The Dividing Line is going LIVE!

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:39]I Well, greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line road trip edition. I'm looking out the window here at the I think they're called the Sandia Mountains, I think. So, here in Albuquerque.

[00:00:51]And um for you video purists, the uh the color balances are going to be changing uh throughout the program because I'm looking out the back windows of our unit here and the sun is setting, but the sun's back there thankfully. Uh or I'd be frying in here. Um and uh it will continue setting. And right now I'm just getting reflection off of a fifth wheel parked across the way here. And already the shadow of my unit is starting to climb up on that. So everything's going to be changing uh during the course of the program. And if we go long there won't be any sun out here anyways. And I'll just be watching people driving by and people walking their dogs and waving at people and stuff like that. That's life in an RV park. Um is sort of what that what that is. So, we're coming to you from Albuquerque on our way to Leach, uh, Texas. Uh, we'll be there this weekend.

[00:01:50]We've got details at aomin.org, even though I don't think we have the times.

[00:01:56]I don't even know what the times are.

[00:01:57]I'll find out when I get there. Uh, basically, and then next week, we will be in Los Cusus on Tuesday evening.

[00:02:06]And again, these were we just put this stuff together fairly quickly. um didn't have a lot of uh uh you know um time to be planning other stuff. It's a short trip. Basically checking out the unit after the work that we um u had done on it. Make sure everything's good for the rather longer trip in July, August up into the Colorado mountains.

[00:02:34]Uh basically so um yeah, so far everything is working perfectly. No issues, no problems. Um, all my new pictures stayed. Russ BL, I hope Russ can see uh what he sent us. This is a wooden thing. Says uh it's got the Alpha Omega Ministry logo. Says mobile command center. And um you can't um you can see that one. You you see right here? Yeah, I I could I could bring the other one up here. Uh at least I thought I could.

[00:03:08]Where did the Huh?

[00:03:11]I have that camera plugged in and it's nowhere.

[00:03:18]Ah, that's interesting. It was working earlier and uh it's on and plugged in and Rich clearly did something to it.

[00:03:28]I'm going to blame Rich because Rich is playing around with stuff. I was going to show you the camera, but it's no longer working. It worked 45 minutes ago, but no longer working now. Anyways, uh this is uh a new picture I put up.

[00:03:41]That's the picture from uh 2013 at the um uh mosque in Arasmia, South Africa.

[00:03:48]I'm debating Shabir Ali. That was an amazing evening. And those um um those videos uh are online, so use them while you can. Uh-oh. What just happened there?

[00:04:06]No playing around. Stop playing around.

[00:04:08]Whatever you're doing. Um there. All right. Um that's available online. That's one of my favorite debates. Uh I think it was one of the most important debates we ever did, actually. Uh right there. So, too much stuff to get to here. Uh a lot a lot a lot a lot.

[00:04:26]Uh, I'll go ahead with this because I know that it looks like um Peter's Bark is uh listening.

[00:04:36]Um, I posted I reposted uh I guess would be the way to put it. I reposted a chart.

[00:04:47]Let's um Yeah. Okay. Here it is.

[00:04:54]And it's probably too small, but it says practice doctrine here. Church circa 200 AD. Rome circa 1563 AD, which by the way is right at the end of the Council of Trent. Protestant circa 1563 AD. So, um, you know, right at the end of Calvin's life and, uh, you know, Luther's gone and you're starting at the second generation of the reformers.

[00:05:23]And man, this thing just created such a stink.

[00:05:27]But what it demonstrates is the um let me see if that works. Yeah. Okay. What it uh demonstrates is the constant we're the early church, you were invented 1500 years later stuff is just so blatantly dishonest and anacronistic as honestly all Roman Catholic history is by definition. When Rome claims to have the ability to tell its followers this is what has always been believed, don't look at history. Don't don't don't try to verify us. Believe what we tell you.

[00:06:10]They're forced into constant anacronism.

[00:06:13]And we'll see that a number of times.

[00:06:15]And so, you know, I posted this and I I invited people who are, oh, it's just a bunch of lies. Which one? So, for example, papal supremacy over all churches. The church in AD 200, of course not. Um, Rome in 1563, yes.

[00:06:33]Protestants 1563, no. So it's it's accurate. And so people respond, well, but you know, uh, Irenaeus said this, that's what we're going to look at. Has nothing to do with the idea of papal supremacy over all churches. There's nothing about a pope.

[00:06:49]The the ability of Roman Catholics to look at history in the light of what they've been taught to find. There should be something to warn all of us.

[00:07:02]We should all be like, "Wow, this is something we want to avoid doing." Uh, transubstantiation, of course not. I would not have put it this way. Christ reoffered in the Eucharist. It would be Christ represented.

[00:07:15]If you want to use the specific terminology of uh Trent, uh, prayers to saints, the rosary, Mary is mediatrics.

[00:07:23]I didn't the Pope just say shouldn't be using that term anyway. Anyway, purgatory is formal doctrine, indulgences, veneration of icons. Could be debating that one. Um, Apocrypha officially treated a scripture. Again, that's 1545.

[00:07:40]Um, etc., etc. So, it almost everybody who responded to it just threw dust in the air and and it was like no, no, but they couldn't interact with it. So, one guy um who uh did interact with it posted a a text and um this was and I had I had it in Evernote here. Let me find it again.

[00:08:12]Yeah. Um Peter's bark.

[00:08:16]Um let me see if I can uh bring this one up again.

