March 2, 2006

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 at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

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

James White. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a

Thursday afternoon. I'm going to try to be a little bit better with the voice today, feeling about 80 % better than last time, but still, well,

I won't get into it, but we're doing better. That's the most important thing, I suppose. It'd be worse if I was getting worse, so that'd be bad.

But anyways, we're doing better. And as we mentioned on the blog, someone cursed me by hooking me up to the audio from, let's see, what was the, that was the 26th.

So that wasn't all that, 26, is that what it was? They had a program on Sunday?

All right, well, a Dividing Line, not a Dividing Line, a Brian Call broadcast from less than a week ago, let's put it that way, where the questioner asked the question concerning the issue of free will.

And of course, when Dave Hunt has asked a question about free will or T .A. McMahon has asked a question about free will, you can imagine what is going to happen as a result.

I mentioned on the blog, I no longer even bother to raise the issues of, well, maybe

Dave forgot or maybe Dave was confused. No, it's not even an issue any longer.

The simple fact of the matter is Dave Hunt doesn't care about what the

Bible says. He doesn't care about what people say in response to him. He doesn't care about being factually refuted.

Dave Hunt is just simply, you know, he's his own infallible source of all things. And he's just going to run around out there and tell his people what they want to hear.

And that's all there is to it. And for some reason, I don't know why, there are a large number of people who,

I guess, because they have talked with him over the years and spoken at conferences with him over the years, just let him get away with it.

I won't call him on it. In fact, I know I'm thinking of one particular individual who has gone after me personally over the past couple of years on other issues.

The reason that that person has done so is rather clear to me. It's his wife's on Dave Hunt's board. And that's sort of their way of trying to get back at me for refuting

Dave Hunt on these issues and demonstrating that the man simply has absolutely positively no shame when it to being willing to just do the most incredible things as far as Calvinism is concerned, the

Bible, misrepresenting it, so on and so forth. So this is the Bree and Call broadcast. And here is the questions being asked of T .A.

McMahon and Dave Hunt. And let's listen and review. Dave and T .A., I recently read

What Love Is This? And I appreciated the book because you made me consider some things that I have never given much thought to before, election, predestination, foreknowledge, and being chosen, to name a few.

But the main issue I wrestled with from the book is free will. I can't fathom how someone could deny that everyone must have free will.

If we don't have it, what was Jesus talking about in John 540 when he said,

But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. Now, let me just stop right there.

But that's a passage, of course, that did come up in our conversations. And I pointed out,

I mean, there's no Calvinist in here. Oh, never heard of that before. You're not willing that you should.

Of course, you're not willing. That's the whole point. You couldn't say that if it was if everybody just had libertarian free will and some would be willing and some are not.

And you're going to listen to Hunt just once again struggle mightily to explain,

OK, why is it that some people then do and some people do not believe?

And the issue always has to go back to something better in the person who believes.

That's just all there is to it. Somehow they're better. Somehow they are more sensitive to spiritual things.

Something is the answer can't be in God. The answer has to be in man. God can't have any control over such things.

That's going to come out. He's going to struggle with that. But there's nothing about John 5 where it's even slightly relevant.

And of course, remember, Dave Hunt has been told over and over again. Now, Calvinists do not deny that man has a will.

God did not take away man's will. Man's will is corrupted. It's in love with sin and it's a rebellion against its creator.

And as such, it is enslaved. That's the biblical term. Now, remember, he has.

He's heard all this. I mean, unless he had somebody ghostwrite all of debating

Calvinism, he never bothered to read what was said. He's heard all of this. There's absolutely no excuses anymore for the kind of of willful misrepresentation that Dave Hunt engages in over and over.

One of the mysteries of, you know, and I know many people who are Calvinists and, you know,

I have family members and, you know, I love them and they're bright, really bright people, articulate.

Yet when it comes to something that should be so obvious, they reject it.

The term is pretty incredible. Now, I understand how they come at this, because this has to do with whether we can say yes or no to the gospel, whether we have the option of receiving or rejecting

Christ, because the Calvinists would say, well, if you can decide your own fate, your own eternal fate, then

God is at your mercy. You know, Christ came and died. And but it's in vain unless people believe.

So therefore, they have limited atonement, of course, so that Christ's blood is not wasted, as they would say, shed for people who are going to reject him anyway.

That is not that again, he's picked this up. Someone's used that terminology.

And of course, what he's referring to is the idea of Christ failing to save someone for whom he died.

That's the issue. It's not a matter of wasting his blood or something along these lines. It is asking the question, does the

Bible directly address the issue of the purpose for which Christ died? And the answer, of course, is yes, it does.

Trying to get Dave Hunt to address that is far more difficult, but it does address that specific issue.

