Reviewing Reasonable Faith's Comments

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. Before we dive into a what should be extensive biblical and theological study today,

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I did want to mention that last evening I was contacted and was made aware of January 16th is a

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Sunday in the upcoming month of January and it is going to be a day where many churches across Canada and we're hoping really across the

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English -speaking world or really around the globe, churches take a stand and preach on the subject of sexual sin, the issues related to homosexuality, transgenderism, this wholesale rebellion against God's created order.

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Not just swimmers that should just be laughed out of the pool and laughed out of the competition, but the attack upon our own children, the fact that many in the public school system are now seeking to inculcate gender confusion in young women especially, so they damage their bodies, ruin any opportunities of having children in the future.

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If you've read Irreversible Damage by Abigail Schreier, if you haven't, you still need to especially if you're a parent.

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Anyway, with the passage of Bill C -4 in Canada, speaking on these things, offering hope on these things will become illegal on January 16th.

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The totalitarians are everywhere, those same totalitarians are here in the United States as well. I assure you, it is only by the grace of God that we're not facing the exact same thing here.

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Certainly, the Equality Act is the same kind of thing here in the United States. And so, if I'm able to be preaching that Sunday, I will certainly be speaking on that subject if other things don't get in the way.

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But letting everybody else know about this, I'll try to remember to link to a web page.

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Dr. Joe Boot, who we've had in the program before, Ezra Institute up in Canada, is very much behind this move to speak the truth and to make sure people understand why these are issues that the church cannot back down on these things.

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Certainly, many apostates already have, there are already all sorts of compromised people who call themselves Christians that simply don't believe what the

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Word of God says, or will use terms like, well, the Bible is under -determinative on such things.

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Well, no, it's not. It's very straightforward, very clear. And it is a gospel issue, it is a fundamental issue.

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If you cannot define sin, you do not have need for a Savior. And so, that's

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January 16th. Someone remind me to make sure to link to that when

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I put together the blog post for this particular program. I want to thank

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Eli Ayala for giving me a heads -up. I do not generally follow.

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I don't know how anybody keeps up with the amount of content that's available.

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As I said last time, if you're listening to me, I just want to thank you very, very much for doing so, because there is so much out there these days.

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Hopefully, you're not listening just because we've been doing it for decades more than anybody else has. Hopefully, it's the breadth of things we talk about, the range of things, the consistency that we attempt to bring to these subjects.

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But I was informed by the redoubtable Mr. Ayala of the fact that the most recent webcast from William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, was about our discussion.

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It really struck me as sort of strange, because everything he played, of course, came either from...

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well, it all came from one side. And it's interesting that, as we will see, they played an amazing amount from Leighton Flowers.

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Now, as you will see, what's funny about that is Bill didn't think Leighton understood what was going on, and in fact, called him

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Dr. Flower. So, I'm not sure why that happened.

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I'm not sure why they went that direction. But the point is, Leighton is obviously from the same school that Tim Stratton teaches for.

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And so, it's like y 'all... they did have wintry night. Now, I've heard of wintry night a few times.

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We're gonna respond to what he had to say, too. But let's just say, so far, we've not heard much in the way of meaningfully unbiased responses from the other side.

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And I think if you just... honestly, if you'll listen to the program I did with Eli after the debate, the nature of our discussion is very, very different than what you're hearing from the

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Molinists. There seems to be a very different attitude as to why we're doing these things, why we're even discussing these things, why they're very important.

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So, I found that interesting. But I listened to... it's a very... it's only 23 minutes. We won't even be playing all of that.

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It'll still take me a fair amount of time to get through it. But that will be the primary thing we do today. But before we do that, in consistency with where we're coming from and what we do,

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I wanted to start off with a section of scripture.

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We haven't spent a lot of time on this one, because we normally spend time in... when we look at 1

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Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, and especially chapter 1. I've said many times that I think that 1

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Corinthians chapter 1 should be, especially beginning with verse 18, should be something that every person involved in any form of Christian scholarship.

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If you travel in circles, you read in circles where scholarship is involved, and doing in -depth research into an area, there tends to be, well, knowledge puffs up.

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That's a biblical statement. Knowledge puffs up. And so we need a regular reminder that you may be the smartest person on the planet, but in comparison to God, you're really stupid.

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Okay? You are... what was Luther... Luther described himself as stinking maggot fodder.

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Stinking maggot fodder. Because he knew life was short, knew better then that life could disappear very quickly.

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Disease could take you out much faster back then than it normally does today, though I think we're progressing backwards that direction.

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And so there was a... there was a proper humility in Luther's mind, and there needs to be a proper humility in all of our minds about these...

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these very things. And if we're in quote -unquote Christian academia, if you're teaching, if you're lecturing, if you're researching, if you're writing, we need to be constantly reminded that the best man has, his greatest wisdom, his greatest saphos, is more in us in comparison to God.

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And as such, we need to be constantly reminded that we can only go so far as God allows us to go in light of his

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Word. And that to go beyond that is to show a level of arrogance.

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And so with that, I want to look briefly at 1 Corinthians chapter 3, which obviously is hearkening back to that previous discussion in chapters 1 and 2.

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But Paul writes the Corinthians and he says, let no man deceive himself, and whenever he uses that terminology, he's drawing from his own experience of the fact that even believers in the church can find a way to become imbalanced and to bring about self -deception.

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Did you know that Greg Bonson's doctoral dissertation was on the concept of self -deception and things related to that?

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It's very interesting. Let no man deceive himself if any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age.

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And it's not just thinks he is, it's dachai. You've examined yourself and you come to conclusion that you are saphos ento ioni tuto.

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You are a wise one in this present age, in this present world, but not world in the sense of a rock hurtling around the

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Sun, but this world system of things. If anyone concludes, thinks himself to be wise, saphos.

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You've heard of sophistry, philosophy, love of wisdom.

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If anyone thinks that he is wise in this age, moros genesto, let him become a moron, a fool.

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Hina genetai saphos. In order that, he might become wise.

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So the the path to wisdom, to godly wisdom, is to abandon the wisdom of this age and to become foolish through belief in the gospel, through belief in Christ, so that you may become wise in the things of God.

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Why? For the sophia to cosmo tutu, the wisdom of this world, the wisdom of this world, moria parato theo estin, is foolishness.

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It is moronic before God, in God's sight.

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And this is a repetition of what he had said before. The wisdom of man is foolishness before God.

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God's foolishness is wiser than man. This is what 1st

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Corinthians 1 was about. So here is a repetition on the part of the

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Apostle Paul, and I wanted to read you some words. Chris Wisson had quoted a section of this from Calvin, which is what got me reading that section.

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But here's some of the things that Calvin said in regards to this particular text. Further, in these words, the

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Apostle does not require that we should altogether renounce the wisdom that is implanted in us by nature.

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Okay, there's a lot of discussions. We're gonna be talking Molanism today, but the two topics, natural theology, simplicity, how far can you go before you outrun the light of Scripture, they're related.

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In these words, the Apostle does not require that we should altogether renounce the wisdom that is implanted in us by nature or acquired by long practice, but simply that we subject it to the service of God so as to have no wisdom but through his word.

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For this was meant by becoming a fool in this world or in our own estimation that we are prepared to give way to God and embrace with fear and reverence anything that he teaches us rather than follow what may appear to us plausible.

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Hmm, plausible. What may appear to us plausible.

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That's a term that's used a lot these days. But notice, to give way to God and embrace with fear and reverence everything that he teaches us rather than follow what may appear to us plausible.

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That is to that wisdom that we have by nature or by long practice.

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And then he continues on to say, for the wisdom of the world is this, if we reckon ourselves sufficient of ourselves for taking counsel as to all matters, for governing ourselves and for managing whatever we have to do, if we have no dependence on any other, if we feel no need of guidance of another but are competent to govern ourselves, he therefore, on the other hand, is a fool in this world who, renouncing his own understanding, allows himself to be directed by the

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Lord as if with his eyes shut, who distrusting himself leans wholly upon the Lord, places his whole wisdom in him, and yields himself up to God in docility and submission.

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There's the problem, docility and submission. It is necessary that our wisdom should in this way vanish in order that the will of God may have authority over us and that we be emptied of our own understanding, that we may be filled with the wisdom of God.

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And it goes on to say, he gives some explanation, he says, it follows that we cannot be wise in the sight of God unless we are fools in the view of the world.

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We have already explained, in the comments on 1 Corinthians 120, that's the key section

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I was referring to earlier, what he means by the wisdom of this world. For natural perspicacity is a gift of God and the liberal arts and all the sciences by which wisdom is acquired are gifts of God.

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They are confined, however, within their own limits, for into God's heavenly kingdom they cannot penetrate.

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Hence, they must occupy the place of handmaid, not of mistress, nay more, they must be looked upon as empty and worthless until they have become entirely, entirely subject to the

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Word and Spirit of God. If on the other hand, they set themselves in opposition to Christ, they must be looked upon as dangerous pests and if they strive to accomplish anything of themselves, as the worst of all hindrances.

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Hence, the wisdom of the world and Paul's acceptation is that which assumes to itself authority and does not allow itself to be regulated by the

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Word of God or to be subdued so as to yield itself up in entire subjection to him.

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Until therefore matters have come to this, that the individual acknowledges that he knows nothing but what he has learned from God and giving up his own understanding, resigns himself unreservedly to Christ's guidance.

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He is wise in the world's account but he is foolish in the estimation of God. Down through the years,

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I have repeatedly contrasted two of the greatest minds in the history of the church,

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John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and for all the benefit that one can receive from reading either one and I would have disagreements with either one and yet can be absolutely humbled to read their wisdom and insight.

