Dave Hunt on YouTube!

I was sent a link to some YouTube videos recently featuring our old friend Dave Hunt, and in light of the fact that I've been hearing some rumors recently, that despite the fact that we have invited Mr. Hunt to debate the issues around Calvinism for a number of years now, and he has consistently said, oh hey, we did that book, don't need to do anything more than that, I'm hearing rumors that at least some people in his inner circle are actually saying that it's me, James White, who will not debate Dave Hunt on the issues of Calvinism.

The Standing Challenge to Debate Calvinism

Just to set the record straight, we are the ones who challenged Dave. I had Dave on the radio a number of years ago that led in large portion to the writing of his book, What Love Is This?, and we had challenged him to debate face-to-face.

He said that he would, and when I first saw What Love Is This?, in St. Louis a number of years ago, and many people said that when he invited me to do that book, the debating Calvinism book, that he was going to use this as a means of getting around actually doing a public debate, and unfortunately that's exactly what has happened.

But in light of the fact that Mr. Hunt is doing three debates in barely 24 hours coming up soon, it does seem that he still feels that that is something he should be doing, and I just want to make sure that Mr. Hunt is aware of the fact that we stand ready, that we believe that the people of God will be benefited by hearing and exchange, especially regarding his assertions, he continues to make assertions that we have demonstrated to be simply false, repeatedly.

We provide the documentation, but it just seems that Mr. Hunt is not teachable when it comes to these issues. So I was looking at his YouTube videos on What Love Is This?, and there were a couple things that I saw immediately I thought I'd put together in a quick video, along with making sure that Mr. Hunt is aware that our challenge to him stands, and that if he wants to do a debate on Calvinism, as we have for many years, we stand ready to do that, to engage in that, and to open the Word of God and to demonstrate that the Bible does teach that God is absolutely free and absolutely powerful in glorifying himself in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We'll be glad to do that. But let's look first at this particular clip. It's a brief one, but it again illustrates that as Mr. Hunt has tried to study these issues, that he's done so with such a tremendous tradition blinders on, that he just can't seem to grasp the real issues that are at stake here.

Listen to this.

Calvinists, Baptists, and the Genetic Fallacy

Williams, one of the best known advocates of religious freedom in his day, published a protest titled, The Bloody Tenet, it means bloody tenet, of persecution for cause of.

Conscience.

He fled England for America, where he was badly treated by the Puritans. In England, the Westminster Assembly had his book publicly burned. In 1648, the Presbyterians succeeded in enacting the gag law to punish the Baptists as blasphemers and heretics.

I find it rather ironic that many Baptists today are Calvinists.

Now why would Dave Hunt find it ironic that many Baptists today, such as myself, are Calvinists, unless he completely misunderstands why a person is a Calvinist. I'm a Calvinist because a consistent application of a biblical hermeneutic leads a person to recognize that God is sovereign in the matter of salvation.

Only if a person thinks that the genetic fallacy is true, and that well, these Presbyterians, they wouldn't have been nice to you in the past, and since they are Calvinists, you can't.

Be.

What kind of thinking is that? The whole concept, the whole idea in Mr. Hunt's thinking is completely in error. I mean, that's like the one that's Pentecostal saying, well, those Catholics that burned your forefathers, they were Trinitarians, so we shouldn't blame the Trinity.

This is not even clear thinking, and yet it is plainly a part of how Dave Hunt approaches.

All this.

Why Hunt Should Not Write on Calvinism

Now, this next section is sort of referring to me, because I was one of many who wrote to Dave Hunt when I heard about his writing What Love Is This, which took place shortly after a radio program we did, and I exhorted him, Dave, given what you yourself said on our radio program, and I'm going to play a clip of that toward the end, you should not be writing a book on this subject.

It is clearly beyond the area of your study, and listen to how he heard, even his friends trying to tell him, Dave, you're doing the wrong thing here.

Calvinism is a bit difficult. In fact, I've been warned, I was warned by many, even friends, don't write a book about Calvinism, you don't understand it. I mean, this takes years of study. But if it's the gospel, if it's Bible, it says that even a child can understand the.

Scriptures.

In 2 Timothy 3 .15, Paul writes to Timothy, he says, from a child you've known the holy scriptures that are able to make you wise unto salvation. I've been a Christian for 63 years, studying the Bible on my knees, but I'm not competent to handle Calvinism.

This is what they told me very sincerely. It must be very esoteric, must be very complicated. And I would just ask you how many children in Sunday school, when you read John 3 .16 to them, how many Sunday school children with a heart open to the Lord would understand from the words of scripture that Christ didn't really die for everyone.

That when it says God so loved the world, it only means he loved the elect. And he only gave his only begotten son to die for the elect. Where would you get this idea? How would an ordinary person come to this understanding?

Limited atonement.

Now, does Dave Hunt have a point that, well, since the gospel is so simple a child can understand it, that that means that, well, any Christian should be able to write a book on any subject they want.

You'll see that's a little bit muddled thinking. You see, the problem is that writing a book as a Christian leader requires a certain amount of study, an honest examination of certain topics. And the fact of the matter is, Dave Hunt has never honestly examined Calvinism.

Oh, he's examined it, but he's examined it to defend the statements that he had already made about it, even when he admitted that he had never so much as read any of the Reformers or what they said or what they taught.

You see, I had Dave Hunt on a radio program, and I asked him, how is it that you and I do the most debates against Roman Catholic apologists, yet when it comes to the matter of the grace of God and the will of man and these issues of God's sovereignty, you agree with Rome over against the Reformers?

And his response was that he was ignorant of the Reformers. And yet, barely six months later, the first draft of the book is in existence, and Dave Hunt is claiming to know more about Calvinism than most Calvinists.

And I'm sorry, but no one has the ability to do the fair and meaningful kind of reading and study that require to come to those conclusions from a position of ignorance in that amount of time. It's just simply not possible.

That explains many errors in Mr. Hunt's works on this subject, why I was able to identify so many exegetical errors in our book debating Calvinism, a book that he's actually said in public, I didn't want published, which again is untrue.

I want to play these words of Dave Hunt for you, so you can hear for yourself what massive change took place in only about six months' time.

Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. I have not had time to read them, there are truckloads, I guess, of their writings, and I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the apostles before all of these things were written, and I like to go to the Bible.

So, whether the Reformers said this or that, I don't know. I disagree with a lot of Martin Luther, for example, when I read his 95 Theses on indulgences, and when I read the Augsburg Confession, it sounds to me like they were still pretty much.

Catholics.

That's one of the things that concerns me, Tom, because we've gotten some very angry letters accusing me of not knowing anything about Calvinism. Well, if they want to walk in my study and see the many, many books that I have read by leading Calvinists, both past and present, Calvin's Institutes that I have all highlighted, and Augustine, whom I've read, and Luther, and so forth, I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.