Reluctant Inerrantists and More

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. Well, you just got to love those Brits. I warned

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Justin priorly, I was going to be reviewing the last two unbelievable radio programs and he responded,

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James, sounds ominous, James, be gentle. You know,

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Brits, you just got to be very careful in how you say everything once you get across the pond.

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We must be very politically correct in all that stuff, you know. But welcome to the Dividing Line.

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That is how we're going to start off today. I had the opportunity yesterday to get caught up with the last couple unbelievable programs and the two of them that I listened to,

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I listened to them out of order, unfortunately. That is, there was a program with Patrick Sucdeo and Muhammad Al -Husseini.

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And then I listened to the program with Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona, where they talked about their faith experiences, which

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I'm not sure why you use that kind of terminology, because how do you describe a faith experience when

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Bart Ehrman doesn't have any and doesn't believe in the God of the Bible or Jesus and things like that?

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But anyway, I listened to them backwards. And it was interesting because once I listened to the

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Ehrman -Licona one, and I heard the announcement of the upcoming one, obviously, initially,

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Justin had wanted to have Patrick Sucdeo, who is the head of Barnabas Fund, and two

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Muslims in studio to talk about the Islamization of Britain.

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And that's what was announced. Then the next week, you only have Patrick Sucdeo and Muhammad Al -Husseini, who are very close friends in studio talking about conversion from Islam and blasphemy laws and things like that.

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And the Islamization of Britain subject's gone, and so is the other Muslim. And so clearly, there had been some kickback or pushback or something for that particular topic, or I don't know exactly what happened.

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But clearly, even Justin was surprised. You could tell. Even Justin was surprised at how little disagreement there was between Patrick Sucdeo and Muhammad Al -Husseini on this subject.

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The problem was, I was really disappointed with both programs. And it wasn't

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Justin's fault. But I was really disappointed with both programs. First of all, the first subject, and that is what happens when people convert from Islam and Islam's laws against this and what

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Islam has said and what the fatwas that have come out of Al -Azhar and Egypt and the fact that we have literally thousands of our brothers and sisters behind prison walls and the constant warnings that we see about, you know, someone's going to be hung in Iran.

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You see what happens in Iran. You see what happens in Afghanistan. You see what happens in Pakistan.

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You see what happens in Egypt. And especially with the quote -unquote Arab Spring, I don't know what in the world that was, but you have many of these places moving toward even harder -lined

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Islamic states. And you clearly see the dimitude under which the

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Al -Anjil, the people of the gospel, live in these places. And we see that the gross perversion of justice in Pakistan's blasphemy law,

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I mean, every Muslim knows, the way you keep a Christian in line is threatened to say that you heard him blaspheming Muhammad because then they're dead.

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And there's basically no defense against it. That's what I thought was going to be discussed.

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It didn't turn out to be that way. Instead, persecution was sort of dismissed, not dismissed, but it was admitted to be a power structure, a political thing.

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And the actual fatwas that have come out and the there was a brief discussion of a couple texts in the

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Koran and a couple Hadith statements, but they really fell into the background.

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And I was really surprised. I have great appreciation for Patrick Sickdale, great appreciation for the work of the

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Barnabas Fund, but I was really surprised that he was really the one that initiated this and was basically talking about the racism in the

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Church of England. And Muhammad al -Husseini, likewise, was real big on the racism in the

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Church of England and stuff like that. Now, I'm no fan of the Church of England. I mean, when you're headed up by a guy that's more of a

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Druid than a Christian, you got problems, but there are all sorts of Anglicans around the world that have lots of problems with what goes on in Canterbury and so on and so forth.

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So, you know, when this is a church, it will not even remove people from being in leadership because they're atheists.

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What can you say? You know, it's a sad, sad commentary on state churchism and things like it.

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But how is that relevant? I mean, the Church of England is known for being filled with wimps, not persecutors.

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I don't know of the Church of England locking anybody up for being a Muslim, but I know lots of Christians were locked up by Muslims for being

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Christians. And so I was really taken aback, and it seemed to me that the very, very, very close personal relationship between Sukhdeo and al -Husseini really precluded any meaningful disagreement on fundamental issues, and hence a real discussion of why it is that there are so many

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Christians who lack freedom in the world today because they live under Islamic governments. And the whole issue of why it is that Muslims in London can stand on street corners and call people

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Islam, but you just tried that in Saudi Arabia, buddy, ain't going to happen. Now, you'd think that would be a really good discussion to have.

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Nothing. It was the terrible, horrible Church of England. And so I was really surprised by that.

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And even Justin himself said at the end, we'll have to revisit the subject and have a more conservative

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Muslim perspective, because he knew. And again, it just makes me wonder. I wonder if al -Husseini ever thinks about the fact that his very open -minded version of Islam, when

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Islam becomes the majority religion, his voice is silenced.

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You don't hear his voice in Afghanistan and Pakistan and places like that.

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That's not the kind of Islam that ends up predominating when it becomes the majority religion. They have to keep moving away from those places.

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And when someone tries to arise and speak with some kind of meaningful balance in places like Pakistan, they know their days are numbered.

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They know their days are numbered. And so we didn't get a discussion of Sharia and what the

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Sharia is based upon and didn't get any of that. We instead got a very enlightened,

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Westerner view, which I don't really think had a whole lot to do with what's actually going on in the world, which surprised me because Patrick Zdeo knows what's going on in the world.

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And yet that's what happened. So I was disappointed by that. But then

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I went on and I had known this program was coming up and I knew

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I'd listen to it eventually at some point, but sometimes I go through a whole spate where I record a bunch of books and so I get really focused on that and then

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I have to go back and look at my podcasts and sort of get caught up. And so Bart Ehrman has become just a regular studio guest.

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I guess he's been spending a lot of time over in London or something. And they did a program on Bart Ehrman's apostasy with Mike Laicona.

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Now, Mike Laicona is the director for apologetics for the Home Mission Board, the Southern Bapst Convention. And you may be aware of the fact that there is a bit of a kerfuffle going on out there in the blogosphere because Norman Geisler has called him out on his big, huge, massive book on the resurrection of Jesus and the fact that he takes a particular section in the

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Gospel of Matthew, specifically the section about the resurrection of some of the saints.

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And they're going into Jerusalem in a non -historical fashion as sort of hagiography or something like that.

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And Geisler rightly says, wait a minute, you go that direction and you really don't have a consistent foundation for defending the historicity of other elements of the story.

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And we commented briefly on that on the blog just recently. And so, you know,

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I've heard Mike Laicona debate Bart Ehrman a number of times, primarily on historical issues. And just a few months ago, when they were on and discussed the resurrection and historiography and things like that, we replayed most of that exchange and criticized both sides because Mike Laicona represents a very evidentialist perspective, a non -reformed epistemology, a non -reformed bibliology,

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I would say as well, and very much the William Lane Craig, here are the arguments, the resurrection of Jesus type thing.

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And we criticized both. In fact, I would say I probably had more criticism for Mike Laicona than I did for Bart Ehrman, though we certainly once again exposed

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Bart Ehrman's presuppositional commitment to philosophical naturalism and materialism and things like that.

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So I fired up this this one and I was, again,

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I felt like this should have been what it turned out to be. It would have been nice to have had someone who believed in inerrancy and actually is passionate about it on the program, because Mike Laicona a couple of times says, well,

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I believe in inerrancy, but it's sort of like, I don't know, it's sort of like someone remember the

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Reliant K cars that Detroit produced back in the late 70s, early 80s, somewhere, just absolute hunks of junk.

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Remember, I mean, they just... Yeah, that was back when what's -his -name was taking a dollar a year and earning every penny of it.

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Yeah, was it Lee Iacocca, was that what it was? Yeah, he was taking a dollar a year and earning every penny of it. Very good. I'm very proud of you there,

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Rich, very good. It's sort of like someone who's driving one of those,

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I mean, they would come off the showroom floor sounding like they're about to fall apart. They really were that cheap.

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And someone driving that and saying, yeah, I drive a Reliant K, but, and then starts all the complaints.

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And I can only describe Mike Laicona as the reluctant inerrantist, OK, the reluctant inerrantist, because he kept saying, oh,

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I believe it. Hey, to teach at a Southern Baptist seminary, you have to sign...

