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Brett Keane interviews Josiah of Integrity Syndicate · Brett Keane and Eve Show

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This is his website in case you don't know how to look through
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the description. So how has your day been?
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We'll start like that. It's wonderful.
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Brett Keene is. I don't know if I'm allowed to
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say that back on the scene. 3 point O.
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So it's I'm really excited to see you active on YouTube, my
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friend. And I'm excited about the things
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God will do with our do with us here.
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Well, I appreciate it. Why don't you tell the folks
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what your theological position is, how you see yourself?
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Yeah, I consider myself an Apostolic Unitarian, which is
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someone who has a Unitarian understanding of theology, that
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there's one God, the Father from whom we're all things and for
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whom we exist. And there's one Lord, Jesus
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Christ, through whom we exist, that is through whom we have
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access to salvation. And so, yeah, it's it's
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consistent with the monotheism of the Old Testament, of the of
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the Tanakh. And my understanding is Jesus is
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the Christ. He's the Messiah, He's the one
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whom all the prophets spoke about.
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He's the one through which we, an everlasting Kingdom, will be
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established, and he's the one by which we receive salvation.
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God has made him put him in a place of mediation, whereas it
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says in the first Timothy 2/5 through six, there's one God the
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Father and there's one God, and there's one mediator between God
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and man, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for
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all. So there's one God who is God,
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and there's one mediator between God and man, the Messiah, who is
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Jesus. And so Jesus is been exalted to
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God's right hand to basically accomplish God's marvelous
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master plan for creation and salvation and what this life is.
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It's really a test. And you know God is trying to
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reap a harvest and we all have access to an inheritance to be
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coming to become children of God.
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And so God is calling us to to receive the gospel and to
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believe so that we may have adoption as as sons and in in
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that that the whole master plan for salvation is facilitated and
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accomplished through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So yeah, I believe I'm an Apostolic gospel in the sense
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that I follow the the Gospel of Acts, that is Acts, the gospel
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according to the book of Acts, which is what the apostles
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themselves emphasized as the key core elements of of the of the
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message of of the Good News. And so the apostles believed in
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an act of living faith. They preached repentance, they
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preached baptism in Jesus name, and they preached being filled
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with the Holy Spirit and the gift of the Spirit.
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And so my ministry is the combination of three three
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primary things, the motivation to love the God loved us and we
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should We should love each other, and we should have
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fellowship with each other to edify each other and encourage
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each other. So our motivation should always
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be grounded in love and also truth.
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We need to we need to have a correct understanding, based on
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about the balanced testimony of Scripture, of what the gospel
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is, what our hope is, who God is, who the Messiah is.
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And so truth is very important. And then the third aspect is the
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Spirit. We need to be operating under
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the influence of God, being filled with His, His renewing
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spirit that transforms us and and and changes our heart as
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well as our understanding. So yeah, that's the main crux of
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of what I stand for. My ministry is for the
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restoration of 1st century Apostolic Christianity.
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And so it's to get beyond the traditions of men and go back to
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the core gospel as the apostles preached it.
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How do you what do you see between the difference between
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modern day preaching, sermons, text dictation over that of the
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past? What is some of the things that
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that kind of ride you a little cold about what's going on in
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our modern day? Yeah, I mean there's all these
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extra biblical schools of thoughts and sex and theories
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and and these theories you know, could be based on sort of a a
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narrow interpretation of like one or two verses in which
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you're you're reinterpreting the whole gospel, the whole New
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Testament based on this theological paradigm that's
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based on a a real narrow interpretation of a couple
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verses. So it's it's extremely important
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to to take a balanced view of the scripture and not fixate so
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much on on one verse, but look at everything in balance.
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And so I think what happens is there's all these, you know,
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there's there's all these denominations and sex, and they
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all have their own doctrines. And they emphasize their
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doctrine at the expense of just the basic call to believe in the
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core elements of the gospel, which is that Jesus died for our
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sins, that he, he was raised from the dead.
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And in the likeness that Jesus was raised from the dead, we
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have the hope of the resurrection.
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He's the first born of many Brethrens.
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And so Jesus is the model for us and how we should live.
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So it's not so much about what we know, like whether we're
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theologically, you know, there's any misconceptions.
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Theologically, it's really the condition of our heart and the
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desire to follow God and and turn away from the world, turn
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away from sin and to to be led by the spirit of God.
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For for as many as who are led by the Spirit of God, these are,
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these are the sons of God. So yeah, doctrine is important,
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but there's a lot of division and people emphasize, you know,
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their doctrines over over really having the heart, the heart of
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Christ. So that's kind of a
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discouraging, but what I'm trying to do is stand for
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something a little bit more consistent with with what Jesus
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and and the apostles promoted. Do you think that the
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divisiveness that goes on nowadays is because of ego and
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deliberate intention or is it out of ignorance?
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Well, yeah, there's the pride of life, There's the lust of the
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flesh, and then there's the lust of the eyes, which are like the
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three sort of things that people fall into.
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And it's pride is such a strong force, like we're in this
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competition in life to like prove something and establish
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ourselves over other people. And so, you know, the
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unwillingness to change, even though there's evidence that
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you're in error, is, you know, it goes to pride.
