Calvinism, Character and Callers

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is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning. Welcome to 2004.
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Some of you are probably not quite awake yet. I'm not really certain that I am. I think on New Year's Eve, even if you want to go to bed at a decent time, you really can't, especially if you own an animal that lives outside because of all the noise.
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I mean, my dog was barking at three o 'clock this morning. I went outside and, man, there was somebody down the block someplace,
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I'm not sure quite where. And they sounded like they weren't exactly fit to drive a motor vehicle, let's put it that way.
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And they were having a good old time down there. Of course, my dog's going, excuse me, but that's not good.
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And so I had to remind her that it was not good to be barking in the middle of the night. But anyway, so that means probably most of you are a little bleary -eyed this morning.
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I know that I am just a tad bit, but it is 2004. And we figured, hey, you know, it's just the first day of the year.
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It's not like it's, you know, everyone just has to be glued to the television watching the Rose Bowl parade or something like that.
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So let's go ahead and do the dividing line. And I had to bring up what I said here on the main page, because for some strange reason, we already have two callers online.
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We almost never have callers beforehand. But I guess it's due to the fact that I have on the main page, secondly, we'll have a dividing line
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Thursday morning at 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time. Yes, we know it's New Year's Eve, so on and so forth. So put in your calendar, call, give the number.
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Otherwise, I said, I will have to do my world -famous British accent the whole hour in between John Denver Christmas music while doing a top ten countdown of Barry Manilow's greatest hits.
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And evidently, the threat worked. It worked real well, because, you know,
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I'm not sure which element of it worked the best, whether it was the John Denver Christmas music, which
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I didn't even cue it up. You know, I had this great
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Christian music going. I can do that if we need to. But the Barry Manilow greatest hits, or whether it was the world -famous
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British accent. I'm not sure which one it was. You have callers.
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Excuse me. I love that cough button. Oh, all the callers just hung up because I reneged on my promise.
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Oh, that's funny. Oh, goodness.
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Well, I still have Robert Shank's book and Laurence Vance's book sitting here to my left, so I can get to them if, in fact, we get through the phone calls first.
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But Petey loves it. Petey is the one that lets you all listen to this, and he's threatening to kill the feed.
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If there are any more British accents. So, look, you know, let me have my thing.
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You know, I mean, come on, folks. This is just, you know, I think someday we'll just do an entire dividing line.
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Nothing but the... He tried to do the accent, and God struck him mute.
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Sounds a little bit like the Tex Mars story about the... You know, most of our listeners have never heard that story, because we weren't even doing the dividing line when that took place.
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And sometimes people will go and read the old articles on the website, but many times they won't.
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But it reminds me of what happened with Don Wilkins when we were doing the John Ankerberg show back in 1995. And we did eight sessions.
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And as I recall, Don Wilkins had flown in from Greece, if I recall correctly, and didn't...
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And he had to take some of his migraine medication, which very strong stuff that dried him out.
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And it was either here or Dan Wallace. I think Dan Wallace came from Dallas. So anyway,
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Don Wilkins had just flown in. He had taken his medication. And we started one of the sessions, and John Ankerberg asked him a question about Gail Ripplinger.
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And as he started to respond, he got choked up, and he messed up a word or two.
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And since it was right at the beginning of the program, if it had been, you know, farther into the program, they probably wouldn't have done this. But it was the very first thing to program.
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John Ankerberg said, hold on. Get a drink. You got a drink. We restarted it, and boom, just kept on going. And I remember leaning over to the late
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Farstad, Dr. Farstad, who was sitting next to me.
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And I remember saying to him, you know what? I bet you anything that when this gets out, there's going to be a...
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someone's going to say that God did that. And he looked at me like, you've got to be kidding.
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Who would be so inane, stupid, and idiotic as do something like that? Well, within...
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I don't know what... I forget how long it was now. This is a decade ago, but almost a decade ago. Within just a couple of weeks, maybe months, boom, you had the text matters out there saying that God had taken away
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Dr. Wolkin's voice for criticizing Gail Ripplinger. Well, of course, actually, he took a drink of water and then criticized
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Gail Ripplinger. So evidently, the Spirit of God is unable to overcome the massive power of a drink of water.
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But that was the kind of stuff that... that apocryphal kind of idiocy that rolls around out there and definitely makes
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Christians look really dumb at times. But anyhow, I just saw someone ask a channel, when is the book debate with Dr.
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White and Dave Hunt due out? It is due out in February from Multnomah. It was interesting. I thought
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I'd mention this, and we've got callers I need to get to. I realize that. There it is. I was looking at the
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Berean Call this morning, which, of course, is Dave Hunt's ministry's website. There was a note from T .A.
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McMahon, who, interestingly enough, is now saying that the reason that Dave Hunt said what he said at the beginning of our radio program, some of you have heard that radio program, where on the
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Marty Minto Show... I just found out Marty Minto is doing radio in Philadelphia. No, was it
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Pittsburgh or Philadelphia? I forget which one it was. Anyway, that when he said he had never read the
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Reformers, that was just his humility speaking. And he just... He wasn't indicating that he hadn't read the
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Reformers, even though he said he hadn't read the Reformers. That was just his humility. He didn't want to show off, in essence, the great humility.