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Now, he doesn't teach at a Southern Baptist seminary. He teaches at SES, which is not a Southern Baptist seminary, and is, by the way, not an

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ATS -credited seminary. And you have to sign a statement that says,

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I subscribe to the Baptist Confession of Faith, and it talks about inerrancy,

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OK? So he says it, and we'll listen to him say it. But what he says it with just makes you go,

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OK, if it's not that central, and if he's going to actually make the statement that as long as Jesus rose from the dead, everything the

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Bible says about it could be wrong, but Christianity will still be true. And I'm left going, say what?

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How do you hold this together? What? So anyways, we're going to listen to some of that.

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Yes, sir? So you're saying that Lycona is essentially the K -car of Christian apologetics? No, no, no, no.

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I'm saying that when you... I'm trying to come up with some illustration of someone who owns something and says, yeah,

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I drive it, but I really am not happy about it. When I say I'm an inerrantist,

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I believe it. And I not only believe it, I will passionately defend it, and in fact, I will connect it in with everything else

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I believe, because it is a part of divine revelation. And clearly, Michael Lycona does not believe that it is a part of divine revelation.

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It's a nice belief, and he happens to hold to it. But hey, if it's wrong, hey, you know, the Christian faith stands out.

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It's similar to the mere Christianity people with justification by faith. It's a nice thing to believe.

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Kind of makes me think of Craig's position of 51 % most likely.

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Well, and see, that's where this all fits together, is this kind of apologetics with the greater probability of existence of a god.

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And well, you know, and let's face it, when William Lane Craig talks about inerrancy in his debates and always refuses to defend it, you're always left going, do you really believe it?

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Do you really believe that? And, you know, and the Southern Baptists have said, hey, we won the battle on inerrancy. Really? I'm not so certain about that.

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I'll be perfectly honest with you. There are so many ways to redefine the doctrine down to something that is so meaningless and then say, oh,

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I can agree with that. That to say that the battle has been won, you must, the most dangerous time in a battle is right after you think you won.

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It's right after you think you won. And I think that's the case here. We need to listen to what I'm talking about here.

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I've already gotten 15 minutes in, haven't played anything yet. So let's start listening. You know, Bart Ehrman's gone through his story, and we've gone through Bart's story over and over again.

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And, you know, he complains in this program that evangelicals are always saying he lost his faith because he lost his faith in the

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Bible. How many times have I pointed out that Bart Ehrman says he didn't cease being a

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Christian because he lost faith in the Bible? The straw that broke the camel's back was the issue of evil and suffering.

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That's what he says. He said that in each one of his books. But what brought him to that position clearly began with a collapse in his belief in the inspiration and inerrancy of the

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Bible. And in fact, he himself admitted in this that he had been told, he had been told if you go to these places, like a domino, first you're going to stop believing this.

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And he says, you know what? For me, that's how it happened. It was a domino effect. It was this went first, then this came afterwards, and that came afterwards, and it was a process.

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And he may want to talk about how, you know, painful and everything else it was, but he's profiting very well from it now, one way or the other.

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All right, let's start listening to the discussion.

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The only person, unfortunately, who was bringing out issues that I would have had front and center was

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Justin. It was Justin Browderly. See, he knows who his audience is, and he knows that there's a lot more people listening across the pond than there used to be.

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And one of the reasons a lot of people across the pond are listening to him is because of this program. And so he knows what kind of audience this program is going to be bringing, and he knows what they're thinking when they're hearing

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Mike Licona answering the questions the way he's answering them. So let's listen in. I started having some questions.

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Now, this is where Mike is. Mike says he went through a period, and he went to Liberty. He went to these conservative schools, and then he's wrapping up graduate school, and he starts having questions about the

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Resurrection. And this is where the connection between him and Airman is. They both have questions.

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They end up at different conclusions. Now, it's interesting. I want to, at some point during this time, contrast

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Mike Licona's journey with my own because I think

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I'm a little older than Mike Licona, I think. I don't honestly know. Maybe somebody will be able to look that up for me.

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But I think I'm a little bit older than he is. And the funny thing is,

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I didn't go to a place like Liberty. I went to Grand Canyon, but I was challenged when I was at Grand Canyon.

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And I'm sorry? He's older? Really? How old is he? Born in 61.

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Okay, so he's a year older than I am. All right. He looks younger than me. Let's put it that way. He's doing better than I am on that level,

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I guess. Born in 61, so we're very, very close in age. And I had professors at Grand Canyon that were not as conservative as I was.

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D .C. Martin caused me to think through things. And, of course, then I went straight into Fuller. And so from the very start,

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I was involved in apologetics from my sophomore year in college onward.

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So when I took The Life and Letters of Paul, when I took New Testament backgrounds, when I took Old Testament backgrounds, when I took intertestamental period classes, both in Bible college as well as in seminary,

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I was often one of the only people awake in the class. Because I already knew how important this stuff was.

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Exactly the opposite with Michael Ikona. As he will say, those stuff, I just mailed it in.

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Didn't care at that time. So we come at this, and we come at the issue of inerrancy from completely different perspectives.

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It was front and center in my thinking and in being challenged in my thinking all the way through my education.

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It wasn't something that came up afterwards. And I think that's illustrative of things.

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I started having some questions. Because, yeah, I had

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New Testament introduction classes. I had all the typical kind of New Testament courses one would have to take in a master's degree level.

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However, to be honest with you, I really didn't care about all of those. The Bible was

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God's Word. All these discussions over authorship and things like that, inerrancy, apologetics, these had no interest for me.

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I just wanted to read God's Word. So I didn't pay a lot of attention in those classes. I just did what I needed to do to complete them and get out.

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So there's one of the major, major, major, major differences between us. Now, I just realized that the way I did this, that's going to restart, and I'm going to have to find where I was.

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Yep, I'm going to have to find where I was. Sorry about that. At least I can see in the waveform about where I was. Here we go. But now

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I'm faced with these issues once I'm out of grad school. And it's like, whoa, what do

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I do with all of this? And then that's what brought me to a crisis and stuff that I had to work through, and which

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I did. It was, you know, because I was brought up and went to college within that conservative scenario,

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I started having trouble when these discussions were taking place and was thinking, you know, that the

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Bible isn't all true, it can't be God's Word, and the truth of Christianity is in trouble. At least that's what

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I first thought, but then I matured in my thinking process. Well, tell us about that maturation, because I think a lot of people listening, and a lot of people certainly who are kind of your average pew dweller, as it were, in the church, just very often don't, a

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Bible teacher or a pastor can only, you know, has to decide carefully what they're going to say in their 20 -minute slot, or whatever it may be, per week.

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And so most people just don't have the time, facility to engage at the kind of level that you had the luxury of with these issues about whether the

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Bible is inerrant, whether there's, you know, whether we've received the text properly and that kind of thing.

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Now, obviously, that produced a little bit of a crisis of faith in your life, and it produced a sort of crisis of faith in Bart's life.

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In a sense, the first thing that occurs to me is that sometimes people will think that's the problem with going to, you know,

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Bible college, studying theology. It goes and wrecks your faith or something like that.

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I mean, what kind of a process did it take for you to come to these problems and then to be able to still see through them, pass them, come to some kind of understanding where you're still able to say, no,

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I've still retained my faith. I'm guessing it would mean you had a different view on certain things.

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You didn't necessarily see things in the way you did when you were first, you know, when you were at Liberty University to begin with and that kind of thing.

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So just give us an idea of how that happened. Well, I saw that the importance assigned to many of these challenges within higher criticism, the importance assigned is just simply overblown, and that many of the discrepancies in the

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Gospels can be easily answered. It's something I've been working on for the last two years, since, you know, completing the manuscript for the book on the

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Resurrection I have. But I realize that the biblical inspiration, biblical inerrancy, it's not the foundation of the

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Christian faith. Jesus is. And the same biblical criticism that called into question some of the things reported in the

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New Testament also produced historical methods for identifying things about Jesus that actually confirm many of the reports in the

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Gospels, including his resurrection. Now, let me just stop right there. Now, you just heard, biblical inspiration, biblical inerrancy, is not the foundation of the

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Christian faith. Jesus is. Now, that sounds wonderful, but what does it mean? And what's the difference between biblical inspiration and biblical inerrancy?

