Common Objections to Calvinism Pt2

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the word of God and the doctrines of grace.

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The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along.

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Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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Today is August the 18th, 2020.

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And if you're following along in our daily Bible reading, you can go to Acts chapter 19 and read along today.

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And if you're interested in reading along with us daily, you can go to sgfcjax.org, that's our website for Sovereign Grace Family Church, and you can download a copy of our daily Bible reading list and read along with us.

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Now, today is part two of our common objections to Calvinism.

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Yesterday, we looked at the objection of evangelism.

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Some people say that Calvinism kills evangelism and that was the subject of yesterday's show.

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But today we're going to be looking at another objection, very common objection to Calvinism, and that is the objection of free will.

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Some people believe that if you believe in Calvinism, then you believe that all men are robots.

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And I'm going to do something today that I have not ever done before.

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I'm actually going to let you listen to another person make this argument.

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And I want to introduce to you Dr.

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J.

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Vernon McGee.

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If you've never heard of Dr.

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J.

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Vernon McGee, he's been on the radio forever.

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He's gone on to be with the Lord now, but he has, through the Bible with J.

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Vernon McGee, very famous, very longstanding ministry.

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And I'm going to disagree with something that Dr.

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McGee says today, but I want to preface this by saying I appreciate the ministry of J.

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Vernon McGee.

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This is not in any way an attempt to besmirch him or his ministry.

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This is one of those times when a brother in Christ, I disagree with him, and I want you to hear what he has to say because I want to be able to interact with it.

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And rather than me simply saying, this is what he said, I want you to hear it from his mouth.

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This is a recording from his radio program.

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I'm going to play a portion.

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I'm going to interact with it.

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And it's longer than I could let, I can't let you listen to the whole thing simply for the sake of time, but I'm going to let you listen to as much as I can, and I'm going to interact with as much as I can.

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And when I get to the point where I feel like I've said enough, I will close the show out.

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Here's the thing I need from you today as a listener is I need your patience because this is the first time I've ever done anything like this on the program.

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I'm working with a little bit of a new technology here.

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So I'm going to need a little bit of grace as I go through this, and I hope that you will give me that grace as I work with this.

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So I'm going to start by letting Dr.

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McGee's announcer introduce him, and he's going to read the question from the listener, and we're going to listen to Dr.

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McGee's response.

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And as I said, I am going to pause at times and give you my thoughts.

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And provide you the Calvinist response.

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Again, I'm a Calvinist.

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Dr.

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McGee was not a Calvinist.

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I believe we're both Christians, and this is my opportunity to respond to him.

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And I don't know how old this particular radio program is.

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This could be several decades old, but I want you to listen to it, and you'll get what I'm talking about.

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The scriptural view of the doctrine of election and free will has been debated since the Reformation.

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Many of these questions and thoughts have been considered by this young lady in Glen Birney, Maryland.

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She says that she has come to the conclusion that some are elected to heaven and some to hell.

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She believes that God knows all things from the beginning to the end, so he would know who would be saved and who would not.

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She continues by saying that God allows the multitudes to continue on blindly through life because they won't accept God unless he opens their eyes.

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She asks, would you please tell me if I'm right or wrong? If I'm wrong, can you please correct my thinking? All right, before we even listen to Dr.

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McGee, I wanna make a point.

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Whoever this lady is, she's obviously trying to articulate the reform position.

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One of the things that I would probably disagree with on her articulation is that God elects some for heaven and some for hell.

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That's often described as double predestination, and sometimes even more, the technical term is equal ultimacy, that God does the same work in predestining someone to heaven as he does in the act of reprobation or passing over someone who is going to hell.

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And I do not believe both of those are the same thing.

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I do believe that God puts out a particular effort and grace in saving a soul, and it's not the same as allowing someone to continue in the sin that they desire and want to be in.

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And so even her question, there's a little bit of issue with it, but for the sake of this, I'm gonna let Dr.

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McGee answer, but I just wanted to point out that it's obvious that she has had some kind of a reformed or Calvinistic influence, and that's what's influencing her question.

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So here's Dr.

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McGee.

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Well, may I say to you, I not only think you're wrong, but I think that type of thinking is very dangerous.

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If I believed what you believe, I would never attempt to teach the word of God again.

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I'd never try to win anybody to Christ because there'd be no need of it.

