Presuppositionalism

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line on September 11th, 2011, 2011, 2012, 11 years to the day from the attacks on the

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World Trade Center, Trade Centers and the Pentagon. And I certainly remember that morning very, very well.

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It was my first morning of teaching at Grace Christian School, which no longer exists, but I was teaching high school

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Bible. And I remember coming into that classroom that morning and looking at those young people and saying, your lives have changed forever.

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And I don't think you could possibly understand how. But when you think about it, the

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Afghanistan war started very shortly after that. And you know, I didn't do all the numbers, but we've been in that war for a fifth of my life.

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That's a long, it's the longest war we've ever been involved in. And you know, you hardly ever hear anything about it anymore.

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The media is just like, it's just not even there. You know, it used to, for some reason, when George Bush was in office, you heard all about how many people died every day.

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And now it's just, you don't seem to hear much about that at all. It's odd. But anyway, it is

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September 11th. And therefore, with great irony, I get to announce that aside from just a few pages of conclusion, wrapping a few things up at the end,

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I have finished that book that has been sitting like a huge rock upon my back, the last chapter, which is on the transmission of the text of the

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Quran. I just dropped it into the editing folder and it ended up coming in at 34 pages in length with seven pages of endnotes.

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I'm telling you, folks, if you do not read the endnotes, you are going to be missing the vast majority of this book.

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This book, in initial form, is bigger than the King James Only Controversy.

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It's 290 pages, not including forward, forward materials, bibliography, or glossary.

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It's going to need a glossary. Last night, I was reading some stuff to my wife and my daughter.

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And as I was reading it, I realized, wow, this has got a lot of technical material.

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There's just no way to avoid it. And I'm going to tell you, and by the way, the phone lines are open,

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I invite your calls today because I'm going to be perfectly honest with you,

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I have been at this so consistently and so long over the past few weeks,

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I am brain dead. And in fact, I would greatly appreciate your prayers because in six days, less than six days,

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I'm going to be debating at the East London Mosque. And the next day I'm doing the Unbelievable Radio Program, at least,

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I hope so. And the next day I'm debating at Trinity Road Chapel, and the next day

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I'm flying to Berlin. And then the next Sunday I'm preaching at Trinity Road Chapel, morning and evening.

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And then next Monday I'm doing two debates. And so it is going to be really, really intense.

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And it's been really intense. Even today, I tracked stuff down for this chapter today that I've never seen before, that I've only heard of before.

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I mean, I'm really excited. All I can say is to Adnan Rashid, buddy, you better be prepared because I've got a whole lot more going now than I had before, as far as resources and citations and articles and all sorts of stuff.

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And all I can say is once this comes out, I would just invite the naysayers and I would invite the people who came down on me like a ton of bricks two years ago during a certain controversy.

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Just compare the books. Just compare the research and the depth.

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And as I was saying, I'm going to have to defend, you might say, well, you're done writing it. Yeah, pretty much.

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I am done writing it. But now there's the editing process. And I'm going to have to defend the length of this book in the editing process.

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I'm going to have to defend the depth of this book in the editing process. But I think with Bethany House, I'm on good ground because they continue to publish the

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King James Only controversy. And it's one of their favorite books as far as it's used as a textbook and things like that.

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And I've already demonstrated you can call Christians to a higher level. And look, those who attempt to speak to Muslims know that you need real information.

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You need documentation. You need to understand where they're coming from. You need to understand the historical backgrounds. You need to understand where the mushaf is.

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You need to understand who the Al -Kitab are. I realize for many

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Christians, it's just, lost is too much. It's too deep.

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And the reality is, you know, the King James Only controversy, it's like, look, if you're really going to understand what this controversy is about, you need to know where the

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Bible came from. And you need to, you know, you need to have the resources to actually engage the subject.

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And so many people have been blessed by that book and by the book on the Trinity. And yes, it has

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Greek in it and it has Hebrew in it. You know, the book on the Trinity does, you know, that kind of thing. Well, if you're looking for the fluffy stuff that's already out there on Islam, this ain't it.

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We go, you're going to learn about Abdullah ibn Masud and Ubay ibn

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Kab, and you're going to learn about their Mushaf, and you're going to learn about the Sa 'ana manuscript finds and the palimpsest readings and the radiocarbon dating of the parchment upon which the palimpsest and the

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Sa 'ana manuscripts is what it dates it to. And you're going to learn about a lot of stuff.

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And you could go so much deeper.

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You could. I mean, there's just so much. But I hope that I have struck a balance.

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I would say the last two chapters are pretty deep, but the preceding chapters

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I think are fully understandable, and they're the ones that are on the theological issues of, you know, the chapter on the cross,

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Surah 4, verse 157. There's a chapter on Risa bin

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Maryam, and there's a chapter called Say Not Three. There's a chapter on Tawhid. There's a chapter on Muhammad.

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And I try to be fair. This is not an encyclopedia. The title of the book, it's already on Amazon, but they're going to have to reprice it because it's a lot bigger than they thought it was going to be.

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But it's on Amazon. The title of the book is what every Christian needs to know about the

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Qur 'an, not everything there is to know about the Qur 'an. You got to understand there's difference there.

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And there are sections that, there are things that some people go, oh,

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I wish you had talked about this, or I wish you had talked about that, or, you know, I understand that.

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I understand that. But I had an outline, and I limited myself pretty much to who is

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God, who is Christ, what is salvation, what about the cross, and what about the...