[00:08:21]Um, yeah. Well, it has a little something at the bottom, but you'll you'll be able to read it here. Anyways, here's here it is. Um, Peter Spark posted, quote, "With this church brackets in Rome, brackets, all the churches must agree." Irenaeus misspelled James, I make more and more people Catholic every time I debate white. Nuh-uh. Okay. So, so the guy's snarky and it does give me an opportunity. I have wanted to readress this. I've addressed it many, many times. Um, you know, when people use this, oh, you just you just make people Catholics. Um, first of all, when people say online, I challenge them, 99.5% of them either disappear or have nothing to say. When I challenge them, when I I'll throw, you know, 10 things out. Oh, was it was it Anorius being condemned by every person that took the chair of Peter for 400 years as a heretic? Is that what converted you to papal infallibility? Something like that, you know, um incapable of providing res. I'm not going to debate you. But the vast majority just disappear because they're bots. They don't actually exist. So, it's it, you know, the Mormons do it and uh the Roman Catholics do it and it's such a childish thing. It just it does demonstrate the maturity level online is extremely low because no serious person would take that kind of argumentation seriously. Um especially when the person can't back it up. But um I will say something. I do want to say something before I get to this quote. Um in fact I'll reread it. Um, I am sure there are people who have joined the Roman Catholic Church after watching one of my debates. And that's exactly what our theology would say will take place.

[00:10:18]Why? Because if they're a false believer in the first place, if they're making a false profession of faith, then exposing them to false religion may well tickle their flesh.

[00:10:31]um when you expose you know like with Mormonism I remember one of the first objections that was raised to us ministering to Mormons was you don't want to get people confused people might end up joining the Mormon church and and you think about okay so Christ sheep hear Christ's voice but they can end up what um you know there was no concept of election at that particular church really in any serious fashion um But the reality is that lost people change religions all the time.

[00:11:08]And so it is not at all surprising to me that false professors would make a new profession of faith and move from one religion to another. And I may have had something to do with introducing them to their new religion.

[00:11:24]Not surprising at all. My theology says it'll happen.

[00:11:28]any kind of, you know, I'm I'm sure that when Paul went um and we we know this, we know this happened. When Paul went preaching Jesus as the Messiah, what happened to unregenerate Jews?

[00:11:42]They not only opposed him, they they actually made a vow to not eat until they killed him. They became zealots, far more zealous with the traditions of the fathers than they had ever been before. Why? because they're exposed to the truth. And if you're unregenerate, you're going to you're going to respond to the truth. You're going to respond negatively.

[00:12:04]And some of that negative response may be very religious in nature.

[00:12:09]It just is false religion. So think through these things when you hear them.

[00:12:14]You know, they're they're meant to have emotional impact and stuff like that. Um there's nothing I can do for emotional people. I if if you don't know the difference between feeling something and thinking about something, I'm not going to be able to be of any assistance to you at all. And I'm not really going to try um that I'm I'm a human adult and try to have human adult interaction with other human adults and that involves thinking uh rather than just emoting and feeling.

[00:12:46]So um so here's the quote with this this is how it's given with this church bracket in Rome bracket all of the churches must agree Irenaeus all right did now that was offered um as a rebuttal to the first statement about papal supremacy in all churches those are not the same things says nothing about a pope. He knows nothing about a pope at all. He knows nothing about a papacy, papal infallibility, none of that stuff. And Roman Catholic historians admit that.

[00:13:30]And the the funny thing here, and this is what you you I I need to communicate to you. If you want to deal with Roman Catholicism and you want to deal with these people online, you need to recognize that they experience schizophrenia today and it's forced upon them by their own leaders.

[00:13:50]Um, you get this kind of assertion. Oh, you bet. This you bet it was around AD 200. You bet. Yeah, this is the church of 2,000 years. We've always believed this stuff. That's the one kind.

[00:14:05]All right. Heard it all the time when John Paul II died. Oh man, for two weeks just on and on and on and on. The church of 2,000 years. LA.

[00:14:15]Okay, that's old time Roman Catholicism.

[00:14:20]Okay, that's what Rome used to teach all the time.

[00:14:24]Here's the problem. Um, Pope Leo I 14th elevated John Henry Cardinal Newman to the position of doctor of the church just a matter of weeks ago.

[00:14:35]and anybody and man I it's just amazing how many people he didn't invent it uh other people that talked about of course of course people did but not in the specific way that he did it so as to be able to I mean he was then forced to accept papal infallibility which he rejected which historically he recognized simply wasn't true his kind of development allows for you to call the pope infallible when anorius was condemned for 400 years.

[00:15:08]He introduced what made Vatican 2 possible. Now, would even he have lived with Vatican 2? I I don't know. I don't think he could have stomach that. But this was, you know, u not quite a century later and his development hypothesis developed. That's the problem.

[00:15:31]you you can you can start it walking down the road, but once you're dead, you can't do anything with that robot you just that monster you just created. And so you have when the confident this is the church of 2,000 years runs into the reality that but this isn't what the church believed 2,000 years ago. Um then all of a sudden you slap some Newman on it. Oh, it's development. It's uh it was there in seed form and then the Holy Spirit and apostolic tradition and all of a sudden it's no longer the church of 2,000 years ago but it is the church of 2,000 years ago but if we can't find 2,000 years ago it's because it was seed form but but but what we believe has been for 20 it is having your cake and eating it too.

[00:16:20]and most Roman Catholic academia is fully on with Newman now.

[00:16:29]Um, and recognize that when inabellis deus defined the act of conception and talked about the ancient faith, the church, that's just simply a lie. It's just not true.

[00:16:45]Um, but that's not the important part of the statement. You see, um, that that's how that's how you can have Roman Catholic apologists literally say, well, yeah, the council was infallible, but the arguments it used and and and even put into the the council documents, those all can be errant and they can we don't have to agree with all that. It's just a final thing you have to agree with. So, the arguments you use to get there can be all wrong, but it's still going to be the truth. It's just oh um anacronisms are us. Anyway, so back to Irenaeus. We need to get to Irenaeus here. Um, now what what you need to understand, let me get my uh the reason that Roman Catholics get away with the abuse of church history like Peter's Bark does, is he probably doesn't know church history very well himself.