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You know, I don't want to, I don't want to admit that I was
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wrong. I don't want to admit that I had
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the wrong ideas. And so pride is a definite
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hurdle and impediment to coming to a greater understanding and
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acceptance of the truth. And also people are motivated by
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pride. It's like I can establish my
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identity and my self esteem based on how I can argue and
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debate and contend with other Christians, and it becomes more
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of like it's more about my own building up myself than really
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advancing the Kingdom of God. And so people have the wrong
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motivations when they go into ministry.
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They say they're serving God, but they're actually serving
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themselves in their own idea of how they're, you know, they have
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the right, the correct doctrine and and things like that.
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And then there's others who just engage in endless debates and
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quarreling just because it's it's like mental masturbation.
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It's like entertainment. They just they want to, they
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want to have some sort of provocative doctrine or a
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doctrine that, you know, they don't care about how provocative
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they are. They just they just enjoy
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fighting and contending. And because it's it's
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intellectually stimulating. And so yeah, there's all these
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motivations for which are really not the correct motivations for
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for having a ministry and and engaging in ministry.
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Our our motivation should really help to to help a dying world.
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To reach out into the darkness and bring the light to to people
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who are, who are just so disillusioned with this world,
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so frustrated with life, in a state of depression or fear or
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anxiety, in a state of hopelessness, in a state of
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addiction. And yeah, all those things that
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we're trapped into, like we can, we can have freedom from that
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through the gospel and that and that should be our our focus.
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To help help those who are lost not to just, you know, show off
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and make a name for yourself. Just for the sake of making a
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name for yourself. You've said that there are
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Christians out there who enjoy arguing with you, and they do it
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what appears to be out of boredom, just so they can have
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their entertainment instead of actually trying to save someone
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or assist someone. If you don't mind me asking,
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what is the difference between a Unitarian, Oneness believer and
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a Trinitarian and where do you fall in and why do you think
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that there's some division for others, at least in their
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perception? Sure, yeah.
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There's different theological categorizations Trinitarian,
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Unitarian, oneness or modalists, Aryan.
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And you can also say like others like Binitarian or Gnostic, but
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those are are really uncommon. So a Trinitarian, most people
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know what that is. It's this doctrine that was
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basically codified in these councils, the Council of Nicaea,
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the Council of of the Athanasian Creed of of of 381.
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And these are these are attempts to use basically Greek
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philosophy to describe this sort of imposition that Jesus is
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fully God in his his ontology of equal and Co eternal, Co equal
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and Co eternal with with the Father.
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And so it's it's it's kind of a digression of like over 4
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centuries of this of one thing leading to another and then
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having to have sort of a philosophical framework of
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describing God in a way that sort of, you know, makes things
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that are apparently contradictory like to try and
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explain that which it it doesn't do a good job of doing actually.
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But yes, a trinitarian would say God is 3 persons, but one
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Godfather, Son, and Holy Spirit. A modalist would say that God is
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not three persons, There's no not three centers of
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consciousness, but there's one person who is God, and that
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Jesus, he is the Father himself. And so immortalism or oneness
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gets kind of weird because Jesus is sort of like an avatar of God
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in which he's basically praying to himself.
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And it's all like stage play where basically, you know, Jesus
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appears to be tempted, he appears to pray to himself, he
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appears to to be weak. But it's you know, Jesus is
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literally God the Father. You know in the in the
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embodiment of a man. And so there's no personal
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distinction between the Father and and Christ.
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In the modalist way of thinking. A Unitarian says there's only
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one God the Father, and Jesus is the Messiah.
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And the main distinction is like in all these beliefs, the main
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issue is Christology, it's who is Jesus?
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What is Jesus? Ontologically And so all the all
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these theological frameworks, they say Jesus is God in some
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sense. The Unitarian says Jesus is God
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in a sense that he's God's agent.
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He's God's representative by virtue of the divine power and
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authority he's been given. He's been put at the right hand
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of God to to judge the world and to rule in a in a Kingdom that
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will be established. So as an agent of God, you know,
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agents of God can be called God. In the Old Testament they're
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called God. Even even Jesus himself said
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they were called God. To whom the word of God came and
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scripture can't be broken or disregarded.
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So when Jesus said I am the father of one, he sang it in
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that sense that I am God's agent.
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I speak his his words, I do his will.
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I'm, I'm a perfect servant of God.
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I'm I'm fully in line with God's will and God's intentions.
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And so, like in the Old Testament, the angels of Yahweh
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were actually referred to as Yahweh himself according to the
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concept of agency. Like if you're God's
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spokesperson or messenger, you're you're treated as if
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you're God in that sense because according to the concept of
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agency, the person acting on behalf of of the principle is
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regarded as the principal himself, even though he's not in
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a literal sense. And so Jesus is the agent of the
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Most High. He's the one who got raised up
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as his servant to accomplish his will.
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And Jesus can be called God because agents of God can be
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called God because of his association and and the
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authority God has given him. It says Jesus was anointed with
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the Holy Spirit, with and with power, and one about doing good
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and healing. All who were oppressed by the
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devil, for God was with him. And it's through the Holy
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Spirit, through the empowerment of the anointing, that God was
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with him and accomplished all these great signs.
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And so, like, Jesus is definitely associated with God.
