Calvinism vs Arminianism, Part 1

Opening Introductions and Debate Format

Let me begin by telling you a little bit about Steve. For some of dr. James White's listeners Steve is a lifelong Bible teacher. Anyone that knows him knows that knows the word. Well, he is the founder of the Great Commission school teaches all over the world with youth with a mission or why wham?

He's the author of Revelation for views and most notably. He is the host of the narrow path. So Steve, we're excited to hear what you have to say today and also a joining of course as you know as dr. James White.

Dr. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega ministries out of Phoenix, Arizona. It is an apologetics oriented ministry. Dr. White is a frequent debater, especially with Roman Catholics and most recently with Muslim apologists.

He's the author of many books perhaps most relevant to this discussion the Potter's freedom. He is also the elder of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church or one of the elders there. He's married has two children and as a professor at Golden Gate Theological Seminary our format today.

Well time permitting allow both men to have approximately 12 minute sessions. They can either present as they wish or for rebuttals or questions to the other. So with that, let's get right to it Steve you have the first 12 minute session.

God’s Sovereignty and the Default Non-Calvinist View

I don't know if I'm taking the Arminian position or simply the non-Calvinist position. My opinion is that the position that I take is What most people would take if they're not trained in theology as I am not and it may be what I would call the default Position until somebody trains you to believe that Calvinism is true.

I believe that if you simply read the Bible you get the impression that God Operates in a certain way in his creation and in redemption and that man operates a certain way. The views I hold are pretty much the views that were held by the church from the end of the Apostolic Age until the time of Augustine and in the 5th century Augustine introduced ideas that we now call Calvinism.

I hope you're familiar with them because I don't have time to go through the five points right now. We will have five days together to talk about various things. I'd like to just suggest that my main points of difference that I want to talk about between my own view and the Calvinist view Would be on the area of what does it mean to say that God is sovereign first of all and secondly?

What is the condition of man in his natural state? And I will state what I believe the Calvinist view to be on that so that I can tell you why I don't believe it. The Calvinist view Takes the view of God's sovereignty that suggests that God ordains all things that occur.

This is what Calvin said. This is what Calvinists usually say. I'm not sure exactly in what way Dr. White will prefer to state the view that he holds on that but generally speaking The idea is that God ordains everything that happens.

There's nothing that happens outside of God's ordination. There are Calvinists that I have talked to before and their books I've read that have said there's not such a thing as a single renegade Molecule that every molecule in the universe is being directed by God in its course.

Of course scriptures are used like you know. Not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your father. The hairs of your head are numbered that give a give us the idea in scripture that God is paying attention to the minute details Of things in life.

And the Calvinist view then is That nothing happens except what God ordains to happen at least that was Calvin's view not all Calvinist Say it quite the same way. My understanding is that God does not ordain all things that happen at least not in any direct sense.

God allows certain things to happen. This is a this is a position that Calvin did not allow. Calvin said that it's a cop-out. Basically to say that God permits things to happen. Calvin said that God actually ordains everything that happened and they are infallibly going to happen because God ordained them before the foundation of the World or whenever it was that he ordained them.

I don't believe the Bible teaches that I don't believe the Bible presents that view of the sovereignty of God if it does. Then Calvinism has as its upshot the whole impact of that doctrine on man's salvation.

Which would be that a man is going to be saved or lost as God decided before he was ever born that he should be saved or lost now. Arminians also believe that God knows Beforehand who will be saved or lost?

But Arminians have always said that God ordained that those that he knew would believe that they would be saved. He foreknew they'd believe and therefore he drank or day may be saved and he foreknew who would not believe.

And therefore he ordained they'd be lost. The Calvinist view however is of an unconditional Choice on God's part. God did not see that some would believe and choose them for that reason. But God just chose some without any reference to anything that he saw in them at all.

Therefore it was strictly a unilateral choice on God's part to save some and not to save all. Now this doctrine I believe does not square with what we read in the scripture for the most part. I do believe there are some verses that of course there are.

That's why Calvinists are there. There are some verses that have a rather Calvinist sound to them. I think they need to be examined more closely in the context of Scripture. But in general the Bible seems to indicate that God does not ordain all things that people have a choice in the matter that a person can be a believer or not a believer as as they wish and What's more that there are things that people decide that are actually a great disappointment to God and God complains about this which we would Not expect him to do if he had ordained it to happen.

