D'Souzian Levels Of Hubris Then Back To Dositheos

Well, greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. Sorry we got started, well, actually we're pretty close, aren't we?

Right around the right time. I will admit that I was responding to Dinesh D'Souza and I lost track of time. I don't follow him, so when Rich mentioned to me... So this is Rich's fault. That's how we do things around here.

That was predicted in the chat. Oh, it was predicted in the chat, good. Since Rich mentioned to me that Dinesh this morning admitted on Twitter, said on Twitter, announced on Twitter, that he had just read the Bible through for the first time.

Reading the Bible and the Need for Context

And, you know, I want to encourage everybody to do that. I remember the first time I did that in a programmatic way back in high school, you know, making sure you checked off all the boxes. I've told the story about why.

It was a Jack Chick track where Jack Chick asked you what would happen if you died and went to heaven and ran into Habakkuk on the streets of heaven. And he asked you, what did you think of my book? That's not necessarily the best reason to read the whole Bible, but it's not a bad reason, you know.

The only problem was that night I read Habakkuk. I had no idea what the background was, you know. I had no idea what was going on with Israel and, you know, covenant promise, nothing. But I read it and then it struck me, what if I run into Zephaniah?

So now what am I going to do? You know, so that's why I decided to do that. But I was a teenager, okay. And I, you know, I remember doing that. I remember which Bible I used. In fact, I think of the font in that Bible right now, and I realize I could not use that Bible, do that again in any way, shape, or form.

So anyways, Dinesh D'Souza announces that he read through the Bible. And I'm like, that's good? But it's truly amazing the things that he says in light of that. And someone commented on that, and in his response he said, all it took was one reading to take on your top guy.

Imagine how I'd fare with two readings. And that was in response to Thug Life Sproul, who had said, things we like, Dinesh just recently read the Bible for the first time. Things we don't like, people getting their theology from Dinesh who just recently read the Bible for the first time.

So I think he thinks Guillaume Pignon is the top guy, and he thinks he won. In fact, I've gotten that sense for a few things. This man's hubris knows no limits. It is astonishing. And so I was looking at this, and then Rich again, after having gotten me on that thing...

I blame myself. And he's blaming himself, and you know, this has been decades building up. I think pretty soon he's going to be getting counseling, after all this time of being blamed for everything. We do need to get his name badge remade, because we couldn't find it.

The first Alpha Omega Ministries name badge that Rich had was white and green. I remember the lettering was green, and the background was white. Oh, we've got a different memory of this. Now we're really going to have to find it.

White letters with green background. Okay, white letters with green background. I'm remembering the opposite of that. But anyways, it said Alpha Omega Ministries, and it had one word, slime. Back then, Rich just did whatever we asked Rich to do, and he wasn't in charge of anything at that point in time.

That changed over time. But anyways, all these years of abuse will catch up with him eventually, so he'll be in counseling pretty soon. But it was his fault again, because I'm sitting there eating a little lunch, and he goes, oh, look at this.

He also responded to you on Gnosco and Forenone. And so I'm like, oh, okay, all right, let's look it up. Let's see what he said. This was September 13th, so a couple days ago. I hadn't seen the response.

Because I had posted some information on the fact that D'Souza constantly misrepresents the Golden Chain. He had written a response to the Golden Chain. He says, see, this is all based on foreign knowledge.

God knows what's going to happen in the future. And that's not what the Golden Chain says. We've gone over it 10 ,000 times. The difference is, when we do it, I put it up on the screen, and we do it in the original language, which he can't read.

It's never going to take the time to learn. And has already come to his conclusions, and he doesn't care that he can't read that. It doesn't matter to him. It doesn't matter the reams, the volumes of things that have been written on Oida and Yeda and Gnosco and the Septuagint and all this stuff.

He doesn't care. He knows all. He doesn't need to worry about all that scholarship stuff. He's got Grok. Just ask Grok. And that's what he did. He says, well, yeah, he responded to you. He asked Grok.