[00:17:47]Um, he may have the Jurgens set if you're not familiar with what that is.

[00:17:51]That was really more popular back in my day when I was younger. Um, you know, it's a quote book. It's uh quotes ripped out of their context and and put together and uh, you know, you look this quote up and here's where you can find papacy and here's where you can find this and that kind of a thing.

[00:18:07]And so very few of these folks really understand, for example, Irenaeus's challenges in dealing withnosticism.

[00:18:20]And very few of them have ever read almost any of the Nagamadi library or the Apocryphan of John or um any of this kind of stuff and and probably couldn't explain to you um because it is very complex. it very very complex. Couldn't explain to you the difference between sort of pre-Christian expressions ofnosticism as it came out of the east. A very eclectic religion. It's sort of like one person describes a play-doh. When you roll play in the dirt, it just picks everything up along the way and becomes something else by the time you get done. um they probably couldn't explain the difference between that form ofnosticism, highly complex, um no connection to Christianity, just leaving a place open for Jesus. um and the form of nnosticism called Valentiniannosticism, which is what um the the biggest challenge that the church in Erenus's day had to deal with, is nasticism that was specifically targeting Christianity and trying to look like Christianity while fundamentally changing the very essence of the um of the faith itself.

[00:19:37]And so not being familiar with that then they are able to read Irenaeus's words in a completely different context than the context that he would have been saying those words in and hence fill his words with a completely different meaning. That's what happens here.

[00:19:57]Um the Gnostics when confronted with scripture attack uh the scriptures themselves saying that they are ambiguous and that they are insufficient. Oh, I've heard people saying that before. How many times have I heard even Roman Catholics saying you wouldn't be able to prove the trinity without the church? Oh well.

[00:20:19]Um, and so they claim a secret apostolic tradition that comes from the apostles. It's a well, some of it comes from the apostles and some of it just comes from sort of like a almost divine revelation to their own leaders. It depends on which group you were in. They sometimes advice each other. Anyway, um but they're denying scriptural sufficiency and they are claiming to have a special knowledge and Irenaeus has to try to find some mechanism to protect his flock and to respond to the claims of the Gnostics.

[00:21:01]And I can imagine, can you imagine what it was like back then? You have the Gnostics coming after your people right, left, and center. Meanwhile, you have Roman persecution flaring up here and flaring up there. Um, we think we've got it bad now. Uh, those first 300 15 years or so, wow. Um, well, okay, 300 years were pretty amazing. Uh, they really were.

[00:21:31]Try to try to give folks a little credit back then for surviving. I'm not sure how well most of us would have done.

[00:21:37]Anyway, so what's going on? Um the the the very chapter from which this quote comes from against heresies. Uh the chapter concludes it comes to this therefore that these men do not do now consent neither to scripture nor to tradition.

[00:22:01]And so it's very important I think even before getting the immediate context because you were given half a sentence. Now does Peter Spark know he gave half a sentence? I don't know. Has he ever read against heresies? Has he ever have a marked copy of it? Done any translating work from it? You know uh problem is uh we don't have the original language in which it was written. We only have a Latin translation of it and not an overly good Latin translation. And one of the issues is well there's a bunch of issues. This has been one of the most debated texts in Aronyaeus. Lots of scholarship on the subject. Peter Spark doesn't show any familiarity with any of it. Doesn't show familiarity with um with the translational issues. doesn't show familiarity with the debates that have taken place going back to the reformation. You know, has he ever read good Whitaker, Sammon, any of these guys? No. I I don't get any feeling that that he has at all. And I wouldn't expect that they would. This is just the kind of stuff that you get um and need to be aware. It's out there. It's been responded to a thousand times over, but our people don't spend almost any time thinking about it. And so tracking stuff down that's been written for hundreds and hundreds of years.

[00:23:32]Well, honestly, it's not that difficult to do anymore. You know, go ask Claude.

[00:23:37]Um Claude will pull it out for you uh pretty quickly, too, honestly. Anyway, um you need to you need to understand something here and this is very very very important. Um that's not what I wanted. I have too many things on my screen here. There it is. And this screen resolution is getting worse and worse as I get older and older. Um, Irenaeus believes in apostolic tradition.

[00:24:13]Yep, you heard it here.

[00:24:16]Of course, anyone who has read my published scholarly material knows that back in 95 96, no later than 97, there was a compilation of chapters that came out on solos scriptor and the longest I think the longest chapter and certainly the most in-depth historical chapter in the book was mine.

[00:24:45]And there's an entire section on guess what? Irenaeus and apostolic tradition.

[00:24:51]And I explain exactly what Irenaeus meant by apostolic tradition because he did believe in apostolic tradition. And people go see end of solos scriptorer right there. Well, if you want to remain ignorant, make a fool of yourself by not knowing what you're talking about. Um I can't stop you.

[00:25:12]But if if you'd like to get stopped before you make a fool of yourself, you might want to listen. Maybe read the chapter, you know, do do something like that.

[00:25:24]Do you want to know what Irenaeus believed apostolic tradition was?

[00:25:27]Because he he believed that without this tradition, you would not be able to understand scripture.

[00:25:33]Now, there are people today that say, see, unless you have the council of Nika, you can't really understand the Bible.

[00:25:41]Okay?

[00:25:43]Well, let's listen to what apostolic tradition was for Irinus.

[00:25:50]Okay. I think it's important that we understand. Oh, the sun's hitting it.

[00:25:57]Well, I don't know what that sound is.

[00:26:01]Sounds like a cow is dying outside, but there aren't any cows around here.