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But anyways, T .A. McMahon says, in his little thingamabobby here...
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Let me see here. Where'd it go? He's talking about wanting to get a new... Let me see.
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Q &A printable format. Where'd it go? I was just reading it this morning.
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Anyways, basically, he was talking about the upcoming book. Maybe they just changed it since I saw it this morning.
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That would be funny. He was talking about the fact that they need to look for a new publisher.
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Here it is. There it is. Here we go. Dave's book, Calvinism... Now, notice this. Dave's book,
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Calvinism Debated, 5 .2 views, published by Multnomah, scheduled to be in bookstores by March.
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Dave's book? Have I ever addressed this book as my book and not mentioned that it's a debate with Dave Hunt?
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They won't even mention my name here. I wonder if when they advertise it, they're going to put one of those little black squares over my name on the cover.
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We don't want you to know that a Calvinist was involved with it. No. In fact, he gets equal space, but he won't notice that until he gets a book.
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I just read this and go, excuse me, it's a debate book. It even says two views right there.
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What's the other view? Anyways, and then notice this. It's really funny. However, Multnomah, who purchased the rights to What Love Is This?
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Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God from Loyal Publishers, and was well into preparations, revisions, new cover, marketing, promotions, etc.
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for its release this month, has decided against publishing it. Hey, could we do something here?
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Make sure my computer is up, please. Let me read that again. Calvinism Misrepresentation of God from Loyal Publishers, was well into preparations, revisions, new cover, marketing, promotions, etc.
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for its release this month, has decided against publishing it. Yes, folks.
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Yes, they did decide to not publish it, because they didn't want to be associated with something that's quite that bad.
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But anyways, therefore, notice the next line. Our game plan is to print a limited number, parentheses, with Dave's revisions, parentheses, as we seek a new publisher.
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Now, I wonder why Mr. Hunt has made revisions in the book. I know
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I'm going to be looking for somebody who has a lot of time on their hands, and who has a original loyal printing.
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I want to get hold of this new version when it comes out. And it almost looks like print a limited number means, you know, take it to one of these vanity presses, and you've got the stuff in the original printing, you just put it out again.
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I want to see what these revisions are. I like to make some predictions. Something tells me that the unequivocal denial of limited atonement by Spurgeon might be softened a bit.
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And I bet you maybe giving a translation of Acts 1348, that actually is that of the
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New World Translation, might be changed a little bit. Something tells me that some of these major league faux pas that were originally identified are going to disappear.
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But I'm going to go out on a limb. It is, you know, in January, you always sort of make predictions about the future.
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Well, I'm going to predict that I'll bet you there's no indication with the revisions of the errors that are being corrected.
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I have a feeling that's probably what's going to happen. So anyways, I found that rather interesting on the website.
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That's supposed to be out in February. We need to start taking pre -orders, by the way, right Reverend Dr.
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Ailman person, because Amazon is. And if Amazon is, then there are these people that just simply can't, you know, avoid giving a credit card number.
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So I think we should do it too. And by the way, we haven't done this yet. And I we need to.
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We need to this week. We need to before Tuesday of next week. We need to do this. I'm holding in my hand.
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Then we'll take our phone calls. I'm holding in my hand. One of the best books on the deity of Christ that has ever been written.
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Now, there's some great books in the deity of Christ. Jesus is God. Robert Raymond's work on the
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Messiah. Excellent stuff. Sadly, you know, you're not going to find this in a lot of your bookstores. Unfortunately, because a lot of bookstores, look, face it.
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They can't put that on their shelves. They have to leave all the room for the purpose driven life. Because if you don't have 5000 copies of purpose driven life in your in your bookstore, then you're just not speed.
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So anyway, we are going to be carrying and promoting heavily the book in my hand called
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The Lord of Glory, a classic defense, the deity of Jesus Christ by B .B.
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Warfield. And if you're truly reformed, you know that B .B. Warfield means Benjamin Breckenridge.
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And if you're really, really reformed, you've actually thought about giving one of your children the middle name of Breckenridge.
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I didn't know none of my children have the middle name Breckenridge. But my wife just said,
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No, that's not going to happen. This is an excellent, excellent book. Poor E.
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Nielsen still has Beckwith's book available. If any of you are still looking for Roger Beckwith's book on the
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Old Testament Kingdom and the New Testament Church, get in touch with us. There are only nine copies left. We've got them.
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They're moving fast, folks. In fact, I saw, do you know what I saw? I didn't tell AO Minn this. I saw an old crown version.
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Someone sent me a URL, an old crown version of God's Sovereign Grace, the blue one, on eBay for 50, what was it?
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59 bucks? I think it was 59 bucks. I saw it last night. Someone sent me the URL. I appreciated that.
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And it was for 59 bucks. And you know why it was so expensive? Because I signed it. I just died laughing.
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I've got one right here I could sign and sell for 59 bucks. Good grief. It ain't worth 59 bucks.
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Buy our $10 version, and it'll be in better shape. Good grief. That was amazing. Anyhow, I thought that was really funny.
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But the Lord of Glory, B .B. Warfield, probably one of the biggest honors for 2003, honestly, is the fact that the first, you know,
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I first read this, I remember sitting in the science lab at Grand Canyon College reading this book and just going, wow, that is so neat.
