Full Debate: James White vs Jacob Hansen - Is the God of Calvinism Morally Reprehensible?

Does God want to save everyone?

No.

Do you affirm that God decrees whatever comes to pass?

That's what Ephesians 1:11 says. And it's also what the Westminster Confession of Faith says.

How about rape?

Yes. Oh, but he has to be equally loving to every person in the exact same way. Tell that to the people who are banging on the outside of the ark. It is very, very clear that God decided to demonstrate his glory in the destruction of the Amorites, the Canaanites, Babylonians, and any other numbers of people.

But little babies, they're just so cute. And he's never once responded to what I said in the book on those passages. I literally have the author of the book right here to explain what I got wrong, but he doesn't seem to want to do that. He just wants to say, "Go read the book, everybody." Well, you'd have to just you'd have to explain to me what I got wrong. Oh, that would take a whole lot more time than I've got.

Well, just you could just name one.

The fact that you are sitting here this evening and God has not struck you dead for your sin is an act of love on his part.

To introduce our speakers, Jacob Hansen is a husband, a father of four, and a Latter-day Saint. He is a business owner who, when not managing that business or taking his kids to various activities, runs YouTube channel Thoughtful Faith. His YouTube channel focuses on worldview apologetics, contrasting the LDS perspective with everything from atheism to Islam. So we're not the only ones taking on atheism and Islam. His content aims at strengthening believers as they engage with questions of belief, doctrine, and life with intellectual curiosity and spiritual passion.

Dr. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and a pastor at Apology, a church in Mesa, Arizona. And also, uh, one of the pastors, they have a mission work, uh, in is it West Jordan or South Jordan?

South Jordan.

Okay. Uh, and so technically pastor here in Utah as well when he is here. Uh, he is the author of over 20 books, including Letters to a Mormon Elder, The Potter's Freedom, The God Who Justifies. He has participated in over 200 formal moderated debates, and we've tried to help him add to that total over the years. I think he's been doing them with us for about 27, I think 26 or 27 years we've been doing them together. The issue for our debate was picked by Mr. Hansen. It is the God of Calvinism is morally abhorrent. Taking the affirmative and going first will be Mr. Hansen.

All right. Well, thank you, Dr. White, for agreeing to this debate. Though I must say, given your doctrine of predestination, I'm not totally sure that you had a choice in the matter. Now, tonight's debate topic is actually very simple. It's, "Is the God of Calvinism morally abhorrent?" Now, some may think this is a Latter-day Saint versus Protestant debate, but it isn't. I actually looked up the research and apparently around 97% of Christians join with Latter-day Saints in rejecting Dr. White's Calvinist theology. And by the end of tonight, I think you'll see why.

So, I want to start with a story, a true story. Now, a little trigger warning. This is a rough story. There's a lake in Tennessee outside of Knoxville. And in June of 2011, a group of girls between the ages of eight and 10 foolishly decided to try and swim across the lake.

Never once.

When they got to the middle, they realized there was a problem.

Those passages.

When a couple of the girls started crying,

Just ignore them.

They were exhausted.

Ignore them at all.

They did their best to tread water, but then they started to panic when the 8-year-old started to have trouble keeping her head above the water.

Go read the book, everybody.

Now, thankfully, there was a fisherman nearby and he bolted over with his boat. But then something strange happened. When he arrived, he randomly saved three of the girls and then drove a little ways away and sat and watched. Over the next few minutes, he just sat and stared at the girls still in the water until the cries of the desperate eight and nine-year-old were eventually muffled by the sound of gurgling water. Then he left the floating corpses behind as he drove to shore with the girls that he saved.

Now, by a raise of hands, who thinks that that man did something evil? There's a shocking number of people in this room who don't have their hands up. Now, here's the good news. That story actually is not real. But it is real in the sense that it illustrates the five central tenets of Calvinism, known by the acronym TULIP.

The T in TULIP stands for Total Depravity. This is the notion that all human beings, even infants and drowning little girls, are worthy not just of slowly drowning in a lake where the terror eventually ends, but instead to an eternity of conscious torment in hell. Don't believe me? Well, here's what John Calvin said about that beautiful new baby that you just welcomed into your family. He said, "Even infants bring their condemnation with them from their mother's womb. Their whole nature is, as it were, a seedbed of sin and therefore cannot be but odious and abominable to God." So remember, in the story of the little girls, they deserve far worse from God than merely drowning in a lake. So why would God be obligated to save them in this life or in the next? Keep in mind that Dr. White holds the attitude that the question is not why doesn't God save everyone. The question is, why does God save anyone at all?

Now I want you to remember that Dr. White fully affirms with John Calvin that even infants stand condemned not for what they have done, but for what they are by nature because of Adam. In a recent video, he tried to soften this by saying original sin is like a diagnosis, like a doctor saying that you have cancer. But just think how insane that analogy is. When a child is born with cancer because of their parents' choices, we don't say to the infant, "Well, you deserve this." And you certainly don't punish a child because they inherited a genetic disease. But in Dr. White's system, inherited corruption is not just something to be healed. It becomes the basis for condemnation, even if you are a drowning little girl in a lake. Look, as a Latter-day Saint, I fully believe that humans inherit the effects of the fall of Adam. We are indeed broken and in need of saving. But there is a world of difference between a loving father saying, "You are ill. Come one and all and be healed," and Dr. White saying, "You drowning little girls are guilty anyway. So it's no injustice when only some of you are saved."

The next in TULIP is the U, which stands for Unconditional Election. So what this means is that there is no condition that affects the fisherman's selection of which of the drowning girls will live or die. It is completely according to his own pleasure because, after all, Dr. White will say, God does as he pleases. And apparently, what God pleases, according to Dr. White's theology, is that some people be left to drown. So let me ask, if two little girls are equally lost, equally desperate, and equally in need, and God saves one and not the other, on what basis is that just? What explains the difference in the outcome? And if the answer is simply that God does as he pleases, then I have to ask, is that justice or is that arbitrariness? Does Dr. White not realize a judge who arbitrarily selects who to punish and who to forgive among equally guilty defendants is literally the antithesis of a just judge?

The next in TULIP is the L, which stands for Limited Atonement. This is the idea that Jesus could save everyone, but he doesn't want to. Remember, the fisherman could save all the girls, but he limits how many he will save. But remember, Dr. White says God is justified because all the little girls were worthy of hell anyway. But does God want to save all people? Did Dr. White forget that John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? But Dr. White will say, "Well, the world, that doesn't mean everyone." But Paul, in his letter to Timothy, leaves no room for error. 1 Timothy 2 literally says the following: "I urge that prayers be made for all people. This is good and pleases God our savior, who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."

So let's go on to the next, which is the I in TULIP, which is Irresistible Grace. The idea is that once the fisherman decides to save a particular little girl or to leave another little girl to drown, they have no choice in the matter. Is this loving? Is this how love works? I always thought that the two greatest commandments were an invitation to enter into a loving relationship with God and with one another. Ask yourselves, can love exist without choice? If you cannot choose to love or not, are you free or are you a programmed object? Remember, Dr. White believes your behavior ultimately flows from your programming, which he will call your nature. And your programming or nature has to be reprogrammed by God just so that you will love God. But if you don't choose to love freely, is that even love at all? Can you make someone love you?

Now, the last in TULIP is the P, Perseverance of the Saints. This is the idea that the elect, like James, cannot lose their salvation. And those who God predestined for hell can't change that either. Calvinism teaches that your fate, my fate, and the fate of those two dead girls in the lake was fixed from the very beginning of time by the Calvinist God's decree. The idea is that your destiny is fixed, your nature is determined, and your choices flow inevitably from your nature that you did not choose. To make this point, Dr. White wrote an entire book called The Potter's Freedom. In it, he bastardizes a beautiful biblical analogy about us being shaped by God like clay. In Dr. White's extreme interpretation of the analogy, we are not human beings who make free choices. Humans are essentially just lumps of clay. And God can make them into whatever he wants to. He might make you and your life into something beautiful. He might make your life and your afterlife into something pure and joyous. Or he might drown your child in a lake. He might make a person into Mother Teresa. Or he might make them into Adolf Hitler. In the book, he says, quote, "God is the determiner of my shape and my destiny." But think about that for a minute. For Dr. White, both Anne Frank and Hitler's shape and destiny were determined long before either of them were born by God.

Recently, one of the organizers of tonight's debate, Aaron Shafawal, a fellow Calvinist with Dr. White, said the following in a debate. He said, quote, "My God predestined Anne Frank to be Jewish, to suffer in a concentration camp, and to eternally burn in hell."

I didn't say that.

Keep in mind,

That's not a quote.

That Dr. White believes Anne Frank could not have changed that horrific destiny because God decreed and predestined the death of every Jewish child in that horrific atrocity. And if you think that sounds rough, Dr. White reminded us all in his book, The Potter's Freedom, that, and I quote, "Clay has no inherent rights, no basis upon which to complain about the potter's decision, no say in what the potter does."

So, I want to remind everyone what we agreed to debate tonight. The question we agreed to debate is, "Is the God of Calvinism morally abhorrent?" Now, just full disclosure, Dr. White said before this debate that he would do this debate as long as he could also talk about the Mormon conception of God. And I said that was fine because I knew that talking about Mormonism would lose him the debate. After all, how does talking about Mormonism answer the question of if the God of Calvinism is morally good? It doesn't. But Dr. White is not dumb. He knows you don't want to spend two hours trying to defend the abhorrent doctrines of John Calvin. So he will spend his time trying to reframe the debate as a referendum on Mormonism to avoid defending this indefensible theology. So tonight, to keep us on topic, I'm actually not going to argue as a Mormon. Instead, I will argue as someone who believes this very simple truth that's held by all true Christians: that God loves all people. Christianity's argument against Calvinism is actually quite simple. Premise one: The true God is all-loving. Premise two: The God of Calvinism is not all-loving. Therefore, the God of Calvinism is not the true God. As you can see, there is nothing in that simple argument that depends on Mormonism. And to refute it, Dr. White will have to show why his conception of God is still all-loving despite his doctrines of limited atonement, unconditional election, and the predestination of some to an eternity of conscious torment.

But to be fair to Dr. White, I'm not running away. I am unapologetically a Latter-day Saint. And so right now, I am actually offering Dr. White a future debate where I have to defend the LDS conception of God and morality. But tonight, we're going to focus on what nearly all Christians say, and that is that Calvinism cannot be reconciled with God's love or his goodness. Just think about it. Does love require a genuine choice? Can you meaningfully say that God loves someone if he eternally withholds from them the very thing that would save them? Is it love to have the power to save and to choose not to?