And that's what he's trying to refer to there. But again, just listen to this this this recitation that he gives and just how grossly inaccurate it is.

And so for God to be sure that somebody is going to go to heaven, it's not going to be just an empty place up there.

He is going to have to cause people to believe. And so then they would go to scriptures like, except the

Father draw them and so forth. You can't come to me. They forget that it does say come. Jesus does say come unto me now.

How can someone be so dense? I mean, just so completely. I mean, this is this is slavery to tradition to the max.

And if you sense frustration in my voice is because I'm the one who has tried over and over again to get this man to listen to the most basic level of biblical discussion on John chapter six,

I was still supposed to come. Yeah, I know, Dave. It does say come.

And who's the one who comes? I mean, absolutely no willingness whatsoever to listen to none, none, none, zip, zero, nada, and so forth.

But I can sympathize with that because they're concerned. Now, it's a mystery, Tom. Why do some people believe in some villains?

You will have to ask the person who said yes or who said no. Because then notice who you have to ask.

You don't ask God that the answer that the answer here does not lie in God.

It doesn't lie in God. It lies in the person. And this is what I've said over and over again. The only way to make this system work for Dave Hunt is to admit that the fundamental answer to the question as to why someone says is not in God's hands.

It is in man's hands. That's that's, of course, free will. That's what it's all about. That's you know, that makes perfect sense.

But that's where it's coming from is it's not God.

God didn't make the differentiation. Man makes a difference because it's their choice.

We know that there could be no love between husband and wife, parent and child and between man and God without the power of choice.

You can't make someone love you. And the power to love someone is meaningless without the power to hate them or at least ignore them or not love them.

So as this person says, we know every day we make so many choices.

As if anybody in this debate was saying that we don't make choices. And there's an entire chapter on this in the book.

We talked about the different kinds of love. We talked about the will of a man. It's like he's never read it. It's like it's like,

OK, I dealt with that once. I'm not going to deal with it anymore. And so I'm just going to ignore the the repeated corrections that have been offered to me over and over and over again.

And I'm just going to sit here. And it's almost like the brain calls already gotten rid of all their Calvinist anyways, right? They've they've just the

Calvinists have already dropped off and said, stop sending me this stuff. You don't know what you're talking about.

You're not willing to accurately represent things. So forget it. Just go away. And so it's like, you know, we don't have to worry about them anymore.

The only people left who are listening to what I'm saying are the people who already believe anything

I say. So I don't have to be accurate. I have to be truthful. I don't have to be concerned about anything that these people have to say.

I don't have to be concerned about what's gone on in the past. I don't have to worry about how often I've been refuted on this stuff.

I can just I can just go back to the easy straw man argumentation

I've been using all along, isn't it? I just have to keep asking myself the question, who is out there?

Who even even if they don't agree with reformed theology, aren't there Armenians who would at least have the integrity to say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, we can disagree, but shouldn't we disagree accurately?

Shouldn't we shouldn't we at least, you know, make an effort to say, you know, to speak the truth, you know, and and and call for some responsibility on his part?

No, this doesn't this doesn't seem to happen as you know, as long as Dave says it, then it's OK for it's

OK for Dave to say it. You can't say that we're just puppets on a string, but you can't say that we're just puppets on a string.

Well, thank you very much. I'm very thankful that that you don't say that. And and of course, if you're saying that that's what

Calvinists say, but then how can you say that you can say yes to Jesus or no to Jesus?

Then aren't you in charge of your eternal destiny? Well, there is no way to get around it,

Tom. We do make choices and it does say whosoever will.

Oh, the thing is, we're going if you will compare this, this is what shocked me when I first started listening to this yesterday or the day before yesterday.

If if you will compare this with the radio interview. That I did with him, right, and this was prior to writing

What Love Is This, this this was back when he start on start off the radio program by saying,

I don't I don't know anything, you know, I've not read any of the reformers and I just go with the

Bible, blah, blah, blah. Back before he started making the claim that he knows more about Calvinism than most

Calvinists do. These are the same things he was saying then. Now, some might say, well, it's a good thing, aren't you?

Don't you want to be consistent? Yeah, but if they were straw man misrepresentations.

In the first interview on these subjects, why haven't they changed?

Because he won't listen. He doesn't listen to what anybody else is saying. He doesn't listen to correction.

He never, ever, ever says, I'm wrong. I'm sorry I was wrong about that. When he makes the changes in his books, he just simply takes out the embarrassing stuff he said, replaces it with newly embarrassing stuff and goes on from there without a footnote.

It's just absolutely talk about just completely and totally destroying any shred of credibility you wanted to maintain.

It's that's unreal. May come let him. Jesus says, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

Now, that's a misleading statement, to say the least, or it's even worse than that. If a person can't come to Christ unless he makes them come to him.