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He's the agent of God, and he's God by proxy, but not in a
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literal ontological sense. There's only one God, the
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Father, who's literally God in a strict sense.
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And so when we read in First Corinthians 85 through six,
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although there are so many, so there are many so-called gods
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and many so-called Lords to us there is one God, the Father,
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the source of all things. And there's one Lord, Jesus
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Christ, who we have salvation through, through whom all things
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exist. And so in in a strict sense, in
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the category of God, it's just the Father, the the, the
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Creator, the source of all things.
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In the category of Lord, Jesus has been made both Lord and
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Christ. As it says in Acts 236, God has
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made him both Lord and Christ. So Jesus is standing in the
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place of of of divine authority as our Lord.
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But in a strict sense, in an ontological sense, there's only
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one God, the Father. So that's the distinction.
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I don't have a problem with calling Jesus God, and that's in
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the sense that he's God's agent. He's God's representative.
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But we know that in a in a strict ontological sense,
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there's only one God, the Father.
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And Jesus is acting according to his his intentions and his his
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plan. Now a a modalist would say well
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how would you describe the Holy Spirit and and Jesus or the
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word. You know you have this thing in
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in first John 57 there are three three things in heaven that bear
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witness the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three
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are one. And so a modalist would say that
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these three are aspects of God or modes of God, not literally
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persons. And so in the sense I agree with
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that, that the Holy Spirit is the aspect of God which pertains
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to God's controlling influence. It's always through the Holy
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Spirit that God interacts with man, that God brings things into
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existence. It's God's controlling
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influence. It's His power.
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The Logos is the wisdom of God that pertains to the the the
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aspect of God's thinking, his mind, his intentions, his his
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logic, his reasoning. And then the Father himself is
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the the person of God. It's God and his being, his
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ontology. And so all these three concepts
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like the Logos and and the prologue of John is God because
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God's thoughts are God. You know God's wisdom is God,
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but it's not a person beside God.
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It's an attribute of God which is divine, through which all
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things come into existence. And so the I take like that that
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perspective when it comes to the Word, Logos, and the Holy
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Spirit, which is God's controlling influence.
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Now a lot of people make the mistake to say, well, isn't
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Jesus the Logos? Like the Word was made flesh and
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dwelt among us? And yes, Jesus is the pinnacle,
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the center of God's plan and purpose for creation and for
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salvation. So Jesus is the fullest, fullest
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embodiment of God's plan and his his intentions.
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And in that sense He's He's the Word.
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But the Word itself is literally God's wisdom.
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And God's wisdom existed before all things were brought into
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existence. And in the fullness of time,
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through God's wisdom, Jesus was made manifest.
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And so Jesus is a came into existence when the Word was made
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flesh. It's basically God.
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When God spoke all things were made right.
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It says in Genesis God spoke and there was light God spoke and
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the animals were were made and so when God speaks things come
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into existence and and the word being made flesh is God speaking
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Jesus into existence according to his wisdom and his plan, his
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intentions. And so these these truths get
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lost because there's a just, you know, a lot of confusion and
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misinterpretation of of what it says in the prologue of John and
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other places. But if you look at things in a
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balanced way, you'll come up with a Unitarian understanding
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that that Jesus is the Messiah. If you read the book of Acts,
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what the apostles preached, they weren't preaching some
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complicated philosophical, you know, theory.
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They were preaching that Jesus is the Messiah.
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That's all there was to it. That's all they needed to.
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That's the only message they really need to communicate that
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Jesus is the one all the prophets bore witness to.
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Not that he's a third person of a Trinity.
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So I used to be a modalist years ago, and before I was a
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modalist, I was a Trinitarian. But for the past 20 years or so,
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I I've like come to the understanding that there's only
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one God, one person who is God. And Jesus is distinct from God.
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Although he's an agent of God, there's an association, But in
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terms of his personal identity and being, there's an
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ontological distinction. And if you conflate Jesus with
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God in an ontological sense, what you do is you bring God
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down to the level of man, and then you you bring man up to to
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the level of God, and you blur the distinction.
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And so it's it's absolutely critical that our, our, the Lamb
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of God be a man like us in in his ontology and his being.
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He's he's considered our faithful high priest.
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And to to be able to mediate and relate to our weaknesses, he had
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to. You know we need a high priest
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who is fully human in every sense of what that means.
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It says He learned obedience from what he suffered.
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In Hebrews chapter 5 You know God doesn't learn obedience.
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People learn obedience and and Jesus submitted himself and was
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tested and tempted, but yet was obedient even to death on a
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cross. And it says in Philippians 2 For
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that reason God exalted him and gave him a name above every
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other name, authority above every other authority, that at
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the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue would
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confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory.
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You know Jesus is Christ, Messiah, a Lord Messiah to the
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glory of of Father God. And so Jesus was made Lord
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because he proved himself obedient and worthy to be
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trusted and trusted with with this authority and that.
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And that's the testimony of the gospel.
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Like the Messiah has come and our hope is in the Messiah, and
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we confess him as Lord. God made him both Lord and
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Christ, and there's no other name among men given by which we
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must be saved. So.
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So my testimony of the Gospel's not doesn't deviate at all from
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what the apostles preached in the book of Acts.
