The Socinians Are Amongst Us! Or Are They?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:32

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. It is a road trip dividing line.

00:38

Yes, in fact, if the Lord blesses, the large majority of the next two months will be road trip dividing lines.

00:51

I say if the Lord blesses, that's road safety, health, all that kind of fun stuff.

00:58

But yes, we'll mainly be on the road, with a few exceptions, all the way through teaching early church history, which is beginning of October.

01:10

And so here we are, and it doesn't look like today. Well, there's a chance.

01:17

We got some wonderful rain where I am yesterday. It was great. I love hearing the rain on the top of the fifth wheel here, and it was good.

01:28

So good to be with you. I just did a program in Texas with a fine brother there.

01:37

I won't mention any more about it because it hasn't aired yet, so that would be sort of weird. But where I talked a lot about some of the things

01:46

I'll be talking about today, that's dangerous. It's dangerous because as I'm sitting here, and I don't have notes in front of me and things like that,

01:56

I know how my old brain works. I'm going to go, but I already mentioned that.

02:02

Was that on the other program or this program? I just know at some point that's going to happen.

02:07

So I may repeat myself a couple of times just to make sure I get everything going. I really, really, really understand what the psalmist was saying when he spoke of the blessedness of when brethren dwelled together in unity.

02:33

I know through the years there have been those times. I ended up at a

02:39

Reformed Baptist church because I needed to have a consistency between what was being preached in the pulpit and what

02:49

I myself was saying to people on the street at an

02:54

LDS thing or a Jehovah's Witness thing or wherever. I needed to have consistency.

03:02

And so when that exists, it's a great blessing from God.

03:13

If you live in a place where you have a church, where you have that kind of consistency, you have that kind of unity, you should be very, very thankful for it, very thankful to the

03:26

Lord for that kind of a blessing. There are a lot of people that don't get to have that.

03:34

So over the past 48 hours, some of you may have noticed a period of—I don't even know how to describe it.

03:52

Nastiness is hardly an appropriate term, though it is properly descriptive.

04:00

A period of attack on me and this ministry.

04:11

And utilization of language by Christian men on just an amazing level, just a level that you wouldn't expect, especially from people who hold high positions in seminaries and leadership positions and things like that.

04:33

And it would be very easy just to simply throw everything up on the screen and just fire back. But I don't want to do that.

04:43

I will be reading some of the material just simply, once again, to try to help people understand.

04:51

Because I'm seeing a lot of folks—I've seen folks who've not commented before commenting and going, wait, wait, wait a minute.

05:00

What is going on? You all used to be on the same page. You were speaking at the same conferences, teaching in the same classes.

05:10

And accusations literally of Socinianism?

05:19

Now, I just thought I'd mention in passing that in all probability, about 97 to 98 % of the audience has never heard the term before.

05:32

It's an obscure term. Those of us who teach church history, of course, have had to talk about Socinianism and the

05:42

Radical Reformation and things that came out of the Radical Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries.

05:53

But Socinianism is a deeply heretical movement that developed out of what's called the

06:04

Radical Reformation or the Anabaptist movement. The problem is all these terms are incomplete.

06:14

They're not sufficient to really—the Anabaptists were a massively broad group.

06:22

And to say that the Anabaptists gave rise to Socinianism, there's no one

06:27

Socinianism. The very essence of much of that wing of the

06:36

Reformation was noncompliance and a rejection of any kind of strict definition of faith, belief, confession.

06:52

And so when you look at all the various confessions that came out of that wing of the

06:57

Radical Reformation, you've heard it called the Anabaptists. But again, it's not a good descriptor.

07:06

You look at the confessions, and they're going to be all over the map. They're going to be very, very different from one another.

07:14

And so Socinians in general, in general—got to be very, very general at this point.

07:22

Socinianism in general was a rejection of the broad spectrum of Christian orthodoxy, specifically focused upon a rejection of the

07:34

Trinity, pre -existence of Christ and the deity of Christ. That then had implications with the subject of the atonement, all aspects of soteriology, anthropology.

07:53

You could, in some ways, look at modern, what we might call—I hate using the term progressive.

08:06

I hate using the term liberal. Again, these terms aren't really properly descriptive. But when you look at Union Theological Seminary, the

08:15

Walker Seminary, the walking dead, they've been dead for 140 years, but they're still walking around.

08:24

There ain't much left of them. I'm not sure how walkers walk if their muscles are falling off. But anyway, if we look at that dead shell of what has called itself

08:39

Christianity in the past, a lot of connections to Socinianism.

08:47

But even then, the Socinians lived in a time where you didn't quite have the level of philosophical skepticism and secularism, naturalism you could draw from to come to your conclusions.

09:05

And so in many ways, those churches are even worse, the new ones, than the

09:12

Socinians were. But Socinianism, to say that someone is a

09:20

Socinian—let me use this as an example. The provisionists, especially Leighton Flowers, are really angry when we identify them as semi -Pelagians.

09:33

And they'll drag out books defending Pelagius and say Pelagius didn't believe what

09:38

Augustine said and all the rest of that stuff, which is sort of beside the point. There is something historically defined as Pelagianism, and there is something historically defined as semi -Pelagianism.

