Christian and Mormon Debate! Part 6 :: Closing Statements and Q&A

All right. Cool. Thank you, guys. That was a great discussion. All right. So, now, we're going to

Thank you. Thank you, both.

That was a great, great, great discussion, man. And a lot of interaction and live chat and everything. And I appreciate the candor and the kindness you guys are showing to each other. In the discussion, you guys obviously disagree with.

Closing Statements: Joseph on Sola Scriptura, the Trinity, and Analogical Language

So, with that, we're going to go ahead and go to closing statements. Each person gets five minutes. So, Joseph, if you don't mind, five-minute closing, man.

All right. Sure. So, for this period, I'll just kind of reiterate a couple of things I said in the opening statement and show how that applies to the five topics we've been talking about. So, as I said, I see a distinction between semantic and speaker reference that raises some serious problem, in addition to other sorts of, like, theological ambiguity that raises problems for the idea of Sola Scriptura.

And I had a couple of other points I just briefly mentioned as being problematic. I still am not sure that we have reason within the New Testament, say, to exclude the possibility of tradition as being an authoritative rule of faith or of revelation of serving the same purpose.

And so, I reject the sufficiency of Scripture. That's one of the topics. Given the problems that I see with that, I don't think that we can make, you know, historical grammatical kind of conclusive arguments on the gospel, say.

So, my view is that we are saved through grace alone and exalted partly through works, but also by grace, where the distinction there lies between entrance into any sort of heaven and entrance into the highest degree of glory in the LDS view.

And so, the same with Galatians 1. If we say, you know, even I myself or an angel teach a different gospel, let him be accursed. Given the semantic ambiguity, I think it's possible, and I think plausible, that the LDS view of, say, the gospel is compatible with the Bible.

And I think Jeremiah was very gracious in pointing out that since I have more books of Scripture, I have more data points, and I have to reinterpret points of the Bible. So, yeah, so I interpret Galatians 1 as being perfectly compatible with my view, because I think that the gospel that Joseph Smith taught and that my church today teaches is compatible.

In fact, it teaches what is in the Bible. I would just disagree about what's there. We didn't talk about completion of the canon, so I won't make any point there. On the Trinity, so again, I do see some internal problems, like on distinctions, like relations within the Trinity, and how that conflicts with divine simplicity.

We also talked about exegetical problems. So, I do think that, like passages, we didn't really get to talk about this. John 17, right, so I'll read it briefly. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.

So, this seems to be saying the same way that Christ is one with the Father is the way that we can be one with Christ. And so, on the Trinitarian view, that's not true. The oneness is a oneness of being, and we will not be one in being.

The righteous will not be one in being after judgment. But on the Latter-day Saint view, the manner in which the Father and the Son are one is in purpose and also kind of in office. They constitute God collectively.

And we can be one with them in purpose. So, that makes sense of this passage. We don't have to say that the relations are different. When this passage seems to be saying that the relations are the same.

And so, yeah. So, in terms of interpreting the Trinity, I don't know that the scriptural passages we have, given that the semantic and theological ambiguity problems that I raised, is sufficient to arbitrate between different types of Trinitarianism.

So, social Trinitarianism, partialism, modalism. I don't know that we can have a definitive answer based on scripture alone because they each are compatible, I think, semantically compatible. Only one of them is right, obviously.

But they're each semantically compatible with the semantic content of the passages in question. So, do we interpret John 17 in light of John 1 saying that the word was God or vice versa? So, then finally, I'll make a couple more points about the doctrine of analogy since we didn't talk about that really extensively.

So, I kind of said in the opening statement, if we say God loves us, that would seem to be a proposition we'd want to affirm based on the Bible. When I say that, when I say I love someone, I mean a certain thing, you know, it's a kind of psychological and emotional intellectual process.

God can't participate in any of those sorts of processes for one reason, because they're all temporal and the Orthodox God is atemporal. So, my view is that God is temporal. So, he can engage in these sorts of things.

When I say I love and I say God loves, it's a univocal use of that term. The Orthodox, the Trinitarian is committed to saying it's analogical, saying that what it means to say that God loves is something very different than what it means when we say we love.

So, because God's love is identical to his knowledge. If you think about what it could possibly mean for us to say that love and knowledge in a person are the same thing, it doesn't mean anything in ordinary discourse, in univocal uses of the term.

So, we have to appeal to this analogical use, but I think it just really is doing violence to scripture. I don't think that we see in scripture saying God loves us, but he can't think about us because thinking is a cognitive process which takes place in time and God is outside of time, for instance.