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Basically, I'm drawing from my experience as a Christian apologist here. I mean, what else can I draw from?

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And so I deal with the sources that the Qur 'an uses, that it, even though it denies that it uses sources, the sources that it does use, and I deal with its transmission, and I deal with, there's a whole chapter on the people of the book, the people of the gospel, and the charge of the corruption of the

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Injil. And so I go into, and there's, you're going to read a lot of the Qur 'an. You have to, because I cannot assume that people are going, that the

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Christian who picks up this book has ever read the Qur 'an. And so I have to quote a lot of the

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Qur 'an. And you need to read those portions, and read them carefully, and if there's a footnote there, go to the footnote.

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Well, it's not a footnote, end note. I'd love if they made them footnotes. I really would. And maybe

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I can talk them into it. I doubt it, but I, you know, because none of the other books. Well, actually,

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I'll take that back, that the God who justifies has footnotes, right? Is that how we do it?

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No, this is live. Yep, they've got footnotes.

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Yeah, maybe we can work it out. It would actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to ask for it.

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And given that, what size is those footnotes? Oh man, that is tiny. I mean, that just looks like a smudge at the bottom of the page to me anyway.

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But that would take up a lot less room, because right now with 10 -point font, can you tell it's been a long day?

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It's been a very long day. 10 -point font, those end notes are taking up,

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I don't know how many pages. They are taking up a lot of space. So maybe if we made them footnotes, it would actually shorten the book up a little bit.

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Yes, sir. You look tired. I am tired. I'm exhausted. So I'd just like to put the word out right now that if any of your critics, opponents, this is the time to call in to The Dividing Line and try to see if you can't trip up Dr.

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White, because his tongue done be tripping over his teeth. Yeah, my tongue keeps getting from my teeth, so I can't see what

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I'm saying. Tongue gets in front of my teeth, can't see what I'm saying. That's what's going on. Yeah, I've been at it since first thing this morning.

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And late last night, and it's just been every day. No, that was not a

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Pastafri -ism. My dad was saying that long before I ever heard Pastafri say it. But my mom actually used to say it too.

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But that's just an old way of saying things and you're stumbling over your words. But I'll try to talk him into it and maybe do footnotes because those small font.

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But some of these, honestly, some of these footnotes would honestly take up an entire page. They're massive. I put a lot of the

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Hadith. Yeah, yeah, I put a lot of the Hadith citations and stuff into the end notes just to try to keep the text flowing because I understand this is hard stuff.

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But if you want to feel prepared to speak to your

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Muslim friends, I really, really hope that this will help you to do that. And I actually hope that will allow you to actually see

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Muslims as being the possibility of friends to get you over that fear.

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Please do not ask me when it is going to be out because I don't know.

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I don't know how long the editing process will be. I think once my editor gets a chance to do a read through,

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I do turn books in in a very clean form. What I mean by that is

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I really don't think that it's appropriate to turn a book in with huge numbers of typographical errors and this, that, and the other thing and make the publisher do a bunch of work.

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In fact, for those who are interested in such things, I write in typeset format. I set my page up so it's the same page as the standard

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Bethany House typesetting font sizes, et cetera, et cetera. And I write in typeset.

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That's how I know how many pages it is, within about two or 3 % one direction or the other. And so once he gets a chance to do a read through on it, then he may be able to give me a little bit better idea of when it might be available.

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And all of it has to do with their print runs and press schedules and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

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So who knows? But please don't be asking me because I won't know for a while. But there is going to be some work to be done.

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They'll send me back stuff with alterations or what about this, what about that. One of the big things is

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I wrote this over such a long period of time that consistency over chapters that were written six, eight months apart from one another is going to be really a challenge as far as how you spell things and all that kind of stuff.

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So we'll see how that goes. But I need to get this sent off knowing that it's going to be editing stuff because there is a second book that I'm going to be doing with Bethany House that we need to get to ASAP.

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And so I'm just going to stay in this high pressure cooker mode and try to jump right on that.

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And really, I'd like to try to get it done if at all possible by early next year. So it's out next year as well.

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And so we're just going to keep hammering away on this stuff because I just think it's really important.

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And it's been a while since I've written a number of books over the past number of years, but it's been a number of years since one came out and a lot of the last ones were smaller ones.

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This is a major, major work. And so,

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I mean, yeah, it's not as long as you got to justify. That's a big book. But it's got a lot of material in it.

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And it was incredibly, incredibly challenging. So my sincerest thanks to all of you who have been praying.

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Those of you who, you know, I was so appreciative yesterday or day before yesterday, one of those, or maybe the day before that.

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Sometime, believe me, time has just accordioned on me recently. I could just throw something onto the blog that says,

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I need this source. You know, I've got it in electronic form, but I need it in paper form so I can do this out of it.

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Here it is. And, you know, I can put that up on the ministry resource list and five minutes later, it's gone. It's already been purchased.

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And that is such an encouragement. I am going to have a fairly lengthy thank you section in this book.

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But I can tell you all right now, even those of you who by name, I know you and you have been involved in helping,

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I'm going to use initials. Um, I mean,

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I have to come to, I have to state my conclusions in this book. And the conclusion of a fair analysis of the

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Quran's teachings in regards to the Bible and Jesus and salvation is that it is in error.

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And that means that Muhammad was not who the Muslims claimed that he was. That's what Christians believe.

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And so I just don't feel comfortable putting specific people's names. I mean, look what happened to you.

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I dedicated the King James line controversy to you and Peter Ruckman decided that you were a hell bound liar and sinner as a result, right?

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Yeah, you will. That got released in 95, right? Yeah. Okay. The phone call stopped a couple of years ago.

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Yeah, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put names in there. I'll put initials.

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So, so you can look at the initials, figure out if I gave you thanks or not, uh, somewhere, somewhere along the line, but I think initials are good.

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The initials WM will be quite common. Who, me? That's funny.

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Uh, but, uh, yeah, so there, there'll be a great thanks to RP and VL and stuff like that's going to be, uh, appearing in the, in the, in the front of the book for, uh, all the assistance and, uh, in all this.

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But anyways, it's, um, and of course, my thanks to all the people in the chat channel have been putting up with the past couple of weeks.

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I've just started. One of the things that helps me keep going is to show folks that I'm actually getting something done.

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So I've just been flooding our chat channel. If you, if, if you'd wanted to see what was in the book, I had to sit in the chat channel. You could have been reading almost all of it, uh, over the past number of weeks.

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And it has provided me with great, uh, stats. I mean, I'm, I'm almost caught up with Turretinfan and, uh, for the yearlies and my per line numbers are huge.

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Uh, so, uh, they've all, they've all put up with it and there's been a few whiners, you know, here comes a flood.

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Look out. Oh boy. You know, that kind of thing. But, uh, you know, uh, yeah.

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As someone in channel has said, RP equals Rich Pierce. Uh, there's other people who have the same initials as, as that.

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So, uh, that could be interesting. Hmm. I'm not sure how I'm going to, I'm maybe

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I'm just going to have to make up names and I'm going with WM. Really? Uh, WM.

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Okay. Yes. Uh, we're going to go with CTDG for crazy tambourine dance girl.

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Uh, that's, uh, that's Ordo in channel. I may have to come up with stuff like this. Uh, that, that may be the way to do it.

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Um, Tucson mom would be easy. Cause you know, I mean, who really knows who Tucson mom is anyways.

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Uh, then there's many moms in Tucson. Therefore, you know, that would be safe. So I guess if you, if you want a

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Nick used, you're just going to have to tell me what, what Nick you want, what Nick you want used in the, in the thanks at the front of the book.

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If I can even get them in there, uh, cause they may go, ah, it's not, you only get one page. Uh, we're going to run out of space here.

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Who knows? And, uh, so I got to get this thing sent off to people. I got to get that first read through done, catch any of the rest of the things

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I need to catch. And then there are people to send it to. Uh, and I've already got some, some interesting people who want to read this book.

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Some very interesting people. No, Eric and Kanner has not contacted me and asked to read this book though.

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I can guarantee you his presentations on the Quran would be greatly benefited by reading the book.

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But anyway, so, all right. So with that, uh,

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September 11th, isn't that odd that we would, uh, wrap, wrap things up on September 11th, but we do have phone callers.

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We have callers on the line and they have one line open at, uh, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341 is the number.

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I hope you all are going to be kind to me today. Let's, uh, let's get to, uh, yes, uh, see

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Farshad in channel. Got it right. Um, I'm going to get, I'm going to get Muslim, Muslim by choice to read the book and give me a recommendation on it.

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Who is that guy? Who was that guy? Oh, wasn't it the, the guy that we have to constantly block that, that yes,

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Abdul, is it Saeed, Saeed Abdul Malik? Is that his name? So, uh,

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Sadiq, Sadiq, Sadiq. Um, he, uh, wasn't he the one that when, when we first announced that I was going to do the book, you know, when's it going to be out so I can refute it?

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Uh, something like that. Wasn't that him? No, I think that was the guy up in Canada. The one that's in his mother's basement.

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Oh, okay. It's always, he was doing the stuff on Twitter with you every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, I lose track of my fans after a while, but, um, and I remember,

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I just remember some Muslim saying, uh, when are you going to put out your book so I can refute it? Yeah, it was him. That was him. It's like, uh, okay, good.

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We'll get him to endorse it. Yeah, yeah, we could do that. Anyways.

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Uh, okay. Let's get to the phone calls here and let's talk with, uh,

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Gregory in St. Kitts. Hi Gregory. Good, good, good, good night, Dr.

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Dr. Wright. Good night. Yes, I'm calling, I would like to say two things very quickly.

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First of all, quickly, I was listening to a program you did in the past and like how you're playing them over on your side.

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Yes. And, and, and that program, you said one thing, you were listening to Dr. Mowry and another Muslim man debating.

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Uh, Shabir Ali, I think. Yes. Yeah. And, and they were debating something that you do not understand where he came from.

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That was Mohammed, the call of Mohammed private area. Yes. Uh -huh.

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No, no, no. I'm going to be fair and honest to Dr. Mowry. I think I know where he was coming from.

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You see, Dr. Mowry was involved with, with, with debating the nation of Islam.

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And he tried to show the nation of Islam that the, that the hadith said Mohammed was a white man.

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And it even said that Mohammed private area was white. And he said one time when he told one, a member of the nation of Islam, they were very devastated to learn that even the call, the hadith even went as far as, as, as talking about that concerning Mohammed.

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Well, that may be, that may be what prompted him to do it. But the fact of the matter is Sahil Bakari doesn't say that.