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And one of the greatest honors I have is that as this book has now been reprinted, the very first endorsed on the back says the following,
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B .B. Warfield's Lord of Glory is one of the most compelling presentations of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ I have ever encountered.
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Warfield had a special gift of explaining issues related to the Trinity and the deity of Christ, and the Lord of Glory is simply one of his best works.
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I cannot recommend this work more highly, especially when it addresses some evidences of the deity of Christ that are not as often addressed, those places where the words of Scripture used of Christ simply could not be used with propriety of any creature, no matter how exalted.
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Every believer should read and absorb this work, James White. That's what I said about it, and it's the first endorsement on the back, and I'm excited, and we need to order our supply in, get them up there on the website, get them out in people's hands, buy them for your pastors and your elders.
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If you live in an area where there's a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses running about from door to door, you need to get copies of this book, carry them in your glove compartment, and track down the
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JWs as they're going around your neighborhood, and pull in front of them in your car, and jump out and say, you need to read this book.
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Of course, they're not going to take it from you, but they might think twice before going down that street again if you did do that.
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So anyway, Lord of Glory, B .B. Warfield, we should have a link up to it real soon, because now
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I've forced AOMN to do it, because now people are going to be calling him and asking anyways. And so, you know, that's just sort of how it works.
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And it's too late, because we are already doing this live.
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So, ah yes, the dividing line has started on the right foot for 2004. Let me back up here and see who was first in line here.
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Now these first two that are calling early, I'm scared, because I'm assuming that they're doing so because of what was on the website.
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And so that means they do not want to hear the British accent or anything like it on the program today.
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So let us go ahead and begin with Jeff in South Jersey. Hello, Jeff. Woo -hoo!
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I'm first. Yeah. Oh, happy new year. Happy 2004 to you.
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It's an intervention, actually. It's a what? It's an intervention. It's an... oh, you're...
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I'm actually calling... I was... I actually worked a very long day yesterday, so I didn't have to go into work on Friday.
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And I was browsing the website at work, and I saw, yeah,
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I gotta call him. Well, you know, only people who really love you will intervene to stop you from doing those kinds of things.
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Well, this is my suggestion for you for new year. Yes. Work on like a Cockney accent. You might be able to do that.
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A Cockney accent? Something like this? Has a lot of glottal stops in it? Yeah, that's a lot easier. And then you can work your way up to like, you know, you can do a lot of dropping vowels and consonants and such.
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Ebonic British pretty soon, huh? Ebonic British? Ebonic British, that's exactly right.
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I had a glass of water in your honor, since you're Baptist, you know? I had a, you know, toast to new year for you.
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Oh, so you think I'm a teetotaler, eh? Oh, no, I wouldn't surmise that, but I just felt like making fun of you.
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I'm Reformed Baptist, so, you know, you never know exactly where those strange people fall. If you're truly, truly
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Reformed... No, no, I did not have any cigars or anything like that around, no.
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No cigars? No, no, no. All right, you actually had something serious to ask, or did you just make this up?
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No, no, I had to come up with something serious yesterday in order to, like, you know, support the
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British accent, but I was listening to your web broadcast from a couple days ago yesterday, and I've been investigating that Auburn stuff, and I've called you well in the past about it, and besides, you know, it being very confusing and things along those lines,
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I think maybe it would help some of your listeners if, or, you know, even if it's from the archives, when they hear this.
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Um, one of the things that kind of, you know, I've always felt there was good points, and then there was, like, what's going on here.
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One of the two things that I think kind of helped me figure out that it wasn't, you know, hot stuff.
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First thing was, it was mainly an attempt, I think the Auburn thing, their main concern that drove all this was about assurance.
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Yes. And when you get into it, and you're thinking, well, am I keeping the covenant?
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And, uh, but, you know, how faithful to the covenant do I have to be? And then you start, that doesn't really, uh, oh, but I'm in the covenant, but I could be kicked out of the covenant, and that doesn't kind of seem to raise my insurance level.
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Yeah, well, And they seem to say, you know, look back to your baptism, and look this, and I'm like, um, that didn't really raise my insurance.
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Well, let me just explain, for those who, again, are experiencing some level of confusion,
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I don't have any doubt about the fact that at least the initial impulse for much of what is said, and it comes out clearly in the sermons, is a concern concerning, it's a pastoral concern, and the idea is, look,
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Reformed people have a difficulty in regards to how they counsel people as to their relationship with God, because we don't know who the elect are.
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They're responding to or reacting against a Puritan type of concept that says, well, you examine your life.
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I'm not sure if that's not what Paul had in mind when he said, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith, but they, in essence, are responding against that, because, well, look, you can always find something upon which to say, well, you know, there's sin, there's continuing sin in that area, there's a lack of submission over here, and a person who wants to be introspective and who loses balance can very easily find a basis for being concerned on that basis, and so, but as you just pointed out,
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I don't know that they're offering anything meaningful in response to that, in the sense that saying, well, you're in the covenant, now you have these covenant obligations, and you're entering the covenant through your baptism, and if you're unregenerate and baptized and remain unregenerate, then all you get are the curses of the covenant, but if you become regenerate, then you cannot be separated from the covenant, and that's the election perspective.
