The Human Genome

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white. Hang a morning. Welcome to the dividing on as on a Tuesday morning lots and lots and lots to cover today I was listening to an article. For those of you who think that sounds strange.

Remember I do most of my studying in the back of a bike and so. Thanks to text speech Pro for those who keep asking that text speech Pro for Mac when I find especially a lengthy article that I definitely want to read I throw it in text speech Pro have it converted to mp3 audio throw it on the iPod Nano and somewhere along the.

So far on average this year 169 miles per week of writing. I get it done this morning I was listening to an article from the new atlantis .com called getting over the code delusion. I'm not sure who linked to it.

I think it was on Twitter, which means I'll never find again. But thankfully I was able to find the article again. And like I said, it's the new atlantis .com Getting over the code delusion. Let me just read the end of this article.

The article is a little complex if you don't have a science background it might be a little bit difficult to follow. It deals a lot with genetics and Ribosomes and DNA and RNA and nucleosomes and RNA polymerase and all the other neat stuff that if you stay genetics, you're familiar with those things though.

You know, I studied genetics back in the 1980s and boy are things are changing. I need to try to keep up with some of this this stuff and that's why I was listening to this. But listen to the end of this particular article.

It might take me a few moments here, but fascinating stuff. The topics covered in this essay represent just a small sample of findings of genetic and epigenetic research. And we can be sure that as the field develops more discoveries.

We made and will continue to undermine the doctrine that a genetic code defines the program of life. But this is enough. I hope to suggest why researchers are so energized and excited today a sense of profound change seems to be widespread.

What he's talking about is. Everyone was expecting upon the mapping of the human genome that all the secrets of life would be unfolded to us. They were not unfolded to us. We have found significantly less complex forms of life that have more genes than we do and The old well chimpanzees have 98 of the same DNA that we do argument that whole mindset has simply been been trampled underfoot of the the reality that that we were completely wrong to think that this Two-dimensional code in DNA was going to answer all of our questions.

It's it's shed much light on many things of course. But it has not explained the mystery of life. I continue on. Meanwhile the epigenetic revolution is slowly But surely making its way into the popular media witnessed the recent time magazine cover story why DNA isn't your destiny?

The shame of it is that most of the significance the current research is still being missed judging from much of what is being written. One might think the main thing is simply that we're gaining new more complex insights into how to treat the living organism as a manipulable Machine the one decisive lesson.

I think we can draw from the work in molecular genetics over the past couple decades is that life does not Progressively contract into a code or any kind of reduced building block as we probe its more minute dimensions.

Trying to define the chromatin complex according to geneticist. She grew while and Sarah Elgin is quote like trying to define life itself and quote Having plunged headlong toward the micro and molecular in their drive to reduce the living to the inanimate catch that Catch that in their drive to reduce the living to the inanimate biologists now find unapologetic life staring back at them from every Chromatogram every electron micrograph and every gene expression profile.

Things do not become simpler less organic less animate. The explanatory task at the bottom is essentially the same as the one higher up. It's rather our understanding that all too easily becomes constricted as we move downward because the contextual scope and qualitative richness of our survey Is so extremely narrowed.

The search for precise explanatory mechanisms and codes leads us along a path of least resistance toward the reduction of understanding a Capacity for imagination not something many scientists are trained for today.

Hmm, that's interesting is all is required for grasping a context in meaningful terms. Because at the contextual level the basic data are not things but rather relations movement and transformation. To see the context is to see a dance not merely the bodies of the individual dancers now.

I really recommend the reading of this entire article. So you you have the background to this because it's fascinating in its discussion of how they're they're discovering that that You know how genes are activated or regulated may have much more to do with with with more of a of a dance.

Interrelation of factors, it's not the mechanical simplistic thing that We were expecting all along it and no matter how hard they try. They can't explain these things without talking about design. It is it is designed all the way down to the most basic level.

They can't avoid using that terminology at all. I go back to the to the article the hopeful thing is that molecular biologists today slowly, but surely and perhaps despite themselves are Increasingly being driven to enlarge their understanding through a reckoning with genetic context as a result.

They are writing Phineas to the misbegotten hope for a non lifelike foundation of life. Even if the fact hasn't yet been widely announced. I know some atheists that need to hear this stuff. You know what?

I think it is time. I think for the announcement. There is frequently told a story about a little old lady who claims after hearing a scientific lecture that the world is a flat plate Resting on the back of a giant tortoise.