Now, Dr. White will say, "But God is sovereign. God is ultimate. God is unchanging." And I agree God is all those things. But here's the problem. Those describe God's power, not his goodness. Remember, to win tonight's debate, Dr. White needs to define what he means by goodness and then demonstrate that his conception of God meets that definition. But he won't do that. Dr. White will simply insist that his conception of God is the standard of goodness itself. But how can we even judge if his conception of God is good if he just arbitrarily asserts that his conception of God is goodness itself? But I have to ask, if God determines every act, including evil, he certainly would be powerful. But in what sense would he be good? And if God does not will the salvation of all, in what sense is he all-loving?

I want you to ask yourself, those who reject Calvinism, are they rejecting the loving God of the Bible, or are they rejecting John Calvin's interpretation of the Bible? An interpretation where condemning the helpless is called justice, where withholding salvation is called love, and where determining evil is called goodness. In the end, we have to ask ourselves, have 97% of Christians misunderstood God? Or has Dr. White misunderstood goodness?

We're addressing the most important subjects there are in life. Uh, I understand that there is a temptation to, uh, frustration with disagreements and various, uh, accusations, but please show respect to our speakers. Um, these personal disagreements can be dealt with off the floor. But we're very privileged to have both these men, and so please let's show them the respect to be able to continue to have this kind of dialogue. We'll have, we'll now have Dr. White.

Well, good evening. I am very thankful that you all have come out on this special Friday evening. Uh, let me tell you who I'm here for. I'm here for adults. I'm here for people who recognize that emotion is not the same thing as rational thought. I'm here for those who want to open the scriptures and submit to what the scriptures teach. I am not going to tell you false stories. And in fact, as I was coming up here, I was thinking, you know, I feel a little bit like a mosquito in a nudist colony. There are so many targets and so little time when it comes to the misrepresentations of what we just heard. It's amazing because Jacob mentioned The Potter's Freedom. Every single point he raised is thoroughly addressed in that book. I don't know how you can read that and then turn around and ignore everything it said, including the story. The story that was meant to poison your mind, meant to keep you from thinking about what the debate's really about.

What are we here to discuss? We're here to discuss whether the God of Calvinism, no, not Calvinism, whether the God of Calvinism is morally abhorrent. That means you have to be able to define what morally abhorrent is. You need to have a God who is transcendent, who can therefore give you an understanding of what morality is in the first place. And an exalted man from another planet is insufficient for that. So this is the issue. One of us has a God with a scripture that I will explain to you what he says about himself. And one of us has an exalted man from another planet. Those are two completely different paradigms. Completely different paradigms. If you have your scriptures, turn with me, please, to Daniel chapter 4. And we will listen to a pagan king. A pagan king named Nebuchadnezzar. You know the story. We don't have much time. So listen.

"But at the end of those days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes toward heaven, and my knowledge returned to me. And I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. But he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth. And no one can strike against his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?' At that time my knowledge returned to me, and my majesty and splendor returned to me for the glory of my kingdom, and my high officials and my nobles began seeking me out. So I was reestablished in my kingdom, and extraordinary greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are true and his ways just, and he is able to humble those who walk in pride."

Did you hear what the scripture says? All his works are true and his ways are just. Why? Because he's the creator of all things. He is the one who has complete dominion. He is not an exalted man from another planet. He was not exalted by a power of priesthood and exaltation and everything else. He is God by nature. He is the only God, the eternal God, the creator of all things. And because he created all things, he has the right to rule over and define what is true and just in those things. If your God is subject to processes outside of himself, he cannot say any of those things. He is now subject to something outside of himself. And so the true God, his works are true, his ways are just, and he does amongst all the inhabitants of the earth what he chooses. They are accounted as nothing. Now, if your God is an exalted man, you don't have a God. We have to understand that the God of scripture is the creator of all things.

So, in light of that, turn with me, please, to Psalm 89. I'm only going to give you a few texts, but they are important texts. I want to be able to focus upon them. Psalm 89:14 says this, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before you." The God of the Bible. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. He defines righteousness. He defines what justice is. Mankind does not define these things. You must realize that when most of the lost people of this world look at scripture and they look at what it teaches about, well, how God brought the people of Israel into their land, the promised land, and he wiped out the pagan nations before them. He instructed the Israelites to wipe them out as punishment for their sin. The world goes, "No, God's all-loving. He never punishes anyone." Have you read the Old Testament? Have you heard of someone named Noah? Maybe possibly. Look at what the Old Testament is teaching us. And it's this Old Testament that tells us righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. You need to have a transcendent, eternal God to know what righteousness and justice are. And he's revealed that to us in his scriptures. It's an objective standard. It's not an emotional standard. And God has chosen to reveal himself in such a way that in the end, it's all going to be to the praise of his glory, of his grace. Ephesians chapter 1. There God is described as the one who works all things after the counsel of his will. All things. The God of Ephesians 1 is eternal. Joseph Smith said, "We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I'll refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see." When Joseph Smith said those things, he separated himself and all of his followers forever from the Christian faith. There is a vast divide between us at that very level, at that very issue. And so, do you have a God who's working all things according to the counsel of his will, or a God who is subject to powers outside of himself so he could even become a God in the first place?

In the New Testament, Romans chapter 3, we are told something very important. In Romans chapter 3, verses 4-7, listen. I'll start at verse three. "What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? May it never be. Rather, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and overcome when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? I am speaking in human terms. May it never be. For otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if through my lie, the truth of God abounded to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?" Oh, it looks like scripture addresses all these issues that Jacob has brought up, and does so in the focus upon the justification of God. Not mankind, not in human categories, but in divine categories. Notice, God will be justified. He will be demonstrated to have been just in all he does in that final day. But the bar of judgment is not the internet. It's not clicks. It's not likes. And it's not emotion. It is what God has revealed in his word and what will be said to be true in that final day.

Now, we heard a rather feudal attempt to get around what is revealed to us in Romans chapter 9 with some references to what I said in The Potter's Freedom. Again, just take whatever is quoted, check the sources for yourself. It might be an important thing to do. Romans 9:19. "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?'" Think about something tonight, folks. Who is this? Who's raising this objection? Is it me or is it Mr. Hansen? Well, you've already heard it. This is the essence of his entire presentation. But this is the person objecting to the Apostle Paul. This is the person on the other side. And he says, "Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?" And what does scripture say? "On the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?" Now, may I say something right here? Please note that phraseology. "Who are you, oh man?" You see, in scripture, God is God and man is his creature. If you have a God who's an exalted man, so if you think God, men, and angels are all the same beings at just levels of different levels of exaltation, you can never understand what the scriptures are saying because that's not what Paul believed. That's not what the Old Testament teaches. That's not the biblical understanding of God and creation. And so there is something in the "Who are you, oh man? Who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?" "Will the thing molded say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Those are not my words. Those are Paul's words. "Or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" You just heard my opponent using this very category in saying, "Oh, this is terrible. 97% of Christians have always rejected this." Well, let's say they did. What is the ultimate authority? Polls of Christians or God's divine word? What was Jesus's understanding? Maybe we'll look at John chapter 6 at some point to find out. But does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? And what if God, wanting to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known? There's God's priority. Is it yours? I look at every one of you. We make ma, we make ourselves the priority. We want a God who serves us. The God of the Bible, his priority is, "What if he wants to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known?" When was the last time you prayed that God would do that? Other than at the last election, maybe. "Demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known. He endured with much patience vessels of wrath, having been prepared for destruction, in order that he might make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles." There is the inspired word of scripture. You either accept it and submit to it, or you stand in rebellion against it. And mankind stands in rebellion against it.

Now, see, here's the glorious thing about believing all that scripture teaches on this. I cannot convince anybody to believe what scripture says. I cannot open your heart. I cannot, I cannot give you that soul-shattering experience of realizing I'm a creature. I'm, I'm just a vapor, a mist. I appear for a little while. God has eternally been God. Every breath of my mouth, every beat of my heart comes from his hand. And he can do with me as he pleases. He's the holy God. I can't, I can't give you that experience, but the Holy Spirit of God can. And so my job is simply to testify to the truth, speak the words, and then I can trust the Holy Spirit of God to be gracious to his people. Do I know who his people are? I do not. I cannot see in anyone's heart. But as Paul said, what did he say? "I endure all things for the sake of who? The elect." Did he know who they were? No. But he endured all things for their sake. And so the beauty about tonight is that I can announce biblical truths and then trust God to make them come alive in the hearts of his people, knowing that those who remain in their rebellion, remain in Adam, are going to be much, much you're going to prefer a God who looks like you and who will just be the big grandpa in the sky and doesn't worry about sin and isn't accomplishing his purpose in this world or anything like that. Goodness, no. It's all about me. I can't worry about that. That's not what I'm called to do.

So, let me, in the last minute, just point something out to you. The story that began, again, refuted in the book, fully, fully discussed there, as I was responding to Norman Geisler's use of the same thing. You must understand the real reality would be this: rebels take over a castle, and they've kicked the king's soldiers out, and they're burning the place down, and they're engaging in sin and rebellion. And the king sends his son into the castle to try to stop the rebels, and they kill the son. And then the king comes, and he shows mercy to some of those rebels. Undeserving rebels. They're not innocent little 8-year-olds drowning in a, in a pool or in a lake. They're creatures of God in rebellion against their creator. And God, in his mercy, shows love and saves undeserving sinners. That's the reality that you were not given. That's the reality we must discuss. Thank you.

This is a Presbyterian church. It's quiet as a tomb in here.

Please hold your applause until we can applaud both speakers.

