uh but where is the meaning and one of the things that we discover in prolamin is that meaning um although it can exist in the intention of the author we don't discover meaning in the intention of the author we discover meaning in the text itself uh so that's where you go for the meaning you don't go as my professor Dr. guys would say we don't go behind the text. We don't go around the text. We go to the text and that's where we obtain meaning. [Music] Well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Alisa Childers podcast. It's always my goal to help equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity, discern its counterfeits, and proclaim the gospel with clarity, kindness, and truth. And if you can hear the excitement in my voice, it's because today's episode just might be my favorite episode of the whole year. And that's because I got to have a conversation with my old theology professor from Southern Evangelical Seminary. And it was just so fun. I loved it so much. Back 10 years or so ago, Dr. Doug Potter was one of my first professors. Now, I was just auditing classes at SCES back then. I've since been able to take some classes for credit. I always want to be learning, and I love Southern Evangelical Seminary for that. And as part of our seminary series, that's what I'm hoping to bring to you. Just this rich and wonderful education that I got at SCS, I want to bring to you. So, we're going to be interviewing different seminary professors. Many of those are from SCES. And today we're going to be talking about prolagina. Now, if that word is new to you, if you, you know, if you don't traffic in theological circles that much and you're like, "That sounds like something I don't need to know about." I can assure you, you do need to know about it. Prolama is so important because it's basically in a theological context, prolina is the thinking that we do before we do theology. And many Christians don't realize how important it is. is. Now, let me put some flesh on that to help you understand maybe why it's so important. I I actually really love listening to Jordan Peterson. I like his podcast. I think he's got some really interesting insights into the world. But one area that he really frustrates me is his view of the Bible. He views the Bible, it seems to me like it's not really u literally true, but it's sort of like this cryptic kind of um idea that we can mine fundamental truths out of. And that frustrates me because I want to just say, gosh, it seems like the thinking that has led up to that hasn't led him to a place to view the Bible as the self-revelation of God, that this is God's word and how we get to know who God is and that it is true. Maybe you've heard progressive Christians approach the Bible as if it's just a human book that makes observations about what they knew about God in the time and place that they lived in. Maybe they were looking around at other cultures and they interpreted their experience with Yahweh through that lens. And so that's the way maybe a progressive Christian would approach the Bible. And that's a different prologamina that would lead to that. Historically, Christian theologians take the Bible as the starting point and final authority for truth. It's God's self-revelation. That's what we're coming to the Bible uh as. And we have to know a few things before we get there. We have to think about first of all, does truth even exist? Because if truth doesn't exist when it comes to God and religion, well then why would you take the Bible as God's self-revelation? Why would you take it as his word? But if truth really does exist, if it can be known, then we can build from that to ask questions like, if God does exist, did he reveal himself? If he revealed himself, which religion is true, which holy book is true? If Jesus was really resurrected from the dead after declaring himself to be God, saying a lot of things about the scriptures and then proving his claims to be true by rising from the grave. Well, then we're going to approach the Bible in a different way than we would if we thought it was just a human book about God. And all of that has to do with having a really good, solid promeina. So, we're going to talk all about it today. So many highlights from today's episode. I think you're going to get a lot out of it and I hope that it will be one of your favorites as well. So, here's Dr. Doug Potter. Well, Dr. Potter, so great to have you on the show. I've actually wanted to have you on for a long time because, as I've talked about on this podcast, I have taken several classes at Southern Evangelical Seminary, and you probably don't even remember this, but back close to 10 years ago, you were one of my first professors. So, I'm thrilled to have you on the show. And we're going to be talking about prolamina today, which is a, you know, big word, but we're going to, don't worry, everybody. We're going to define everything and talk about why this is something that isn't talked about nearly enough, but it's one of the most important things to doing good theology. So before we get to prolamina, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you teach at SCES and then we'll get into it. Sure. Yeah. Hey, it's great to be on your show, Alyssa. Uh thanks so much for having me. Uh you're right. You're absolutely right. Um the topic of prolamina is extremely important. Um, I've been at Southern Evangelical Seminary uh for a number of years. I actually went to school there. I earned two degrees there. Uh, was there almost from the start. Uh, it actually started a year before I uh, started school there. Uh, and then I've been teaching for them since 2004. So, we're talking about 20 or so years, just a little bit over that. And actually started my very first class that I taught there was a class on prolamin. I I remember it very clearly. Had seven students and did an awful job teaching it. So I know this is a a tough subject. It's a tough subject to grasp as a student and it's and it's difficult to teach it as well. But uh as you stated, it's just extremely important. Uh the topics that are covered are immensely important in terms of guiding our thinking about how to interpret the Bible, how to understand the Bible, how to do doctrine, how to do theology. And it's something that if we avoid uh we do it at our peril. uh it's it's not something you want to avoid at all. And uh and in all likelihood, if you're studying apologetics, you're probably doing a little bit of it already. You just need to be a little bit more intentional about it. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Well, let's talk about what it means because for people who have never heard the word prleama, I don't want anybody to shrink back because of the that it sounds like a complicated word. It's really not that complicated. What are we talking about when we use the word prolamina? You're exactly right. It's really not that complicated. It's it because everybody knows what pro means and that's before. And then Lego, it's it's Greek for I say. So if you know a little bit of Greek, Lego is before I say is really what the word means. And it's everything in the context of doing theology. It's everything that needs to be done philosophically speaking to demonstrate truth before doing the subject of theology. I mean just briefly and we'll get in and more in depth into this. We want to show that God exists and that he has a certain nature and these are certain truths that we can demonstrate apart from scripture or independent of scripture through just rational argumentation and reasoning and that becomes very important because it gives us an independent ground to understand uh the nature of God and then to think of God in terms of that nature as we read our Bible and as we go on and do theology. And