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That's the problem. But I think that is where Dr. Mowry, I think that is where the conversation really came from.

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Well, all I can, all I can say is that it had no place in a debate with a Sunni Muslim by the name of Shabir Ali.

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Yes. I understand. I understand. But, but I just want to say, I think the nation of Islam was the background of that, but more importantly than that, though, much more importantly than that, when, when, when

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I think when I tell people that the

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Bible says that, for example, God loved Esau, sorry, sorry,

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God loved Jacob and he hated Esau. And then when I show them the Psalms, they say he loved people.

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I mean, he hated people who practice wickedness and iniquity. They always come back and say, well, even though it is worded like that, it really means

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God hated their, their work and not their personally.

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And where Esau is concerned, they will come back and say, well, what that really means is that God really foresaw

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Esau's wicked work. And that is why God say he hated

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Esau. But, but even though it is worded like that, God was not talking about the person himself.

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He was talking about, about Esau's wickedness that God foresaw and why

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God say he hated Esau. There are many, a few come back with that. And so I was wondering,

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I was wondering with such language, because it is worded very personal to me.

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And I was wondering, how would you deal with somebody who said, well, yes, it is worded like that, but it's not really referring to, to them personally.

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It, what they actually mean is, is, is what God foresaw and God foresaw the evil life, the evil works.

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And that is what really God was speaking to Esau's concern and the evil work of those who were wicked and that sort of stuff.

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But on the issue, quickly, I would like to say, I downloaded from Mona Jusenburg, a sermon by, well, a series on hell by, on hell by Edward Donnelly.

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And I think it was the one that says, that I say, what will it be like if we fall into hell?

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Where Edward Donnelly said, a scholar made a study of 33 places in the

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Bible where God hatred is spoken of. And he said 12 of them, according to the scholar, was

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God hatred of sin. While 21 of them was, was God hatred of sinner, of the sinner, saying that it is much more stated in the

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Bible, God hate the sinner, than what passages you would find saying God hate sin. So I said, we're going to try that in a mix as well, and ask, so how would you answer people if, if, if they mentioned that to you in the scriptures?

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Well, when, when, when people respond in that way, they are, they're speaking from their tradition.

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They, they have heard so many times, God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.

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And there isn't, there is a germ of truth in regards to the fact that we ourselves, and I think this is where the confusion comes in.

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We ourselves have been children of wrath. Ephesians chapter 2 says, we are all children of wrath.

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We are all under the wrath of God. And yet, even while we are sinners,

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Christ died for us. There is clearly an expression of love. There's a, there's an, in the creation of man, the sustaining of man, the, the granting to even the most reprobate sinner, the, the joys of life, the, the, the beauty that one sees when one sees the sunrise or the sunset and feels the wind upon one's face.

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Because we're made in the image of God, we experience these things and we experience love.

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And because of the fact that we, we tend to deny to God the ability to have different kinds of love or, or even to recognize that there are different levels and kinds of love and God's love.

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Because all love is God's love and God's all love and all this mushiness that we have, that we have imbibed from our traditions.

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We see those things, we go, oh, well, okay, God's, God's wrath must be directed solely toward this disembodied thing called sin rather than towards sinners.

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Now, of course, as the Assyrians came upon the

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Israelites, I really doubt that the Israelites would have taken much comfort in that particular way of trying to get around the reality of God's wrath and his hatred against sin and sinners.

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But it's, it's pretty easy in our, in our situations to, to come up with that.

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But the problem, the problem is that the Bible doesn't divide man up into parts like that.

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Yes, there are times when Paul will talk about the, our, our sinful nature or issues like that.

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But the reality is that when the scriptures talk about God hating sinners, it's talking about sinners who love their sin and who are under the just wrath of God.

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And that, that is absolutely necessary for a truly holy being to detest that which is the opposite of his nature.

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And God's wrath is not just some type of anger. It flows from his holiness and it's related, it's related to his love, it's related to his justice, it's related to his holiness.

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And it's only by dividing God up into parts that we end up with this discombobulated, inconsistent being that is the

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God of, of many evangelicals in the Western world today. And so if someone were to say that to me,

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I would, I would simply say, well, that may make you feel more comfortable, but that almost makes

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God less than, less than man because we have the ability to express redemptive love and we also have the ability to express lesser kinds of love without confusing them.

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And yet when it comes to God, we just don't, evidently don't want to have, put out the effort to recognize the one over the other.

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And so I would just challenge the, the person's assertion. The problem is you're dealing with people who have much more knowledge of their tradition than they did, they normally do of the

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Word of God. And like Dave Hunt, they confuse their tradition with the Word of God. And the only way around that is, is, is

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Bible study that is done always with an eye to challenging tradition.

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And there's just no other way to do it. There's no short, easy answer, especially when it comes to the love of God.

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But one of the things that has helped a few folks anyways is when I've pointed out that the

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Gospel of John talks about the disciple that Jesus loved. Now, does that mean

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Jesus didn't love the rest of the disciples? Of course not. There was a special relationship that existed there.

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And so in the same way, God loved Israel. Well, does that mean he didn't have love for anybody else?

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No, he brought people into covenant relationship with him from outside of Israel. So the fact of the matter is that, that most people who at least still believe the

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Bible's Word of God, you can give them examples and say, doesn't that therefore tell you that that you're, you're understanding the word love here is, is far too limited.

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And, you know, some will hear, some will not, you know, as we've documented on this, this program many, many, many times before.