09:50

Just as there is something historically defined as Nestorianism. But most modern research would say

09:55

Nestorius didn't actually believe what would eventually be identified with his own name.

10:02

It happens. But when you listen to Leighton Flowers and the provisionists and their choice meats and all the rest of this kind of stuff, they clearly have a view of man, where man is not dead in sin.

10:21

In many ways, they even go beyond the Wesleyan -Arminian perspective in regards to prevenient grace and present the idea that there is a capacity on the part of the unregenerate man.

10:42

That is the essence of what Pelagianism and semi -Pelagianism is all about. So it's an accurate thing to point that and go, this was the defining issue.

10:54

This was the defining issue. It would be inaccurate if you just simply said, well, you know,

11:03

Pelagius had a certain interpretation of a text scripture, and you have the same.

11:10

Therefore, you all are connected. You have to be very, very careful.

11:18

Try to be very, very accurate, because there are certain definitional aspects of the movement that if someone is on the exact opposite side of that, trying to make some type of historical connection for whatever your purposes are is just dishonest.

11:36

It's unworthy of a serious historian. It's unworthy of serious scholarship. So you have to be very, very careful.

11:44

I'm often very uncomfortable with how flippant many even of my friends are in throwing out the term

11:54

Gnosticism. And I've probably become more uncomfortable in having had to have spent so much time reading so much more

12:02

Gnostic material just over the past couple of years. There is a specific essence to Gnosticism, and just because someone's a dualist, for example, doesn't necessarily make them a

12:20

Gnostic. So we, unfortunately in our day, not just our day, it's easy to throw out insults and accusations to attempt to accomplish something.

12:35

And you may feel like you're accomplishing something important or useful, but facts are facts.

12:43

And, you know, you see this in the polemic of the Reformation. Luther did it to other people. Other people did it to Luther.

12:49

I think Luther sort of figured if it's done to me so often, I might as well do it to others. You know, this kind of thing. And only the most sound -minded and disciplined on both sides restrain themselves from that kind of behavior.

13:11

And so today, this morning, I get up and I discover that the assertion is being made that there is a great deal of Sasanianism going on, and that evidently

13:34

I'm guilty of it.

13:42

So Scott Swain, president of RTS Orlando, I believe,

13:49

July 21st, 655 AM, says,

13:57

So I think it's safe to say that Sasanianism is making a comeback, and it's very online.

14:03

For some reason, very and online are capitalized. Now, if there wasn't a context here, you could, again, make connection to just about any leftist liberal denomination today.

14:23

But that's not a comeback, and I suppose they have an online presence, but that wouldn't be the issue.

14:32

No, there is a context. The context is a program called

14:45

The Mortification of Spin, featuring Carl Truman, that aired on the 19th, so two days ago.

14:54

I listened to it last night. And Dr. Fesco and Dr. Carter. Now, both

15:00

Fesco and Carter are part of what

15:05

I would identify as the scholastic, traditionalist movement of our day.

15:12

Fesco, very much, again, a fan of Thomas Quinas, very much an opponent of Van Till and presuppositional apologetics.

15:24

Carter, of course, author of Contemplating Scripture, Why the

15:31

Great Tradition. And we have quoted from, especially Dr. Carter, in his definition of great tradition exegesis.

15:43

And in the comments that were made, now, again,

15:49

I listened to the program last night. It's a short program. I just did a program right before this, and so I do have the program right here, but I don't believe that it's cued up properly.

16:04

And I didn't test the sound, and so I'm just going to have to skip that.

16:14

I believe I have the comment that was made.

16:24

Let me see if I can scroll back.

16:30

I apologize for this. I should have. Yeah, here we go.

16:41

That should be right here. I think this is the quote. Yeah, here's the quote.

16:51

Carl Truman, again, we have not exchanged pleasantries in a while, but for a while, we would text each other about the

17:02

Tour de France. We're both big Tour de France fans, and the tour is going on right now. It was pretty much won today.

17:08

They're not in Paris yet. There's still something that could happen, but last

17:14

Mountain Stage, and Jonas Fingergaard probably pulled it off. But anyways, there's a cool video of Carl and Phil and I in a graveyard talking about stuff.

17:33

And so we've been to conferences together, and so almost everybody is on the critical side these days.

17:42

We've been in conferences together. The discussion, once again, did not name names, and the description of the people that are being warned against has nothing to do with myself,

17:55

Dr. Johnson, Sam Waldron, anybody who has expressed any concern about this modern movement and situation, and so wouldn't have anything to do with us, if accuracy meant anything.

18:12

They were talking about basically the person with his Bible under a tree. No creeds, no confessions, just me and my

18:19

Bible type stuff, which I don't know anybody who's saying that. There are people who say that, but they're not reformed.

18:25

They're not in this conversation, but they keep being brought up as boogeymen. They're out there.

18:32

They're everywhere. No, not in reformed churches, they're not. And we all know who you're aiming this at, and they're just untrue statements.

18:43

No one's saying that confessions are bad or creeds are bad. We are pointing out that the highest level of authority that a creed could possibly possess would be its complete fidelity to biblical revelation.

19:04

We are saying that confessions have to be amenable.