Now, why is that in error? Not that we haven't explained this 5000 times before and not that Dave Hunt doesn't know the answer.

Well, he may not. He may be completely ignorant of the answer because he just won't listen to anyone's correction of him.

But who thirsts? Who hungers? Isn't that John 6 again?

Isn't that the unbelievers? Jesus explaining that they are unbelievers and they don't know their spiritual hunger.

They don't know their spiritual thirst. Who hungers? Who thirsts? All these passages, because he keeps he'll go on and on and he does this all the time, goes on.

All these dozens of verses, hundreds of verses calling people to God just make no sense in Calvinism.

Yes, they do make perfect sense in Calvinism. Dave, you don't have to embrace pagan libertarianism to make it work.

Once the person has been changed by the spirit of God, that heart of stone has been taken out.

Heart of flesh has been given. They've been changed by the spirit of God. Don't they need direction?

Don't they want to hear the voice of Christ? Of course.

So the whole idea that he keeps presenting is, is basically, well, everything in the Bible, if there's anything about choice in the

Bible, that means that even the spiritual dead man has, has the abilities that are implied by that, that phrase. No, that's not the case at all.

Choose ye this day. You don't see it says to choose. That means we can choose. Yes. And who's going to choose for the

Lord over against their own sinful desires? The slave, you know, we'll, we'll might get around to playing some of that Davis thing today.

And he starts off talking about, they believe that we are so dead, so dead.

Take these terms seriously. Who's going to hunger? Who's going to thirst? The person who has been freed from slavery to sin to know their hunger and thirsting.

And that's why those passages are in there. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. And then why does he say, come unto me?

Why does God plead all through the Bible with his people to repent? And he says, don't do this abominable thing that I hate.

I don't want to punish you. He sends his prophets day and night crying out.

You could take Psalm 81. If my people had hearkened to my voice, I would have fed them with the finest of wheat or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.

How often would I have gathered together? But you would not. Did you hear it?

Did you hear it? I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. Let's just in case you missed that.

Or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. How often would I have gathered together? But you would not.

Remember, this is how it all started. His newsletter, May of that year, misquoted

Matthew 23, 37. That's not what the text says. It doesn't say, Hoffman, I've gathered you, but you would not.

That's a lie. L -I -E, lie, dishonesty, falsehood.

And he knows it. He knows it. He knows it. He knows it. He knows it. It's in the books for crying out loud.

I mean, it's in debating Calvinism. I pointed it out. I cited it.

It makes no difference. He does not hear. He is absolutely beyond all correction.

It's just amazing. You can explain it to him over and over again that here,

Dave Hunt is demonstrating his utter slavery to the issue of tradition so much so that he can only see the

Bible with what tradition will allow him to see. And does that stop him?

I mean, if I had if that had come up, if my miss, if I had based an entire argument on the miscitation of a verse, it comes out in a book, the whole nine yards,

I would be a little more careful in my public statements on that issue in the future.

But not Dave Hunt. No, no, no, no. Dave just keeps throwing it all out there and he's just absolutely insensible to any level of correction or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.

How often would I have gathered together? But you would not. Or Joshua saying, choose you this day whom you will serve.

All of those statements are nonsense. They are a mockery telling a person who, according to Calvinism, is totally depraved, can't make a choice except for evil.

And you keep pleading with him to repent. See what I said before?

I told you it was this is coming. I've already already mentioned, already explained. OK, so, you know, the

Bible can't contain any commands for spiritually alive people unless everybody is spiritually alive. That's that's the the the deep theological conclusion here.

Grace cannot enable you, cannot change you to desire to do the commands of God.

You can't have instruction for the regenerates as to how they're to live and so on. You know, it was frustrating enough when he was when he claimed ignorance.

It's far more frustrating when the man claims expertise and has been corrected over and over and over again.

And that's why people have asked, well, what about Dave's work in other areas?

I'm sorry, but if he can be so completely without credibility in studying this area of theology, there's no area of theology you can trust him in.

None. His eyes will only see on a page what his filters will allow him to see.

That's it. Nothing more. And so, no, total destruction, in my opinion, of the entirety of his of his credibility.

There's just that's just all there is to it. But God withholds what the Calvinist calls irresistible grace so that he can't repent.

And yet he keeps pleading with him and berating him for not doing what he can't do. Now, notice the backwardsness again corrected on this many times.

So he's he's engaging in and this is false teaching. Dave Hunt has become a false teacher. This is all there is to it. He needs to be identified for what he is.

Once you become dishonest, it's no longer a matter of opinions. You're just being dishonest. OK, and Dave Hunt's now dishonest.

And because God God withholds irresistible grace from him, withholds irresistible grace.

Think about that for just a minute. Think about that for just a minute. Withholds irresistible grace.

