Radio Free Geneva: Mark Driscoll, Michael Brown, Tony Hutson

Mark Driscoll on Calvinism, Reformed Identity, and the Five Points

Hear people that are Calvinist harp on this.

Bah, bah, God's sovereign, God's sovereign, bah, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign.

They just keep repeating it. And they repeat it so much you start to think it's a biblical truth.

At the tomb of Lazarus, he says,.

Lazarus, come out.

And Lazarus said, I can't, I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. Do you mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ?

Well, I can talk over your head like that. I know the Hebrew, the Greek, I've done theology. You can tell I know.

Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things?

Um, no.

New Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

Take a verse like that to him,.

You know what it would sound like if he were listening to it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He wouldn't, wouldn't make any sense to him. A self-righteous, legalistic, deceived jerk.

You need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism. Now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...

I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge.

Then don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it. You're not always talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat.

There's a reason to have that, the choice of that meat.

From our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re-read George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva.

Broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

Yes, indeed. Always fun to watch people respond to the Radio Free Geneva theme. I always feel sorry for the people who keep writing to me and say, so what's there between Radio Free Geneva and the dividing line?

And it's like, well, just listen,.

You'll get the idea.

Radio Free Geneva where we deal with objections to Reformed theology, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we'll be dealing with a little bit of both today, I guess. You can sort of guess what prompted at least the beginning of the program today, and that was a couple weeks ago.

The internet all of a sudden exploded with memes and quotes of Mark Driscoll, formerly Mars Hill. I'm just going to tell you, I'm going to tell you straight up right now, I've never read a Mark Driscoll book.

The only sermon of Mark Driscoll I ever heard was the infamous one about where he had porn vision or something, where he could sort of see something about his congregation and what they were doing and stuff.

And I'm sure that was not representative of what he was normally preaching, so that really isn't all that fair, but that's the only one that I ever heard. And I think that was more toward the end of his time up there.

I read some stuff once about stuff that he used to say on web boards using a pseudonym or something. I remember something along those lines. I was never a person that just got into all that stuff. And so when he moved to Phoenix, Scottsdale specifically, I think, everybody's like, hey, you're going to meet up with Mark Driscoll?

I'm like, you don't seem to realize that Phoenix is not a little western small town. It is the fifth largest city in the United States by however you measure those things. And so it's, no, the chances of us running into each other are fairly small.

But lo and behold, all of a sudden, a couple weeks ago, the internet explodes with Mark Driscoll, who I understand named one of his sons Calvin after John Calvin, made the statement in some webcast that Calvinism is garbage.

And then a few, sometime last week, I guess, a web-ask-Pastor-Mark thing came out. And he never explained, in this one anyways, why he called Calvinism garbage. So you're not going to get any explanation of that.

He repeatedly says he's reformed, but not necessarily a Calvinist, which in and of itself raises all sorts of questions as to what in the world he means by any of that. Connection to historical issues, confessional issues.

There's all sorts of questions that were not answered in this particular webcast. But there were enough really interesting things said that we're going to take some time to look at. Then once we finished up with Mark Driscoll, there's a five-minute segment of video that's been floating around from Michael Brown on the subject of Calvinism.

And everybody says, you need to respond to this. And other people say, you'll never respond to this because he's your friend. And so you're not good. I remember a couple of years ago, Michael put out a little video why I'm not a Calvinist.

And so I responded with a little video why I'm not an Arminian. And we've debated this many times before. And so we'll go back at it again. And then I've got just some of the strongest argumentation we've ever tried to deal with.

On the dividing line from... Well, you just have to watch it to be able to understand. It is compelling. Compelling is one of the best terms I could come up with. It is truly compelling. Propelling, something.

I don't know.

We'll get to it.

Yeah.

Dr. Tony Hudson will explain to us why we should not believe in Calvinism. I'm still concerned that Dr. Hudson is not actually an employee of Babylon Bee. But we'll see when we get there.

Anyway. Okay.

So let's dive into the Mark Driscoll stuff. He did a 20-minute thing. I'm obvious and I can play all 20 minutes. But let's dive in and listen. It would help, of course, if my thing was plugged in there all the way.

So let's try it again.

But I would say that what oftentimes holds historic Protestantism together, of which I'm a part, and I am reformed, is the soul.

