the two Testaments.

"The effort to
plain away the Bible's witness to its
plenary inspiration," says Dr. Warfield,
".reminds one of a man standing safely
in his laboratory and elaborately explain-
ing- possibly with the aid of diagrams
and mathematical formulae - hoW every
stone in an avalanche has a def'med path-
way and may easily be dodged by one
with some presence of .mud. We may
fancy such an elaborate trifler's triumph
as he would analyze the avalanche into
its constituent stones, and demonstrate
of stone after stone that its pathway is
definite, limited, and may easily be
avoided. But avalanches, unfortUnately,
do not come upon us stone by stone,
one at a time, courteously leaving us
opportunity to withdraw from the path-
way of each in turn: but all at once, in
a roaring mass of destruction. Just so
we may explain away a text or two
which teach plenary inspiration, to our
own closest satisfaction, dealing with
them each without reference to its rela-
tion to the others: but these texts of
ours, again, unfortUnately do not come
upon us in this artificial isolation;
neither are they few in number. There
are scores, hundreds, of them; and they
come bursting .upon us in one solid
mass. Explain them away? We should
have to explain. away the whole New
Testament. What a pity it is that we
cannot see and feel the avalanche of
texts beneath which we lie hopelessly
buried, as clearly as we may see and feel
the avalanche of stones! Let us, how-
ever, but open our eyes to the variety
and pervasiveness of the New Testa-
ment witness to its high estimate of
Scripture, and we shall no longer won-
der that modern scholarship f'mds itself
compelled to allow that the Christian
Church has read her records correctly,
and that the church-doctrine of inspira-
tion is simply a transcript of the bibli-
cal doctrine; nor shall we any longer
wonder that the church, receiving these
Scriptures as her authoritative teacher of
doctrine, adopted in the very beginning
of her life the doctrine of plenary iri-
spiration, and bas held it with a tenacity
that knows no wavering, until the pre-
sent hour."
[This artie let and the others in the series,
flfSt appeared m the magazine Christianity
Today J.1936, then ip oookf<?rm in 1937.
The senes was later mcluded m the. book;
Studies in Theology, in 1947, along Wlth Dr.
Boettner's \Witings on several other theo-
logical subje"ts.] . 0
Speaking of 'Bozos':
and 'idiots' . . .
by John Lofton
P
. resident Bush wants to put a
' mali ori Mars, and I know just
the guy to send: Ted Turner.
It's truly a classic, a clip-and-save
keeper that ought to be put in the time
capsule. Ted Turner, head of the Tlirtler
Broadcasting System and founding fath-
er of the Cable News Network, , has
called pro-lifers "Bozos" and "idiots."
. But being called a "Bozo" and an
"idiot" by Ted Turiler is--as the old joke
goes-lik:e being called ugly by a frog.
In otheJ.' words, it takes one to know
one.
If ever there was a "Bozo" and an
;'idiot," his name is Ted Turner.
What a geek this guy is--a jerk's jerk.
Where tO begin?
Well, let's start with his confusing
himself with God, his rendering God's
Holy Word mill and void.
At an awards dinner late last year
hosted by the' Better World Society,
which he founded, Twaddle-Talking Ted
began by giving us his own 10 com-
mandments, his own "10 little small
rules" which, he said, Moses' "new tab-
lets" would say today "because circum-
stances have certainly changed."
Poor God. If only He had known
what Twaddle-Talking Ted knows, He
would have been more farsighted, more
contemporary, more with it
Rule One of "Ted Turner's rules" is,
incidentally--and you should remember
this--"love respect for the planet
Earth and living things thereOri,
especially my fellow species, mankind"
(emphasis mirte).
And this is not the f'rrsttirtte twaddle-
Talking Ted confused hirilSelf with
God. He once said that "like Jesus" he
"happened to love everybody;" Well,
not everybody. He doesn't love unborn
babies. He's pro-abortion. But we'll get
fQ.that shortly; . . . . . ..
. Spe3k.ing of Twaddle-Talkin( Ted's
Better World Society, guess who's a
member of its International Board Of
Directors? Why none other .. than
Gii!orgiy Arbatov, the Soviet
ganda and disinformation
used to direct the Soviet.
U.S.A. and Canad.a Institute! Mr. Ai'b.a-
tov has defended, among other SqV:iet
communist atrocities, his Red. Aimy's
brutal genocide in AfghaniStmi which
slaughtered thousands of innocent men.
women and children. Arid he defended
the Soviet's shooting down of the un-
almed Korean Nrliner Bight 001.
Obviously, adherence to
Talking Ted's "new" flist com-
mandment--regarding "love and respect"
for mankind--isn't a precondition for
being on the Better World Society's
Board.
What a Bozo. What an idiot
A
nyway, at Twaddle-Talking
Ted's Better World Society
awards dinner, guess who
came to dinner and got art award? Well,
the fust award went to cornniunist
China's Family Planning Association
which, the award-presenter said. gives
.us "hope" regarding . the population
problem.
Amazing. .
Twaddle-Talking Ted talks about, in-
deed commands us; to "love and re-
spett" our "fellow species, mankiild,"
And then he gives an award to a repre
sentative of a government that has puc-
sued, viciously, a forced abortion policy
which has been especially vehement in
seeing that unborn baby girls are mut-
dered in the womb!
And this is supposed to give us
"bape?!"
God help us.
Using this kind of logic, we can ex-
pect that the next award Twaddle-Talk-
ing Ted's group will hand out be to
. . the coinmurtist Chinese People's Liber;t
tlon Army for . their "population con-
trol," for their shooting down, in cold
blood, thousands of students and others
The Counsei of October, 1989 page 24
in the street!