19:10

They have to be able to withstand scriptural analysis and scrutiny.

19:23

And we are saying that there is not an external ecclesiastical authority that transcends time, that creates an inspired tradition that then becomes the lens through which the

19:43

Bible must be read. That all traditions, even those claiming to have great antiquity, are to be subject to the ultimate authority of Scripture.

20:01

Those are not really overly arguable positions in many ways, and I think that's why we have the straw man.

20:09

I do not have a straw man with me. I do have

20:14

Ultraman, but I don't think Chris would appreciate that if I used one for my straw man illustration.

20:22

So I did not bring straw man with me on my road trip. If I see one at any of the stops that I'm at,

20:31

I will definitely grab one and have him.

20:37

In fact, now I'm going to be looking for straw man. Got plenty on the internet, but you can't really hold him up to a camera.

20:46

Anyway, so let me read what was said by Carl Truman.

20:54

The polemics one reads against Thomas Aquinas online do nothing other than reveal the total ignorance of those doing these polemics concerning the history of their own theology.

21:05

That's not the whole quote, but let me stop. Who's this? It really does not help when you do this kind of vague thing out there.

21:19

I mean, I'm telling you, you can look up mortification of Spain. I gave you the date. You can listen to this.

21:25

You know who's talking. I've told you who the guests are. That's really how you do it in a respectful fashion,

21:35

I would say, is you do it that way. But what polemics are these?

21:43

I have put Thomas in his context, and maybe there are others, and I just haven't had time, and some would like to point out to me.

21:58

But I wonder how much time I've actually spent reading Thomas's words on this program since December.

22:15

It's been a lot. And so this kind of statement, this kind of general, okay, who are these polemicists?

22:24

What have they written? What are we talking about? Then reveal the total ignorance of those doing these polemics concerning the history of their own theology.

22:37

And since we're not told who this is, there's no way to even evaluate the value of the statement.

22:43

It's a throwaway statement. I mean, as much as I respect Carl, it's a throwaway statement. There's a 30 -year, continuing to quote, there's a 30 -year vast body of scholarship demonstrating the intimate connection between 17th -century

23:00

Reformed theology and Thomas Aquinas. Now, you can reject 17th -century Reformed theology, but don't start claiming to be a

23:06

Protestant heir of the Reformers. Now, I would assume this is in reference to a number of people,

23:16

Mueller especially. But what does intimate connection mean?

23:26

You can draw an intimate connection between Calvin and the early church.

23:36

But what's the nature of the connection? With Calvin, it would be the complex challenge that was his to say on the one hand, we aren't starting a new church, but on the other to reject the ecclesiastical authority of the established church of his day, which is what he was doing.

24:02

So, again, what does intimate connection mean?

24:10

And are we simply talking about utilization of certain language terminology in certain areas?

24:23

What is the intimate connection between 17th -century Reformed theology and Thomas Aquinas on the nature of the

24:33

Lord's Supper? I would say 99 % of that relationship is negative rejection, right?

24:45

So, it would be helpful if what this actually said was 17th -century

24:53

Reformed theology proper in regards to these particular aspects of the doctrine of God over against everything else.

25:09

Didn't say that. But it says, oh,

25:17

Rich says he has a straw man ready if I need him again. Well, like I said, it could be fun.

25:24

You know, some of these RV parks, they have pretty interesting gift shops. And so, I could end up with a kachina doll or something, but I don't want to do that.

25:35

Anyway, back to the point here. But here's where the connection to everything else we were talking about before.

25:42

You are not a Protestant heir of the Reformers. You are a Protestant heir of the

25:48

Sassinians. Just be honest about it. We aren't told who the you is.

26:01

That's what makes this. Brother, love you. Irresponsible.

26:07

Just irresponsible. Accusing someone of being an heir of the

26:14

Sassinians is a very serious accusation. That's, if within a

26:21

Presbyterian denomination, that would be something you'd bring up, not to the session, but synod, something like that, assembly, whatever you want to call your particular group.

26:33

That's an accusation of heresy. And how is it that someone who would say that our theology must be first and foremost focused upon scriptural revelation rather than metaphysical categories of Thomas Aquinas, what does that have to do with Sassinianism?

27:00

Well, Sassinians rejected that. Well, again, you're whitewashing. You're being very broad.

27:07

But the fundamental essence and definitional character of Sassinianism was the rejection of the doctrines of Trinity and the preexistence of Christ and his deity and divinity.

27:15

There is no Christianity when you do not have a divine Jesus. Everything else goes.

27:23

Everything else goes. And so unless we're doing the, well, you know,

27:29

I can make a connection over here. You can do that with anybody. You can do that with Luther. You can do that with Calvin.

27:37

You can try to make these artificial connections to groups of the past.

27:42

The only reason to do it is dishonest polemics.

27:49

It's just there's no scholarly reason to do it. There's no ecclesiastical reason.

27:55

There's no brotherly reason to do it. There's no reason within the church to do it. But if you just want to lob some grenades someplace, okay.

28:05

Just admit what you're doing. So there was no identification of who was being spoken about.