[00:26:05]Anyway, um I'm going to have to hide my eyes from this reflection of the sun for a little bit. Here is what Irenaeus defined as apostolic tradition. Ready?

[00:26:17]This is this is the big reputation of solos scriptor here.

[00:26:23]This is from the um shaft edited the ANF and fathers volume 1 pages 414 to 415.

[00:26:32]If you'd like to look look it up that's the easiest way to find it. That's available online CCL stuff like that.

[00:26:38]These have all declared to us that there is one God, creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets, and one Christ, the son of God. If anyone do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord.

[00:26:56]Nay more he despises Christ himself, the Lord. Yay, he despises the father also and stands self- condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation as is the case with all heretics.

[00:27:09]There it is. There's apostolic tradition.

[00:27:13]No popes, no transubstantiation, no purgatory, no marryan dogmas, none of that. What is it? Um, there's one God, creator of heaven and earth, and one Lord Jesus Christ, son of God.

[00:27:29]Um, is that extra biblical or subbiblical?

[00:27:36]Is that are those statements that ex that aren't found in scripture?

[00:27:44]I'll let you think about that one for a second. Uh, yeah, they're found in scripture. Everything that Irenaeus said was apostolic tradition is plainly witnessed in scripture itself.

[00:27:57]and completely defensible from scripture.

[00:28:01]So this isn't some external revelation.

[00:28:05]This isn't a denial of solos scriptor if you understand what solos scriptor is.

[00:28:09]And it's laughable to think that it is but you run into a lot of laughable stuff on the internet. So this is tradition for Irenaeus. One God, creator of heaven and earth, one Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's what the Bible says. And that's what Erena says you need to start with.

[00:28:29]If you start with a with polytheism, you'll never understand the what the Bible says. And I have to say that to Mormons every single day. How do you think they come up with the wild and wacky stuff they come up with? Because they're not starting where they need to start, with one God, creator of all things. And once you start at the wrong place with the Bible, and the Bible tells you where to start in the beginning, you know, God um it tells you where to start, but if you choose to start someplace else, you can't blame the Bible for being unclear.

[00:29:04]Um you're the one that's being unclear.

[00:29:06]There's the issue. So there's Irenaeus's tradition. All right? And so here is here is what is act was actually said.

[00:29:18]The Roberts Donaldson translation or rendering of it uh reads as follows.

[00:29:27]Uh for it is a matter of necessity that every church should agree with this church and it is referring to Rome on account of its preeminent authority portum principalitatum that is that is see that's where the sentence cuts off you know given Rome's long history of forged documents, the donation of Constantine, the pseudo Isidorian decreedles. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. The number of fraudulent fake statements from church fathers that have been used in defense of the papacy is legion. And every credentialed Roman Catholic historian admits it. Anybody who says otherwise is just simply an ignoramus of history.

[00:30:21]That's all there is to it.

[00:30:24]Whenever a Roman Catholic gives you a dot dot dot, you better go find the original. I've even had I've had a debate with a Roman Catholic attorney 20 years ago on the perpetual virginity of Mary. I think might have been the immaculate conception, but I think it was the perpetual virginity of Mary. He threw a fake Augustine quote at me. Now, did he know it was fake? I don't know.

[00:30:51]But the use of forgeries and altered quotations, long history of it, very long history of it. So you just have to you have to check check sources and sometimes that's hard to do. Um sometimes that's expensive to do, but it can be done. So here's what it actually says.

[00:31:14]That is the sentence continues.

[00:31:17]the faithful everywhere in as much as the apostolic tradition and what's that one God one Lord Jesus Christ the apostolic tradition has been preserved continuously by those faithful men who exist everywhere I I I can't find the papacy there because it's not there and nobody body, nobody with a cintilla of honesty can read this section and go, "Oh, yeah, there's the papacy." But why do Roman Catholics do it? Because they're told to look up Cognito.

[00:32:03]Talking about papal authority as has always been believed by the church from the beginning.

[00:32:09]Dogmatic authority.

[00:32:12]It's a lie. But you accept the dogmatic authority and you lie along with the dogmatic authority. So what was actually being said here is understandable to anybody who will read the paragraphs before and the paragraphs after.

[00:32:30]What's being said is that so many Christians resort to Rome, come to Rome.

[00:32:41]That the agreement that exists on the apostolic tradition that there's one God, one Lord Jesus Christ represents the faithful everywhere.

[00:32:53]And that because Rome is the center of the empire and what's the old saying?

[00:32:59]All roads lead to Rome. This is why the church at Rome developed the authority that it did. Not because of some theory of the bishop. In fact, it has been well stated that the authority of Rome early on is of the church, not the bishop that came later.

[00:33:20]And why did Rome have that authority? It was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest churches and supported many others. But the main thing was it had communication all across the empire by nature.

[00:33:35]People had to go to the capital.

[00:33:39]And so the Roman church had contact with the entire empire.

[00:33:47]And so Irenaeus's argument is this apostolic tradition, not the papacy.

[00:33:54]That's why Peter Spark, sir, you were wrong. You abused history. Now, you're doing what you were told to do. You're doing what your leaders do. I get it.

[00:34:04]You probably didn't know. But will you stop now?

[00:34:08]Will you go read it? Will you go read it for yourself and recognize what the real argument is? The real argument is the apostolic tradition of monotheism. God, the creator of all things. And if you know anything about Gnosticism, you know why that's so important.

[00:34:27]That apostolic tradition is testified to there in Rome and hence represents the faithful everywhere.

[00:34:41]Nothing about a papacy, nothing about the bishop of Rome. It's simply not there. It's been made up.

[00:34:49]It's been made up. This is how you abuse history. This is how Rome abuses history every single day.