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I mean, there's a lot of people who reject inerrancy, but how do you reject inspiration? What does inspiration mean?

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What's the result of believing in biblical inspiration? And when you say Jesus is, who is

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Jesus? What do you know about Jesus outside of the biblical narratives? Well, what we know about Jesus is we can take these as reliable historical narratives.

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And then the fun begins, because now what you've done is you've removed the locus of authority from Revelation to the historical nature of the

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Gospels themselves, and now what is going to be acceptable as historical or not historical, well, it's your list of scholars versus the other guy's list of scholars as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable as historical data and material and so on and so forth.

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And there is a fundamental difference at this point as to your ultimate authorities.

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And that's going to result in a fundamentally different perspective in apologetics, in theology, in the whole nine yards.

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I mean, there really is a difference between a Christian faith based upon, thus saith the

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Lord, and a Christian faith that is based upon, thus saith various historical sources that have been filtered through the current paradigm of historiographical research.

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That's not quite the same thing. It doesn't have quite the same level of authority. And if Jesus rose,

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Christianity is true, even if it were to turn out that every last detail reported in the

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Bible isn't. Now, let me repeat that because that is extremely important.

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If Jesus rose, Christianity is true, even if it were to turn out that every last detail reported in the

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Bible isn't. And the only antecedent to isn't I can come up with is true.

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Now, remember, this is the director of apologetics for the Home Mission Board, the Southern Baptist Convention.

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And if Jesus rose, Christianity is true, even if we know nothing about it. Because if every last detail reported in the

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Bible isn't true, then we don't know why Jesus died. We don't know why Jesus rose from the dead.

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We don't know what his disciples said. We don't know what he said. We don't know what he taught about himself.

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We don't know when he arose. We just have this vague thing that Jesus died and arose.

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That's all we can say. We can't answer any more questions. But Christianity will be true.

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Well, what kind of Christianity are you left with? And this is my big concern. I've had a book in the back of my mind, and given how slowly

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I'm writing books these days, it may stay there in the back of my mind forever. But this, again, raises the issues of this mere

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Christianity movement where there is a form of apologetics in our land today that does its work by minimizing the target that the enemies of the faith have to shoot at.

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Let's give them the smallest Christianity we can and then say it's true.

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Well, you eventually get it down to something so small that no one can disprove it anyways, because it's not making anything of a particular truth claim.

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But if you really get down to the point at this level where everything, every detail in the

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Bible could be untrue, but Christianity is still true. What Christianity? Could someone define for me what that Christianity would look like?

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Now, I'm assuming, I'm going to be generous and assume that what he means is, every detail about the resurrection narratives in the

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Bible could be false, but Christianity is still true. But if every detail about the resurrection narratives is false, why would we have any reason to believe that what it narrates about Jesus' teachings were true?

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What Paul communicates to us would be true? What Peter communicates to us would be true?

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Why would we have any reason for believing any of that? And so, who would get to define this

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Christianity? Who gets to create?

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See, this type of a perspective, one of the first fallbacks, when people abandon the highest view of Scripture and the highest belief in Scripture's authority and accuracy, is onto what?

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Man's traditions? The councils of the church? I mean, if you don't have a high view of Scripture, you're not going to believe in Sola Scriptura.

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There's no reason for you to believe in Sola Scriptura. And so you have to start looking for other things. And so many people fall back upon the traditions of the church and the early councils and early church writers, but everybody knows who actually reads the early church writers, rather than just simply quote books of early church writers, that you really can't come up with a really specific, clear apologetic from their writings, because they often contradicted one another, and there are only certain things they agreed upon, and they frequently disagreed upon other things.

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And so now you've got others who go, well, I'm not so much into that stuff as I'm into the core issues.

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Well, what are the core issues? Well, the core things we can prove historically. Well, they can actually prove them historically or not is another issue, but what good are core issues if you don't know what they mean?

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I'm reminded of Greg Bonson pointing to the USC professor. USC or UCLA, I forget which one it was, those of you over those two schools are now pulling your hair out, because I just conflated them.

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But somewhere over there in Southern California, he referred to an atheist philosophy professor who actually believes

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Jesus rose from the dead. But he's not a Christian, because he just goes, wow, weird things happen.

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And that's all you're left with. If there isn't any sure word, then people would go, wow, Jesus rose from the dead, well, weird things happen, because I don't know what it means.

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And if you want to start telling me, well, Jesus had predicted, is that, well, wait a minute, where did he predict his death and his burial and his resurrection?

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That's in those scriptures, which you already said could be all wrong. So you can't give me any interpretation of what it means.

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All you can do is say, well, you know, if Jesus rose from the dead, then it's highly probable that this might have happened, and it's highly probable that that might have happened.

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And the problem is when you string together highly probable times highly probable times highly probable, the result is not highly probable.

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The result is, well, maybe, it's possible, it could turn out this way. And yet there are a bunch of apologists in the world, some really famous ones going to England right now, who think that that is the best we've got to do.

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That's the best we've got, is just a string of probabilities. And I just go, does this sound like the apostles to you?

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Does this sound like the apostolic proclamation to you? It doesn't sound like it to me. That's interesting.

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So for you, coming to a firm belief in the resurrection of Jesus, and that kind of has firm historical grounds, and we obviously talked about that on the last show you were with us on, that was quite fundamental in saying, well, even if there are issues outstanding with, you know, areas of the

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Bible, if that's true, then there's something I can stake my life on. That's correct.

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It's kind of like the Titanic. You've got survivors who contradicted each other on whether the

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Titanic broke in half prior to sinking, or whether it went down intact. But no one called into question, based on that, that the

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Titanic sank, because there was good enough evidence to show that it did. It was the peripheral details of whether it broke in half that was in question.

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It's the same thing when we come to the New Testament. These discrepancies involve, they're all in the peripherals, and they involve nothing that would overturn the truth of Christianity.

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Now, I would agree with the general statement that the vast majority of alleged contradictions, synoptic issues, timing issues, look, you know, don't for a second think that I view these as simplistic issues.

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I've been teaching through the synoptic Gospels for years. This is something I've spent a lot of time onto.

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These are not simple issues, and I wouldn't even be as bold as Mike Licona to say, oh, most of them are real easy.

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Sure, there's some that are real easy, but that's because the people that have come up with these alleged errors don't do their homework.

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I'm not talking about the Dennis McKinsey biblical errancy website silliness, where they never look at the original languages.

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One of them that I'll never forget, responding to so many years ago now, was when

33:18

Dennis McKinsey said that Matthew and Paul contradict each other because in one it says thou shalt not kill and in the other it says thou shalt not murder.

33:27

In fact, someone pointed me to a YouTube video. I didn't even bother to watch it, but where someone was calling me a liar because I raised that issue in the debate that I did on King James Onlyism in England.

33:41

And maybe I mixed up whether it was Matthew who said kill or murder or Paul who said kill or murder. Evidently, that makes me a liar if I mix one of the two up.

33:49

I didn't even bother to look if I had or hadn't. But the underlying Greek text is Euphoniusis, and the

33:55

King James just wasn't consistent in its translation of Euphoniusis. You would think if you're quoting the

34:00

Ten Commandments that you'd always render it the same way, but they didn't because it was done by different committees, and there wasn't one committee that smoothed it all out at the end.

34:08

And so you have Matthew has one version and Paul has the other, and Dennis McKinsey comes on and says, well, which one is it?

34:15

The Bible's contradicting itself. Well, you know, that's just ignorance based upon English language translations, and that's the essence of Dennis McKinsey's ignorance.

34:23

But be that as it may, I'm not even counting those. I'm talking about the real difficult ones or the real difficult places where New Testament writers quote the

34:32

Greek Septuagint when the Septuagint is in disagreement with the Hebrew text. I'm talking about real stuff.

34:38

And I know it's there, and I deal with it, and I've been preaching through Hebrews, and I've had to deal with that, and I've had to find ways of explaining these difficult things in sermons.