28:19

But it's thrown out there. And that's what Scott Swain was riffing off of was once Carl Truman comes out and defends

28:30

Thomas, not really defends Thomas, but defends the concept of the connection between 17th century reform scholasticism and some elements of Thomas's theology, certainly not the vast majority.

28:54

Then it's sort of like, all right, we've got Truman. Let's go. And it just seemed like the wheels fell off behaviorally from a number of people, sadly.

29:12

So we had

29:23

Stephan Lindblad from IRBS. Well, what happened was, you recall after the last program, during the last program,

29:37

I commented briefly in passing, because we were talking about hermeneutics.

29:44

We're talking about supremacy of scripture, relationship to tradition, how we ground our faith and our beliefs, and the only sure basis for so doing.

29:59

And I mentioned that Richard Braselis was teaching a class on hermeneutics for founders of ministries.

30:14

And a few hours later on Twitter, Richard tweeted me.

30:23

Instead of subtweeting me, which he's been doing for months, and he knows it, and he admits it, he actually addressed me.

30:32

And in so doing, opened up the opportunity for a conversation to take place.

30:47

And I think some people were scared, honestly, that a good conversation might actually take place.

31:06

And so I responded, and let me, here's what

31:14

Richard said. I noticed you mentioned me on your DL today, a friend informed me of it.

31:21

You claimed I have not provided a response to your claim of reformed biblicism. You are correct, I have not. I actually said that I've not seen anyone interact with anything that I've said.

31:37

Based on Calvin's response to Sadaletto, I could have used all sorts of things, but that seemed appropriate at the time in light of the

31:46

Roman Catholic element. I didn't say I don't believe what I said. Richard hasn't responded to this as if it was his job.

31:55

The phrase is only weeks old. Now, Calvin's letter to Sadaletto was written in 1539.

32:03

I'll let it be defined by more than one person before thinking about a response. So in other words, your entire position, which was his and my position for years, and what

32:15

I presented when I taught at his school, is idiosyncratic. It's not.

32:22

If you read John Murray's commentary on Romans, if you read Mu, that's all

32:28

I'm laying out. It's standard position we've held for a long, long time.

32:35

I have lectured on hermeneutics for many years and provide what I think is a good reflection of reformed hermeneutics in those lectures.

32:41

Well, we may disagree. Also, I've written several books, usually laying my hermeneutical cards at this table.

32:47

As you mentioned, I'm going to be teaching hermeneutics for founders in Florida soon. So if you want to know what I think, read my books and join us in Florida next month.

32:53

By the way, Florida is way more red than Arizona and D .C. Well, again,

33:01

Richard doesn't really seem to be able to tweet without snark. So there was a fair amount of that there.

33:15

And so I responded. And basically what

33:23

I said, see if I can like to read it.

33:32

I said, I hope you will lay out with clarity how what you once believed makes mincemeat of the confession and then lay out exactly how premodern exegesis can be differentiated from, say, the methodology used in writing such commentaries as those on Romans.

33:54

Some examples of how this premodern methodology, man, I wish Twitter threaded things more logically.

34:00

Some examples of how this premodern methodology can be practiced with regularity and consistency and how it differs from the mincemeat formula.

34:08

I've yet to see specifics. I suppose it would be good to ask, when you wrote your paper on Colossians 2, 11 through 12, was that before or after your adoption of a new hermeneutic?

34:23

How specifically would this new hermeneutic impact the exegesis of such text? It would seem that a great tradition interpretation would be a given, yet clearly you did not hold to that.

34:33

So how does it work? Now, those are calm, fair, important questions.

34:44

And I think some people freaked about it. I think they freaked out that that conversation might actually take place.

34:53

And so they jumped in and just started throwing verbal bombs, making sure that a calm, meaningful conversation could not possibly happen.

35:06

It was sad. And all of you who did it, you know exactly who you are, and you know what your motivations are. You know what your motivations are.

35:19

Here's his brief response to my questions. Here is a brief response. Won't answer all specifics, but gives just my shift of the years.

35:27

Due to my training and in line with it, I once denied the covenant of works. I did so because the phrase is not in the

35:33

Bible, and to come to that doctrine requires subsequent revelation to shed interpretive light on antecedent revelation.

35:43

I was committed to a hermeneutic that limited meaning to what I thought the human author in his original reading audience would have thought.

35:51

Now, let me just stop there for a second. This isn't – see, if you were hoping for some exciting flamethrowing thing,

35:59

I'm – the only reason I do all of this is the edification of the church, and this is the real issue.

36:06

All the rest of – all the nastiness stuff I care less about, but it's out there, so it has to be dealt with.

36:14

But this is an important question. Because everybody keeps saying, well, there's – you either have premodern exegesis, and it's the genius of the early church, or you have grammatical interpretation, grammatical historical interpretation, which, as it's being defined, means there can be no spiritual aspect.

36:47

There can be no relationship of this text to the rest of the text description. It's just mind -reading the author and mind -reading the original audience.

37:03

And again, I don't know – if this is what was taught at masters, how would anyone at masters have ever held to Orthodox Christian theology regarding the hypostatic union?

37:24

I just wonder if the people who were teaching back then would recognize their own perspective in this.