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It was Calvin who insisted that when God makes it into speaking, so must we and when

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Edwards did not in some instances follow that wisdom, that is when he got himself into a specific trouble and difficulty.

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We have made reference to this numerous times but here you have in these words

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I think sound wisdom in regards to the proper application of Paul's words as to our relationship to the sophists of the world, those who believe themselves to be wise in the things of of this world and so I like to start with that.

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We will be going back to the scriptures in just a little while in Isaiah chapter 43.

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When we get there, I will let you know and we can hop back into that. So as I said yesterday as I was writing in,

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I heard this presentation and immediately recognized not that we need to do a response right now, not that I needed to run in here and late at night being doing a

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DL short or anything, no. But that here is another teachable moment, here is an opportunity to do what the other side does not do and that is

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I can let you listen to everything they have to say. I can absolutely trust

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God to do in this situation and with what we did a week ago

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Monday, what pleases him. And unlike the other side, which is literally,

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I mean Tim Stratton's literally talking about people converting to Molinism. I mean, it's like the mindset that we okay we got five there and there's one over there.

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I just sit back and I remember a time in my youth when that would have been attractive and would have been something

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I would have thought of and now I realize that you know ten years from now we're gonna look back and so many things gonna have happened and things are gonna be so different than they are today and the issue is gonna be who's remained consistent, who has not compromised, and what is

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God's truth in all of this? And I can trust him to lead his people to a knowledge of his truth.

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You know, someone goes, well I I never thought about that before. I think I'm gonna become a Molinist. Well, I feel sorry for you.

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I don't I think that's a that's pretty bad reasoning but you know if you think you if it's more comfortable for you to think that there is a huge database of information out there that God didn't create and man doesn't create and nobody knows it was created and it delimits

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God's God's decree and what he can and cannot do as far as feasible worlds concerned and all that kind of stuff you think that's more consistent with the

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Bible well more power to you I sure don't and I don't know too many people who do but if that somehow floats your boat that's between you and the

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Lord. I'm certainly not going there and I'm gonna keep pointing out to people there isn't any reason to go there but and and you know sometimes people jump on a bandwagon they run it run with it for a while you know the young restless and reformed and that really looks cool to have long beards and and smokestogies and stuff like that and then it goes away and what is sound and consistent and eternal is what has the greatest benefit so I can be very thankful about that so with all that said let's

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I'm going to play this at one point too I don't know why I just feel necessary to tell everybody that but that means that we'll get through it a little bit quicker but I'm gonna we're gonna listen to not all of there's

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I don't know 85 % maybe but the majority of the program here make some comments

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I will try to be brief but there are some things that just really need to be expanded upon that's what makes it worthwhile is to listen to what the other side has to say listen to what they heard and be able to to go maybe there's some some blinders here maybe there's some traditions here and and go from there so let's let's dive in well

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I think people need to understand what I mean by a debate as someone who was trained in competitive academic debating by a debate

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I mean a formal event that consists of structured timed speeches constructive speeches rebuttal speeches and a closing statement which have specific time limits which are kept and enforced by a timekeeper and which is conducted according to the rules and the etiquette of academic debate and I don't have time or interest in participating in that sort of debate with fellow believers

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I want to debate non Christians on university campuses on the truth of Christianity and these opposing views but I have no interest at all in debating with other

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Christians now this was the response to the narrator the show host basically saying so a lot of people are surprised you did this why did you do this and it's well it was just a discussion it's not what these debates obviously you know most of us have always you know what he just said

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I've done a hundred and seventy five of them and I agree in the sense that that's what debate should be and that's that shows respect for the topic that shows respect for the audience but I will happily do that with fellow believers because it shows respect for the topic and respect for the audience so so in other words when there are differences that are functionally relevant to well what is the message we're proclaiming how should we respond to what's going on in our world today and things like that that is worth putting the effort into it's almost like well these little dialogue things we're just not talking about stuff that's as important there well

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I think there are vitally important things to talk about within the church and that debates therefore are a good thing and an irrelevant thing and that's what we've always been willing to to engage in and even though I didn't

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I've just realized I didn't mark that section to play it toward the end toward the end of the program

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Bill did sort of say I consider all this it's sort of a tempest in a teapot it's in comparison to what's going on in the world today it just doesn't seem all that important to me and I certainly understand that the same time this is determining a lot of the substance of how you're going to respond to what's going on in the world today and the message that you're going to deliver to the world as well and so yeah formal academic debate great thing and the whole reason to do it in that way is to have structure is so as to honor the truth which is why it should be something that is done between believers as well and I think that's a good thing to do

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Bill one of my own observations and I'm not alone on this is that the topic was how

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Calvinism and Molinism deal with the problem of evil but it seems that dr.

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White was more interested in making this about Calvinism versus Molinism did you feel that you had to keep it on track so once again and again you can go listen to the

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Eli Ayala interview we talked all about motivations so on so forth from the emails from the emails oh and I forgot to queue this up you know what

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I don't want to throw a curve at rich but if you if you look at the actual video itself you will see that there was a sort of a what do you call the thing along the bottom title put up at one point during the introduction and I have it here in front of me and it says

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Calvinism Molinism which view of God's sovereignty best addresses the problem of evil so that's what was put on the screen and then the emails

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I look them up because I still got them obviously which view of God's sovereignty makes the most sense of evil and suffering and obviously what he's gonna say here in a moment is well the idea was if true so you're supposed to assume that each one's true and then give an internal internal critique and that's the problem my my answer to the issue of Calvinism Molinism is

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Molinism isn't an option for a Christian because it's not biblical and if it's not biblical if it is bringing in external sources that fundamentally robbed

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God of his freedom then it's it's irrelevant as to whatever else you may do with it assuming that it's assuming that it's true isn't gonna accomplish anything because there are hidden assumptions that are fundamentally anti -biblical and that has to be if that's not addressed we're wasting our time we're not we're not doing anything at all and so that'll come up a number of other times in the course of of the discussion but yes which one is founded upon and this this is one of the fundamental differences for many

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Molinists the Bible is under -determinative a term we're gonna see later on under -determinative on all these subjects and so you all you're left with is coming up with your own philosophical system and then and then trying to make it consistent

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I don't even know how you measure consistency in that fashion but you somehow make it consistent with whatever biblical data you choose to allow into the conversation basically and anybody can do that and the the less biblical data you bring in the easier it is to construct some type of artificial system and call it consistent with Scripture that doesn't accomplish anything the reality is that a fundamental element of biblical revelation on this subject which is the freedom of God to reveal himself as he sees fit is denied and removed by the assertion of middle knowledge within Molinism and that has to be and that and that was exactly where Paul Helm and Bill Craig had ended up in the first discussion and all

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I did was just continue that discussion so it could be expanded out further and as of yet I have yet to hear anyone

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I I have been you know I I am aware of the fact that there are people who don't take

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Bill Craig's perspective in regards to the issue of middle knowledge and there are those who answer the grounding objection not by some facile dismissal of truth -making maximalism

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I call it facile because it's just simply a consistent

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Christian demand that if you're gonna say something exists that God didn't create you better be able to explain where it comes from it has nothing to do with with philosophical epistemological theories has everything to do with the doctrine of creation in the

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Bible for Christians and I think as of bothers so many of the

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Molinists but there are other Molinists that don't take Craig's perspective and they they have something called

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God's super comprehension so once you start making stuff up there's nowhere in the

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Bible you got to make other stuff up that's not in the Bible to explain all it which as far as I can tell really ends up short -circuiting the entire purpose of middle knowledge in Craig's system so but I was dealing with Bill Craig I wasn't dealing with other people so I'm going to I had just been reviewing his book

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I'm quoting him I quoted his words from the 2014 encounter with Paul Helm it would be unfair for me to start making reference to other people and how they do things in that particular instance

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I think that this is very discerning of you Kevin and you're exactly right when

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Justin Brierley asked me to participate in this interview he said the topic would be

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Calvinism and Molinism which has the better view of the problem of evil and I said to Justin you're going to have to keep this discussion on track this is not about middle knowledge versus anti middle knowledge views this is about which of these views has the better solution to the problem of evil well and again if it if if it had been told to me now you can't dispute the truthfulness of Molinism that probably never would have happened or at least there would have been more difficult conversations beforehand to get things going because the idea of we're not going to talk about what's actually biblical or what's actually true we're just gonna have to we're gonna do what philosophers do they sit around and they talk about possibilities and they don't worry about what you know what actually means anything and I would never waste my time with something like that but like I said the answer to the issue is to be found in the fundamental flawed basis of the central assertion of Molinism and the way that Molinism answers the question of evil is based upon the nature of those true subjunctive conditionals you can run around with your hair on fire to try to avoid that but that's what gives you your answer and I think it's a completely fallacious answer it's an empty answer you know

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God's got this special knowledge and so he puts people in the situation where he knows exactly what they're gonna do because there's special knowledge but he's not forcing to do it because there's special knowledge we don't know where it comes from but he puts them in a situation to do those things but that means there's no problem with I just go really that that doesn't even get close to dealing with with with the problem of evil at all but you've got to deal with that central assertion it's just sitting out there on the table and and people sort of dodge it.