All right, so I need to see this. So I go looking for it. I find it. Well, actually, I think Rich sent it to me. And all Grok said was, well, it's not used that many times. And a couple times it's just used of humans having knowledge.

So it can mean simply knowledge. Well, that doesn't even touch what I had posted to him. Because he can't read what I posted to him. He can't access scholarship to respond to any of that stuff. He doesn't even realize that the Armenians admit that the verbal form has a specific meaning to it.

And it's not just a passive taking in of knowledge. So he doesn't get any of that stuff. And so he quotes this from Grok. So I'm going to respond to it. And as I was looking, I was getting some text to put into it.

Grok made a comment about Amos 3 .2. And I had asked to just grab it real quick. Because sadly, the 111 negative, in my opinion, on Accordance. I love Accordance. I use it all the time. But searching for stuff in Accordance, it's a lot faster in Grok.

It really, really is. And then you jump over to Accordance, and then you can get everything. But the search function has always gone. Why is it so persnickety? But anyway, so he gives me the text. Grok gives me the text.

And then he comments about the meaning of to know in this text is a covenantal meaning of God's choice of Israel. The very thing that I had said in what I posted. And that is, it's the choice to enter into relationship with when Adam knew Eve, she conceived and bore a son.

So knowing is not simply having data. And none of that would be relevant if D'Souza even had a clue how to do exegesis. He doesn't care. He wants to pretend to do it. But he doesn't want to have to learn to do it.

It's astonishing, again, why people do things like this. But there's Grok contradicting exactly what it is and confirming what I had said. Okay, fine, whatever. And so I had just written that. And that's why I was losing track of time here.

I had just written that, got that post, you can find it on X. When I run into another text from D'Souza. And let me see if I even kept it up here. Oh, drat. Let me see if this is home. Where's my stuff?

Notifications? Is that where it is? Mentions? Oh, drat. I responded to him, and I'm trying to find where I can get my responses. The pro .x .com thing isn't up here, and that's where I can find it. What he did, let me see if I can pop it up like this.

Come on, please do it for me. Yes! Ta-da! The font's way too small, but it's there. That's the important part. Here's what D'Souza wrote. See, I shouldn't be looking at X before I start the program. But I was going to talk about some of this stuff anyways.

I think tomorrow I'll be talking about this with Chris Arntzen on Iron Sharpens Iron. And then Eli Ayala was going to have me on, and he got all sick. Like, really, really sick. And we're supposed to reschedule that.

And I'm not sure when we're supposed to reschedule it. In fact, I hope. Did he ask me about that? Eli, I don't know. Right now I don't have you on the calendar. So, yeah, let's do it. We were going to talk about it, too.

D'Souza's Mockery of Particular Redemption and the Covenant of Redemption

Anyway, here's what D'Souza said. Father, forgive them as they know not what they do. Jesus, you know better. They're not in my book. I thought you thought wrong. I sent you to die only for those I chose to save.

Whoa! We should have talked about this before. Monty Python skit? No. Calvinism. I just read you the whole thing. Has this man read a single book? He, a few weeks ago, had not even read the introductory text by R .C. Sproul.

Has he read The Death of Death and The Death of Christ? Could he even interact with it on a meaningful level? No. He lacks the capacity to do so. Totally. Not just exegetically, but just simply having a serious mind.

Does he care? Has he looked at any of that material? No. Of course not. But he's writing Monty Python skits, mockingly suggesting a distinction and a contradiction between the Father and the Son. Whoa!

We should have talked about this before. Does he even know about the eternal covenant of redemption? Probably not. Probably not. No earthly idea. And to mock it? His hubris is off the charts. Absolutely off the charts.

And I'm telling you, any sane Arminian agrees. The Arminians are probably going, Oh, please stop. Please, you are really making us look bad here. Because a meaningful synergist reads this stuff and tries to interact with it.

He doesn't. He just mocks. And so I'll tell you what I wrote. I'll read it for you. Oh, there's Grok. There's his thing there. And my response. Yay, good. I was straightforward. This is why we almost didn't get started on time.