37:38

But I like the example. Covenant works. Okay, that's a – that's not a biblical phrase, but it is the result of an analysis of biblical truths based upon the assumption of the harmony of all the text description.

37:57

Sort of like the pactum salubris, the eternal covenant redemption. And so this takes us back.

38:06

I don't have my board with me right now, and I do actually have that other monitor, but I have not been able to set it up yet.

38:16

This takes us back to when I was in the big studio, and I graphically represented, you know, here's biblical doctrine.

38:23

And then because of these biblical doctrines, here's the next level of doctrine that is necessary in light of biblical teaching, the doctrine of the

38:34

Trinity. It's monotheism, three persons, equality of the persons, doctrine of the Trinity. But then you go beyond that to the next level and beyond that to the next level, and eventually you have to draw a line.

38:54

Calvin did. When God makes an end of speaking, we should be silent. I think that's wisdom.

39:04

And so the covenant of works would be a conclusion drawn from certain aspects of biblical theology based upon the idea, and this is why liberal theology can't do this, based upon the idea of the harmony and inspiration of the scriptures.

39:23

They don't believe that. And so, I mean, they don't even believe you can come up with a

39:29

Pauline theology. Paul contradicted himself. So they go on from there.

39:40

But anyways, I was committed to a hermeneutic that limited meaning to what

39:45

I thought the human author and his original reading audience would have thought. And obviously, what the author intends to communicate to his audience is utterly central, but I do not understand.

40:01

I would like to know where, who at Masters ever taught that once you know what the original author intended to communicate to his audience, you cannot connect that to anything else the author says in that book, any other book, to what any other author says, and certainly can't make a connection between Old Testament and New Testament.

40:26

Now, maybe there was some of that. Maybe some of the dispensationalism could get in the way of that.

40:33

I could see that the Old Testament, New Testament issue, the Tanakh and the

40:38

Greek scriptures, I could see something possibly coming up there, but I just can't see how it can ever be so tightly limited as it's being described by so many people today.

41:04

Okay, this says three. So because when you, especially a couple days afterwards, when you try to go back and then comments have come in, it's better than Facebook, I guess.

41:25

But anyway, sometimes makes me long for the old days, the DBS. Vern Poythress has a

41:31

Jets article that is helpful on grammatical historical hermeneutics and Genesis 315, the presence of God qualifying our notions of grammatical historical interpretation, a

41:41

Genesis 315, a test case. Now, that would be, that brings in a whole other area, and that is

41:49

Old Testament fulfillment, and certainly 315, pro evangelium, it's deep connection to so much of later revelation.

42:03

Also, I wrote a book in the confessional doctrine of the covenant of works, which deals with hermeneutics. My book,

42:10

Getting the Garden Right, shows many of my hermeneutical cards. I seek to argue with the confessional doctrine of the covenant of works and the confessional doctrine of the

42:19

Christian Sabbath, denying you these lands won outside the Second London Confession of Faith.

42:26

I used, oh, I used to deny the threefold division of the law using numbers.

42:35

I used to deny the threefold division of the law. Thinking it came from theological musings and systematic considerations,

42:44

I could not affirm it as based on the exegesis of text. I was wrong. From the

42:49

Finger of God by Philip Ross is a good recent work on that confessional issue. Denying the threefold division of the law lands outside the

42:56

Second London Confession. I used to use fuzzy things about our Lord's state of humiliation, e .g.,

43:03

incarnation equals addition. Incarnation involved non -use of certain divine prerogatives.

43:11

What scrubbed my vocabulary and theology was wrestling with Second London Confession 8 -7, reading

43:18

Augustine, i .e., form of servant, form of God, Athanasius, understanding the extra,

43:24

Calvinisticum, Owen, Turretin, etc. I realized I was using language similar to 19th century canonics and wasn't articulating myself in line with my own confession.

43:34

I was wrong. So that's him saying, I once believed exactly what you were saying. Now that means

43:41

I'm wrong, according to him. Okay. I used to deny the primacy of divine ontology, the divine economy in the interpretive process.

43:53

I allowed some aspects of the divine work to condition the divine being.

43:58

Yes, I once advocated EFS, early 1990s. Didn't know that. I have no idea.

44:05

Though, without the words and some form of theistic mutualism.

44:13

Okay. Unfortunately, theistic mutualism is defined by people in many, many different ways.

44:21

Over the years, I realized God and Trinity is what it is given. Over the years,

44:27

I realized God and Trinity is what it is given, creatures or not.

44:34

I found that patristic authors argued the same and even advocated we get God, theologia, right, or we get economy, ergonomia, wrong.

44:43

I addressed this issue in my Trinity in Creation. I critiqued two contemporary Reformed authors, Frame Oliphant.

44:48

I think both men present views not in step with our own confession of faith, given that he says our own.

44:58

That would almost communicate to me that there's something in the

45:07

London Confession, not in the Westminster Confession, or that he's saying that both violate the

45:13

Westminster Confession. I've not read it, so I don't know. I have a chapter in a book coming soon,

45:19

The Trinity, which treats this subject while suggesting we shelve Rauner's rule. Well, that's good. More hermeneutical cards are shown in that chapter.