And there's lots of more, it's a very complicated issue, but I think it's one of the really, it's underappreciated in kind of regular Christian discourse. We don't talk about the fact that God doesn't love us anything in the same, even in the same conceptual space is what it means when we say we love.

Anyway, so that's kind of, yeah, this was a little bit messy, but I appreciate this opportunity. I really appreciate Jeremiah for being willing to debate and I appreciate the Gospel Truth for setting this up.

This is a really fun experience. Yeah, so thank you.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, Jeremiah, you're up for your five-minute closing, brother.

Closing Statements: Jeremiah on Scripture Alone, the Trinity, and the Right Jesus

All right. I just want to also thank you, Joseph, for interacting with me. You were definitely gracious with me because I talked over you a little bit and sometimes there's a little lag and we get kind of passionate, but man, I just want you to know that I love you.

I love, I'm called to love everybody. So my heart is not from a place that I just want to show off how I know something over here. I have this knowledge. If that's the case, then I'm just a noisy gong.

My testimony is that the God of the Bible, of Scripture, and I would argue Scripture alone changed my worldview, changed everything. I strongly believe that I've stepped into this loving relationship with God through the only Savior, Jesus Christ.

And so He calls me to love others. And so I just appreciate you being gracious. We talked about so many things and we used a lot of terminology that some people may be familiar with and maybe not. I know we talked about epistemology.

This is huge. How we know what we know. I want to just say, I don't think, if you don't have a worldview that can account for epistemology along with ontology, what exists, and along with how we should live our lives ethically, then I feel like we're just assuming an artificial, arbitrary standard of knowledge and we can't get away with saying something is true.

We make knowledge statements, but we could be wrong. So we don't actually know it. So we need a standard, something to couch an entire worldview, especially on how we know something. And so I think it was hopefully apparent that you got to engage in internal critiques at that point, stepping in hypothetically to someone's worldview and demonstrating some level of inconsistency.

And then I believe the triune God can account for the world we live in while we have relationship because God is eternally relational within Himself. He is both unified and diverse within the Trinity.

Now, I get how Joseph was pointing to divine simplicity. Look, divine simplicity is something that came out of history with Thomas Aquinas. So I don't agree with him maybe on necessarily everything. I love how he made the creator-creation distinction.

There's no way we as finite creatures can have absolute knowledge the same way that God absolutely has knowledge. So that's why the Bible even informs us that we see through a glass dimly. But one day, we will know as we are known, we will know in a greater capacity.

So that's why I think Mormonism does a little bit better job than atheism because it does lean on a revelational epistemology that couches an entire worldview. But the Bible teaches monotheism, that there is one God who has revealed Himself in three persons.

And so I would say, obviously, atheism can't account for the world that we live in, right? It just assumes logic. It assumes that we should live a certain way, but doesn't want to give honor and thanks to God.

Now, since we live in a diverse and unified world, and we think with unified thoughts and a particular diverse set of thoughts, this gives credence or it's grounded in the fact that God is one and many, right?

He is perfectly triune in His being. He's unified, and He is also three in His person. So this is how we account for love and communication. Unitarianism says that God is one in His being, and He's one in His person.

Well, okay, but how do you account for the many diverse things in this world? Polytheism, you have a pantheon of gods, you can go back infinitum or whatever, but how do you get unity, right? The only way is that a unified and diverse God reveal Himself to us in a propositional form, so much so that we can know Him relationally.

Last thing I want to say is that you must believe the right Jesus, and you must believe in the right Jesus and receive Him on His own terms. Jesus said, I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am, ego I me, you will die in your sins.

You must believe that Jesus is the one true creator living God, right? And then you must also believe in repentance in faith. And so my prayer is that Joseph would come to know the one true God of Scripture, and I don't say that from a heart of meanness, but I'll pray for him, and I'll pray for anybody else that God puts in my life that doesn't know the true Jesus.

And so that's really, we didn't get a lot into some of the things about Joseph Smith, we did a little bit, but the reason why we can be confident in the gospel of grace and that it's a Trinitarian work is when we look to Scripture alone.

And I believe the Scripture does a great job of defining what is Scripture and where that stops. And so Joseph Smith comes so many centuries later in the 1800s, has failed prophecies, and he doesn't present a gospel of grace, but like my friend Joseph said, a gospel of grace plus the works that you bring to the table.

And I just want to encourage people that if you just believe in Jesus, that in His finished work, then you can have forgiveness of sins. Jesus's righteousness gets credited to your account, and then all of your sins forgiven.