What a Bozo. What an idiot
And there is, alas, more, much more.
Twaddle-Talking Ted's CNN TV net-
work program "World Report" has run
stories hailing the virtues of Bulgarian
communism and "proving," supposed-
ly, that fanner Cuban political prison-
er, Annando Valladares, lied about be-
ing tortured in Fidel Castro's jails.
Twaddle-Talking Ted has personally
praised Mr. Castro as "a great guy."
And he has said (in the July 7, 1986,
Fortune magazine): "Communism is
fme with me. It's part of the fabric of
life on this planet."
What a Bozo. What an idiot
Communism is a part of the fabric of
death on this planet!
Twaddle-Talking Ted has also accused
the United States of being "a colonial
power" and "raping the rest of the world
economically" to pay for our "bloated
military machine." And when we bomb-
ed Libya to retaliate for its terrorism
against our citizens, he accused us of be-
ing "terrorists ourselves."
What a Bozo. What an idiot.
Twaddle-Tallcing Ted once said that
rather than fighting in the last war,
Italians would "rather be involved in
crime and just making wine and having
a good time." And his superstation in
Atlanta aired a pro-Soviet portrait of the
Soviet Union that was so bad even The
Washington Post's Tom Shales panned
it, calling it "more like a postcard from
Binky and Biff at Camp Whitewash."
AndTwaddle-TalkingTed--confessing
a creed which one must admit he has
lived by--once told a college commence-
ment audience: "You don't need to
know anything about anything to do
anything you want."
What a Bozo. What an idiot
[John Lofton is a columnist for The
Washington Times. This article is re-
printedfrom the July 26. 1989 issue of
that newspaper.] n
~ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / ~
~ A special"thanks" ~
~ to all of you who have ~
~ supported this ministry ~
~ fmancially, this year and ~
~ in years past Please know that ~
~ your help in the future is essential ~
~ for continuing The Counsel. ~
: l / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / ~
AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST
ARMINIANISM, by Christopher
Ness (1621-1705). Still Waters Revival
Books, (1988). 12810-126St. Edmon-
ton, Ab., Canada Y5L OYl. 126 pp.
$6.95. Reviewed by the Rev. T. Mark
Duncan, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
"An antidote against Arminianism?!
Who does Christopher Ness think he
is? He is offending an overwhehning
majority of the conservative and evan-
gelical Church! To maintain that Armin-
ianism needs an antidote is to imply it
is poisonous!"
Is Arminianism spiritual poison?
That is the question begged by the title
of Ness' short but significant work. In
the author's preface, Arminianism is
described as a "plague and leprosy," a
phrase which grates the ears of many in
our age of hypocritical civility. It is
not, however, through spirited rhetoric
that Ness demonstrates the toxicity of
Arrninianism but through logical and
scriptural argumentation.
There are perhaps many reading this
review who disagree with Anninian
theology but would stop short of call-
ing it poison. Ness, using much scrip-
ture and little comment, demonstrates
Arminianism's noxious side effects. He
forces the reader to deal with the logical
implications of the system. Anninian-
ism is venomous because it cuts the
heart out of Christianity. For if God
has done all He can to save sinners, if
Christ has died for everyone, and if the
ultimate determiner of man's eternal des-
tiny rests with man's autonomous will,
then God is unable to save man. Man
must save himself. This is nothing
other than theological humanism. The
autosoteriological implications of Ar-
minianism annul two of the foundation-
al truths of Christianity: salvation by
grace alone and the atoning work of
Christ Arminianism is spiritually dead-
ly because it is the soteriological equiva-
lent of Satan's oldest lie: "You can be
like God."
Ness argues that Anninianism neces-
sarily impugns the nature of God. He
logically builds an argument from Scrip-
ture demonstrating, on the the basis of
God's nature, the impossibility of Ar-
minian theology. The doctrine of man's
free will is totally inconsistent with an
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God
who has a purpose. Ness quotes Vors-
tius the Arminian to illustrate this fact:
"Things may happen that may bring
God to grief having tried all things in
vain." (p. 54) The God of Arminianism
has both hands tied behind His back by
the thongs of man's will.
The Scriptural and logical argument
Ness provides against that most sacred
of Arrninian cows, universal atone-
ment, is itself worth the price of the
book. The reasoning is most compel-
ling and may he just the ticket to per-
suade even the most militant Arminian
to embrace the doctrine of Definite
Atonement. With ten arguments, Ness
demonstrates that a universal atonement
is no atonement at all. The crowning
tenth argument forces the reader to con-
clude that an atonement which has men,
for whom Christ died, in Hell reduces
Christianity to a laughing stock. (p.
71)
An Antidote Against Annin
wmsm is exceptionally easy to read;
rare for a 300 year old Puritan work. It
is written in a concise, non-technical,
style. Still, Antidote's arguments are
persuasive. The theological novice can
easily grasp Ness' reasoning. The Bible
scholar will also find the book helpful.
Personally, Ness reinforced in my mind
the fact that Calvinism is nothing more
than Biblical Christianity. Antidote
provides me with a concise ready-refer-
ence with which to defend the Doctrines
of Grace.
I cannot recommend the book too
highly. It is an ideal book to give to an
Arminian friend who is willing to
examine his belief in light of Scripture.
Ness' reasoning is not only impeccably
logical, there is little to which a pro-
fessing Bible believer can object be-
cause of the volume of Scripture quot-
ed. In four chapters, Ness sets forth the
The Counsel of Chalcadon October, 1989 page 25