And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is early. Yes, I'm going to be out of town Thursday and Friday, and so we're moving things up just a little bit so that we can get all the programs in to keep the natives from getting restless. And we don't want any restless natives. Why don't we start off over here today? I don't know. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I don't want to forget because that's nice and black because you didn't open the shutters on the camera. I can see that over there right now and it's sort of like leaving the lens cap on a camera type thing. There you go. There you go. It's hard to get professional help. There you go. See, I didn't want to forget this. Please notice what is here. Now, Rich was going to try to do all sorts of funny stuff, and I said, no, I promised. We've got things to do, okay? There's work to be done. He was going to hide them and kidnap them and send ransom notes and do all sorts of stuff like that. But you will see, even the shoebox itself, is has has kuji on it but you will notice that the kuji of the shoe box is very muted in comparison to the real thing. Is there something you wanted to... I just want it known that you are no fun. No, I'm not right now, I'm not any fun. You are no fun. It would have been hilarious, but no, no, no. Give me the shoes, now! Okay, that's fine. I said if someone got them for us... that I would show them off on the program. The kidnapped Coogee theme would have been hilarious. But no. No. No. No. No. You and I define hilarious in different ways. So, there they are. Well, there's one of the two. They're Pumas, actually. I've always liked Pumas. I wore Pumas when I played high school tennis. I went, no, you're not going to do that. No, no, go back, go back, go back. I wore Pumas and I had to buy... I had this bad habit when serving of dragging The toe of my right foot when I would serve. And we, of course, were on hard court. I mean, nowhere in there. I don't think there is a clay court. I don't even know that it could be a clay court in Arizona. I would just crack and dry and blow away so fast. Ridiculous. And there's certainly no grass courts either for the same reasons. So every tennis in Phoenix is always on hard court. Anyways, so I would wear the I'd wear it right to where there's a hole and I had to buy this shoe goo stuff. I'm not sure if that was called but it was sort of a wasn't glue, but when it dried, it would form a sort of rubbery something that I would then tear off on the next time I was playing tennis in high school. But they're pumas, and these are pumas. They're very, very comfortable. So there are the Coogees. They did arrive, and they fit perfectly, and thank you very, very much. They're wonderful and notice are much brighter than the box itself so i figure that the the matching sweater. Which is a fairly expensive will end up on ebay at least by twenty twenty five. Uh, maybe, you know, if you can snipe a good, you know, a good deal on one, uh, maybe five, six, seven years from now, uh, used one, that's about the only way to get it done. So, so there you go. I, I, I want to make sure not to forget. And, uh, very, very thankful to the folks in, uh, in, uh, in Twitter land who made that possible. Um, and, and there you go. And I'm not seeing anybody saying, see, the problem is I forgot to announce, uh, let's see the DL. we've got to announce is live right now. You announced on what? Oh, no, I do. I just I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I'm seeing some interesting stuff on Twitter right now, but I didn't see that. So anyway, So there you go. Uh, I said I would do so. I did. They're very comfy. Thank you very, very much. And, uh, I'm not sure what the wife's going to say, but we'll, we'll see when, uh, she's used to it. She's, she's, she's used to, you know, these are coogies I can wear without it being below 80 degrees outside, uh, which it's not going to, let's go drop into the seventies briefly for the next couple of days and then back up to about 83 or so. But Hey, we're not, we're not complaining about that too much. All right. Um, Before we get to the controversial stuff for the day, I wanted to just... I like to spend some time in Scripture, even before we get to the application of things on the program. We have many, many times mentioned the reality that 1 Corinthians chapter 1 should be a text that we, especially those who are involved in Christian scholarship or academia or teaching or anything like that, we should remind ourselves of over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And the reason for that is it's so central in reminding us that the wisdom of God is foolishness to men. And there is such a strong temptation on the part of Christian scholars to want to be accepted in the world and to compromise the Lordship of Christ in the area of knowledge and things like that as a result. It's also a text that—remember how many times I've talked about In the Deity of Christ? We allow ourselves, as believers in the deity of Christ, to be put into a defensive mode by allowing the other side to define which texts we're going to be addressing. So, you know, you have the key texts, and they're the texts that they know really, really well, but there's this whole other world of evidence of the deity of Christ in the things that Jesus says and does that that if you ask a Jehovah's Witness who believes that Jesus is Michael the Archangel to fit their Jesus into all the rest of this data, it can't work. But we almost never do that. We never put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, and force them to answer these particular texts. Well, I think the same thing is true for those of us who are Reformed. We allow ourselves to almost always be addressing the same text over and over and over again. And yet, there's all sorts of evidence for the doctrines of grace, for the sovereignty of God, for election and predestination, that is sort of... Well, you know, Act 1348, for example, would be a text Where the primary subject that Luke is addressing is not predestination election, but because he believes in it, it comes out in the way that he expresses things. And so, we tend to... Either put too much weight on those and and then someone can point properly point out well that you know it's not specifically what he was talking about there and then they sort of get shoved off the side. If we really know that they're there, we can present them as, do you notice that, you know, just as a part of the belief of the early church, you have the expression of this concept. So, in 1 Corinthians 1, for indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for, are seeking after wisdom. but we proclaim Christ having been crucified, to the Jews indeed a scandalon, to the Gentiles foolishness, but, and it's only four words, autois, deitos, kleitos, but to the elect, but to the called ones, to the elect, both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. So, The only way to understand that is to connect it back to verse 18, being saved, perishing. Now we know what distinguishes these two groups, and specifically it is, but to the called, to the elect. And it's central to being able to make heads or tails of what's being said. It explains why the same message is foolishness and a scandal to some, but the power of God and the wisdom of God to someone else. There's another text very similar to this. In passing, when writing his last letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 2.8, Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not imprisoned. For this reason I endure all things for the sake of, and it's the exact same phraseology found here, for the sake of those who are chosen, for the elect. so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory." And so, in the midst of discussing suffering and trials and tribulations and things like this, you have this clear evidence that underlying all of this for Paul is his recognition of the electing grace of God. And so, yeah, you do have key texts