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Now, if you feel that God, all he's done, has created a bunch of zombies and that they're gonna move at his command, and at his command, he's gonna send most of them to hell, then may I say you have a frightful, terrible view of God.

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Well, right now, before I even let him go further, it's obvious, and this is part of the reason why I wanted you to hear this today, it's obvious that Dr.

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McGee is coming at this from the position that Calvinism, this view of predestination is not only wrong, but is to him repugnant.

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And it's interesting because there's not a lot of grace coming from him as far as understanding that in the history of the Protestant church, many, many, many godly men have held to this position, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and during his time, during J.

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Vernon McGee's time, there would have been men like R.C.

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Sproul and John MacArthur, and so, and many, many others, James Montgomery Boyce.

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So to, first of all, I just wanna say, I think that his immediate response, saying this makes God evil, and I think that's a little heavy-handed on his part.

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Again, I love the man, I'm not trying to besmirch him, I just think that's one thing to consider, is he obviously thinks that this position is very repugnant, but I'm gonna let him continue.

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The fact of the matter is, the heathen that think of him in such horrible terms as you see in some of the images that they make, the god of war, for instance, out in Hawaiian Island, that's as frightful-looking a face that I've ever seen.

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That's their god.

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Well, I would say that your god isn't any better-looking than that one.

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Now, let me approach this from an altogether different viewpoint than you have.

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Let's move back and think of an infinite god for just a moment.

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This infinite god can do anything in the world that he wants to do.

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He is free to act, but...

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Okay, real quick, Dr.

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McGee's about to explain, essentially, that because God is infinite, he has the power to allow men to have an absolute free will.

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But in the midst of explaining this, I want you to listen closely, because he's actually going to somewhat repudiate his own argument here in just a moment.

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This takes a minute, so I encourage you to keep listening and pay attention to what he's saying and listen for the inconsistencies, because often this is the case that we'll hear with, from our Arminian brothers and sisters, is we'll hear inconsistency, and that's what you're about to hear.

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He is actually free to act only in that area in which he absolutely believes.

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Now, we know something about him.

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He's a holy god.

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I'm not quite sure I understood what he meant when he says God is only free to act in the area that he believes.

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I'm not sure he used the right word there, but basically what I think that he's trying to say is God is free to act where he wants to act, but that he lets men act on their own behalf and he doesn't influence them.

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But just in case that was confusing.

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He's a just God.

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He's a righteous God.

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He's a God of love.

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Now, if you feel like that God is doing the thing that you're doing, then God is not just at all.

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He's not righteous.

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Fact of the matter is, I have my doubts whether he's infinite or not.

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May I say to you, we have a God that is so great, so wonderful, so far above our thinking that our thought patterns don't even enter into his thinking.

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He told, it says in Isaiah, he says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your way.

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God's thoughts and ways are different than yours.

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Now, let me give you what.

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Now, he says that.

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I hate to keep interrupting, but he says that God's thoughts are higher than ours.

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God's ways are higher than our ways.

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But what he's trying to do is trying to bring God down to a level that he would allow for free will.

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And ultimately what he's saying is that, yes, God's thoughts are higher than ours and he's greater than we are, but ultimately he's still gotta behave in a way that seems right to us.

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And I think, again, that's a contradiction, but we'll continue.

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Maybe a new thought to you, I don't know.

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Our God is so infinite that he can create creatures and give them a free will.

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And in the area of their free will, why he can accomplish his purpose.

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And in that area of their free will, it is free will.

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They're not zombies.

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When he created Adam and Eve, they were given absolute freedom in the Garden of Eden.

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They could do what they wanted to do and they did it, by the way.

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May I say to you that today the same thing is true of mankind, that he's able to make a decision and still, if that decision is contrary to the will of God and many men are making the decision, as you say, against God, they do not disturb his plan or purpose because in that area, an infinite God is able to make creatures with a free will and they can do what they want to do and it won't interfere with his purpose.

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For instance, do you think...

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I have to stop right there and just jump in.

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He made a few points.

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He talked about Adam and Eve and the fact that they had a free will and he's equating the will that Adam and Eve expressed with the will of their posterity.