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I don't, like you say, I don't see how that somehow, in any way, shape, or form, provides any greater basis, in fact,
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I don't see how it provides as much of a basis as looking back over your life, as in 1 John, and examining your heart, and do
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I have a love for the brethren? Well, you know what? I do. I think of the people in my congregation,
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I think of the people in my life, and I go, you know what? I can look over the past year, and I can see places where I gave of myself in the service of the brethren.
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That, to me, is significantly more assurance -enhancing than looking back to, and especially in the context of the
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Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, an action I don't even remember. I don't see how that somehow increases things.
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Yeah, and the other thing is, it was a minor issue, I think only brought up by a few speakers, or whatnot, but they wanted to be able to say, you know,
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Jesus loved you, or Jesus died for you, or something like that. Right. I'm thinking, since the apostles never used that language, it wasn't a concern.
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Right. Well, yeah, that came up in the sense of how you evangelize, or actually, one of the other major elements, should you evangelize your children?
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That's the Northern Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian issue. That's not new.
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I mean, you can go back in history and find that this is not a new issue, as far as at least some of its expressions are concerned, because you can find arguments between Northern and Southern Presbyterians over that very issue that go a long ways back.
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Last note before I go to my main question. I've actually made a website that has pros, cons, and neutrals about this issue.
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Yes. Do you mind if I copy your blog entry about that? Sure, no, go ahead. Go ahead, that's fine.
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All right, I'll put your permission, James White, on it. Sure, that's fine. Okay. A question about Martin Luther and Erasmus.
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Good old Desiderius. I wonder if they called him Dizzy for short. May have played keyboards for guns and roses or something.
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When Martin Luther said that the question about predestination was the main issue with Catholicism...
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Actually, what he said specifically was that the issue of grace and the will of man was the hinge upon which it all turned, yes.
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Right. Since there's an element of a strain of Thomism and Augustinianism within medieval
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Catholicism, that's kind of where Luther and the reformers kind of branched out of.
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I'm kind of curious, you mentioned earlier about how that...
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If we're right about those issues, how that affects the sacrodotal system.
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Right. And I wasn't really seeing the connection. Well, when you think of it along these lines, the sacramental system of Rome is the very essence of its worship and its power structure.
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That is, the ability to control the distribution of the grace of God through the sacraments of the church, which is, of course, under the control of the hierarchy.
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If you're dependent upon those sacraments for God's grace, then the church truly becomes your mother in more than one way, and the power of the church is extremely enhanced.
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And a person... What makes the sacramental system work? Well, a person must choose freely of their libertarian free will to partake of the sacraments, to participate in the sacraments.
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Rome obviously speaks of prevenient grace and that grace that would lead people to engage in those things.
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But fundamentally, the final choice is always within the purview of the free will of man.
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And so, the whole concept of a sacramental system where we, by our actions, avail ourselves the grace of God would be completely undercut and destroyed if you believed that man's will was enslaved to sin and that grace is supreme over that.
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In the final analysis, it is God who draws his elect people unto himself, and that he's the one with the libertarian free will, not the creature himself.
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And so, all of man's religions, I believe anyways, I think this is what glues them all together, is that man's religions seek to, in some way, shape, or form, control
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God's grace, whether that term be used that way in quote -unquote
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Christian groups, using that term descriptively and not as identification, or whether it be in non -Christian religions, you still have this structure set up where the leaders of the religion control their followers through some set of rites and initiations and religious duties and activities and rites and rituals and so on and so forth.
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And as long as God's ability to save, bless, guide, lead, whatever it is, is dependent upon the individual follower allowing him to do so by choosing to participate in these activities, then you have the very essence of human religion.
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And so, I think the reason that Ignatius Loyola instructed his followers to find ways of dealing with this pernicious teaching of the
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Reformers, that it's God who is sovereign and free in the matter of salvation, not man, was because he recognized this very thing.
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The power of the church is in the sacraments, and the sacraments require that you have creatures who have libertarian freedom, who can either choose to or not choose to engage in these things, and without that, the whole system collapses.
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And so, I think that's the reference that you're referring to. Okay, thank you very much.
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All right. I mean, I've been taking to heart kind of what you... I've been dealing with an issue with a different group recently, and I very much see what you've been saying is that you need a consistent apologetic.
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Yes. And if you kind of take the Reform doctrines out of grace, it really will start affecting all these other apologetics.
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Can I initiate it? Yeah, we'll see. 2004. Okay, thank you. God bless. All right, God bless you. And I want to make sure everyone understands, and we'll go ahead and take our break.
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My experience may have been that I started with the apologetics and then came to realize the absolute necessity of having the foundation upon which to stand.
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Apologetics is a secondary activity. What I mean by that is, you cannot defend...
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And apologetics is giving a defense. Well, the very phrase assumes the existence of something to defend.
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And specifically, that means your theology, your positive formation of divine truth, precedes your defense of it and obviously determines the form of the defense.
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In any military situation, and giving a defense has military aspects to it, obviously, the formation that you can put your troops in, where you can put your troops, your artillery, everything else, is going to be dependent upon the position you're seeking to defend.
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If you're at the top of a hill, you're going to defend your position differently than if you're in a valley, obviously.
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You're going to defend things differently. Well, the different theologies... What's strange is most apologists develop an apologetic without a whole lot of concern about the foundation upon which it's built.