that need to, you need to go through Romans 9, Ephesians 1, and yeah, it's just like with the deity of Christ, you have to be able to deal with the prologue of John and you need to deal with Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 and Hebrews 1 and all the primary key passages on the subject. But If that's all you have, then you're missing an entire spectrum of evidence. And the same thing is true when we're talking about the doctrines of grace as well. It is found throughout. I love when I look over at Twitter and someone sends me a tweet, false. You know, I suppose, you know, we're the best you can do. Ah, good. Okay. False to the addendum. Adam Reid Wilson, I had written earlier today, you did much more to promote justice in the world if you preached faithfully the Word of God on Sunday, handled the Scriptures with care and accuracy, and proclaimed salvation for sinners by faith in Christ than all the virtue signaling tweets ever posted. And Adam Reid Wilson thinks, no, virtue posting tweets are more important than accurately handling the Word of God. There you go, Adam. Good job. I gave you your five seconds of infamy there because it is infamy. Wow. Okay. There's all sorts of fun stuff going on there. Okay. So why do I mention this? Well, I was going to do a whole Radio Free Geneva thing, but the article just isn't that long. I know it will disappoint some of you because you don't get to hear the music, but isn't the music available somewhere? Okay, so if you want to hear it, he put it on, is it on like, it's on his own. Yeah, Tim Beauchamp, yeah, he's got it on the web somewhere. Yeah, okay. Now, did he do a Mighty Fortress without the DL stuff? The whole thing, but then there's also... Okay, alright, so, look him up, and there you go. So, Catholic Answers put out Oh, okay, someone else. Okay, and it gets really confusing when Adam responds to Adam, who's a different Adam. That's a problem with things like that. Catholic Answers put out an article by Tom Nash. Now let me give the information about Tom Nash. Tom Nash is a contributing apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, a contributing blogger for the National Catholic Register, and a contributor for Catholic World Report. He has served the Church professionally for more than 25 years, including eight and a half as a theology advisor at EWTM. He is the author of What Did Jesus Do? The Biblical Roots of the Catholic Church and the Biblical Roots of the Mass. He is also a regular member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Okay, so Tom Nash should know what he's talking about. But as is so often the case, as we have documented down through the years, many, many times, Catholic Answers puts out some less than scholarly material that clearly demonstrates the people writing for them Well, don't really do their homework real well. And that's what they did. I am on the Catholic Answers tweet list, and so an article was posted on the 24th titled, Are Some Destined to be Damned? Well, I knew what this was going to be about, and it was. John Calvin is one of the two most influential Protestant reformers, along with Martin Luther, although he didn't deny man's free will. Well, you could find a number of places where he's he does. He just he just denies libertarian free will. He believes that man has a free will in the sense that reform people define that, but not in the sense that Roman Catholic people define that. in a libertarian sense. Although he didn't deny man's free will, Calvin effectively gutted it. Because he said, all men were preordained by God, either to heaven, election, or hell, reprobation. And so there is nothing we can do to impact our eternal destiny. So, immediately, Mr. Nash has a clear misunderstanding of the subject that he is pretending to address. And unfortunately, a lot of folks suffer from the same thing. He is confusing the positive teaching that Calvin gives on the enslavement of the will, the depravity of man, the fact that man does not possess these positive desires in the first place, that God has to curb our sin, etc. He's confusing what he should be addressing at that point with another issue. which is the subject of God's sovereign predestination. Now, there have been those in the history of what Rome would claim are her own writers, like Augustine, who had very strong views on the subject of election and predestination and issues like that. Gottschalk got himself into a lot of trouble for things like that. Certainly, the modern Roman Catholic Church cannot hold to Augustine's theology, and every Augustinian Roman Catholic has to, in some way, modify Augustine's words. It's just, if you're going to deal with the subject of the will of man, then deal with what Calvin said about the will of man. If you're going to deal with what Calvin said about predestination and election, or what the Bible says about predestination and election, then deal with that. But this is what's weird. Calvin seems to say that because God omnisciently knows all of our choices before we make them, he must therefore have ordained them to occur. Notice that for the Romanist, like the traditionalist Southern Baptist, I might note, you always reason from man to the divine rather than doing what the Bible does and speak from the Creator to the creation. from the divine to the human realm. What's up here, what's true up here, has to define the reality down here, even if there's different perspectives. This determines this, not this determining this. And so, if you want a man-centered theology, what you do is you make man's experience the determinative factor in all things, and you limit God and what God can do to what would make sense to man. You limit God's ability to know future events or act in such a way in His decrees so as to interact with man in time and things like that. You start with man, and then you end up with the limits of God. The Bible starts with God and invites us to consider our own experience in light of the transcendent realities of who God is. And so, that's what you get here. So, you have God omnisciently knowing all our choices, and therefore he must have ordained them, rather than God's decree, so that God is unchanging and perfect and is not growing and maturing and learning and so on and so forth. God's decree determines all actions in time. And then from there, deal with the nature of man as the subject of God's decree. You don't do it that way. You instead make man the measure, and then measure God by man. This is how synergists are, whether they're Romanist or otherwise. This is just the perspective that you end up dealing with. This is particularly seen in Calvin's commentary on St. Paul's letter to the Romans. Now, yeah, okay. Couple things. Remember, if you are going to deal with Calvin, I'm lecturing on Calvin right now in the Church History series. If you're going to deal with Calvin, remember that Calvin himself pointed you to the institutes of the Christian religion as the lens through which everything else he said and did is to be interpreted. So if you want to know what Calvin believed, You go to the Institutes first, and then all his epistolary literature, commentaries, sermons, so on and so forth, needs to be interpreted in light of what he said in the Institutes. That's his own directions to us. And when you do that, there are entire sections on predestination election. which, interestingly enough, in the Institutes, and if you call yourself a Calvinist, you should know this, in the Institutes comes right after the longest section in the Institutes, which is on prayer. Good thing that that's the case. That's where you go first. That's not where Dr. Nash goes. It may be Dr. Nash, I'm not sure, but Mr. Nash. Anyways, our author, that's not where he goes. Instead, he goes to Calvin's commentaries, which is a common way of misrepresenting Calvin, but that's not even the case here. We don't even get close to misrepresenting him because he's... Instead of... If you're going to go to Romans and address Calvin's understanding of predestination and election, where are you going to go? Well, probably Romans 8 and 9, primarily. For example, Calvin and his modern disciples cite Romans as evidence that God unilaterally chooses who has saving faith and who doesn't. Again, where would you expect this to go? The golden chain, Romans 8, right? Romans 9, beginning of verse 7, I mean, baseball bat, wow, right? What text does he go to? Romans 3, 21-25. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward to be an expiation by His blood to be received by faith. Well, okay. Calvin's going to consistently interpret that in light of God's sovereignty, but that's not the subject in Romans 3. That's not where you're gonna go to talk about faith as a gift and stuff like that. He goes on to say, "...the Catholic Church acknowledges that faith is undoubtedly a divine gift, and that no human being can earn his salvation, and yet gifts need to be received and maintained, and thus the importance of our free will responses to God." Again, I hate to make our non-Roman synergist friends uncomfortable, But the reality is that you and Rome are on the exact same page on this matter. And they argue very much like you argue. And so, given Rome's sacramental system, the necessity of libertarian free will is a given. St. Paul and St. Peter make clear that Jesus came to save everyone, 1 Timothy 2, 4, 2 Peter 3, 9. I'm not going to spend too much time on this right now, but this is another reason why there's a chapter in the book, The Potter's Freedom, called the Big Three, and there's two of the Big Three right there. And you will find that it is fundamental to Roman Catholic soteriology to assume, they never defend, but to assume the meaning of these two texts despite the fact that any meaningful direct exegesis of those texts is not supportive of the application that they or other synergists make. It's just a given. You'll find it in pretty much, it's just all the way through. Anytime you run into the issue in the Catholic Catechism, it is just a given that those two texts demonstrate a universal salvific will. That's just it. That's done. There's no attempt to, in fact, there's not even really any evidence that I can see that they recognize that there's another perspective at all. And that's, of course, the same with most synergists, whether Roman Catholic or not. In addition, Jesus makes clear that our being saved requires our free will cooperation as he affirms to the rich young man in Matthew 19 in the parable of the sheep and the goats, and that our Heavenly Father won't forgive us our trespasses, a prerequisite for gaining heaven, unless we freely forgive those who have trespassed against us. You have this concept that the rich young man, somehow, he has to have free will cooperation. Now, of course, the term free will doesn't appear anywhere, except in the old testament about free will offerings, or something along those lines, giving something without compulsion. But the idea of the philosophical concept of libertarian free will just isn't found. in the Bible, but it sure is read into it by all Synergists, whether Roman Catholic or not. The parable of the sheep and the goats, again, nothing about libertarian free will in there. And then, wow, well folks, you have to forgive perfectly if you're going to get into heaven. Good luck on that, since that means we're all lost, because not one of us has ever forgiven perfectly. and certainly never outside of the power of the Holy Spirit of God. So, which comes first? That's another issue. Further, Paul affirms the importance of good works and are freely accepting and maintaining the gift of salvific discipleship. And where does he go for that? Romans 2. What? The condemnation of the self-righteousness of the Jews somehow actually teaches the importance of good works in our freely accepting and maintaining the gift of salvific discipleship. Good luck on finding that phrase anywhere in the Bible. It doesn't exist. Including believing in receiving faith. So you have to believe in receiving faith? I don't... Romans 3.22, don't get it. And that certain unrepented transgressions will prevent us from attaining heaven. Now, interestingly enough, I mean, the biblical argumentation is just... Well, the biblical argumentation is what is common in Roman Catholic scholarship. It really is. I'm sorry, But Roman Catholic scholarship today is absolutely crippled by the massive amount of liberalism, of course together with the traditionalism, but it's sad. But you know one of the texts that is cited here, and you'll immediately recognize it, It says, "...and that certain unrepented transgressions will prevent us from attaining heaven." 1 Corinthians 6, 9-10. Anybody remember what that is? You should! You should these days! We've got to know what that is today! Because it is do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers. Numerary standards says nor effeminate, nor homosexuals. ESV simply says nor homosexuals. This is the Malakhoi Arsinokoitai text that we've gone over so many times in the past. Nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. All that is true, the problem is, the very next verse says, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. He's talking about what their life had been, not what their life was now in Christ. This is one of the major problems you have with Roman Catholicism because it conflates justification and sanctification. you end up with this mishmash of interpretive grids that can never make sense out of what the New Testament teaches and hence can never give you peace because you will always be, you never have that finished work upon which to base everything. So there's gross misuse of 1 Corinthians 6. So anyway, all these passages regarding our freedom none of them were about our freedom, need to be kept in mind so as to not misread Romans chapter 9. Ah! We need to try to cobble something together to create a... We've got to keep people on the reservation lest we mention Romans 9 and they just get totally blown away. Which forms the foundation of Calvin's theology of salvation. So then why did you go to Romans 3 rather than Romans 9? In particular because Paul speaks in 9.22 of vessels of wrath made for destruction Well, I assure you he focused on stuff well before them. Calvin infers his doctrine of divinely predetermined reprobation. But instead, as ding ding ding, Scott Hahn says, and when Scott Hahn speaks, everyone listens. That's right. But instead, as Scott Hahn says, the Apostle is talking about the unfolding of God's plan in history, not designating the destinies of human persons for eternity. And then we, I guess, are getting a quotation from the great doctor. Of course, it's actually both, but the one is dependent upon the reality of the other. That is, He uses individuals, Pharaoh and Jacob and Esau, he uses individuals to then make overarching applications beyond the individuals. That doesn't mean that the individual application wasn't true to begin with. Wrath and glory are terms Paul uses elsewhere in connection with the final judgment, yet Paul is not here concerned with the consignment of destinies. Why not? I mean, he's going to be responding to specific objection. And the objection is, who resists his will? That's not a nation speaking. Those are individuals speaking. Who resists his will? He is setting forth a scenario for the sake of argument in order to defend God against the charge of acting unjustly toward Israel. Well, not even accurate there. If you go back to 9-6, It's not just acting unjustly toward Israel, but that the promises were not being believed by many in Israel, and Paul's response is to demonstrate that God had actively engaged in sovereign selection, even in the application of the promise, within Israel's own history, which they accepted. He is not delivering a prophecy that reveals who will reach heaven and who will go to hell. Rather, the context indicates that Paul is concerned with God's freedom to assign different roles, different persons, in implementing his designs for history. It's