34:49

It's one thing to do it in a seminary classroom. It's something completely different to try to tackle that and be honest with it in a sermon.

34:56

Okay, so I know these issues are there, and I'm not dodging them. I didn't have to dodge them. In fact, unlike Mike Licona, I had to deal with those things in Bible college and seminary.

35:06

That was part of what I did. That's what I had to do because the Lord stuck me at Fuller Theological Seminary, and man,

35:14

Fuller is so far off to the left now from where it was back then. It's not even funny, but even then in the 1980s,

35:21

Fuller was way off to my left. And so I had to listen, and I had to interact with this stuff.

35:29

And so I'm not saying that any of this is, you know, the vast majority of these issues are on peripheral details.

35:36

And even Bart Ehrman would admit that, you know, his favorites about Abi Arthar and so on and so forth, does that actually change the point of the story that Jesus told?

35:48

Well, no. And even taking the most radical view of the New Testament that you'd allow as far as the textual readings, does it not still say the same thing the

35:57

New Testament says? Well, yeah, it does. So, yeah, I agree they're primarily in the peripherals.

36:04

That's not even really where the argument lies. But the question really is, do we really know what the

36:13

Christian faith is all about, or are we limited in our understanding thereof?

36:18

But I guess you can sympathize with the journey Bart took.

36:24

Why do you feel, though, that he kind of, I don't know, got off at the wrong stop compared to you?

36:31

Now, here, if Justin Brierley were to look over his microphone at me, and I'm thinking about the studio, you know, and the odd shadows cast by the lights in the studio, which helps make the guests look like they haven't slept for five days and things like that.

36:51

And if Justin were to look across with that wry British smile and ask me, well, what makes you think that Bart got off at the wrong stop?

37:02

I'm going to answer directly, folks, that even if he's sitting there next to me, this man is an apostate.

37:12

He went to Moody Bible Institute, and he likes to tell people, Moody Bible Institute, where Bible is our middle name.

37:18

And he went to Wheaton College, and he went to Princeton Cemetery, and never visited

37:27

Princeton Seminary, which is where the cemetery is these days, where you can actually learn something. And all the rest is stuff.

37:35

He made profession, and now he says, I don't believe any of that stuff anymore. I don't believe that God answers prayer, and I don't believe there's a personal

37:42

God, and I don't believe that Jesus is the one who was sent into the world, and I don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

37:48

He denies it all. And when you say, where do you think he got off at the wrong stop?

37:54

You're going to have to be honest, straightforward, and say, well, there was no root in him. What's the biblical answer?

38:00

His heart hadn't been changed. But I guess you're not allowed to say that in the

38:06

Western culture anymore. When it comes to this. Well, I don't know.

38:12

I'd have to think about that one. You know, all I can say for myself, I've heard that there are a number of Christians, as I'm working through and have worked through and continue to work through some of this stuff, who would say, yeah, the domino effect, it's a slippery slope.

38:31

Once you start doing things such as trying to account for some of these discrepancies through the freedoms that are allowed within Greco -Roman biography, that's a slippery slope.

38:44

And before you know it, you'll be given up inerrancy, and then after that, you'll be given up Christianity. Well, you know,

38:50

I suppose that can happen. It has happened with Barth. But it doesn't have to happen that way.

38:56

No, it doesn't have to happen that way. But I would also like to say it doesn't have to happen that to deal with those issues requires you to become simply ashamed of inerrancy.

39:08

I still believe it, but there's such a massive difference between how

39:15

I would present biblical authority inerrancy and Mike Lycona's presenting it. You know,

39:22

I mean, I'll never forget the phone call that I had with Barth Ehrman before our debate, where he began scornfully laughing at the term theanoustos.

39:34

That's just it. That's only in the pastoralism. Nobody believes Paul Roe. That's only one time.

39:39

You can't really. I mean, he just scorns the concept. So I don't care what he thinks about me.

39:45

I know he thinks I'm a hick from the sticks. The fact of the matter is what Mike Lycona needs to understand is

39:50

Barth Ehrman thinks Mike Lycona is a hick from the sticks, too. He needs to understand that.

39:55

If he really thinks that he's going to buddy up next to Barth, and Barth's going to go, yeah, you're a scholar just like me.

40:01

He doesn't think Mike Lycona is a scholar. He doesn't have any respect for Southern Evangelical Seminary or liberty.

40:08

Listen to Barth when he's on alone. Listen to his comments about, for example, the

40:13

Barth -Ehrman Project, where there's a website where people write responses to his stuff. What's his response? None of them are

40:19

Ivy League schools. Nobody takes those people seriously. They're not really research schools. You know, folks,

40:27

Christian scholars out there, listen to me. Friendship with the world is enmity with God.

40:35

The world that will not bow the knee to the lordship of Christ, you do not want their respect.

40:44

You don't want them buddying up to you. Hello? Do you really think you're going to get it from them?

40:54

Do you really expect them to be fair on this matter and honor the amount of work you do in scholarship? They don't care.

41:01

They are bowing down before the idol of this world, and as long as you bow the knee fully to the lordship of Christ, they aren't going to care about you, and they're not going to invite you into their nice smoke -filled clubs.

41:15

Just get used to it. I mean, look, folks, it really all comes down to whether we are going to honor the lordship of Christ and whether we have that one audience, that one audience member that we're concerned about, and honor him in our scholarship, and honor him in how hard we work, and honor him in being truthful in our research, and all the rest of that stuff.

41:38

The world doesn't care. And Bart Ehrman doesn't care. It's just...

41:47

Anyway. I think I'm in the same place where Bart is, and that is truth matters to us.

41:54

It matters to both of us. We are more committed to truth than we are to any particular ideological position.

42:02

I want to understand what that means. How can you sit there on a program with a man who has denied the

42:13

Christian faith and say we are both committed to truth more than we are to any particular ideological position?

42:19

What does that mean? I honestly want to ask the question, what does that mean in this context?

42:27

Hey, me and Bart, man, we're on a truth quest together. Really? Is that why

42:34

Ehrman reads everything the way he reads it? Is that why he spins in his books the things that he does?

42:43

Because he's just as committed to truth as you are? Really? What does that mean? How do you fit that into a

42:50

Christian epistemology if we are even willing to have a specifically Christian epistemology?

42:57

And as I do my studies in historical Jesus research and so forth, if I were to discover that Jesus did not rise from the dead,

43:05

I mean, that's the foundation to know that Christianity is true, but if I were to discover he didn't rise from the dead, I'd have to give up Christianity, and I would do it.

43:14

So it doesn't have to be this domino effect. You just look and say, what is truth?

43:21

Christianity is not founded upon biblical inerrancy or the inspiration of the

43:27

Bible. Christianity can still be true. It is true based on the resurrection of Jesus.

43:32

If Jesus didn't rise, then Christianity is false. There's no scripture that says if you confess with your mouth

43:38

Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God, you'll be saved.

43:46

It's not one of those cardinal doctrines. So it's not one of those cardinal doctrines. Okay. Then how do you know what are the cardinal doctrines?

44:00

I want to ask Mike Licona. How do you know what are the cardinal doctrines?

44:07

How do you know the Trinity? Is that a cardinal doctrine? Where did you get it from? Where did you get it from?

44:14

What's its origin? What's its source? Is it the early church? Then you have no reason being a

44:20

Southern Baptist, to be perfectly honest with you. You have no reason not to become a Roman Catholic. You need to convert quickly.

44:27

Yeah, you just heard what I said. Because where does the doctrine of the Trinity come from?

44:33

Where does the doctrine of justification by faith come from? Where does the doctrine of the resurrection come from? How do we know what the cardinal doctrines are?

44:42

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that there's not a hierarchy, that there are things that are more central than others.

44:49

And we see what happens when people are not willing to admit that. And, you know, it gets scary when people turn their pet eschatological theories into something that's just as important.

44:59

In fact, in their own lives, more important than the Trinity itself. And I've seen people who have read and re -read everything

45:07

Tim LaHaye has ever said. And they couldn't define the doctrine of justification by faith for you. They couldn't walk through what the

45:13

Bible says about the Atonement for a love nor money. But they've got down the identity of the Antichrist.