When asked what the turtle is standing on she invokes a second turtle and when the inevitable follow-up question comes replies. You're very clever young man, but you can't fool me. It's turtles all the way down as a metaphor for the scientific understanding of biology.

The story is marvelously truthful in the study of organisms quote. It's life all the way down end quote. Excellent article. I would highly recommend it to just just trying to wrap your mind around. What they're discovering about the the nucleosomes when I when I was in something you don't know I was a science major in college.

I finished a major in biology department fellow anatomy and physiology under dr James Witherspoon at Grand Canyon University blah blah blah blah studied a tremendous amount of genetics my senior year in college as well as majoring in Bible and back then Nucleosomes and things like that.

We just we had no idea how incredibly complex They are and how they may be extremely involved in regulation of gene activity and all this stuff. The thing to remember though is that so society think that if you understand The Mechanism by which some done away with the Creator.

The vast majority of your radical atheists today. You're Dan Barker's and you're obviously the big names like like Dawkins the whole idea is That if you understand how something works, then there's no longer any need for a creator.

They like to use the argument of the God of the gaps. You know you you you make reference to God simply because you don't know how something works. But once you find out how it works, you don't need God anymore.

So ancient men had gods who threw thunder through lightning and and made thunder and things like that. Well now we know how lightning and thunder work. We don't really fully understand it. But we've got a pretty good idea of the mechanics and so therefore you don't need God anymore.

That's that's the mindset. You know, I was thinking this morning Rich and I were talking about some of our old computers around here and we're I was talking about we have this one computer Runs in my office under my desk and it keeps track of our chat channel and We call it the na27 machine.

It's all does well. Actually, it also runs the video cameras that I can see in my office. But it runs 24 7 and it has been running 24 7 for over 7 years. I think we're thinking that one was made in 2003.

I think that's when it was made it may actually be older than that, but Let's let's say it's been running for that long now when I first got a computer the the compact portable computer I Didn't know how this thing worked.

I mean I it took a few weeks to figure out how word star worked and dot Commands and sticking a five and a quarter inch floppy into a drive didn't even have a hard drive on it 640 K of RAM. I Hadn't seen the inside of it and then we decide to upgrade to a hard drive.

Benny Diaz came over and we opened that thing up and I started seeing what the inside of a computer looked like and I've been able to use the computer, but I didn't really know why it was doing what it was doing.

But you start seeing the things are connected to other things and and you know You have to have these cables and these cables connect Hard drives and back then floppy drives to the motherboard and they also have to have power.

So there's certain power cables and sometimes we'd have to go to a store. We have to have a cable made to connect one thing to another because back then everything wasn't quite as standardized as it's become now and you know if I had tried to put a hard drive in and just took a piece of masking tape or a better duct tape which is what's used for everything duct tape can fix anything if I took a piece of duct tape and Connected the hard drive to my motherboard.

Guess what? It would not have worked. It would have looked somewhat similar to that cabling, but it would not have worked why because there's design you have to have certain cables that have certain connectors to make things work and over time I We built a lot of the computers that we're now replacing and rich is building two more in the other room as we speak the systems are installing and and You know the motherboards went on the old ones finally and they were running those still on Windows 95 and we finally Are they 98 win 98?

They're running win 98. Okay, so They were they're old machines. But we're putting put new ones together out there and those are the ones we burn DVDs with and the CDs and stuff like that and you know something you wish to say a point along the lines of what you're Saying here and that is just because I can assemble Components and make them work with one another Doesn't mean that I can build a computer.

No, you're you're using pre-existing blocks. Someone else has designed. Oh, yes I'm simply taking their design as best as I can Tell and assembling it together make it functional and if and if you had gotten a a Mac motherboard and tried to stick PC stuff on top of it and was mixing and matching stuff that would never designed to go together.

It wouldn't work. You got to make sure that the memory that you've got in there is designed for that particular System and I believe you would call that a freak. I think you Survive. That's right. You've turned the power to it.

No just sit there and stare at you. That's right into that so the point is I over time I learned how to switch out memory modules and upgrades and and put drives in floppy drives at hard drives CD ROMs and I learned to do all that stuff and.

But none of that took away as my knowledge of The computer grew none of that changed the fact that the computer was clearly designed. That it showed evidence of intelligent thought now back then we weren't so certain about how intelligent some of that thought.