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They don't see this connection. They don't see that apologetics is secondary, that it flows from your theology.
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So obviously, differences in theology, and I would say one of the most fundamental differences is how you view the gospel, how you view the freedom of God and power of God and salvation, whether all this is to the glory of God or whether you're a monergist or a synergist and so on and so forth.
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That will greatly impact your apologetic. Look at William Lane Craig's apologetic versus Greg Bonson's apologetic.
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The difference is their underlying theology. One was reformed in his theology.
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One is and continues to be a mulanist, a proponent of middle knowledge and a very strong Arminian.
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Result? Different way of defending those positions because they're different positions to defend. And so that's what
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I was referring to there is you need to have your theology established first and then your apologetic flows from that.
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877 -753 -3341 on the program today. So far, no John Denver or Barry Manilow.
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However, we have been visiting London every once in a while, and we'll be right back right after this. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
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The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at almen .org.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .almen
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.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very
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Gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the Gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .almen
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.org. I stand on the one that's for all delivered me.
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On the Word, it's also above his heart.
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About 15 minutes beforehand, I started Run to the
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Battle by Steve Camp. Everybody's going, hey, wait a minute, it's 15 minutes early, what's going on?
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And for those of you who weren't on the cruise, Steve Camp sang Run to the Battle in one of his concerts and then changed the last line to something about Alpha and Omega Ministries crews and stuff like that and freaked us all out and it was really cool.
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But at one point he wanted us to yell Run to the Battle. We demonstrated we're all a bunch of Calvinists because we all sat there like a bunch of bumps on a log, looking at him going, are you expecting me to yell?
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Are you expecting me to do something? What do you mean? That's not how we do things.
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It was really funny. But anyhow, it was a lot of fun.
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877 -753 -3341. Hey, if you listen to this program and think
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Calvinists are like just a bunch of dead, boring people, then you have no idea what you're doing anyways. And if you've looked at our blog and seen our real neat cartoons and stuff, hey, let's keep at it.
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All right, let's go up to Canada. Hey, Canada. I don't know how to sing that thing.
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Let's talk to Steve in Toronto, Canada. Hey, yeah, you finally got that right.
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Hey, hey, it's not hey, it's hey, hey, I've been to Canada. I just get out as quick as I can because you people scare me.
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Well, I guess we should. I guess things are happening here. Well, it's true. But it's just there's this look in the eye.
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I mean, when I was leaving Canada back in September, I mean, they broke open my bag and they got out my toiletry bag and they spread everything out on the counter.
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It was like, what? What are you doing here? It was really strange. But anyway, so let's talk about Canada, eh?
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Well, we would like you to come up again and visit us. Actually, I am. And I mentioned this morning,
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I'm supposed to be up there in September for a conference, and I need to dig out the email.
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It had the details in it. I got an email, I don't know, about two months ago on it.
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And so when it was still in my in my queue, then it was easy to tell people about about where it was.
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But I forget where it is. I don't know. It's just it's north the border someplace.
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You know, it also mishmashes together for us silly Americans. So anyhow, we'll be up there eventually.
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Well, first of all, I want to start off with wishing you a happy new year. And to you too, sir. And I thank you so much about that.
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The reason I phoned was listening back to the Bible Answer Man and your debate with Hank and George Bryson was that you sort of touched on the nature of evil and how that is goes back to God.
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And I was just wondering whether you could elaborate a little bit more about that. Well, yeah, it it was unfortunate that the powers that be decided that the program was going to be was going to start at the top and never get back down to how you came to the conclusions that you come to.
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And maybe maybe that actually reflects the fact that the position of the opposite side doesn't start with Scripture.
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It starts with philosophical considerations concerning the nature of evil and man and so on and so forth.
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And then, as we saw, does not deal with the text of Scripture very well.
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It instead creates philosophical questions. And when you well, in fact, this gives me a good good point to mention this.
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I have not yet received a copy of Mr. Bryson's book. I've ordered it. There were three copies in the studio.
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And I was not given any one of them. And so when this issue when
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I was pressing this issue during the second hour, you may recall, I I again went back to Scripture, because if we're going to talk about the relationship of God's decree,
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God's intentions, man's intentions and God holding men accountable for their actions, then to me, you start with the
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Scriptures. You don't start with my philosophical meanderings, because you start with what
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God has said about himself. And so I went to Genesis 50. I went to Isaiah 10. I went to Acts 4. If someone would like to suggest to me passages of Scripture that more clearly address those issues,
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God's intentions, his decree, man's intentions, the issue of sin and punishment, then someone tell me where they are.
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I'd like to see them. I am unaware of any. Those are the three passages that if I'm going to list them in order, those are the top three.
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There are others passages where where God hardens the hearts of a nation, so it might be destroyed, things like that.
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They all come in. But if you don't deal with those three, you haven't dealt with three of the clearest passages in Scripture on the subject.
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That's my opinion. So I seem to get is when debating this issue with anybody who is not reformed or understands the doctrines of grace, it's just a pure emotional type of response as well.
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How can God do this thing? And I have yet to hear any good scriptural refutations of the doctrines of grace, just so that, you know, you get somewhat of a balance or understanding exactly where they're coming from, from a scriptural standpoint.
