godrulz said:
Nice argumentum ad hominems.
There is an old and new covenant. Faith has always been the criteria of salvation. After the death and resurrection of Christ, there was a transition period in the early church. This does not mean there were two gospels after His resurrection.
I did not imply Bob misuses his principle. I expressed concerns about footnotes to support his ideas that were debatable.
I am not afraid to read "The Plot". I have many unfinished books on the go. It is a matter of interest and time at any given moment.
His anti-Pentecostalism, negating much of the NT for church age believers, anti-baptism, etc. are flags that the book claims more than it should. It does not resolve all doctrinal controversies. It merely gives a template to support Mid-Acts dispensationalism.
Ad hominem arguments have the following structure...
- The person making the argument has something wrong with him or with his motives
- Therefore his argument must be wrong.
Turbo has presented no such argument. On the contrary, his structure has been the exact opposite. He shows the consistent shallowness of your arguments and concludes that you are being intellectually dishonest. A conclusion which is all but proven by the final three sentences or your post, which I will take one at a time...
His anti-Pentecostalism, negating much of the NT for church age believers, anti-baptism, etc. are flags that the book claims more than it should.
Bob is not "anti-Pentecostal", The Plot does not negate any of the New Testament for anyone, nor is he "anti-baptism". Such statements are proof that you definitely have not read the book at all or at least not enough of it to understand its premise or why is comes to the conclusions that it does.
Further, even if your mischaracterizations of Bob's conclusions (which I believe were posted here in an attempt to poison the pot for those who haven't read the book yet) were true, they are not "flags" of anything except for maybe to tell those who are in love with their theology more than they are the Bible to steer clear of this teaching, which you have obediently done.
Further still, claiming that the conclusions of an argument are evidence of the arguments logical unsoundness is a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad consequentiam. In short, just because you don't like the consequences of a particular belief doesn't make the belief untrue. Perhaps if you would actually read the book or at least the first four chapters, you could argue it with more substance and address more than his conclusion and address the actual arguments that lead to those conclusions.
It does not resolve all doctrinal controversies.
Again, strong evidence, if not outright proof that you have not read more than maybe a paragraph of The Plot. Bob never makes any such claim! He does claim to resolve MANY seemingly unrelated doctrinal disputes and succeeds in do so but he never ever claims to resolve all doctrinal disputes.
It merely gives a template to support Mid-Acts dispensationalism.
This is flat out not true, Godrulz! What's that matter with you? It is not like you to simply fabricate crap like this out of thin air. You should be ashamed of yourself!
Bob does not come with a conclusion and then provide arguments to support that conclusion. That is what 99% of what Christian books do today, but that definitely is not what The Plot does. In fact, it does the exact opposite and is built on a principle that teaches the exact opposite. The basis for The Plot is to take the overview of the plot of the Bible (thus the title of the book) and work from there to get a handle on the details. Most Christian books do just the opposite, they build a case for one particular detail at a time a Christian must attempt to build a "big picture" puzzle without the benefit of seeing the box top and as a result they almost always get it wrong. They attempt to force pieces to fit where they do not belong and it just doesn't work.
Bob does NOT do this! He does not begin with any conclusion and work up a supporting argument. He simply establishes what the clear plot line of the Bible including plot twists that most seem to overlook but which are very obviously there as plain as day and then based on this clear understanding of what the story line of the Bible is, he almost doesn't even have to make any arguments for the individual doctrines which he addresses in the later chapters of the book. The correct answers on those doctrinal debates become so simple that one wonders why anyone would bother to debate them. To use the puzzle piece analogy again, if you have a puzzle piece that looks like the headlight on the '57 Chevy and have no access to the box top, you might go with that conclusion and attempt to build you puzzle based on that one puzzle piece. But, on the other hand, if you have access to the box top and you find that it is supposed to be a picture of fruit salad, it suddenly becomes clear that your puzzle piece isn't a head light at all but rather a reflection off one of the apples. You don't even have to know which apple in order to avoid the error that you would have made without the benefit of the box top.
This is the same thing that The Plot accomplishes Biblically. Each individual doctrine or passage of Scripture is a piece of the puzzle and when you know what the plot of the Bible is and where the characters of the story fit with one another, interpreting what those pieces are and where they fit becomes so easy that most third graders could do it on most issues.
Now, would you please just read the book already?! You say it a matter of disinterest that you haven't read it yet but you never miss an opportunity to debate against it without the benefit of having read it. That doesn't sound like disinterest to me, except maybe disinsterest in being influenced away from pet doctrines by sound biblical arguments.
Resting in Him,
Clete