[00:34:58]Has to by definition. Because see really when you think about it the when you look at how Aquinus for example defended the papacy and you see his reliance upon the pseudo Isidorian decreedles which were filled with fake forgeries that he didn't know and we'll be talking a little bit about that if we get to some pseudodinesis today. um he was not a crit critical thinker and he did not use sources critically. Nobody at the time did really. So the point is that that modern historioggraphy has wiped the foundations of the papacy out. But the papacy just stands there. It just hovers. The foundation gone. the foundation upon which it was built has been washed away, but there it is by tradition. Almost like tradition is a hovercraft that just keeps it floating there. Um, so when you see people quoting pristic sources online, um, do not be as um, was it Himemenz Kaizen? um who just before the Council of Trent ended up contradicting him said don't be like a raw scholar when you hear someone talking about the apocryphal books being canonical they need to be corrected by Drum. Um so people are like raw scholars they they see a quote it's like oh that that must mean that no not necessarily got to look into it. It's not that the material isn't there. The material is there if you want to just go look for it and find it.

[00:36:51]Okay. Um, man, I do have a lot of stuff here. Um, notifications and yeah. Okay.

[00:37:09]Yeah, I've got a King James thing. I I may hold that one off till later. Um it it's you know we've how many times can you beat that one to death and yet it does explain why these guys no matter how often we try to get these guys to debate. You know at least give that one fellow you know two years ago credit he was willing to debate. He lost extremely badly but he was at least willing to debate. Um but there was some more guys talking about my King James Bible corrects the Greek and the Hebrew and all the rest of that stuff. Then we had a guy named um Ojik Uzoma posts purgatory Israel. Purgatory Israel. Purgatory is real. Father Mark Beard explains it perfectly.

[00:37:57]And this is the type of guy I would love to get to debate because, you know, there he is in his long purple robes and marching around in front of people and and I I would I would love to get him to uh to debate.

[00:38:20]Um but do I want to Yeah. Let's see. Wow, it's already 7:38. How did I get there?

[00:38:29]I'm going to hold on to this one. I'm going to I'm going to hold on to it. I I I want to do some reading. Um so I'm going to do one other thing and then we'll we'll get get to that one. Uh maybe somebody can get me in touch with this guy. This Father Markbeard if anybody knows. It's on Tik Tok. Um amma.co.

[00:38:49]I'm not sure what that is, but it'd be interesting to see if he'd be willing to do something. Um, instead what I'm going to do looking at the time I I mean I've still got Jacob Hansen queued up and priesthood stuff and I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere near once again in church history. What do what do you want?

[00:39:10]Let me just talk about one thing here.

[00:39:12]Dale Partridge on May 10th posted, you want quote religious freedom end quote.

[00:39:22]I want to outlaw Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and every high thing that stands against Jesus Christ. We are not the same.

[00:39:31]Okay. Um here again is the Christless nationalism of this movement.

[00:39:41]And I again simply have to point out that once you do this, you have to ask question, who's doing it?

[00:39:52]And why are they doing it?

[00:39:54]Why why do you outlaw Islam? Well, in a Christian nation, okay, Christian nation, so that means you're establishing Jesus Christ and his word and his law as the law word of this nation, right?

[00:40:15]Well, yeah. Okay. So that would actually be going beyond how the nation was originally founded because um Jefferson and um and others would not have they certainly wouldn't have been as uh you know pain certainly was but um some of those founding fathers would not have used kingship terminology of Jesus things like that obviously while they would have been very respectful uh of his words and certainly the Supreme Court quotes from scripture for many many many decades after um the founding and stuff like that. Um but how do you deal with the reality and admitted reality of the fact that we're talking about a tiny minority in the United States that actually acknowledges the kingship of Jesus in their own lives?

[00:41:16]Well, you you go you go with that minority because I mean look at look at what the homosexuals have done with a small minority.

[00:41:23]>> Homosexuals, the small minority have perverted our culture, lied and deceived and used useful idiots. So that's what you want to do.

[00:41:33]That's how you establish Christ as king.

[00:41:36]The same way that homosexuals have used emotionalism and lies and falsehood. No, I thought if you're going to establish Jesus Christ as king, you have to use Well, he's the way, the truth. Oh, the truth.

[00:41:54]How do you do that? How do you do that, Dale? With that small minority?

[00:42:01]And once you give the government that kind of power, you realize what happens in history, right?

[00:42:12]you realize that they don't stop with just Islam, Hinduism, Judaism. Because unless you've changed the magistrate's heart, then that power becomes a dangerous thing, doesn't it?

[00:42:28]And historically, when Christians wielded that power, they used that power not only against Hindus and Jews and Muslims, but against each other, right?

[00:42:41]Now, you you you used to be a Baptist and you're not one of them no more. Um it's amazing how quickly people will abandon their so-cal so-called convictions without being able to answer the objections those things. But anyway, um, so what do you what do you do when you have Baptists who are just genetically predisposed to question governmental authority, especially in matters of religion, they might stand in your way.

[00:43:18]So, we had lots of good reformed men who felt it was perfectly fine to outlaw them, too.

[00:43:28]Remember how many times you may have quoted back in your Baptist days um Bunan, John Bunan, you know, Pilgrim's Progress.

[00:43:38]Remember what happened to him?

[00:43:40]how long he spent in prison in a cell for believing in oh the kingship of Jesus over his church so that the government couldn't tell the church what to do. Oh, but that's what you're doing.

[00:44:01]Huh. It's amazing how fast people's perspectives can change when it's clicks and things like that, you know. Yeah. We are not the same. Uh Dale, we are really not. I don't know what you've turned into, but you're a ship without a rudder and you're just spinning in circles and the rocks are close by.