I woke everybody up. Come on. All right. Oh, what? Um, you just let me know when we'll get started here. Alrighty. Well, Dr. White did exactly what I predicted. His argument was this: it was to presuppose that his view of God is the God of the Bible. And if you question it or you point out that his God is morally abhorrent, he just says, "How dare you question God?" But that doesn't answer the question. If your God is the God of the Bible, your God should be all-loving and all good. I mean, he, he, he talks about, you know, those babies, right, which according to John Calvin are, and I quote, "odious and abominable to God." Those are actually babies that are creatures in rebellion, and they deserve eternal damnation and hell. And if you disagree with that, by the way, you're just being emotional. It isn't that God has written on your heart and he isn't screaming into your soul that that is wrong. Oh, and by the way, don't worry. And I'm going to give reasons and I'll give the biblical references because there are good reasons and biblical references as to why the vast majority of Christians reject Calvinistic theology. Real quick, did Dr. White define what he meant by goodness? Did he ever do that? He didn't. He just said, "Whatever my God does, it's good." So, how can we even evaluate his claims? Also, he talked about Mormonism. You guys, I'm not, none of my arguments are based in Mormonism. We'll have that debate later. Okay? So, um, I want you guys to think about something. Imagine somebody invents a game. Okay? Let's say it's Dr. White. He invents a game. And in this game, he says, "Whatever I do is right. It's the right move. Whatever I choose is automatically good." Okay? Then you ask, "But what makes a move good?" And he just looks at you and says, "Because I did it." Think about that. If he cheats, it's good. If he lies, it's good. If he changes the rules mid-game, still good. Because good has been defined out of existence into whatever he does. That's the type of argument that Dr. White is making. He is presupposing his worldview instead of arguing for it. Okay. Again, Dr. White is not defining goodness. He is just asserting that the God of John Calvin is goodness itself. Okay. Now, he talked about, well, God is absolutely sovereign. God is unchanging. God is eternal. God is the creator of all things. Great. I believe that. I did have a different metaphysic about those. But he wants to say, you know, the Calvinist God is absolutely sovereign. And he does mean that. But he means it in the sense that he uses that sovereignty to create people just so they can go to hell. Where the God of the Bible uses it to love. He says that God is unchanging in the sense that once he decides to drown those little girls or and or send somebody to hell, like it's it's a done deal. But I believe that God, the God of the Bible, is unchanging in the sense that he never stops loving you. Um, I'm going to skip real quick. You talked about a, a moral standard that we need an objective moral standard. Yeah, I have that, guys. Morality is grounded in the nature of love. And as the great Thomas Aquinas said, to love is to will the good of another without thought of oneself. Moral language is what we use to describe something's relationship to the highest and lowest possible states of existence, eternal misery or eternal life. The highest existence is to be in loving relationship with God and with one another. Now, that isn't man-centered. It's relationally centered. The gospel of Jesus Christ is about relationships with God and one another. Think about it. What were the two great commandments? To love God and to love your fellow man. God wants a genuine relationship with you. Think about it. Zechariah 1:3 says, um, "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Return to me, and I will return to you.'" There is a reciprocal relationship.

Now let's just get right into the scriptures here because he wants to act like his God is the God of the Bible. Well, let's look at the Bible. If TULIP is taught throughout the Bible, if that is it, it should be reinforced all over the place. But it's not. He brings up selective verses that are outliers in the data. So, let's go through all the ones that contradict it. Uh, 1 Timothy 2:3 says, "I urge that prayers be made for all people. This is good and pleases God our savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." Does that sound like God wants to reach all people? I, I think it does. Hebrews 2:9 says that Jesus tasted death for every man. Dr. White rejects that. Limited atonement says that he didn't die for every man. He just died for those who he pre-selected prior to this life to be saved regardless of anything that they do in this life or before this life. John 1:2 says, "He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world." 1 Timothy 2:4-6 says, "For there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." Second Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." And he's going to say that God only wants to save some, and he wants others to go to hell. In The Potter's Freedom, he says, "God has the perfect right to do with his creation, including humans, as he pleases. These sinners upon whom God's wrath comes, they are said to have been specifically prepared for destruction. That is their purpose." He believes that some people's purpose is simply to suffer and die and burn in hell eternally. That's why God created them in the first place. And he wants to say that that's all loving.

How about irresistible grace? The idea that you can't resist God. Um, but Psalm 81 literally says, "But my people would not listen to my voice. Israel would not submit to me. Oh, that my people would listen to me." Why would God say that if his grace is totally irresistible? How about Matthew 23:37 where Jesus is looking over the city of Jerusalem and he says, "How often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not." Hm. So was it God that wanted to gather us, and it was us who rebelled against him? This is, this is not irresistible grace. This is us rejecting God because to love, both parties have to choose to love one another. God loves every single one of you in this room and beyond. He does. He does not damn any of you to hell. He's inviting everyone into that loving relationship. But to have a loving relationship, you have to choose to love him back. And what did Jesus say? "If you love me, keep my commandments." How about Acts 7:51? I mean, it just says it straight up. "You always resist the Holy Spirit." It's just right there. Okay. Um, Joshua 24:15, "Choose ye this day whom you will serve." But total depravity says that you can't choose God. So why would God tell people to choose him? How about Deuteronomy 30:19 where it says, "I have set before you life and death. Therefore, choose life." Why would God tell people who couldn't choose life to choose life? That'd be kind of a sick joke, wouldn't it? That's what Dr. Dr. White's theology says. Um, how about when the Lord was talking to Cain? If anyone was like non-regenerate and just a bad person, it was Cain. But God said to him, "Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, shall you not be accepted? But if you do not well, sin is crouching at the door and desires to dominate you, but you must rule over it." Why would God say that if he could have just given him the gift of faith and boom, it's all solved? Is God just playing a sick joke on Cain, tormenting him?

Okay. Everything, he believes everything has been decreed. Dr. White has even said in a, in a, in a debate about or in a discussion about rape, child rape, he says, you know, did God decree all things? And he says, yes, because if he didn't decree child rape, then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose. Okay. So everything has been decreed by God, even the sacrifice of babies to Baal were decreed by God. But have you ever read Jeremiah 19? Because God literally says, "They have built high places of Baal to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings, which I did not decree, nor did it come into my mind." Doesn't sound like God decreed that.

All right. We just got to be honest here, guys. I can go, I have, I literally have, I think I have 35 verses that I had queued up, but obviously I'm not going to get to them all. Um, we just got to be honest. If people can't choose, why command them? If Christ died for all, then why limit it? If God decrees all things, then does that mean that he decrees the evil things that we do? If grace cannot be resisted, why does scripture say that it does? At what point do we stop explaining away these verses and start letting them speak? With that, I'll yield my time.

Okay, a couple things from the opening presentation, and then I'll respond to the rebuttal. One of the key issues here was the accusation of arbitrariness. And again, if you start, if the only God you have is an exalted man from another planet, then you're stuck with arbitrariness. My God has eternally been God. He is the ground and foundation of everything that exists. And therefore, he can't be arbitrary because he defined everything that exists in the first place. He is accomplishing his purpose. He is accomplishing his will, as Ephesians 1:11 says. So there cannot be arbitrariness on the part of the ultimate standard of all things.

Uh, three times so far, 1 Timothy 2 has been massacred in your hearing. I hope you looked it up. Hopefully, you heard that. Uh, I'm not sure if he has a different translation in the Bible or something like that, but in 1 Timothy chapter 2, when that text is cited, the next thing that Paul says, which he's never read so far this evening, go back and listen to the tape. Well, tape that shows I'm old. Uh, the recording. Uh, he never mentioned that what Paul says. He's asking for prayers for all men, for kings, and those who are in authority. What kind of men are those? Those are types of men, categories of men. He goes on then in 1 Timothy chapter 2 to say that Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and men. So I ask you a question, for whom does Christ mediate? Is Christ in the presence of the Father mediating for people who are already under God's wrath and punishment in hell?

You see, all of this was addressed in The Potter's Freedom. Every single verse he has mentioned. Every single one was addressed. And you know why he's not responding to what I said in the book? Because he can't. Because my responses were based in the original languages, which he cannot read, and he cannot even begin to address. That's why you're getting the story you're getting. Those of you who've read the book are sitting there going, "What's he doing?" But most of you haven't. Maybe you'll take a look at it now.

Um, we keep being told, well, you know, why would, why would someone be be under God's wrath because they're just, just because they were created as a baby? Um, I don't think Joseph Smith removed Romans 5 from the Joseph Smith translation, but I'd like to invite you to read it, and you'll find something out. You're either in Adam, and you receive from him all he can give you, which is death, or you're in Christ, and you receive from him what he can give you, which is life. All of us start out in Adam. And yes, scripture says we die because we are in Adam and we fell in. And if you're going to object to that, then you need to object to what the Bible says about being in Christ. Because the only way you can have eternal life is to be in Christ and receive his righteousness. He becomes your representative rather than Adam. So if you're going to object to the one, you're going to have to object to the other. So what does scripture teach? We all fell in Adam. And I think what you're hearing here, "Can you believe this man believes that that even terrible things were decreed by God?" You have to have a God big enough to answer the big questions to address a topic like this. And Mormonism's God is not even close to being big enough to do so. Not even close.

Evil things happen in this world. I worked for years as a hospital chaplain. My second most famous book, believe it or not, is on grieving. People go, "You didn't write that. You'd have to have a heart to write on that." Yeah, I understand. I'm a Scotsman. So is he. We don't have hearts. We, we get it. But the reality is I've seen death up close in the hospital. And you either have a God who's just doing the best he can to manage all the evil. I'm doing the best I can. I'll try to comfort you. Did you bring this universe into existence knowing this would happen? Well, many of them will say, "No, God didn't know." Oh, that's exciting. I'm going to honor God for having created a universe where there's going to be all this evil, but he didn't even know it was going to happen. And by the way, Jeremiah 19, when it says, "It did not enter my heart." All he's saying is, "I never commanded you to do that." Read it. Read what it's saying. That's such an abused text.

So, is your God big enough to deal with all the existence of evil? Is he, can he answer the questions? Or is he going, "Hey, I'm doing the best I can. I'm sorry. All this stuff has happened. It's just out of my control. It's just too much for me." Is that the God of the Bible? No, it's not. The God of the Bible says, describes himself as the one who works all things, not some things, all things after the counsel of his will. He's the one who says, "In this altar, I do all of my will in heaven and earth." And as Nebuchadnezzar said, "No one can slap your hand away and say, 'Why do you do that?'" You can do that to his God. You can't do it to the Bible's God. That's a huge difference. That's a huge difference.

By the way, 2 Peter 3:9 and Matthew 23, and there's an entire chapter in The Potter's Freedom on the big three, dealing with them in context in full. If that material was somehow false or abhorrent, why not point it out? Because he can't. He'd rather use it for the emotional effect rather than going, "Oh, you mean you wrote an entire chapter that we'd have to spend time to read and think and you're dealing with original languages and stuff like that? That sounds like you're being really serious about this stuff rather than just allowing emotions to run wild, right?" That's the point. I cannot win an emotion war. And I'm not going to try. I'm not going to try. My goal in being here this evening is the Holy Spirit of God in this rather dark place where there's all sorts of pagan religion and, good grief, just driving down the road here, LGBTQ flags all over the place. What's wrong with you people? I mean, seriously, all over the place. It's a dark place. Maybe a religious place, but it's a religiously dark place. But guess what? Being religiously dark can't keep the Holy Spirit of God from dealing with his people.