there's a lot of other areas related to this. So it deals completely with what we would call preconditions or philosophical preconditions, truths we want to establish and hold to before we jump into reading our Bible, studying it and doing theology and doctrine and so forth. And uh uh having that independent basis before that just gives us an extra strength, an extra arm with regards to truths about God and solidifies those and it hopefully enables us to kind of weave a thread into our thinking that as we come up various issues and questions related to theology, we we keep hold of those truths in prolamina and they influence us and guide us and show us the truth. So again, prolleamina, very simple word, pro meaning before uh we um uh speak about God, which is what theology is, before we do a discourse about God. Yeah. Very good. And and it's very important. And I'll just tell a personal story from my life and then another uh just anecdote that I was thinking about this week that demonstrates why it's so important. So for me, I really wasn't. We're going to be talking about hermeneutics in coming weeks in this seminary series, but I wasn't really given the tools of hermeneutics growing up. Now, I'm thankful that I was given the gospel and I was taught that the Bible is God's word. I'm very thankful for all of that. But if you would have asked me most of my life, why do I believe the Bible is God's word? I would have just said, because the Bible says so. And I I think that demonstrates really a lack of what we're talking about here today is thinking about what we're going to, you know, like you said, preconditions. What how are we even approaching this book? And so what I realized uh even uh a couple months ago in our deliverance ministry series is that I realized later after I took prolamina or understood prolamina and after I learned hermeneutics that I was actually interpreting the bible for a good bit of my life allegorically. But I didn't realize that. I really didn't real. It's not that I didn't think those things happened historically in the Old Testament but everything was like an allegory for what I was going through in my own spiritual life. And that's because I had bad preconditions to approach the text with. And I was listening recently to an interview with a woman named Naomi Wright who is has a ministry for people who are coming out of spiritual abuse. And she actually came out of a pretty what we would consider to be radical cult. And one of the things she explained in this interview with Mike Winger was that one of the things that helped her, I guess, ultimately leave and understand God better was was learning the tools to interpret the Bible properly. And I think that prologamina are we even talking about things like grammar and even knowing how to read words? Is that included in prleamama or would that be a different type of precondition? Yeah. Uh it's there are preconditions related to language that are important like the notion of and I I'll give you three things that I think establish what prolagama should cover and and two goals two ultimate goals of prolamama to have in mind. First of all as I mentioned before there's got to be a being that uh is capable of giving revelation. And this course is the transcendent God uh that exists uh and we can demonstrate the existence of God through philosophical argumentation and reason. There's got to be a being that's capable of receiving that revelation. Of course, that's human beings capable of receiving it. And related to your grammar question is this notion of a medium of communication that is adequate to constitute revelation from God to us. And uh that's where we get the notion of truth needing to be absolute that we would cover in prolamina related to grammar that you can construct sentences that correspond to the truth in the word. The correspondence uh understanding of truth that what we say or what we affirm about the world is indeed true because it has correspondence to our sentence and that of course needs to be properly constructed grammatically. So it undergurs grammar uh because if you don't have this notion of absolute truth, then your sentences ultimately are are meaningless. Uh they're not true for everyone. They're not true everywhere. And of course in theology, we're all about truth about God, about human beings, and about our world. And we need absolute truth. And it comes, it happens to be the case that in prolong we show that all truth is absolute. And there there is no such thing as a relative notion of truth. So it certainly undergurs uh shows the philosophical uh truths that need to be there that support things like grammar, language and meaning and so forth are all related to it. So those are the three areas. There's also there's also two really important goals because if we don't have in mind pointing towards these goals then we really miss the point of prolama in terms of an application and those those two goals is one to show that our philosophy is compatible or in agreement with scripture that is what we assert philosophically has agreement in scripture and the other thing which is extremely important and questioned and attacked a lot today is full biblical inherency. We ultimately want to show that our philosophical preconditions are in agreement with scripture because it's there that we see the full biblical inherency uh come to fruition and that's what prolamama is geared towards as a goal agreement philosophically with scripture and full biblical inherency and uh having those in place and that independent grounding of uh in prolamina that is we're not basing it on a presupposition of scripture uh philosophical ical or or otherwise with regards to um uh anything about God or about the world or philosophically we're showing independent verification of that and agreement with scripture. So those three things in mind and those two goals really constitute the subject of prolamina. You know, this is so important because I mean, again, thinking back over my life growing up where I wasn't really given these tools. And I think that I was just living my life with a presupposition that scripture is true because the Bible says so. And when that really fell apart was when that was all challenged by skeptical claims against the Bible. And then I realized I found myself as an adult saying, "Well, wait a second. I've I've just presupposed that the Bible is God's inherent word. I don't really have re objective reasons outside of the Bible just testifying it of itself. Which when I was intellectually honest, I realized, well, that's not a good enough reason to say that the Bible is God's word because there I might find a piece of paper on the ground that says this is God's word. And if I'm going to be consistent, I would have to believe that, too, because it just says so. And so I think this is another just maybe anecdote to give people an idea of why this is so important is you know one of the things that kind of frustrates I love Jordan Peterson. I love listening to him even talk about the Bible. But it frustrates me because his promeina is totally different than how you would approach the Bible as a a a Christian. So he's approaching the Bible as if it's you know stories from people and he'll even assign some divinity to it. But he's not coming to the Bible as if it is God's self-revelation. And you actually have to reason to that. And I and and if anybody's uncomfortable with that, I want to read from Romans because the Bible also affirms this about about the way we uh obtain knowledge. In Romans 1 in starting in verse 18, it says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. So that's pre-scripture, since the creation of the world is before we had scripture. And he says it this has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. So