not an either-or. His freedom to do that included his freedom to judge Pharaoh and to destroy Pharaoh in the Red Sea. and Pharaoh's army for following him, all so that his glory might be demonstrated in the destruction of the Egyptian gods. God has the right to do that. And the people of Israel knew that, therefore there could be no objection back to Isaiah 9.6. See how it's all consistent? It is a matter of God choreographing the temporal election of some and the hardening of others in order to accomplish his plan of redemption. Quite true! is within this historical frame of reference, the Lord is a purpose for all vessels of Israel, noble and ignoble alike." So, remember, Han was not raised in Roman Catholicism. So, Han is the one that gives you that strange mixture of Covenant theology and Roman Catholicism. It can't work. It's strange, but there you go. In addition, in writing of God's choice of Jacob in Salvation History, Paul quotes God's words to the prophet Malachi, as it is written, As any good Jewish scholar can affirm, and we want to use Jewish scholars to interpret the New Testament. This ancient Semitic expression means that God loved Esau less than Jacob, not that he predestined Esau, let alone his Edomite descendants, to eternal damnation. Now, I just have to stop. It's the hate doesn't mean hate, it means love less argument. I don't know, there's this part of me that just automatically goes, no wait a minute, you're a Roman Catholic, right? Could you give me the infallible papal proclamation of this? And you know there ain't no such thing. you know, whenever we present scripture passages, well, you know, that's just your opinion there, you know, and that's the problem with Sola Scriptura. You want to tell me where there's been an infallible interpretation of this text provided by the Church, and you and I both know there hasn't been one? So, the loved less argument, right. I'm sure that's exactly how Esau took it. But anyway, the ancient Israelites certainly didn't teach Calvinistic divine reprobation. See Deuteronomy 23, 8, Amos 2, 1-3 for God's enduring concern for the Edomites. Okay, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, even though it's in Amos that it specifically said that Israel alone have I known, that means chosen, over against the Edomite. Indeed, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims that the righteous man can fall away through his bad choices and the wicked man can repent and be restored to communion with God. There again, man, someday we're just going to have to, because it goes on, in any event, Ezekiel adds, I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God, so turn and live. The constant misuse of Ezekiel 18 and the fact that the key, and we do actually have a video on this. It was a Wednesday night service. It's on my website. It's on the Dr. Oakley thing. The YouTube channel DrOakley1689, I recorded a Wednesday night service years ago on Ezekiel 18 because I was just, every few years I end up getting frustrated by how many people grossly misrepresent it. And we'll have to post that again. Further, God portrays Christians as vessels of mercy and thus implies that unbelievers, whether Jews or Gentiles, are vessels of destruction. Yet Paul does not teach them, believing Jews, for example, are predestined to damnation because we see them otherwise praying and working for their salvation. Again, God desires that all be saved, but some may choose to rebel against God without repentance. So, again, you take your misapplication of 1 Timothy 2.4, 2 Peter 3.9, you make that your interpretive lens, and so instead of seeing that Paul does recognize that some of his enemies are vessels of wrath. You assume, well, we see him praying for them and working for their salvation, so he can't believe that because he also believes this over here. No. God ordains the ends as well as the means. He calls us to be witnesses. We do what he calls us to do. We want to be vessels of mercy in their lives, but we don't know who the elect are. That doesn't mean the elect do not exist. It doesn't mean that God does not have that divine Finally, if Romans 9 were read in isolation, well so far it hasn't been read at all, Calvin's view might seem more plausible, although even then the standard of love for Calvin's God would fall far short of that espoused by mere human mothers and fathers who desperately desire all of their children to attain heaven. Now here you really see the wishy-washy nature of modern Roman Catholic theology. And it is wishy-washy. Here you have the sentimentality of we're all just God's chillens, and since we're God's chillens, then he's just going to do everything he can to save every single one of us, and so he'd never have predestination in election. And it's like... I remember reading in the Gospels that authority has to be given to people to believe and therefore to become the sons of God. That Jesus said to the Jews, you are of your father, the devil. We are not born as children of God, we become children of God through regeneration. This assumes the exact opposite, that we're all just God's chillens and he's just going to do everything he can. This is how you get universalism, this is how you get inclusivism, and that's why the vast majority of the prelates in the Roman Catholic Church today are either inclusivists or universals. That is not the position that was taken earlier in Roman Catholicism by any stretch of the imagination. If finite creatures made in God's image and likeness have such loving concern for their children, how much more should we expect from the infinite, eternal God? Indeed, in arguing for God's sovereignty the way he does, Calvin unwittingly blasphemes God by presenting him as a capricious tyrant who is responsible for the greatest evils, consigning men and women to hell without giving them any real opportunity to accept or reject them. Again, this is why this would have been a great radio free geneva thing because this is exactly the misrepresentation that you you get from the fundamentalist baptist And yet this is from, again, someone who's a part of the Catholic Scholars Guild and so on and so forth, showing absolutely no meaningful reading in Reformed literature to even know how basic objections like this have been thoroughly answered for a very, very, very long time. Good grief, Augustine refuted this kind of stuff. Paul refuted this kind of stuff in Romans 9. This is the exact objection that was made by the objector in Romans 9. And here he quotes Romans 9 22, doesn't see the objection, doesn't realize he's making the same thing. If your objection to Paul is the same thing as that guy, you've got a problem. Without giving them any real opportunity to accept or reject him, there's the Roman concept of you have to be given equal chances. No, God doesn't give anybody any chances. None. He'd be perfectly just if he didn't. See, Rome doesn't understand the categories of mercy and grace and what real justice is. It can't. Calvin defends the position by saying we have no right to question God in this matter, but what his critics are questioning is actually Calvin's concept of God's goodness. Double predestination makes God, not the godless sinner, responsible for human sin. And again, as any argumentation provides, any interaction with the multiple volume-length refutations of this canard and misrepresentation, even enter into the possibility here? No, of course not. Because that's not the purpose of Catholic Answers, that's not the purpose of the people you're writing for. They don't care whether we agree with them or not. They're just trying to insulate their own people. And therefore you get this kind of stuff. In contrast, the Church teaches that God desires all men and women to be saved, and His omniscience, knowing who will be saved and who will not, certainly doesn't preclude His giving each person the free will choice to accept or reject His gift of eternal life in the drama of salvation history. Which, I would submit to you, makes no sense whatsoever. If