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Yes, go ahead. You see, while they have no problem in taking personally the part of the verse that where God say he loved

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Jacob, they have a part, they have problems in taking personally the part that say he hates

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Israel, so they try to make it impersonal than how it is written in the personal covenant.

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The problem is, if the hatred's impersonal, the love becomes impersonal. I mean, that's why in Arminianism, the elect become this impersonal group rather than people who are personally loved.

32:02

And it really does diminish, I think, the personal aspect of the love of God. And so it's, you know, you have to be very, very careful.

32:11

But it's a matter of tradition, Gregory, that's where people are, people are going with it. All righty.

32:16

Lastly, could I have another question quickly? It's got to be real quick. We got three other folks online.

32:22

Yes, yes, yes. Another question. Some people say, it is the sins that we commit is what determine the degree of hell that we choose.

32:29

And now Cario says it is our sin nature that determine that we're going to go to hell and not our sins, which are, which in our sins determine the degree of hell we're going to suffer.

32:36

What do you say on that? Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you, Greg. Yeah, one short, yeah, short, short question.

32:46

I don't know that you can divide them up in that way. If you're saying people say, if you're talking about people who say we're not sinners until we sin, well, then that denies our federal headship in Adam and our relationship to him and the fact that we are born corrupt.

33:02

Um, if you're, if you're asking, well, what results in our being in hell are sinful nature or our sins?

33:09

The Bible doesn't make a distinction. The simple nature results in the sins. Uh, I don't, I just don't, I think that's trying to ask, uh, questions that don't need to be necessarily asked, which a lot of people do anyways.

33:20

Uh, let's, uh, let's go up and talk with, uh, Jeffrey, eh? Hello, Jeffrey, eh?

33:25

Hello, sir. How are you, eh? I'm good. How are you? Good. Good, good.

33:31

So I'm wondering about, uh, John 8, 31 and 32. Okay. Um, because the second half of that sentence is quoted a lot.

33:42

You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free, but it's all part of the same sentence that starts with you abide in my word.

33:49

So should it be read? If you abide in my word, you're truly my disciples. And then go back again and say, if you're abiding my word, you will know the truth.

33:58

And if you abide in my word, the truth will set you free. Is it, is Jesus saying that abiding in his word is, is the part that sets you free?

34:07

Or is it as people traditionally read it and say it's, oh, knowing the truth that will set you free? Oh, well, yeah, it's, it's one sentence.

34:14

And, uh, the, the chi at the beginning of verse 32, the and is, is not disjunctive.

34:20

So, uh, the only way to know the truth is to abide in his word.

34:26

That's what makes you truly disciples. And it's his disciples who know the truth and the truth sets you free.

34:33

Remember, he's talking to individuals who in the preceding, uh, verse, uh, verse, uh, versus 29.

34:41

And after he has said in verse 29, and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

34:49

As he spoke these things, many came to believe in him. Well, that term believe is in the aorist and in John, that does not indicate salvation.

35:00

It is a, is a point action type thing. It's, it's, uh, these are the very same people who, by the end of the chapter, you'll be picking up stones to stone

35:08

Jesus. And so Jesus is exposing this type of false faith, which also is seen in John chapter 12 by, uh, people who believed in Jesus.

35:20

And yet they love the praise of men rather than praise of God. These are not true believers. It's amazing.

35:25

They're actually Christians out there who try to make them true believers. Anyways. So when he says, uh, to them who had believed him, so these false believers, if you abide in my word, which they're not going to be doing, abiding is a present tense action.

35:39

Their belief is a one -time thing. You are truly my disciples and you will know the truth. The truth will set you free.

35:45

So it's, you can't divide it up and no one can know the truth.

35:51

I mean, what's, who is the truth? I mean, that's, that's the whole point. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and life.

35:58

So, uh, it's not just simply knowing truth that sets you free. It's knowing truth in Jesus Christ that sets you free.

36:04

Right. And I, I kind of drew that parallel too, but it's like several chapters away.

36:09

So I didn't want to be drawing things together inappropriately. Well, as long, as long as the, as the context doesn't militate against it, there are themes, uh, certainly the theme of truth and the theme of union with Christ starts all the way back in one.

36:26

So if it's a, if it's a theme, yeah, that's fine. If you're, if you're trying to get around something in a text by jumping to another text, that's a, that's a different issue.

36:34

There's a, uh, sometimes a fine line, uh, of, of honesty that has to be drawn at that point in doing proper exegesis.

36:42

But yeah, definitely. You can't just, you can't just say, you will know the truth. The truth will make you free.

36:48

That's, that is jumping in the middle of a sentence and avoiding the context. Okay. Yeah.

36:54

I just, that's kind of how I, I was thinking that that's how that would be. All right. All right.

37:00

Thank you, sir. Great day. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. Bye. 877 -753 -3341.

37:07

Let's talk with, uh, Tom. Hi, Tom. Hey, Dr. White. How you doing? Tired, Tom.

37:14

I believe you there. Well, hey, my question, um, kind of goes back to starting a couple months ago when

37:21

I talked to you about, uh, apologetic frameworks. I think you were in Hawaii at the time, if I remember right. But anyway, you recommended that I read

37:28

Bonson, Van Till, and, uh, and those, uh, presuppositional authors. And, uh, since that time,

37:34

I've spent a lot of time with Bonson's, uh, Always Ready, and greatly enjoyed it. Made tremendous sense. Um, but full disclosure, and maybe

37:41

I shouldn't admit this over the airwaves, I'm actually a Lutheran. And I've been getting a lot of, uh,

37:47

I know, I know. I have, uh, I've shared the approach with a lot of my Lutheran friends.

