is that from? The justification of the existence of God in the light of the existence of evil.

52:25

Theodicy. That is what Dr. Craig and I were debating. And Dr.

52:33

Craig's argument is if you have an exhaustive decree without middle knowledge, then this equals

52:56

God authors sin or evil.

53:14

So because Dr. Craig will say

53:19

I have an exhaustive decree. In Molinism, you have an exhaustive decree and it includes providence, meticulous providence of everything that God could control outside of human free actions.

53:47

And that exhaustive decree, however, is delimited or is based upon what?

54:08

Middle knowledge. Not the freedom of God to demonstrate his wrath, to make his power known.

54:20

Not the freedom of God to plan and establish his plans and frustrate the plans of men,

54:26

Psalm 33. Not the freedom we saw in Daniel chapter four. This decree is determined by the content of middle knowledge.

54:38

So that there are only feasible worlds, thanks to middle knowledge.

54:44

There are also unfeasible worlds. There are evidently people who can never be saved in any world.

54:54

You didn't want to get into that. And since it was later in the program, okay, fine.

55:00

It needs to be discussed. He talks about it in the book, so I wasn't bringing up something that shouldn't be brought up. But I do want, let me just stop for just a second.

55:11

I want to make sure you catch that. Without having decreed that they would exist, there are people who

55:23

God could not save in any world in which he could create. They're unsavable people.

55:32

Totally beyond the power of the Holy Spirit of God to change their heart. Their hearts of stone are permanent.

55:38

They cannot be changed in the heart of flesh. Beyond God's capacity to be able to do so.

55:44

And who determined that? We don't know. Can't answer that question. I'm going to get to that.

55:50

That'll be the last thing we cover. But this, this exhaustive decree based on middle knowledge, then

56:00

God not author of sin.

56:07

Okay, so that's the argument. That's the argument. However, here's the problem.

56:15

In the Molinistic perspective here, there isn't any answer to why this is.

56:25

But at least Bill Craig speculates. Some Molinists just sort of, we're not going to talk about that particular subject, you know, type of thing.

56:37

But Bill Craig at least says, no, we got to talk about this. And that is, there is a whole lot of evil in this world.

56:48

Is this the best God could do? Is this the best possible world?

56:54

He'll say, no, no, no. But it's probably the best feasible world.

57:00

And feasibility is determined by this. Middle knowledge.

57:06

What men would do. And so God still chooses to create a world in which the same number of people are lost.

57:27

The same amount of evil takes place as in Calvinism.

57:37

But he has to. Did you catch that? He has to.

57:42

Oh, no, not in the sense of Molinism is not saying that God had to create.

57:52

I don't, I would imagine that Molinists could sort of borrow some biblical stuff there to say that God chose to create.

58:05

I don't know the system demands a particular answer to that. And I've seen Molinists sort of go slightly different directions as to why fundamentally.

58:14

But the reality is in Molinism, God created a feasible world.

58:23

And we can assume that there are certain guidelines that he set up to determine which feasible world would be actuated.

58:33

Is it a proper, is it a balance between good and evil?

58:40

Were there feasible worlds where there were more people saved, but there was more evil?

58:49

Were there worlds where there was much less evil, but far fewer people saved?

58:55

It's always about numbers of salvation. In other words, it always seems to be focused upon man, not upon the revelation of God's glory, not upon the revelation of his character or his wrath or his judgment or any of those things.

59:09

I just don't see that figuring in these philosophical systems because they're not derived from scripture.

59:18

But the point is even accepting the idea that middle knowledge functions to allow man to be free.

59:31

And I reject that. That came up in the conversation.

59:39

And I said, look, I'm sorry. I just don't buy the idea that if God knows.

59:55

Rich is blaming the equipment now for what Rich just did. And I'm going to take that moment to, my microphone is doing the

01:00:03

Watusi on my neck, which is somewhat. In Molinism, God knows what each person is going to do in any given situation.

01:00:15

And then he puts them in situations for them to do what he wants them to do. That is not autonomy.

01:00:20

That is not a meaningful doctrine of freedom. I think that is a very, very surface level way of saying, well, see,

01:00:28

God's not the author of evil because even though he put men in situations where they will do all that evil, knowing they would do it, they do it freely.

01:00:37

And of course we say they do it freely too. He has this idea that we think God is forcing people to do evil.

01:00:42

I corrected him on that, but I'll just be honest. I just don't get the feeling that Bill, Bill reminds me, like I said yesterday, but in this situation of Norm Geisler, as soon as you would say anything about reformed theology,

01:00:57

Norm Geisler, his eyes would just glaze over and wouldn't even listen to you. Wouldn't even listen to you.

01:01:03

He just knew, I know that's wrong. Okay. But that's not what we believe.

01:01:10

We believe that God restrains evil. And I pointed out, for example, there are places where God restrains evil.

01:01:18

There's got places where God hardens people's hearts. Why would he have to harden people's hearts on a middle knowledge? Why didn't he just put them in a position to do what they were going to do?