it talks about them becoming feudal, becoming darkened in their thinking. And then of course from that we get all sorts of immorality and false religions. And so what I I think it's so fascinating what Paul is saying here because he's not just saying that these facts about God like divine certain things about his eternal power and divine nature, not that these things are even available to be known, but that they are known. We as human beings have clearly perceived this by looking out into creation. And so God created I well he you know he I I don't know if I'm wording that philosophically correct but God is a God of logic. Logic is rooted in God's character. Um truth is rooted in God's character. And so we can discover these things because of the senses that God has given us. Um and so you know any commentary on that? I know I'm not as philosophically precise as you but that's kind of how I think about it. I am so excited to introduce you to a brand new sponsor today. I'm really excited about this one because I've been using their leather products for several months now and I've been so impressed with the quality and the craftsmanship. This is 100% Americanmade and run and owned by Christians. So, they have all sorts of things like leather bags and accessories, belts, Apple watch bands. I have a beautiful leather tote that I've been carrying around as well as a little clutch that I kind of use as a wallet. And what I love about their products is you can tell how well they're made, but also they wear in really nicely, but they don't wear out. They also have a lifetime guarantee they call their forever guarantee. And if you are a part of a business or an organization, you can actually collaborate with them to have custom stamped leather accessories that go with your business. You are definitely going to want to check them out. Go to rangeleather.com and use my code alisa for 15% off. Again, rangeleather.com. Use my code Alisa. Yeah, you're exactly right. Uh the the verse that you read from Romans 1:20 is just extremely important to prolamina. That opens the door to either making an inference to the existence of God from creation or doing a formal study of it like we do in prolamina. We can make formal deductive type arguments concerning God, concerning things about man uh human beings and concerning uh language as well. Uh Romans opens that door for us to base that on creation. And that's what prolagama is doing. It's giving an us an independent a philosophical basis for the existence of God for certain things about human beings that we can detect by examining ourselves and language as well. And so the Bible allows us to do this. Granted, most suppress even an an inference that God exists because of sin, but still we're enabling ourselves to open that door and to argue philosophically and create this independent verification of these really important truths and then to use that later in doing theology. Right? So how maybe make some distinctions of what's the difference between say prologamina and the study of apologetics and the study of theology like how would we make those distinctions you know I can remember when uh I first took prolamina in seminary I signed up for it well before the internet had to write the word down there's a class in promeina and bibliology I had Dr. guys are in it. I knew nothing about what that term was and and what it meant or or what it was concerning. And it really uh opened up the door when I uh stepped into his class. I was confused. How is this different than apologetics? Why are we doing this? I didn't know what was going on uh in the class until he got to one part of the class where he he started to go through the world views, the different world views like pantheism and theism and atheism and so forth like that. and then pointed out that um uh we're doing this with the goal in mind of showing the correct approach, the evangelical approach to doing theology. And then I saw the separation between things like apologetics. And apologetics, you're arguing if at least if it's done systematically and completely. We're arguing for the existence of God and ultimately the truth of Christianity through the resurrection, reliability of the New Testament, and so forth. But in prolamina, we're trying to show a correct approach to doing theology, particularly evangelical theology. Not everybody doing theology today or even going back in the past has approached it evangelically. Have approached it with the right view of God, with the right view of man, and we and even with the right view of language and meaning and so forth. And so we're trying to defend that correct approach to doing theology. So that's kind of what makes prolamina different from doing apologetics. Our goal is different. We want the right theology. In fact, we in prolamina, we have to defend on the we have to depend on the fact that apologetics has already been done and is successful. And now we approach it with taking some things from a from apologetics and some other subjects and putting together the right approach to doing theology. Very good. So you mentioned that prologamina has to do with preconditions having to do with uh information about God and humans and communication language text. So let's start with God. What what are some key takeaways that prologam can help us understand about God himself? Yeah. In prolamina we we are not only concerned about the fact that God exists but we're concerned about what God is in terms of his nature. Um, for example, you read in your Bible some verses uh that speak about God changing his mind. Even in if you go back into the penet, it'll talk about God changing his mind. And then you read other verses in the penet where it says that God is not a man that he should change his mind. And so which is it? Uh is does God change or does God not change? And one of the key takes takeaway from Pearlama is that God cannot change in terms of his being, in terms of his nature. Um he is the one permanent thing that cannot change. His love cannot change. Um his knowledge cannot change. He has knowledge of everything. He is all knowing. So given this fact then when I read verses that talk about God changing his mind, I have to take that as a figure of speech. I have to take that as related to the literature and plea gives me that basis. So it's not just that God exists but it's the fact that God does not change. God is eternal. Uh he is unchanging. He's transcendent. Um, prolamina gives us this this firm basis philosophically and enables us then to interpret and understand the Bible and have a more firm reading of when the Bible is talking didactically or talking about teaching concerning the nature of God or when it's referring to it in terms of a figure of speech. So, it makes it easier for the reader to understand about God and speaks of God anthropomorphically or metaphorically or something like that. helps me to detect those passages and make those differences. So yeah, that is the one uh important thing that that we're able to establish in prolama is the existence and nature of God. So how do we get there? Like you you mentioned that even before this this is a precondition that you would get to the idea that God is unchanging. How do we get there without the Bible or or you know help help our audience understand like well where where are you getting that if you're not getting it from the Bible itself which of course the Bible affirms that but how do you get that yeah you're reasoning about creation for example you can re you can reason the fact that there are there are finite changing things that exist in the world and by that I mean things come into existence like trees and they go out of existence like plants animals even human beings if you want that things come into existence and they