37:54

And, uh. And they looked at you and said, you're trying to solve mysteries you shouldn't be solving, son.

38:01

Among other things. Uh -huh. Um, you may know that Lutheran circles, especially LCMS, which is what

38:07

I am, tend to follow, uh, pretty, pretty well lockstep with John Warwick, Montgomery. Oh, yeah.

38:12

Oh, yeah. Evidential side of things. Uh -huh. There haven't been a lot of, a lot of people that were pleased with that, um, will say endorsement of presuppositional politics on my part there.

38:24

Yes. But here's the thing. I'm sure you can find something in Luther somewhere. Why don't you, why don't you drop, uh,

38:30

Carl Truman a note. He was lecturing on Luther today at, uh, at Southern, at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

38:36

Drop a note and say, hey, could you find me something in Luther that would allow me to make him look like a, uh, a presuppositionalist?

38:43

Because, let's face it, you can find almost anything you want in Luther. I don't know if I've gone that far, but I will say

38:50

I have, even just reading the small catechism, I've found things from Luther that would totally stand behind on that point.

38:58

Uh, explanation to the third article, excuse me, third article of the Creed would be, would be an example of that, so.

39:04

Um, but in, in talking about it, one of their objections to the approach that I just haven't been able to answer has been when they ask the question, what do you do for someone who is in a cult or say in Islam where a transcendental argument's not necessarily going to do the job?

39:22

The correspondence seems to be saying that, uh, transcendental argument and the presuppositional approach can all work well against Islam and these other theistic religions, but in my own thinking on it and reading,

39:34

I'm having a hard time seeing it. So I just wanted, as someone who debates Muslims, um, and knows presuppositional apologetic,

39:41

I figured you might be able to help me out there. Okay. Um, there is an article, uh, that was written about sometime in the past year over at, uh, the

39:52

Choosing Hats, uh, blog. I think it's, is it choosinghats .com? Somebody, there's half the guys from it are in channel, so they'll be able to confirm this one way or the other in a few moments.

40:03

Um, but, um, sometime within the past year, I addressed this question and one of the guys, um, wrote a fairly lengthy article disagreeing with me on this specific, uh, this specific issue.

40:23

So you want to hear someone from that perspective saying, defending

40:30

Bonson's perspective that, yes, the, you know, the transcendental methodology is what you need to, to go there.

40:39

Obviously, I'm not saying, uh, that you abandon, um, all the, you know, the presuppositions, the lordship of Christ over knowledge and everything else, uh, in, in dealing with a, in dealing with a

40:54

Muslim. But I agree with your confusion when you start talking about the actual form of argumentation, not the basis.

41:04

You're still looking at, you're still looking for consistency. I mean, I think I'm constantly harping on the fact, uh, that my

41:12

Muslim opponents, uh, to use a section from their own, their own holy book, use different scales.

41:22

They do not, they do not use consistent argumentation. Uh, they use one set of standards in attacking the

41:29

New Testament and a completely different set of standards in defending the Quran and so on and so forth. So I am doing somewhat of an internal critique at that point.

41:38

And I think the argumentation that I use from surah five is saying, okay, here are your presuppositions.

41:46

I'm following them and they lead me to a rejection of Muhammad as a prophet.

41:52

So in a sense that, that I, I think I'm using the overall methodology at that point.

41:59

But if you're talking about a transcendental argument, when you're already dealing with someone who is a monotheist suffering from what we might say is a form of hyper -transcendentalism in the sense that their

42:16

God is so transcendent that there's almost, that the, the incoherence actually comes in how there can be meaningful self -revelation of this utterly transcendent deity.

42:28

Um, I don't see how at that point you're dealing with the same issue as the transcendental argument is meant to be dealing with.

42:38

And so I, I, I do have my own personal questions as to exactly how, um, that is to be applied in that limited sense.

42:51

And I've expressed that in the past. And, uh, if you want to see someone's disagreement with me on that, like I said, you can find that I, I'm pretty certain it was within the past year.

43:02

But again, I now realize I've been working on this book for more than that period of time.

43:07

So if you don't find it in that period of time, maybe you need to go six months earlier than that. I don't know. But, uh, if you're familiar with the website, then, um, you'd get the other side of that.

43:17

But I would agree that when you're dealing with a theistic system, um, you've got, uh, you've got to recognize that.

43:26

And of course there'd be different kinds of theistic systems. I mean, I wouldn't even put Mormonism as a theistic system personally.

43:32

Um, so yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay. That makes sense.

43:38

Now, just another quick question. Would that fall, your method there of looking at consistency, would that fall under the category of coherentism or how would you?

43:48

I don't know what you'd call it. I just think I, I, for me, it, it flows from, for me, given that the

43:57

Muslim believes that there is such a thing as objective truth. I have a, a, a foothold with them, um, that not only is reflected in their, the fact they're creating the

44:07

Imago Dei, but, uh, it's something I can externally hold them to. It's one of the 99 names of Allah.

44:13

Normally in most lists I've seen as number 51, I'll hawk the truth. So I can, it's something I can put out there and, and say, here, uh, you, you cannot violate this because it's one of the very names of, of Allah himself.