God knows, how is that free will? I mean, can they do something differently? No, they can't. Or God's knowledge would be forfeited, which is why open theism enters in. More than that, God in his love seeks out those most in need of his mercy as the good shepherd who seeks out wayward sheep." And of course, from their perspective, that shepherd can't save anybody without the sheep's help. They can't evidently see that, but there it is. So, are some destined to be damned? Another example of just how often Catholic answers put stuff out there that is just bad. Really, really bad. Alright. Gotta get through this. Gotta get through this. Lauren just saw the Coogee Shoes on the DL. My eyes! My eyes! We used to have a sound file. Remember? Huh? And you liked it? Oh, okay. Okay, I'll like it too. See? There, I liked it too. Should I show them again? I only showed one shoe. I could show the other. It sort of looks a little bit like that, just not quite as bright. That's why I kept it there, so everybody can see. Okay! Alright, I gotta get to this. On Saturday night, I saw a tweet from Thabiti Anyabwili. I do not live on social media, and at times I can literally go for many days without turning television on. Especially these days, it's so depressing and so... Frustrating, as I see my society succumbing to utter and complete irrationality. No one teaches logic anymore, no one knows history anymore. The babbling of the left and even the babbling of the right that is disconnected from a Christian worldview and that can give it any meaning. is very frustrating and I do not have endless patience and there are times you just simply have to turn it off and focus upon other things just simply to keep your blood pressure down and your heart rate down and everything else. But I had seen a tweet from Thabiti. Now Thabiti and I have met once. We spoke on Islam together in Canada many, many years ago. And so, I am holding Thabiti Anyabwili to the standards of truthfulness and argumentation that we would share as Christian apologists. He has debated, I believe he's debated Bassam Zawadi, I think it was Bassam that he debated overseas once. We have debated some of the same people, and therefore I am simply holding him to the exact same standards that I would demand I be held to. in scholarly debate. That's all I'm doing. I'm treating him as a brother in Christ, and as a result, demanding that he be truthful and accurate in his argumentation. What he presented was not truthful, was not accurate. I am going to refute it. It is not a matter of opinion. This is a false, bad argument. I am saying that as a person who has taught apologetics on the graduate level for decades. As someone who studied logic, it is not rational, it is not defensible. It is a false argument. And he did not even try to attempt to defend it as a sound argument once I pointed out what the problem was. Here it is. Now, after I read this, I did not respond to it immediately. It was Saturday night, Sunday's coming, I had other stuff going on. I've got a lot of stuff going on. And not necessarily pleasant stuff going on. But I decided to go ahead and respond to it two hours after it was posted. It wasn't sort of some knee-jerk reaction. Oh, I can't believe I said that. I thought about it. I thought, well, you know, it is... My hope was, in responding to it, that Thabiti would go, yeah, that wasn't really fair, was it? And dial it back. I was wrong about that. So here, as you know, in Twitter, you have to read bottom to top instead of top to bottom. Here's what he said. The common thread between the pipe bombs mailed to 13 to 14 persons The Louisville shooter who attempted to enter a black church before killing two at Kroger and the murder of Jewish person and shooting of police officers in Pittsburgh is white supremacy. Another commonality, and I checked to several timelines to be sure, none of the major folks on Twitter, so strident in their opposition to social justice, had anything to say about any of those events or the white supremacy that undergird them. Complete silence is not justice, and then not even a lament or a praying for the families. I think you need to be aware of the fact that people ask, so what was going on? What could explain this as far as where he's coming from? Well, let me see if I... I might not have brought that up. I have a picture. uh... from the what's this called the frequency conference in philadelphia and to be was there along with doctor more and matt chandler and uh... pastor mason this was the place to be if you're woke okay this was the center of wokeness this past weekend so in other words he's been listening to critical race theory and intersectionality and social justice stuff being screamed at him. In fact, just to give you a sense, Matt Chandler was there. And Matt Chandler posted this. Can you put this up? I guess I'll have to plug it in so you can hear it. Matt Chandler posted this. with the commentary man i'm going to explode so here's here's part of the the frequency uh... stuff Matt Chandler, right then, was saying, I'm going to explode. Now, I think it may be because he was too close to full back monitors, which will make anyone's ears explode. In a situation like that, I can tell. I would be deaf in absolutely no time at all. But yeah, so Matt Chandler was going to explode there. And so I, my theory is that just like the MLK 50 thing, when he came out with the, your grandpappy killed Martin Luther King stuff. So you need to hold your parents and your grandparents accountable for what they did. I think that's what's going on here. You get all excited about this stuff and the results are the results. So, as I thought about this, I responded and point out a couple of the obvious, obvious problems. First of all, this assumes that virtue signaling, instantaneous social media virtue signaling, is somehow demanded in our modern day. Because, for example, the synagogue shootings. Horrific thing. And this is another thing that's just bothering me tremendously. There was a day when you did not have to tell people, I think that's terrible. There was a sufficiently commonly held worldview that would say for everybody, for everybody, that everybody knows that this was a terrible, horrible thing, and especially Christians. There's actually the implication here that those who have criticized the unbiblical definition of social justice and this movement, and he clearly had me in mind, as well as others, basically everyone who wrote the statement is what he's going to admit is he was taking a shot at, though he doesn't name anybody. So it's nice and vague, so you can apply it to anybody you want. That's another part of the problem. But the assertion is, well, you know, they haven't said anything. This is unjust, because it has to do with white supremacy. And what's the only thing that would tie all that together? Because they're actually white supremacists. There was a day when, especially at least in the church, you actually had enough respect for someone else who claimed the name of Christ to assume that they would believe what the Bible says, that mass murder is evil! And it's pure virtue signaling. It is capitulating to the world. Capitulating the world to say, oh, you've got to rush to your social media things and talk about all this type of stuff. More on that a little bit later on. What happened in Pittsburgh is horrific. Absolutely horrific. And then the... I had not even heard The only reason I knew anything about Pittsburgh was I had seen stuff going by on Twitter. I had not turned on the television. And I'll tell you why. Because, have we not learned this by now, especially on weekends when people are away, that much of what you're going to get in the first few hours or even first few days is pretty much a waste of your time? How many times have people had to walk back this story and walk back that story and admit, well, you know, we were told that this had been said, but it really wasn't said. Because these news sources are doing everything they can to have something to