It's gotten a little better, you know a little more a little more consistent, but the point was there was design even though my knowledge of the how Was was increasing so many of the people that you talk to today are Convinced that because we've learned more and more of the how We've somehow gotten rid of the creator.

The amazing thing is the more and more we learn not only do we realize less we know but We cannot describe the processes of life without using terms of design. We can't do it and It's not just a well, you know, it's just where language is no we can't do it things Function in such a way that they have teleology.

They have a goal. They have an end. They have a purpose. They have a reason and that's the one thing the naturalistic materialist cannot grant. There cannot be a goal. There cannot be a purpose. There cannot be a reason it's just not possible.

So again. Excellent article that I would recommend to your reading if you if you really want to sort of catch up on some of the developments In epigenetics and things like that right now the New Atlantis a Journal of Technology and Society Steve Talbot TALB OTT's article getting over the code Delusion, I think you might find that to be useful.

I don't remember who tweeted it, but I did look but I could not find it moving on. Like I said, we've got a wide variety of stuff to talk about today. We'll probably start taking callers maybe I don't know a half an hour afterwards, but I've got a number of things to get to yet here you probably heard on the collapsing culture front.

What happened? To Carl Paladino. New York GOP gubernatorial candidate criticizes gay lifestyle during speech. This is from Fox news .com the conservative Republican candidate to be governor of New York told Orthodox Jewish leaders on Sunday.

He doesn't want children quote brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality and quote is acceptable. Carl Paladino who has received strong support from conservative libertarian Tea Party activists made the comments at a synagogue in Brooklyn's Williamsburg Section while trying to strike a contrast between himself and his Democratic rival state attorney general Andrew Cuomo.

Paladino said he chose not to march in this summer's gay pride parade, but his opponent did. That's not how God created us Paladino said of being gay and that's not the example that we should be showing our children.

He had that children who later in life choose to marry people the opposite sex and raise families would be. Quote much better off and much marry people of opposite sex. I've had to reread that it would be much better off and much more successful.

Quote, I don't want them to be brainwashed and the thing in homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. He said he skipped one line from his prepared text in his speech at the synagogue. Quote.

There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional Homosexual. In a statement after midnight Paladino said he did not agree with the passage. He said the remarks were suggested by his hosts at the synagogue.

His campaign manager Michael Caputo told the New York Post the congregation distributed the draft and Paladino's name without clearing it with his campaign. A message was left at the synagogue early Monday now.

What absolutely strikes me is that statements of simple moral belief that were the vast majority of our culture 40 years ago are now reason for Absolutely attacking anyone today. Here here you have a session now some people might argue well, you know.

Oh, yeah, sure the the liberal media is going after him. But you know the people sitting at home to go out and vote they're all going. Oh, you know what? I actually agree with that, but let's say you do I certainly do.

I would use significantly stronger language than that. But I certainly agree. But every single one of us knows that if we make those statements in the public sphere today there will be consequences and certainly for people seeking public office a Group that comprises less than 3 of the population Has a massively out of balance Authority and power in our society and they always seek that and I've said for years and years and years the reason they seek that is because They have to silence criticism of their lifestyle because they live every day trying to suppress the knowledge of God and the conviction of sin that is a part of that kind of perversion and It they will always be that way.

That's just the very essence of that. God destroy life destroying God denying lifestyle and It is sinful and they don't want to hear people saying that and if you dare Say something morally true in many places in this nation today.

You will be attacked that is that is calling black white and white black. That is a perversion. That is exactly what the minor prophets all the prophets God said to to the nation of Israel because Israel had perverted the right ways of God God's wrath would fall upon them and We must be straightforward and open with our message to the nation today.

And that is if you continue to spit in God's face. Which is what this whole thing is if you continue to spit in God's face You cannot expect God's blessing. You must expect only God's wrath. Don't don't march in a gay pride parade and then say God bless America.

It that's blasphemy. It is absolute blasphemy. God will not be mocked in that way. It will bring God's judgment and we see it all around us. Well two more continuing to shift gears eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

Two more we have covered a fairly wide range. It's gonna get wider. This is from Jordan news .net from past Sunday, October 10th. The Saudi Council of senior religious scholars Has decided that anyone who insults the Prophet Muhammad's wives or companions Will be regarded as a non-believer a kufr.

The council and deliberations over remarks deemed offensive to venerated Muslim figures has received unanimous agreement from all members who have warned that insulting the prophets wives or companions is a direct assault on Islam.