You will answer for your willful slander against divine truth, sir. You have been corrected. You have been shown the truth. Your behavior and hubris is astonishing. And I bet you don't even know this is a major textual variant either.

Father, forgive them if they don't know what they do. It is a major textual variant. We've covered it in this program. We've done entire dividing lines on that textual variant. Which I doubt he even knows exists.

I said, and I don't believe you would have the ability to analyze the data on the variant even if you knew it was there. Truly, sir, your arrogance has reached new heights. In this instance, you blasphemously joke about contradiction in the Godhead itself.

Your position does inherently introduce that problem since your theology of atonement, as decrepit as it has been so far, cannot explain how the Father, Son, and Spirit are working in harmony to bring about their covenantal purpose.

But it is right here you joke, mock, when you are treading on holy ground. I wish there was someone in your life to warn you off, to stop you from this insane and rash type of behavior. But I have asked you half a dozen times if you are in obedience to Hebrews 13, 17.

You know, obeying those who have the leadership over you. You know, elders in a church. And you remain silent. There is a reason for that. And there is. There is. He will not answer that question. Well, I'm a public figure.

I don't care. I don't care at all that you're a public figure. I'm not asking for the address or the telephone number. I'm asking you a question that any Christian man should answer gladly and quickly.

Do you submit to eldership? What do they believe? What's their confession of faith? He won't do it because that hems him in. Now he has to answer questions. And as it's become painfully obvious in the discussion he did with Guillaume Bignon, he wants to be the one lobbing all the firebombs.

He doesn't want to have to answer anything. So that's what this is about. That's why he won't answer that question. I'm getting the very distinct feeling I don't think he is under eldership. I think he's the Lone Ranger.

Out there doing his thing. I mean, the only thing that Grok or Claude or any of these AIs have been able to find is some association with the Calvary Chapel at some point like 15 years ago. And Calvary Chapel, most Calvary Chapels don't even have a membership or anything like that at all.

Let alone church discipline. So, there you go. So, I warned him the first time I wrote to him. What he's doing now is... The other one, and I didn't find it, but the other thing that he said, this was actually what started all of this in my thinking, is he said today that he's looking at the original Reformed sources now and boy are they a mess.

So, he comes to his conclusions without doing any homework. And now he's going to substantiate those conclusions by digging through and finding little snippets that he can quote. Oh, this is a mess. I'm sorry, Dinesh D'Souza can't even understand Francis Turidan.

Let alone even begin to interact with Francis Turidan. He's never read him. He never will. He does not have the background. And from what I'm seeing, he would never even invest himself to get the background.

And yet, how many people are just cheering him on out there? Oh, this is great, boy. This is wonderful. And it's like, Calvinist-Rangeman syndrome. It is everywhere. I wonder if they have an mRNA vaccine for that.

Maybe some of those people would take it. I don't know. Anyway, there's a lot to be learned from this. There is a lot to be learned from this. Here's why I have been as focused on this as I have been.

This man is the, to my matter, he's the anti-matter. He is my exact opposite. Because what did I do as a 19-year-old, freshly married, in college, when I encountered Elders Reed and Reese? Did I just simply read a book on Mormonism from a Christian perspective and go, well, that's that.

And then start mocking them? No. I did read every Christian book I could on Mormonism. I did. And then what did I do? Don't know why. It's not because I was somehow smarter than everybody else. But I absolutely recognize that I had, I had to read the Mormons.

I had to read their sources. And I had to read them fairly. And I had to read them accurately. That's why I can walk into my office right now and I can pull down Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jesus the Christ, Articles of Faith, Marvelous Work and a Wonder.

Marvelous Work and a Wonder, I have to hold it carefully because the spine is broken. The pages will fall out. And you will find yellow marker all over that book with notes in the column. And so, I read Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie.

I read Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I read Articles of Faith. And I learned Mormonism from the Mormon leadership. The very thing Dinesh D'Souza mocks, will not do, refuses to do. And when I started dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, guess what?