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Wintery Knight has had a blog for a long time he said quote if I could boil down the mistake that James White makes to one sentence it would be to say that he comes to the text of the

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Bible with a philosophical presupposition determinism and this causes him to misinterpret the plain meaning of the text as a whole and this misinterpretation isn't about peripheral teachings of the

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Bible his embrace of God as the cause of moral evil means that he denies the goodness of God a basic Christian doctrine this is compounded by his embrace of double predestination although that was not the topic of the debate

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Christians shouldn't let a philosophy determinism override the plain meaning of Scripture determinism is man's philosophy it's a

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Greek philosophy that existed centuries before Christ Bill what do you think about what Wintery Knight says here now obviously this is there's almost nothing that was said that you can almost play that one clip you know nothing you said there made any sense whatsoever the assertions here were were many and completely empty

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I'm not taking a Greek deterministic fatalistic perspective that's just simply misrepresentation straw man everybody knows not true

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I'm not taking that and forcing that on any clear passages whatsoever the point is one side can go to the text and derive these doctrines directly from the text this would require the debate to take place on an exegetical level

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I would love to have that kind of debate with Bill Craig but I don't think that's ever going to happen

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I I just I do not see that happening in any way shape or form because that would not be a debate over what is plausible what is possible what is probable that would be what is taught in Hebrew and Greek where it's the

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Greek the Septuagint or Greek of the New Testament that's what's consistent in the overall revelation of Scripture where you have the same themes being brought up from Genesis to Revelation that's going to be a biblical and exegetical debate maybe too big for any one single debate but I would debate

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I would defend the Bible's teaching and have more than once the

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Bible's teaching that God does as he pleases whether in heaven or earth and it's just simply you know say that's denial of God's goodness all the rest of stuff you know these folks just ignore major portions of whatever it is that that we've said especially with this topic there's just there are certain people that when you talk about God's freedom the fact that we're creatures and he has the right to do with this as he pleases they're just there's just certain parts of the brain that are shut down and you no longer hear anything about causation you no longer hear anything about people doing the desires of their heart you no longer hear anything about God hardening

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God opening hearts none of that kind of stuff it all just goes flying out the window and it just doesn't even get heard and I've seen this for so many decades now that it still bothers me it still concerns me that someone could be so blinded to what scriptures are saying but I've seen it so often especially in regards to this one subject that it's just demonstrative of the fact that mankind has a deep and abiding commitment to his own autonomy and there is almost no level to which they will not go to maintain that autonomy including just not even hearing things completely misrepresenting what someone's saying confusing

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God's sovereign decree with fatalism or Greek philosophy or whatever else and what we hear through all of this is

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I have repeatedly pointed folks to the fact that we we were doing an entire series based upon Bill Craig's book we we put up on the screen his biblical argumentation and walked through it

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I have not seen there might be somebody out there who's tried but I have not seen anyone even attempt to dispute the exegesis we offered whether it was in the

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Old Testament New Testament nothing I have not seen anything I've heard

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I've heard a lot of people just laughing it all off but no one who said well you're wrong when you said this you're wrong they won't they won't they won't then they can't so it's sad then to hear

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I agree with wintery night I have said in the past Kevin but the man who claims to have no need for philosophy is the man who is most apt to be deceived by it now most you'll remember over 20 years ago now when

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I interviewed Dave Hunt on a local Christian radio station on a newsletter article he had written he hadn't written in what love is this yet that came as a result of all this and he eventually called it our debate we never debated but one of the things that came out of that conversation was when he said

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James I have no traditions and I told him Dave the man who thinks he has no traditions is the man who is enslaved to his traditions very very similar to the statement here the difference being

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Dave Hunt said I have no traditions I have never said I have no philosophy it is amazing

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Bill Craig can't hear it Tim Stratton can't hear it wintry night can't hear it latent flowers can't hear it

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I've not heard any mulling this yet who can hear what

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I said on during the discussion what I've said in the programs since then what I had said before then they simply cannot even hear when a

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Christian says what what Calvin said from first Corinthians 3 that I read earlier and that is that there is a fundamental difference between the nature and authority of Scripture and any philosophical formulation what they hear when we say that philosophy is at best a handmade but normally an enemy normally a pride exalting man exalting

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Scripture denying enemy the only time the terms used in Scripture in Colossians chapter 2 it's negatively only only use once and it's contrasted with being kata

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Christ according to Christ you can be according to philosophy me according to Christ can't be both and so what they normally think we're saying is we can speak in pure biblical language without ever utilizing anything that has been described philosophically which is absurd philosophy describes all aspects of linguistics and epistemology and metaphysics all these things it addresses all of it so does that make it the primary realm of thought no it doesn't because God communicated with Adam before the first philosopher opened his mouth to start messing things up so God's revelation was prior to the first philosopher language was designed by God God designed the categories when he designed the mind of man and when he deemed it proper to communicate with man the way that he did and so when when sometimes people on our side will say

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I don't have a need for knowing anything about philosophy I've taught Christian philosophy of religion for crying out loud

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I know that it's appropriate to know nominalism and realism and there's a whole section in my church history notes to present to people it's normally people people start falling asleep but it is somewhat important especially to get the

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Gnosticism to talk about platonic forms and the

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Stoics and what was going on in Athens and all the rest that kind of fun stuff but we're not saying that we will never study such things or there's no use of such such things what we are saying is that any philosophical system any set of metaphysics any type of philosophical argumentation has to be subject to divine revelation in scripture and that that is the scriptural pattern and that they just can't even begin to understand it's like but but but that's a statement and so that's an epistemological thing and so we got to epistemology and they just immediately just the idea that there is a divinely ordained limitation that says this far no farther and in fact that God can say to us this is how you should think this is how you should think you should think in subjection to these limitations it's like no way

42:33

I'm not gonna do that what we're saying is divine revelation is intended to be the source and origin of the truth we have about God and if you are simply utilizing whatever platonic

42:53

Greek philosophy Aristotelian Stoic you want to go and do

43:01

Plotinus or whoever and they all have sometimes seem to us very small gradations of differences and others very large differences and if you want to utilize that kind of reasoning and thought you're free to do so but you're not free to call it divine revelation you're not free to call it something that is definitional of that which has been given to us in scripture and so no one is you know it's just it's painfully obvious and I fully understand why this is

43:40

I have a huge advantage over many of my opponents in debates because I'm a nobody they don't care about me they don't listen to this program they don't read my books remember the

43:56

Peter Stravinsky's debate went pretty well didn't it why cuz he had never read a word

44:04

I ever said most of my debate opponents don't you can tell when somebody does it's a much more challenging debate but the vast majority of them they don't

44:16

Bill Craig didn't in any way shape or form even though I linked to those programs

44:24

I saw no evidence that he had taken the time to have any idea about the exegetical background the presentations we made anything like that at all and many of his acolytes are in the exact same boat as far as what they will invest a time in we have played

44:43

Bill Craig saying Bill Craig things for years on this program we've reviewed debates we've reviewed lectures we've reviewed books that gives me all the advantage in the world and so I'm glad these folks let them continue on with their he doesn't know what he's talking it gives me all the advantage in the world that means

45:07

I know where they're gonna be going they don't have a clue where I'm gonna be going it does end up resulting in their strawmanning me all the time which is further advantage because anyone who's actually watched this program listen this program read any of the books realizes that Bill Craig hasn't and realizes that what he's saying simply isn't true because he hasn't taken the time to his homework but there you go no one is without philosophy everyone has been influenced by these things the same way we're influenced by theological movements and traditions in our lives and everything else that is a completely different reality then coming up with a philosophical argument and saying well

45:53

I don't see anything it's inconsistent with Scripture with this and therefore let's use it origination source resourcement these you know that in when you do meaningful biblical exegesis you do something called intertextual studies you're looking at how texts relate to other texts and how the

46:17

New Testament relates the Septuagint and through the Septuagint to the Hebrew Scriptures and and to other writings outside the canon of Scripture and this happens in in every field of scholarship and so those things exist those things are are out there no one's saying that they're not useful what we are saying is there's a vast difference between having the origin and source being the meaningfully interpreted text of Scripture and having being something else there is no origin of source for middle knowledge in Scripture I think

46:58

Bill Craig would acknowledge that some others do not but I think Bill Craig would acknowledge that but there is and this is where we differ there is in Scripture the clear direct statement not simply of God's decree which they agree but that that decree is expressive of his will of his will it is free it is not constrained by something that exists outside of God there's the issue and you can throw sand in the air and and everything else doesn't change that's where the issues now

47:40

I said that of Stephen Hawking but I think it could equally be said of James White claiming to have no philosophy he imposes unwittingly on the text his own philosophy of universal divine determinism

47:57

I don't make that claim of course so I don't know where he's getting this he's just wrong he's he's misrepresenting me and given that he's been given

48:06

I sent the links I was asked to provide the information before the debate for him to look at these things

48:14

I don't understand why this is I have accurately represented him he does not accurately represent me that reflects on his scholarship

48:22

I'll be perfectly honest with you it does you all want to talk about you know everybody wants to slam on me how come

48:29

I'm the one accurately representing the other side how come I'm the one when I debated Barter and I took six months six months to read all of his material listen to all of his classes be fully prepared

48:43

John Dominic Crossan same thing John Shelby Spunk same thing I'm the one putting my opponent's books on the screen and underlining words and accurately representing the other side will ignore everything

48:59

I say they won't quote me they won't cite me but they're the scholars okay gotcha and he misunderstands the important role of philosophy in shaping and guiding reformed theology itself well no

49:16

I do not and he has no basis upon which to say that I mean honestly even if he just looked at what had been given to him he at least would have had some indication of that but if that's all he ever looked at him no no earthly idea what the range of what

49:32

I've written or what I've taught on this subject is would be at all anybody who's listening to the other discussion going on is listening that going yeah okay right all right whatever whatever but again the the thought in their mind is we are saying we exist in a world where philosophy has no impact never never said anything of kind they just they just can't hear what we're saying