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The problem with that is what we see is while Adam and Eve did have a certain freedom in the garden because they were not bound by sin, they did not have a sin nature until, of course, after they sinned but the Bible says that we, being sons and daughters of Adam, are not born free like Adam and Eve but we are born with a sin nature.

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This is why the Bible says that when Jesus was talking about people that could come to him, he said, no one can come to me unless he's drawn by the Father.

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He says, no one can come to me unless it's granted to him by the Father.

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Paul says in Romans chapter eight that no one can do the law of God because they are bound in sin.

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This is an important concept for us to remember that we are sinners by nature.

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In that passage in Romans eight is Romans 8.7 it says, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God.

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It does not submit to God's law.

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Indeed, it cannot.

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Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

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And what does it mean to be in the flesh? It means to be a person who is born a son or daughter of, a son and daughter of Adam.

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We are born with a sin nature.

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We are born with an Adamic nature, we call it.

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And so when Dr.

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McGee equates Adam and Eve with the rest of their posterity, he's making a fundamental error there regarding the nature of the will.

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But also he's making a fundamental error in regard to the nature of God's knowledge.

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He seems to be indicating that in some way it was up for grabs, whether or not sin was going to come into the world, whether, and that's something we have to consider.

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Did God not know from all eternity that Adam and Eve would sin? And I believe we have to say that he did because the Bible says Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

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God had planned redemption.

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And so when we look at the concept of the fall, while we do not believe that God forced Adam and Eve to sin, we do believe that this is part of the divine decree that this would happen this way because God had determined that it would be so.

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And so when we consider that all things happen by the divine decree, because God is working out all things according to his purpose, and therefore this doesn't mean that men are robots, but what it does mean is that while we have a certain freedom, our freedom is always limited by God's freedom.

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And that's what Dr.

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McGee seems to be disagreeing with here.

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He's basically saying God's freedom is limited by our freedom.

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And it's the opposite is true, like Dr.

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R.C.

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Sproul said.

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Dr.

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R.C.

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Sproul made this point.

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He said, I am free, but God is more free.

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And when my freedom runs into God's freedom, I lose.

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That is absolutely has to be understood.

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So, and Dr.

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McGee uses the phrase zombies.

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We're just zombies.

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That's not the case.

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We are dead in trespasses and sins, but we are active agents working out our own desires.

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The problem is our desires are sinful because we are born in sin.

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David said, in sin did my mother conceive me.

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I am born in sin.

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I grow in sin.

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The Bible says I'm dead in my trespasses and sins, and that I am by nature a child of wrath until such time as God chooses to grant me the gift of regeneration.

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And we're really running low on time here.

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I'm gonna let Dr.

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McGee speak for a few more minutes.

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I'm gonna interact with a little bit more.

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I'm gonna try to close up about 20 minutes in, but if you're interested in going and listening to the rest of what he has to say, you can look this up.

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This is available online.

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This is Dr.

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J.

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Vernon McGee through the Bible.

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And I'll see if I can't post a link below if you wanna hear what he has to say, but I'm gonna play a little bit more so I can interact with it just so you can hear more of what he's trying to say.

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Little man on this planet today, even with his free will, do you think that he can upset Almighty God? Of course not.

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Do you think that man has a free will? He certainly does.

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See, even right there, he's saying, we can't upset the will of God, but we have a free will.

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And so the question that I would ask if I were sitting across from Dr.

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McGee, I would say, so what you're saying is I can do anything that I want to do because I have a free will, and yet I cannot thwart the will of God.

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How do those two things line up? And as I said, I would say the answer to that question would be because God's will is ultimate, and my will is not ultimate, and my choices are not ultimate.

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And so I have to understand that God's will is actually what's working out everything.

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This is why he can say that he causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, because his will is ultimate.

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And someone might say, well, you know, God's only sovereign over the big things.

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He's not really sovereign over the little things.

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But the problem with that is there's really no little things because every little thing adds up to a big thing.

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It's like, again, referencing Dr.

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Sproul who talks about the shoe of the horse.

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You know, it's one shoe can cause one horse to fall.

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One horse can cause one battle to be lost.

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One battle can be the war, and the war can be a nation fall.

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And therefore, one nail in one horseshoe that caused one horseshoe to fall that caused one horse to fall that caused one battle to be lost.

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And so is God sovereign over the battle or is God sovereign over the nail in the horseshoe? Well, the answer is he's sovereign over everything.