45:20

And we all see that imbalance. And we all go, ah, that's terrible. It misrepresents

45:25

Christianity and all the rest of that stuff. There are a hierarchy of truths. I fully understand that.

45:34

But what I am concerned about is now that the inspiration, the very divine nature of the

45:43

Scriptures, isn't a cardinal doctrine. It's a nice thing to believe. It's a nice thing to believe.

45:54

And in the next clip I'm going to play, he'll actually finally get around to saying, I believe in it.

45:59

He hasn't up to this point. It's a nice thing to believe. But it's a side issue.

46:09

It's something that would be nice to believe. Am I not being consistent here? What did I, was it the last program or the program before last?

46:18

I played a clip by William Lane Craig. Did I not? I took time out of our review of these other debates to play a clip by William Lane Craig.

46:26

And why did I play it? Because at the end of a debate, what does he do? He says to his atheist opponent, you just need to become a

46:32

Christian who doesn't believe in inerrancy. Remember? And that's in essence what we're hearing.

46:40

You know, it's not a cardinal doctrine. It's off to the side. And this is why, I'm sorry, but this movement of apologetics has no solid theological answer to give to the tough questions.

47:00

Because it has divorced itself. The apologetic method has become the driving force.

47:06

How many times have I criticized that? Apologetic method flows from your theological beliefs.

47:14

You have to defend something. It's the something that determines how you defend, not the other way around.

47:23

And you end up with a really crippled Christianity. Where you can only say to the big questions about God's purposes in the world and everything else, well, you know, it might be this and it might be that and we're not really sure and we don't really know because you've already collapsed on the foundations.

47:45

There is a price to be paid for that minimized Christianity, that lesser -sized target.

47:54

There's a real price to be paid. You know what time it is, Rich? And I was talking about maybe it might get done so quickly that we might...

48:06

Right now, at the rate we're going, I hope I get this done before the end of the program, let alone get on to the rest of the debate we're going to be listening to.

48:13

But anyway, alright, two more clips, two more clips, and we might be able to move on, but we might not.

48:20

We will see. This resurrection, you don't add to that and the belief in the Bible in all its manuscripts is the inerrant word of God and that sort of thing.

48:30

Is there a danger in some sense of making biblical inerrancy, giving it a doctrinal place that it shouldn't actually have in our sort of thoughts about what it is to be a

48:43

Christian? I think it is. Now, I know there'd be a lot of evangelicals who would disagree with me, but yeah,

48:53

I think... Now, listen, I want to be clear too. I still embrace biblical inerrancy.

48:58

Now, there it is. There's first... I still embrace biblical inerrancy.

49:04

Now, that's... I still drive my Reliant K. I mean, it's just...

49:09

I still believe in it. Don't shoot me. But he's just been asked, could we possibly give the inspiration of the

49:18

Bible too high a position? When we look at history, folks, what is the first step for every single

49:26

Christian denomination that has ended up being an embarrassment to the cross? What was the first thing they did?

49:32

What was the first step leading to the apostasy of every one of the liberal mainline denominations we see today that are...

49:41

Face it, they're dead. They're dead. Right?

49:47

Ichabod over the door and put the lock on it. They're dead. What was the first step?

49:54

The very first step of the garden. Yea, hath God said? Hath God said?

50:00

Really? Did God say? That's the first step. Always. Every time.

50:07

And I do not apologize for pointing that out. I will not apologize for it.

50:12

And everybody... I can just hear, Oh, that white, he's just... He's just ignoring all those issues. No, I'm not.

50:17

I deal with them head on. I'm not ignoring all of the difficult issues.

50:23

I had to deal with all those difficult issues in Bible college and seminary.

50:29

And I've had to do so for many years after that. I'm not ignoring them. But I firmly believe that when a man's heart or a woman's heart is regenerated by the

50:41

Spirit of God, the Spirit of God that brought the Scriptures into existence, I firmly believe that Spirit of God causes that person to hear the voice of his

50:51

Savior in the Scriptures. And I do believe that regeneration brings about a deep and abiding faith in the truthfulness of the

51:00

Word of God. Yes, I believe that. And that's one of the reasons why people will write and say,

51:10

How come I don't see you speaking at this or speaking at that? Well, because there's a lot of people that think that's just too radical to really believe.

51:21

And I do not apologize for it. You know, when I come to this,

51:27

I still have some text that I look at and say, Wow, you know, I don't know what to do with that.

51:34

You see, when I, likewise, know of texts where I want to do so much more study and where I have so many questions, and there aren't the normal ones that people raise.

51:45

They're not the ones that Bart Ehrman raises. There really aren't. He's never raised a text that I've found any real issues with.

51:52

His stuff is surface level in comparison to what I'm thinking about. There's tough stuff out there.

52:00

But if someone is asking me, Is it a danger? Do we give an air and see a position in our thinking that is dangerous?

52:08

My response would have been, 99 % of the time, no. In fact, the great danger is to not believe that God has spoken.

52:17

But you know what? Some of the greatest things that have increased my faith and increased my trust in the

52:25

Word of God and my relationship with God has been when I have worked through those difficult issues.

52:33

That's what I'd like to hear. Instead of what I hear is, Well, I still believe it, but boy, there's still a bunch of stuff

52:38

I don't know anything about. That really makes me wonder if someone really believes it. I mean, let's just be honest.

52:46

You know, I mean, look, in a counseling situation and you're talking to a couple, Do you still love this woman?

52:54

Yeah, I still love her, but man, I'll tell you. And the next 30 minutes or all the complaints really makes you wonder.

53:01

You know, all the reservations, all the ifs, ands, or buts. How about an unqualified,

53:08

I believe this. And I have found it to be true. And here's some examples where I got hit with a tough example and I worked through it and here's how it increased my faith.

53:21

That's not what I'm hearing. A lot of them, most of them, are discrepancies. And I've collected these over the last couple of years as I've been reading the scriptures, just my own personal readings.

53:33

About 40 pages of differences that I've found and have begun to catalog them into different sections on, you know,

53:42

What are we looking at here, actually? Are we looking at time compression? Are we looking at a lack of chronological exactitude?

53:49

And all of this kind of stuff. And is this stuff allowed in Greco -Roman biography? These kind of liberties.

53:55

And I think that the large majority of these discrepancies are easily resolved.

54:02

And as I said a moment ago, some are not easily resolved. Some are stubborn. They're very difficult.

54:07

I don't know what to do with them, to be honest with you. And, you know, at this point, the biblical scholar, or let's say a conservative one like myself, comes to a fork in the road and says,

54:18

Alright, we can give up biblical inerrancy, or we can say maybe there's a resolution for this that we'll look at in the future.

54:27

For me, biblical inerrancy is not a fundamental doctrine. It's not one of those essential doctrines that you have to believe in order to be a

54:35

Christian. So if it turned out for me that biblical inerrancy is a mistaken doctrine, for me, no big deal.

54:43

Jesus still rose from the dead. Christianity is true. I mean, what I've heard... So there you go.

54:49

Hey, if it turns out to be wrong, it's sort of like, you know, I'm an amillennialist.

54:55

If it turns out to be historical pre -mill, turns out to be post -mill, hey, we had some nice, interesting discussions about it.

55:03

I don't see the nature of Scripture itself falling into that category.

55:11

I do not understand how you can create a consistent

55:16

Christian theology and a consistent Christian epistemology when you've basically said, well, you know, hey, if it turns out that it's just filled contradictions and, you know, as long as Jesus rose from the dead, everything's cool.

55:31

That same morning Jesus rose from the dead, do you know anything he said after he rose from the dead? One thing that's funny, read

55:39

Luke 24 and Jesus' actual statements after the resurrection. He opened their minds to understand what?

55:51

Historiography? What did he open their minds to understand? Secular reasoning?

55:57

He opened their minds to understand how wonderful it is to be accepted as a fellow scholar by Bart Ehrman. No. He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

56:11

There's something supernatural there, folks. And you see, there's just a lot of folks when they're sitting in the same room with Bart Ehrman, well, of course,

56:19

Mike Licona's not in the same room with Bart Ehrman at this point in time, he's on the phone, but in dialogue, well, you know, if I say anything about inspiration, like I said, remember,

56:28

I've been on the phone with Bart Ehrman, personally, when he laughed me to scorn for believing in inspiration.