44:28

And so partly that's a functional thing for me because I'm really trying to reach that individual.

44:36

I'm trying to get them to hear what I'm saying. And in my experience, anybody,

44:42

I don't know if it's Muslim, Mormon, uh, Jehovah's Witness, whatever. When they hear you speaking their language, using their terminology and demonstrating that you've done something more than just read a

44:53

Jack Chick tract about them, um, it just on a very functional level, it opens up opportunities of, of them hearing what you're saying and, and allowing you to express to them a meaningful, uh,

45:07

Christian witness. And so that's, that's always what I'm emphasizing in, in what I'm trying to do.

45:13

And that may not really fit into some of the textbooks ways of doing things, but that's just me.

45:19

It works for me. It, it makes perfect sense. And it, uh, resolves that problem I had. So, appreciate it.

45:24

All right. All right. Thanks, Tom. Thank you. All right. God bless. I love that I said that.

45:31

And by the way, I, self -disclosure, I'm a Lutheran. I love that.

45:38

I, I, I was at, I was at a, well, I actually performed the wedding of, uh, uh,

45:45

Lane and Sue, uh, last summer. And, uh, uh, Chris Rosebaugh was there.

45:50

And, uh, he of course is a flaming Lutheran. And, uh, every time he walks into a room, if I'm at the, at the,

45:58

I'm at the microphone, I find some way of saying something about the mystery. Uh, cause that,

46:04

I'm always, I'm always, uh, joking with my, my Lutheran friends. It's a mystery.

46:10

Whenever you press them on consistent, it's a mystery. I love it. Anyways. All right.

46:16

Let's, uh, talk. Is this, uh, Jabari? Jabari. Jabari. Jabari.

46:22

Hello, Jabari. Hello, this is Jabari. I'm calling from Winona Lake. And I have a question concerning homosexuality.

46:30

Um, my sister who's indulging in lesbianism just said, after I tweeted about gay marriage, she said, she responded by saying, saying, let's have a brief discussion about how everyone wants to tell you how to live your life, but doesn't want to want you to interfere with theirs.

46:48

Um, what's interesting to me, she says is America was created to be a place with religious freedom.

46:54

Somehow Christians have forged freedom of religion into free to believe as long as you believe what

46:59

I want, because they are right about everything. You want this government to be run by Christian principles, but the majority of the kind of the people in this country are practicing

47:09

Christian. But these same people outside of your religion are supposed to fall in line or get out the persecution of people outside of Christianity is starting.

47:21

And she, this is all that she, I'm sorry, the persecution, what? The persecution of people outside of Christianity is starting.

47:29

Oh, give me a break. Give me, give me a break. I mean, that, that is everything that you just read to me is so historically naive.

47:39

I don't even know where to start, to be perfectly honest with you. I mean, has this young lady read anything?

47:46

The founding fathers ever said, has, does she have any concept of the worldview ethically and morally of any of the founding fathers, even the most liberal of the founding fathers?

48:03

I mean, look, that, that is, that is the voice of cultural anarchy speaking.

48:09

And the fact of the matter is any culture that is going to exist has to have, has to have an agreed upon moral foundation.

48:21

And today, unfortunately, for the vast majority of people in Western culture, those moral foundations are provided not by lengthy in -depth thinking and contemplation and meditation upon meaningful works that address the subject for the vast majority of the younger generation that comes from MTV, that comes from The Daily Show, that comes from Saturday Night Live.

48:55

And as a result, it is a jumbled mass of incoherent goo that could never bear the weight of any type of cultural progress.

49:09

And I can guarantee you during the great wars that this nation engaged in only 60 years ago, that kind of moral and ethical mumbo jumbo could not have sustained this nation when we've had, we just passed, and it's a tragedy, we just passed 2 ,000 dead in Afghanistan in 11 years.

49:37

That type of, those type of numbers happened in a matter of days during World War II in Europe and in North Africa and especially in the

49:49

South Pacific. And that resulted in all sorts of pressures back at home and people considering what is life and why do you sacrifice yourself for these things and all the rest of it.

50:01

That kind of mumbo jumbo about, oh, you don't want to have Christian principles, could not have sustained a nation under pressures like that.

50:12

It just doesn't make any sense. And the idea that persecution is starting is, yeah, persecution is starting of Christians, not the other way around.

50:24

I mean, if this young lady had any knowledge of, ask her to go back and read some of the presidential proclamations from the last century.

50:35

Ask her to go back and read, my fellow elder at my church, his dad passed away recently, and he brought to the

50:44

Wednesday night service the New Testament that had been given to his father when he went into military service in World War II.

50:53

And here in the front is a proclamation from the President of the United States, of course, we know that was

51:00

Roosevelt, that recommending to every member of the military their reading of the

51:09

Holy Scriptures and their meditation upon the principles contained therein and all the rest of this stuff.

51:16

I mean, the silly Supreme Court today would blow a fuse over something like this, but that's the way this nation was.

51:26

And these young people actually have the idea that somehow something has changed, that up until just recently, this was a wonderfully secular state where no one ever said anything about religion in the public square at all.

51:36

It's just pure fantasy. It demonstrates that these folks have no earthly idea what the history of this nation was all about.

51:46

And so I would just point to history to demonstrate that most of that's just gobbledygook and then say, look, the reality is what you're saying is you want moral anarchy.