[00:44:24]Better better figure out what you're doing, dude. Okay. Um we're going to finish up the program.

[00:44:33]Look, when I put these on, um I'm going to be reading something.

[00:44:40]And normally the font's way too stinking small anymore.

[00:44:44]All right, we all know that. Um, you know what? I don't know that I Here's what I want to do. I want to read this to you, but I'm not going to tell you what it is.

[00:44:58]And it might take a little bit to read all this.

[00:45:02]What I want you to do is I just want you to listen to it.

[00:45:06]And I don't want you to be prejudiced against it.

[00:45:13]It's going to sound different.

[00:45:18]I I would imagine even with our audience, and we have a very uh apologetically oriented and hence more historically aware audience than than most.

[00:45:30]Um, I still think maybe one out of a hundred of you will recognize at least where it came from.

[00:45:40]If you don't recognize what it is itself, um, I just want you to listen.

[00:45:48]And because it sounds different than normal evangelical discourse and dialogue, the tendency is to tune it out and not hear it.

[00:46:00]And it would be useful to you in the long run to try to hear and understand what it what what it's about. Okay? It will make sense to you later on when we do some more stuff in the future.

[00:46:16]Um but it it it uses some terminology that that may be challenging, but try to get past that. Okay. So, I'm I'm going to hope that Yeah, I don't think that I don't think you saw the book there.

[00:46:34]All right, here we go.

[00:46:37]Trinity, higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness, guide of Christians in the wisdom of heaven, lead us up beyond a knowing and light, up to the farthest, highest peak of mystic scripture, where the mystery of God's word lie simple, absolute, and unchangeable. In the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence, amid the deepest shadow, they pour overwhelming light on what is most manifest. Amid the holy uncensed and unseen, they completely fill our sightless minds with treasures beyond all beauty.

[00:47:10]For this I pray. And Timothy, my friend, my advice to you as you look for a sight of the mysterious things is to leave behind you everything perceived and understood, everything perceptible and understandable, all that is not and all that is. And with your understanding laid aside to strive upward as much as you can toward union with him who is beyond all being and knowledge.

[00:47:35]By an undivided and absolute abandonment of yourself and everything, shedding all and freed from all, you will be uplifted to the ray of the divine shadow which is above everything that is.

[00:47:48]But see to it that none of this comes to the hearing of the uninformed. That is to say, to those caught up with the things the world, who imagine there is nothing beyond instances of individual being, and who think that by their own intellectual resources they can have a direct knowledge of him who has made the shadows his hiding place?

[00:48:07]And if initiation into the divine is beyond such people, what is to be said of those others still more uninformed who describe the transcendent cause of all things in terms derived from the lowest orders of being and who claim that it is in no way superior to the godless multi-formed shapes they themselves have made.

[00:48:26]What is actually to be said about the cause of everything is this. Since it is the cause of all beings, we should posit and describe to it all the affirmations we make in regard to beings. And more appropriately, we should negate all these affirmations since it surpasses all being. Now, we should not conclude that the negations are simply the opposites of the affirmations, but rather that the cause of all is considerably prior to this, beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion.

[00:49:00]This at least is what was taught by the blessed Bartholomew.

[00:49:04]He says that the word of God is vast and minuscule, that the gospel is wide ranging and yet restricted.

[00:49:12]To me it seems that in this he is extraordinarily shrewd for he has grasped that the good cause of all is both eloquent and tacetern indeed wordless. It has neither word nor act of understanding since it is on a plane above all this. And it is made manifest only as those who travel through foul and fair, who pass beyond the summit of every holy ascent, who leave behind them every divine light, every voice, every word from heaven, and who plunge into the darkness where, as scripture proclaims, there dwells the one who is beyond all things.

[00:49:45]It is not for nothing that the blessed Moses is commanded to submit first purification and then then to depart from those who have not undergone this.

[00:49:54]When every purification is complete, he hears the many voiced trumpets. He sees the many lights pure and with rays streaming abundantly. Then standing apart from the crowds and accompanied by chosen priests, he pushes ahead to the summit of the divine ascent. And yet he does not meet God himself, but contemplates not him who is invisible, but rather where he dwells.

[00:50:14]This means I presume that the holiest and highest of the things perceived with the eye of the body or the mind are but the rationale which presupposes all that lies below the transcendent one. Through them however this unimaginable presence is shown walking the heights of those holy places to which the mind at least can rise.

[00:50:34]But then he Moses breaks free of them away from what sees and is seen and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing.

[00:50:45]Here renouncing all the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united to the completely unknown by an inactivity of all knowledge and knows beyond the ma mind by knowing nothing.

[00:51:12]I pray we could come to this darkness so far above light. If only we lacked sight and knowledge so as to see so as to know unseeing and unknowing that which lies beyond all vision and knowledge. For this would be really to see and to know to praise the transcendent one in a transcending way namely through the denial of all beings.

[00:51:36]We would be like sculptors who set out to carve a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view pure view of the hidden image and simply by this act of clearing aside they show up the beauty which is hidden. Now it seems to me that we should praise the denials quite differently than we do the assertions.

[00:51:55]When we made assertions we began with the first things move down from intermediate terms until we reach the last things. But now, as we climb from the last things up to the most primary, we deny all things, so that we may unhiddenly know that unknowing which itself is hidden from all those possessed of knowing amid all beings, so that we may see above being that darkness concealed from all the light among beings.

[00:52:25]In my theological representations, I have praised the notions which are most appropriate to affirmative theology. I have shown the sense in which the divine and good nature is said to be one and then triune. How fatherhood and sunship are predicated of it. The meaning of the theology of the spirit. How these core lights of goodness grew from the incorporeal and indivisible good. and how in this pouring in this I'm sorry in this sprouting they have remained inseparable from their co-eternal foundation in it in themselves and in each other. I have spoken of how Jesus who is above individual being became a being with a true human nature. Other revelations of scripture were also praised in the theological representations in the divine names. I have shown the sense in which God is described as good, existent, life, wisdom, power, and whatever other things pertain to the conceptual names for God.