56:35

And Mike Licona knows that's how Bart Ehrman thinks. Well, you know what?

56:40

I'd rather be laughed to scorn by Bart Ehrman than to be found amongst those who are not willing to say, yes,

56:48

God has spoken, and he has spoken with clarity. I really, really would. Okay, one more clip.

56:55

One more clip, sorry. This one almost speaks for itself. If we shouldn't treat it as a central doctrine of what it takes to be saved, they will at least say it's an important supporting aspect.

57:09

I appreciated Justin here, this is about the only time that my perspective even got expressed, is that he wants to at least throw the question out there, you know, at least there's a lot of folks who really think it's really important.

57:24

Because, as Bart kind of mentioned, you know, if we do start doubting whether scripture is revealing things accurately to us, it is through scripture that we have the revelation of Jesus Christ, who is, if you like, the center of Christianity.

57:40

So, how do you sort of respond to that? Well, I largely agree with Bart on this.

57:46

I don't think that biblical inerrancy is an essential doctrine, a gospel doctrine, that must be believed in order to be a

57:54

Christian. And I do think that many evangelicals place its importance far higher than it should be, and so what ends up is a person has a brittle fundamentalist faith that can be easily knocked down.

58:10

The first time someone points out something in the world, there's a discrepancy in the gospels, and they're thinking, wow, how can this be if this has got an errant word?

58:20

Well... Now let me just stop right there. A brittle fundamentalist faith. Look, I know what he's talking about.

58:27

I've seen it. And I have preached against it forever. And I have said to my

58:35

Sunday school classes at PRBC over and over and over again, the reason

58:41

I emphasize so many of these things is we don't want to send you out into the world with some brittle fundamentalist faith.

58:49

I don't use that terminology, but I understand. With this, we've never challenged you.

58:55

We've never made you think through anything. You just, you know, we just tell you what to believe.

59:03

But you see, there's an option that doesn't seem to be coming up in this conversation. And the idea being that if you have a much higher view of where in the hierarchy of truths the inspiration and errancy of scripture falls, that the result is a brittle fundamentalist faith.

59:25

Well, let me tell you something. A brittle fundamentalist faith would not have survived Fuller Seminary.

59:31

And folks, I saw folks who came in with it, and they left as wild -eyed liberals who had no idea what they believed.

59:36

I remember this one guy, nicest guy. Oh, nice, a nice fellow. I tried to help him.

59:42

But he came in pretty confident about what he believed, and he left with a Masters of Divinity in abject confusion.

59:50

No longer had any idea what he believed. I saw it. And so there is a danger of a brittle fundamentalist faith.

59:58

But having a higher view of inerrancy than has been expressed in this interview is not the same as having a brittle fundamentalist faith.

01:00:11

You can have a robust faith that is so much deeper and fully takes into consideration all of the challenges and sees a harmony and a depth of revelation that is so much deeper than anything surface level.

01:00:34

That's what I've come away from my studies of apologetics with. And you don't have to become the reluctant inerrantist.

01:00:46

You do not have to become the reluctant inerrantist at all.

01:00:52

Well, and then they make a hasty generalization or a hasty conclusion, which would be, well, if there is one mistake in the

01:01:00

Bible, then none of it can be believed. And that is just as wrong as saying, if you prove one thing in the

01:01:06

Bible is true, then therefore it's all true. It's just a logical fallacy. So I think people can fall to that.

01:01:13

And again, I want to be clear. I still embrace biblical inerrancy.

01:01:18

There are some things that I struggle with that I'm still working through with it, but I don't think that biblical inerrancy is a foundational doctrine for one's faith.

01:01:31

So there you go. And I think you can understand why

01:01:38

I was disappointed. You notice I didn't play a word of Bart Ehrman. Because I've heard everything he had to say before.

01:01:45

What was amazing for me was, well, listen to that last one. I pretty much agree with what Bart said about that.

01:01:51

And what Bart said about that was, I'm not attacking Christianity, I'm attacking a form of fundamentalism.

01:01:58

Well, he's attacking a form of fundamentalism that actually believes God has spoken with clarity in His Word, and that we can trust what

01:02:04

His Word says. And so I was blown away.

01:02:10

I was sitting there, well, writing there the whole time going, just a shame that there's nobody on here to present a robust perspective that actually believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, and is not reluctant and ashamed to say they do.

01:02:29

It strikes me that it's almost a position of I believe this, but as I teach it to you, y 'all need to have an out here of plausible deniability.

01:02:41

Yeah. We believe it, but we're really not going to—

01:02:46

I don't want you to lose that faith you've got just because of this inerrancy thing. If you believe it enough that it might cause you difficulties in your faith, it's better you don't.

01:02:56

Exactly. Exactamundo. You got it. You got it. Yep. There you go.

01:03:04

So there you go. There you go. That— Yeah, I just saw—

01:03:11

Let me give an example. There's someone in channel right now. I'm not going to embarrass him. Well, I'll just say it's

01:03:17

Johnny. It's not the Johnny that calls. Different Johnny. And he— I'm going to ask him to do something for me in channel because I think he's listening.

01:03:28

He was going off to seminary. And what— Was it a class that I had taught?

01:03:34

I think it was a class I had taught at Grand Canyon. Is that how we knew each other? Because I remember we got together at Peter Piper Pizza.

01:03:44

This was before my diet had changed. I can still eat Peter Piper once in a blue moon, but anyway. And he was going off to seminary.

01:03:54

And we got together. I actually rode there as I recall my motorcycle. And we sat there with my helmet sitting on the table next to us during our conversation.

01:04:05

And notice he's working on a Ph .D. in New Testament right now. And he's not the only young man right now who's either graduated with a

01:04:15

Ph .D. or was once one of my students. But he will testify if he's listening right now.

01:04:23

And there is a delay. But one of the things

01:04:29

I said to him as we sat there over pizza was, look, you go to seminary.

01:04:40

You're going to see all these brilliant people. And there's going to be all this temptation to fall in love with the wisdom of the world and to jettison a firm, robust, knowledgeable, open to discussion, but a true belief in the inspiration of the

01:05:03

Word of God. That's going to be your greatest challenge. Learn to listen to what liberals say.

01:05:12

Understand their perspective. Call from them. They frequently do good research.

01:05:20

Take out the diamonds. Leave the garbage behind. But my prayer for every one of those young men, and there's a number of people

01:05:29

I could talk to, I could mention right now, would say, yep, that's exactly what you said to me. My prayer for these young men is that they stay in love with the

01:05:40

Savior and his truth and his Word and his Gospel and that they don't fall for the shadows that scholarship would offer them, the great love, the wisdom of the world.

01:05:57

Stay focused upon God's truth. Isn't that what I said? If Johnny's listening,

01:06:03

I'd be interested in getting a yay, nay. But that's the fact.

01:06:09

That's where we have to be focused. The only way, the only way that anyone remains grounded and truthful to those things is by God's grace.

01:06:28

He says, he did tell me that, but I did not have to deal so much with these issues at seminary, at RTS, but here it's very much a real issue.

01:06:35

Yeah, he's outside of RTS now in a much less conservative environment. And so I've been preaching that one for a long, long time.

01:06:45

Okay, I hope that was useful to you. It was necessary for me to address those things. I did not expect to spend an hour and six minutes on it.

01:06:53

I honestly expected to spend about half an hour on that. How silly, silly

01:06:59

I might be. I'm going to continue on with the Fernandez -Comas debate now.

01:07:05

I've got queued up right now because I want to try to finish this off so we can dedicate more time to other subjects as we get closer and closer to my trip to Sydney and the debates will be going on there.

01:07:21

We will have a program again tomorrow at the same time and we'll go back to all of our discussions that time.

01:07:28

Unless, of course, what I just did starts some sort of firestorm that I need to respond to tomorrow. Who knows? I sort of doubt it, but as it may, we continue on with the

01:07:38

Fernandez -Comas debate. We are listening to the audience questions. We're getting toward the end and that's why

01:07:44

I want to attempt to finish things off. But then it comes to verses 30 to 33 which

01:07:50

I read very clearly in my rebuttal that Paul shows the one condition that God has for his election.