And so I can point you to the scriptures, and I don't have to play emotional games with you, and I don't have to tell you stories, and I don't have to. But you know, babies, they're just so cute. I don't have to do that with you because some of you are not going to hear what I have to say, and I can't force you to, and you're just going to go, "I can't believe anybody can ever believe that." Okay. But then there are those, the Spirit of God comes, and all of a sudden, what this says becomes God's very voice. Becomes God's.

very voice for you. And you want to know all that it says accurately in depth. And when you do, you find out that there's one true and eternal God, creator and maker of all things, who's accomplishing all things to his glory, for his purposes. And he has in fact elected a multitude without number to salvation. And they don't. None of us deserve the first thing from God. We fell in Adam. He would have been just. I mean, seriously, remember Noah? Remember what happened. Do you really believe that God would be just to punish sinners? Most people do not. Most people do not.

But if you know the holiness of God, read Isaiah 6 tonight, see the temple vision, think about that holy God, and recognize that he could bring his wrath to bear at any point. But he hasn't. He's been merciful to you. He's been merciful to all of us. Why? Because he's gracious. He's gracious. He is loving. Oh, but he has to be equally loving to every person in the exact same way. Tell that to the Amorite high priest that died under Joshua's sword, never having been sent a prophet. You're not dealing with the Bible. You're twisting the Bible. You're perverting the Bible. Tell that to the people who are banging on the outside of the ark. Jesus taught that happen. Do you believe Jesus? Let me give you one other thing. The representation of limited atonement was laughable. It was so bad. It was I I I couldn't believe it. I was stunned. Limited atonement simply means there's perfect harmony between the father, son, and the spirit in the atoning work of Christ. That Christ dies for all those that the father has elected and the spirit will bring to faith. That's all limited atonement is. And yet Christ did that for his people. Gave himself. You want proof of love? There it is right in front of us. I just invite you to look and to hear. Thank you.

We're now going to take a five minute break to stretch your legs. Uh restrooms are downstairs straight in front of the um stairs. Uh we will be resuming in 5 minutes. There are also free books in the former reading room. Everything on the table is free if you will read it. Mr. Hansen has asked for a moment uh that will not count against his time uh to to make a brief announcement.

>> And I I'd like for this to be are the cameras rolling on this as well? Are the cameras rolling for this? Because I do want to make sure it's it's it's included. Um, there was a there was a statement that I made of Aaron Chafa Wallof, a particular quote. Um, I just want to let everyone know obviously Aaron was was bothered by that. I know Aaron personally. Aaron is not anti-Semitic in any way. And that quote uh was something that I had heard from multiple people that I know. It was a legitimate quote. He disputes it. So I'm not going to I'm going to retract that quote by him and say that I have not verified it sufficiently to feel comfortable with that out there. So um Erin, I'm I'm sorry if I've misqued you in any way.

>> Appreciate you.

>> No problem.

>> And I and I do say that because genuinely I am interested in the truth and I don't want to misrepresent people. Uh Erin, Erin is someone who I actually am friends with. Uh we have a ton of disagreements, but I don't want any bad blood or or wrong things about that. So, thank you.

We're now going to have 20 minutes each of examination. We're going to be starting with Mr. Hansen's questions for Dr. White.

>> All right, Dr. White. So, first question. Does God want to save everyone?

>> No.

>> Okay. So wait, wait. You said God does not want to save everyone.

>> If God desired to save every single person, he has the power and the ability to grant to them regeneration, faith, and draw them unto himself. It is very very clear that God decided to demonstrate his glory in the destruction of the Amorites, the Canaanites, Babylonians, and any other numbers of people uh in the biblical record. So if you're simply trying to say there can only be one will in God in that sense then obviously the scriptures contradict that.

>> Is it possible for humans to reject God?

>> Humans reject God every single day. The real question should be is it possible for those who are in Adam to repent and turn to Christ outside of the work of the Holy Spirit? Jesus said no in John chapter 6 verse 44. So I follow his teaching at that point. And by the way, uh, Acts 7:51, uh, people resist the Holy Spirit every day. You are confusing categories. There's an entire chapter on this subject in the book that you forgot to read, but quote from, um, that demonstrates the category errors that you made, many of them uh, in your presentation. Okay. You once said, I think God is probably consistent here, and he's going to have elect infants and others who will not be. So, why would God send some infants to suffer in hell?

>> Well, again, uh Romans chapter 5 is still in my Bible, and Joseph Smith never had the authority to remove anything. Anyways, um and Romans chapter 5 says, "You are either in Adam or you are in Christ. If you are in Adam, you receive death. If you are in Christ, you receive life." Uh by grace, he transfers us out of the kingdom of darkness into his son, we receive life. So scripture does not actually address the issue of that you're you're raising. It's speculation in regards to infants and things like that. There are many people just want to go, hey, uh, all infants and Noah's flood just automatically go to heaven. But you go, and where do you get that from scripture? Well, I don't, but it just feels good that way. And so, uh, my confession of faith specifically refers to elect infants. Um, so that has to be a possibility for me. But the fact of the matter is scripture is silent on many issues in regards to that particular subject.

>> Why would some infants deserve to suffer?

>> Well, again, because we're in Adam and so do do infants suffer? So, everybody has to answer this question.

>> But if do infants do infants suffer? If they suffer, then the question is why?

>> But do they deserve it? Well, again, uh there's a difference between what we experience in this life and the eventual judgment at the final day. And so the fact of the matter is we look at the fact that infant mortality has always been an amazing

>> but but that's not my question. My question is why do they deserve to suffer? Because your theology holds that they deserve it.

>> Again, deserve to suffer. I would I don't know that I would use that terminology outside of judgment. So I'm not sure what you're quoting. And given how many quotations you've given to me that were just laughably bad tonight, I'm really sorry, sir. That was one of the worst presentations I've ever heard. I'll just be I'll just be honest with you.

>> This is so I'm just tell I'm just tell my next my next question.

>> Well Well, I was trying to answer the last one and that is you're you're assuming a context here that I'm not sure is accurate. I can't

>> I just It's a simple question. I was just asking if

>> No, it's not a simple question. Let's not let's not

>> Why do infants deserve to suffer? And so,

>> and you said it was because of Adam. And so, I guess my follow-up question would be, what is it about what Adam did that causes an

>> and I already started answering the question and I'll go ahead and finish answering the question. There would be a context of judgment where dessert would be brought in. And then there's a context of simple creation where it would not. And I can't trust the context you're quoting from because I bet you you don't have the context anyways.

>> Well, I'm just asking a simple question.

>> No, no, no. Stop saying simple question. you are putting words in my mouth and and if you can't give the context then at least allow me to say let's just go to the next there's two different possibilities to the context

>> let's just go to the next question um what is the good news for those who are not elect

>> the good news is again what does what does scripture say we do not know who the elect are and so we proclaim the gospel promiscuously to all people command all men everywhere to repent and we say to any person if you will turn from your sin and believe in Jesus Christ, you will find him to be powerful savior. Now, who's going to do that? Jesus said,

>> "No, I'm not I'm not asking about who who is. I think you misunderstood the question. The question is is for the people who are not elect, we don't know who they are, but for those people, what is the good news for them?"

>> Again, the good news is a proclamation of what God has done in Jesus Christ. For a person who remains a rebel sinner against what God has done, that's not good news. That's bad news because they are rejecting God's son.

>> So the good news is not for everyone.

>> The good news is proclaimed to everyone and those who reject it will turn it into bad news because it will become their own judgment.

>> Okay. Um, before creating any person, does God know with certainty their eternal destiny?

>> Before God created anything, he knew exactly what his intention and creation was and what the outcome of all things would be. Yes.

>> Okay. If you had a button and pressing it would bring a person into existence, but you knew with certainty that they would suffer eternal torment with no escape, would you press that button?

>> Again, you are beginning with a with with a something that I rejected at the very beginning of my presentation. You are starting with man. I start with God. Yours is a human theology. Mine's a divine theology. No, no, no, no, no. You're not going to rough shod me in cross-examination. I've watched you do this. It's not going to work for me. Okay? You can try. Joe Heshmire let you get away with it. It ain't going to happen with me. And my point is there is no divine button to press to do these things.

>> When God creates, he creates for his purpose, not my purpose.

>> And so if my creation results in his glorification and he's glorified in that, then that is what the scripture says this God is all about. Okay. Um, let's You said um that uh let me see here. Actually, I'll just go to the next one. Um

>> if you use larger font, it'll help you read those.

>> It's all right. I'm not quite as open.

>> It's dark. I know, but it's dark in here,

>> Jason. We need lights, dude.

>> Um

>> what does it mean to say that God is good? What do you what do you mean when you say that?

>> I speak about God in accordance with his own word. So when he defines goodness, truth, justice, grace, I do that from scripture, which is what my opening statement was. But

>> so so righteousness and truth is the foundation of his of his throne. And that which is in accordance with God's law and righteousness is that which is good.

>> Okay. So, um I still don't understand what you mean by God is good. It seems that you're just saying that God is God.

>> Well, God, well, yes, that is one of the big differences between us is that my God being eternal and transcendent and the definer of all things is the definer of goodness, grace, love, mute, mercy, beauty. Yes, he's the standard of all those things because there is no standard outside him. Your God became God through priesthood, power, and procreation. And so there are things above him that define him. That's why we are we can't come to any conclusions here.

>> I'm not I'm not representing the LDS point of view tonight.

>> No, no, you cannot. No, excuse me. Excuse me. But we I made this very clear when I agreed to this. You don't get to dodge who you are in this debate.

>> You don't get to dodge it. You are presenting a position.

>> I know you I know you try to dodge it, but you are.

>> I'm actually arguing from the perspective of most Christians who believe that God is moving. Which What do you mean? What do you mean? Well, well, well, most Christians, I think, believe that God is all loving. And I want to know, what do you mean when you say that God is loving? What do you mean by that?

>> Again, um God is loving in that he has demonstrated his love toward us in Christ Jesus in that he gave himself for us so that when we repent and believe, we can have eternal life.

>> But only for the elect, right?

>> And and but I don't know who the elect are. My my faith in God is the result of his action of election. And so the fact that you are sitting here this evening and God has not struck you dead for your sin is an act of love on his part. It's mercy. It's common grace. And when the atheist sits there and mocks God, when when an atheist tries to get you to drink um antifreeze um and and and is still alive to this day, that's an extension of God's mercy and grace towards someone. Now, you you need to understand there's different kinds of love.