45:27

My dissertation was published in 2010. It's titled The Family Tree of Reformed Biblical Theology. Among other things,

45:32

I discussed the analogy of faith, the analogy of Scripture, the scope of Scripture, and the only infallible interpreter of Scripture.

45:40

In a later publication, I flesh out those hermeneutical commitments addressing various issues.

45:45

I hope that helps. Yes, it does, but I think it's what triggered so many people that we can't have that.

45:58

That's not going to create the emotional fervor that we need, and so people start jumping in right, left, and center.

46:15

I guess he says, well, you know, get my books. I would think it would be rather easy and useful to a much wider audience to summarize, because there must be many of them, a key text that would allow for the illustration.

46:47

Some other people in that camp have attempted to do so, for example, with John 10 -30 and have made a hash out of things, but I would love to see how something like John 10 -28 -30 would be handled differently now than then.

47:17

Is this just simply a matter of, well, I now have a commitment to a particular limited vocabulary and language that I will then, how would you avoid limiting the scope of scriptural revelation to that particular vocabulary provided by your understanding of confession?

47:52

Is that even a danger? Is there a danger that confessionalism could limit artificially the actual scope of divine revelation in light of the language that existed at a particular time and a particular place in light of particular conflicts?

48:15

And if the framers of such a work were themselves in error at any point, history is filled with every singular church father, every single church father,

48:35

Calvin, Burrington. You can point to places where they were in error about something, either simply out of ignorance or because of the conflicts that they were involved in in their life.

48:46

If their conclusions then determine the language that we can then use, is there a danger of our limiting what scripture can say in light of our elevation of that confessional authority?

49:08

It seems that this kind of conversation is scary to some people because the stuff that started floating around, like I said,

49:29

Stephan Lindblad jumped in and basically said, just go read some books. Quit exegeting tweets.

49:39

I can certainly understand if people don't watch the program why they would speak out of ignorance.

49:48

But no one who's watched the program and is simply honest thinks that anyone's been just simply exegeting tweets.

50:00

It was unkind, unfair. And I did respond to that one. I said, your unkind comments are not needed.

50:07

I tried to say, stay out of it. I know you're an

50:12

IRBS professor, but stay out of it. Let's have a meaningful conversation.

50:20

And he came back with, and I'm reading the tweet now, a lot of solid

50:26

Orthodox ministers have grown weary of the way you take tweets and attempt to tear them apart. This isn't godly.

50:33

It's not arguing good faith, and it's a terrible theological method that has real implications for churches.

50:38

Just stop already. I don't know if this was written before.

50:50

Richard wrote a, how many was that? Unfortunately, who knows which one of these tabs that's in anymore.

50:58

What was that? More than 12, wasn't it? Or as many as 20 tweets.

51:08

The way you take tweets and attempt to tear them apart. Since December of last year, the other side of this controversy has been subtweeting, misrepresenting, strawmanning almost everything

51:26

I've ever said on The Dividing Line. They don't quote me. They don't play it. They don't put the words up there. They don't do what

51:31

I do, where I actually quote the sources, name the names.

51:37

I did not name names for the first month because I did not want to see division, but that accomplished absolutely nothing.

51:49

And so I quote people, and I ask direct questions, and if your inability to answer direct questions causes you to become angry,

51:58

I'm sorry about that. You might want to consider a different line of work. This isn't godly.

52:07

What is not godly is misrepresentation. What isn't godly is strawman argumentation.

52:16

What isn't godly is not dealing with what someone has actually said and taken the time to carefully think through.

52:23

That's what isn't godly. It's not arguing in good faith. I will leave it to the audience who's arguing in good faith.

52:32

And it's terrible theological method that has real implications for churches. Just stop already. Real implications for churches.

52:40

What do you mean by that? I mean, I reject the false accusations that's a substance of the accusation from Dr.

52:47

Lindblad, but someone else picked that up, and this is what happens.

52:53

Once you get individuals who are professors and hence have a position of trust, once they basically become unhinged, then the people who are already unhinged become really unhinged.

53:10

If it's possible to be doubly unhinged. Probably not. Anyway, so Josh Sommer popped in.

53:20

Yeah, I'm losing count of the stories I hear of local churches being deliberately affected by this talking head on YouTube.

53:31

Head, YouTube, talking. Of course he has his own talking head

53:38

YouTube channel, but consistency flies out the window once you get taken over by emotion.

53:45

Ironically, YouTube is not a biblical lawful means of ecclesial accountability. Sola scriptura, question mark?

53:53

Here's my guess. There are a lot of Reformed Baptists who listen to this program.

54:06

We sort of were pioneers in podcasting, webcasting, all that stuff.

54:14

Not that we, quote unquote, saw the future. Most of the time it's just because we were too poor to do anything else.

54:22

But we have a global audience. We've never spent, I don't think we've ever spent a dime.

54:29

I don't know if we ever did try one of those Facebook promote your thing, post things.

54:34

But I know people send out, nope, or it says nope.

54:47

We don't promote. We don't buy advertising. And yet we have one of the largest global audiences of any webcast of its kind by a long shot.

54:59

And that means a lot of Reformed Baptists listen to the program because we've been talking about the same things and doing the same things since the 1980s.