He says, I am reformed, over and over and over and over again. While at the same time... By the way, the one time I tried to look into his theology, I came to the conclusion, I ran across stuff that made it fairly clear.

He does not believe, and did not for a while back anyways, believe in particular redemption, limited atonement. And the fact is, unless you are really well read in second and third generation Reformed theology, and specifically have read...

You are an Amaraldian and have read Amaral. The vast majority of people who call themselves four-pointers are not objecting to limited atonement. They think they are. But when you dig and you push, what they're actually objecting to is unconditional election.

So if you don't believe in unconditional election, I don't care what else you call yourself, you're not reformed. Not in any meaningful sense of the word. In fact, if you're a Presbyterian and you had all your children baptized 14 times before their 15th day of life, and you don't believe in unconditional election, I don't think you're reformed because you don't believe in the sovereignty of God.

And if anything defines Reformed theology, it's sovereignty of God. Everything flows from that. And so it just does strike me from some of the comments he will make that that means something, and that means something to his interpretation.

So grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, scripture alone, to God be the glory alone.

Well, certainly the solas are important, but the solas, as we've said many times before, are a modern reflection looking back upon the principles that gave rise to the Reformation. And they are not the issues that specifically differentiate between those who are monergists and synergists.

Now, he's going to get into monergism and synergism, but I just sensed a real lack of clarity, of thought, and presentation in regards to what the definitional issues really are in what was presented in this webcast.

Those were, I would say, the big overarching principles of the Big Tent, and then there were various nuanced positions on other issues by those who were under that tent. Well, part of the debate, really, within the Protestant Reformation that continues to this day is a very important issue, and that is, how is someone justified in the sight of God?

If God is holy and righteous and good, and we are sinful and fallen, how can he declare us righteous, right? God's a perfect being. Heaven is a perfect kingdom. We're not perfect. How in the world are we ever going to qualify to be in that place if the standard is perfection?

Well, the answer is that Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place for our sins.

Jared. Okay, now, obviously, material principle of the Reformation, the concept of sola fide, but the issues regarding justification and what it means, that's one area. Very importantly, connected to the other area, but very plainly, when we're talking about the definition of Calvinism and Reformed theology, the issue there is in regards to man's status, the existence of a divine decree, the sovereignty of God over human affairs, the whole issue of the free will of man, the first written debate of the Reformation between Erasmus and Luther on that very issue.

And that's not—. I mean, that's related to solas because Erasmus doesn't believe in the solas or at least doesn't believe in sola scriptura, doesn't practice sola scriptura, whereas Luther does, whether either one of them were consistent with their own position is another issue.

But again, just a strange lack of clarity and a mixture of categories, historically and biblically speaking, that we'll see elsewhere.

And as a result, there is an opportunity for a person through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ to be justified, declared righteous, given the righteousness of Jesus Christ through faith. And so within that, the question is one of synergism versus monergism.

Synergism means two people working together. Monergism is one person working alone. So, if you think of it this way, if I could use a simple analogy, imagine someone's drowning, and they're going to be rescued and or saved, to use language of the Bible.

The question is, do they raise their hand?

Paul. That's not a good illustration, and I'm surprised that someone who calls himself Reformed would use it. The real issue is not a person struggling in the water, whether they could put their hand up.

If you're dead in sin, you're not struggling in the water. You are dead on the bottom of the ocean. You've got bite marks from the great whites that came by, and can we even talk about that anymore? I don't get grief.

From the sharks that came by and took bites out of you. You're dead. It's not a matter, you don't even have the capacity. You are a rebel sinner. You are in rebellion against God. You are not able to submit to the law of God.

Unable, unable, unable, unable. John chapter 6, a number of different ways, expresses you are not able. John 6, 44. Later again, 65. You lack the capacity to come to Christ. So it's not just a thrashing around, and whether I put my arm up or whether I don't, dead on the bottom of the ocean, needing resurrection life.

That's the issue. Or whether I'm spiritually active and alive in some fashion, and hence have an autonomous will and that kind of thing.

Right, the drowning victim. And then God grabs their hand and then they lock arms and they participate in their deliverance. They participate in their rescue because they reached up and someone reached down.

That would be the position of synergism, that we can reach up and that God will reach down and that together, in some form or fashion, justification, salvation will occur. Monergism says, no, no, no, we are not participating in our justification.

