The debate between Gene and Paul... An analysis... Pt 3.

In the second segment Paul starts off with his rebuttal with a cross-examination of Gene’s knowledge and doctrine of Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8.

(Heb 8:11) And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

(Jer 31:34) And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Paul asked Gene if this Passage indicates that a New Covenant Member will never need to be evangelized because he is a new Covenant Member. Gene indicates that is true.

Paul then asks Gene a very hypothetical question based upon backsliding and whether or not Gene might be telling a backslider who is a New Covenant Member to Know the LORD.

Paul seems to be accusing Gene of going against his own understanding of scripture by telling a backsliding New Covenant Member to Know the LORD. This line of questioning is very hypothetical and misleading from my standpoint. I would say Paul is reaching here into things that do not apply and he is fishing for a self-contradiction and violation of Gene’s biblical understanding.

I wouldn’t have answered the questions the same way Gene did but I am not analyzing my response. Gene did give good appropriate answers and announced he could not know if anyone was regenerate other than himself.

Then we move to discussing whether a person could draw prescriptions from descriptive statements. It is fallacious to do so. It was a statement Paul quotes of Gene who made it during a debate with an atheist. Paul says it is a move from what is the case to what ought to be the case. And Gene affirms this is true for the Atheist because he has no moral ground to base anything on. The Christian has this foundation so it is not fallacious for the Christian. It is because the Christian does not base his prescriptions on a material universe. Christians are for Biblical prescriptions.

Paul seems to have been baiting Gene for another fallacy up to this point by taking a question out of one context and trying to apply it to a different context. These contexts are the worldviews between the Christian and the Atheist. I believe Paul is groping and fails at this point also. Paul has challenged me concerning this and I am wondering if Gene may be correct in a sense because Christ is considered the express image of God and he reveals the Father. Just food for thought.


So now we are on to the next line of questioning. Paul then associates the phrase ‘they and their children’ to New Covenant Promises and other passages of the Old Testament. He then starts a line of questioning from this thinking. In my understanding Paul flattens out the promises to much assuming that the Children are automatically born new covenant members because of these general promises.

Paul then asks Gene, “Do these passages refer to all of the physical children, half their children, or is there another option?” Gene then says the passages refer to children who are believing children based upon the information given in the New Testament.

Paul then gets into a discussion of how we should interpret ‘all of their children’. I am not sure any of the texts he quotes use the term all. I think he is assuming it. Then Gene asks if Paul is a Calvinist. What does all men mean in this context. Paul then diverts to another question and doesn’t answer Gene. At this point Paul does something beyond understanding. He asks Gene how could his (Paul) position be stated that believers and all of their children are to come into the New Covenant and how can that be prophesied.” In my estimation Paul is asking Gene, if he were God, how would he have breathed out the scripture concerning this fallacy of Paul’s. He asks Gene what way could God have revealed it so Gene could understand and accept it. Gene says he is satisfied with how God revealed his truth already. And that it didn’t mean all of Isreal or all of the parents or all of the children. Then Paul pushes the point even further and asks how could the scripture have been said to mean all of them.


Then Paul’s line of questioning turns to the invisible /visible church as lined out in the confessions. And time is called. I don’t think Paul made his points very well and that he failed at many different levels. Gene wins this part in my estimation.