55:13

As most of you know, next year will be 40 years of ministry of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

55:21

And so I think what we're hearing here is

55:29

I am giving voice to what many people in the pews are thinking.

55:37

They've noticed the shift in interpretation.

55:44

They've noticed the shift in emphasis. They've heard more sermons about divine simplicity than in the preceding 25 years of their

55:56

Christian life. And they're going, something's different.

56:04

I don't remember the pastor quoting those sources in the past very often.

56:10

I remember a whole lot of Bunyan. I don't remember a whole lot of Thomas or any of these other sources.

56:23

And some of these books are written by Protestants, written by Roman Catholics.

56:33

Now, I doubt almost any of these guys have had the temerity to actually quote Craig Carter's definition of great tradition exegesis in their church.

56:43

I read it on the program. Again, I'm not trying to be coy as to it.

56:51

I just don't want to. I don't know when it's going to drop, so I don't want to ruin anything.

57:00

But I read that citation about what great tradition exegesis is.

57:10

And the host is a Reformed Baptist. I do wonder if some of the guys would consider either one of us

57:21

Reformed Baptists in light of some of the positions that they take. But anyway, and he actually stopped me at one point and said, what?

57:30

I said, let me finish. And I finished it up, and he said, well, I'm not sure what most of those words meant, but I know

57:42

I probably would have understood it better if I had had a bong. And I'm like, whoa, not even

57:50

I said that. It's like, okay. And I said, the reality is the strange language that we find so odd is taken straight out of Roman Catholic traditional sacramental ontology and is being tried to carry straight into our context.

58:20

It doesn't work. I've had nobody on the other side have the guts to stand up and say

58:28

Craig Carter's definition of great tradition exegesis is impossible for a confessional

58:37

Protestant to follow, and we reject it and warn anybody about it.

58:43

I dare you to do it. I dare you. Stand up.

58:50

Do the right thing, because you know I'm right about that one. You all are just going, well, he says some other nice things in the book, and I have recommended it, but no, stand up and say, yeah, except for that.

59:02

That part gets really weird. How about doing that? We'll see.

59:10

I would love to see it happen. Would love to see our tribe increase. But I think what

59:16

Summer is representing, I'm losing count of the stories, which means it's got to be two or three, where people in the pew are going, what's going on?

59:34

Something's changing. And they're going, that must be what

59:40

White's talking about. And then they listen in. They go, yep, that's, mm -hmm, that's what he's talking about.

59:50

So I guess the idea is you can't address anything that would have an impact upon people who are literally seeking to promote a particular agenda.

01:00:07

You're not allowed to do that, evidently. Solo scriptura, as if I'm claiming some type of ecclesiastical authority over somebody else.

01:00:17

I'm simply addressing historical, biblical, theological issues.

01:00:23

And I'm asking the tough questions. Because my work is to deal with the tough questions in evangelistic contexts.

01:00:37

And it doesn't make me right, but it does give me the advantage is that I've been dealing with issues of authority, tradition, and scripture for a very, very long time.

01:00:51

And when I hear people on my side starting to borrow the language of the other side,

01:00:57

I'm going to hear it. And I'm going to respond to it. And I'm going to say, so how do you deal with this?

01:01:05

So, you great tradition Baptists, on what basis do you make your arbitrary distinctions between what is great tradition exegesis in a text like John 10 -30 versus a text like John 3 -5?

01:01:27

John 3 -5. You're making a distinction. As a

01:01:34

Baptist, to be a Baptist, you can't hold to the great tradition interpretation of that text.

01:01:42

So you're making an arbitrary distinction. What's the basis of the arbitrary distinction? And if you say, well, it's scripture, okay, then what does that mean when you go back to the theology of proper texts?

01:02:00

Isn't scripture still the ultimate authority thereto, and hence all the tradition that you want to read into that needs to be tested by that ultimate authority?

01:02:11

This isn't playing games. This isn't exegeting tweets.

01:02:18

I'm asking questions, and I'm not sure you guys have the answers to them. Or you believe that the only way that your answers will have any validity is outside of the other side expressing any pushback.

01:02:41

Maybe. I don't know. Now, in the middle of all that, we did have, let me see.

01:02:56

I already read that one. I can close that one. So many tweets. I won't get into that one right now.

01:03:10

That takes us into the world of, again, all the different Thomistic scholars and their disagreements.

01:03:21

This is what I was talking about in the last program was you do not gain clarity on any biblical text when you have to plow through 10 ,000 pages of Thomistic argumentation as to what

01:03:40

Thomas actually believed before you can then shed the light of Thomas upon your text. You can pretend, but it doesn't get to anywhere.

01:03:51

But here was, if I close that, that would help, too.

01:03:58

Close that. And close that. I already read that one.

01:04:04

Okay. This one was, we'll sort of wrap up with this one, I think. I think I had another one somewhere.

01:04:14

Oh, yes. Just two more. And these, unfortunately, I almost hesitate to read them because we've kept this response very calm and brotherly.

01:04:32

Not that there will be much said about that. These are neither calm or brotherly.

01:04:40

And so maybe I shouldn't even refer to them. But it helps to illustrate for 48 hours it's just been a whirlwind of nastiness.

