So James White recently released 2 hours of very cranky lambasting Septuagint Scholar Guy™ Dr Joel Korytko for misunderstanding the argument about aorist tense = false faith in the gospel of John. White says his point was never that the aorist ALWAYS indicates false faith in John, merely ALMOST always!
So fine, let’s take his word for it. Here are three quotes from his post-debate streams:
1) 47:54 of youtube.com/watch?v=6cFm7kPl-iQ&t=2874s
“Because when you don’t have the present being used in John, when he switches the aorist and slots in a pluperfect, in both those it’s false faith. And so I think you can make the argument at least in John.”
2) 28:35 of youtube.com/watch?v=fLa8vrWuIk8&t=1715s
“If you’ve not done work on John 6 then maybe you don’t realize the fact that John uses the aorist when he’s talking about false faith, and that the present participles are emphasizing true faith.”
3) 1:02:47 of youtube.com/watch?v=Zk_Wig80wXs&t=2820s
“I just have to point out, when I mentioned in passing during the debate the present tense participles. The one seeing, the one looking, the one believing, the one coming. When I pointed that out, that was one of the things that this Septuagint Scholar Guy took difference with. I guess he’d take difference with [unclear] too. Don’t know, but Reformed exegetes have recognized and emphasized the fact that in John saving faith is present tense, it’s ongoing, in contrast to aorist and pluperfect.”
Taken at face value, all three quotes could reasonably be interpreted as claiming “Aorist (and pluperfect) tense indicates false faith in John.” There are no statements of exception, disclaimer or conditionality in those quotes. It can easily be interpreted as ALWAYS indicating false faith.
However according to James White, he has clarified in other places that this is not his actual stance – he claims it is ALMOST ALWAYS an indication of false faith in John. That is not a hard rule, and it is a mispresentation to say White ever claimed such!
Hence, we learn from this example that: “A conclusion should not be drawn solely from an isolated sampling; proper understanding requires the fuller and wider context!” …No matter how open-and-shut case those isolated samples seem to be on their own.
OBJECT LESSON: What can we apply from the above object lesson to the #FlowersVSWhite debate 2024 on John 6?
“A conclusion should not be drawn solely from an isolated sampling; proper understanding requires the fuller and wider context!”
Which was the entire thrust of Flowers’ approach to the debate! White kept harping on John 6:44-45 and hounding Flowers to stick to only that short portion of text, while Flowers brought in the whole counsel of Scripture to help us understand Jesus’s words in John 6.
Are there any conditions stated in John 6:44-45? Do we break up the verse and slot in ‘free will’? As my other post demonstrates (link in comments), Scripture often implies conditionality even when it isn’t explicitly stated in the text.
So very well, Dr White. We accept your correction and thereby clarification on the three conditionless statements. But we also use it to undermine Dr White’s stance in the debate! 
THE SCOTTTCAST 