>> I have another I have another question. I know you're trying to go through the time, but let me

>> I'm not No, I'm not. If you asked about love, there's a difference between redemption.

>> I just want to get to some of the question. Could I ask the next question? Well, if you want answers, I'll

>> I do. So, um, do you affirm that God decrees whatever comes to pass?

>> That's what Ephesians 1:11 says, and it's also what the Westminster Confession of Faith says.

>> How about the London Baptist Confession?

>> How about rape?

>> Yes.

>> Okay. Um, did God

>> Otherwise, it's purposeless. You don't you don't want to don't want to go there, do you?

>> Yeah. Well, let's let's go to the next question. Did God know Adam and Eve would eat of the tree of the garden before he put the tree there?

>> Of course.

>> Okay. So, why did he put

>> And from your perspective, they did the right thing, right?

>> So, why did he put it there?

>> Because it was in is was central to the accomplishment of his redemptive purposes. God's purpose in creation was that Jesus Christ would become the God man and that he would demonstrate his manifest wisdom to all of creation in the incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and the creation of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. Could God have created me without a fallen nature?

>> Well, now you're getting hypothetical. I mean, I suppose he could have, but then he wouldn't have accomplished uh the redemption of mankind and the demonstration of all of his attributes

>> if he if he had Well, so in what meaningful sense is the creature the ultimate origin of evil rather than God if God was the one who put the tree in the garden in the first place with the intention that they ate of it?

>> Okay, so uh well, a couple things there. Uh I wish I could have finished up the last question but a couple of things there again uh you need to understand the difference between primary and secondary causes and primary and secondary purposes. You need to have those proper categories. And so the the primary uh cause is always focused toward the glorification of God. And then everything in creation fits into that. And so you you have wars. You have terrible things that happened. You have Acts chapter 4. You have you have the early church praying that Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Romans, and the Jews were gathered together against their holy servant Jesus to do what? What? Your hand and your purpose predestined to take place. That, by the way, was the greatest act of evil in all human history. The only innocent person who's ever been killed was Jesus. And Acts chapter 4, the early church said, "God predestined it to take place. You've got to deal with it."

>> If I if I put a poisoned cookie in a room with my child and they and I knew that they were going to eat it, would I have done something wrong? If you can parallel what I just quoted from Acts chapter 4 with a poison cookie with your child, we are on completely different planes.

>> Well, God did put in the garden the the tree

>> except except Adam was made in the image likeness of God and was representing all of humanity and himself. So he's not a little child in the room with a cookie. These illustrations are foolish and I ask you to please elevate your presentation.

>> I'm trying to understand. I'm just trying to understand. You're saying that a child is more culpable and worthy of punishment than was Adam in the garden?

>> I didn't say anything even close to that.

>> I just just to see the analogy. The analogy is

>> No, it's an analogy is rejected.

>> You're you're Okay. Well, that's fine. But I want people to understand because I don't think it's an illegitimate.

>> No, you're making an argument. I get it. You're making an argument. Not asking question.

>> And I want I want to ask the question about this analogy. So the analogy is that there is a garden and God chooses to put a tree in there that will condemn humanity forever and he and Adam and Eve are in that garden. He knows that they'll partake of the fruit. And in my analogy, you have a child in a room where I know that they'll eat of a cookie that will harm them. Am I doing something bad? Because it would seem that God is doing something bad and he's the one who's actually introducing the evil into the world tree.

>> Yeah. The re the reason your analogy works for you is because your God is a man and he is limited in that way. The God of the Bible is not and he specifically I'm going to answer the question. You went on you're making arguments. You're trying to abuse this time. I'm not going to let you get away with it. I know how this process works and I know how you work so it's not going to work tonight. Sorry.

>> Sounds good.

>> You you should have known u coming into this thing. So there is a vast category difference between the triune God who's accomplishing his own purpose, his creature that represents all of mankind and the eventual incarnation of the son of God to glorify the triune God in eternity and an illustration about a fallible sinful father with a child in a room with a poison cookie. If you can't see that those are not the same thing, I can't help you. But it's because we start with a different god.

>> Let's go on to the the next question. In your book, The Potter's Freedom, you said, quote, "God has the perfect right to do with man as he wishes, just as the potter has utter sovereignty over the clay. Some are sinners upon whom God's wrath comes. They are said to have been specifically prepared for destruction. That is their purpose." Now, with these with any of these individuals,

>> is that is that is that a is that a quote without any dots in it?

>> There are some, but

>> there are some that they're coming from different places.

>> That's fine. You you can correct what's wrong here, but this is the question.

>> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wrote the book in 2000. I don't have it memorized, but I can tell you are doctoring these quotes.

>> Well, that's fine. No, no, I don't think so. We can I can pull this up and put it online for everyone to see. Is there anything that those individuals who were prepared for destruction and that's their purpose is to be destroyed. Is there anything that those individuals could ever do to be saved?

>> the those who are specifically chosen to glorify God in their rebellion uh would never want to do anything. And in fact, in fact, God keeps them from doing worse things. He limits their sin. He doesn't have to, but he does for his purposes.

>> And so they would never want to do anything else. So, see, you have the idea that mankind just has this this freedom to choose or do this or that rather than the scriptures teaching that we are dead in sin until we're raised to life. Now, do you have a page number that I could uh look up that from?

>> Um, I'm going to go on to the next question.

>> Uhhuh. Of course.

>> I'll let people look it up. I'll post it for the sake of

>> Don't let me steal this.

>> Um, real quick.

>> Oh, I'll look it up. Believe you me.

>> You will.

>> The dividing line will be coming up next week.

>> I'm fine with it.

>> All right. Uh you said you said things about men not being free. Justin Martyr said, "For if it be faded that this man be good and this other evil, neither is the former meritorious, nor is the latter to be blamed." And again, unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions. Why do you disagree with Justin Martyr?

>> Justin Martyr continued wearing the Greek palium. uh his entire life he was a Greek philosopher and deeply and heavily influenced by it. He was not influenced almost at all by the apostle Paul. So I read Romans chapter 3 and I believe Romans chapter 3 and therefore my my theology is significantly more influenced by Paul than Justin Martyr.

>> So you think that you have a better interpretation of Paul than Justin Martyr or how about

>> have you ever read any of Justin Martyr?

>> Certainly. Here your Okay. Then then how much how much Paul dealing with how much Paul I'm going to finish this statement. I teach church history and Justin Martyr it is known to anyone who does teach church history was not deeply influenced by Pauline's siriology and theology.

>> Are there any early church fathers in the first 200 years of the church uh that teach uh limited atone or that teach that teach um I'm sorry that teach that man does not have free will. Well, uh, Clement when he writes to the church, uh, when the church at Rome writes to the church at Corinth, we don't know who it was, but it's called first clement. Clement talks about the elect, talks about predestination, talks about all those things. And so, uh, you have that, and you have the epistle to dionis, uh, which specifically makes reference to justification, imputed righteousness, and the necessity of the spirit of the work of God in that in that context. But that was not the primary subject of almost any of the of of the early writers. It certainly wasn't the central subject for example between Justin a martyr and trifor the Jew.

>> How did how did Irenaeus interpret the verse? How often would I have gathered your children together and you would not? How did he interpret that verse? Did he have the same interpretation as you?

>> I would assume not. No.

>> Okay. I I'll read what he says. He says that

>> is this a question?

>> Yeah. I'll ask you if you why you think he's wrong. Yeah. Okay. He says,

>> well, if you read my book,

>> 37 set forth the ancient law of human liberty because God made man a free agent from the beginning, possessing his own power to obey God voluntarily and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will towards us is presently with him continually. Why do you think his interpretation of that verse was wrong? If anyone here has read Matthew 23:37, you're wondering what the heck Irenaeus read because that's not what Matthew 23:37 is talking about. It's not even close. Matthew 23:37 is a judgment passage against the Jewish leadership for standing in the way of Jesus's ministry to the people. And it makes a complete distinction between the judgment upon the leaders and the people who are the ones who were the object of Jesus's teaching. Just look it up. If you had read my book, you'd know the answer. You didn't read it, did you?

>> I I like to have you explain it.

>> Oh, yeah. Right. No, you didn't read it. Just

>> Just be honest. You didn't read it.

>> Does love require a genuine choice or not?

>> True love. Well, what's the commandment? You shall love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Can God command love? There's the question. He does command love. The question does he does he grant the ability to love in that way by the spirit of God releasing us from slavery to sin? The answer is he does.

>> The question is does love require a genuine choice?

>> Again, we'd have to in 4 seconds I can't go into the entire discussion of what genuine choice even means. We've I've debated that with people a number of times.

>> Sounds good. I think that's my time. We'll now have 20 minutes of cross-examination from Dr. White to Mr. Hansen.

>> Um, could I have one just to just to make sure I got my stuff ready so that Let me just do this real quick. Okay, I am ready. All right. Uh, Mr. Hansen. Um, has your God eternally been God?

>> Yes.

>> And was he a god when he lived on another planet?

>> Uh, no. I don't think there's anything in my canon of scripture that says that.

>> Oh, so you don't accept the King Flet funeral discourse or the sermon in the grove as binding as a Latter Day Saint?

>> Um, neither of those are neither of those are uh canonized scripture in our tradition. So I generally stick to the canonized scripture which says

>> a solo scriptural Mormon.

>> Well I believe

>> that's a new thing to me.

>> No things have different binding weights and uh the binding weight of scripture uh if if there's any contradiction then I go with scripture. However you have to remember that both the sermon in the grove and the king fall discourse do talk about a head god of all other gods.

>> Yes. In fact revelation 16. Do you accept Joseph Smith's interpretation of revelation 16? uh you'd have to familiar remind me what that what that is.

>> Well, he he he misunderstood the King James version to God and his father. So, he thought that was talking about God and God had a father.

>> I don't hold Joseph Smith to be infallible. So, I don't I don't know. And frankly, I'm not sure what that has to do with if the God of Calvinism is morally.

>> Well, again, uh you I know you I know you try to avoid admitting that you're a Mormon and defending that position, but it was it was a part it was a part of the agreement of this debate that that the God of Mormonism would be a part of this debate. You know, that's true.

>> I agree.

>> I can Okay, then stop dodging it.

>> No, no, it's it's totally true. I go the God of Mormonism helps your case. You said you said that you believe God was eternally has eternally been God.