go out of existence. That tells some something about their existence. They don't cause their own existence. They're not necessary in terms of their existence. And that forces us to reason philosophically that something must exist that is the cause of their existence. That it itself is something that can't go out of existence and doesn't come into existence. And that of course is God. God being necessary existence to account for things that do come into existence and go out of existence. So that's kind of the philosophical reasoning. I need something to explain changing things in the world. And by change, I mean coming into existence and going out. I don't mean that the leaves of the trees change colors. I mean you can just you can cut down a tree and and grind it up, put it in a sawdust and you say, "Where's the tree?" Uh it's not the sawdust and it used to be there. That is a substantial change of something. So the tree is not necessary existence. It must rely on something for its existence that is necessary existence. So that's the kind of reasoning we're doing in prolamama. Yeah. Very good. Is there anything else about God? Well, let me Okay, let me back up because I think that you can actually explain something like what you just described very simply to a kid. So with my son and and I'll get your commentary on this, but when it comes to even reasoning, you know, as a prologamina before we even get to the Bible, talking about creation, you know, you can I I've done this with my my son where where did the grass come from? Well, it came from the dirt. Well, where did the dirt come from? Well, it came from the earth. Well, where did that come from? And you keep reasoning back and you can even reason back to the smallest little molecule. And at some point there has to be an something that caused it that isn't itself caused. The buck has to stop somewhere. In other words, and I think that's really compelling for kids and and that gives us such a solid basis to understand what we're even talking about when we use the word God. So what do you think about about something like that with kids? Well, that yeah, that's exactly right. And great illustrations to use uh with kids as well. You know, one one that we use in seminary that that could probably work as well is this notion of if the goal is to take a chain that's linked. You can everybody has is probably familiar with a chain or their their um uh the sprockets on their bicycle, that kind of chain that that runs it. Uh linked chains uh that are linked together. If the goal is to hang it on the wall, you can never hang it on the wall with adding another link to the chain. And that's the way it is with regards to things that are finite and changing. We can't just add more finite changing things and account for the entirety of of the world existing. What you've got to do is put something that is qualitatively different in the wall to hang the chain up. And that's a peg or a nail in the wall. Something that's different than another link in the chain. And that enables us to see, oh, okay. So, God God is not a natural kind in the world. He's not like any of the animals. Uh he's not like man. He doesn't come into existence. He doesn't go out of existence. He's not like the world itself. Like pantheism would say, God is the world. That's impossible. You need a transcendent God who uh who is uncaused, who doesn't come into existence and can't go out of existence. And that enables us to have again that firm basis. So the illustration is very good. The chain illustration is is very good. Uh and there's there's several others that could be given. But as long as you've got finite changing things requiring a necessary uh existing thing for their cause to begin with is gives us that firm rational basis for the existence of God. 7 weeks coffee is America's pro-life coffee company and they are on a mission to fund the pro-life movement one cup of coffee at a time. And they just hit an amazing milestone. They have raised over $1 million and donated it to prolife pregnancy centers all across the country. I love everything about this company. They're run by Christians. 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Again, go to 7weeks coffee.com, use my code, Alisa, and remember that your order will directly help support a network of over 1,000 pro-life organizations across the US. 7week coffee.com, use the code Alisa. Right. And even thinking about pantheism, of course, the Bible teaches that God is not, you know, he's distinct from the universe. He is not the universe or part of the universe. But even just as a promeina, you can rule out pantheism because we know from science that the universe exploded into existence from a singularity at a certain point where all time, space, and matter came into existence. And if pantheism were true, then the universe would have to be that uncaused cause that would have to be eternal. Uh and and since we know that it's not eternal, we can rule that out. Is that is that kind of part of prolamina? Yeah. Oh well yes it is absolutely. We will take from any argument for the existence of God that we need to to show that theism is true and everything opposed to it is false. And ifo and if pantheism as you say that says the world is god uh then god is something contingent. Uh theism says as we've argued god is not contingent. God is necessary. Therefore, pantheism is wrong. Right? He's not God is not depending on anything else outside of himself. And this actually eliminates you know when we talk about the cosmological argument that um you know when uh uh everything that begins to ex exist must have a cause. The universe has a cause. Therefore uh the universe has has a cause. But then people will say well then who caused God? But by definition what we're talking about is an uncaused being. because then you would just be backing up the argument infinitely until you get to an uncaused caused and then we're at God. That's what we're talking about. So, um and I probably again, you know, I'm not as precise with it, but that's what makes sense in my mind. You hit it exactly right on with regards to causation. You've got three uh um uh types or three options before you. Cause to exist, which is what we've already identified everything we see in the world as doing it. um and um uh caused by another um uh and uh the fact that God is uh caused by himself uh causes suie or caused by yourself is not an option because it's a contradiction. Um so God must be the final one which is cause that God is uncaused uh that God has always been and his necessary existence and that is the option with regards to God uh that we can affirm with regards to uh prolamina and have in place as we do theology right because you would only need a cause if you began to exist at a certain p time if you are eternal you don't need a cause and so the buck again has to stop somewhere very good okay so let's talk about the uh maybe some key takeaways when we're talking about the preconditions for what human beings are and and how to think about that. Yeah, it becomes really key that human beings are obviously created by God. um and they bear some resemblance in some capacities. And one of the really important things that we emphasize with regards to prolamina is the fact that human beings um uh as you kind of mentioned before know things through their senses, but they also know things through their intellect. That they're a composite of uh a soul, an immaterial nature, and also a body. And that is what constitutes human beings. And so as we know the world through our intellect and through our senses, we arrive at the fact that there's such a thing as absolute truth. And this is essential to prolleama. If truth isn't absolute, then the things we affirm about God aren't true for everyone. The