It is a one-handed work of God. It is something that God exclusively does. And I would just say...

In other words, God has the power to raise the spiritual life and only God has the power to raise spiritual life. That's the Reformed position.

Much of this goes all the way back to a guy like Augustine. Some of this is really early in church history and theology. And so you don't even necessarily have to be in one of those narrow particular lanes to believe in monergism.

But that's really the issue is ultimately, do we participate or does God do all of the work? Because if we do some of the work, it seems possible that we could undo the work. And if God does all the work, it seems permanent.

Well, all of that results in a group forming and gathering and having time to put together their theological convictions in 1610. It was the remonstrance. And I want to make note too that John Calvin died in 1564.

And so what that means is you've got decades from the death of Calvin to the gathering of those who would come with the five points of Arminianism. And then in response, those who were Calvinistic followed in the traditions of Calvin.

They would come along and they would have the refutation, I'll explain that in a moment, of the five points of Calvinism. And a lot of people think, well, the five points of Calvinism, that must be Calvin.

No, it's decades after Calvin. And it's a very debatable, questionable point. But some would even argue, and I think fairly persuasively, that Calvin may have not believed in limited atonement himself.

And so the five points of Calvinism, they may be influenced by John Calvin and they may not be completely from John Calvin. So that being said, you can love Calvin without being as excited about the five points of Calvinism.

Well, it's very common. Again, books have been written, articles have been written. We talk about some, The Potter's Freedom, we've talked about in preceding issues of Radio Free Geneva as well. But that particular subject aside, the fundamental issues that you are facing when you look at the remonstrants, Arminius and his followers.

Arminius considered himself a Reformed theologian as well. And the particular points that were raised did not specifically address the issue of God's sovereignty, God's decree, issues like that. But the remonstrance was a very clear move back toward Rome and back toward a synergistic system.

And those at the Synod of Dort recognized that that was the case. As to Calvin's position on that, I think you can demonstrate a consistency in his theology in regards to that. But that was not a topic of the day.

It's so often that people attempt to drag people into controversies that they never addressed. And since they never addressed them, then you have to speculate and say, well, since they said this, well, since they said that.

I think the reality should be kept clear that Calvin himself said, if you want to know what I believe, you go to the Institutes. And if you consistently interpret the Institutes, not just comments made passing in the commentaries, but specifically to the Institutes, you can build a pretty solid case that consistently Calvin would accept particular redemption.

What he clearly accepts is unconditional election to the nth degree. And as such, the question then becomes, can you in any way insert an intentional universal atonement into a doctrine that is as clear as Calvin is in the Institutes in regards to full-on predestinarian theology?

That really becomes a question at that particular point in time. So, we skip forward a little bit.

Concern around that led to something called the Synod of Dort that met many times over the years of 1618 -1619. And they were responding to the points of Arminianism. So, they came up with the five points of Calvinism in response as a refutation to the five points of Arminianism.

Number one is total depravity, that we are such sinners by nature and choice that we would never choose God because we're dead in our trespasses and sins. Total depravity.

Okay, so there's the first description. And yes, we're dead in our trespasses and sins, but what does that necessarily mean in regards to is this talking solely about the unregenerate individual? There's going to be confusion later on.

That really surprised me when part of his criticism was of Calvinism making total depravity your entire anthropology, and then his objection is it's not true of Christians. And I'm like, this man does not speak as a person who has ever been a Reformed theologian or a person with a broad exposure to Reformed theology, Reformed writing, thought, and things like that.

It surprised me just the expressions that were utilized.

It really did.

Unconditional election, that God chose us of free, pure grace. There's nothing that we did to participate or earn or merit that favor in any regard. L, limited atonement, that Jesus...

Okay, so again, if I'm going to talk about unconditional election, I'm going to talk about the specificity and reality of God's decree of salvation. He has elected a particular people unto salvation that is then accomplished in perfect harmony by the Father, Son, and the Spirit.

Again, I sense, and this isn't enough to be making final judgments about, but I just sense a disconnectedness. Now, it just may be because this is a webcast or I don't know, but if I were asked in a webcast to present my Reformed belief, it's not like the first time I've done it, and so there's going to be certain things that come out.