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And those are the core elements by which we are saved.
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Does that? Does that make sense?
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Right. Well, you went quite in depth
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during the relationship between Jesus and God, if you don't mind
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me bringing in a few other figures.
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I've listened to many, many different denominations and
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Christian videos and all that. And some people have some really
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odd ideas on their how they see the relationship between God and
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the devil. Some people see the devil as
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another personality. Some people see him as
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distinctive. Some people say he's in hell.
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Some people say he's roaming the earth, going to and fro.
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What is Satan's relationship to God?
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What is? How do you see his origin story
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and how it plays out in the end? And what is he doing presently?
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Go ahead, take your time. Yeah, this is a tricky one.
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I can ramble on about this for a while.
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So, Satan. I enjoy listening to you.
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You go into whatever you feel you need to.
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Yeah, without getting too much into like demonology and and the
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basic things that we should think about when we think about
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Satan or any other being or principality that is in
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opposition to God is that the the reality that we have free
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will and that the agents of God can also choose to obey and
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disobey. The logical consequence of that
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freedom is that you have if you have free will you also have the
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choice to disobey. And so it's only only logical
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that there would be entities and beings which came into existence
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and were given free will and rebelled against God and are are
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now like hostile and in opposition to the good things of
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God and and his Kingdom. And so Satan you know there's
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different names and different religions and but there's
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there's the constant theme of like basically the the the
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principality or the the the king of of darkness.
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The one who like because normally everything in in the in
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in the universe in terms of like logical beings in in
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civilizations and and and groups of of entities they always form
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some sort sort of hierarchy. And so if you're going to have
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all these rebelling entities and and spirits and whatnot, that
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there's going to be a hierarchy and there's going to be someone
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in command of them and that's that's Satan or the devil.
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And so there's multiple, there's different names for for Satan.
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But the idea of Satan is perfectly consistent with the
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understanding that this universe has agents in it that can
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choose, you know, free agency where you can choose between
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good and evil. And so, you know, there's
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different different theories and beliefs about how Satan fell
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and, you know, rebelled against God.
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And if there was some war, I don't really get too far into
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that stuff. But the general idea that demons
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exist, that, you know, angels of evil exist is is pretty obvious,
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especially if you've you've seen the darkness in this world
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manifest in very strong and compelling ways.
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You know that the evil exists, the demons exist.
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And part of Jesus's ministry in large part was casting out
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demons. The apostles casted out demons.
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And so it's it's a reality that a lot of people who are just
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kind of sheltered and live behind their computer screen
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don't really necessarily acknowledge.
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But you know, if you go out and you you kind of see, see what
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can happen in real life, then it's it's pretty pretty
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compelling that demons exist. So yeah, that's kind of where
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I'd go with that. You know, it says that we, we
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struggle not with flesh and blood but with principalities
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and heavenly places. You know, in this invisible
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world, there's a spiritual warfare that's taking place and
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the spirits will try and influence us and take us away
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from the truth, take us away from pursuing God.
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And so it's a battle, It's a spiritual battle that we face.
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And so as we come into the light, there's a a process of
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sanctification and of deliverance from the influence
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of of these spirits. And you know, that's what
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deliverance is all about. It's like you're afflicted with
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this, the spirit. And some, you know, there's
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different levels of being afflicted or possessed, some
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people more than others. But the ultimate goal is to to
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completely break free and be delivered from from these
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influences. Just as the Holy Spirit is the
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influence of God, all these evil spirits are the influence of of
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dark powers, of demonic powers that are in opposition to God's
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goodness. My next question for you is, do
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you see yourself as a compatiblist?
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Are you all for free will or do you think some things are
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predetermined? Are all things being that God
28:37
has the attribute of knowing all things?
28:39
Where do you stand up now? These are all great questions.
28:46
So the question is, is the future reality?
28:52
Is the past reality, or is only the present reality?
28:56
That's one way you can sort of tackle this question.
29:00
Like if the future has multiple possibilities, it's not reality
29:04
until one of those possibilities comes and materializes.
29:09
And so I take the approach that God plans the future and God
29:16
controls the future, but there's some element of uncertainty of
29:21
of in the in the universe. You know, just as like in
29:25
quantum mechanics we there's a probability function to describe
29:31
like a subatomic particle, what is its position as as opposed to
29:35
its momentum. And you can only express that in
29:41
terms of a probability distribution if there it's not
29:43
an exact known thing and it doesn't really become what it is
29:49
until it it it's it manifests in in this in a similar sense
29:54
there's sort of a a randomness element of of this world.
29:59
That's not to say that God can't control the future and determine
30:02
the future. It's to say that you know like
30:05
the whole element that we have free will that's that's that
30:09
that in imposes randomness because our choices are you know
30:17
we have the potential to deal with one thing or the other and
30:22
people aren't always all that predictable.
30:26
So anyways that's kind of a long way of saying that God, God can
30:33
always intercede in the universe to accomplish his will.
30:37
But it can happen within the framework that there's some
30:40
level of uncertainty and randomness.
30:43
And so like where it says God predestined certain things, like
30:48
God predetermined the whole framework for salvation.
30:54
So God established from the beginning that there would be
30:57
that those who would receive the gospel would be saved and those
31:00
who would reject would be condemned.