things we affirm about the world aren't true for everyone. Um truth becomes something that is relative and it becomes uh very malleable. Uh and uh we want to affirm the fact that all truth is absolute. So given that basis and the arguments that we can make for the existence of God um or other things with regards to human beings having a soul believe it or not in prolamina we argue apart from scripture that human beings are a soul body unity. Uh and uh therefore they are able to know things that are immaterial with regards to the world and essences and natures and put things into universal categories. Like when we talk about trees again uh we can uh uh we run across a a different tree and we can put it in the category of tree because we have this universal concept or notion that exists in our mind or in our intellect. This is what human beings are. Uh they know things from the world uh and they also know things via their intellect and and are able to arrive at knowing things objectively and knowing things things in terms of an absolute nature of truth. And this gives us a basis for human beings ultimately being able to discuss and talk about God in terms of truth. Yeah. And and I'll just give an example of something that's come up on the podcast recently about a misunderstanding from the perspective of prolama that leads to bad theology. We've been doing a series on deliverance ministry and some of the teachings and practices that are involved there. And one of the teachings that's sort of necessary for now not everybody who's in deliverance ministry teaches that de Christians can be demonpossessed. But some that do teach that are operating from a precondition idea that humans aren't a dichomous uh being. In other words, immaterial and material. And then of course just like our material body is made up of different things like your heart, your lungs, blood, bones, uh and your immaterial part is made up of things like your intellect and your emotions and and those sorts of things. But in the view of the deliver certain deliverance ministries, it's a tricotomy. So they believe that you are a three-part being. You have a soul, a spirit, and a body. And this makes room in their mind for the idea that a Christian could be demonpossessed because the Holy Spirit is occupying one part of your immaterial part, but then that leaves the other part open for, you know, demonic possession or demonization or whatever they might uh argue. But that's actually an that's not necessarily something that if you had no prologamin and you just went to the Bible, you would not be able to determine between dichotomy and tricotomy. But it depends on what you think human beings actually are. And that's why I'm such a stickler for dichotomy because now it's again people nobody's going to go to hell for believing in tricotomy. But it's it's an important distinction to understand as a precondition um so that we can do good theology when we go to scripture to know how to interpret it. It's always such a joy to tell you about Adele Natural Cosmetics. I love this company because they're run by Christians and also because their products are natural, but they're also so good and high quality. I'm always looking for products that aren't going to be filled with toxins that I'm going to put on my skin and get soaked into my body. Adele handcrafts and Artisan makes all their cosmetics in small batches. 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Again, adeleosmetics.com. Use my code Alisa. Yeah. And and it's and it's a dichotomy in the sense of it being a unity. uh that is the the soul is so connected to the body so intricately connected to the body that one affects the other. That is what we know in our intellect can affect things with regards to our body and what happens to our body can obviously affect our intellect and this can be through in the intricacies of emotions and and uh and speech and thoughts and so forth can affect and interact with one another uh very well. You know, sometimes the Bible, we have to admit, will use soul and spirit. Uh, but the notion of of uh uh there being a a strong dichotomy between those things, I think is false. Spirit kind of speaks to the um in fact, it uses it in the context of those that have a relationship with God. That is, we really when we are born again, we then take on a spiritual relationship with God that we didn't have before we were born again. So kind of the the the use that the Bible has with regards to soul, spirit and body. It looks at in fact it will use the term soul and body interchangeably in the Old Testament. And you mean soul and spirit? Did you mean soul and spirit? Yeah. Oh no, no, it will use body and soul interchangeably. Oh, interesting. Okay. Will it shows the unity that is with respect to them and then it will use spirit in terms of this new relationship that we have with God. not to redefine the human nature but to show that there's a brand new relationship that is the result of us being born again according to John 3:16 being born again believing in Jesus and then having a new relationship so that's the sense in which you kind of get that that notion of three being mentioned in scripture but I agree with you completely there's just a soulbody unity that takes place with regards to what constitutes the human nature yeah very good okay so what what would you say now we about communication. What would be some preconditions, some takeaways about that that we would have to know even before we go get into the Bible, right? Yeah, we've got one already established and that is the notion of absolute truth. And and uh because truth is absolute, we can form a sentence and that sentence if it describes uh uh or corresponds to something in the world, then we would say that that is true in an in an absolute sense. But there's some other things that are really important with regards to uh this notion of meaning and that is and that is that is the question and answering the question where is meaning? We always talk about this text means that or that sentence means that uh but where is the meaning? And one of the things that we discover in prolamin is that meaning um although it can exist in the intention of the author, we don't discover meaning in the intention of the author, we discover meaning in the text itself. Uh so that's where you go for the meaning. You don't go as my professor Dr. Geyser would say, we don't go behind the text. We don't go around the text. We go to the text and that's where we obtain meaning. Uh uh meaning is something that is immaterial that arises from the language or the words that are used in a unit that actually mean something. That is words strung together that we recognize as symbols that describe something. That meaning comes from the text itself. So it's tied to the text. It can't be separated from the text. It can't be something I create as a reader in my mind. It has to come from the text itself. And that's where we you talked before about how important hermeneutics are. This is the undergurtding for hermeneutics. That there is a single meaning to any given text that's discovered in the text itself. Uh and this constitutes when you make a truth claim, it's absolute. The meaning of that truth claim comes from the text. And obviously if God is going to use instrumentally human beings to write his revelation uh preserve that for us uh over time then where do we get God's revelation? We get it by going to the text itself. That's what makes it possible to do different translations of the Bible from the Greek or the Hebrew that it was originally written in. that meaning carries through when those are good translations carries through to us so that I can read in English what it means in English it meant in Greek and when it was originally written and we haven't