>> Okay. So,

>> can I read you the scripture?

>> In the in the LDS temple ceremonies,

>> um Elohim sends Jehovah down to organize the earth. Is that correct?

>> Yes.

>> Okay. So, you believe in an organization, not a creation.

>> Uh I believe that that's what creation ultimately means

>> is organization of pre-existing matter. uh pre-existing stuff of some kind

>> of some kind. Okay. All right. So, in all the passages that I cited, it was fundamental that God was the creator of all things. Do you believe that the Old Testament authors and the New Testament authors actually believe that creation was an organization of pre-existing matter? Well, I would probably go with Justin Martyr who said, "God in the beginning in his goodness made everything out of shapeless matter for the sakes of men."

>> So, you believe Justin Martyr is uh a New Testament author or anything like that?

>> No, I just I just know that prior to Justin Martyr, there's nothing that teaches creation x nilo explicitly.

>> Okay. So when uh Jeremiah chapter 10 says that the gods who did not create the heaven and the earth shall disappear and shall perish from under the heavens and under the earth. You actually believe that they are in some sense talking about some kind of organization. Is that why your god has authority structures over him?

>> I I haven't said any of that. So

>> what's your question?

>> Okay. How did Okay. If if the Mormon if the Mormon God I No one died. It's okay. Um if if the power of God is the priesthood and procreation um and this has been taught by the general authorities of the Mormon church. I

>> I wouldn't I would

>> So you don't accept the general authorities teaching.

>> Well, I I just say that I generally look at things within our canon of scripture to have priority.

>> You have So you have interpretation of authority over the general authorities of the church. I didn't claim that.

>> Well, it Well, for example, um you said in a recent debate, I'm not sure how recent it was, but I think it was in the past few weeks that uh father, son, and spirit each bear the divine name Yahweh, right?

>> I'm really confused what this has to do with the debate, but I'm happy I'm happy to I'm happy to

>> you know what it has to do with the debate. Stop wasting my time. Answer the question.

>> All right. Uh yeah, the So, the father, son, and holy spirit can each have the divine name uh predicated.

>> Okay. So when in 1916 when the prophet and his counselors as the first presidency of the church of Jesus Christ Latterday Saints put out a specific document identifying the relationship of father and son identifying the father as Elohim the son as Jehovah you can sit and debate and contradict the general authorities the Mormon church and you're not claiming a higher authority than them in so doing. No, because in that very document they talk about the son uh bearing the name of the father.

>> Bearing the name of the father as in Elohim or

>> because they they identified Jehovah.

>> I think I think you might be confused in our temple in our temple liturgy.

>> The names are used for identification purposes for lurggical purposes.

>> Lurggical purposes. So, so when Elohim sends Jehovah down to organize in company with Michael, that's just identification, all those Mormons that that rec have always affirmed to me that Elohim is the father and Jehovah is the son and therefore when I show them that Jehovah Elohim is one name in the Old Testament and they're totally blown away by that. Um, they were all confused and you're the only ones figured it out.

>> I didn't say that. Well, that is seems to be what you're suggesting. But so here's the question. Um, if your So the God you believe in has eternally been exalted and never experienced exaltation. I'm asking this question because this is the fundamental issue. If your God became exalted through obedience to gospel ordinances and principles which has been taught by your church, if he became exalted in that way, he cannot be transcendent and hence be the foundation of any definition of what is

>> good and honorable.

>> Do you have a question?

>> I'm asking you the question and you don't want to answer it. Did your God

>> What's the question?

>> Did your God experience exaltation? Yes. or I'll answer it using our scriptures. Doctrine in Covenants 2017 says, "By these things we know, there is a God in heaven who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, the same unchangeable God." Doctrine in Covenants 121. Would you like me to continue? No, I I will not because it is very obvious to me, you must know, and anyone in this room who studied Mormonism knows that the LDS scriptures not only were changed between the 1833 Book of Commandments and 1835 Doctrine of Covenants, but they evolved rapidly. Rapidly.

>> Did that verse change?

>> I I'm no I was not saying that verse changed. I am saying that you can find in the Book of Mormon a theology that you will not find in section 132 of the Doctrine of Covenants. So, Joseph Smith at the end of his life is very different than Joseph Smith at the beginning of his life. So, I'm asked, yes, did your God experience exaltation as taught by the general authorities, the LDS church, for example, in the eternal marriage uh manual that was used for decades in your church. Your leaders taught your people that they had to go through the celestial marriage ceremony so they might become exalted as God did. Were they lying to their people or do you reject the teachings of the general authorities of the LDS church?

>> Okay, I'm gonna quote a general authority of the LDS church, the president of the church actually, who said, "If anyone, regardless of his position of the church, were to advance a doctrine that is not substantiated by the standard church works, meaning the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Pi Price, you may know that statement is merely his private opinion. The only one authorized to bring forth new doctrine is the president of the church who when he does will declare it as revelation from God. And there will be so and it will be so accepted by the council of the 12 and sustained by the body of the church. Okay? And if any man speak a doctrine which contradicts that which is in the standard church works, you may know that by that same token that it is false and you're not bound to accept it as true.

>> Okay? So the church can publish under its own name and its own copyright a manual to be read by the members of the Mormon church for decades before they engage in the celestial marriage ceremony and it be filled with lies as long as Jacob Hansen decides he's not going to believe that. Is that what I'm to understand you're saying?

>> That is not what I'm saying at all.

>> Okay, then then answer the question. You know exactly what I'm talking about and you know what the answer is, Jacob. You know, you know what the answer is? Did God experience exaltation? Yes or no?

>> I just read to you from this. God, I believe that God has always been God.

>> So, he did not experience exaltation.

>> He's always experienced exaltation. He's an exalted being.

>> But, so, so anybody in here who knows Mormonism is sitting here scratching your head. I realize that.

>> I literally am a Latter-day Saint. Have been my whole life. And I've studied the You are a new Mormon. You're a new Mormon. You are redefining things.

>> I'm reading stuff from our cannon of scripture.

>> So listen, listen.

>> Like I'm reading our cannon of scripture, which is much older than me and you, James.

>> Okay? So listen to me. Listen to me. Every Mormon I've that I've ever talked to understood what exaltation was because they differentiated uh salvation from exaltation. They understood that. Everybody in all the former Mormons, everybody, even the Mormons in here went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We we get all that." So, you're literally telling us, and I want I want to make sure this is on on film, on whatever you call it, video, MP4, whatever it is. Okay, let's let's do it. So from your perspective, God the Father never was not exalted by obedience to gospel rules and principles to the status of a God so that he organized a planet, had heavenly mother, had offspring. All that stuff represented in LDS teachings by apostles and prophets for the past 180 years was all speculation and can be rejected by your reading of your canon of scripture. Yes. No. Maybe.

>> I'm just going to read what the canon of scripture says. Mosaiah 3:5. The Lord omnipotent who reignth was and is from all eternity to all eternity. And Joseph Smith did not believe in sacment prayer every day. No, no, no.

>> So, you're God. So, so, so, so we do believe that there can be multiple divine persons and that people can reach theosis. Those are all those are all part of

>> Oh, so you think theosis is the same thing as exaltation?

>> And now the thought. Yeah.

>> I I mean, you're using a church history term. You think that when someone used the term theosis in history that it meant the same thing that you're talking about?

>> No. Not the exact same.

>> Exactly. It was a completely different thing. That's right. Very glad you it was very similar. Go listen to the Eastern Orthodox talk about it.

>> Oh, yeah. But believe me, uh yeah, they are all

>> there's there is a you're right. We don't bridge the ontological gap, but they basically do everything except for bridge the ontological gap.

>> Well, and then there and there's where it is. Okay. So, we can't we can't really at this point um have any meaningful discussion because you are the ultimate authority as to what Mormonism is. Well, I'm just I'm just wondering what this has to do with if the God of morally abhorent real simple. Um, I have asserted to you that my God is the creator of all things, has eternally been God, and he's accomplishing his purpose. And therefore, he defines by his very essence, what is moral, what is reprehensible, everything else, because only he is big enough to fulfill those things. And you knew walking and you knew walking into this room

>> that my argument was going to be your God is a completely different God and is not big enough to provide the foundations for your accusation against my God.

>> Yeah. But my but the Latter-day Saint conception of God is not necessary to refute Calvinist theology.

>> But you are a Mormon and so only you and I can debate the subject right now. No, cuz I can represent all the other Christians that reject God.

>> They were not. Everybody in here knows that that's not true.

>> Because if your God is an exalted man, if your God is an exalted man from another planet, you are not in the same categories as any other Christian who promoted free will or anything else. You're in a completely universe. Do you have a question?

>> That's what I'm that's that's what I'm saying to you.

>> Well, you're serving your God, let me let me can I answer can I answer it in this way? Okay. When we're talking about goodness, goodness must be chosen. Okay.

>> Morality is the grounding or the grounding of morality is love. Moral language is what we use to describe something's relationship to the highest and lowest possible.

>> That's what you said in your presentation. Yes. I've got the quote right here.

>> I know. And what I'm saying is is that that provides a perfectly sufficient basis for making moral judgments. And by that moral judgment, we can judge that your version of God is immoral.

>> But your God is insufficient to provide you with the epistemological categories to make the claims you just made. You can't talk about love if love could have been defined by God that existed before Elohim.

>> No, no, no. God Love isn't defined by God.

>> Love isn't defined by God. Well, could God make abusing children loving?

>> How does that how does that how how is that even look at look it morality? No. Love is something that describes the relationship between beings between people. Okay. And

>> and where do you get that from? And

>> do you get that from God's law?

>> Do you get that from the nature of reality itself? Oh, so you interpret the nature of reality by yourself and you can't show me where God's law defines what you're saying.

>> It's a brute fact of reality.

>> It's a brute fact. So, so it's irrational. All brute facts are irrational.

>> No, they're not irrational. They just are.

>> That's the point.

>> You didn't read enough. Bonsson, I heard you read about I actually I'm gonna play Greg Bonson here. I'm gonna play Greg Bonson. Brute facts are irrational. That is his fundamental argument against Stein. Do

>> you have a question?

>> So, okay. You just said love is a brute fact. Therefore, love is irrational, right?

>> No.

>> So, you reject that epistemological foundation.

>> I So, what

>> love? Love is a description. It's a word that we use in the English language to describe a type of relationship between people that elevate.

>> Love is a description. So when we are commanded to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is said, which was before the English language. And so the command to love is a brute fact. Is that what you're saying? It's just a brute fact of reality. I'm saying

>> God doesn't get to define that.