31:03
But not that doesn't necessarily mean that God predetermined
31:06
specifically who would be condemned and who would be
31:08
saved. Just that there was this
31:10
category of people who would believe and this category of
31:14
people who would be condemned based on the their decisions and
31:18
their actions of whether they receive or reject, you know,
31:21
God's revelation. And so like predestination is
31:26
like this Kingdom that God planned the gospel of Jesus
31:28
Christ. Like Jesus pre existed in that
31:31
sense of a prophetic sense. Like the prophets could see the
31:34
future, but the future is materialized because God
31:39
controls the future. God can always intercede and
31:45
intervene in the course of events to to accomplish his his
31:48
intentions. It doesn't mean that there's no
31:52
randomness at all in in our our decisions or in the outcome of
31:57
events. It's just God can always take
32:00
control and assert his will over over everything else.
32:05
So I take this view of sort of the reality, like God knows all
32:11
things that can be known or that are known.
32:15
God knows the future in the sense that he determined, He has
32:18
determined how the future will unfold and he controls the
32:21
future. But like, there's certain things
32:25
that don't fall under the category of reality, right?
32:34
The feature isn't really reality until it it's made manifest and
32:38
comes into existence. So God knows all real things.
32:44
Like there's certain things that God doesn't know that are like a
32:49
logical things in the sense that like if you have some false
32:56
theory, anything that's false is unknowable because it's it's
33:00
false, right. So the idea that.
33:06
May I put something forward along with the conversation?
33:12
Sure, if most Christians agree that they are convinced that God
33:19
actually lives outside of space-time and matter in the
33:22
constraints of the laws of this universe being that he exists
33:26
outside, this makes him timeless, eternal, powerful
33:29
enough to create life, sentience, the universe itself.
33:33
The question is, if God is outside of time and we are
33:36
experiencing existence linear, doesn't this mean that God not
33:41
only lives in the present, but the past and the future all at
33:45
the same time? Yeah, where does it say?
33:57
Not in the Bible. So like a lot of this stuff that
34:00
has to do with compatibilist or incompatibilist, whether you're
34:05
Calvinist or whatever, has to do with this presumption that God
34:10
is the greatest ultimate thing you you can possibly think about
34:15
or theorize about. And when you go down that
34:21
paradigm, you start just contemplating, well, for God to
34:24
be the ultimate and best, God would have to know all things
34:27
into the future, and everything would have to be perfectly,
34:30
fully knowable, like the the parallel potential of every
34:36
potentiality. And it's like it's you're
34:41
getting into philosophy of like, well, what's the greatest thing
34:45
I can conceive of in my imagination of what God is?
34:48
And then that's your definition of God as opposed to just
34:52
looking at what the Bible says who God is and going by that you
34:57
know what it what does it say explicitly about God in the
35:00
Bible? Not what philosophically you can
35:03
you can come up with as an idea of of like the ultimate greatest
35:09
perception of what an all all powerful being would would would
35:17
be characterized with. And so, like a lot of these
35:20
apologists, they fall. They fall into more of a
35:23
category of like a philosophical understanding of what the
35:26
ultimate is, rather than just what does the Bible say?
35:33
All right. If it if it would be better,
35:35
I'll use an example from the Bible.
35:38
The book of Job, one of the most oldest books written in the
35:42
Bible. It states that Satan and God had
35:45
a conversation. God actually participated in the
35:51
concept of the devil coming down and trying to do the devil's
35:56
will against Job. Now you do believe that God knew
36:01
the outcome before this even started, right?
36:04
And even knew that Satan was going to come to him and have
36:07
the conversation even before it happened.
36:15
Yeah, I believe God generally knows the outcome because God is
36:21
in his wisdom can foresee that. Like I I don't think God brought
36:26
man into existence thinking that he would be perfectly obedient.
36:32
Like God knew that he would fall, He he would disobey just
36:35
by virtue of his his wisdom, his able, his ability to predict,
36:41
based on the nature of man, their limitations of of how they
36:45
would screw up. So God, yeah, God generally can
36:52
predict the future. But just because God can predict
36:56
the future doesn't mean God controls us.
37:01
We still have choices. We still have free will.
37:04
So you would, I guess you would say that's compatibilism, where
37:10
God knows what we'll choose to decide, but like we, it's still
37:13
our responsibility to to make the decision and we're still
37:17
held accountable for the decisions we make.
37:22
But I don't think God brought anyone into existence with the
37:28
the the intention of or at least, yeah, God doesn't just
37:34
pick and choose ahead of time or at least predetermined like your
37:41
your destiny in terms of being condemned or being saved.
37:47
So yeah. And Job, Yeah, you can make the
37:50
argument that God knew, like I I would agree with that, That God
37:53
knew what Job would do ahead of time.
37:58
I I kind of personally have noticed a lot of people use the
38:01
hallway with doors and many different routes concepts.
38:04
I kind of look at it the way a I don't know if you know this, but
38:09
I'm a gamer and I see that this is literally a world created by
38:14
a game developer with a storyline, goals, choices, and
38:18
there's several different ways that you can succeed at it or
38:21
just simply immerse yourself and just continue to exist with it.