lost anything with regards to the meaning and that's why the words of scripture are so important and this also points to why inherency becomes so important as well okay so let's make some distinctions because this is fascinating because I've often said something like when you're interpreting the Bible you have to understand the author's intent ended meaning because but I also understand what you're saying about the meaning being rooted in the text. So let's take the sentence maybe just to keep it really simple. Uh red delicious apples are red. Okay, that's the the meaning is in the text. Now I as the author I might say something like uh red delicious apples are a rosy hue of puse and maybe I think puse means red and I've misspoken. And so I would expect the person who's listening to what I say to to to seek maybe to understand what I meant. Now you just said a rosy shade of pus. That's not making sense to me. Do you mean a rosy shade of red or crimson or something that's more and then I could clarify. And so ultimately there's a sense in which the meaning is rooted in the author that I was intending to communicate red but I used the wrong word. But but the the meaning being in the words is what might help the interpreter to understand what the author meant maybe. Is that is that one way to approach it? Because Yeah. Yeah. If but notice that when you tried to add to a greater understanding of what you originally said um the person came to you and asked what does this mean? And when you answered you just gave a never another text. I you didn't you didn't we weren't able to get into your head and see the meaning in your head in terms of that as the author. All you could give us was another text. So even if we could go to the Apostle Paul and boy I sure would like to and say Paul what does this mean here? All he would do is give me another text that I have to have understanding of. And that of course involves the meaning of the next text. That's why context is so important to arrive at a correct understanding. we need to put sentences in in their books in the immediate context. We talk about circles of context in hermeneutics where we go out from that author's book to other books that the author has written to the wider literature uh in that ancient time period and so forth to help us understand how words are used. But you you can you but an author is free to use to make up words and to use words different than they are commonly used. And yes, we again would only understand that by going to the text, going to the context of that and uh and and indeed uh working out from there in terms of the background and so forth. So uh when you talk about intentions, yes, intentions do carry the meaning. If I write something or like you just did said something with regards to red apples uh being read or however uh they're described um that meaning existed in your intellect to begin with and then was stated and symbols that I understood verbally or if it's written down but I take the verbal uh uh symbols or I take what is written down and I extract the meaning from the text itself. I don't extract it from you as the meaner in your in your head or in your mind or in your intellect. It comes to me through the text. Okay. So interesting because I just looked up puse. I thought it was a green color. It actually is sort of a brownish red. So I don't know. But yeah. So so let me ask you about that. Like when when words change in meaning over time like take the word awful. You know when the when the word awful was first in use it meant full of awe. Like something like oh that's awesome. that's got grandeur or something like that. But of course today if I say oh that's awful I mean it's terrible it's bad. So how do we come to text having objective meaning when words or the you know the meaning being rooted in the text itself when the when the meaning or the understanding of the words might change over time. Yeah, this is really deep. But but um words are conventional. That is they're agreed upon by a group or community that this word tree or apple or red or whatever will stand for these this color, this piece of fruit, um this vegetation over here. And you're right, those change over the time. You don't have to go far back into English. Just go back to the King James version of the Bible in 1611 and you will get a ton of words that are spelled different and not used today and carry different meanings than they do today. But here's the interesting thing that that enables things with we call this realism. That is um we can accurately describe in whatever words are agreed upon the world. So I can refer to a tree and I can refer to an apple or I can refer to the color red with regards to whatever word we agree upon corresponds to that because reality doesn't change. Apples don't change, trees don't change even though our words and description will change and it takes a series of words that have a subject, verb, direct object and so forth with regards to it that corresponds to what it is we're describing. So, even though words can change, um, we are always going to have nouns, we're always going to have subjects, we're always going to have verbs, um, we're always going to have those things because they are attached to reality in our description of reality. And so, that enables us to have meaning that is consistent. Now, that might take a lot of work to learn Hebrew or to learn Greek or to learn the 1611 English language that's used, but I can go back and study how those words were used and then I can understand in the particular context that this word has changed or we don't use this word anymore or a different language and the meaning remains the same because of this realism, this connection to reality that our language has. Okay. So what would be some pitfalls that people could fall into and I'm thinking of one in particular that I know you are very knowledgeable about and that is a Bible called the Dake Bible. So, I remember seeing the Dake Bible uh on my dad's nightstand. And it's funny after I took a couple classes from you, I think at SCES, my dad and I ended up having a really good conversation about the Dake Bible. And it was it was a really good conversation. But, um, you know, he didn't necessarily know that is it Francis Dake, was that his name? Had a really bad promeina. And so can you maybe using the Dake Bible, what what are some errors people can fall into theologically if they don't have good prolamina? Yeah. And even going back to my previous example with regards to a God changing his mind, just stretch that out. And those are the errors that you find with regards to uh the Dake Study Bible, which actually is very popular. What he does is he takes those those phrases that we would take in a natural sense as being metaphors or anthropomorphisms and literally applies them to God such that for him God ends up having a body. He has hands. Uh he has uh feet. He has um uh uh uh very human characteristics, eyes that see and so forth that we would all attach to to um a literal description of human beings are applied to God in a literal way such that God ends up being just a big or large or what we might refer to as a lowercase go so to speak with the body just like us. Uh but that that that's uh that's paganism. Uh is this notion of of God being like that. The Bible presents us uh very clear teaching that we can rest on our polygamina that God is not a man. Uh that he does not change his mind like a man and he does not have a body. While he certainly is able to create bodies, human beings and in some sense they have a resemblance to him with regards to intellect and uh the fact that they uh uh are uh have morality that they have to function by and so forth u and and other features as well. Uh but nonetheless uh God is not a man. God is