50:01

I I have to just leave that up to Lord I guess they just can't hear that we are talking about origination talking about the difference between having for example a thoroughly philosophical doctrine the

50:16

Trinity versus a biblical doctrine the Trinity there's all the difference between those two things there really is but you can't make folks hear it

50:26

James White was also clearly unfamiliar with the philosophy of religion of his own reformed tradition especially with the history of the development of reformed theology

50:34

Craig was able to correct him by showing him the books on reformed dogmatics and explained the historical antecedents of reformed thought this is it's humorous

50:47

I feel sorry for these guys if this is all they've got but it's it's humorous little background here we were sent the link for this again that's a really neat program that just Justin used

51:02

I think the day before and so I hooked up at least 45 minutes early a fact it may have been over an hour early not yeah

51:14

I was over an hour early why because I live in Arizona and we don't play with daylight savings time and over the course of my life

51:26

I've missed interviews because their software my software whatever didn't deal with what was going on properly so I don't want to be late

51:41

I'm I'm early to dentist appointments and so I was in an early

51:48

I was in really early and I was the only one there so I'm sitting here sitting right here right now and I'm doing stuff and I hear a noise and so I move the window back to the browser window and there's

52:00

Bill Craig he can see me I can see him we can talk and so we chatted a bit we talked about weather and the weather extremes in Phoenix and just mindless stuff like that but we didn't talk the whole time he came in I don't know 35 minutes early maybe something like that and I think it

52:28

I think at one point he may have had a problem with his microphone and we're forget now anyways at one point

52:37

I wasn't just saying sitting like this but at one point I looked at the screen and I see him with a large volume in his hand now now think about what okay let's say

52:48

I grab one of my books the upcoming class here okay so let's say you saw that do you know what that book is

52:56

I knew what the book that he had in his hand was I knew he had molar rhythm the four volume set and I could tell from that from from backwards and upside down on a screen

53:08

I knew what it was and I just made mental note to myself okay well probably gonna hear some molar quote someplace and so here's this idea

53:20

James White has no earthly idea of the development of reformed theology yeah you know actually

53:30

I do and it's your hard -headed unwillingness to hear what

53:38

I'm saying that is causing you to really faceplant honestly in making these kinds of silly statements because well

53:49

I think I'll hold off for a second because this there's another statement coming up that will help me to illustrate this even more so let's let's stick let's dive into it

54:01

Bill that's what you pulled out that big book that's right the four volume history of post -reformation reform dogmatics by Richard Muller which

54:11

I have consulted in connection with my own systematic philosophical theology and I've been writing for the last several months on the attributes of God and in my work

54:21

Kevin I first explore what is the biblical basis for certain of the divine attributes and what

54:29

I found so often Kevin is that the biblical data are under determinate now you need to learn this term you may not want to learn this term but I'm hearing it being used more and more is that the biblical data is under determinative which is a way of saying there is insufficient clarity in biblical revelation to substantiate a particular position or in this instance what he's probably saying is that that he is not as certain as people the past have been in regards to whatever doctrine you might want to bring up but you want to you want to learn that particular term and where it's coming from attributes and what

55:23

I found so often Kevin is that the biblical data are under determinative that it's frustrating you can't prove from the

55:32

Bible exactly what God's attribute is so so sounds like he's saying that for months now months now he's been working on this well congratulations welcome to the field that some of us have been engaged in for decades gave several examples in the conversation with James White the attribute of necessity or necessary existence

56:01

I would love to have a scriptural proof text to show that God exists necessarily in every possible world now think about that one for just a second that's not just under determined that's not determined at all because that is a philosophical concept that is completely outside of any

56:27

Christian worldview where does scripture talk about possible worlds feasible worlds any of that kind of stuff doesn't

56:41

God's the creator of all things this is the world he has created we can have knowledge of no other thing and so I would never even pretend to say that there is any kind of biblical foundation for the assertion that possible worlds is an element of divine revelation and Christian theology now the necessity of God that's just simply the conclusion of Christian creationism and I mean creationism not in the modern sense of debate over time frames but the fundamental assertion that what makes

57:30

Yahweh Yahweh is that unlike all the gods of the peoples he's the creator of all things all things exist in him through him and for him that's first Corinthians 8 that's

57:43

Colossians chapter one that is an exegetical absolute necessity there is no question no way around it that that is absolutely given and it's demonstrated with the exact same hermeneutical precision as the resurrection or the atonement or things related there too and so if you say well you need to prove from the

58:10

Bible that there are other possible worlds I'm gonna go I the

58:16

Bible doesn't teach there are the possible world so I'm not even gonna bother to try well you don't believe in the necessity of God well

58:21

I don't believe in a philosophical construct that posits some concept of possible worlds that would not be created by God I mean this is it there is no connection between this and scriptural teaching so it's pure speculation you can speculate about whatever you want but that doesn't make it relevant to the issue that we're dealing with right now the

58:50

Bible is ambiguous as to whether God's eternity means that God is timeless or whether God is infinite throughout all time or again the attribute of God's relationship to space is

59:04

God omnipresent in the sense that he transcends space altogether but is active at every point in space or does

59:12

God actually in some way fill space itself so now notice what these things are you know you know

59:18

Craig's time and eternity he's talked about a and b theories of time and all the rest of these types of things is it a under -determination of scripture or is this simply an acknowledgement that mankind can come up with all sorts of questions that are not based upon submission of that man's mind to scripture to then ask coming from a foreign worldview and if there are things in scripture that are underdetermined that is the long discussion of the

01:00:00

Adi Afra the things that do not define one way or the other the Christian faith there's all sorts of quote -unquote underdetermined things there that is things where there is no dogmatic teaching this would be necessary for the gospel to be able to go to all nations all languages tribes tongues peoples nations times so on and so forth that's not the same thing as saying well you know there's lots of interesting questions you can ask about time might be but one thing is for certain and that is that God says he is the

01:00:40

Alpha and Omega he's the beginning the end he's with the first and the last and he is present in all of time and he is not limited in his knowledge by time that's that's again walk through Isaiah 40 to 48 it's not gonna be a question the reality of biblical prophecy

01:01:03

God's knowledge of these things God's knowledge of not only future events past events hearts of men all these things are the foundation upon which we derive these realities as they are then expanded upon a

01:01:18

New Testament and in key texts in regards to Christ's creatorship and and and all things that that flow there from and and here is where interestingly enough the other conversation that is going on right now is oh that's interesting

01:01:38

I just obviously I've bored rich right out of right out of the conversation already because 25 minutes ago

01:01:47

I didn't notice him 20 minutes ago he texted me and says YouTube says your debate with Michael Brown was the most played video on our entire channel for 2021 there must there must have been a context to that someplace

01:02:02

I'm not I'm not sure I'm getting the three that the three you know three little did it did it did it that was about interest in the subject for debate okay there you go there there it was must have been 26 minutes ago we were talking about debates or something like that so the one with Michael Brown well that and that's on that's

01:02:22

I was actually on the same topic too so that's uh that's interesting very good that's a little bit too maybe

01:02:29

I'll have to move this thing over so it's more in my line of sight I have to look way too far over there to to see this thing so anyway yeah you know

01:02:42

I was actually gonna mention after we play this next one rich if did you do what

01:02:54

I asked you to do as far as have a little something queued up for a little break at some point

01:03:03

I'm not sure if that request came through or just what but I'm not hearing

01:03:12

I'm not even seeing the little dots okay yes okay there there yeah maybe after this next longer clip we'll we'll take a quick break because we've still got material to go through here but this next one anyway sorry links us with the conversation we've been having in regards to simplicity and Aquinas and medieval philosophy and Aristotelianism and all the rest that stuff so here it is or the attribute of divine simplicity we all agree that as a spiritual being

01:03:45

God has no physical parts he's not put together out of pieces that could come apart but that doesn't imply that God doesn't have distinct properties or that God has no potentiality or that God's essence is existence and yet reformed dogmatics borrows from medieval

01:04:06

Catholic philosophy the doctrines of divine necessity, timelessness, spacelessness, and simplicity.

01:04:16

It's wholesale reproduced in reform dogmatics and James White would be very hard -pressed to give any sort of biblical justification for that interpretation of the doctrine of God.

01:04:29

This is a synoptic or synergistic working together of biblical data and theological reflection to try to determine what

01:04:40

God's attributes are like. So I don't know if any of the rest of you find it as ironic as I do it's plain that Bill doesn't know what we've been discussing recently or the controversy going on.

01:04:56

Why would he? Why would he even be concerned about it? But it's interesting that I'm the one consistently asking the question, is that true?

01:05:12

Has this been taken over directly from Aquinas? And if so, shouldn't – this is where the two just go meet, like right here – shouldn't our goal be to do what

01:05:30

Calvin said and to filter out those places where medieval or Thomistic, Aristotelian, Platonist, or Plato for that matter, where those systems were dependent upon for creating a particular vocabulary?

01:05:59

Shouldn't it always be our concern that if that becomes foundational that we could have cracks in our foundation at a later point because instead of the mortar being made out of revelation, it's made out of philosophical speculation?

01:06:19

And philosophical speculation changes over time. The great philosophical movements of any one generation are scoffed at as simplistic and refuted by the next.

01:06:32

We all know that. Well, if you study philosophy, you know that.

01:06:38

And trends come and go. One particular philosopher may be popular for a time and then out of popularity and then have a renaissance at a later point in time.

01:06:48

And there's always people coming along to modify a little bit of a thesis here and if that's the mortar that holds the foundations together, we're going to have a problem.

01:06:59

If it's not Theanustos, you can have a handmaid that shines a light, but that handmaid very frequently wishes to become the bride.