say. Once they go wall-to-wall with it, they keep repeating the same things. We heard this over there, we heard that over there. the reality is you're not really going to get the solid stuff until a few days later and it's going to be in serious written articles and even then these days there's reason to really wonder. And so, do forgive us, those of us who not only will tune out once in a while, but who then, when we want to interact with something, will do so slowly and carefully. Oh my, that's a terrible thing to do. No, it's the right thing to do. Okay? So, I hadn't even heard of this Kroger thing, and there seems to be misrepresentation on Thabiti's part, even today, as to what happened in the Kroger thing. The reports I heard didn't have the way he had it. So again, who's to know until the actual facts are made available in meaningful reporting, full-length articles from serious journalists, few as they might be these days, or legal proceedings. You have three things, and I'm sorry, but I have yet to see, even today, having taken some time to listen to some more, I have yet to see that a meaningful argument can be made that the thing that ties all this together is some concept of white supremacy. I don't see that these three people were somehow joined at the hip by being part of the same group. And as soon as you start trying to push these narratives, you end up twisting the reality of why these people do the things they're doing. Look, the guy at the synagogue is just simply a Jew-hater. I've never understood that. I can never understand that. But folks, please, don't you realize that anti-Semitism, Jewish hatred is worldwide and has infected a massive portion of non-white people? that has nothing to do with white supremacy at all. If you start pushing these narratives, you end up distorting the truth. I mean, there's just so many problems here. It's just stunning that someone of Thabiti's intelligence and training could be throwing this stuff out. Just stunning. You've got that problem. You gotta respond fast. I thought there was something in Proverbs about being slow in your response. You know, taking some time to think through it. And maybe more than just two hours. Maybe a couple days. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't accuse people of sin for things that are not sin. But then the follow-up, another commonality, and I checked to several timelines to be sure. Well, there wasn't almost anything in my timelines because I've got other things going on. None of the major folks on Twitter so strident in their opposition to social justice had anything to say about any of the events or the white supremacy that undergirthed it. So we need to accept his conclusions, his extremely premature conclusions, that it is white supremacy behind all of that. And then, having made the accusation, ignoring the reality that, and this is what was so stunning, how do you know any of us are even keeping up? It's Saturday night. You may be rocking out at your conference. I was preaching Act 6 the next day. It's not the easiest chapter in the world. I had other things to do. Do forgive! How do you know people aren't traveling? I was just overseas. I know of at least one of these quote-unquote critics that was asleep during this time, because he's not in the United States. He's about 10 hours out away. And this is a man who travels overseas. Can you imagine if someone turned this around on him? Can you imagine if someone said, well, obviously, Sabidia doesn't care anything about this, and he was overseas. The injustice of it is so obvious, the hypocrisy of it is so obvious, that that's why I had hoped that once I responded, you'd go, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just upset about this. So many things here that that are in that are in error but so you assume that we're all sitting there watching TV like you are and We've all got our social media stuff up and we're sitting going. Oh boy. I better not talk about any of this because It's white supremacy and well, we're white supremacists Why else would it be what else is being insinuated here That's exactly what's being insinuated. Complete silence is not justice. Complete silence is irrelevant in this situation. If we were in charge of a news network making the editorial choices as to what was being covered, and we chose not to cover these things, well, at least you'd have something to complain about. We are not doing that. That's not our job. Not a one of us has ever said that we are the gatekeepers for all social knowledge. Never made that claim. There's all sorts of stuff I don't talk about. I've said over and over again, a man's gotta know his limitations. And so there's lots of stuff I don't talk about. Has nothing to do, no rational argument could possibly be made by anyone who honors logic, and reason, and truthfulness, and honesty, and consistency. That would say that every time something happens, you've got to run to your Twitter feed. and virtue signal to everybody, I think that's bad, I think that's bad, see, I'm good. Is this what we've been reduced to? It's stunning. Now, I responded very calmly and in a brotherly fashion because I really honestly hoped that the response would be, well, you know, what what can i say uh... i was a little upset uh... you know so what is that is he respond so i wrote about four five tweets i said you know i expected better of you this is this is this is not fair fallacious argumentation at every level here's his response let me see if i'm tracking it you don't know much about at all about recent events You're certain, you know, I can't know what's widely reported. Now, that's not representation. All sorts of things are widely reported. It doesn't make them true. Especially shortly after an incident. I mean, that's just naivete. And misrepresentation. And you feel you must comment on my thread. Well, you did aim it at me, didn't you? Actually, at your first point, you should have simply kept quiet. Ho ho ho! So, I get to impugn your motives, I get to attack you on completely fallacious grounds, and you just shut up. That's what I was just told. Just shut up. Wow. Okay. So I said, hey, you can dismiss me all you want. He says, not dismissing you, pointing out your own introductory points which have taken seriously calls into question why you are once again pronouncing so authoritative about something you admit you're not up to speed on. That's not dismissing you, but holding you to your own premise. No, what he was ignoring, obviously, is my objection had nothing to do with the events. My objection had to do with the absurdity of demanding that we virtue signal on our things or we're not doing justice. If you're not doing justice, what are you doing? So, what he was saying is, it's unjust for us not to be commenting immediately, not coming Monday, not after the Lord's Day. Immediately, we need to be on social media condemning these things, even though, as far as I could tell, the first thing Thabiti said about the shooting was to condemn us. Where was the just general condemnation before that? Or could you just simply assume that? Oh, so we can assume that for you, but you can't assume that for us. Huh. Well, that's interesting. A little unfair. So, let me, let me, let me, before I look at some of this, let me apply this. Let me apply this to Thabiti's own, let me use his own standards here, okay? I want to know why Thabiti Anyabwili has not condemned the killing of Kenjuan D. Scott over the weekend. I cannot find that man's name anywhere in Thabiti's social media material. Kenjuan D. Scott. Why not, Thabiti? Since you haven't said anything about it, I think there's something more here. That silence is not justice. You want injustice. There's something more going on here. It's because of how he died. Now, he's probably sitting there. Well, I have a feeling he won't watch. He'll be told about by somebody else. But if he were to watch, he'd be sitting there going, who's that? And he's gonna Google the name. And he'll find out that Kenjuan D. Scott, 