01:07:59

God's election is not arbitrary or unconditional. Faith in Jesus is the one condition for election.

01:08:05

Now this is in regards to Romans chapter 9 and we've already pointed out that, so Dr. Fernandez is in error, that the end of Romans 9 actually makes faith dependent.

01:08:16

That, of course, would completely contradict what Paul had just said before the twins had done anything good or bad so that God's election would stand.

01:08:28

It was said, da -da -da -da. So Romans, the end of Romans 9 does not go back and turn the beginning of Romans 9 on its head or contradict it in any way, shape, or form.

01:08:39

Non -elect Israelites were rejected by God because they pursued God's righteousness by works of the law and not by faith.

01:08:47

No, that's the result. This is, again, just reading the text backwards. It's similar to what

01:08:53

Norman Geisler did with John 6. You go to John 6, 40 and you read that back into John 6, 37.

01:08:59

You read things backwards and it sounds better than when you read them forwards. It's just eisegesis.

01:09:05

Gentiles weren't looking for God but attained God's righteousness and salvation by faith. Then Romans 9 runs into Romans 10, which talks about trusting in Jesus alone for salvation.

01:09:15

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. So take Romans 9, 10, and 11 all in context.

01:09:22

If you stop at verse 24, the passage he read, I'd probably be a Calvinist but I read the rest of the passage.

01:09:28

Yeah, backwards. If we can understand what 9, 1 through 24 says, are you saying that you have to go past that to actually understand what 9 through 1 through 24 was saying?

01:09:41

Is that really what's being said? Can I make a quick comment on that? I think we need to go.

01:09:47

We've got quite a few people and we need to keep it moving. Of course this is for both of them.

01:09:53

Chris, if I call my daughter and she comes home, that doesn't mean that I'm calling her for an election.

01:10:01

I kind of felt like in Adam you were saying that when God called

01:10:07

Adam that was as if it was a call to election. Since we didn't hear that part,

01:10:13

I should explain what it was. I did find Mr. Comus' use of God's calling of Adam in the

01:10:21

Garden rather problematic. I didn't understand how that was at all relevant to the application that was being made.

01:10:31

I would have to agree that was not an appropriate application.

01:10:36

Did I misunderstand or understand that correctly? I'm sorry, you said that was a question for both of them? Of course, because that's what you've directed us to help.

01:10:46

Again, the distinction between decreed election and covenantal election. Every time God calls someone to come into His presence, that's a good example of covenantal election.

01:10:58

Now whether God decreed eternally to save Adam, we don't know. See, here, everybody in this audience, unless they have this federal visionist paradigm nailed down, is sitting there going,

01:11:13

What? What do you mean? That's covenant election versus decreed election.

01:11:22

And then there are people that aren't in either. So now you've got three different kinds, I guess. And this has something to do with Adam and Adam's being called covenantally into the presence of God when

01:11:33

God calls to Adam, but we don't know whether God has decreed that. And this all goes back to the fundamental problematic issues of federal visionism, and it really...

01:11:46

I just don't know how... If someone did not come into this debate with a full knowledge of both sides, with a full understanding of federal visionism versus historic

01:11:56

Calvinism and an understanding of Molinism, they would have walked out of this thing going,

01:12:01

What just happened? I think I'm going to ever avoid talking about or even thinking about any of this again because I've got no earthly idea what just went down here.

01:12:15

Secret things belong to the Lord, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever. That's Deuteronomy 29, 29.

01:12:21

So what God's secret plan was with Adam, I don't know. Covenantally, yeah. He definitely called him into his presence, just like he calls us into his presence every

01:12:27

Lord's Day. I'd just like to state something about Chris.

01:12:33

When I got together with him and he discussed his views, there were some nuances in his thought.

01:12:39

He's very well thought out. He studied under Doug Wilson in Idaho, a brilliant guy. It took a while for me to understand the difference between what he calls the credo election, which by the way is what

01:12:50

I think this debate is really about. It's really, really, really sad when the Molinist has to try to explain what the

01:12:58

Calvinist is talking about because the Calvinist is a federal visionist and hasn't ...

01:13:05

I call them as I see them and everybody does that to me so I'll do it in return.

01:13:14

I think one of the things that people did take away from this debate and what did I say from the very beginning?

01:13:21

Don't try to out Doug Wilson Doug Wilson. If you can't do Doug Wilson, don't do Doug Wilson. I think what a lot of people heard, and I didn't play it.

01:13:29

I didn't pick on it. Mr. Comis started off doing the Doug Wilson thing and talking about how he wakes up in the morning and seizes five fingers and thanks

01:13:39

God for the five points of Calvinism and things like that. It's all Doug Wilson stuff and it's all meant to have a bit of satire and sarcasm to it and humor and Doug has that deadpan face and the beard, he didn't get away with it but it was all written out, it was read, it was very confident, it was in your face and then as soon as the questions start, all that disappears.

01:14:03

Folks, if you can't answer questions with the same level of confidence in which you can make the presentation, this isn't something you should be involved in.

01:14:11

Because what that tells people is, I'm very confident as long as I'm not having to interact with the other side.

01:14:17

And I can't tell you how many people have said in observing debates, wow, with the opening statements it seemed pretty even.

01:14:25

When does the debate take place? Cross -examination questions. Cross -examination questions.

01:14:31

That's when a debate takes place. And just further evidence being seen right here.

01:14:38

I think most Calvinists would agree with me but then there's a distinction between that and the covenantal decree.

01:14:48

it's a difficult task in a short amount of time to explain the nuances of a very complex systematic theology.

01:14:57

And so I just want people to I'm using my time right now to just to just say, he probably needs more time to explain that to a lot of people who've never heard it before.

01:15:07

It took us several hours before I can make heads or tails out of what you're saying. And also, might there be a difference in Adam's God's call to Adam.

01:15:15

Would you say that was a general call or a specific internal call? The efficacious call or the one that can be resisted.

01:15:24

Yeah, I mean, all we know is that all we can know is what God has revealed. We can't know

01:15:29

God's secret intentions and thoughts. Yeah, I would say it was the general call of Adam.

01:15:35

Now whether Adam really repented and believed and is going to be in heaven forever, none of us know. None of us have that access to the book of life where all the names are written, right?

01:15:44

I don't. All we have is this book here and this book doesn't have a list of names in it. All right, next question.

01:15:51

Okay, for both of you, of course, Phil. Do you believe that God saves by looking down the corridor of time, this is what it seemed to be saying here, to see who will accept him as savior, so then

01:16:06

God tailors that man's experiences to choose him. I .e., we have the analogy of the flat tire, and so God, if he had wanted you to be here, he wouldn't have given you a flat tire, and if he didn't, he would do that.

01:16:22

Okay, Phil. I didn't finish it. Oh, go right ahead. But if he looks down and sees that a person will not receive him, then

01:16:30

God does not love that person, and is it incapable of persuading him to bring him into the experience of life and to believe?

01:16:42

In Acts 17, when Paul was talking to the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on Mars Hill, he stated, and he has made, and God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre -appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the

01:17:03

Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.

01:17:17

Therefore, since we are of the offspring of God, we ought not to think of that, that the divine nature is like gold or silver, something shaped by art and man's devisings.

01:17:28

Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.

01:17:35

And so I think Paul is saying exactly that. God set the times and the boundaries in an attempt to persuade man through his prevenient grace to seek him.

01:17:45

Now, again, it's just whenever you need to find something just throw in prevenient grace there.

01:17:51

Not in the text, but we just throw it in there just for the fun of it. But how does that answer the question?

01:17:57

Because we all believe that God uses means. We all believe that God commands men everywhere to repent.

01:18:03

I know that Dr. Phil seems to think that's not something that Calvinists should believe, but we do believe it.

01:18:09

It is part and parcel of our evangelistic methodology and our call to the gospel and all the rest of that stuff.

01:18:16

But that's not answering the question. The guy's saying, look, if God looks down the corridors of time and he knows, then if he knows that such and such a person is not going to choose freely to believe in him, are you saying that he keeps trying despite the fact that he knows that he's going to fail?