01:07:17

And if we do not repeat 1 Corinthians 2, 1 and 2 in our minds – and 3, the section we looked at today – if we do not repeat that in our minds over and over again, what we end up seeing is what we are seeing today.

01:07:34

And that is a fundamental degradation of the centrality and the sufficiency of Scripture.

01:07:45

And that can happen in any religious group, any denomination, that can happen.

01:07:50

And I think one of the greatest dangers is reformed men think that it won't, but it can and it has.

01:07:59

And we need to be very, very concerned about that. We possess within our own confessional framework the methodology for fixing those problems if we are willing to recognize them as for the problems that they are.

01:08:16

So I would say we're about halfway through, and two of the sections are actually fairly long that we'll be playing because they're from Leighton Flowers.

01:08:29

It won't take us quite as long to do that, but at one point – and I think it may be the first point up – we need to do some more biblical work today.

01:08:42

And so we're going to do that. But first, I have no idea – oh, Rich has some music of the season.

01:08:51

And so I'm assuming he's just going to go to a splash screen or something, and maybe

01:08:58

I'll just have to text him and say, all right, ready to go. We're going to take a minute or two break, maybe two or three, get a drink of water, and we'll continue on The Dividing Line right after this musical interlude.

01:13:39

And welcome back to The Dividing Line. We used to – when we had the A .O. store, we had that CD, didn't we?

01:13:47

For sale, as I recall. Made that available. That's my recollection.

01:13:52

Yep, Rich says yes. So that was from one of our old commercials. Todd Lindstrom, there you go.

01:13:58

There you go, Todd. Thank you very much for that. That unfortunately makes it possible for me to go a little longer without any difficulties.

01:14:08

So all right, we press forward with the – we are listening to, if you're just tuning in – that doesn't really make any sense anymore, does it?

01:14:17

I suppose on a live stream it's possible, but it did back in the olden days, radio and stuff like that.

01:14:23

But we've gotten past all that old stuff. The folks at Reasonable Faith did a podcast, webcast,

01:14:35

I think yesterday or day before, on our encounter. Said some real interesting things, and we are reviewing those things on the program today.

01:14:44

So let's keep going. Oh, it would help if I clicked on the right program.

01:14:51

And Bill, this exchange just happened relatively recently. And so all the response is just now coming in.

01:14:58

I don't want people to think that we're just playing some of the clips and some of the quotes from people who are in your corner.

01:15:04

But so far, most of them have been. Maybe in the future we'll do another podcast of people who are maybe a little more in favor of James White or whatever.

01:15:13

But in the meantime, we've been collecting some clips and some reaction. Here's a clip. It's a response from Leighton Flowers.

01:15:22

Okay. So just so that everybody understands,

01:15:30

Leighton Flowers teaches at the same school with Tim Stratton and with some other very well -known anti -reformed guys.

01:15:40

So provisionism and Mullenism, and I mean, it's what's definitional of that particular organization.

01:15:50

So here you've got William Lane Craig, and someone pointed out to me that Craig's listed on Leighton's website as some type of a,

01:15:59

I don't know, advisor, something. I would think he would know what his name is, but we're going to find out here in a moment he doesn't.

01:16:05

But it's all the same group. And it's called self -citation.

01:16:13

I'm not even interested in starting some list, you know, who's converting because, oh, good grief, really?

01:16:21

It just reminds me of the playground in sixth grade, to be honest with you. Just put your arguments out there and let them, if you want to find teachable moments, if you want to, you know, great.

01:16:36

But this type of stuff is silly. Anyways, so Leighton, I guess, did a video with someone on this particular issue.

01:16:48

And what I find truly humorous here is that there's gonna be two clips played.

01:16:56

And in essence, in both of them, Craig's gonna say, nah, no, he missed it.

01:17:04

Now, he says some things that we'll need to respond to. But it was one of those situations where, again,

01:17:12

I'm riding down the road and people must figure, oh, weird homeless guy going by because I'm laughing to myself as I'm buzzing along on the road.

01:17:22

So here we go. He and Eric Hernandez got together and discussed the exchange a little bit. We'll go to clip one here.

01:17:28

This is Dr. Flowers and his response. Many of you have watched the William Lane Craig, James White debate over Molinism.

01:17:34

And I wanted just to give some of a preface. Some people were asking my thoughts on it. I was frustrated through a lot of it because a lot of the discussion was derailed based upon what you saw there in that first clip.

01:17:45

It seemed to me that Dr. White was speaking more from a theological vantage point and William Lane Craig more from a philosopher's vantage point in some ways.

01:17:53

They go hand in hand. Now, let me catch that. Let me stop that for a moment. This could be the one place where I agree with Leighton and he will offend

01:18:07

Craig. That's exactly what he's going to comment upon there. But actually,

01:18:13

Leighton was correct. In this instance, he's correct. And I think that Craig's response just demonstrates how he doesn't get out much outside of his own circles to deal with the application of these theological issues in the real world with real people.

01:18:46

I just don't think that he does. And certainly watching some of the

01:18:53

Q &As and how he answers questions and things like that, I think there's a foundation of saying that.

01:18:59

But catch that, because that's what's going to come up in Craig's response. Do one without the other, regardless of what some people may say.

01:19:05

You always end up doing this philosophy, especially when it comes to interpreting the text and how you interpret things, especially infinite qualities such as omniscience and how that works with free will.

01:19:15

You can't talk about that even without getting into philosophical statements. And so some of the conversation didn't go very deep into the intricacies of Molinism, because it seemed to me that Dr.

01:19:24

White was focusing on an issue that really wasn't even in Dr. Craig's purview.

01:19:30

In other words... I guess I'm going to start and stop Leighton here. I focused on Craig's own formulation of what divides

01:19:46

Molinists and Calvinists, and he agreed. So I, in listening to this clip and then the clip that comes afterwards, it's plain to me

01:20:02

Leighton does not understand what the issue is. He does not understand the issue regarding the existence of true subjunctive conditionals, because he's going to say, that's just simply men's choices.

01:20:17

No, it's not. Not even close. Not even close. This is something that derives from the scripture.

01:20:24

God is sinless. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. He's omnipresent. In other words, God is maximally great. I think both William Lane Craig and Dr.

01:20:31

White agree with this statement, that the scripture clearly teaches us that God is maximally great. Maximal being theology,

01:20:41

I find to be empty. It's empty of meaning.

01:20:48

I find it to be empty in the ontological argument. You can repeat it often, but it's too easy to create categories in which it becomes a self -refuting absurdity.

01:21:05

And if you're wondering, most people aren't in any real idea. So for example, Tim Stratton argues that if you, for God to be a maximally great being, he must have middle knowledge, because a being with middle knowledge is greater than a being without middle knowledge, and therefore

01:21:20

God must have middle knowledge because he's maximally great. I find that to be empty argumentation, because God is what

01:21:28

God is, and God's greatness defines what he is. And setting up some standard outside of what

01:21:36

God has revealed himself to be, and saying, well, he'd be greater if he was this, I think that's one of the things that God will burn people in hell for.

01:21:46

And, you know, why did God create hell for to burn the philosophers that came up with all the stupid things he was supposed to have done, but he actually didn't.

01:21:56

So that whole realm I find to be, just like I said, vacuous.

01:22:03

It's God is great and God is good. Let us thank him for our food is not the best, highest level of theology.

01:22:11

It's good practice, I would say. And there is certainly a tremendous amount in scripture about the greatness of God and the power of God and everything else, but that doesn't mean that you can then define something as being a great making attribute and then assert it to God, because God has to be the greatest of all these things.

01:22:32

No, that's not a scriptural standard. I don't see any value to it in that way.

01:22:41

The Bible also clearly teaches us that man is a responsible sinner. We're justly held culpable for our sins, our actions.

01:22:46

Those are not points of contention. Both Calvinists and Molinists and everyone in between, and I think Molinism, like Dr. Craig says, is consistent with the scriptures and a biblically viable way to explain how these two truths that are in scripture...

01:22:59

Now, just make a note, there's, you know, Leighton saying, yeah,

01:23:05

Molinism, yeah, okay. And yet he needs to recognize the

01:23:11

Molinists and the open theists don't get along all that well. You might talk with him about that.

01:23:18

Can't be reconciled. How does an omnipotent, all -knowing God create free creatures who are responsible for their choices?

01:23:24

How does that work? These two truths are derived from scripture. I think we can all agree with that. I think Dr. Craig would say, yes, absolutely, these two truths are derived from scripture, but the debate is over how.

01:23:34

It seems to me White doesn't treat it as if it's a philosophical worldview, however. He treats it as if it's just from the

01:23:40

Bible. What do you think about what Leighton just said there? Well, I tend to agree more with Wintry Night that you quoted before.

01:23:47

I think White has a very naive view of theological method. It is not true that he approached the question theologically, and I approached it philosophically.

01:23:57

It is precisely that false dichotomy that needs to be challenged. Rather, we both approach the topic as systematic theologians trying to make sense out of the truths that are taught in scripture, which included those two truths that Leighton Flower mentioned.

01:24:14

Leighton Flower mentioned. So he's disagreeing with the formulation that Leighton made, the one part that I agreed with him about.

01:24:23

And once again, just simply cannot hear, has nothing in his experience to connect this to, to be able to understand it.

01:24:33

The issue of originality, where is the origin of these truths?

01:24:41

It just seems that for Bill Craig, the

01:24:46

Bible is a rather disjointed collection of theological truths that you put together as best you can, and you don't have to really worry about how anybody else has done it before you.