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Well, that is the constant experience that I have had. It was something
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I was going to be illustrating by looking at Robert Shank's book, Lawrence Vance's book. You go to the
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Scriptures and you look at these scriptural passages in their books and you do not find exegesis.
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Instead, you find, well, it can't mean this because of this. That's very, very common. But let me go back just a moment to what
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I was saying about the situation with Bryson. I asked, you know, what was what they were illustrating by the direction they were going is they started at the conclusion, from my perspective, and then asked me to defend my conclusions without letting me go to my basis.
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For them, they were starting at where they start. And they just go from there to the Scriptures. That did illustrate a vast difference between us.
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And what I was trying to get to in the debate was to demonstrate the issue of compatibilism and the fact that God, in his word, claims that he is able to decree actions in time that men freely and intentionally and with volition fulfill.
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So, in other words, we have the selling of Joseph into slavery in Egypt. His brothers desired to do so.
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These were not a bunch of innocent men with God behind them with a gun to their back.
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And they're going, we don't want to do this. We don't want to do this. And God's forcing them to be evil. That's nowhere to be found.
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No one says that men do not freely engage in these things. The problem is that as they are enslaved to sin,
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God is actually having to withhold them. You may have noticed, every time I raised the issue of withholding,
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I mentioned Abimelech, where God kept Abimelech from sinning against him. I never get anyone to touch those passages.
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You know why? Because if God can withhold someone from sinning against him, first of all, that's a violation of libertarian free will right off the bat.
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And secondly, if he could withhold Abimelech from sinning against him in that circumstance, could he have withheld Abimelech from sinning against him the day before?
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How about the day before that? How about the day before that? And if God didn't do so and had the ability to do so, then on their own principles, then
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God must have a purpose in not doing so. Though they may not know what that purpose is, even on their own principles they have to say that.
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So I was trying to get those issues out there. Hopefully the people who are listening well, and believe me, by the emails we've gotten, there were many people who were listening well.
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That point was communicated despite the obvious lack of interaction from a biblical perspective by those on the other side.
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And I do say those in the plural because it wasn't one -on -one, it was two -on -one, and actually three -on -one. So that's just the way it was.
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But you're right, it is an emotional response. And when you get down to the text of scripture, you just don't find any substance to the other side.
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And people say, oh, you just think you're the only one who knows. No! You know, this even came up during one of the breaks.
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I had made a statement. I've never seen a consistent exegesis of John 6 that does not lead one to a reformed position.
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And I was informed that they could show me a number of them. That immediately makes me stop and go, excuse me?
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A number of them? You mean this text is susceptible to numerous? It's so unclear. There are numerous consistent interpretations.
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We just shot the perspicuity of scripture in the head. Um, the things that I was hearing are so different than on any other issue within that forum.
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You wouldn't hear that kind of stuff in the deity of Christ, the trinity, the resurrection, any of those things. You'd hear solid orthodox assertions that the scriptures are consistent with themselves, and so on and so forth.
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But when it comes to this one thing, all of a sudden, hermeneutics, exegesis goes out the window, and we all become philosophers.
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And that's been my experience. Yeah, am I wrong, though, in, uh, when you deny the, uh,
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God's predetermined will that you, how would he then know what is going to happen?
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I just can't see that, see that, or understand if, if you deny that God has planned everything according to his will, including the salvation of a number of individuals, and how do you know anything is going to happen?
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How would God know it's going to happen? I asked that question many times. I asked it during the first hour, during the breaks.
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I was literally laughed at, uh, because I said, look, without God's creative decree, what is the basis of his knowledge?
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Now, all George Bryson could say was, well, of course God knows, because he's omniscient.
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Well, that's not answering a question. That's, that's answering a question without understanding what the point of the question is.
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The question is, what is the basis of God's omniscience? How does God come to know the free actions of libertarian free creatures?
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And it was very clear to me that nobody on the other side has seriously interacted with open theism and the criticisms of open theism.
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They just, just haven't, haven't taken the time to do so, and hence the offense that was taken when
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I even raised the issue of open theism really flows from the fact that those who are offended don't know what open theism really is.
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They may know a description of it, but they have not read, uh, the, the leading figures in that particular, particular field, which
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I had to do, uh, in debating John Sanders, of course. So, um, uh, I kept pressing that in the first hour and was told during breaks, well,
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God doesn't just, I mean, look at the illustration was used. I was asked the question, well, if I know that Sonny and Cher divorced 40 years ago, it doesn't mean
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I caused it, does it? And I mean, talk about category errors. And that was silly. Well, it is silly from a category perspective.
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I mean, it's obviously we're talking here about knowledge of past events. Uh, the question would be, oh, and this is what
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I should have said. You always, you always, you know, double guess yourself, second guess yourself what I should have said. Okay.
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But to make that analogous, what you should have, what you'd have to ask is if you knew 10 years before their divorce that they were going to be divorced, upon what basis did you know it?
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That would make it analogous to the issue of God's knowledge of future events. And I kept asking that.
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I was, I was ridiculed in, in, in asking, how does God have knowledge of these things?
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Yet, if you go to the scholarly literature, read, uh, Schreiner and Ware, unfortunately, their, their book,
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Still Sovereign, uh, it initially came out in two volumes and now it's been shrunk down to one. And some of the best stuff, unfortunately, got taken out.