01:01:25

Why would he have to interfere in that way? That doesn't make any sense. But anyway, but they would say that God put these people in these situations.

01:01:38

And in fact, he does speculate that maybe all the people who are lost are the people who would not have been saved in any feasible world.

01:01:51

Well, that's an interesting theory. And nobody in scripture ever expressed it.

01:02:01

And I don't see how anyone can look you seriously in the eye and say, but we're sure they believe that.

01:02:06

No, they didn't. No, they didn't. This is not a biblical concept at all.

01:02:16

And from Bill's perspective, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. There's issues there, deep issues that are reflected in other areas of theology as well.

01:02:25

But the point is, God in Molinism is responsible for creating a world in which all this evil exists.

01:02:38

And he knew it would exist before he created. So how are you getting rid of any? How is his objection to Calvinism not an objection to Molinism as well?

01:02:48

Well, but they do it freely. Well, we say they do it based upon what they desire to do.

01:02:55

But what's missing is that we say that all the evil that they do in the final analysis is going to demonstrate the glory of God.

01:03:06

So you see, our focus is upon what's going to be said about God at the end. Molinism's focus is what's going to be said about man at the end.

01:03:15

Because it was what man would do to determine what the only feasible world would be. Feasible worlds, depending on what

01:03:22

God's purposes are. Now, so with that said, let's go.

01:03:32

I've said we're going to look at it. I better not ever eat a bunch of chocolate or something right before coming in or it's going to really make a mess out of the board when

01:03:41

I do that type of thing. So we're calling it the fatal flaw now, I guess.

01:03:47

That's fine. The fatal flaw of Molinism.

01:03:56

What is it? We've been talking about it. I was talking about it before the debate, talked about it yesterday. We're going to have so many people who are really going to know what they're talking about now.

01:04:04

Yay. The truth value of subjunctive conditionals of human freedom is not under God's.

01:04:47

There. The truth value of subjunctive conditionals of human freedom is not under God's control.

01:04:57

So this is a necessary element of the definition of middle knowledge.

01:05:05

And as such, this is what middle knowledge claims delimits the decree of God.

01:05:16

So God knows what any individual will do in any would do. That's the subjunctive not will do that just before knowledge.

01:05:26

But would do in any given situation. Now, again, we're going to leave off to the side for a moment.

01:05:36

The impossibility of this. The I would say dehumanization that this involves.

01:05:45

If mankind is so simple that he's not made up of all the gifts that God has given to him in the context.

01:05:50

If mankind is so simple that there is just an essence of man that floats around out there and that essence.

01:05:57

This is what this essence would do in any given situation. I think that's a.

01:06:04

That may be some philosophical view of man. It is not a biblical view of man by any stretch of the imagination.

01:06:10

I think that should be enough for any biblical Christian to go.

01:06:16

Yeah. No, thanks. But let's just leave that aside. Here is

01:06:22

I think this is the biggest takeaway. I think this is the biggest takeaway from yesterday's conversation.

01:06:33

When now, obviously, Bill had seen me talking about this. So he was ready to go.

01:06:41

And he said. That this he rightly identifies this.

01:06:47

As the grounding objection. The grounding objection. What is the grounds for believing that such things even exist?

01:06:56

And hence could delimit God's decree since they don't come from God. This is something in God's universe.

01:07:05

That constrains his freedom to act. That does not come from him.

01:07:15

I just want you to think about that. From a fundamental Christian view of God as creator of all things.

01:07:23

Where does this come from? Doesn't come from man. Because man hasn't been decreed to exist yet.

01:07:29

Doesn't come from God. And if you're going to say. And this is what makes

01:07:36

Molinism. Molinism. This is what. Without this. You got nothing. You've got nothing.

01:07:42

And this is what allows the Molinists to say. Our system is better than your system.

01:07:49

In answering all these questions. It's right there. It's right there.

01:07:56

And so. We ask. A very basic question. If this determines what

01:08:04

God can do. Then where does this come from? And Dr. Craig's response was.

01:08:10

That is not a valid question to ask. Because that is assuming. Truth.

01:08:20

Making. Maximalism. Now. I don't know about you.

01:08:29

I thought it was just the most basic question you could ask. If you're holding a Bible in your hand. Truth making maximalism?

01:08:41

Really? Well evidently. In the study of epistemology. You have.

01:08:47

The concept of. Truth making. Which is the idea. That for something to be true.

01:08:54

There has to be a truth maker. Now I don't know about you.

01:09:01

But I started thinking back to. The debate between Bonson and Stein. And. Bonson's discussion of brute facts.

01:09:12

It just is. And his assertion. That makes it irrational.

01:09:18

To say it just is. That's just the way it is. That's irrational. And that's what he was pressing

01:09:25

Stein on. But evidently. The idea of truth making maximalism.

01:09:32

According to Bill Craig. Is not philosophically. Compelling. We don't need to answer that question.