[00:53:17]In my symbolic theology, I have discussed analogies of God drawn from what we perceive. I have spoken of the images we have of him, of forms, of figures, and instruments proper to him, of the places in which he lives, and of the ornaments he wears. I have spoken of his anger, grief, and rage. Of how he is said to be drunk and hung over, and his oaths and curses, of his sleeping and waking. Indeed, of all these images we have of him, images shaped by the workings of the symbolic representations of God.

[00:53:44]And I feel sure that you have noticed how these latter have come h these latter come much more abundantly than what went before since the theological representations and a discussion of the names appropriate to God are inevitably briefer than what can be said in the symbolic theology.

[00:54:01]The fact is that the more we take flight upward, the more our words are confined to the ideas we are capable of forming.

[00:54:08]So that now as we plunge into that darkness which is beyond intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing. In the earlier books, my argument traveled downward from the most exalted to the humblest categories, taking in on this downward path an everinccreasing number of ideas which multiplied with every stage of the descent. But my argument now rises from what is below to the transcendent. And the more it climbs, the more language falters. And when it has passed up and beyond the ascent, it will turn silent completely since it will finally be at one with him who is indescribable.

[00:54:47]Now you may wonder why it is that after starting out from the highest category when our method involved assertions, we begin now from the lowest category when it involves a denial. The reason is this. When we assert what is beyond every assertion, we must then proceed from what is most akin to it. And as we do so, we make the affirmation on which everything else depends. But when we deny that which is beyond every denial, we have to start by denying those qualities which differ most from the goal we hope to attain. Is it not closer to reality to say that God is life and goodness rather than that he is air or stone? Is it not more accurate to deny that drunkenness and rage can be attributed to him than deny than to deny that we can apply to him the terms of speech and thought? So this is what we say. The cause of all is above all and is not inexistent, lifeless, speechless or mindless. It is not a material body and hence it has neither shape nor form, quality, quantity or weight. It is not in any place and can neither be seen nor be touched. It is neither perceived nor does nor is it perceptible. It suffers neither disorder nor disturbance and is overwhelmed by no earthly passion. It is not powerless and subject to the disturbances caused by sense perception.

[00:56:08]It endures no deprivation of light. It passes through no change, decay, division, loss, no eb and flow. Nothing of which the senses may be aware. None of all this can either be identified with it nor attributed to it. We're almost done.

[00:56:24]In fact, we have one program again. As we climb higher, we say this.

[00:56:31]It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech or understanding. Nor is it speech per se, understanding per se. It cannot be spoken of, and it cannot be grasped by understanding. It is not number or order, greatness or smallness, equality or inequality, similarity or dissimilarity. It is not immovable, moving, or at rest. It has no power. It is not power, nor is it light. It does not live, nor is it life. It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time.

[00:57:05]It cannot be grasped by the understanding, since it is neither knowledge nor truth. It is not kingship.

[00:57:10]It is not wisdom. It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness, nor is it a spirit in the sense in which we understand that term. It is not sunship or fatherhood and it and it is nothing known to us or any other being. It falls neither within the predicate of non-being nor of being. Existing beings do not know it as it actually is and it does not know them as they are. There is no speaking of it nor name nor knowledge of it. Darkness and light, error and truth, it is none of those. It is beyond assertion and denial. We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it. For it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation, it is also beyond every denial.

[00:58:08]Now, I told you this is not how most of us speak or think.

[00:58:23]Um, the reason, um, I just now looked over at something from Rich. I'm like, what? It's from 59 minutes ago. Okay. Um, the reason that I asked you to listen is you will struggle to understand Eastern Orthodoxy if you do not eventually get at least some grasp on what I just read.

[00:59:02]What you just experienced is negative theology, epithetic theology.

[00:59:12]It is one of the things that is so completely different between east and west.

[00:59:18]It is not that west has not been influenced by it. It has.

[00:59:25]But the the entire view of the world in the west is so different than in the east.

[00:59:37]There are elements of truth in what I just read.

[00:59:43]And there are theologians who just dwell in the realms laid out by those five brief chapters that I just read to you.

[00:59:57]You will find even Protestant theologians deeply impacted by material like what I just read to you. Now, there are some of you sitting there going, I couldn't follow a bit of it and I don't know how any of that could be useful to anybody. Okay, I get that.

[01:00:20]All I'm trying to say is this is one of the reasons that discussing Eastern Orthodoxy is so challenging and I have resisted doing it for such a long time.

[01:00:38]Um yeah, Rich is saying the entire chat is baffled by what you just read. I can understand that.

[01:00:45]Um, let me um Where did that go? I didn't close that, did I? No, here.

[01:00:56]Um, how do I bring this up? Oh goodness, I just realized I've never used this to display something. There we go.

[01:01:20]Oh, trap.

[01:01:24]Um.

[01:01:27]Ah.

[01:01:30]Okay.

[01:01:33]I can do this.

[01:01:36]Um, hold on.

[01:01:48]There.

[01:01:55]Okay, there you see it. The corpus dionium.

[01:02:00]This is Dion Yakum.

[01:02:03]Um there are five major elements of this.

[01:02:13]Um what I just read to you is in the middle at the bottom there.

[01:02:20]The mystical theology shortest work only five chapters. The summit of the corpus apehatic theology carried to silence and union beyond all knowing.