not finite. God does not have anything about him that is finite. Um, one of the things we we do in terms of a prolamina is to u take away all the finitude that we might attribute to God and only attribute to God what is infinite. And this gives and again prolamama gives us that basis to actually do that and then to recognize bad theology uh like dakes study bible when we go to it and see that he's he's taking uh uh these verses too literally in a wooden literal sense and not recognizing the figures of speech that are being used and he's coming out the other end uh with a finite god and of course our prolamina shows us that that's not the case and that's how proly would correct something like D's study Bible, right? And that's going to be the foundation of even ending up going in some sort of an open theism direction where God is learning as you know history unfolds. And and these are these are very dangerous views for Christians because they're the wrong view of God. And so much of that has to do with prologamina. If I'm not mistaken, by the way, I looked it up. It's not Francis Dake, it's Finn Dake. Uh and if I'm not wrong about this, I think even the Dake Bible is where the eventual uh prosperity word of faith doctrine came from that he physical healing is part of the atonement. So uh in the word of faith movement, it's taught that God, it's always God's will to heal and you're guaranteed that healing because of that verse. I think it's in Isaiah that by his stripes, Isaiah 53, by his stripes, we were healed. and that you claim that as uh you know healing and then of course this has led to all sorts of harm because then when people aren't healed they are told it's a lack of faith or maybe there's sin in their life because they're not receiving the full benefit of the atonement. I'm do you know did that first come from the Dake Bible? Um I don't know for certain with regards to it. I know there's a lot of word faith teachers out there. Um I I don't recall um how many based uh what they did or what they taught on Dake. I think a lot of them endorsed it. Uh there probably are deeper roots with regards to the word faith movement than uh the dake study reference bible itself. Uh but I I can say as you as you've kind of pointed out that it's something like prolamina and this is the perfect application to bring in correction to something like the word faith movement and their interpretation of scripture. Prolyama would would give you that not only with regards to the wrong understanding of of God from the dake study Bible or or the misinterpretation of various verses that that supposedly guarantee um healing. Um but all of this would prolama would give you that philosophical basis that philosophical ground uh uh grounding for the notion of of a single meaning with regards to the text itself that understood in its proper context like the verse in in Isaiah which actually refers to Christ and the ultimate healing that we all have with regards to sin and the problem of sin in our glorification um is is undergurtded by and strengthened by the independent nature of prolleina. Yeah. So, what are some other pitfalls people that you've maybe witnessed people fall into theologically? Is there like a movement out there or maybe a doctrine that's often taught that's really a result of bad promeina? Yeah. You in fact one that you mentioned is this notion of of um what uh we would call neotheism. This view that gets the nature of God wrong. Instead, they also a little bit like Dake take some uh Bible verses and that talk about as we mentioned uh God changing his mind and other things with regards to God and limit him in terms of being able to give prophecy. Um this is extremely uh dangerous and and is a huge pitfall to our thinking and to doing theology. If you don't get God right, then you end up with a deformed or inadequate understanding of God. You might even do uh your theology as if God is an angel if you don't get the transcendent all- knowing God. And of course, this is extremely problematic uh not only to lives personally. If you think of God as nothing more than an angel, you think that God changes in terms of his love or changes in terms of his mind, in terms of his will and purpose and so forth, then um uh you are going to live a mixed life with regards to a very docil life, a very uh you're not going to have the conviction that God always loves you, that he always is doing uh your good and has your good in mind with regards to everything that happens to you in life. This is this is uh uh uh and I I indeed have had students come in uh to my class with the influence of something like neotheism or in some cases uh dakes uh study reference Bible which by the way is is still very popular out there and we bring corrections by uh to them by starting with prolamina giving them good solid sound reasons in in rational thought for these truths concerning God uh man and this medium of communication that we can have with regards to God. And uh I've seen those things corrected in them as well and them come out the other end much stronger in their faith, much more firmer about the inherency and inspiration of scripture. And it's becomes a very strengthening and uh uh for them personally and also for to to motivate them to go out into ministry and to teach others uh based on those firm convictions. Well, I know it certainly has had that effect in my life and uh especially as I encounter the movement of progressive Christianity that's sort of just all over the place when it comes to the preconditions that they come to the text when it comes to God and humans and communication especially especially in a postmodern world that is basically people don't think words or text have objective meaning that things are just in flux and that even if you were to claim to know some things about reality from a objective standpoint you're viewed as kind arrogant because of the post-modern, you know, pool that we're kind of all swimming in right now. So, I think this combats so much of that just at a foundational level. But, you know, you mentioned God changing his mind. How do we think that through? Because that can be something that is very confusing, especially if people they're just listening to this that this is kind of a new concept and they're like, I don't even know where to start with prologamina. But there are Bible verses that say that God repented or that he changed his mind. But yet there's also the verse that says Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. What do we do with that? How do we resolve those things? Yeah. Oh, two things. You can resolve it in the context of the Bible itself by just recognizing figures of speech that sometimes the Bible will speak of God to us because it's easier for us to speak of God to us in anthropomorphic terms simply because it's easier to understand. And that's what we see with regards to God changing his mind or other things with regards to even some anthropomorphisms with regards to God seeing things. God doesn't have physical eyes to see things. Um and other things with regards to to God. Uh and uh we can recognize those as anthropomorphisms or metaphors that are used in scripture. That's one way. But but we also have independent rational argumentation outside of scripture that those can't be references literally to the very nature of God. And that's what prolamina as we discussed earlier really gives us. It gives us that that rational argument for the existence and nature of God that is grounded in a formally in a philosophical argument that I can carry with me the fact that there's only one God that it's the God of the Bible and that God is eternal and does not change and then read the Bible and more easily recognize those anthropomorphisms and metaphors immediately because I've got the right