A Statement released by the kingdom's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-shaykh Said respecting the Prophet's family and companions as part of Islam and those who do not abide by this are not Muslims. The statement cited verses from the Quran to indicate the need to respect the Prophet Muhammad's wives.

Regarding the Prophet's wife Aisha the statement said anyone who does otherwise and show respect will be violating the orders of the Quran and Will thus be a non-believer. The statement cited an incident when the Prophet was asked about the closest of women to his heart and he Replied Aisha.

Aisha was the youngest wife of the Prophet. He married her following the death of his first wife of 25 years Khadija bint kawalid Kawilad sorry Aisha was around six years old the time of her marriage and nine when the marriage was consummated.

The edict from the council has come in the wake of several incidents in Shiite scholars in Which Shiite scholars showed disrespect for Aisha. Kuwaiti cleric Yasser Habib had to flee to the UK after he was arrested in November 2003 on charges of cursing the wives.

He was later sentenced in absentia to 25 years imprisonment for calling Aisha the enemy of God. Now here's what happens. You know, I've been listening to a lot of lectures recently on Tawheed and The the focus in Islam upon the oneness of God but the the fact that Allah is so separate from his creation and so transcendent leads inevitably to the need for some kind of mediator and no matter how hard they try and No matter how many rules they set up Muhammad ends up taking that position.

Look what happens in The world today when someone look what's happened to the the woman who started the draw draw a Muhammad cartoon day. You know, she's having to live in in, you know, just like so many other people having to live in anonymity.

Hiding out changing name changing jobs changing location. Just as Salman Rushdie has had to do for years and years and years For writing a fictional book mentioning something that's found in Islamic sources.

Why? Because of the exalted status of Muhammad in Islamic theology and practice and If you dare insult my prophet then you must die. I Saw a tweet I didn't keep it. But it was actually a good one. Someone had made the comment the reason Christians don't don't kill people for insulting Jesus is Because we realize they're already dead.

The reason Christians Don't kill people for insulting. Jesus is because we realize they're already dead. Think about that and of course our desire then is that they experience life because we likewise were all once dead and Have received God's life in Christ Jesus.

That's why we desire that for them. But when you do not have a True mediator. Well, that's what happens. All right. Last one here 877 -753 -3341 now we have Skype up today dividing that line is the address for Skype as well.

I Read a fascinating Blog article and I think the best way to respond to it to be perfectly honest with you is to spend a little time With our old friend Jonathan Edwards. Yes Jonathan Edwards Probably one of the most brilliant minds that Has ever been produced by American Christianity by Every time I have the have the opportunity of reading Edwards, not only do I recognize how much English has changed but also recognize that the level of writing in our day is significantly lower and more simplistic and not nearly as rich as it was in in the olden days shall we say and I'm sitting here with my reading glasses around my neck now.

I'm putting them on these are the CSI New York reading glasses reason being I have my banner of truth edition of the works of Jonathan Edwards volume one here and If you know if you have that volume you realize that the font is approximately four or five point I believe it is ridiculously small and So I these days have to put on the reading glasses, yeah, I just want to read A number of sections from an extremely important work that I would highly recommend to you.

This is available online, in fact, I Pulled it up online. But since I had marked things in the print edition, I pulled it up at edwards .yale .edu if you wish to track down the writings of Edwards and this particular one is found there if you want to search for and a Dissertation called this is a dissertation concerning the end for which God created the world and I read this many many moons ago back when I didn't need reading glasses to to mark it.

But I did mark it up and so let me share a few things with you here. And then we will look at this blog article by an Arminian who says that there are no Calvinists who will take up his challenge on a particular issue and I think we'll go ahead and take that up on the program today.

In chapter 1 we read indeed this affair seems properly to be an affair of divine revelation. In order to be determined what was designed in the creating of the astonishing fabric of the universe we behold remember He was astonished by the fabric of the universe then What what should we be?

Knowing how much more we know about the very fabric of the universe today. It becomes us to attend to and rely on what he has told us who was the architect. He best knows his own heart and what his own ends and designs were in the wonderful works Which he has wrought.

Nor is it to be supposed that mankind who while destitute of revelation by the utmost improvements of their own reason and advances in science and philosophy Could come to no clear and established determination who the author of the world was.

Would ever have obtained any tolerable settled judgment of the end which the author of it proposed to himself in so vast Complicated and wonderful a work of his hands Edwards is saying we are dependent upon revelation for a knowledge of what God's purposes were.