Yeah, I did the same thing. Huge library of Ouachita resources. I have one of the best Muslim libraries around in the other room. Roman Catholicism, bookcase is full. So, he is the negation of me. He calls himself a Christian apologist.

My goodness, what a slander on our profession to behave in this fashion. To be so willing to make statements. And here we are. What are we going to get to later in the program? I hope, back to the Confession of Dosithius.

The LDS Challenge on Evil, Babies, and the Nature of God

Why? Because we're dealing with Eastern Orthodoxy. And so, what's the Confession of Dosithius? It is a dogmatically binding document from the Eastern Orthodox perspective. And so, we spend time actually reading it and interacting with it.

The very things Dinesh D'Souza mocks by his behavior. That's why I've responded as strongly as I have. Because here's a guy, big platform, millions of followers, calls himself a Christian apologist, and mocks the work of Christian apologetics by his hubris.

And boy, guess what? He's got a book coming out. Well, let me tell you something, folks. There are a hundred books on that topic. And I'd suggest any one of them before wasting your money on this. Because if he's approached this in the same way that he's approached his attack on Reformed theology, it ain't going to be worth the paper it's printed on.

If that's what he did. So, there you go. So, yeah. Amazing. Amazing. All right. I did want to mention this. Aidan Carroll, the LDS apologist here locally, There had been a... Let's see where... Here it is.

Aidan Carroll had said, I'm pro-life. If every baby is deserving of life, why does your Calvinistic God kill babies and command babies to be killed in your scripture? Now, I just stopped for just a second.

What about your scripture? I thought the Bible was one of the four standard works? I'm starting to wonder here. And are you telling me that in all those battles and wars with the Nephites and Lamanites, that we can never find any evidence of, but with swords and stuff that they didn't have, but let's not worry about that right now.

There weren't any people killed in those things? Any babies killed? Nothing like that? Hmm. Strange. Why does your Calvinistic God predestine some of these babies to go to hell? In what sense is your God good and just?

And I had responded, your exalted man has no way of stopping purposeless evil like abortion. Yahweh says he does all things well and will do justice. He had a purpose in creating as he did. Your exalted man created nothing and hence is unworthy of even being included in the discussion.

And I stand by that. The LDS God has no place in theodicy. Because he's not truly a God. He's an exalted man from another planet. But he's not the ground of being of all things. He does not define morality.

He's an exalted man from another planet. And he was subject to external forces and we have to know where those external forces came from. So he's not even a part of the discussion. He's not a part of Christian theism.

So a thoughtful saint had responded to that and had presented P1. So Proposition 1, this is a logical syllogism. Jesus is God. P2, Jesus is an exalted man. Therefore, God is an exalted man. So this is silly.

So I decided to respond to it with a joke. I mean, it seems so simplistic. It avoids all the key issues. So I decided to be funny and use words instead of a meme. And that was where the problem was. I said, there is one God.

P1, there is one God. P2, the Son entered into the flesh as a true man. P3, the Father exalted the Son due to the Son's obedience. P4, polytheism is still absurd. Now, that's meant to be funny because it's not actually a syllogism.

It's not the conclusion. I'm just simply pointing out. Anybody can throw these things on a screen. Polytheism is still absurd. And so Hayden, so a thoughtful saint was like, do you know how syllogism works, son?

I was teaching Christian philosophy of religion which included a section on symbolic logic while you were in diapers. Yes, I know how it works. It's called a joke. And evidently for people like you, you need to have pictures rather than words to get the joke across.

Okay. So, then Hayden Carroll says, lol, I'm dead, James, maybe it's time to retire? It really is getting to the point with the younger generation. If it ain't in a meme, they just don't get it. If you try to communicate something funny with words, too long, didn't read.

It's just like, put it in pictures for us. I wonder how they're going to translate the great works of Western culture into picture books. I guess that's what's coming. Grok will do it, I'm sure, in some way, shape or form.

Yeah, so you guys don't understand jokes, but that's okay. It's a good thing. Yeah, so here was, are you in obedience to Hebrews 13, 17? And then I said, I note the silence in response to this question.