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There's an excellent article in the two volume edition, which you can probably get still from, you know, a library or something like that, uh, criticizing the concept of middle knowledge.
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And this is really brought out as to how can a omnipotent, uh, an omniscient
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God, an eternal God have this, this concept of how can he know a creature so well that he'll absolutely know what that creature is going to do if that creature is truly free?
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And there really isn't an answer to that question. It's, it's, there's the appeal to mystery at that point for that particular position, uh, is that there isn't any way of answering that.
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They have to appeal to some sort of, of, um, of, uh, mystery. And this gets me back to, as I say about Bryson's book, um, friend of mine, uh, someone well known in our channel from Hawaii, uh, who's an
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Aussie by the way, uh, got hold of Bryson's book. Mine's in the mail, but he got hold of it.
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He went through the entire book. And I remember what happened in the second hour. Uh, one of the callers was pressing this issue again, asking the same thing.
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Frank was asking the same thing. And he was basically shut down by, by, by being stated, well, we, we went over that exhaustively in the first hour.
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Well, no, we exhaustively avoided it in the first hour, but, uh, we went over that exhaustively in the first hour. And later as I pressed
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Genesis 50 and Acts 4 and Isaiah 10 on Mr. Bryson, everyone has heard him say these words, read the book.
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So, uh, we, uh, took the time, uh, this, uh, friend of mine who by the way is a astrophysicist.
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So it's not like he's, uh, someone who is not literate, uh, took the time to go through the entire book and look for every reference.
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He specifically looked for two references, Genesis chapter 50 and Acts chapter 4. Guess how many times those passages are addressed in George Bryson's book,
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The Dark Side of Calvinism. Huh? Zippo. Zippo, zero, not a, not a single time, not once, nowhere.
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And obviously I'm going to wait until I have the book in my hand and then I'm going to add Isaiah 10. I'd be nice to be able to look through a scripture index, but doesn't have one.
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Um, I'm going to have to, this is what I had to do with Norman Geisler's book. You look through every single page, you scan every single reference and, and you know, you do that kind of thing.
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Um, but then I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna write to him. I'm going to put on the website and I'm going to write to him and say, look, you said, read the book.
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Okay. Um, I wasn't given one, but I bought one and now I've looked at it and I can't find any discussion and exegesis of these passages.
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So what did you mean? And I'm going to, I'm going to sort of assume that what was meant was, well,
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I explained why it couldn't possibly mean what you think it means. That's, that's what I'm expecting, uh, to get back.
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Um, do you think you would be able to invite Bryson on the, um, on the dividing line?
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I have thought of that more than once. I, uh, I think I will, uh, because I think if you want a national radio program, uh, make the statements that George did, read the book, read the book, read the book.
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Uh, we were talking about two things where he said, read the book. One was Genesis 50, Acts 4, Isaiah 10.
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The other was, uh, John, where he, in essence, reverses Jesus' own teaching. The reason you do not hear is because you do not belong to God.
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He turned that around, uh, turned it upside down. And I wanted to know where he said, read the book. So once I've got the book in my hand, then
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I'm going to point these things out and invite him to come on the program, uh, and explain, uh, his exegetical foundation for, uh, for saying those things.
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So it'd be just as interesting as the ematics. I imagine that it would. Uh, of course, it took, um, since April of 2002 to arrange a time when
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George would be available, because George is out of the country about half the time. He's in Russia about six months a year.
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Uh, not straight, but that amount of time. So it could take, could take a while, but yes, that would be something that I would like to do.
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I know that I would, uh, I would really appreciate to hear, uh, something that is a little bit more, uh, informative than we got on the
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Bible Answer Man, because, uh, I really didn't get anything, uh, uh, from the other side on that.
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Yeah, well, we'd like to do so, and, uh, we'll, we'll see what, uh, what happens. But I, I'll tell you right now, during one of the breaks, uh,
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George informed me that he felt that most of the scripture passages that I brought up in our, in our formal debate at, uh, the
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Anaheim Vineyard, uh, were irrelevant and rabbit trails. Uh, so he felt that John 6, for example, is a rabbit trail.
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And, uh, you know, I, I just, if, if John 6, where Jesus talks about the salvation, belief, everlasting life, who can, who cannot, who will, who will not, if that isn't relevant to the subject under discussion,
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I don't know what is. Well, don't confuse me with the scripture I've already made up. Well, well, we'll see if that's the case.
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But, uh, anyways, thank you very much for your call today. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Fitch. And have a good 2004.
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I shall, eh? God bless. All right. So we've still got, uh, one more folks, one more folks.
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That doesn't make any sense, does it? Doesn't quite agree. Uh, let's, uh, talk with Pat in California. Uh, hi
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Pat. Good morning, sir. And happy new year to you. And to you as well. Yes. My question is a little bit of a different direction back to the
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Tampa debate and, uh, clear up the issue on, um, using the illustration.
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I heard some people say, and like you just mentioned in the debates, if you could second guess yourself and kind of come back, do you still feel that the use of the signet ring as a copy, uh, the express image of God with Greg is a good example or would you have chosen another one?