01:18:34

And what's the nature of his love for someone he knows? And now you see, I don't think that the questioner really grasps the

01:18:43

Molinistic element of this. Because from the Molinistic element, not only does

01:18:48

God know what's going to happen, he chose to actuate this particular world knowing that these people who will not be saved will never be saved.

01:19:03

Some of them might have been saved in a different world, but God did not choose to actuate that world.

01:19:12

Ever thought about that? The Molinist who thinks, oh, I've found a way out of all this. About the only way that a

01:19:17

Molinist can think he's found his way out of that is that what God did is he actuated a world in which every single person who's lost could never have been saved in any other world.

01:19:27

But I think most Molinists recognize that's really wishful thinking.

01:19:33

Are you really saying that there are people who will be lost in this world who would not have been saved in another world?

01:19:42

I mean, once you start into this Star Trek alternative universe God, big computer sky, run stuff thing, you know, there's all sorts of ways you can go.

01:19:52

And that he is now calling all people, even the non -elect, to repent. So it seems to imply that Paul thought they had the ability due to prevenient grace to repent.

01:20:03

Wow. Again, pure eisegesis. It seems to indicate that by prevenient grace, by a concept

01:20:12

I've never even attempted to define or defend here, have never even attempted to give a biblical basis for, that Paul felt that because, see, ought implies can in this concept, that if you're going to proclaim repentance to everybody, that means everybody can repent.

01:20:36

So if you're going to proclaim perfection, you know, be perfect to everybody, that means everybody can be perfect. Right? Well, no, that's not the case.

01:20:44

Okay, so are you asking if I believe in that view of foreknowledge?

01:20:51

I was just putting out the question that, you know, since it has to go to both of you. No, I don't.

01:20:58

I mean, I believe God's foreknowledge is, like I tried to allude to earlier, is co -relative with his foreordination.

01:21:05

So, I mean, we could put it as simply as this. Whatever God foreordains, he foreknows, and whatever he foreknows, he foreordains. It's as simple as that.

01:21:11

Both are eternal attributes of God. God doesn't ultimately condition anything he knows or determines on anything man knows or determines.

01:21:21

Now, covenantally, yeah, they're based on what we see and what we understand as mere human beings.

01:21:28

God interacts with us in a way where faith precedes regeneration in a covenantal sense, or faith precedes election.

01:21:39

I mean, I've still read through all the passages where that covenantal aspect really is emphasized.

01:21:47

But to get back to Romans 9, I do believe that God's foreordination Okay, just lost everybody. What? I wasn't even sure where that one was going.

01:21:58

I'm sorry. I do believe Paul starts out with the covenantal view of things there in Romans 9, but he quickly gets into, like Mr.

01:22:06

Hitchcock just read, the individual narrowing down of exactly who

01:22:13

God loved and who God hated. He loved Jacob, he hated Esau. Those are particular individuals, and if you can't deal with election on the level of particular individuals, then

01:22:24

I don't think you really understand it on the level of covenantal corporate realities as well. The two go hand in hand.

01:22:32

Alright, next question. No, just two per person, because we're getting a long line. Thank you guys for coming.

01:22:39

Obviously you're both well -read, well -studied, and especially in church history, I'm sure. I'm curious to know who you each choose as maybe the five best

01:22:48

Christian thinkers, theologians throughout history, and whether or not each of those individuals would subscribe to just overall the five doctrines of Calvinism.

01:22:58

Phil, why don't you start? Yeah, I would have to say that, boy, it's hard to limit it to five, because I would say

01:23:05

Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, Diderot and Aquinas, Calvin, Luther I think is a better...

01:23:16

I just want to ask, what did Tertullian or Irenaeus have to say that was relevant to this issue?

01:23:22

This was not the topic of their day. And on exegetical issues, wow,

01:23:28

I mean, you can find lots of problems with both. I don't understand.

01:23:34

It seems like the questioner wants to understand this in the context of who had an in -depth knowledge of issues relating to the gospel in this particular subject.

01:23:46

And I would just be interested in what did Tertullian and Irenaeus actually add to this?

01:23:51

I mean, the recapitulation theory or something from Irenaeus, that one lost me.

01:23:56

...thinker than people give him credit for, as was Melanchthon, you've got Arminius, underrated, Wesley.

01:24:02

I mean, you've got great thinkers, but five -point Calvinism doesn't show up until after Calvin dies, and it's the sin out of door.

01:24:10

Because I could show you quotes from Calvin where he seems to hold that faith precedes regeneration logically, and then he believes in unlimited atonement.

01:24:24

There we go again. I think the sin out of door logically spelled it out, and I think if Calvin had been alive then,

01:24:31

I think he would have changed his thought and remained a Calvinist, but just tightened the logical coherence of his thought.

01:24:38

I don't think he would have changed mine. I could be wrong, but I think Arminius is underrated. But I think you've got great thinkers in both caps.

01:24:45

Yeah, I think going all the way back to the New Church Fathers, I think there are hints of five -point

01:24:52

Calvinism there. I think there's been some good scholarly work done in that area. Michael Horton's book,

01:24:59

I think, was Amazing Grace. He has a whole list of quotes in the back there of early church theologians who affirmed something pretty close to what we would call five -point

01:25:08

Calvinism. Now, the fact that five -point Calvinism wasn't explicitly spelled out until the sin out of door, I think it's just another example of how

01:25:18

God has progressively grown his church through the ages. The doctrines that were debated early on in the church was the issue of the

01:25:27

Trinity. So, because the Trinitarian view of God didn't get explicitly spelled out until the

01:25:35

Council of the Nicaeas, does that mean it wasn't in the Bible? Well, no. It was there. It's just God has patiently worked these things out over history, and I think we still have a long way to go.

01:25:46

I think, personally, that we still have a long way to go to understand how the covenant interacts with God's eternal decrees.

01:25:53

I think that's a big, hotly debated issue, especially amongst Reformed Presbyterian types right now, especially within about the last ten years.

01:26:02

I .e., Federal Visionism. Eternal decrees function, or interact with, or interplay with God's covenantal interaction with his people.

01:26:12

So, I think there's a lot of... In fact, it's interesting, sometimes we'll turn on the speakers here because, obviously,

01:26:19

I don't want to listen to the Wayback Machine all day long myself. A little bit of a distraction, but once in a while it'll be on, and I'll pass by where the computer is, and I'll hear, and I was listening briefly to a whole period of Dividing Lines we did where we played the presentations from the

01:26:38

Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church and we were interacting with Wilson and with all these things and we were right on it, right when it happened, but that was quite some time ago.

01:26:48

Doesn't mean that the issues are no longer still important. I think we've seen in this that they are, and they do fundamentally impact how you do a defense of Reformed theology.

01:26:58

A good work that needs to be done there as well. Alright, next question. If I may, read a brief passage of Scripture, and then

01:27:07

I'll brief, like three verses. Do it very quickly. Alright, this is from Hebrews chapter 6 and the author says, for it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the

01:27:26

Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away since on their own they are crucifying again the

01:27:35

Son of God, etc, etc. So my question basically is, since both of you would believe that those who fall away from the faith were never originally, well, that would be

01:27:46

Dr. Phil's perspective and then your perspective concerning the covenantal.

01:27:51

Go ahead and just ask the question and they'll tell you what they believe. Okay, so basically what I'm asking is, how can somebody who's not actually saved taste the heavenly gift, share in the

01:28:00

Holy Spirit, and you know, partake of the goodness of the word of God? Alright, who would like to start?

01:28:07

I'm afraid we're going to have to just leave you wondering until tomorrow morning at 11 o 'clock as to how they answer that exact question.

01:28:16

That's what we'll pick up with is someone in the audience who doesn't agree with either of the debaters on the subject of the perseverance of the saints or eternal security, which are not exactly the same thing, and we'll pick up with that on the program tomorrow morning.

01:28:31

There will not be a dividing line on Thursday. I'm heading to Ohio where we will be at the

01:28:38

Psalm 119 conference. Looking forward to seeing all the East Coasters at that one, and we'll be back with the dividing line tomorrow.

01:28:46

See you then. God bless. ... ...

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