This isn't prying. It is silly to discuss theology with someone who claims fidelity to the scriptures, but does so as a lone ranger in opposition to passages such as this. So tell us, Dinesh, yes or no?

Let me look at this here. There's Hebrews 13, 17, and no response. Nope, no response at all. You know he's seen it, because he does respond to me regularly. You know he's seen it, but he will not reply to it.

So there you go. All right. Took up half the program with all that, but when you're, I literally was running to get in here in time, because I had just posted that stuff to D'Souza. And so it's the first thing on my mind.

Sorry. It's just astonishing to me what people will do in a public forum when they don't have a clue what they're talking about. Not a clue. Astonishing. All right. So let's get this back up there. Where did it go?

There it is. I've got to remember, I cannot make this go full screen, because it will go to two pages. There we go. Oh, look. Huh. This one I put stuff in. Well, I think it's the same one. I just haven't done the same thing.

All right. I think, oh, look here. Yeah. I think we started, I think we did start looking at this, this section of the third chapter. Yeah, but I don't think we got down to this. So I do think we need to look at this and take it in its context.

The Confession of Dosithius and Eastern Orthodox Responses to Reformed Theology

So for everyone who is wondering where in the world we just went, we're leaving the silliness of Dinesh D'Souza, and we're getting back into the Confession of the Scythias. The reason being, oh, I left someone's, we left someone's book back there that needs to be signed.

It's getting to be in the background. The reason being that this is the primary document that comes out of the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672, which is written in response to Cyril Lucaris, who was a Reformed or Calvinistic Patriarch of Constantinople.

And this is very embarrassing. He was the head of the Orthodox Church, but he was Reformed. The standard response today of this is, well, they actually tried for a while. No, he didn't ever teach that stuff.

He did. It's very clear. It's very obvious. They wouldn't have had to have had this Synod in 1672 if he had not. They wouldn't have had to have written all this stuff if he had not. Well, the Calvinists made it all up.

I bet you that's a conspiracy theory that Dinesh D'Souza would buy. But reality is, he did teach these things. They did respond to it in this. And that this is a, as far as you can have a dogmatically binding document for Eastern Orthodox, this is a dogmatically binding document.

And it is specifically aimed at Calvinists. It mentions Calvin's name directly in the text. And so, since we have a debate coming up, one month, I think, from, one month and two days from now, one month and two days from now, Craig Trulia and I will be debating Veneration of Icons, based on Nicaea 2, 787.

We'll have a debate in March with Dr. Stephen DeYoung on atonement issues. That one's going to be a little bit different because at least Nicaea 2 is a supposedly ecumenical council. I will argue that it is not ecumenical.

There is good evidence that Dr. Price presents in his work on the subject that it was not an ecumenical council. And the letters from the Eastern Patriarchs, highly questionable. But it has been accepted in that way and so it is functioning in that way for the Eastern Orthodox Church.

So, that's more dogmatic. This has been accepted by the autocephalous churches and so it's there. And it's specifically talking about the relationship between the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, at least Reformed Protestants.

What we've seen already, and looking through it, we went through Cyril Licaris' Confession, found it to be very thoroughly Reformed, but what we're seeing is a very synergistic, anti-Reformed soteriology that fits very nicely.

I mean, I'm obviously giving them hints here. I'm giving the provisionists hints here. You can argue that this has been believed at least since 1672. Now, the reality is, there isn't just one stream of tradition within Eastern Orthodoxy.

I've mentioned to you there are Orthodox who have, I think, strongly Biblical views of atonement, very different than Stephen DeYoung, who I'll be debating next year. That'll come out at that time. We'll discuss that more as we get closer to that one.

But there are different streams of tradition and there have been well-known names in the history of Orthodoxy who have held what I would consider to be Biblically accurate views of atonement and things like that.

I might disagree on other issues, but atonement issues, imputation of righteousness issues, the important key stuff, you can find Orthodox writers in the past who have had very Biblical understandings of these things.