I'm going to emphasize the sovereign freedom of God. I'm going to emphasize his decree. I'm going to emphasize the Trinitarian nature of the gospel, all sorts of stuff like that, that I just see the points to sort of existing disconnected from one another, which I find odd.

El limited atonement that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the elect, not for the sins of all. That's the most debated point of Calvinism, and that is really the point where someone will say, I'm a four-pointer, I'm a five-pointer.

That would often be the point that if someone is not going to accept all five points of Calvinism, that is usually the leading candidate.

And again, as I said before, I really believe that the vast majority of objections to particular redemption are actually objections to unconditional election. I heard nothing that would reflect Mr. Driscoll's understanding of the unity of the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the accomplishment of that one sovereign decree, the voluntary positions that they take in that drama and in that accomplishment.

Hence, the standard objections against limited atonement not really recognizing the strongest presentation of what that actually means.

Limited atonement, irresistible grace, that if God chooses you, eventually He's going to get you. He's going to get you into relationship with Him and persevere.

Now, that is way too short, and He's going to get you. He's going to get you. We're talking here about the Spirit's ability to bring about regeneration by His own power. We're talking about the difference between saving grace and any other expression of God's patience.

In other words, there is a redemptive grace that brings about the salvation of God's people infallibly. The power of the Spirit and bringing it, just so many different things. Again, it may just be, well, this is a webcast, so we're doing it fast and, you know, whatever.

But it's just unusual, in my experience, for a Reformed theologian to not only express it in that way, but to spend so little time on irresistible grace and more time on the preservation of the saints.

It's odd.

Perseverance of the saints, that we are kept secure because of the finished work of Christ, and you can't undo what Christ has done. And so your eternity is secure, and the true believers will persevere in that.

They will continue in their relationship with God. They may have rebellious seasons, but they'll return in repentance.

Okay, that basically would be an accurate summary at that particular point in time.

Number one, this is a protest within a protest. So Protestantism...

Now, here's where we get into some of the church history stuff, and this again made me go, okay, and we're going to start with a common misapprehension about what Protestantism means. And you've heard it before.

I know it's very common. This is a protest, and so it's called Protestantism. And that's not what it came from. We've talked about it before, but basically, you have diets that met in the Holy Roman Empire.

And as the political winds blew back and forth, and Charles had control, Charles didn't have control, who was elector in this area, who was elector in that area, etc., etc. Finally, if I recall correctly, I don't have any notes in front of me, but as I recall, it was in 1529, the Protestants were put in the minority position.

And when Charles then attempted to use the power of the Holy Roman Empire to suppress their worship, primarily Lutheran worship at that point, of course, there was a mechanism in the legal system of the Holy Roman Empire for the minority to protest the actions of the majority.

So it was the term Protestant came from politics. It came from the internal politics and legal documents of the Holy Roman Empire. That's where Protestant came from. Now, has it evolved? Can you make the argument that it was a protest against Rome's theology?

Well, it was in a sense, but that's sort of using the word protest in an odd fashion. It was a refutation of major elements of Rome's theology, but not all of Rome's theology. The reformers were Trinitarians and so on and so forth.

So the term Protestant doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And the term Protestant didn't come from protest. It came from the minority actions of the electors in the Holy Roman Empire. I think it was the Diet of Spire in 1529, as I recall, just off the top of my head.

It literally means protest. It's what we're against. And then within that, the Calvinistic response to Arminianism is a protest. It's a rebuttal, a refutation of Arminianism. So what you've got is you've got a protest within a protest.

Now, the Calvinists, if anything was a protest, it was the remonstrants protesting against the Reformed Orthodoxy that had become established in the Netherlands and places like that. It's not the other way around.

He may have meant to express it that way,.

I don't know.

And so my encouragement would be for all of us, and I'm not saying there aren't things that we need to correct or stand against, contending for the faith to use the language of the scriptures. But I am saying that we need to be careful that our primary energy is not always trying to figure out who or what am I against, and who or what can I protest or critique right now.

We all do that. I'm guilty of that, for sure. And there are times that that is necessary.

It's really obvious to me that if you read the Institutes of Christian Religion, Calvin is giving a very positive presentation of God's truth, unapologetic in the modern sense of that term, very apologetic in the more classical sense of that term.

That's certainly what he's doing. And so that already existed. And then you have the remonstrants seeking to go back at that particular point in time to a more synergistic perspective, a la Rome.