In other words, grace, which can never be demanded or deserved, is withheld.

You mean God does not freely give that which is not only undeserved, but but de -deserved.

And so since God doesn't give what cannot be demanded, then it's

God's fault if the person because they're in their sin remains enslaved in their sin.

It is so hard to figure out how how this kind of warped thinking.

And it keeps getting more warped over time. Remember a few weeks ago, children who die in infancy, you know, they're automatically saved because they never sinned.

And now the brain calls doing backpedals on on the original sin issue. Oh, no, they weren't.

They weren't. No, we weren't. We weren't denying original sin. Well, why did they die? Well, they won't answer that question. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, wow, this this is this is why countercult ministries, quote unquote, need to be under the authority of a local church.

They need to be connected to sound local churches. So this kind of stuff isn't going to happen.

Which God could cause him to do if he wanted to. David, as you say, as we read through the scripture and that's all you have to do.

Verse after verse, it's either true that somebody can make a choice is willing.

Let me say it this way. Jesus said, you know, you're not willing to come to me. So there must be a choice to be willing.

Mr. McMahon, would you like to debate? I would love to see T .A. McMahon debate this this subject. It's so sad.

I mean, you'd like to think that maybe T .A. McMahon might be open to correction because, you know, the only source of of theology in his life is

Dave Hunt. And yet has he not read debating Calvinism? Has he not?

Has he not read the constant correction of Dave Hunt saying that we do make choices?

That's the whole point that the choice of the unregenerate man will always be against God. Has he read

Romans eight? Where it talks about the fact that those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

They cannot submit themselves to the law of God. But they just go zooming right and past those things.

Remember, how often have we tried to get folks to deal with biblical passages? And it's run off to, yeah, but if what you say is true, then your mommy might not be regenerate and might not be of the elect and might go to hell no matter what you do.

You know, it's like, oh, well, thank you for that deep response. Can we go back to the text, please? That's a charade.

But the charade really hits. It's like the the climactic charade at the great white throne judgment.

I mean, what is going on there? You know, what is God saying to those to really the you know, the unregenerated, the lost?

How is he holding them accountable for something? So according to Calvinism, they couldn't do anything but sin.

In fact, I give quotations in what love is this of many leading

Calvinists? And they say God causes them to sin. Excuse me.

Not much you can do about that. When when every attempt you make to deal with compatibilism is met with with let's face it,

Dave Hunt doesn't understand it. And since he doesn't understand it, he just he just ignores it. He just just throws it out the door and says, this is not there.

And so I'm going to I'm going to quote these Calvinists. And I wonder what tradition of what love is this that was was that the one with the the

Hebrew original of Acts one through 15 or or is that the one that cites the new world?

It's hard to remember which one it is. There are so many of these days. Who knows? OK, no. So then he's on the wrong side of the you know, the judgment seat.

He needs to be among those who are being judged. He's causing people to sin.

Oh, yeah. These poor, innocent people. He's got behind him with a gun. He's making them sin.

Excuse me. If you haven't heard this program before, I mean, it's first time. I'm sorry if we're sounding like rather mean here, but this is not the first time,

OK, that we've dealt with this. OK, we've been correcting this man for years. We've sent him those corrections.

I've done books with them. We've done programs with them. I've sent letters to him. We're talking about someone who is willfully perverting the truth here.

OK, I mean, that's why we can just say, you know, I can make that without any question whatsoever, because it took me years to be convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt that that's the case.

It took me years. I didn't jump on that bandwagon. You read the first things that I wrote to him.

You read the letters that I wrote to him. I bent over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt. But after all the errors he has been caught in and he knows he's been caught in because he changes them, you know, he will change things.

He'll he'll pull things out of his books. He won't admit it, of course. He you know, he'll he'll change entire things in his book without even a footnote to mention why his entire argument has now changed.

It's because he was refuted. That's why. But he doesn't want to admit that it's it's a pride issue. And so, you know, that's why

I can say what I'm saying. It took a long time to finally beat it through my brain that this guy.

What's true on these issues is irrelevant. It's what his tradition says. That's his final authority.

What the Bible says irrelevant. It's just it's just, you know, his own thing. So let's not go that far.

Some would say that's hyper Calvinism. But anyway, you try to get around it. It ultimately comes down to that.

OK, why does Jesus ask us to pray? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. If everything is already according to God's will.

And did we not address that one? And of course, we then respond by saying, and why do you pray of the salvation of anyone?

If God is in point of fact, it's spending a 100 percent effort for the salvation of every individual anyways. Hello, you know, purpose of prayer.

But do they listen? No, they're not listening. Everything is already according to God's will. A man has no power of choice.

Then all the rape and murder and crime and wars and evil, the evil thoughts and so God is behind that.