And that's what makes the dialogue with Orthodoxy, I think, more complicated and more difficult than that which you have with Roman Catholicism, even though today Catholicism has become so... What? Broad?

I'm not sure that's the proper term. Diluted? Not de-luded, diluted. Different word. That you can find almost anything within Roman Catholicism today as well. It's a challenge. Anyway! So that's why we're looking at this.

And hopefully it's been useful to some folks, anyways. But we've explained, this is how we prepare for debates, this is how we do this kind of stuff, trying to provide this kind of information to the next generation, years down the road.

It doesn't get us the clicks and the funds that we might get if we... If I just did Radio Free Geneva every episode right now in response to Dinesh D'Souza, we'd probably have larger audiences. But that's not how we do things.

So we still need your support, even when we're doing things like this. Hopefully the people who support us recognize, yeah, you did that with Islam, you did that with Roman Catholicism, you've done that with Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, so on and so forth.

You've been doing it for years and years and years. And yes, you know that people have gone back and used that information. I cannot tell you how many times people will come up to me at church or when I'm traveling around speaking, and they'll say, man, the debate you did 20 years ago was what really helped me answer this question and this person in my family kept me from going into one of these groups or something like that.

So that's the thinking here too, is if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. If we're going to do this, we're going to do it on a solid foundation. Funny thing is, I have so far, now I don't follow a bunch of ortho bros around, and I've probably already blocked a bunch of the more vile ones.

And I have run into some vile ortho bros, and vile all sorts of other bros on X. Anyway, I have not seen anybody try to respond to what we're talking about when we talk about the Confession of Lysitheus.

In fact, there is one Orthodox guy who sent me this quote from Callistus Ware about Cyril Licaris, and I wrote back like, yeah, so I'm taking, I guess you haven't been following the hours we've been spending on the Confession of Lysitheus on my webcast.

And he takes a look at it, and he's like, oh, well, thank you. Okay, that's good. So it's like, oh, a critic who's not just blasting away, but is actually taking the time to read the whole stinkin' thing.

Yeah, that's how we're doing it. All right, so, but to say, as the most wicked heretics do, and as is contained in the chapter of Cyril's Confession, that's in brackets, so the chapter to which this answers.

So it's talking about the Confession of Cyril Licaris, which we went over a couple weeks ago. But to say, as the most wicked heretics do. Now, this is something that Gavin Ortland has brought up more than once in his dialogues with various Orthodox individuals.

And that is, this is the language that is used in a dogmatically accepted source for Protestants. Specifically Reformed Protestants, but for Protestants. Most wicked heretics. Most Orthodox will not confess that a Protestant can be a Christian.

We played the section where Gavin was having a dialogue with an Eastern Orthodox fellow. And he was sort of doing the dance around the question, but then he came out and said, but if you believe the stuff that John Calvin believed, I can't even begin to imagine how you could be considered a Christian.

So he was, most wicked heretics, most wicked heretics. So that God, in predestinating or condemning, so predestination unto life, are they talking about predestination unto death? Because that would be like equal ultimacy, which I would reject, the idea that they're just mirror images of one another.

It takes grace to predestinate unto life because they were fallen in Adam. And Orthodoxy, modern Orthodoxy has a weak concept of union with Adam and federal headship and original sin and those issues.

Their anthropology has some real issues, too. But that God, in predestinating or condemning, did not consider in any way the works of those predestinated or condemned. We know to be profane and impious.

Well, that's not the position of Calvinists. Unless what they're saying is that the very existence of the decree of God before anything happens in time simply can't exist. Maybe it touches, and I don't think that they were getting into this, but maybe it touches on some of the issues of infralapsarianism and superlapsarianism and how those two categories don't really exhaustively define the discussion of how God sees humanity in Adam before the Fall or after the Fall, so supra-infra, that's what those terms are referring to, is treating humanity, the lapse, the Fall.

These are challenging questions. Condemnation is always just because it's in Adam. But I'm not sure if this is actually just simply saying, because the next sentence would seem to indicate they're not talking about this high level of speculation and it is in many ways speculation because we are only given a few passages.