And he brought up John 17, which I think is a perfect passage to talk about the relationship between the son and the father, and this relationship that we can have too with the triune God. Thanks, Marlon.

All right. Thank you both.

All right.

Audience Questions on Psalm 106, Romans 3:21, and Acts 2:38

So we're going to go ahead and go to some questions from the audience. We have some, and we'll go ahead and engage them. You'll see the questions that pop up at the bottom of the screen here. So first question's for you, Jeremiah.

Uh-oh.

Says, can Jeremiah exegete Psalms 106, 30 to 31 in light of his sole fide soteriology?

Let me pull it up. So that is Psalm 106.

Yeah, 106, 30 versus 30 to 31.

So I'll just immediately say, I'm not 100 sure of the context and the big part that I'm seeing.

And let's see.

This person stood up and intervened, and the plague has stayed, and that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever. I'm not sure of the context. I know that the New Testament is super clear that how we receive righteousness that justifies us before God.

However, there are other passages, and I need to study this Psalm, and there's 150 chapters in Psalms and so many verses. So you can find one that I'm not familiar with, and I just want to be honest with the audience that I don't know.

But I imagine this is going to be somewhere along the lines of, I know it's Ezekiel 18, I'm pretty sure, but talks about righteousness of other people and not receiving the sins of their forefathers. So you can have a righteousness that is by works and is earned, but I would submit that's human to human relationship.

That's a lot about what the Proverbs talked about. In James chapter 2, I believe, makes the case that we can be counted righteous, justified before men in the sight of other people, but not be declared righteous before God.

So that's my response to that question, Marlon.

All right. Any thoughts on that, Joseph?

No, I'll let that stand.

All right. Next question.

This is for you, Joseph. Are you aware that Romans 321 doesn't use a definite article when referring to the law, meaning that it's talking about any law and not just the Mosaic law?

Yeah, I know that Greek makes heavy use of definite articles and so the omission of it can be significant. I don't think it necessarily is specifically. Like I said, I didn't come prepared to exegete Romans in depth in this debate.

I'd be happy to discuss that another point. Actually, my friend Robert Boylan, who asked the last question, is much more into the scriptural issues than I am, particularly in the Greek, and I imagine he'd be able to answer that question very well.

So yeah, I would say it's plausible that in the context, based on some reading that I've done, that it's referring to Mosaic law. I don't think it's, like I said, necessary for a member of my church to say that it is talking about that, given the fact that we are universalists and we do think that salvation and not exaltation, but salvation comes by grace alone.

So even if that's the case, I think that would be potentially, tentatively, because I'm not super into the exegetical portions of that passage, potentially still compatible with my position.

All right. Any thoughts, Mr. Jeremiah?

Yes. So it's interesting because I get how some people will make heavy emphasis on the law pertaining to the law of Moses. To some degree, I'm okay with that because a lot of the Old Testament law of Moses is still applicable for today, namely the moral aspect of the law, and it's reinstated in scripture.

So we can't just throw out the law of Moses as saying, well, that was just for back then. Well, we're still called to love our neighbor as ourself, and we're still called to love the Lord, our God. So the point is consistent from Old Testament to New Testament, that God has given us a law, the law of Moses, and we all fall short of that standard, whether morally, right, from the heart, or we see the Israelites falling short of a lot of the civil laws given to them.

So the law is important because the apostle Paul says, as transgressors, we will have condition. This is where I feel like the universalist position really has trouble with all the eternal punishment passages and the condemnation that Paul talks about, those who are under the law will be cursed.

So it's hard for me to see that when we break the law, even here on this side of eternity on earth, when we break the law, we have to pay punishment for that. And when we sin against the eternal God, there's going to be an eternal punishment, and the New Testament and the Old Testament talk so much about that.

So the law is important. We're sinners in need of saving grace, and if we don't have our sins covered, then I don't see how a universalist understands the teachings of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount saying you will depart from me, workers of iniquity, and you will experience a hellfire where the worm is not quenched.

There will be eternal conscious torment.

All right, all right.

Baptism, Acts 2:38, and the Meaning of eis

Next question coming at you. This is for, let me get another one for Jeremiah since we beat up Joseph just now. All right, here you go, Jeremiah. Another one for Mr. Robert. All right, Jeremiah rejects baptism regeneration.

Can he exegete Acts 238 for the remission of sin in light of grammar of Matthew 26, 28, which refutes the causal, I don't know how to pronounce that, apologetic.