01:09:41

There are just things. That are true. And they're not made true by God. And they're not made true by man.

01:09:50

But they are such. Unalterable truths. That they delimit. What God can do.

01:09:56

I say that's paganism. Not Christianity. Pretty strong I didn't say that yesterday.

01:10:04

But it is. That is. A denial. Of the fundamental.

01:10:11

Christian doctrine of creation. It is asserting the existence. Of something.

01:10:18

That is so real. That it can determine. Even what God can and cannot do.

01:10:25

But it is. Uncreated. It does not come from God's creative will. I reject.

01:10:31

That there is anything in God's universe. That God did not create. God did not define.

01:10:37

And there is no truth in God's universe. That God did not make true. I deny it.

01:10:44

In Colossians chapter 1. In speaking of Jesus. Who is the way. The.

01:10:50

Oh the truth. Because these are true. Subjunctive conditionals right.

01:10:57

He is the truth. He is the life. And he is the one described.

01:11:02

In Colossians chapter 1. For by him were all things made. Does that really mean all things.

01:11:08

Whether in heaven or in earth. Visible or invisible. Principalities, powers, dominions or authorities. All things created by him and for him.

01:11:14

And he is before all things. Including these. And in him all things hold together.

01:11:21

You can't hold to that view of creation. You can't hold to that view of creation.

01:11:29

And believe that. You can't do it. You can't do it.

01:11:36

You can't do it. That's why it's a fatal flaw. And you can retreat.

01:11:42

And this was all Bill had. All he had was to say. Well that's just truth making maximalism.

01:11:48

And I don't accept that. And I'm like. No. You're saying that this stuff.

01:11:56

Is your answer to evil. But you can't tell us. Where it comes from.

01:12:03

And we can't ask where it comes from. Because we don't want to be. Taking the position of.

01:12:10

Maximal truth making. Well. Christians believe there is a truth maker.

01:12:15

And his name is God. And that's why you start with the Bible. And not philosophy. That's all there is to that.

01:12:27

I mean. I am really. Really.

01:12:33

Interested. In what Molinists are going to do. To explain this.

01:12:39

Because. I focused on this. Because I've never heard.

01:12:45

Anyone else focus on it. Doesn't mean someone hasn't. I'm not saying that I've come up with something.

01:12:51

No one else has. This came out at the very end of the discussion. Between Paul Helm. And by the way.

01:12:57

I was listening to the program yesterday. And I could see how someone might. It never even crossed my mind.

01:13:05

Paul Helm did a wonderful job. In his conversation. I really appreciate it. But I could see how somebody.

01:13:11

Could not recognize I had shifted topics. And was referring to Paul Helm. When I made comments about scholars.

01:13:16

Who shouldn't do debates. I was not by any stretch. Never crossed my mind. But as I was watching.

01:13:22

I was like. I could see how somebody might. We even posted.

01:13:31

Or did I forget to link to it. I bet you I forgot to link to it. But you looked up that program. That we did.

01:13:37

Right after that one in 2014. And I've said consistently. That Paul Helm did a wonderful job.

01:13:43

In that conversation. So I just thought about that. I wanted to make sure people understood that. But as I.

01:13:52

Am thankful for the opportunity. To challenge. The leading proponents.

01:13:58

Of Molinism. And I'm only concerned about. I'm sorry.

01:14:03

If you're simply a philosopher. And you do not believe. That the Bible is

01:14:08

God's word. I don't have any interest. In arguing with you. Because what

01:14:14

I'm saying is. Molinism has to be tested by scripture. And as such it fails. It fails to do justice to the freedom of God.

01:14:21

It fails to do justice to its purposes. It's not derived from scripture. It's an extra biblical philosophical system.

01:14:26

That's being forced upon scripture. And as such needs to be repented of. And abandoned. But if you do say.

01:14:36

That the Bible is the word of God. Then. I'm looking forward to seeing.

01:14:43

How in the world. Not philosophically. Not from outside of scripture.

01:14:48

From what God has revealed. You can't tell me. That the controlling information. For the very highest.

01:14:57

Revelation of what God is doing in this world. Is not to be found in scripture. But found in a Jesuits. Philosophical meanderings at the end of the 16th century.

01:15:09

If that's what you're going to tell me. I think that really helps. To illustrate what's going on here.

01:15:15

I think it really does. So. With that.

01:15:21

I'm going to listen to. Dr. Stratton's presentation. And who knows.

01:15:27

Maybe on the next program. We'll play it. Respond to it. I would love to see biblical attempts.

01:15:36

But I haven't seen any. That are even close. To compelling. We've looked at them.

01:15:43

And we've demonstrated. They do not accomplish. They do not substantiate this.

01:15:50

So anyways. With that. Lord willing. This program won't get bounced off.

01:15:56

Can't see why it would. But yes we are working on other ways of doing things. So we can start talking about.

01:16:03

Important stuff going on right now. But we'll see what happens. Come Thursday. Watch the app for announcements.