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And when we start limiting his sovereignty in some way to try to protect God from the truth of who he is and try to protect his dignity and character, I think that's the motivation behind this because he earlier said, you know, God would be an ugly God if he did the things you're saying.

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No, he's a sovereign God and he does as he pleases.

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But we'll continue.

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And there'll be no interference on the part of God at all.

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And you say that they can't move unless the Holy Spirit moves.

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Well, may I say to you that there must come into the heart of man, and this is something that moves in the area of free will now is a conviction.

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Some men have a conviction, some don't.

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I sat next to a young man when I was in seminary.

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That young man, when we had an outstanding missionary, Dr.

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Lambie, I think, of the Sudan Interior Mission, or it could be an African mission.

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That's been a long time ago.

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He spoke and he so moved all of us.

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He moved all of us to tear.

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That young man next to me had a conviction.

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He ought to go as a missionary.

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I had no conviction like that at all.

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Now, don't tell me that God was pushing into the mission field.

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He wasn't pushing me into the mission field for the very simple reason I just happen to know I exercise my free will.

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I've got a free will and so have you got a free will.

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Now, okay, this is where I'm gonna have to start drawing to a close because I was hoping I would get this far and I have.

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When Dr.

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McGee talks about this young man who had this conviction to go to the mission field and Dr.

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McGee said, I didn't have that conviction and because I exercise my free will.

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This is a contradiction in terms because as Dr.

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McGee must understand, conviction is not something that is wrought from within the flesh or the mind.

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It's wrought within the spirit by the Holy Spirit of God.

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So I would say, yes, it is the Holy Spirit of God who urged that young man to the mission field in the same way that it was the Spirit of God who must have urged Dr.

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McGee to go into broadcasting and Bible teaching and all the things that he did.

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So to say, no, the conviction is from the free will.

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No, conviction is of the Holy Spirit.

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And this is where I think the confusion really comes in because we begin to apply to ourselves, our free will, something that belongs to the Spirit of God.

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Conviction is of the Spirit of God.

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It's he who comes and convicts the world of sin.

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It's he who can convicts the world of righteousness.

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He is the one who, I mean, when I talk about ministry, when I talk about becoming a pastor, I tell my story.

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You know, I try to always use this language.

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God called me into ministry.

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God, God gave me the gifts necessary to be a priest and a preacher of his word.

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Now it was recognized by the church.

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The church ordained me because the church has the role of recognizing that gift.

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But it's God by the Holy Spirit who urged me to do that.

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Therefore, I would say I am who I am by the power of God, not by my free will.

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My free sinful will did not cause me to abandon my life for Christ.

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My sinful free will, I wanted to be anything but a preacher.

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I wanted to be a karate teacher.

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I wanted to be a magician.

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I had all these things that I wanted to do.

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I never wanted to preach God's word.

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But God changed my heart.

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And that conviction is from the Holy Spirit of God.

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Now again, I give Dr.

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McGee so much credit.

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And I hope that my words have not been in any way come across as hurtful or argumentative toward him as a person.

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Love him and appreciate him as a brother.

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And I still have his commentaries on my shelf.

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And I reference him sometimes in my preaching.

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But when it comes to this issue, I think he was wrong.

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I think what he's saying is wrong.

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And I hope that this method of interacting with someone has been useful for you today.

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Because this will hopefully help you to listen and understand not how to argue necessarily, but how to stand for the truth and listen to the arguments of other people and interact with what they're saying.

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So I hope this, and again, I really, I have to give credit where credit is due.

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Dr.

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White has done this for years on the dividing line.

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And this is my feeble attempt to follow in his footsteps and sort of do what he has done and has taught.

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So I hope that tonight, or today's lesson rather, has been an encouragement to you.

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I am gonna end now.

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Again, if you wanna listen to Dr.

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McGee and the rest of it, you're free to do so.

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And I would encourage you to listen to it.

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And if you have any questions, please send them to me.

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Thank you for listening today to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

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Thank you for joining in for today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

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Keep in mind, we have a new lesson available every weekday morning at 6.30 a.m.

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on YouTube and Facebook.

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If you enjoyed this lesson, please take a moment to respond by hitting the like button, leaving a comment and subscribing to the channel.

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On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for listening.

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May God bless you.