01:25:06

That's why he can just sort of, well, you know, Neapolinarianism, Adam, and you know, this kind of Kerberos as an example of the

01:25:19

Trinity, and even Tim Stratton does that. Even after, this is what's amazing to me, even after we demonstrated just the massive holes in the use of Kerberos, Tim Stratton has still defended it, he's doubled down on it.

01:25:32

But anyway, origination source versus, so in other words, our belief that scripture is a consistent source of divine revelation, that by looking deeply into its themes, into its overarching narratives, context, language, all of that stuff put together, you are able to establish a consistent message that transcends culture, and language, and time, because man,

01:26:10

God's truths are always God's truths, and man will always be man. And without that, you'll always have an evolving and changing

01:26:19

Christianity. There will be nothing that can be the same two generations down the line if there is no certainty in revelation.

01:26:29

You just can't. White's way of explaining the biblical data is universal divine determinism.

01:26:36

My view is that it's best explained via middle knowledge. So, and again, so I would long for the day when something would happen to where Bill Craig would realize that exhaustive divine determination, or universal divine determinism, is just simply the assertion that God acts freely to his own glory in his own creation.

01:27:10

That his kingly freedom is central to how he reveals himself to his people, and the fact that he desires all of his attributes to be revealed.

01:27:25

What if God, although willing to patiently endure, vessels made for wrath?

01:27:31

Why? So that he might demonstrate his power, and his justice, his might.

01:27:39

Well, there is right there the demonstration to the creation of an aspect of his being.

01:27:54

And by the way, just an application of another thing, in that context, it's only one particular aspect of his being.

01:28:04

What is demonstrated to vessels of wrath is not the same thing as what is demonstrated to vessels of mercy.

01:28:15

And to tell people that to be truly orthodox, you have to believe that what is demonstrated to vessels of wrath is the same thing as what is demonstrated to vessels of mercy,

01:28:30

I do not accept as having any biblical basis whatsoever.

01:28:36

You can argue for it on philosophical grounds, and say if you don't, then God's made up of constituent parts, and I just go, no it's not.

01:28:44

Why do you say that? In fact, I have an article that I saved that won't have time to get to it today, but I did want to address it from reformforum .org.

01:29:02

At least, I think that was what it is. Yeah, I think so.

01:29:08

Anyway, we'll take a look at that at a later point in time, but we need to stay with where we are here, and go back to the second

01:29:17

Layton Flowers clip. And so when we talk about the difference between a Calvinist... Okay, sorry. So this is the second clip that he played, and it actually starts with me, and if I recall correctly, didn't go back to look, but if I recall correctly, this was when

01:29:32

I first quoted Craig's own words from the

01:29:39

Paul Helm discussion from 2014. And ask yourself the question as you're listening to this, does it strike you that Layton Flowers understands how true subjunctive conditionals function in Bill Craig's application of the nature and meaning of middle knowledge, and how that relates to God's decree?

01:30:06

And so when we talk about the difference between a Calvinist and a Mullinist, the assertion that is being made, and this is what came up in the previous conversation, the assertion, and this was the clarifying remark that Bill made right toward the end of the discussion, here's the quote, what the

01:30:19

Mullinist does say that the Calvinist does find objectionable is that God is not in control of which subjunctive conditionals are true.

01:30:29

He doesn't determine the truth value of these subjunctive conditionals, that's outside his control.

01:30:34

Okay, in my estimation, all that statement is from Dr. Craig that he just read, is saying

01:30:40

God doesn't determine the choices of man. Okay, let me stop right there. That is not what it's saying.

01:30:48

That is not what it's saying. And if you understand Craig's application and his argument, if you've read his book, as we did on this program, and walk through these things, you would never say that.

01:31:01

Because central to Craig's argument is that man can do otherwise.

01:31:07

And so, if man does otherwise, then God's knowledge of that changes.

01:31:13

But the true subjunctive conditionals are not derived from man.

01:31:20

I even asked Craig that and he said, yes, of course, because it's pre -decretal.

01:31:27

And it is also not derived from the will of God. So, it is a body of data in the subjunctive.

01:31:38

Layton just doesn't even seem to understand that. Just doesn't get it. And what we're going to hear over and over again is, well, you're arguing philosophically here rather than theologically.

01:31:51

It's the central assertion of the system. Molinism is an alien assertion derived from speculative philosophy that is being inserted into the heart of Christian faith.

01:32:10

It is being given theological weight without theological origin.

01:32:17

That's the problem with Molinism. It's theology without God.

01:32:26

Okay? It's theology without God. It doesn't come from God's will.

01:32:34

It doesn't come from what men do. It is not the free expression of God's activity.

01:32:42

But it is being made the central mechanism that defines what are and what are not feasible worlds for God to actuate.

01:32:51

There's your issue. There's your issue. I know it's very long and philosophical and it sounds a lot more complex than just that, but I think that's all

01:33:04

Dr. Craig is saying, is that the thing that God does not control is the moral choice of man.

01:33:10

That's the thing he does not control. Now he's speaking about that thing, whatever that thing is, that thing that he does not control, the choice of man, he's speaking at it from a

01:33:19

Molinistic perspective of God in his infinite nature, and therefore that's why it sounds so complex and difficult to follow.

01:33:26

But basically that's the only thing that it seems like White is reading about there. It's just that God doesn't determine the choices of men.

01:33:32

And yeah, that obviously is our position. That's what libertarian free will is all about. God is not the determiner of what we will determine. He allows us to make some determinations.

01:33:40

Those determinations don't make us superheroes, as Dr. Pritchett is famous for saying, free will is not a superpower. So just because God grants us the ability to make choices doesn't mean that we somehow thwart the will of God or that we become more powerful than God.

01:33:51

The only reason we have free will to begin with is because he chose for us to have free will. And so it's not as if God is giving mankind an ability and then he's just going, uh -oh, now

01:33:58

I give them ability, now I'm at their whim and I can't handle it. Bill, did that go more toward the problem of evil and where the debate was supposed to be?

01:34:08

No, no, he's still debating. Bill, no, no. You gotta laugh, you know.

01:34:19

Even in the midst of being insulted and misrepresented and strawman and told about how naive you are when you've listened to the other guy and you spend the time reviewing the other guy's stuff, he won't listen to a word you have to say, but you're the naive one.

01:34:33

In the midst of all that, you gotta laugh at something. Go more toward the problem of evil and where the debate was supposed to be.

01:34:41

No, no, he's still debating about middle knowledge and the fact that these counterfactuals of freedom are not determined by God.

01:34:49

I don't think this is all so complex and difficult as Leighton seems to present it. The question is, does

01:34:54

God determine what you would do in various circumstances? And the

01:35:00

Molinist says, no, he leaves it up to you to do whatever you would freely choose to do. But White, you see, is so committed to universal divine determinism that just saying that about Molinism is, in his mind, a refutation.

01:35:15

So, if you point out to a Christian that there is a body of data that God did not create, that does not come forth from man, that no one can tell you where it came from, but it limits what

01:35:31

God can do, that is being so committed to something that it's its own refutation.

01:35:39

Yeah, it is its own refutation if you are a Christian who recognizes the exhaustiveness of the claims of the

01:35:48

Christian scriptures concerning creation. That's why

01:35:54

I have walked through Colossians chapter 1. That's why we've looked at the prepositional phrases used in Colossians 1 in comparison to 1

01:36:04

Corinthians 8 to emphasize the reality that there is no element of the created order that is exempted from the specific creative sovereignty of Christ.

01:36:21

Molinism says there is. Does it not? I'm not trying to misrepresent Molinism.

01:36:26

Somebody tell me. And now, those of you who are into, there's this, there's some

01:36:31

Molinists, like I said earlier, that say, and this has been abandoned by pretty much everybody, but there's a couple people who still believe it,

01:36:40

God has super comprehension. No matter what you do with this, it either ends up getting rid of middle knowledge by bringing it back into natural knowledge because it's

01:36:55

God's knowledge of himself, or it does away with the subjunctive conditionals.

01:37:04

If it does away with subjunctive conditions, you no longer have middle knowledge. And so, it's destructive to the system and therefore cannot provide you with what makes middle knowledge work as to how the divine decree is to function, and yet maintain autonomy of man and the sovereignty of God.

01:37:27

It's still even that. Remember, I hope I recognize, when someone says sovereignty of God, if there is no free expression of the eudaicheia, the good intention, the desired intention of God, if God's freedom is limited in the exercise of sovereignty, that's not divine sovereignty.

01:37:47

It's not biblical divine sovereignty. It's a philosophical substitute, but it's not biblical divine sovereignty.

01:37:54

Got to keep that in mind. And so, all

01:38:00

Bill wants is, you're just a determinist. I'm not going to deal with the texts that clearly teach the freedom of God in his decree, which is fully extensive, involves all of creation.

01:38:21

But I am going to make an assertion about these subjunctive conditionals that allows me to remove the freedom of God and constrain him and then replace that with the actions of man.

01:38:32

And since I'm challenging that, you have to change what it is

01:38:39

I'm challenging, because I'm challenging the heart of the system, and we haven't gotten an answer yet. Just to state the

01:38:45

Molinist view that God does not determine the truth value of these counterfactuals to him, that's a refutation.

01:38:52

It is. It is, if you hold to a biblical doctrine of exhaustive creation.

01:38:59

If you hold to Colossians 1, if you hold to Hebrews 1, if you hold to John 1, and the application that is made by the inspired text in those places, yes.

01:39:10

Yes, no question about it. It is a refutation of it. Stand by it.

01:39:15

And that so far, for all the raging, I have not heard a single exegetically based, biblically based refutation of that statement.