I Can I skip down as to the first of these? I think the following things appear to be the dictates of reason number one. That no notion of God's last and in the creation of the world is agreeable to reason which would truly imply any indigence insufficiency and immutability in God or any dependence of the Creator on the creature or any part of his perfection for any part of his perfection or Happiness because it is evident by both scripture and reason that God is infinitely eternally unchangeably and an independently glorious and happy.

That he cannot be profited by or receive anything from the creature or be the subject of any sufferings or diminished Diminution of his glory and felicity from any other being that right there you have so much of modern Evangelicalism that would not hold a doctrine of God that high.

Anybody who talks about what God needed from us and God was lonely and all the rest that stuff he and Edwards have gone far apart from one another. I Continue on skipping down. And if it was God's intention as there is great reason to think that it was that his works should Exhibit an image of himself their author.

That it might brightly appear by his works what manner of being he is and afford a proper representation of his divine excellencies and especially his moral excellence. Consisting in the disposition of his heart then it is reasonable to suppose that his works are so wrought as to show this supreme respect to himself.

We're in his moral excellence primarily consists. Then continuing on in the second section at the very end. Therefore to speak strictly according to truth. We may suppose that a disposition in God is an original property of his nature to an emanation of his own infinite fullness was what excited him to create the world and So that the emanation itself was aimed at by him as a last end of the creation his point being that there was a purpose of which God chose to create there was a reason and that is his own glory.

Then in section 3 One part of that divine fullness, which is communicated is the divine knowledge that communicated knowledge Which must be supposed to pertain to God's last and in creating the world is the creatures knowledge of him.

For this is the end of all other knowledge and even the faculty of understanding would be vain Without it that is very very interesting. And a very high epistemology. We continue on with section 4. He again asserts nor do these things argue any dependence in God on the creature for happiness.

And he says for though these communications of God these exercises operations and expressions of his glorious perfections Which God rejoices in rejoices in are in time yet. His joy in them is without beginning or change.

They were always equally present in the divine mind. He beheld them with equal clearness certainty and fullness in every respect as he doth now. They were always equally present as with him. There is no variableness or succession he ever beheld and enjoyed them perfectly in his own independent and immutable power and will.

He then goes on and I'm skipping through many pages here. He Says at the end of the section where he has been demonstrating the reasonableness of his position I confess there is a degree of indistinctness and obscurity in the close consideration of such subjects and a great imperfection in the expressions We use concerning them arising unavoidably from the infinite sublimity of the subject and the incomprehensibleness of those things that are divine.

Hence revelation is the surest guide in these matters and what that teaches shall in the next place be considered. So he moves here to his biblical argumentation and again, I won't go through all of this there's there's so many things but In these places we see at the glory of God is spoken of as the end of God's Saints the end for which he makes Them ie either gives them being or gives them a being as Saints or both.

The end in which God's design in this work is obtained and summed up is his glory. This proves by the seventh position that God's glory is the end of the creation the scripture speaks of God's glory is the ultimate end.

Is the goodness of the moral part of creation the end in relation to which chiefly the value of their virtue consists. When the church says not unto us not unto us Oh Jehovah, but to thy name give glory it would be absurd to say that she only desires that God may have glory as a necessary or convenient means of Their own advancement or full and felicity from these things that appears by the 11th position that God's glory is the end of creation over and over and over again Demonstrating that God's glory is the end of creation.

This isn't an overly long dissertation dissertation I would highly recommend it to you. Just skipping number of pages here it is evident the last verse comes in in connection with the foregoing as giving another reason of the destruction of the wicked that is Showing the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy higher degrees of their glory and happiness in a relish of their own enjoyments and a greater sense of their value and of God's free grace in bestowing them an excellent excellent Section that I would highly recommend to you.

Thus we see that the end of God's works Which is so variously expressed in scripture is indeed But one and this one end is the most properly and comprehensively called the glory of God by which name it is most commonly Called in scripture and it is fitly compared to an effulgence or emanation of light from a luminary so I Recommend to you the reading of the entirety of Edwards section now having gone through all of that very very briefly, of course.

I turn to the reason for looking at this and That is Roger Olson's blog now Roger Olson is an Armenian and he is open about being an Armenian and we've looked at some of Roger Olson's materials. We've looked at some of his Arguments in the past.

We've found his exegesis to frequently be wanting. And so I I see stuff from Olson fairly regularly, but this one I found to be quite interesting Where he presents what he considers to be the fatal flaw of some Calvinist systems of belief.