Yes, so I have a lot to say here, but let me double check my Matthew 26, 28 just to make sure this is my cup. This is my blood covenant, blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.

Yeah, so I'd like to meet Robert since you know him, Joseph. Maybe we can...

He should definitely come on to debate this at some point. He's very well versed in a lot of these issues on the scriptural side. He'd be a great person to have come on and debate.

Sure. Let me talk a little bit about Acts 238, and I think it's consistent with Matthew 26, 28. So if you look at the context of Acts 2, Peter is preaching at Pentecost to Jews, right? So context always informs a particular verse that we're looking at.

And so Peter is saying, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins. And so it's interesting that he's talking to Jews because he is, I would say, the Greek word ais there for the remission of sin is not in order to receive forgiveness of sin.

I think he's talking about at the forgiveness of sin. That's consistent with Matthew chapter 12. This is why I think this is consistent with Matthew chapter 28 or 26 because Matthew chapter 12, we see the same case scenario where Jonah goes to repent or he goes to preach to Nineveh and they repent ais at his message.

They repent at the gospel message or the preaching of Jonah. So ais easily can mean for in order to receive or it can mean at and because of. And so I think the clear testimony of scripture says, we are to be baptized because of the forgiveness of sin that's found in Jesus Christ.

I love Mark 16, 16. That's a big part of this conversation. For those who believe and are baptized will be saved. Well, they say, wait, you see, you gotta be baptized in order to be saved. Well, that verse goes on to say, and whoever doesn't believe will be condemned.

For one, that goes against universalism. Two, the believing is the thing that does the condemning. So baptism is indicative of somebody who believes. And I think there's a lot of lines of thought to illustrate that.

But specifically Acts 2, 38, there's a context. The Jews rejected Jesus and he's saying, look, the big barrier that's preventing you from following Jesus is baptizing. Be totally in, be willing to set aside all of your Judaism the way that Hebrews talks about.

So be baptized because of the forgiveness of sin that's found in Jesus Christ. I think that would do more, that would do more, that'd be better for the context that we read in Acts 2. And it would be consistent across the canonical context.

All right, Joseph, any thoughts?

Just briefly. So I think that's a possible, but from my limited knowledge of Greek seems like a tenuous use of the preposition ice. And I really, I guess that just kind of emphasizes my point about ambiguity.

I think, like I said, I think it's a possible reading, but I think it shows how the various sorts of ambiguity raise real problems for just going into the scriptures and trying to interpret one passage in light of another.

Given the fact that both are possible readings and how we translate ice depends on how we take these other passages. But if you translate ice a certain way in order to translate, to interpret other passages a particular way, I just don't, I don't see a methodological reading, a reason for accepting one reading over another.

So that's one of the problems I have with Sola Scriptura is this sort of situation.

Can I speak to that again, Marlon, real quick? And I appreciate what you said, Joseph. So Sola Scriptura, we didn't get to just talk a ton about that, but we see examples of scripture interpreting itself.

I think Jesus even would tell us, you've heard that it was said of old, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But he says, but I tell you, love your enemies. And that was the original interpretation of Ludovicus 19, 18, anyway, that your neighbor is your fellow man.

So I'm saying that's a principle of scripture interpreting itself. We see that if somebody has a tradition that is elevated above scripture, Jesus condemned that. You had the tradition of the elders that had a particular way of washing of the hands, not eating a particular way on the Sabbath.

And they had Corbin and all these other things. And he totally rejected somebody that had a tradition that broke scripture. So here's what I wanted to say. I think it's Sola Scriptura that guards us and allows us to make the right interpretation when we come to passages like Acts 2, 38.

So let me just say, there could be two possible readings for ice. And you go look at the syntactical domain of the word, it could be translated at, or it could be for in terms of in order to receive. So how can we know which reading is right?

Well, this is where other scripture is going to dictate the right interpretation. So when we look at passages like, I think it's 2 Corinthians 2, maybe verse 14. I think there's a valid principle we get there, an application that says we interpret spiritual truth by the Holy Spirit with those things that are spiritual.

So the scripture gives us a foundation to be like, if there's an unclear passage of scripture that could be interpreted in one of many ways, there will be other clear passages of scripture that will help us know how to interpret other passages of scripture.

If Acts 2 is saying that you do have to do a type of ritualistic human effort, a works, well, then we know that that's the wrong view because Paul without ambiguity told us that we are only saved by grace alone apart from works.

So I appreciate a lot of what you said, but I think it's solo scripture that gives us the proper framework to allow God to speak to us in such a way that he can be understood without any confusion.