>> That's not what I'm saying at all. Would you like me to explain it?

>> Well, if if you'll give us the categorical foundations upon which you're building it. Yeah,

>> certainly. the nature of reality itself. It is such it is such regardless of if a person has a Bible or not that when a person loves another person they will ele love is when you have a relationship that elevates their status of existence.

>> So love is actually defined by human experience

>> by d the yes

>> there you go

>> the direct experience of reality is real. So we have So so your reality is defined by human experience.

>> No. And

>> that's not what I'm saying.

>> The Bible The Bible actually says that God is the one who creates us and therefore determines realist stove.

>> It burns me and it makes things hurt me. I have an experience. It's real. It exists. To say that something actually uh is known through experience is basic epistemology.

>> Known by experience. So your experience

>> the only way you know the Bible is through your own experience with it.

>> Oh the only way you can know the Bible is by your own experience of it which is why so ask let me ask you a question. How did Jesus have experience?

>> Hush hush. In Matthew chapter Matthew chapter 22, in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus held the Sadducees accountable for what was written by Moses, 1400 years earlier as if God spoke it directly to them. So you are telling me that their experience of scripture is what made it scripture? Jesus held them accountable for something.

>> That isn't what I said. I was very careful with what I said.

>> Okay. Then then how could Jesus hold them accountable?

>> I'm saying that that experience is the fundamental epistemology because when you experience something, it's real. Like that's why you experience it.

>> You know, you may have all sorts of folks wandering around Phoenix experiencing all sorts of things in their mind that ain't real. I

>> You're absolutely right. That's not a basis for epistemics. There's a difference between that they actually had an experience and them interpreting that experience correctly.

>> Okay. So, the Sadducees had an experience and Jesus said, "You're wrong." Why was Jesus wrong to say that? He brought scripture against their experience.

>> I'm not saying that. No, you're Because they're misinterpreting their experience.

>> They're misinterpreting their experience or they're misinterpreting scripture.

>> Both. You think the one might have followed the other? I think they both go in tandem. No. Like, like here's the thing. Could people, you have to ask yourself, you know, could people before the Bible have known what was right and wrong? I mean, the Bible literally says that the that God's law is written on our hearts. So, obviously, you don't need the Bible to know what's right and wrong.

>> I would love to expand on that, but a minute 43 seconds.

>> You can ask me about it.

>> Okay.

>> Just just just just in closing here. Um, in your presentation you talked about a bastardized interpretation of Romans 9, but you never bothered to even try to interact with the pages and pages of original language interpretation of Romans chapter 9. And then when you miss you talked about limited helmet, I didn't even recognize what you were talking about. Um, I gave the book back to the kind lady. Um, just be straight up honest with me. Did you actually read it?

>> I read a great portion of it. I didn't read it cover to cover,

>> but but I can tell you any of the Just so you know, anyone who wants to, by the way, I thought in a debate we generally Yeah, that's

>> So, you know, No, no, no. My my question is just this.

>> No, you're not asking me a question.

>> Well, my point I'm sorry, my

>> No, my No, I've got people can look at the

quotes that I made and they'll find that they're they're perfectly fine.

Do it in the dividing. I'm going to I'm going it'll be it'll it'll be interesting.

Why is it that you could represent Limited Atonement to this audience in a fashion that I would not have even recognized after reading a book that has multiple chapters on the subject that said completely different what you did.

Well, you'd have to just you'd have to explain to me what I got wrong.

Oh, that would take a whole lot more time than I've got.

Well, just you could just name one.

Uh, well, I I already did up above and we're out of time. So, thank you very much. If you have questions, please be getting them up to us. We're going to go now to closing statements, beginning with Mr. Hansen. Five minutes each.

All right. Well, this has been fun. Um, I have to say, uh, actually, M, um, Mr. Moderator, what was the topic of tonight's debate?

The God of Calvinism is morally reprehensible.

Okay. the god of Calvinism is morally reprehensible. I it wasn't this debate was literally about Calvinism and I knew he was going to go after Mormonism. So I just figured he's going to try and change the debate topic. So what I decided to do was just get a general Christian perspective which is that God is loving and actually have a coherent definition that is embraced by, you know, 97% of Christians who reject Calvinism. And then I thought I'd just present that because that's more than sufficient to reject Calvinism. And so that's what I do. Um for instance, let's just start with CS Lewis. He gives a wonderful quote on why he disagrees with Dr. White. He says, "God created things which had free will." This means creatures that can go right or wrong. Some people think that they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong. But I can't. If a thing has is free to do good, it's also free to be bad. And free is what made evil possible. Why then did God give them free will? Because free will made or though it made evil possible is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy. A world of automata of creatures that worked like machines could hardly be worth creating. Happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely voluntarily united to him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and woman on earth is mere milk and water. And for that they have got to be free. So I want to ask something to all of the Christians out there who are watching this. Is Dr. White talking about a different Jesus than you? Because he's talking about a Jesus who does not want to save everyone. He's talking about a Jesus who thinks that babies are odious and abominable. Okay. Often times the Latter-day Saint get the comment that uh you know we believe in a different Jesus. Well, why? Well, because I happen to believe that the three persons are one in nature rather than one in being, right? I I make an ontological error. But I want to ask you if what's a bigger deal? Is it a bigger deal to mistake ontology? Or is it a bigger mistake to say that Jesus doesn't love everyone and that Jesus wants some people to burn in hell forever and that he predestined them for that purpose? Think about which one of those is more morally significant because I would posit to you that Dr. White does not believe in the same Jesus that you do. And it's actually Good Friday today. And it's a shame that on such a beautiful day, a day when we celebrate the greatest sacrifice made for all mankind, that Dr. white would come up here and say that that sacrifice was not for all. In fact, some were predestined to burn in hell. So, I want to testify to you as a Latter-day Saint now about who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is our savior. He loves every single one of you. Dr. White does not believe you are children of God, but I do. Every one of you has an inherent worth, dignity, and destiny that you can choose to accept. Christ is reaching out his hand to all people. He invites you to take that hand so that he can take you upward into his loving relationship and everything will get better because of it. Love is the essence of his gospel. It is what can transform you. It transforms those around you. And it is all possible because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through whom is the only means by which we can attain salvation and not of our own works but through his grace. And I say that as a Latter-day Saint and I say it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Once again, I'm going to show you the respect to appeal to your minds and not to your hearts. I'm not going to try to tug at your heartstrings now and get get you to make emotional judgments. Jesus said in John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day." That's the biblical Jesus, not the nice, warm, cushy Jesus you were just given. We do have different Jesuses. Um, my Jesus was the same God of the Old Testament that destroyed the Amorites and the Canaanites. My Jesus brought the flood of Noah. My Jesus then gave himself on Calvar's tree for his people. And he did so to show love to unrepentant people who would eventually be brought into relationship with him. But they were rebel sinners. We do have different gods. No question about it. We do have different Jesuses. Mine's not the spirit brother Lucifer. Mine's not one God amongst many gods. But mine worked in perfect harmony with the father and with the spirit in bringing about the salvation of God's people. You have not heard answers this evening from Mr. Hansen on the subject of the relationship between father, son, and spirit in the perfection of that from 1 Timothy chapter 2 for example that he quoted three or four times, misqued it each time and probably can't give you a meaningful exesus of it even if you tried. That's what we've seen this evening. And by the way, I can provide the emails. There is no question of the fact that when I was asked about this debate, I said, "Okay, but we must address the fact that we both have a God we're representing." And my position is, if your God is an exalted man of another planet, does not have an eternal decree, created this world in which evil exists, and that evil has no purpose, has no meaning, he's just doing the best he can. That's the repres reprehensible God. I said that from the beginning. For Mr. Hansen to say otherwise is simply desperately dishonest. Just as his representation of my book was desperately dishonest as well. I'm just being honest with you. Okay? There is no question of this and he will not refute that. He can't because he knows better. So what was this debate supposed to be about? I'll be very blunt with you to say the reason I looked at this list of topics and it's that the God of Calvinism is morally reprehensible. That requires you to have a transcendent God who can be the foundation of an epistemology that makes morally reprehensible meaningful. And you just heard you know what his epistemology is? Our experience. Not God's law, not God's revelation. Our experience. Do you realize how different modern man interprets his experience than ancient man did and the way things are going with AI? Oh my goodness, 10 years from now, our experience could be completely different. That is an insufficient basis. We need to have the God of scripture. Before the mountains are brought forth, orever thou formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. That's the God of Psalm 90:2. And that's the God Joseph Smith repudiated. If you're trying to create a Mormonism that tries to avoid that, you're not a Mormon. Joseph Smith would never have accepted you. Just get honest about it. Become a something else. An ocelerite. H how about an ocelerite? Does ocelorite work? Yeah. But don't call yourself a Mormon. Joseph Smith repudiated Psalm 90:2 and that God is insufficient to even find a basis for identifying what is morally reprehensible. The fact that God could create this universe, bring about his own glory, redeem a people and use even that evil in that creation for his good and for the good of his people. Deal with what the scriptures said. deal with the early church that said that what Pilate did, what Herod did, what the Romans did, what the Jews did in the crucifixion of the only sinless person in human history happened as the result of the predestining action of God. Either reject Acts 4 or just quit playing that you're dealing with the Bible, but deal with what scripture says. God is big enough to answer those questions if you will allow him to speak in his word. Thank you for listening this evening. God bless all of you. Let's applaud both our speakers for being very gracious. We're going to go to questions, but uh please do do join me in thanking both of our speakers uh for being kind enough to come and speak for us this evening. We're going to take a few questions. Uh if you have any that haven't been handed in, I'm still going to be reviewing them. So, I'll try to take those. We're not going to be able to get to everything, but we're going to get to the best that we can. uh the first question or the format will be two minutes for the person to whom the question is addressed and then the other speaker will be given one minute uh for a response and we'll try to move through as many as we can. Our first question is for Mr. Hansen. Did your God send the flood that killed every man, woman, little girl, little boy, and baby on this planet other than those on the ark?

Um. Oops.

Yes. But I I would say that the I personally, this is my personal take is that uh the flood story I I'm a little agnostic as to its its historicity. um due to the fact that getting a 900-year-old man onto a boat smaller than a modern cruise ship with two of every land animal on Earth raises some some challenges. So, I'm I'm I'm a little uh agnostic as to uh the literal nature of that story.

My turn.

Yes.