38:26
Even though all things are known and everything's scripted down
38:29
to the tee, you still have choices as the avatar that goes
38:33
through a developed world or simulation.
38:38
Yes. Like choose your own adventure
38:40
with multiple parallel universes that God knows every contingency
38:45
of every contingency or or like derivative of every derivative.
38:53
Yeah, I think it it kind of just leads you into a state of like
39:02
there's everything is meaningless if like in one
39:05
universe I choose to do good, in another parallel universe I
39:08
choose to do evil. Like I think reality is only
39:11
what happens not what potentially can happen.
39:15
It's and to derive any sort of sense of like like if in the
39:23
gospel Jesus was obedient even to death on a cross and in some
39:28
other parallel universe Jesus wasn't obedient and and wasn't
39:33
exalted to God's right hand, that would be like, you know, it
39:41
would be like well, there's just no there's no moral ethical
39:48
compass or framework to understand good versus evil,
39:53
what's right and wrong if just everything happens
39:56
simultaneously in every parallel universe.
40:00
It's like there's just no way to even perceive like to to to
40:05
derive any any knowledge really because everything just happens
40:09
perpetually, randomly, simultaneously.
40:13
So it's it's just like a lost theoretical framework or
40:19
philosophical framework for thinking about things.
40:22
Why I wasn't up and I I like the fact you brought up peril,
40:26
dimensions and universes and all that.
40:29
I find that fascinating. But I was talking more about a
40:32
one world system created by a game developer and you're just
40:36
simply given many different choices on how you want to exist
40:41
or play your game throughout That.
40:43
You could be a bad character, but that would be the reality
40:47
that you chose to go through. And that you could also choose
40:50
to be a good guy or goody 2 shoes or some noobs like to call
40:54
it. But it's still the same game.
40:57
It's not a a multi dimensional thing, same game, same
41:01
developer. And in the end it all ends the
41:04
same for all the characters and then PCs right?
41:09
Yeah, it's true. We're in a game.
41:11
You can even say we're in a a simulation.
41:14
Like God has created this immersive world that we live in
41:19
as we're beings and we're players, we're agents in life
41:24
and and God is seeing like what we're going to decide to do.
41:30
And the way you win the game, you level up is you.
41:33
You gain in Revelation understanding.
41:36
You receive like you power up by receiving the Holy Spirit.
41:40
And you you win the game like you even have victory over
41:44
death. Like like you can respond
41:47
because in this life, if you're found in Christ and you die, you
41:52
respond in God's Kingdom. Whereas if you die in this life
41:58
and you're outside of God, you know God's grace.
42:01
You're condemned. There's no responding.
42:04
Or if there is a responding you're not going to like where
42:07
you end up responding. Don't you find it unusual that
42:14
in our modern times people can actually see the creation and
42:19
development of an entire world and land and new characters and
42:23
all these different things and choices of existence?
42:27
But then they have a hard time believing that there may have
42:29
been some intelligence trillions of years ago that could have
42:34
developed something way far superior than anything that we
42:38
see in gaming today. How?
42:40
How can they even doubt a possibility of this?
42:47
Yeah, a video game scenario is a great thing and kind of laying
42:51
out like there's always A cause and effect.
42:53
And like if we know approximate 'cause, there's still the
42:57
ultimate 'cause. Like you can still say, well
42:59
what's the cause of the cause and the cause of that cause and
43:03
it always goes back it, it always goes to a source, the
43:07
initial cause, the the primary cause.
43:11
And so going through a video game scenario helps you kind of
43:14
thinking in those in that in those terms?
43:22
You know, we were talking about Predestination of Free Will
43:25
earlier. Have you ever played a game
43:26
called The Sims before? Like, way back when, when my
43:33
kids were little, yeah. Well, the the reason why I bring
43:37
it up, and I think you'll think this is pretty interesting, it
43:41
was along with the free will predestination the game has it
43:45
set up to. Whenever you create little
43:46
characters that run around live in houses, you can actually see
43:50
these little thought bubbles of what they're wanting to do or
43:53
what they're inspiring to do or what they may actually do next.
43:58
And of course there's all kinds of coding where they might
44:00
change their mind and go do something completely different.
44:03
But the point is, is you always know what they're going to do.
44:07
You could actually sit back without even touching your
44:10
mouse, and these things could live just fine without your
44:14
help. They may tend to piss the bet
44:16
every once in a while, or, you know, do do themselves out on
44:19
the front lawn, but they could survive.
44:22
You see what I'm saying? So it's kind of like you got a
44:25
predetermined world and environment, but you can also
44:29
know everything that's going to happen at the same time.
44:36
Yeah, you. Yeah.
44:42
I just the predetermined part of it is like like God obviously
44:48
allows evil to to occur. Like God doesn't intervene and
44:52
intercede whenever someone's going to be murdered or raped or
44:58
there's all sorts of terrible things that happen in this world
45:05
that God doesn't always intervene with.
45:08
And it's like so God takes the hands off approach in some
45:13
aspects of things like like this world is basically run under the
45:21
the influence of powers that propagate evil and God is giving
45:29
us a hand or a lifeboat to escape this world as we see it,
45:33
this dark corrupted world. And so God knows the future.