All right, all right.

Isaiah 43, Malachi 3:1, and Whether Yahweh Is Jesus

And this will be our final question here. This is for Joseph.

All right, question for Joseph.

How do you execute Isaiah 43, chapter 40, verse 3, Malachi 3 .1 in relation to Matthew 3 .3 and Mark 1 .1 .3, John 1 .23, Christians see it as Yahweh equals the Lord equals Jesus. So I know you're not gonna be able to exegete all of this.

So go ahead, give it your best shot, Joseph.

Yeah, let me take a look at one of these and maybe I can do a particular example as opposed to trying to go through all of them right now. Sorry, let me get the Malachi open. Yeah, so I guess I'm not clear on where you think the problem lies.

So Latter-day Saints also believe, so I don't know, given the textual changes that went on in the Old Testament, that Elohim rigidly refers to God the Father or Yahweh rigidly refers to Christ. Like in terms of each time they occur, we can explicitly say which is being referred to.

But Latter-day Saints do believe that Yahweh, translated Lord in capital letters in the King James Version, is Jesus, we do believe that. So I guess maybe I'm missing the conflict that you see here, but I don't think there's a conflict because we accept what you say is the Christian position.

Mr. Jeremiah.

Yeah, and I appreciate the questioner asking that. I think the Trinity solves this problem and I'm glad Joseph brought this up because I meant to ask it later, but we got talking about something else.

I think it's interesting because Mormonism does talk about a distinction. It says the Father is called Elohim and Jesus is called Yahweh. But a problem of harmonizing what comes later in 1800s plus with what was already given to us in Scripture is the Bible in many places, like 1 Kings 8 says the Lord is Yahweh.

So I think there is a problem. I know in Psalm chapter 110, there is a distinction between Yahweh and the Lord, right? And this is a huge problem for Jews because David is praying to Yahweh and Adonai, and yet we know that the Messiah, Adonai, will be from David, right?

And so Jesus used this in Matthew 22. He said, how can this be? How can David pray to Adonai, is already preexistent as Lord, and yet how can he be his son? Well, I feel like all of Scripture answers this really clearly that the Messiah is divine.

He is pre-incarnate, and he's also a part of a trinity because he can be Yahweh in that fashion. So I do think that that question poses a problem for Mormonism because it sees a distinction between Elohim being the Father only and then Adonai only referring to the Son.

So the Scripture, once again, there's a feud that says that the Lord is Elohim or Adonai is Yahweh.

If I can just give a quick, a brief answer to that. So yeah, we do take Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament to be Jesus. So when we have references to Yahweh as being the God of the Old Testament, but also being the Messiah, that's not a problem for us.

But yeah, like I said, I guess I'm, well, yeah, okay. So yeah, like I said, I think in the Old Testament, Elohim and Yahweh were not always clearly distinguished. And that's not a problem on my view to say that sometimes that they're, the reference of them is the other one than what we now call them.

It's just now in common parlance, we say Elohim is God the Father, Adonai, and Yahweh is Christ, yeah.

All right, folks, good stuff, good stuff. Great discussion, man.

Yeah, thanks.

It's a good stuff, man.

I appreciate you going for it.

Oh yeah, no problem, man. I think it's a good one. I think it's very informative. And once again, I just appreciate the guys, you guys being kind to each other and being able to have a healthy discussion, even though we disagree on many things, but we're able to get together and have these discussions.

I think it's helpful to get a better understanding of each other's positions and to just be able to build friendships or relationship as well. So it's good stuff, good stuff, fellas. So I always send out gifts.

I send out gifts to those who come on and have these kinds of discussions or debates. So I'll be contacting you too after the show to get your address and get that gift out to you. And just a token appreciation for me, just coming on and taking time out away from your families and preparation,.

Things like that.

So I appreciate you and I'll be contacting you guys.

All right, all right.

All right, folks, what you guys think, man? What's your guys' ideas? You know, share your comments. What you guys think of this one? I appreciate it. And I think it's very helpful to gauge and gather better understanding of differing positions.

As you know, the title was Worldview Perspectives. And I think we got a full tidal wave of differing worldview perspectives. And I pray out there that you guys understand where each individual is coming from so that you can better dissect or better converse with someone who may disagree with you.

And it's a helpful tool. And that's why on A Gospel Truth we do these things. You know, we engage culture with Christian truth and that's through debate, you know, through discussion, bringing our individuals who may disagree with you to be able to have these types of discussions because it's very helpful to do that.

With that, I thank you audience for tuning in.