Greer butchered both context and content for John 1, …

Comment on LSU Professor Doubts Christ’s Divinity by BobRyan.

Greer butchered both context and content for John 1, John 8 and then John 17 in his less than compelling response to the points raised there. One might choose to be lax with him for doing such a sloppy job with context and content given the stand-up fast-paced nature of the debate – but then when you recall that the entire POV he is arguing for is every bit as corrupt as his treatmet of John 8 and John 17, a pattern begins to emerge.

The bigger problem here is that unsuspecting SDA parents and students who did NOT watch this video before spending time and money to have students trained by Greer – are subjecting students to Greer’s compromised POV when it comes to facts and truth.

But Greer could not have done this on his own. Someone had to hire him and someone had to choose to retain him “at all costs”.

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

LSU Professor Doubts Christ’s Divinity
At 35:30 in the video the unitarian in the center chair brings up the fact that they were identified at a ‘cult’ by the first speaker on the Trinitarian side. The Unitarian states “granted that WE ARE unitarian but you use the word CULT” – and asked the Trinitarians to “tone it down”.

Clearly the Unitarians think they are arguing their own firmly held beliefs.

At the 42:20-55 point – the Unitarians ask that the Unitarian position not be discredited (as some of the Trinitarian comments appeared to try to do) in a “guilt by association” model where the Unitarian position was associated with “Seventh-day Adventist” and “Christadelphians”.

(At the 1:32:10 point the Trinitarian speaker clarifies the point stating that at one time Seventh-day Adventists were Unitarian but since then are Trinitarian. It should be pointed out – that our formal printed beliefs were first printed in 1872 and did not include the Unitarian doctrine – nor have they ever.)

Greer is in fact enhancing that association idea – by arguing for the Unitarian POV as an SDA, even though our 28 Fundamental Beliefs are NOT unitarian.

43:20 the Trinitarian response (from the 3rd chair) speaks to the point of “cult” and “false prophet” – trying to show that the subject is “truth vs error”. The speaker argues for the pre-existence of God the Son – Jesus Christ. He points out that the Unitarian position denies the pre-existence of Christ.

1:04:20 Greer argues that the Word of God became Jesus Christ – but sets this up by saying that “by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made” is the meaning of Word – in John 1. Making the case that God made Christ as in the OT God’s Word made the World. Thus Greer argues not only that Christ is not God – but that Christ did not exist before his birth.

(And then naturally at 1:07:00-1:08:10 Greer totally butchers John 8 in his attempt to bend and wrench “Before Abraham WAS – I AM” to mean “Before Abraham WAS – he looked into the future and saw my day”. Essentially Greer has to make total nonsense of the text to try and make his point.

When asked to address John 17:5 (at 1:08:20) “glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee BEFORE the world WAS” — Greer responds that he would rather talk about John 17:3 instead. “this is eternal life that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent”. And while we can understand why a unitarian would prefer to ignore John 17:5 and only talk about John 17:3 – even at that Greer never addresses the problem that he ALSO has in John 17:3 which is that Jesus Christ was not SENT from God to earth – because according to Greer – he did not exist to BE sent before his birth on earth!

And then of course there is the John 17:5 problem still hanging out there for him should he ever get out of the John 17:3 mess.

It cannot be ignored that when you view the participants they are all arguing for their own firmly held beliefs. (See 2:11:19 – 2:12:19 for an example)

2:27:52 – In the end Geer even goes to the wild extreme of insisting that the pagan Cyrus is the agent of the One true God and therefore is to be received as the One True God (Is 45:14-15) (trying to establish a precident for Greer’s less than biblical case regarding Christ). At this point you would think that the error is so stark that even Greer would wake up.

2:24:20 the Trinitarian speaker again states that the Unitarians believe what they are saying – and that it is not exactly the same as Jehovah’s Witness position but it is a specific Unitarian POV believed by the people at the Unitarian table.

in Christ,

Bob


LSU Professor Doubts Christ’s Divinity
The “clues” in the video are abundant. The first speaker states that they are presenting the views based on what each side “believes”.

He complains that those opposing him on the other side “hold the positions that you do”.

Clearly the participants THEMSELVES believe that each side is presenting their own firmly held beliefs.

in Christ,

Bob


LSU Professor Doubts Christ’s Divinity
Far be it from me to claim that any of these people might not be “nice” in person. My argument is not that they are not nice – but that they are butchering the text to pursue a distinctively non-Adventist agenda at all costs.

It is possible that they may all be sincere in their errors. But we need to give them some alone-time to figure their way out of that paper bag before standing them up in front of SDA students as if they will not just go ahead and lead our young adults down the same slippery slope they have chosen for themselves.

In Christ,

Bob


Recent Comments by BobRyan

Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?

Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?

Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.

“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)

Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.

(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)

By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:

Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
Gentlemen,

What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.

An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.

1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..

2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.

3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.

4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).

In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.

Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??

Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.

hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.

The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.

Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis

Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind