Saturday, May 9, 2020

James White on God, Kolob, and Cheap Rhetorical Questions


Showing that he is strong in rhetoric and little else, James White wrote the following:

Can an exalted man on a planet circling a star named Kolob be the proper object of saving faith? (James R. White, Is the Mormon My Brother? Discerning the Differences between Mormonism and Christianity [2d ed.; Birmingham, Ala.: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2008], 6)

One can rework this as a cheap rhetorical argument against White, too. After all, in his view, the single person of Jesus (White is not a Nestorian) was super-exalted with respect to his humanity (cf. Phil 2:5-11), so one could write:

Can an exalted man in the heavenly sanctuary interceding in front of another divine person be the proper object of saving faith?

This is not too far off what White wrote in his very first book:

He enters into the presence of the Father, having obtained eternal redemption. Christ presents Himself before the Father as the perfect oblation in behalf of His people. His work of intercession, then, is based on His work of atonement. Intercession is not another or different kind of work, but is the presentation of the work of the cross before the Father . . . the Son intercedes for men before the Father on the basis of the fact that in His death He has taken away the sins of God’s people, and therefore, by presenting His finished work on Calvary before the Father, He assures the application of the benefits of His death to those for whom He intercedes. (James R. White, The Fatal Flaw [1990], pp. 133-134).

White often warns his audience about "cheap debating tactics"; his comments are a prime example of such.

On the topic of the LDS concept of God, be sure to check out the article White (and Jeff Durbin) has never meaningfully responded to (notwithstanding their one-hour video [lamely] attempting to do such):


As for Kolob, see:



Answering Cecil Andrews on "Kolob" in the Book of Abraham

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