01:39:25

You are saying something exists that Christ did not make.

01:39:30

I say that is not a Christian position. To me, it's just a description of the view, and I don't see any reason to think that divine determinism is true.

01:39:47

On the contrary, I see good reason to think it's false, because it makes God the cause of evil. Now again, it would be – the offers have been made, the suggestions have been made that if I'm too naive and simple and so on and so forth, a dialogue with Guillaume Bignon, the

01:40:12

French philosopher on this issue of origin of evil, things like that.

01:40:18

Y 'all take the time to look at the discussion that Eli Ayala and Guillaume had after – it was last week sometime – and if you're really into all the philosophical discussions of kinds of wills and so on and so forth, feel free to take a look at that, and you'll find that interesting.

01:40:49

I'm sorry, I'm somewhat distracted here. There's someone opening the doors to the office down here, and I don't know who they are or what they're doing, but it is somewhat distracting to wonder what's going on here.

01:41:05

We will continue – we'll try to continue on. If I all of a sudden go running out of the studio, you'll know that there's a reason that I am doing so.

01:41:14

Both men are attempting to take the data of scripture and construct some type of systematic to explain it.

01:41:21

So what I found funny and even ironic, White would quote scripture as if he's going to quote something

01:41:26

Craig's going to disagree with. You know, just quoting the isn't proof of your position. The question is not do you believe this part of scripture, the question is how do we explain it, how do we understand this, and that's going to take some philosophy.

01:41:36

That guy is exactly right, Hernandez. We were both presenting our systematic theological constructs to explain the data of scripture, and White, oddly enough, for all his emphasis on theology, his objections to Molinism were not scriptural.

01:41:55

They were philosophical. He was objecting to Molinism on the basis of truth -maker maximalism, that there needs to be truth -makers for these subjunctive conditionals.

01:42:05

Now that is some of the most strong evidence that I have of the imbalance that comes from – well,

01:42:19

I can't say what it comes from, I guess, but the imbalance that exists in Bill Craig's philosophical theology.

01:42:30

I don't know – I know that Bill teaches at – was teaching at some point at a church.

01:42:36

I remember years and years ago I listened to an entire series he did in a –

01:42:42

I don't know if it was a Sunday school class or a Wednesday night class, I don't know what it was, but it was in a church, so I appreciated the fact he was in it.

01:42:48

I think it was in Georgia, as I recall. I can guarantee you, in that one series, I listened to far more of Bill Craig than he's ever listened to me.

01:42:55

So like I said, I do know where he's coming from. And what you had in that assertion that was just made explains why, through the entire discussion, we had to keep coming back to the same points.

01:43:15

And the same points were the supremacy of Scripture over philosophical formulations.

01:43:25

He can only hear me making philosophical arguments when, as I just explained,

01:43:32

I am objecting to the insertion of a philosophical statement into the heart of theology and changing all parameters and definitions at the heart of theology.

01:43:44

This is not derived from Scripture. What is changing is derived from Scripture. Therefore, it must be rejected.

01:43:49

He can't hear that. He can't hear it. I don't know why. I can't make him hear it. But I can trust that God will make that to be heard and understood in the minds of those that he wants to draw ever closer to himself, in his own way, at his own time.

01:44:06

Might be ten years down the road, someone might hear this, and it might bless them at that time.

01:44:12

That's up to God. That's up to God. I just have to say what it is

01:44:17

I have to say, and leave the results up to him. The grounding.

01:44:23

Well, this is the objection that I just referred to. The claim here is that, logically prior to God's decree to create a world, there isn't any ground for the truth of these counterfactuals of freedom.

01:44:38

And what I pointed out is that this presupposes a very crude view of what's called a truth -maker theory of truth.

01:44:46

A crude view. Now, I just – he's not going to listen to me, but maybe there are others out there.

01:44:55

Maybe you're an honest Molinist, and you're troubled. You're troubled by this, because you're hearing what

01:45:04

I'm saying. You're going, wait a minute, okay, I don't – you may be actually sitting there going, look,

01:45:11

I've not thought some of these things through before, but I'm hearing what

01:45:16

White's saying, and White is saying that the assertion that there exists these true subjunctive conditionals that exist apart from God bringing them into existence.

01:45:33

They're not an expression of His will. They're not dependent upon His will. They don't come from God.

01:45:41

And they don't come from man, because man hasn't been created yet to create them. And so, they exist, and they exist so truly that God cannot change the content.

01:45:58

God cannot change the content. And this data determines what worlds are feasible to God.

01:46:07

And if you believe, as it seems Craig does, or at least accepts the possibility, in the trans -world damned, the concept of the trans -world damned, there are people who in any feasible world will be damned.

01:46:28

They are that way because of the content of this body of data that doesn't come from God, and it doesn't come from man either.

01:46:46

There may be honest Molinists sitting there going, that's a problem.

01:46:53

That's a real problem. And just talking about truth -maker maximalism, which no one's ever heard of before, doesn't, you're literally saying that in a

01:47:01

Christian worldview, because truth -maker maximalism is just an epistemological side of hand. It's only meaningful outside of a creative context.

01:47:15

Within a Christian worldview, it's a given. If you believe Colossians 1, it's a given. If all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Jesus Christ, and if He has defined all things, it's a given.

01:47:25

There's no way out of it. To be a Christian is to hold that position. It's necessary.

01:47:32

So a Christian Molinist who's bought all this stuff, maybe bought it in a less fully explained way, because like I said, in 2014, when you've got two brilliant men,

01:47:52

Paul Helm and William Lane Craig talking for almost a full hour before they finally got to the key issue.

01:48:00

So I know all sorts of people who've decided they're Molinists that wouldn't be able to define a subjunctive conditional if their life depended on it.

01:48:13

It's just never been presented to them. They've just been told there's this middle knowledge, they don't know what it's with all the other problems, and so all is well.

01:48:27

So we're being told this is a crude concept.

01:48:33

No, it is what Christians believe. And so I can imagine Bill's not going to listen to me, but there are others out there.

01:48:42

And you may be honestly going, you know what? They... If this is all

01:48:48

Molinism has, if Molinism either has to just ignore this issue and hide behind empty epistemological card tricks or retreat into something that is more of a, well, yeah, it does come from God, but it comes from super comprehension, which

01:49:08

I can't see how that doesn't eventually devolve back into natural knowledge and there's no more middle knowledge, so the whole system collapses.

01:49:18

This could be a fatal issue. And maybe somebody else will find a way of expressing it that will get through to Bill.

01:49:30

I'd invite you to try. Which says that truths have truth makers, and a radical version of truthmaker theory is truthmaker maximalism, which says that every truth has a truthmaker, and I think that doctrine is very plausibly false, and I gave a counterexample to it.

01:49:48

You remember I said, how about the proposition that Baal does not exist? What is the truthmaker for that other than just the fact that Baal does not exist?

01:49:57

All the gods of people are idols. All the gods of people are idols. I think it's...

01:50:03

Just off the top of my head, I was going to have it queued up. I apologize. I think it's Psalm 96 .5, but all the gods of people are idols.

01:50:09

Okay, we're done. Oh, oh, but that's scripture. Right. And if you believe that that which

01:50:17

God says, if the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the

01:50:22

Lord, and if thy word is truth, then that is enough for the Christian. All the gods of people are idols.

01:50:30

That's why Baal doesn't exist. I mean, that is probably the worst example that I could ever imagine anyone coming up with, and it just illustrates, you know, for Christians, we have a truthmaker.

01:50:46

His name is Jesus. We have a truthmaker.

01:50:52

His name is Jesus. Now, I said, get your Bible ready, and we're almost coming up on two hours, so I'll try to be quick here, and I apologize.

01:51:01

I should have known it would take that long, but there was a little break in there, but it's only about, what, three minutes, something like that. The reason being,

01:51:12

I was going to do this during it, but maybe it's best to do this here at the end so we have a nice positive going out aspect of things.

01:51:22

No, Rich, I can't ask everybody to go that long. Besides, except the truckers.

01:51:29

The truckers are going, yeah, yeah, man, I'm still awake. This is great. We love our truckers.

01:51:37

I feel closer to truckers now that I drive something that's 44 feet long and about 13 feet tall.

01:51:45

I feel a little bit more like a trucker. I get what it's like out there on the road.

01:51:53

I love those loves truck stops, man. That's my favorite. Anyway, don't know how we got into that, but I said we were going to look into Isaiah chapter 43, and I want to do that.

01:52:03

Good way to, yeah, Rich is going 12 '8". Again, you measured it not in the truck.

01:52:13

Sometimes that truck can go up and down and things like that. I'm saying 13 feet, man, that's safety right there.

01:52:23

If you like that front air conditioning unit, you'll agree with me. Let me put it this way,

01:52:29

Rich. If you were the front air conditioning unit, would you want me to believe you're 12 '8"? Or 13? Most definitely.

01:52:37

Oh, about 14 feet would be good. Some of you don't know what I'm talking about, but just imagine if you're pulling something behind.

01:52:45

That top air conditioning unit has the lowest life expectancy of anything on that poor little unit.

01:52:53

Anyway, okay. Isaiah chapter 43. I wanted to do this because it makes me sad, honestly, to recognize how many believers have such a less than confirming and edifying and grounding view of Scripture.

01:53:23

And when Bill Craig's talking about Scripture being under -determinative,

01:53:31

I'd like to just for a few minutes walk through just one section of some of the richest prophetic

01:53:43

Scripture. By the way, right now, and I've missed so many of them,

01:53:49

I may just have to queue them all up and just watch them all at once, but my dear brother Jeff Durbin, my fellow pastor at Apologia Church, recorded 25 devotionals, took quite some time, for the month of December going into Christmas.