But if that's the whole disposition, it might not be the best use of energy, because ultimately it should be not who we're against, but who we're for, and not what we're against, but what we're for. And people need not only to have a correction of faulty theology, but also instruction in sound doctrine.

Number two, I believe that I believe that the five points of Calvinism start in the wrong spot. Because number one, they start with man, not God. Total depravity. That's man's fallen state. If we're going to have a real God-centered theology, it seems like we should start with God, not man.

And it seems like we should start where the Bible starts, not where our opponents start.

This was just confusion. The reason that the Synod of Dort responded the way they did is because they're responding to a specific complaint, a specific position, and Arminianism starts with man. That's the whole essence.

As anyone who is Reformed should know this. This should just be second nature. Arminianism starts with man, and therefore the rebuttal of that follows that pattern. But no one should. I'm not sure why Mark Driscoll thinks this, but no one should think, no one would think, if they had actually read Calvin, that this is a theology that starts with man.

And if you have read Chosen by God by R .C. Sproul, if you've read My God's Sovereign Grace or The Potter's Freedom, in each one of those, you will have the same presentation made that we really should have a stulip.

It should be the six points of Calvinism because everyone understands. If you look at anyone who was involved at the Synod of Dort, they started with their theology of God. They did not start with total depravity.

It is a complete misrepresentation of any of their, any of them who were published, any of their published writings, what came before in the establishment of Reformed orthodoxy, that starts with man. In fact, one of the greatest criticisms that is offered is that Reformed theology is too high-minded and otherworldly because it's completely focused upon something we can't really know, and that is the content of God's decree and things along those lines.

And it's focused upon the majesty of the triune God and the accomplishment of his purposes and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, that's just not what people are interested in today. And so we need to be focused on something that meets man's needs more,.

Etc., etc.

Well, yeah, the Reformed accept that and embrace that and say, yeah, we start with God and we start with his nature and we start with his purposes and intentions, because that's what then gives you the proper context to be able to define who man is, biblically speaking.

And so to say that the five points start at the wrong place is just to completely miss their place in history, the intentions of the authors and everything else. And he goes on to talk about a book he's revising anyways, which is interesting, and then we pick up.

And Genesis 1 and 2, that's very, very important. And I know my Calvinist friends, whom I love, and I've learned a lot from, and there's a lot I hold in common with, would agree with me on that point.

He was actually saying that we start in Genesis 3 and the real story starts in Genesis 1. Well, that is, I don't know how you call yourself a Reformed theologian, and you haven't figured that out. You don't understand what it is that has been said all along.

It's just a misrepresentation.

In addition, number three, I think you've got to be careful that you don't have total depravity be the sum total of your anthropology. The total depravity means our mind, will, emotions, body, all of our being was infected and affected by sin, but that is not how the Bible primarily refers to a believer in Jesus Christ.

Some, I think it's 300 times if my memory is correct, in the New Testament, it refers to sinners, but there's only three texts that are potentially referring to a believer as a sinner. Sinners are believers and unbelievers.

We all sin.

All of... Okay.

It took me a while to listen to this to even figure out what the objection was, to be honest with you, because again, when you have someone as an author who is saying, I am Reformed, I am Reformed, I am Reformed, I've been doing this long, long time, you're going to assume certain common foundations that you would share.

And in Reformed theology, when we talk about total depravity, we are talking about the unregenerate man. When you talk about the regenerate man, you have an individual who is a new creation in Christ, and the categories are completely changed.

It's a recognition of a radical change that has been brought about by God and by God's spirit. So again, I could understand this kind of expression from someone who's never read Calvin, who someone's never read the second generation, never read Turretin, never read any of the Westminster Divines, or even modern, had never read Warfield, or Hodge, or Sproul.

I could understand that, but when you repeatedly say, I'm Reformed, I'm Reformed, I'm Reformed, and then you make these statements and try to offer corrections to quote unquote Calvinism that aren't relevant to Calvinism.

Well, okay.

I suppose if he is primarily interacting with online Calvinism, um, okay, but hopefully we can tell the difference, you know, between what you find on Facebook and what you find in a systematic theology written by Charles Hodge or something.

There is normally a real, real big difference there. I, I don't know. It was just very, very confusing to me as, as to, as to why he did that. I have this little teeny tiny section. I'm trying to remember why.