01:04:52

And I might, one of these I might avoid as well because I don't know who this person is.

01:04:59

I don't think there's a name associated with them. But someone who uses the post -Tenebrous

01:05:08

Lux name said, this is what happens when you leave a traditional church and go to a church slash para -church group of fanboys.

01:05:22

He's referring to my going to apology. You stop being a serious apologist for truth and spend your time being an apologist for your group, covering and redefining their errors while attacking those who dare question.

01:05:37

The reason I thought about responding to this, and I am responding to this, there is a very strong desire on my part to call for this person's repentance for the obvious sinfulness of slander of people you do not know.

01:06:00

Apology is not a church slash para -church group of fanboys. It is sinful for a

01:06:07

Christian to say that. It makes me really wonder about the state of your soul. But to look at anything that I've been doing recently on this subject,

01:06:19

I think it has almost anything. There are no Thomists at apology. In reality, outside of Jeff listening to the dividing line and not being able to do so also all of the time because he travels, he generally does,

01:06:36

I have to explain what's going on. Because it's just not an issue for us at all.

01:06:42

It really isn't. So this has nothing to do with covering and redefining any errors, attacking those who dare question.

01:06:55

What color is the sky in your world? You're not even connected to reality. He earned himself a quick block.

01:07:05

But that kind of thing is just amazing. Then we have R. Scott Clark.

01:07:11

Now, I remember very clearly it was probably at least ten years ago when

01:07:19

Scott Clark had to leave social media because his elders told him to. I think they should have probably continued that.

01:07:33

Didn't have the temerity to actually name names as normal. But you get this.

01:07:42

The number of crying, laughing emojis and facepalm emojis, really very funny.

01:07:50

R. Scott Clark, if the guy you're following has a series of bogus degrees and is cozying up the federal vision and is warning about a

01:08:00

Dominican conspiracy among evangelicals, well, you're on your own. Hashtag pick better teachers.

01:08:13

Like I said, it seems like Brother Clark sort of lost connection with reality a while back.

01:08:21

His detestation of Doug Wilson has just ‑‑ there are just some people, they lose connection with what's going on around them.

01:08:33

And that would be a good example. But that was his contribution to the storm of love, the

01:08:43

July 2022 storm of love.

01:08:50

That's what it was. It was exciting. It was great. But see what the issues really are?

01:09:03

They haven't gone away. I appreciate Richard Braselis's lengthy response.

01:09:15

And fully understand that if all he had been given was what he says he was given, which

01:09:23

I just ‑‑ I'm not saying ‑‑ I'm sure that's what he remembers.

01:09:28

But it's really hard for me to imagine masters not having even a ground, and maybe this is what

01:09:41

Richard is saying, that masters do not even have a ground to do meaningful defense of even the doctrine of the

01:09:49

Trinity that we all agree on. Because that requires you to start where they started.

01:10:00

What does this text actually mean? What did the author mean to express in these words?

01:10:08

What did the audience ‑‑ that's where you've got to start. Every single text. Every single text that actually substantiates the doctrine of the

01:10:17

Trinity, that's where you start. It doesn't exist by itself.

01:10:23

It is a part of a divine revelation. And so the I am sayings of Jesus in John 8, 24, 8, 58, 13, 19, 18, 5 through 6, have to have a meaningful connection.

01:10:38

And your ex‑Jesus has to allow for a meaningful connection back to the use of ego,

01:10:43

I me, in the minor prophets and especially in Isaiah, to the

01:10:49

Hebrew term anahu. So that's why liberal theology can't do

01:10:57

Trinitarian theology. Because there is no connection. There can't be. There's no underlying inspired reality.

01:11:06

But that has nothing to do with Thomas. The I am sayings of Jesus were true and taught what they say, the true things that they say, long before Thomas was a gleam in his daddy's eye.

01:11:25

And I do not need, and the early church did not need Thomas' metaphysics to express those realities.

01:11:35

So is this all really just about monoattributionism?

01:11:48

Is that really all this is about? Is it, well, Aquinas came to these conclusions, and without those conclusions, it's all going to fall apart.

01:11:59

Is that really what this is all about? Really makes you wonder. It really makes you wonder. It really does.

01:12:06

I was going to talk about stuff going on in our society right now, but I want this one to be able to go on YouTube.

01:12:14

So we'll have to hold off. I won't even say another word.

01:12:21

There are certain things you just can't talk about. The YouTube censors fell asleep about an hour and five minutes ago.

01:12:32

They really did. So I know they don't use censors like that.

01:12:38

They use computers. But the computer is going, oh, please, really?

01:12:43

Why make me read all this stuff? So next program will indeed be from the unit here, and then

01:12:55

I think Thursday next week should be in the studio. And then after that, three weeks on the road, and two weeks home, and then four weeks on the road.

01:13:10

So there you go. Monday, Friday next week? Is that what you're saying?

01:13:20

Oh. Should work. We'll make it work out one way or the other.

01:13:27

We'll make it work out one way or the other. It works, especially when I take the time to set up the other thing.

01:13:32

We can make it work. Thanks for watching the program today. God bless all of you, to all of my brothers in the faith as well, even when we disagree.