45:40
God determines the future and at least the potential future that
45:43
we have. If we if we level up and we
45:47
pass, you know, it's like a vetting process, like it's a
45:50
harvest if we bear good fruit, if we if we're found in Him,
45:55
we're going to extend our our life and and and inherit eternal
46:00
life and level up and and be part of His Kingdom.
46:06
But there's all sorts of of dangers and snarls and traps and
46:12
that we're fighting through and we're being tested and we're
46:15
being vetted. And God gives us multiple
46:19
opportunities typically to to choose the the righteous path,
46:25
but people don't choose it and they end up in the hell that
46:28
they create for themselves. I don't know if that was totally
46:37
responsive to what you were saying, but.
46:39
That's that's where it went with it.
46:43
So why do you? You had said that you were
46:45
trinitarian in the beginning and then you, I guess a modalist or
46:49
something like that. I don't know all the fancy names
46:52
folks give themselves and all that.
46:54
I must apologize for my ignorance.
46:57
But why do you think you went through these these three steps
47:01
before you come to the walk you are now?
47:06
Yeah, yeah. It's a it's a process of
47:10
growing, growing in my understanding like and coming,
47:17
coming to terms with the truth. So growing up as a kid, you know
47:21
most of my influences going to church were Trinitarian churches
47:25
and that's just you just kind of by osmosis you identify that way
47:29
even though you don't understand it.
47:32
So I I would never say I guess I was a Trinitarian in the sense
47:35
that I fully understand it and and embraced it other than just
47:40
to say there's these three concepts that I embrace.
47:44
Like if you look at like the old Roman Creed or the what they
47:49
call the Apostles Creed, it talks about the Father, Son and
47:51
Holy Spirit. Like these are three concepts
47:55
that are important to our understanding as Christians.
47:58
But it doesn't say anything about them being Co equal and Co
48:01
eternal. So like, you're a Trinitarian in
48:04
a sense that, yeah, I, I, I embrace the Father, I embrace,
48:08
you know, the Son of God, I embrace the Holy Spirit without
48:11
these nuances and that are actually part of the the
48:17
traditional Trinitarian creeds. And so, like, you can be a, you
48:22
can be a Unitarian with and actually think you're a
48:24
Trinitarian just because, you know, you don't reject these
48:28
basic concepts. You reject the philosophical
48:32
framework that was determined or, you know, expound, you know,
48:37
expressed or, you know, codified by Neoplatonic Greek
48:43
philosophers in the in the 4th century.
48:48
So yeah, I grew up, you know, just going to Trinitarian
48:53
churches and in college, you know, ministries, there's, you
48:59
know, the Trinitarian. And then I ended up getting
49:02
involved with like a Oneness Pentecostal ministry.
49:06
And we went through it and it's like they convinced me the
49:10
Trinity was unbiblical, but the alternative, that they had had
49:16
issues. So it was helpful and basically
49:19
taking one step outside of the Trinitarian box and saying, no,
49:24
God is not three persons, God is 1.
49:26
And so the great thing about modalism is it it it expresses
49:30
God's oneness. It affirms God's oneness and it
49:34
affirms the Holy Spirit being God's controlling influence and
49:40
that these are, these are aspects of God, the Logos being
49:43
an aspect of God. But the the the issue with the
49:47
modalism again is that it doesn't make a distinction
49:51
between the person of of Jesus the Messiah and the Father, the
49:55
one God and Father. And so that's a big issue that
49:59
really makes the scriptures extremely confusing.
50:03
And so after being involved with that ministry, which was really
50:07
powerful in the sense of that I I was baptized in Jesus name and
50:13
I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and had a
50:17
metaphysical supernatural experiences with, you know,
50:23
really powerful, really powerful encounter with God.
50:29
And so that was great. The doctrines of the like the
50:33
Oneness Pentecostal churches are their their theology's flawed,
50:38
even though there's some aspects of it that are that are good.
50:43
The main issue is Christology. So I spent a couple years after
50:50
college just really focusing on and studying the scriptures like
50:57
that was I came into the Unitarian understanding through
51:02
doing that. And you know there's there's
51:07
difficult scriptures that you need to like come to terms with
51:10
Like if it doesn't mean this, then what does it mean?
51:14
And I went through that process of saying, Oh yeah, yeah, all
51:16
these scriptures that people read read into their theology
51:20
that there is an alternative way to interpret those, those
51:23
difficult, ambiguous, vague passages that it seems to imply
51:27
one thing but actually don't necessarily imply that.
51:32
And then there's these other scriptures that are explicit.
51:34
You know, there's one God and one mediator between God and
51:37
man, the man Jesus Christ and Jesus prayed to the Father.
51:41
This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God
51:44
and Jesus Christ whom you've sent.
51:47
So like, there's this, you know, there's all these, like you
51:51
trinitarians would say, John, you know, the the the Gospel of
51:54
John. Like they draw so much from the
51:57
Gospel of John by interpreting the ambiguous statements that
52:01
Jesus made in a way that fits their theology.
52:04
But like the Gospel of John is one of the most Unitarian works
52:09
in the New Testament. There's all sorts of verses in
52:11
in John where Jesus clearly differentiates himself from God.
52:17
And he said, if if I honor myself, my, you know, if I
52:21
glorify myself, my glory is nothing.