23, was shot and killed about 10.55 a.m. this past weekend in Chicago. as part of the ongoing genocide of blacks by other blacks in Chicago. Five killed, 43 shot, one weekend. Five killed, 43 shot, one weekend. I didn't hear a word about it from anybody. And it happens pretty much every weekend, doesn't it? Yeah. Don't hear a word about it. So by his own standard, this must mean that Thabiti is a black supremacist, right? Because this is black on black violence. So he's not talking about black on black violence. So therefore he's a black supremacist. Case closed. I'm done. See how simple and stupid that is? That's absurd. That is not how we should be reasoning. That is not how we should be behaving. That's how Thabiti's behaving. And when pressed on it, all he does is double down. All he does is double down. He says, yes, but it only takes one tweet to do so, like this one, you can skip all the unnecessary posturing. So, I'm posturing. Second, pointing out silence is no lower, it's not low at all, than the false attribution of positions and name-calling you do on a regular basis. You want to substantiate that? Notice how many times he will make accusations. He's made accusations of white supremacy. He's made accusations of silence that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Now he's making accusations of name-calling on a regular basis. So if it's a regular basis, it should be really easy to back this up, right? Notice how many times I will challenge him to back up accusations he's making and so far to this point right now zero documentation of anything that he has made allegations. Nothing. Nothing. Somebody's gonna come along and drag out Brad Mason's slander piece, I'm sure. That's about all they've got. That's the best they can do and that's Pilar Hooley itself. Then I pointed out, I'll pull this down here, I pointed out the Tukokwe fallacy he was making. And that is, well, if, you know, okay, if I made a false accusation, well, you do it all the time. That's the Tukokwe fallacy. Well, you do. And so I point this out. Again, I'm dealing with the Beatty as a fellow apologist. He's supposed to have the highest standards of argumentation. That's... Silly me! I thought that's what we Christian apologists had to do. I thought that it wasn't just when debating Muslims, but maybe we should have the same standards even when you're arguing amongst us. Don't you think? I think so. So, he says to me, You mean the same kind of error you participate in with the social justice statement? Pots calling kettles, James. Okay, turning off for tonight. I hope you have a great Lord's Day tomorrow. You mean the same kind of error you participate in with the social justice statement? Now, I was talking about the two Coquette fallacies. It would really be helpful because we can't get people to provide meaningful interaction. I mean, it's normally very surface level or it's talking about stuff we're not even attempting to address and stuff like that. Here's an opportunity. Wow, I'd like to see, you know, when he first came out, I was like, I don't see anything special here. Everybody believes that. And, you know, which one is it? I mean, he even said at one point, well, I can sign that, I won't, but I can sign that, there's nothing special about that. Okay, so where is, hmm, the same kind of error you participate in with the social justice statement, that would be so useful to have some documentation of what that is, right? And so, but he says, I'm going to bed, so I'm going to make the allegation, and then, boop, I'm gone. So my response to him was, such an allegation begs documentation, Zabiti, and you know that. You may sign off, but I will respectfully and repeatedly demand you back up that allegation. I do not believe you can do so. Okay? Is that fair? I've had so many people talking about how ungracious I have been. Who's being gracious here? Is it gracious to make allegations and not back them up? Is it gracious to accuse people of harboring feelings of white supremacy and not back that up? Who's being ungracious here, folks? I've asked five people so far today. Well, you know, you're just so sarcastic and stuff like that. Document it. The one thing the one guy did is ask your wife. Wow, it's great to, yeah. I wonder if these folks respond the same way. So I asked. I didn't say anything on Sunday. A few people made comments, I didn't say anything on Sunday. Thabiti writes, It's really telling, especially when all one would need to do is say something as simple as, such hate is contrary to the gospel, sinful not to be opposed, or even, this is evil, but I didn't feel led to say anything at this point. Some are protesting too much, it seems. Again, doubling down and defending the indefensible. You do not have to go on social media to virtue signal. If, evidently, Thabiti is now operating on the assumption that we are not his brothers in Christ. Because if we were, then you can assume that we believe that murder is evil. I mean, the only way to interpret this is, you all are white supremacists, that's more important to you than the gospel itself. That seems to be what he's saying. How else do you interpret that? That's shameful. That's what this has come to? Not coming from my side. I'm just telling Thabiti the exact same standards that I would have held him to when we first spoke, I think in 2006-2008, I forget which one it was. Exact same standards. No change. Thabiti, such hate is contrary to the gospel, sinful not to be opposed. That's a given. Are you seriously suggesting that we don't believe that? Or that we have to? What would everyone's social media thing be but a constant repetition of that about everything happening? You didn't say that about all the deaths in Chicago this weekend. So what does that mean? Absolutely, positively nothing. It means nothing. Just like everything you've been saying. It means nothing. Then why'd you do it? Because you were all hopped up on social justice juice. Because you're all excited. There have been all that preaching and all that fiery stuff and I'm going to take a shot at those guys. It's a cheap shot. It's hypocritical. But I'm going to double down on it. Even when it's demonstrated that my argumentation is completely fallacious. Completely fallacious. Then he admits. It is very much a poke in the eye, which is what he had said to us, but not the sort you're asserting. The poke is, from a group of leaders so vocal about what justice is and is not, it's telling they're silent in the face of such clear injustice. It could tell us a number of things, but I stated what I thought. So once again, you've got to do it in my time frame. I don't care. If you don't even know what's going on, I don't care if you're out of the country. I don't care if you prefer to make sure of your facts beforehand so you don't make stupid statements. None of that matters. It doesn't matter. You must virtue signal right now and you are silent. And I say to you, saying that we are silent on this matter is simply absurd. It's a lie. It's a lie. The whole statement was about justice. We're not silent on this. We just don't engage in this kind of social media surface level posturing, virtue signaling, rile up the troops, and let's divide everybody before Sunday service. Because that's what you did. I didn't do that. I didn't write it. You wrote it, you kept it nameless so it could be applied to the widest number of people as possible and have the most divisive result to it. Is that not true? Is that not true? Namely, such silence in the face of such moral evil is not justice. Saying it's not justice is not saying they don't care, haven't privately prayed or commented, or are themselves guilty of the animus that led to the attacks. It's saying it's not justice. That's all. Now this is where Thabiti has to be criticized, because this is the passive-aggressive, your grandparents and parents were uh complicit in the death of martin luther king a few days later but i didn't really mean to say that stuff It's not justice, but it's not injustice, and I can't