So let me read you his argument and as I'm reading it Think about how you would respond most of our listeners are reformed not all But but most of our listeners are reformed and so I would be interested in in how you would respond to this Reading Roger Olson.

This is from September 29th. I Have identified here and elsewhere what I believe to be a fatal flaw in some Calvinist systems of belief that is insofar as a person believes that God foreordains and renders certain everything without exception for his glory for his glory in all caps.

And also believes that heresy for example diminishes or reduces God's glory By robbing God of some of his glory. He falls into contradiction. Both beliefs cannot be held at the same time. It is not a case of ordinary paradox apparent contradiction is a case of sheer unresolved and probably unresolvable Logical contradiction that is why I believe no Calvinist has ever risen to my challenge to explain it.

Every Calvinist that I know and I don't know them all says that some beliefs that is panentheism Detract from God's glory and that is why we must oppose them with all our persuasive might. They diminish and detract from God's glory.

They dishonor God. They rob him of glory. Every Calvinist I know also says usually elsewhere in his or her book or article or sermon or whatever that God foreordains everything without exception for his glory.

Now some Calvinist might take the approach that pen Anthony Panentheism, for example does not really Ontically rob God of glory as that is impossible for any creature to do. But it diminishes recognition and acknowledgement of God's glory in the minds of its of its believers.

But so what God foreordained that also for his glory that a panentheist is a panentheist Was foreordained and rendered certain by God for his glory according to Calvinist. I know I Don't know why he doesn't just quote the Westminster Confession of Faith the London Bapst Confession or whatever else and it's not just a matter.

Well the colonists I know but anyhow, it also won't work to say that God foreordained panentheism. So that he could overcome it by revealing it as false. So that he could overcome it by revealing it as false glorify himself, okay, there's a typo there.

Even then the existence of panentheism if determined by God to rebound to his glory. When he overcomes it in the meantime glorifies God insofar as it is decided by God as the means to that end. For the life of me I cannot figure out why Calvinists of my acquaintance not see this as a sheer logical contradiction and move to resolve it.

I have asked many about this issue and they have always just looked at me as if they never thought of it or they rely On some version of an answer. I just mentioned above which are no answers at all. All that is to say one reason I'm not a Calvinist is that to be one I would have to sacrifice my intellect in the strongest sense of embrace sheer logical incoherence and unintelligibility.

Not in the sense of embrace mystery with which I have no absolute problem. I believe that is a fatal flaw in so-called consistent Calvinism, which in light of this flaw is really inconsistent consistent Calvinism.

Many contemporary form theologians have moved away from decretal theology divine determinism. And I think this has I think that has something to do with this issue. Certainly it has also to do with another possibly fatal flaw in traditional Calvinism about which I'll write much which I'll write more later.

So there's the argument. The argument in essence is that if God foreordains and renders certain everything without exception for his glory and Also believes that heresy diminishes or reduces God's glory by robbing him of some of his glory.

He falls into contradiction since God foreordained the heresy as well. So There's the argument now I think a number of the things that Edwards said just in a few segments that I that I read directly addressed this because he specifically makes reference in that particular essay to the demonstration of the entirety of God's nature as being part and parcel of the demonstration of his glory and It surprises me that Roger Olson hasn't found Calvinistic and answer this or at least to his satisfaction.

And I've had a lot of people, you know, they've they'll come up and they'll ask me a question. I give them the best biblical answer is and well, it's not that's not to my satisfaction. Therefore you can't answer it.

Well, that's why I liked also what Edwards said. This is a matter of revelation. It is only by revelation We can know God's purposes in his creation. If you don't like what God reveals about his purposes.

Well, then you can't blame God for not having light having giving an answer that you like whether you like an answer or not is Irrelevant to whether the answer is a full complete and appropriate answer.

But I think you might see where the problem in Olson's argument lies by reading his expansion of his assertion. He says every Calvinist that I know says that some beliefs detract from God's glory. And that is why we must oppose them with all our persuasive might.

They diminish and detract from God's glory. They dishonor God they rob him of glory. Now if if all he's talking about here is that well God would be the most greatly glorified if every single creature in the universe Were to be continually in obedience to him and glorifying him if that's the all he's saying.

Well, I think he's missed the point of why God created the very fact that that God created in such a way that evil exists. Demonstrates that there is an aspect of God's revelation that it that goes beyond just simply creating a bunch of people to stand around worshiping him all day and.