And in your position, they have no purpose at all. God knew they were going to exist. He created them for no reason at all.

Thank you, Dave. Could you answer that question? No. And that's why he won't debate because he knows

I would ask him that question and I would hold his feet to the fire to answer that question. And he can't answer that question.

He knows that. And so he won't debate. That's all there is to it. But look, he's sitting at the judgment seat of Christ and he's saying,

I could have caused you to believe in me.

I could have extended my mercy to you. Yes. Isn't there something Romans nine, you will have mercy on whom he has mercy and he will pardon whom he pardoned.

I could have caused you to repent. I could have changed your heart. But was

I under any obligation to do so? Or did you love your sin? Yeah. Loved your sin, didn't you?

But I didn't because I wanted to damn you. Oh, my goodness.

What this man is going to have to answer for in light of the amount of correction that's been given to him is unbelievable.

Tom, but if we go to, for example, I think one of the most powerful passages is Isaiah chapter five, where God talks about Israel as his vineyard.

And he says, what more could I have done for my vineyard than I did?

I did everything I could to make them fruitful and to bring them to me. And they didn't.

Which means what? You see, the external stuff that God had done in regards to sending prophets and everything else outside of his turning the heart, the heart is in the hand of the

Lord. He turns wherever he will. That's the whole point. That's the depth of man's sin. And remember, this is the man who argues that those passages in Romans three are not saying that man is totally depraved.

He has to become a Pelagian just to simply make his free will arguments when they rebel against me.

Tom, it's difficult. Oh, then we've got our eternal destiny. We can say yes or no. I don't think you can escape it.

But on the other side of it, Tom, as you pointed out, it is so overwhelming. You turn the Bible into a charade, turn the

Bible into a charade. Isn't that exactly what you find in debating

Calvinism? Isn't that one of the chapter titles, turning the Bible into a charade, turning the grace of God into a charade?

That's the whole thing is all about refuted then, didn't listen, been refuted since then, won't listen, just continues on and on and on and on.

Ah, sad, isn't it? I mean, there is a level that just makes you just you are so sad to see someone continue to embarrass themselves the way

Dave Hunt continues to embarrass himself. It is just unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. 877 -753 -3341.

We're going to take our break, and then our phone lines are already lit up, and we'll be getting right to them right after this.

What is

Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free? A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?

No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself in a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate.

James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme Calvinism, defines what the

Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.

The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the

Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at AOMN .org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning

Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30

p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805

North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.

If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org,

where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

Genesis, Leviticus and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality.

Get your copy in the bookstore at almen .org. I assume others do.

My question to you is, where do you come down on this, and why is it necessary to affirm a general sufficiency if the atonement was indeed for a particular group of people?

Well, the reason that there is an affirmation of the general sufficiency is to make sure that there could be no limitation in the result of the death of the

God -man. So it's not an issue. I mean, the only thing that I object to is when people will say, well,

I understand the atonement only in the lines of, well, how would people place it?

What I object to is when people attempt to, in essence, say that the atonement's only limitation is based upon human response rather than upon the divine purpose.

In other words, when the atonement is separated from the existence of an elect people that are known to God from eternity, and somehow their union with Christ is separated out, it's made a later issue, things like that.

That's when I start becoming uncomfortable with attempts to utilize universalistic language.

But the reason that the assertion of a universal sufficiency is made is just so that there is no confusion in saying, well,

Christ's death only had limited power. It's not a limitation on the power.

It's a limitation on the fact that God is consistent in saving a specific people from the beginning to the end of salvation.

And so that's the only reason that I know of as to why there is an emphasis upon that.

I suppose there might be some who seek for some reason or another to emphasize that for other reasons, but I wouldn't know what they would be.

Yeah, it seems so inconsistent to me to speak of both the sufficiency and the efficiency if indeed the intention was to be effectual.

Do you think at all, perhaps, that those who would speak like this obviously would all respect

James Boyce, Andrew Fuller, and so many others, even yourself,

I guess. But do you think that it's possible that we're just speaking in terms of what -if questions and then entering the realm of possibilities, since the

Scripture obviously speaks of the particularity of the atonement and not that it would be sufficient for all?

Well, the issue isn't so much hypothetical questions.

The question is, could the death of the God -man be limited in its power? And the answer is no.

I mean, that's all there is to it. Yeah. That's all there is to it. All right. Well, thank you a lot. All righty. Thank you very much.

God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Andrew.

Hi, Andrew. Hi, Dr. White. How you doing? I had a question over Dave Hunt.

He keeps saying that God's doing all that He can to save everyone

He can, basically. Right. He seems to go farther than the average

Arminius, almost like He's doing with God's power, what the open theists do with God's knowledge.

It seems like a further limitation than normal.

Help me out a little bit more of what you mean there. I'm not necessarily certain I'm following what you're saying.