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That is a historical example. The Greek term character is, uh, in secular literature, uh, is used of the impression made by signet ring.
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That is, that is a use in secular, in secular, uh, Greek literature. The problem that we have with, uh, with Greg's understanding of the term is that he's, he's committing a common exegetical fallacy.
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And that is, uh, especially when we're dealing about dealing with God himself.
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When we use human language to describe God, Greg would agree when
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Jehovah is under discussion in the old Testament that when terms are used of Jehovah doing things, um, when terms are used of Jehovah that are anthropomorphic in their origination, when it talks about him being a fire or his having wings or, uh, this interaction with the people of Israel, all those things, he would resist the temptation to read into those terms temporalities that are obviously not intended by the use of those words when describing
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God. When talking about God's eternal nature, and he believes that Jehovah is eternal, that Yahweh is the eternal
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God without beginning and without end, uh, he would not, when, when language is used of him interacting with the people of God, he would not take any of that language and violate
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God's eternity, which is laid out clearly by, by applying some, some creaturely understanding to those words that should not be translated to God.
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The same thing with the Greek term charakter. When we're talking about Christ's charakter, the term itself, only in our understanding of it and usage of it in human economics and human activities can have any type of verbal meaning.
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It doesn't, it doesn't carry within itself that verbal meaning. It's talking about the result, but it itself is not a verb.
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It's not talking about copying something. It is talking about an exact representation.
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He kept going, going before the meaning of the word and saying, well, if it means an exact representation, then it must carry the idea that there was once a point where that exact representation was made and hence the idea of impressing the signet ring upon the wax, a demonstration of ownership, et cetera, et cetera.
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That's where the problem is, especially when you're talking about God's hypostasis, you're talking about an eternal relationship here, uh, all taking all of that, uh, information out.
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He inserts this human aspect. So no, I, I, I have used that, uh, that is something you'll see,
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I believe in molten Milligan. If I'm recalling correctly, uh, anything that goes back into the, uh, Old Testament, Old Testament, the, uh, secular usage of, of the term.
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We'll make reference to that. We'll make reference to the idea of the signet ring that makes the impression, any type that makes an exact representation.
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The issue of the word is exact likeness, not the action of creating a copy.
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And my point had been, if this term is meant literally, and I see absolutely no reason in light of the parallel between the radiance of his glory to think that this somehow means an inexact copy, a lesser copy.
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Then the question that I raised stands, how can a creature, no matter how highly exalted be an exact likeness, an exact, uh, representation of the hypostasis, the substance, the nature of the eternal unlimited
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God? I don't see how that's a possibility. And I didn't really get a, uh, a response to my understanding, uh, from Mr.
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Stafford on that, that did not involve saying, well, it doesn't mean exact representation. The lexical sources say that's exactly what it means.
55:54
Does that make sense? Oh yes, that clears it up. Great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, um, there's a, I'm trying to remember, there was an excellent discussion of that.
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I'm trying to, for some reason, Bishop Lightfoot's name comes into, into my mind. Something I read a number of years ago, maybe
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Warfield, one of those two has an excellent discussion of character. It's just popping into the back of my mind right now.
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But that's, that's really the issue. And of course, in a, in a debate, you only have a few moments to attempt to express everything that I just expressed, uh, because you have a whole list of things to get to.
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But that was, that was something that I think, um, a lot of folks in the, in the audience caught, because if I'm not missing my recollection here, and it was getting toward the end of the evening, there were at least three audience questions that were focused upon that very thing.
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And you can sort of get somewhat of a sense of what the audience hears by the questions that they ask and what they focus on.
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And, uh, I think there were at least three questions that focused upon that. So we were, unfortunately, the way we did the questions,
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I couldn't comment on what he said, though, once he asked to comment on what I said, which I found strange.
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But, um, uh, it did keep coming up, uh, in the, in the question and answer period.
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So it was, it was, I think, a key issue. And, and that's good for me, because I figure anyone who goes and looks at the terms, goes and looks at the documentation, will discover that, uh, what
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I said in regards to the issue, uh, is consistent exegetically and, and, uh, his insertion of a verbal concept was not.
57:17
So, so I, I was glad that that came up. Oh, yeah, it was excellent. All righty. Well, Pat, thanks a lot for listening today.
57:23
Thank you for clearing that up. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. Well, hey, that's the way to start 2004, from my perspective.
57:30
You start with a program. You got two folks online already. Uh, you've got excellent questions. We, um, you know, we cram more into, into 60 minutes than, than most folks do, uh, into, uh, into 65.
57:44
I mean, we really do. Um, excuse me. No, I, I, I think we get a lot of stuff in there, and, uh, this is not the kind of program you can listen to and, uh, and tune your mind out and, and head other directions.
57:58
Uh, uh, we got, I, I noticed some complaints last time when we were talking about specific names and things like that, and John won one.
58:07
That sure was technical. Well, you know, someone's got to be willing to talk about these things and have some enjoyable, uh, experiences along the way.
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So thanks for listening to this, the first of the Dividing Lines of 2004. Uh, pray for us, because we've got a lot to do this year, and we want to keep doing this, and we need your support to do so.
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So thank you very much for doing so. We will see you next Tuesday evening here on the Dividing Lines.
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Or write us at P .O. Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069.
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You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.