52:23
It's the Father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our
52:26
God. You know, things like that which
52:28
are are extremely explicit. But what Trinitarians do is they
52:33
they look at sort of some of the vaguer passages and but like
52:37
I've come to the full realization that that all these
52:39
passages that they use as proof texts are really like there's
52:43
nothing there to to to substantiate their their
52:50
theology. And so they end up having to go
52:52
to the vague Old Testament packet passages.
52:56
You know there's these you know, passages to to to draw the
53:04
conclusion from the Old Testament because they there's
53:07
not any. You know there's not enough in
53:09
the New Testament. And then it becomes a game of
53:11
conflating words and titles that were given to God in the Old
53:16
Testament with those that are given to to Jesus now in the New
53:19
Testament. But like you have to look at the
53:20
context and what those titles mean and and but they try to
53:25
obscure the the distinctions and just kind of conflate the 2 And
53:29
so but my conviction after studying everything's carefully
53:34
is that the New Testament is clearly Unitarian.
53:38
The Old Testament's clearly Unitarian, and if if
53:43
Christianity didn't fall from its roots, didn't stray from its
53:47
roots, that Christianity by and large should be Unitarian.
53:51
It's just this Neoplatonic influence in the early church
53:55
where you know every, you know that through a few centuries
54:03
they had, they had to, you know. The motivation was to infirm
54:08
that in an ontological sense Jesus is is a is God and in
54:13
order to do that you have to say that, well, God is multiple
54:16
persons and then that that violates God's does oneness.
54:21
Right. So.
54:24
It looks like a bunch of people just jumped in and everything
54:28
folks. This is kind of a interview
54:30
where I'm just asking my buddy questions and promoting some of
54:34
his websites and YouTube channel and all that.
54:38
This isn't really a get together, however on a on Friday
54:43
7:00 PM everybody is welcome to come in and chat.
54:46
I enjoy hearing people of all different views going that
54:52
route. All right, so I I got one last
54:56
question for you. We'll wrap it up and we're
54:58
probably going to do more parts in the future, if that's cool
55:01
with you. Where we talk about more in
55:03
depth things about the Bible, where you're coming from and all
55:06
that. I enjoyed myself in this.
55:09
My question for you is this. The world is about the end.
55:13
You're in front of the world on international cameras to be
55:16
heard. You have 5 minutes to say a
55:19
message that you feel is important or beneficial to
55:22
mankind before all of the existence is wiped out.
55:25
What would that message be? To repent.
55:33
Repent. For the Kingdom of God is at
55:35
hand. Death itself does not have
55:42
victory over us, even though this road may perish in a
55:45
catastrophic mass extinction. There may be a nuclear winter or
55:50
something like that. Like that's not the end of our
55:53
hope that we we have the hope of something greater.
55:55
We have the hope of a a place in God's Kingdom where we don't, it
55:59
doesn't suffer the corruption that's in this world.
56:02
And so, like, believe. Believe in the gospel, and just
56:08
believe with all your heart that Jesus is the Christ, that he
56:15
died for your sins, that in the same way he was raised from the
56:20
dead, you will also be raised and perishable, and that you'll
56:25
be in God's presence for eternity.
56:27
That that's your hope. There's nothing that comes close
56:29
to that. And of course, if the world's
56:32
going to is eminently going to be destroyed, why wouldn't you
56:36
believe? But you should believe anyway,
56:41
even even though the the destruction of this world isn't
56:44
eminent. Because there's nothing in this
56:46
world that can come close to what the gospel, the hope of the
56:49
gospel, the hope of the gospel can sustain you through any
56:54
hell, starvation you know, starvation and suffering and and
56:58
it it transcends life itself in this life.
57:02
Like even even being killed. Like you have victory over
57:07
death. So I would just preach the
57:12
Gospels as well as I was able to within those 5 minutes and put
57:19
things in perspective that like you think you're going to die.
57:23
You're not. It's not over.
57:24
You can live. You can live forever like
57:30
whoever believeth in the you know, God so loved the rule that
57:33
he sent his only begotten Son that whoever would believe in
57:36
him would not perish but have eternal life.
57:40
Those who do not believe are condemned already.
57:42
But those you know who do believe are not condemned.
57:47
And so let's believe. Let's there's what else are you
57:51
going to do with this last five minutes?
57:52
Everything else is futile. There's there's you know.
57:57
Nothing else comes close. Even if, even if you're not
58:02
completely convinced, you should just try to believe with that in
58:05
every ounce of faith that you can muster up to believe.
58:12
Well ladies and gentlemen, make sure you check out the links in
58:15
the description. We have a link to his discord,
58:18
we have a link to his YouTube channel and a link to his
58:22
website. Make sure you check it out, it's
58:24
all good material. Subscribe to him.
58:27
He is building up some foundations right now and sooner
58:31
or later he will get to getting on video if anybody ever runs
58:35
into him. Be respectful, Have integrity
58:38
yourself. There is no need to argue and
58:40
aggravate because you know what? The world could end at any time
58:45
and you don't want to waste your last five minutes crying like a
58:47
baby and some kind of live broadcast, especially with Brett
58:51
Keene paying attention. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
58:54
I hope that you all have a wonderful day and thanks for
58:57
joining me in this.