Make from the same lump vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. That's probably one of the closest texts we're going to come to to deal with that kind of a topic. I don't think that's what they're talking about.

That may have been behind what Cyril Lucaris was talking about. I don't think that's what they're talking about. They would have to have read more of the Reformers than I think they actually did to come to that point.

But predestination unto life is completely separate from any of the acts of those who are predestined outside of their sin. So the needed grace to bring about the redemption of those who are going to be given eternal life certainly envisions them as needing that grace.

And the point, of course, that Cyril Lucaris is making, the Reformers are making, is that there's nothing in the creature that draws that predestinating grace. But condemnation is different. That's why I reject equal ultimacy.

It's not just, well, you've got two piles here and it's the same thing with each pile. No. You have to have grace, incarnation, atonement, redemption for the salvation of the one. You have justice for the condemnation of the others who love their sin and reject any kind of overture from God to flee from their sin.

And so the condemnation is based on justice. The predestination is based on grace. They're not absolutely parallel things. So, for thus Scripture would be opposed to itself since it promises the believer salvation through works, not the believer.

So you don't have, and I remember we did sort of run past this, we were sort of hurrying last time, how do they become a believer? So is faith the gift of God? Well, I don't see any discussion of that, but it promises the believer salvation through works yet supposes God to be its sole author.

Salvation's sole author? Okay, it's really common for Roman Catholics and Orthodox to say this, that God is the sole author of salvation. The Provisionists say the same thing. But what they mean by that, it's funny, they will object to our discussion of God not being the author of sin because of the use of means, but then they use the exact same distinctions here.

Say God is the author of salvation, but then man's involved with the means in this way. So they'll use it when it's on their side, but if it's not, then it's mocked and stuff like that. In fact, D'Souza was responding to Scott Christensen on X.

Scott Christensen's written an entire book on theodicy. God and the Question of Evil. And D'Souza thinks he can, I'm sure he's not even read the book, but he'll still argue with the author. By his sole illuminating grace, which he bestows without preceding works to show to man the truth of divine things and to teach him how he may cooperate with it, if he will, and to do what is good and acceptable and so obtain salvation, he does not take away the power to will to obey or not to obey him.

So here we have prevenient grace. We have illuminating grace, whatever that is. There is no effort to provide a biblical foundation for this, which he bestows without preceding works. So, again, this is, I really, I've not taken the time to study Wesley and what his sources were, but man, reading this, I just go, I get the feeling there is a connection here in some way, shape, or form, because this whole discussion of illuminating grace and what comes from what and to show to man the truth of divine things, how do you do that when someone is spiritually dead without bringing them to spiritual life?

How does that even work? But the idea is, yes, this special illuminating grace can reveal to the spiritually dead sinner these truths so they can then be freed enough in their will to make the right decision.

You won't find any of that in scripture, but that's the philosophical stuff. And to teach him how he may cooperate with it, there is synergism. Cooperate with the illuminating grace. Do all men receive the same illuminating grace?

Did the Amorite high priest receive illuminating grace? Remember that kid, what was it, about two years ago now? I guess there's that island, is it in the South Pacific, I think? Indonesia somewhere? Where these headhunters, basically, and no one is allowed to go on that island, because they will kill you.

They will kill anyone who steps on their island. And this Christian kid wanted to reach these people for Jesus. And so he takes a kayak out there, and they kill him. Right on the beach. Are you going to tell me that those people who have been there for generation after generation after generation after generation, have received the same illuminating grace that you receive living in the United States of America?

Bibles everywhere. Gospel being preached on radio, TV, on the internet. Everywhere. Same illuminating grace, right? Right? No prophets, no scripture in their language, same illuminating grace. If you want to believe it, I can't stop you, but it's really silly.

It really is. And to teach him how to be a cooperator, if he will, it's got to be your will. Let's not worry about John 6. Let's not worry about Romans 8. And to do what is good and acceptable, and so obtain salvation.