Thank you. Um, Jesus was not agnostic about that story at all. And I say to you, if you're going to call yourself a Christian, you should view the Bible the way Jesus did. And if you don't view the Bible the way Jesus did, don't call yourself a Christian.

And so Noah is central to New Testament theology. And the only reason to question it is because you don't like what the Bible says about the wrath of God and his bringing punishment upon sinful men. Period. End of discussion.

Or science.

Oh, sorry. Okay.

that was a cheap shot and you should really reconsider doing that.

Question from for Dr. White. If individuals have no real choice in their salvation in Calvinism, how does this not result in either pride for those saved or hopelessness for the unsaved? How does it not lead to uh these bad fruits and make God a respector of persons?

Okay, let me do the respector of persons thing. Respector of persons would mean that God looks at someone and because of your social status, your genetics, something like that, um looks at your face and gives you more value. That's what respectctor of persons is. It doesn't mean that God does not have the right to choose to give his grace. Grace has to be free. Grace cannot be merited. Um and that's what bothers people is that what people want is they want to be able to demand that God gives everyone grace. That means it's not grace anymore. Okay? If it can be demanded, it's not grace. It has to be free on God's part for it to be grace. You can never come up with the idea of pride. Because if you understand if you were unconditionally elected, you could have been unconditionally not elected. It's not you. You're not better than anybody else. You're not greater than anybody else. Anything you have came from God's hand. It's the it's the greatest antidote to pride. When when you think that you by going through your temple ceremonies or all the rest of this stuff, you're proving your worthiness to God. That's the source of pride. When you recognize that that God saw you in your sin and he took out your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh and you couldn't do that yourself. When you recognize that God did that, it breaks you down. It's the antidote to to any kind of pride. It's the very essence of humility. And the reality is if you said, "Well, doesn't that mean hopelessness for somebody else?" The the non-elect don't want to submit to God. They love their sin. They love being the king of their life. They don't want to give that up. The heart of stone wants to stay a heart of stone. So, I just got to ask you, is that what the Bible teaches? That the heart of stone has to be made a heart of flesh. Who does that? Do you do that to yourself or does God do that?

So, uh, just real quick, what he said is this is the doctrine of total depravity. It's the idea that you can't choose God. God has to choose you. And he does so arbitrarily, not based on anything that you do. Okay? So, if you don't have uh if you're choosing just any person and there isn't any rhyme or reason to it or predictive nature, that's by definition arbitrary. And it goes against the Bible. The Bible literally says Joshua 24:15, "Choose ye this day whom you will serve." That wouldn't make any sense if you couldn't choose. Deuteronomy 3:19, "I have set before you life and death. Therefore, choose life." Does that sound like we have the ability to choose? It sure does. Why would he say that to someone who couldn't choose? Um, God commands men everywhere to repent. Acts 17:30. Why would you command people to repent but then not give them the ability to do so? That's the kind of capriccious, arbitrary, strange god that contradicts scripture that uh John Calvin and the Calvinists uh go about promoting.

Question for Mr. Hansen. Could you please be specific where you get your standard for defining love? uh love is that which uh brings people into a higher state of existence. Okay? So God has the highest state of existence and that which moves you towards that state of existence is loving and good and holy and all of that. And if you go in the opposite direction and you move things away from loving relationships that harmonize things together, uh then that breaks things down. So that acts as the basis of of loving relationship or or that acts as the the objective standard by which we can judge if something is loving or not. Does it move someone closer to harmonious relationships with each other and with God or does it move it away from that and that's it?

Uh the question asked give us specific standards nothing was given. you just simply well it's that which takes us into a higher rel where'd that come from guru wamashwami bwami I mean who knows that's what human religion does there's no divine element to it there's no revelational element to it it's not based upon god's revelation it's not get based it's not thus sayeth the lord it's not there it's just this is my feelings and this sounds good and and so there you go but the question was give us the standard no answer was given none Question for Dr. White. Uh, if there is nothing we can do to cooperate, okay.

Um, sorry, it's oddly worded.

People's handwriting can be very difficult to decide for a time.

Uh, is there I I think they meant to ask, is there nothing we can do to cooperate in salvation? What is the point of missionary work and trying to invite cooperation uh on coming to God?

Well, again, that's like asking, what did Lazarus have to do to cooperate with Jesus when he raised him from the dead? Can you imagine this picture, Lazarus, come forth? Um, I don't want to. I'm tired of those sisters, you know. Um, this was to demonstrate the glory of the son of God. When the son of God says come forth, guess what happens to Lazarus? He comes forth. Oh, but he needed free will. He was dead. Don't talk to me about his free will. He was dead. Even if he didn't want to see his sisters again, he's still coming forth. That's all there is to it. The guy had to die twice. That's a bummer. Okay, but there's the point. Why do we do missionary work? Because God calls us to be the instrument that he uses to bring his truth to other people. It's a great privilege. We are made more like Christ in that process. And so when you pass out tracks, when you go and witness to people, many of them will reject you. Remember what Paul said? I endure all things for what? The sake of the elect. He knew God has his elect. And even though he got stoned and he got imprisoned and he got driven out of out of this place and that, he kept going. Why? Because he knew he had been given a ministry by God to do so. And so he was glorifying God. He knew that he was a recipient of grace. He wanted to see other people be recipients of grace. And so he uses us in that way. All of this is explained in the book. every single reference that he's given tonight, every single one of them, sometimes entire chapters, and he's never once responded to what I said in the book on those passages. He just throws them out there as if we have just ignored them. We didn't ignore them at all.

I literally have the author of the book right here to explain what I got wrong, but he doesn't seem to want to do that. He just wants to go read the book, everybody. All right, so

I have not done that.

Here here's here's what's going on. So he wants to talk about this idea of you can't like you can't accept Jesus, right? Like of your own voluntary will. He has to come and basically take you like Lazarus against your will and sort of change you and then bring you out of that. Okay. But none of the early church thought of the gospel this way. The people that were the closest to the apostles, the people that were the closest to Jesus in time and you know amongst the teachings that were going on, they said things like this. Clement of Alexandria said, "But revolt is in our own power, just as obedience is in our own power. Wherefore voluntary actions are judged. What is involuntary is not a matter for judgment." He directly refutes Dr. White's theology and so do all the early church fathers. If you guys study them, all the earliest ones, it isn't until much later that they start to get towards these ideas. So just go read the church fathers and you'll see that his his his views don't represent the early church.

Question for Dr. Hansen. Do you

Mr. Hansen?

I'm sorry.

I don't have as many degrees as Dr. White.

It's getting late. Um last two questions. Uh Mr. Hansen, do you recognize that you are judging the Bible by a standard outside the Bible?

Yes. Because presuppositional apologetics are insane. The idea that you're going to say the Bible is true because the Bible says that it's true and the Bible is good because the Bible says that it's good. That is what's known as circular logic. Okay? And just so you know, God can reveal things to you. Those of you in this room who believe in the Bible, which I think all of us do, you believe in it not because the Bible says that it's true, but because you have had direct experiences with the Bible that have witnessed to you through the spirit of God that it is his word. In other words, the actual foundation of the epistemology behind the Bible is revelation from God to you. You directly experience God through the pages of the Bible. That's why you believe it. He's going to say, "That's nonsense. That's not possible and restrict God's ability to communicate to you directly. So reject that. Recognize that your revelation from God and direct experiences with God is why you believe in the Bible in the first place. He's going to tell you that you have to believe in the Bible just because the Bible says so. Because to do otherwise would be to judge the Bible by a standard outside of the Bible. It's utterly reprehensible to keep trying to shove words in my mouth and then misrepresent me. It's been happening all evening. I don't know if I've ever done a debate where it's happened more often than tonight. I'll just be honest with you. Okay. Um, if he knew anything about what we really believe and actually read our materials, he would know. In fact, the specific catechism question we're working on in apology of church in Mesa specifically states that we know the Bible is word of God because of the heavenliness of its doctrine and because the consistency of its teaching, but that we'll never believe that unless the spirit of God makes us willing to believe these things. It's part of our theology. He's ignorant of our theology. He hates it. But he strawmans it constantly. And then knowing that I'm going to demonstrate that, he tells you, "He's going to say, he's going to say, he's going to say." I hope you've caught that this evening. It is a grossly invalid form of argumentation, and it's reprehensible to people who love truth.

Last question for Dr. White. Does God let children be raped for his glory? We've already pointed out terrible, horrible things have happened in the history of this world. The flood, um the invasion of the Holy Land, which was the result of judgment upon the people. The Bible specifically says that the destruction of man, woman, and child was due to the sin and judgment of God upon those people. You either have to reject that and I have a feeling someone in this room might reject that. You either have to reject it or believe it and believe that Jesus believed it because he did plainly. And so the issue is not do terrible things happen. The issue is do terrible things happen in a universe God created and God goes, "Oh no, I didn't see that coming. You mean God created all the mechanisms to bring about the Holocaust, but he didn't see it coming and there wasn't anything he could do about it, but we should glorify him as God anyway? Have you ever thought about that? The depth of why we can accept the sovereignty of God only comes when you recognize that his sovereignty is extensive over all things, which includes all the bad things, which means those bad things had a purpose. Oh, but we don't know what they are in this life. We do know this much. Ephesians chapter 1 tells us that in the end, all things are going to be to the praise of the glory of his grace. And if you want to have a God that isn't big enough to accomplish that, I leave that to you. If the spirit of God is working in your life tonight, you want a God that can answer those big questions and can bring all this about to the praise of his glorious grace. That's the God of scripture, not the God of Joseph Smith. A God who wills evil is not an allloving God. Okay. But I have some good news for you all. Okay. CS Lewis said, "And free will is what made evil possible." Why then did God give them free will because free will though it makes evil possible is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. Okay. So God is not the one who is responsible for the evil in the world ultimately. But if you go back to a Calvinist theology, you have the problem that all things, even evil acts, even child rape, even the Holocaust, were decreed and predestined by God as part of his his thing to glorify himself. But I'm sorry, the rape of children is not glorious and it does not glorify anyone. Okay? And if he could create a world without it, well, that would have been much more glorious. So I don't know what he means by glorious or love or free or any of this but I know that free will ultimately exists and because it exists it makes evil possible and it is not the fault of God. Once again we would like to thank you all for coming. A brief plug for our congregation. We believe that God is God and we are not. And that we don't get to judge God. He judges us. And by his standard it is not he who is morally repres reprehensible. It is us. And the glorious news is that Jesus Christ came to save the unworthy which is the only hope that we have. But please once again take an opportunity to thank our speakers. Thank you for having with us.