52:00

So I guess it's okay for adult incest to take place. It's okay for grandsons to marry their granddaughters.

52:07

Is that okay with you? And if not, why not? Because you don't want Christian principles. So where are you going to get your principles from?

52:14

Are you going to get them from neo -Darwinianism? Because neo -Darwinianism is going to tell you that you're doing something wrong, because as a lesbian, you can't have kids.

52:22

And neo -Darwinianism would say, that's wrong. You need to pass your genotype on to the next generation.

52:28

So you need to be having kids. So what you're doing is wrong. Where are you going to derive your ethical principles?

52:35

Because all she's saying right now is, I just don't want to have any. It's just up to you. You have yours. I have mine.

52:40

But we don't have any disagreed upon. Excuse me. We live in a society. Society can't exist without them. Thank you.

52:48

Thank you. Sorry, I went along there, but I'm tired. So I didn't know where to stop.

52:55

But thank you. I really, that's all right. I really needed that one. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, sir.

53:01

God bless you. Thank you. Bye. Bye -bye. All right. I think we got enough time to get

53:07

Jesus in here. Jesus. Yes, how are you doing, Dr. White? Doing good. Okay, just a quick question.

53:14

I'm trying to develop an outline for a church history class that I'm about to share with my congregation that I go to.

53:22

And one of the books that I'm using is by Ian Campbell, Heroes and Heretics. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I am not.

53:28

No? Okay. Well, he gives you a background as to—basically, he goes from Galatians 4 for how

53:34

Jesus was born in the fullness of time. So he gives you a background of, like, how the

53:40

Lord providentially prepared the world for the coming of Christ, and how there was a

53:46

Jewish background, there was a Roman background, and a Greek background. When I got to the Greek background,

53:51

I started thinking also about the language itself. And if the

53:58

Greek language, if Koine Greek, was that—and I'm only—I'm asking you because I know you're fluent in—or the most fluent person

54:08

I know. Well, I read it. No one's fluent in Koine Greek anymore. They're all dead.

54:15

But anyway. So I was just wondering, is there—the Greek language, the

54:20

Koine Greek—was that, in your opinion, was it also providentially established by the

54:29

Lord so that we would be able to have all the translations we have in the different languages?

54:35

Was there a language that was easy to translate, in a sense, I guess? Well, many Christians have seen the providential hand of God in the

54:44

Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, the fact that the Roman Empire had spread so far and so wide and had established, well, peace.

54:53

It had made it possible for you to have travel all across.

54:59

I mean, you think of all the travels that Paul did. And if you have warring factions, that extremely limits travel.

55:07

In fact, it's interesting. Once the Roman Empire fell, during the medieval period, the average person born in medieval

55:15

Europe never traveled more than seven miles any one direction from where they were born. That means you have a really small world, you know?

55:23

And think of how far Paul traveled and Timothy traveled. Very, very different. And the fact is that the initial, you know,

55:34

Alexander the Great and the Greeks laid the foundation for the Roman Empire and that Roman expansion and provided the language—and a lot of the culture, too, that Rome was dependent upon—and provided a language that, you know, people scoff at the idea, but I have pointed out many, many times, if you were living in Palestine at that time, you know,

55:57

Galilee, wherever, and a Roman soldier starts yelling at you, he's probably not going to be yelling at you in Latin.

56:05

He's going to be using the Koine Greek. And you better know something about what in the world he's saying. And so that means that the—that's one of the reasons why the

56:16

Greek Septuagint, the Koine translation or, well, classical slash Koine translation of the

56:23

Hebrew Old Testament becomes the Bible of the New Testament Church. It is the very text they refer to.

56:29

It's a text they quote almost all the time. And it's because it laid that foundation, smoothed the road out, in essence.

56:38

And so, yeah, I would see very clearly in the Pax Romana and therefore in the spread of a language that, while I wouldn't call it necessarily universal, at least like English today, will allow me to function when

56:53

I go to Germany. I speak a little bit of German, but the Germans speak a whole lot of English. And, you know, airline pilots have to use

57:00

English when they're landing at various airports around the world, things like that. It provided that ability.

57:06

I would see the providential hand of God in that. Most definitely. Most definitely. Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to get a little background on that.

57:16

But I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. All right. I do appreciate the phone calls today because it helps me.

57:26

It helped me. The idea of trying to rush in here, because I literally was typing until, you know, five minutes before the program started.

57:33

Try to rush in here and cue stuff up and dive back into something.

57:40

Just, just... Wie geht es Ihnen, Herr James? It would be Jakob, actually. But anyways,

57:47

I do appreciate the phone calls today. And we will let you know, obviously, as soon as we have information on when this book is going to be available, we will let you know.

57:57

But again, my sincerest thanks to all of you who made it possible. And I'm looking forward to it.

58:03

I am very, very excited about it. And please pray that it will get to the people it needs to get to.

58:10

It'll be a blessing to God's people. And I really, really hope, please pray, that it will become a textbook that will be used to help people in the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

58:20

That's why we're here. Stand with us. We'll see you next time. God bless. We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for We need a new reformation today

58:45

It's a sign of the times The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm

58:52

Won't you lift up your voice Are you tired of plain religion It's time to make some noise

58:58

I'm not in the zone I'm not waiting, but I'm not in the zone

59:04

I stand up for the truth Won't you live for the Lord Cause we're pounding on, pounding on Waiting by the door

59:13

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59:22

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59:27

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