Well, because most Arminians I've talked to have said that God has chosen to give man free will, but they wouldn't use the term that He can't do something.

The constant use of Him saying, God couldn't do this, or God can't do that. No, He doesn't mind doing that.

But He's doing that only in the sense of saying there's certain things that God can't do in the sense of not lying, that kind of thing along those lines.

OK, so it's not similar to what the open theists do with His knowledge. They're not denying that He's saying it's contrary to His character.

Right, right. Yeah, and that's the thesis of What Love Is This, is His big argument is that Calvinism is—just a second,

I'm being interrupted by something here—His whole argument in What Love Is This is that Calvinism is opposed to the doctrine of God in the

Bible. And so, that really becomes the overarching argument is that you can't truly have

God's love, you can't truly have the God of the Bible when you have Calvinism in the way, in essence.

And so, when He's—He is very willing to say

God can't do this or won't do this, so on and so forth, based upon these fundamental assertions that He's made in regards to what

He thinks is fair for God, what the love of God would demand. And that's why He struggled so much in debating

Calvinism to deal with the love issue, because when I pointed out that even human beings have different kinds of love, that I have a different kind of love for my wife, my family, that I have for someone

I've never met before, and that I'm commanded to have a different kind of love for my wife than for somebody else's wife.

And this ability to differentiate on our part, that He denies to God. He truly struggled in trying to respond to that.

He had to admit that it was true, but then He couldn't follow that along in the rest of the book with any of the types of responses

He offered then. So yeah, there are certain assumptions that He makes right off the bat, and they become the filter through which anything else is to be taken.

So yeah, God cannot do X, Y, or Z, because God has revealed certain things by His character.

And if you were to say, well, you really come from that, well, there's hundreds of verses that say what

I'm saying. And it doesn't matter if you start going to any one of those hundreds of verses, and He can't actually exegetically give you a foundation for what

He's saying, because once you destroy one verse and demonstrate that He's misread it, well, but there are hundreds of other verses that say the same thing.

And there's no reasoning with someone like that. You can't get past that kind of willful ignorance.

Is there a sense in which we would also say that God is saving the greatest amount of people that He can save?

Just we would think of the limits on that being different as to His purpose?

Well, I wouldn't see that. No, I would not utilize that terminology at all.

Right, it's not biblical terminology. No, well, it's not only that. The only reason you would say God is saving the most people that He can is to say that He would save more if He could.

But that the fundamental determiner of who's going to be saved isn't in point of fact man or God.

It's man himself. And so, no, I would not utilize that terminology at all. Okay.

All right. Thanks. God bless. All right. I've got, it must be someone else on the phone.

Let's talk to Mike. Hi, Mike. Hey, Dr. White, how are you? Doing good. Hey, I really appreciate your ministry.

Thank you. Hey, right quick. I really don't know how you muster up the patience that you do with Dave Hunt.

I really don't. I've pretty much lost it now. I mean, I'm sorry, but, you know, for years and years and years, you listen to this man speak and I wrote to him and I've interacted with him and I did my best to correct him with as much clarity and consistency as possible.

So to hear him, in essence, simply repeating what he said years and years and years ago, as if none of that ever took place.

Right. I don't understand that. I, you know, how can even if you disagree with the position, my goodness,

I hope my responses to Rome today are much better than they were when I first started.

I mean, it's not it's not it would be a reflection on me if I was responding the same way without any growth in nuance, without a better clarity of argumentation, without showing further knowledge of what's being said that I would consider that.

I mean, I'd have to get a different job. I just don't understand it. And I there's no one who can talk to him.

There is no one who can talk to him. Just pure obstinacy. Oh, well, and that in an unbiblical church situation.

In the meantime, right? It's just no. Anyways. By the way, to the question here. Actually, just a quick comment.

I really commended your your debate efforts in the I think you debated him very well.

The in your debate with Paul Barber. Yeah. Between coughing. Yeah. Yeah. You should have heard me the next day because this is this is a little background.

That was at North Shore Baptist Church in Queens, Bayside, Queens.

And the next day I spoke there. And honestly, it's one of the few times that I I almost just gave up because I was coughing so bad.

It was terrible. I don't know if it was that bad in the debate. I don't remember. But I know it was too bad. Yeah, it was.

It was a tough one, though. And are you aware of the fact that that I had. Could you tell that I had a presentation?

I had not overheads, but a digital projector. I think I thought maybe you had mentioned something in passing to that degree.

I could be wrong. Yeah, because, OK, it bothered me a little bit because Paul Barber had demanded that we use the fact that that was the very first time

I ever used a digital projector in a debate. And they can be very helpful in point of fact.

But I get there and he's decided he's not going to use it. And in fact, when he did his presentation,

I don't know if you can you can tell it because you're just listening to it. It wasn't videotaped. But I'm up on a there's a there's a podium.