Well, I'll remember when I, when I play it here.

But our identity is not in what we have done, but what Jesus has done.

Okay. Yeah. Keep that in mind because, um, he wants to say that Jesus, Jesus' work on the cross, he seemingly believes it's universal. He rejects that, that point. But then whenever he talks about the work of Christ, he always makes the application to believers.

Our identity is because of what Jesus has done. Well, if Jesus has done the same thing for everybody, then why doesn't the person in hell have the same identity that the elect has? Because Jesus has done the same thing for both of them.

And so you're, you're, he may want to lean toward monergism, but he, you can't consistently do that once you divorce the intention and scope of the work of the son from the decree of the father and the application of the spirit.

Once you make the atonement non-trinitarian, and I would argue that's what universal atonement does, is it is a non-trinitarian application of the atonement, because it's outside of the decree of the father and outside the work of the son.

It is a searching, assert, asserting an intention on the part of the son that is not shared by the father and the spirit. That's troubling on many levels, but I also recognize that 99 .999 of everyone who holds universal atonement has never even thought about it, let alone been challenged to think about it.

So, you know, keep that in mind before you start jumping up and down on using the term heresy of your next door neighbor, or worse, the person sitting next to you in Bible study on Sunday. We don't want to cause that kind of problem.

So it is interesting, again, the inconsistency there.

And then lastly, there is a difference between systematic and biblical theology.

Now, okay, we've discussed this before, but again, there was just a... The problem I had is someone claiming one title, one descriptor, and then not acting like that actually is where they're coming from.

You know, it's not like... Okay, he never answered why he said Calvinism is garbage and the other thing. I don't get it. And I don't know why he was running around with all the Freudian daddy wound stuff and all the rest of that silliness that I heard in a little of that other one I listened to.

But in this instance, this sounds way too familiar to me. I've heard all this before. And let's play the rest of it.

Biblical theology is literally just trying to work through all of the scriptures and we need systematic theology and everybody has one. And systematic theology is where we take the various texts or concepts and we put them together thematically and categorically.

We all do that. That's perfectly well and good. The question is, is your systematic theology over your Bible or is your Bible over your systematic theology? If your systematic theology is over your Bible, then anything that doesn't fit your system, you're going to ignore it, downplay it, cut it out, whatever the case may be.

Because I'll just be honest, there is no systematic theology that really has every verse of the scripture fit tidally into. God tends to be a little free and there are some points in the scriptures where whatever your position is, you can't get everything in the Bible to get shoehorned into that category.

You can try really hard, but God's word is still free. And if we have our systematic theology under our biblical theology, then we'll allow more mystery, we'll allow more questions to be, I don't know, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, without having to come down on a hard position.

So, there's everything right in recognizing categories of systematic theology and biblical theology. But we live in a day where the vast majority of writing and teaching scholars no longer believe that biblical theology is consistent enough to give us a systematic theology.

And so, in the vast majority of commentaries, books that you will purchase in a Christian bookstore or online anymore, I don't know if the Christian bookstores even exist anymore, but what you're going to find in those publications is an assumption.

And the assumption is that biblical theology is self-contradictory, that Paul's position and Peter's position and John's position and Luke's position are fundamentally different from one another. Not necessarily 180-degree opposites, but the idea of an overarching consistency that is the assumption of the biblical writers themselves is absent from the vast majority of what is being written today.

And if you believe that there can be a systematic theology because there is an intended and purposeful, supernatural coherence to Scripture that can give you a firm basis for systematic theology, you're in the minority, a small minority.

Now, there are lots of people who believe that. They don't have any idea why they believe that. They believe it. Sometimes they'll be obnoxiously arrogant about it. They've never really thought it through.

Fundamentalists believe that. They don't know why they believe that. They use it as a weapon. But it is important to think these things through. It is important to not allow a systematic theology to override biblical teachings.

I see that all the time. Every single time a synergist just whips through Matthew 23, 37 and the Peter passage in 1 Timothy 2, 4 and 2 Peter 3, 9 and just whips out those three and says, see, God wants to save everybody.

There's someone who is using a systematic theology to completely twist Bible passages that don't mean any of the things they're saying they mean. It happens every single day. Constantly. So we do have to point out when your systematic theology results in your accepting eisegetical interpretations of scripture.