view of God. If you don't have that in place, then then uh you might not be able to detect that these are figures of speech from the context or the uh type of literature that is used or the story that's being told and you might walk away thinking, oh, God does change his mind or God does have eyes or God does have ears because he hears and it speaks about God hearing something. Um so again, that's what prolleama does. And I don't want to scare people with the term. That's what we're used to calling it. But nonetheless, it's getting the concepts down. It's dealing with the existence and nature of God. It's dealing with what human beings are in terms of their nature being a soul body unity. And it deals with the um uh medium of communication between us and God, which is adequate with regards to our language. And that's undergurtded by the absolute nature of truth. And you mentioned inherency being involved in this too. And in the best way that I might think about that is, you know, we inherency is really a logical syllogism. God cannot heir. The Bible is God's word. Therefore, the Bible cannot heir. And that is sort of a pre precondition. That's a philosophical presupposition that we bring into what we view the Bible. And of course, it the Bible does testify uh to that of itself. We have Jesus telling the Pharisees or the the scribes that they were in error because they didn't know the scriptures or the power of God. But what what uh prologamina type of argument would we come to that would tell us that God cannot make a mistake? Yeah, that's very good. I'm glad you asked that question. I'm excited to answer it. It has to do with the fact that inherency is always connected to the nature of God. In the beginning, God created everything and he created things according to their kind, according to their nature in terms of what they are. And he does that perfectly. A perfect being can't make something imperfect. And if God is going to use human beings in which to give us his word through them according to their literary style, according to their capacity as a human being, it's on the other end of as that comes through, it's going to also have to be perfect or it's not the word of God. And by perfect, I mean that the language is exactly what God wants. Not in a dictorial sense but in the sense that through the uh human author words are chosen to give the meaning that is tied to the text itself that God wants to be there that God inspires through the author to be there and because God is perfect his word ends up being perfect. He prevents the human from air. Humans are capable of air but it's not necessary for them to heir. So he can prevent them from error in terms of writing down exactly what God wants in terms of his word. And since meaning is tied to the text, the text becomes very important. It has to be inherent in order to carry the meaning at least inherent in the originals in order to carry the meaning through all the transmission that's going to take place all the translation that's going to take place so that I can be confident with regards to we have a derived inspiration from God through these translations because the original is in fact inherent. So it's tying it in prolamina to the very nature of God. A perfect being can't cause something that is imperfect. Therefore, um, uh, the Bible as originally given through the author needs to be inherent in everything that it teaches. It needs to be holistic to everything. A lot of what's going on today is a limited inspiration. It's saying, well, you know, the peripheral issues, do those really matter? We want to get salvation right. We want to get God right. We want to get other things right. But there's a lot of things in doctrine that are peripheral. I can remember Dr. Geyser emphasizing this. Um, the trinity isn't directly taught in scripture. It's it's something that's everywhere. It's behind everything, especially in the New Testament, but we grab bits and pieces of it from different places and put together the doctrine of the trinity. So those issues and where it is is peripheral. Something like angels are actually very peripheral to scripture. So there are important things that are peripheral to scripture and that's why inherency has to be full and has to extend to everything that it overlaps with regards to history that it overlaps with regards to science that it overlaps with regards to doctrine like angels and the triune nature of God. All of this is incorporated as we develop this doctrine. It is supported by this notion of a prolamina that is that is gerted or tied to the nature of God uh being perfect and unchanging that it's tied to what human beings are and again this medium of communication that is adequate to give us God's word. So good. So good. I want to ask you about resources. I want to mention your book a prologamina to evangelical theology that you wrote with Dr. Geisler. And that was a a class I took with you about a year ago. I think that was one of the resources that we read and I don't know if you're aware of this. Do you know that Melissa Doherty in her best-selling book, Happy Lies, listed that and in her resource section. Did you know that? Uh, someone told me that. Now, I I haven't I haven't gotten to her book yet. I've been kind of busy prepping for new classes. So, tell her I I will get it. Uh, but yeah. Uh thank I had her as a student as well. So I'm I'm I know she's familiar with it and uh and from the class because I've used it for years in the class. But yeah, thank you for for that. Yeah, absolutely. Any other resources you might give our audience if they're like, "Wow, this was I know I know there are people that are just like this was so amazingly interesting. Where do I start?" Yeah. Um that's a good place if if uh if you're new to theology and and new to doctrine and new to teaching it and want to incorporate uh some things in prolamina. uh Dr. Geyser in our our book is is written kind of at an undergraduate level. So it's it's it's very good to to start out with that. After that I would move on to his full systematic theology. You know most systematic theologies if they have anything concerning prolamina it's very brief. It's very introductory. And Dr. Geyser's uh systematic theology it's a whole that's the whole part one of volume one. It's it's half of the book. uh and it's probably as about as in-depth of a resource that I can put in front of you concerning prleamina. It will go through everything from tr from the nature of truth all the way to how to do in a meth methodological sense uh systematic theology. So that would be the the next step. And then after that, it's kind of into if you really wanted to go deep, then we're talking about graduate level stuff in terms of philosophy of religion and so forth and getting down into the nuts and bolts of of of uh uh where those two um uh uh subjects of study kind of interact and go together. But those are some really good resources to start. Uh prolyama to evangelical theology is very basic and then move on to Dr. Geyser's book and then uh some other issues with regards to uh philosophy of religion. So so good. Well, I want to thank my guest, Dr. Doug Potter, one of my professors, and I think you can see why I rave on Southern Evangelical Seminary all the time. Go to sees.edu/alisa. You can download a free ebook there. Want to encourage you all to take classes, you can audit, you can take them for credit, you can do the certificate program. So many great things available at Southern Evangelical Seminary. And let's remember as we pursue Christ, let's keep a sharp mind, a soft heart, and a thick skin. [Applause] [Music] No turning right or left will make it through. The road that's narrow and the gate that small. Don't give up. It's going to be worth it all. [Applause] [Music]