And then there was two places to sit, as I recall. He got off of the the platform,

I guess you would say. It's not all that large of a church. He is literally up against the front pew.

His knees are up against the front front pew. And he's leaning over that pew into the audience when he's really going at it.

I mean, the spit zone moved halfway back to the pathway back in the church. It was just incredible.

Get the shields out. It really was. And so I'll never forget that sitting there going, boy, this is weird.

He demanded that we use overheads. We use digital stuff, things like that. And now he's just he just decided to get out there and just preach it.

And that's why I know the Church of Christ can get a bit fiery here in Cape Coral. There's there is a particular group of them here that do get pretty flared up.

And in fact, I had an old acquaintance of mine that could really get going. So I think I can I can identify with what you had.

Oh, yeah, it was it was quite interesting. Yeah, that's what it's about. And of course, you know, the COC guys, what they like are week long debates.

They've noticed that it's unbelievable. They want to notice that marathon. How many times can you quote

Acts 238? I mean, honestly, I mean, how far can you go? In Galatians 5, 4 and Acts 238.

Yeah, that's about it. And it's like, why would you want to discuss that? But seriously, I know of a guy who's contacted me a number of times and I've always said the same thing.

If we were to ever arrange a debate and be honest with you, I'm not all excited about doing that. But if we had arranged debate, we'd do it one time, not

Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night. I'm sorry. I just, you know, incidentally, it's funny you brought it up because I was going to just what you brought to my mind was

I'm sure you've heard of him. The Gene Cook Jr. Gene Cook Jr. Out of I think it's

San Diego. Well, I know Gene. I remember Gene Cook. He died recently. Oh, maybe it's the wacky guy with the big glasses and the stogie.

No, different guy altogether. Oh, no, no, no, no. The good guy. Yeah. The good guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He over in San Diego.

Yeah. Okay. Who was I thinking of? There actually there is a Gene Cook, though. Just everyone.

Yeah. But there is. Yeah, there is. It definitely. But I've noticed. As a matter of fact, he just debated a Church of Christ guy.

Yeah, that's right. And of course, like we said, one of those marathon debate sessions. I just I couldn't do it.

No, I figure once I've said it, I don't need to repeat it four times after that. Well, then again,

I've debated. I've tried to debate Dave Hunt that way, so maybe I'm being inconsistent. I really enjoyed your debate with Paul Barber.

As a matter of fact, when I go back, I really enjoyed your debate with George Bryson. But I thought with Paul Barber, he was more.

I don't know. I think he was more interactive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I really walked away with. Yeah, I think he was.

I think I was more impressed with the fact that even though Church of Christ folks have their own deep traditions and things like that, there did seem to be more of a willingness to attempt to to engage in some sort of argumentation than you get from most of these folks.

Yeah, there's no two ways about it. And yeah, and I really appreciated your you really brought a lot more cognition to my understanding or my thinking during the period, of course, naturally where he was cross examining your man, very pointed, great comments.

I mean, just really great illumination to my well, that's that from from both perspectives.

In my in my opinion, now it is possible to derail cross examination and debate if you are willing to use questions that are going to confuse that are going to detract from the topic.

But if you actually and this is where I think he was coming from. I think he was honestly trying to come from his perspective and ask questions from his perspective that demonstrate where his misunderstandings, what

I was saying, where that's just giving me more opportunity to clarify. And it's that interaction that is the essence of debate is where it takes place.

And that's why that's why we tried to get George Bryson to debate the middle of April up in Salt Lake City.

OK, yeah. Yeah, he said he said at first he said he would. And then what he wanted to do is he wanted to do two different topics.

Of course, it was all in Calvinism, nothing to where he'd actually have to explain anything. And then the main thing, no cross examination.

Boy, that's bothersome. And I'm like, excuse me. I said, you know, I wrote back and George, you know, if someone wants to go get your tapes, your

CDs and get my tapes and my CDs, they can put them in there and they can plug them in and turn them on and listen to you, listen to me, listen to you.

But that's not a debate. And if we don't have interaction, if we do not have a situation where I ask you direct questions, you know.

Oh, yeah. By the way, it's Gene Scott. Dr. Gene Scott's the guy. That's right. Yeah, that's that's the they're all in California.

I mean, that's the problem. If you're a Christian, California, you could be thrown in with all the nuts and fruit cakes over there in California. So but anyways.

Yeah. And so it didn't end up working out. He wouldn't do it. So and so it wouldn't happen. So, oh, well, we tried.

Yeah, well, you know, just a just a comment here, a question here for you in the in debate in your debate with Paul Barber, like I said, when you were on a cross examination, actually you had commented to him about how

Adam had free will, but he didn't have autonomous free will.