prove you even knew what was going on. And I'm not saying that they are guilty of the animus that led to the attacks, but I threw that out there, and if they hadn't responded, I wouldn't have cared if anybody came to that conclusion, because that's what the original tweets insinuated. And so, at least there was a small walk back there, but not an overly honest walk back. Let me see. So he finally, the last one here, three basic points. White supremacy hate is the root of these tragedies. Leading folks who've taken it upon themselves to lecture us all about biblical justice are conspicuously silent as a group on these tragedies. Despite their lectures, silence is not justice. And so he repeats it once again and doubles down on all of it. He simply will not He will not admit. Okay, I know this is completely unfair. It's grossly unfair. I would never allow this to be applied to myself. It could be applied to me. I just gave you an example of applying to him this standard. It could be done a thousand times over every week. If he's gonna follow his own standard, he's gonna have to now live in Twitter, and he's gonna have to be constantly scanning, he's gonna have to set up five or six screens, and have different things on him, and just be constantly virtue signaling every time something horrible happens, because there's a lot of horrible things happening in the world. Thankfully, I'm not gonna follow him like that, and criticize him that way, and I hope nobody else does either. No, the answer is for him to go, alright, alright, okay, I'm sorry. That was a bogus argument. Whether someone tweets on anything at any period of time is irrelevant. Uh, I can't set up the time frame as to when people are supposed to virtue signal their views on something. And yeah, you know what? I would want people to assume that they could know what I believe about such horrible tragedies without me having to trot out there and say, yes, I think nuclear bombs are bad when they go off in the city. I mean the level, uh, now, I specifically, um, he also, there's two others, he said to me, so you think the claim I made here cannot be allowed to pass in silence, but you don't have any concern for your and many of your anti-SJW colleagues' silence in light of last week's murders and attempted assassinations? I'mma let you hang on to your faux outrage. Faux outrage. So again, my argument was against the fallacious nature of his argumentation. He ignores that in full outrage. And I said, okay, brother, I wanted to give you a chance to either substantiate your statements or walk them back. You have chosen disrespect instead. I will not respond in kind. I will, however, calmly and accurately dissect your divisive actions from the weekend on today's dividing line." This was this morning. To which he responded, man, that's all you're ever really looking for is some fodder for the DL. If I ever thought you'd have a fair and honest engagement without twisting things, I'd engage you. But as I've said before, you're almost in a league by yourself for mangling understanding, so have at it." To which I said, would you, I said, if I recall what I said was, I would ask you to substantiate that as well, but given that you have not chosen to substantiate any of the allegations you've made so far, We'll go from there. So, one of us can quote the other, provide documentation. Any other just throws out the accusations, and when challenged, meh. So, Thabiti, if you think you can defend the argumentation that all the signers of that statement should have been not only watching Fox News over the weekend, or MSNBC, you might prefer that, or CNN, or something else, and hanging on every word, and believing every report that comes in, in those first few hours, which are normally completely fallacious, but if you want to defend that idea, and that therefore, we should be on our social media feeds, virtue signaling to the whole world, this is a terrible, horrible thing, because, how could the world know? I mean, the world might think that we think it's wonderful, because we've consistently said that in the past. If you want to try to defend any of this stuff, given what you just said right there, you wouldn't be willing to do it. I'm willing to schedule a time. I'm going to travel this week, but we'll do it next week. If you really think that your original series of tweets was fair and defensible, for what they said at that time. Don't try to walk it back now, it's too late. Then let me know. Everybody's been saying, well, we just need to have, there needs to be give and take here, okay. But what there can't be and what there will not be is, well, you know, let's just respect one another and let's just let each other's arguments go No, Thabiti's arguments were false. They are untruthful. They are illogical. They violate the fundamental rules of truthfulness and consistency and debate, and they are inappropriate for a Christian. That's a fact. That can't change. We can't gloss over that with nice warm feelings for one another. That was wrong to do, period. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. This isn't, this isn't, what color is that dress? Well, you know, I don't know. Or what can I hear? Well, it depends on how old you are. No, it's none of those things. This is a matter of whether we can identify truthful argumentation and reasoning and false argumentation and reasoning or not. And sadly, the conclusion I'm coming to from many people who even call themselves Christians today is, nah, it's just a matter of opinion. Just a matter of opinion. Well, they're not going to be doing too well in the apologetic realm, if they actually do believe that. So there you go. I think, you know, as I've looked at the individuals out there, I mean, obviously, what the B doesn't understand is nine months from now, 12 months from now, I will hear, I will see people saying things, well, you know, like the Beatty demonstrated, you're a white supremacist. And I'll go, what? Well, you know, remember when you didn't say anything, you did injustice in regards to the synagogue shooting? That's what I get. That's what I get. And when people, well, you should just, you should, you should just, you know, be gracious. I think being truthful is being gracious. And I just simply asked, how many times was I disrespected, insulted, slandered, dismissed by Thabiti Anyabili right there? And I didn't respond by saying anything other than, I'm going to take your arguments apart, man, because I'm holding you to the same standard that I thought we shared together. Evidently, that's changed too, because the BD has changed a lot since 2006-2008. It's changed a lot. And that's what's happening here too. So, there you go. Didn't expect to go this long. Wanted to be done by 4 o'clock, but I didn't. So, there you go. But, I think rather thoroughly went through that material. Rather fully. And I let him... I read a lot of stuff from him. You can judge it for yourself as to whether I was fair in my response to it. So right now the plan is to be back on Wednesday, because as I said, quick trip this weekend. So be back on Wednesday, Lord willing, and we'll see you then. What? Oh, okay. Well, I don't really know anything about this, but I guess right now, if you go to our web store and stuff, or if you've set us up, because I know I have us set up as my Amazon Smile thing. Most of us use Amazon. It's just too easy to use, not to. And I have Alphan Omega as my Amazon Smile donor. And it's normally a pretty small percentage. But I guess for a Through Friday, the Amazon Smile thing is 10 times the normal amount. Who knew? The link's at aomin.org. I, unfortunately, bought a lens from my camera last week. And that would have been very helpful. I wish I had known it was coming, but I didn't. So, Rich wanted me to let you know about that. And once again, thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you very, very much for the Coogee shoes. And that's very encouraging. Appreciate that. All right. Anyways, we'll see you on Wednesday. Thanks. God bless.