[01:02:29]So you have now heard anyways uh one of the four primary works of the what's called the DC the Dian corpus the body of works of attributed to Dianius called pseudodianius by 99.9% of scholarship today the other books are the divine names the celestial hierarchy the ecclesiastical hierarchy then you have mystical theology and then there are 10 letters and this is part of a presentation I'm going to make to you later on. Um I just wanted you to see where this fits um in the actual corpus itself.

[01:03:17]So I just read to you the mystical theology and it is considered the the turning point the summit uh of the whole corpus.

[01:03:30]The concept of epa apathic theology of negation.

[01:03:36]Um you will find it in western writers.

[01:03:42]What you need to understand is that Thomas Aquinus, we have a silver alert coming through my watch. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Stop.

[01:03:55]Man, big brother is everywhere. That's amazing. Um, Thomas Aquinus was intimately familiar with the entire Dian Corpus. He wrote an entire commentary um on the divine names. I showed you the book a few weeks ago. It's s still sitting there in the divine studio.

[01:04:22]Quotes from Dianis over 1700 times.

[01:04:24]Here's something you need to understand.

[01:04:26]Even if you don't understand what I read, you need to understand this from the in time of the introduction of this material around the year 530. Now before 5:30 nobody had a clue that Dianius wrote anything.

[01:04:45]After 5:30, within a few decades, the entire Byzantine church and then shortly after that, the western church as well became convinced that this material was written by Dionius the the Aropagite from Acts chapter 17 who was converted I think it's 17:41 who was converted under the preaching of the apostle Paul and therefore um for example Thomas Aquinus viewed Dianus as a higher authority than Augustine himself.

[01:05:22]The entire history of mystical theology in the west cannot be understood unless you understand what you just read from Dionius. This is this is it. This is what defines mystical theology.

[01:05:39]the the darkness of unknowing, the the the denial of affirmation.

[01:05:46]Uh God is not in light, he's in darkness.

[01:05:51]Um it's hard for us to really grasp just how important this is.

[01:06:00]And now, you know, some of the stuff I'm having to slog through right now in the work that I'm doing. Um, but it's so vital for you to understand how something like this can have such deep impact for centuries after it appears, especially when it was assumed and believed.

[01:06:31]I mean, think about it. What if we did have all these books from one of Paul's converts?

[01:06:38]We have nothing like that. Nothing.

[01:06:43]Someone who in the letters, the 10 letters, you may have seen that 10 letters. In the 10 letters, Dianius claims to have seen the darkness at the crucifixion and to have been at the dorm mission of Mary with the Apostle Paul.

[01:07:06]If you actually believe that like Thomas Aquinas believed that, what kind of weight are you going to give to those words?

[01:07:16]Think about it.

[01:07:18]Now, when I read Dianus, I am hearing a voice utterly unlike anything in the New Testament.

[01:07:29]It's a different world. It's a different perspective.

[01:07:34]This is neoplatinism in full blossom which didn't exist when the apostles were alive.

[01:07:48]And to come to the conclusion that that's what Paul was teaching might help you to understand why your Eastern Orthodox friend looks at the same passage of scripture you do and comes up with something that does not make a lick of sense to you.

[01:08:09]See, it's a lot more complicated and There's a lot of applications beyond just Eastern Orthodoxy too.

[01:08:23]A lot of applications to Roman Catholicism as well. Um but yes, so if you're wondering so Dianius complete corpus this was the um uh classics of western spirituality. Um one what was hold on a second here. Oh, this is um Colm Lub Heights translation which is based on the Greek text of the M edition.

[01:08:54]Um the problem is well there's textual critical issues here too. Not going to bore you with that right now. We've gone over our time anyways. Um but that was one of the tougher story times with Uncle Jimmy's to get through. Certainly, I appreciate those of you who survived it.

[01:09:14]And I'm just trusting that our audience is a type of audience that goes, "Wow, I had no idea." But yeah, you're right.

[01:09:27]Um, if you really think that this guy was one of Paul's converts, man, that would have a huge impact on how you view everything.

[01:09:39]Bingo. You're seeing it. You're seeing it. So, there you go. Um, I hope that was u useful to you on or let's put it this way. Probably wasn't useful to you right now, but hopefully you can see how it may become useful to you um in the future.

[01:10:00]In the future. So, yeah, there we go.

[01:10:04]Yeah. So, pray for me as I work on this stuff. That's not the uh necessarily the funnest stuff on the planet uh to be muddling through, but muddle we must.

[01:10:16]All right. Um when will we get together again? I don't know. Um I think maybe Thursday.

[01:10:25]We'll see. Um let's see. But yeah, because that's it could be a pretty short travel day that day. So, even if I do have a dinner type thing that evening, um, might be able to sneak something in. The the setup is so perfect now. It does not take long. I mean, we did have a few oopses. Uh, Rich did some stuff in here. And so, we're going to need to get another HDMI cable and a few things like that. Uh, it's a whole lot more organized than it was before. Um, everything survived getting bounced around today. All my pictures stayed right where they were supposed to be.

[01:11:03]Even the Alpha and Omega thing back there uh is is now pretty firmly enscconced in its permanent place. Um I actually have room up above that's that's Kelly and I in Germany up there above the cats welcome people tolerated sign. Um yeah, I'm trying to figure out what little picture to put up there that when I get back just to fill that one spot. But anyways, um we can get things put together. I do need to figure out why this camera won't work. Uh we'll figure that out after the program. Um but uh so it's it's not uber difficult to throw this together and and to do a program. So um though having all the stuff on the computer to show you obviously does take some time. So uh with that hey um well this is there we go.

[01:11:57]my the uh the uh uh control bar just disappeared and went bye-bye. Uh, so it's like, uh, hey, you got to come back. So I can say, Vista, play music and say bye-bye. See you next time.