Right. He's had creaturely creature. I see the difference. The difference between Adam and us is not that the nature of the will in the sense that all human beings can only have creaturely will.

The idea of an autonomous will, from my perspective, from a theological perspective, I would argue there can only be one autonomous will.

If as soon as one autonomous will creates a second autonomous will, neither one's truly autonomous because there's going to be interaction between the two.

The difference between us and Adam, though, is that our will is enslaved to sin because the fall, his had not yet been enslaved, but it also was not kept from falling.

So you can get into all the Augustans possible sin, but not sin, blah, blah, blah stuff at that point in time. But that was the distinction

I was making is that only God has autonomous will and that is that that is absolutely free.

And of course, you might argue if you want to take autonomy in a way I didn't mean it at that point and saying that there's no boundaries whatsoever, that even

God's will is at least bounded by the consistency of his own character. But what I meant was

God freely chose to create the way that he created and there was no external restrictions that forced him to go one way or the other, et cetera, et cetera.

And man, man, because he is by nature derivative simply cannot have that kind of that kind of autonomy because he is not an autonomous creature.

He is dependent for his every every bit of existence upon the God who made him. So that was the distinction

I was attempting to make at that point. Thank you for clarifying that. OK, that's great. And very quickly, just the last point

I had emailed a certain individual up in Lynchburg. Yes. And I had commented on how the fact that I thought his comments to you were very, very less than, you know, they just very they lacked integrity.

I didn't like I read the I read your your dissertation, your comment, that whole thing.

You had read the whole thing. And I was really just irked at the fact that how he responded.

You know, a lot of people were. Yeah, and let's just put it this way. You must not have been the only one who wrote from what people have said to me.

I don't honestly recall seeing so many responses forwarded to me from the website on almost anything as posting that particular file.

And it may well be that it was that amount of response that let's just say that the dialogue continues between between the folks at Lynchburg and myself.

And hopefully by as early as next week, we might have a little something to share with y 'all. That would be awesome.

Could be could be quite interesting. Absolutely. Hey, thanks for your time. All right. Thanks. Take care. Bye bye.

All right. Real quickly here, Eric. Hi, Eric. Hey. Got about two and a half minutes.

I've got a problem. Uh oh. I need your help. I've got a real problem here. I'm saved and I'm redeemed.

I'm one of the elect. But I'm going kicking and screaming into heaven.

And all I am all day long is a chatty Kathy doll talking about God, praising him, extolling his virtues.

What am I going to do? I don't know. Are you happy about being a chatty Kathy doll? No, no, no, no.

Every chatty Kathy doll I've ever seen is quite happy. You know, I mean, they've been rewired and, you know, their brains have been taken out.

A new brain's been put in. You know, I'm being facetious, of course. Hopefully you are, too. But yeah,

I know. I hear that all the time. And I get frustrated about it. And of course, part of it, to me, hearkens back to Norman Geisler, who, of course, likens the great work of regeneration to rewiring a brain.

And, you know, I don't know. I would not want to stand before God who does that tremendous miracle by grace and explain why

I, in essence, denigrated that miracle based upon human traditions and the like.

I think it's a rather fearful thing. And I think it's one of the reasons that we all should be extremely careful in the terminology that we utilize when addressing very weighty issues.

That's something that Calvin and others said, that you address this issue with a tremendous amount of respect and concern.

And unfortunately, that's not the way it's normally addressed these days, even by people who are seemingly attacking it and disagreeing with it.

But I understand exactly what you're talking about. And I share your frustration as well. You know, it boggles my mind.

I can't think, you would think that some of these folks would think through what they're saying.

I would like for them to come up with one unbeliever who wants to be saved, who wants to glorify

God, who wants to worship God, but says, I want to do it, but God won't let me.

I'm not one of the elect. Or find a believer who says, you know, it's being ridiculous, but says,

I'm a believer. I'm worshiping God, but I don't want to. He's forcing me to do it. I mean, I know that just not sound ridiculous.

Part of it. Part of it, though, let's let's let's face it, Eric, is that while we seek dialogue on these issues with them, they generally don't seek dialogue in these issues with us.

And therefore, it's not the major portion of discussion within their churches and their fellowships and things like that.

So what someone else is going to be thinking or even being challenged with the questions you just raised just isn't a part of what they're what they're normally normally up against.

So I guess that may explain it. Hey, anyway, thanks for your call, brother. All right. Thanks. Bye bye. Well, hey, well, that last half hour went fast.

But you got how many callers we have there for four callers last half hour. All good stuff. All right.

Thank you for listening to Dividing Line today. Next Tuesday, Lord willing, I will be here.

But Thursday, I will not. I'm heading out toward the East Coast at that point. I need to put something on the on the blog about that.