01:54:09

And there are a few people that love Christmas more than Jeff Durbin does, that's for sure.

01:54:15

And he's been going through many of the

01:54:22

Old Testament texts, including Isaiah. And you can find them on the

01:54:28

Apologia YouTube channel if you want to catch them while you can. And these rich prophetic texts with their prophecies and their fulfillments, sadly, so many people in the academy today do not see the

01:54:51

Scriptures as existing on a level to where you can have, in Isaiah chapter 9, a child is born to us, the

01:55:01

Son is given to us. And the prophetic fulfillment found in the life of Christ, there's so many today that we have been so damaged by living in the context of secularism and materialism, that we miss some of the most beautiful aspects of God's revelation.

01:55:26

It's true of the attributes of God. Isaiah 43 .5, do not fear for I am with you.

01:55:33

I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, give them up into the south, do not hold them back.

01:55:40

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. So this is in the context of the prophecy, and of course this is exactly, by the way, why when you go to almost any place for theological education, you'll be told that this section of Isaiah wasn't written by Isaiah.

01:55:56

Why? Because it speaks of the reality of the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity.

01:56:07

And so since Isaiah lives before that, and so since we don't believe in revelation, prophecy, it talks about Cyrus by name.

01:56:18

Who can believe that, see? So you start there, and therefore you get rid of the futuristic application.

01:56:26

But you have here promise in verse five.

01:56:36

I am with you. That's an echo of Emmanuel. It's not God with us, but that would be, if God said

01:56:43

Emmanuel, that's what it would be. I am with you.

01:56:51

I will bring your offspring from the east, gather you from the west. So east, east, west, north, south, wherever they are, bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

01:57:04

Who is this? Everyone who is called by my name. Are you seeing the connections?

01:57:13

Are you thinking? It's one of those beautiful things to do. In fact, I remember a couple years ago,

01:57:19

I was sitting at dinner with Paul Washer, and he was talking about how he's doing all this prophecy and fulfillment study, and I started talking to him about the

01:57:31

Greek Septuagint and some textual stuff and some really neat things like that, and we had a good conversation.

01:57:38

But are you hearing that? Everyone who's called by my name, what's the great fulfillment?

01:57:47

I mean, amongst the people of Israel of old, they were all called by that name, but how many new?

01:57:54

What's the nature of the new? What's the nature of the new covenant? They won't teach each other, but they'll all know me, and we are baptized into the what?

01:58:05

Name, singular, not names, of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Everyone who is called by my name and whom

01:58:14

I have created, not who chose me, this is my people, and I have created this people what?

01:58:23

What does verse 7 say? For my glory. For my glory.

01:58:33

This is God speaking. I have created them for my glory.

01:58:41

My chavod, whom

01:58:48

I have formed, even whom I have made. Now, if the people of God are actually...

01:59:03

Let's think about Molinism for just a moment. Let's see how Molinism works here, because they're just competing systems, right?

01:59:12

Not right or wrong, it's just whatever fits better. Everyone who is called by my name and whom

01:59:19

I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made. Now, if this is specific people, and if the fulfillment in the new covenant is the people of God called the body of Christ, the church, how can

01:59:36

Molinism say that? Do you really think it's enough to say that God chose to actuate a world in which he knew that if he put certain people into certain circumstances that they would accept

02:00:03

Jesus? Now, I mean, that's another whole problem here, is that there really isn't...

02:00:12

I mean, all of Molinism is based upon a rejection of the Bible's teaching of what regeneration really is.

02:00:19

Regeneration is taking out a heart of stone, giving a heart of flesh. It is a divine operation. Molinism says that there is a body of knowledge in which

02:00:28

God can know who will accept him. Regeneration is something

02:00:34

God does. Within Molinism, it's something man does. It's just so fundamentally opposed to the freedom of God to do as he chooses at every level.

02:00:48

That's why when people say, well, I know a Calvinist Molinist. No, you don't.

02:00:53

You know a really confused Calvinist, but no, that doesn't fit. Whom I have created for my glory, whom

02:01:04

I have formed, even who I have made, how do you fit that into I have decreed to put them in these circumstances that they would do what

02:01:14

I know that they would do? You don't have room for God to be active in the creation of those people in a supernatural way.

02:01:24

All he can do is look at the data and go, well, if I put the Legos together like this,

02:01:30

I get these people. He doesn't make them. He just puts the circumstances together and he gets what he can out of it.

02:01:42

Here is divine freedom. Here is divine freedom. And notice, whom

02:01:49

I've created for my glory, my glory, not because they allow me to glorify myself.

02:01:56

I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made. Bring out the people who are blind, even though they have eyes, and the deaf, even though they have ears.

02:02:13

All the nations have gathered together in order that peoples may be assembled. Who among them can declare this and proclaim to us the former things?

02:02:21

Let them present their witnesses that they may be justified or let them hear and say it is true. Remember, what's the context here?

02:02:28

Isaiah 40 -48, the trial of the false gods. So witnesses are being called. And so let them present their witnesses that they may be justified.

02:02:39

So he's saying to the peoples who reject his ways, they've got eyes, even though they're blind.

02:02:46

They've got ears, even though they're deaf. Sounds like Isaiah 6, a little bit there. Let them present their witnesses that they may be justified or let them hear and say it is true.

02:02:59

So the peoples outside of Israel, God's saying, let's have your witnesses that can tell us what's going to happen in the future.

02:03:08

And I've seen all these things coming. And then that's where you get Isaiah 43 -10.

02:03:13

Now, Isaiah 43 -10 may not mean anything to you. If you've witnessed to Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, you know this text well.

02:03:23

But put those contexts aside for a moment. You are my witnesses, declares

02:03:28

Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know me and believe me and understand that I am he.

02:03:37

Before me, there is no God formed, and there will be none after me. Now, you are my witnesses.

02:03:45

So he says to Israel, he said to the people outside of Israel, bring forth your witnesses. They don't have any witnesses that can do these things.

02:03:52

So Yahweh brings Israel, says you are my witnesses. You're my servant whom

02:03:59

I have chosen, whom I have chosen, not who chose me, whom

02:04:04

I have chosen. And in Molinism, you can only do that by putting them in certain circumstances so that they will always do that one thing, even though, again, that completely ignores the reality of regeneration.

02:04:19

And notice, my servant whom I have chosen, in order that, there is a reason why

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God has chosen them to be his servant, in order that you may know and believe me, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

02:04:49

Now, there's just so much here that I've already gone over two hours, and I apologize for that. That you may know ki -anihu, ki -anihu, that I am.

02:05:04

In the Greek Septuagint, ego -aimi. This is the root, this is the foundation of the

02:05:11

I am sayings of Jesus in John. When you want to trace the

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I am usages in John 8, 24, 8, 58, 13, 19, 18, 5 through 6, back in the Old Testament, you don't go to Exodus 3.

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You can get there, but you have to go there through Isaiah, through the prophets, through this usage.

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Even more so, Jesus uses this text of himself in John 13, 19 in regards to the betrayal of Judas, because he's saying to the people of Israel, I'm telling you these things before it comes to pass.

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I'm calling you my witnesses, that I have told you these things before it comes to pass, so that when they do come to pass, you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

02:06:05

So, not only does the certainty of prophecy have to be a given here, so much for the open theist, but the same thing is true in John 13 in regards to Judas.

02:06:21

So, whatever you do with Judas, and that is central to the revelation to the disciples of who

02:06:30

Jesus is. He is the I am. And a few chapters later, when Jesus says I am to the soldiers, what happens?

02:06:37

They fall back upon the ground. Before me, there was no

02:06:45

God formed, and there will be none after me. Now, the whole reason my mind was brought to this was when you say that the attributes of God, not all the attributes, he didn't say all the attributes of God.

02:06:58

But when you say that the scriptures are under determinative, let me ask you what

02:07:03

God can say, what God says in Isaiah 43. First of all, he has to be the only

02:07:10

God there is. Before me, there was no God formed, there will be none after me. If there is no before and no after, is he not necessary existence?

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Do we not have monotheism? Do we not have eternity? Do we not have self -existence? So many of us have used

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Isaiah 43 10 to cut the eternal law of progression of Mormonism in half, appropriately. But Mormonism wasn't around 700 years before Christ.

02:07:40

It was the Book of Mormon, for that matter. And so we need to know positively what the statement is saying.

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Before me, there is no God formed. There is no formation of gods.

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He's not saying he was formed, but there was no God formed before him. There will be none after him.

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I, even I am Yahweh, there is no savior besides me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, there is no strange

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God among you. So you are my witnesses, declares Yahweh, and I am God. What can we understand about God in light of just this one portion of Isaiah?

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Self -existence, eternality, completeness. It is

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I who have declared revelation, ability to communicate, saved, mercy, grace, one section, absolute necessities for God to make the arguments that he does against the false gods.

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Under determinative? I said in my response to Stratton and James, you guys are under exegeted.

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They said I was under read. I think Molinism is badly under exegeted and under faithful.

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And that's because it came from bad fruit. Sorry, but the

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Jesuits were designed to undercut the very gospel that brought light to Europe. And you can't expect good fruit to come out of a tree like that.

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You can't. So there you go. Two hours and 10 minutes.

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Thank you very much to Rich for making this possible for us to do. Thank you for sticking through it.

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Thanks to all of our truck drivers who enjoyed it and are going to listen to it a second time because you're not even halfway there.

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We do appreciate your listening to the program. We hope it is of benefit to you. And we are thankful that you take the time to listen and it means the world to us.