God's continually complaining in the Old Testament especially and through the prophets about how badly people have turned out which Gives the very strong impression that God did not determine that they should turn out this badly.

He's actually disappointed with it, and this is the impression you get that's why I called my position a default position until someone teaches you that God ordains everything you get the impression from hundreds of places in Scripture that God is not ordaining everything that he's unhappy with many things that go on and That he's making offers to people that he wants them to accept.

But they do not that he makes promises that are conditional that they don't meet the conditions. And so this is the impression that the Bible gives everywhere that God does not ordain everything that happens.

Although Calvinism says it does and of course the upshot for that for the issue of salvation is if God does ordain everything. Well, then God is the one who decides whether you or I will be saved and that was decided before any of us were born.

Now I know many people think even people who are not strictly Calvinist think well doesn't the Bible say that doesn't the Bible say he chose? Who would be saved well? We'll have to look at specific scriptures to know if that's what the Bible says or not.

I personally don't believe that the Bible teaches that God Ordained certain individuals to be saved and ordained certain people to be lost and that's just the way they're fated to be. If you believed according to Calvin's because God determined that you would believe you couldn't do anything else.

But believe because you were selected by God for that destiny if you don't believe again. It was not your choice. It was God's choice. God determined everything and therefore you had no choice in the matter at all.

You're going to be damned because God chose for you to be damned. That was his choice. He could have saved you, but he chose not to. That's how I understand the Calvinist view of sovereignty, and I don't believe the Bible teaches it now.

I also on the view of man one of the main points and basically the foundation of the five points of Calvinism is something called total depravity and Total depravity as is taught in Calvinism teaches that man in his natural state at birth is So in bondage to sin so dead in sin so incapable of making any response to God.

That in our natural state. There's nothing we can do to Approach God or even to really want to approach God that our hearts are strictly hostile to God from birth. That we hate God, and we hate his laws all people do says Calvinism because of that hatred of course we are incapable of Wanting to repent or wanting to believe or wanting to glorify God.

This is just not what we're wired for we're wired for sin and the desire to To please God the desire to even be saved the desire to repent is not something that will occur to us at all in our Natural state because we're too much at enmity with these ideas in our natural state.

That's called total depravity. I don't believe the Bible teaches that what I do believe the Bible teaches is that all people are sinners and all people are lost. And all people are Enslaved to sin and need to be set free by God.

But I don't find anything in Scripture that tells me that they can't want to be free. I don't find anything in Scripture that says they cannot believe. That they cannot choose to believe now of course the Bible doesn't use the term choose to believe and Obviously one of the discussions that Calvinists and non-Calvinists have is is believing a work.

Is it not a work. Is it something that is meritorious if a person believes and God didn't make him do it. Does that person get credit for his salvation because he believed can he boast about that? Paul said the answer is no.

Paul said that if we're saved on the basis of our works We could boast, but if we're saved on the basis of our faith. We can't he said boasting is excluded from that statement. So the non-Calvinist believes that a man is saved by believing.

Why does he believe well? Maybe for any number of reasons, but he believes and that is his choice. He believes or he chooses not to believe this is not a matter of boasting because believing is not a meritorious work.

This is just a matter of putting the ultimate decision of whether one will be in relationship with God. After God has already made his overtures it puts the final decision in the camp of man. Some would say this it calls it a man-centered Theology is not a man-centered theology.

It's all about God, but it does allow man a vote. It does allow man a right to decide whether he's going to be involved with God or not. And that's a view that is contrary to Calvinism and which I believe is implied throughout the scriptures.

That a person is held responsible for whether they believe or not. That would suggest that they had the ability to believe or not because if they're held responsible They must be the actor who incurred responsibility by their action.

And it's not God who decides if I will believe or not or else he is the actor and it is his responsibility. Then and if there's any penalties to be had It would they'd be incurred by the person who's the actor who did the thing culpable.

So basically it's the view of God's sovereignty and how he rules and the view of man's conditions before he's saved. That I disagree with most strenuously and I think are the main core of the differences that Calvinists have with Arminians.

Calvinist Sovereignty, Divine Decree, and Providence

All right. Thank you Steve. Nice opening. Dr. White. It's your turn for 12 minutes.

Okay. Thank you very much. It is my privilege to be with you today. I'm hoping possibly in the next segment that Steve would give us a positive presentation of his own perspective. I'm going to try to pretty much stay focused upon a positive presentation of my own in this brief period of time.

It I agree completely that the two issues the two primary issues that were raised just now. Are the key issues that we'll keep coming back to over and over again that is is God free in the matter of salvation.

Does God have the freedom to create in such a way that he is going to bring glorification to himself Through the redemption of a particular people in Christ Jesus and that he can do so perfectly he can do so to his own glory without possibility of failure without frustration.

Does God have that kind of kingly freedom and the part of that? Is it true that man is a slave of sin. That he is dead in sin the enemy of God all phrases used Biblically of the state of man in sin that he is a rebel sinner undeserving of even the first bit of God's mercy and grace and yet despite his constant suppression of the knowledge of God that is descriptive of Mankind's very nature that God shows mercy and grace undeservedly to a large number of people called the elect.

So that they are as the sand of the sea that men from every tribe tongue people and nation will surround the throne. Having once been God haters now having been changed by the grace of God through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Into those who love and bow the knee willingly before God can God do this to his own honor and glory? Or do we have some other message in Scripture? I am going to want to focus upon the fact that I am coming from a position.

It's a very well-known position. It's a well-documented position. I'm an elder in a reformed Baptist Church. And so the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith Westminster Confession of Faith Savoy Declaration.

Other documents such as this Will reflect my understanding of the teaching of Scripture that God is eternal that God is Unchanging and that he has a decree. He is the creator of all things including time itself.

He is not limited by time and since he has created all things. And I would submit that either all things have a purpose coming from his sovereign decree or things do not either God knows the future and the past because he's the creator of all things and Therefore has perfect knowledge of these things or God passively takes knowledge in and that leaves open wide doors.

To such issues as open theism now. I have read some of mr. Gregg's materials and I have before me his statement. He does not fill it. Open theism really is a major issue that it does not endanger any central Christian doctrines.

I come from the position that open theism is a heresy that it denies fundamentally the very nature of God. And if we need to get into the biblical text that address that then we can do so. So I would like to go to the scriptures because fundamentally I am a Calvinist because I am first and foremost Dedicated to the exegesis of the text of Scripture and as I engage in apologetics with a wide variety of individuals in just a matter of days debating Sheikh Jalal Abu al-arub over in the Fullerton, California on the deity of Christ.

I will purposely use the same methods of exegesis in that debate with a Muslim Sheikh. That I will use in this debate on the subject of the freedom of God. We must use the same kind of exegesis. We must be consistent in our argumentation.

That is why I am reformed and so when we look at the issue of the sovereignty of God over his creation. We know that Psalm 135 6 says whatever Yahweh pleases he does in heaven and earth and the seas and in all deeps.

This is just the opposite of what we have of man. Man does not do just what he pleases. In fact the contrast is drawn out. In Psalm 33 we read let all the earth fear Yahweh. Well the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him for he spoke and it was done.

He commanded it stood fast. Yahweh nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the people. The counsel of Yahweh stands forever the plans of his heart from generation to generation.

That is never said of mankind, but it is said of God when he compares himself to the false gods in Isaiah 46. It says remember the former things long past for I am God and there is no other I am God. There is no one like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times.

Things which have not been done saying my purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. Please note that God's ability to give prophecy his ability to explain the very events of history.

Not just what's going to happen in the future though. He does know this and he knows it perfectly. And I would like to ask anyone who does not believe that God has a sovereign Decree how it is that God can know this.

And and know it with certainty. But notice the connection between his sovereign purpose his good pleasure. Being established and what is going to happen both in the future and what has happened in the past.

Explaining why history has unfolded the way that history has this is part and parcel of God's sovereign decree. This also comes out in Isaiah 41. Present your case. Yahweh says bring forth your strong argument.

The King of Jacob says let them bring forth and declare to us What is going to take place as for the former events. Declare what they were that we may consider them and know their outcome. Please notice God challenges the false gods to explain history to explain why things happen in history.

If things happened without Purpose in this world if mankind is out there as a as a libertarian creature. Creating new realities that have no purposes then how can God make this this challenge to the false gods to explain?

What took place in history and why it? Happened it goes on to say or announce to us What is coming. Declare the things that are going to come afterward that we may know that you are gods indeed do good or evil.

That we may anxiously look about us and fear together. It is a part of the description of the true God of the Bible that he has this kind of authority. He has this kind of power. That is why the Proverbs writer could say the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of Yahweh he turns it wherever he wishes.

And even the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar after God had taken his reason away from him when his Reason returned to him he says in Daniel 4. I bless the Most High and praise and honor him who lives forever.

For his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth and No one can ward off his hand or say to him.

What have you done? This does not sound to me. Like a God who in his eternal purposes is frustrated who desires to do something, but does not accomplish these things. I think we need to look at the fullness of what scripture presents here.

Same thing in Isaiah 29 16. Where we have you turn things upside down as if the potter were thought to be like the clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it? He did not make me. Can the pot save the potter?

He knows nothing. We are the pots and God is the potter. He is sovereign over the work of his hands as in Isaiah 45 9. Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker an earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth.

Will the clay save the potter. What are you doing or the thing you are making to say he has no hand of course? This is the very concept that has been picked up in Romans chapter 9 when the Apostle Paul addresses the very objections that will be raised to his gospel of God's Sovereign freedom and salvation that we have laid out for us in Romans chapter 8.

Then in Romans chapter 9 he then answers those objections especially based upon the unbelief of the Jews and Demonstrates the freedom of God in salvation and uses these very same kinds of categories in establishing that very thing and so the sovereignty of God in salvation is simply an outflow of a positive and recognition of the sovereignty of God in all of creation if we if we view God as Being limited in his knowledge limited to time limited in some fashion.

Then we will have no basis upon which to build the very high doctrine of God's sovereignty and God's salvation in Jesus Christ being a perfect work that he presents to us and so in a brief amount of time I have left I would just direct people to the outworking of this is going to come up a number of times in our discussion I'm sure and that is the Bible presents to us the the outworking the the Interface between God's sovereign decree and man's responsibility.

Yes, God holds man accountable. We know for example in Genesis chapter 50. That's when Joseph and his brothers after Jacob has died. Joseph's brothers come to him expecting for certain That that he is going to wreak havoc upon them and instead Joseph's response to them says do not be afraid for am I in God's place as for you you meant evil against me.

But God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. So therefore do not be afraid I will provide for you and your little ones so he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Genesis 50 19 through 21 now. Please note that in the Hebrew language there is a direct parallel found in Genesis 50 20. You meant evil against me. God meant it for good. Using the very same Hebrew term you have here one action.

What was that action that action involved? Numerous Violations of God's moral law. It involved lying to Jacob. It involved deceit. It involved selling into slavery. It was an evil thing to sell your own flesh and blood into slavery and in fact to hope for his death.

This was an evil act and No one is saying that the brothers were innocent of this act. And yet Joseph recognizes that that one act is clearly and plainly a part of the sovereign purpose of God in fact.

Notice what he says. God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. If it can be God's eternal purpose. To keep these people alive to keep the promises to Abraham going.

To bring a people down to Egypt and to bring them out and to demonstrate his power over the gods of Egypt and all these Other things God has to be sovereign. But it does not change the fact that Joseph and his brothers are held accountable for doing what their hearts Desired.

The Genesis 50 is not the only place that clearly presents to us this interface this Connection between God's sovereign purpose and the responsibility of man. It is there for us in the very text of Scripture and When I have some more opportunity in the next section I would like to look at some other texts that likewise lay that out and Then pursue what the Bible does say concerning the fallen nature of man and the man is the enemy of God that he is enslaved to those things and as Jesus said He who commits sin is the slave of sin and slaves may want freedom, but they cannot bring about their own freedom.

And therefore the two foundations of this particular issue Come to fruition in those texts, but my time has expired and so I turn it over to Paul. Thank you. Dr.

White very good. Yes, 11 minutes 50 seconds. You're obviously a pro at this Steve. Now your turn for the second half your second 12 minutes.

Divine Love, Human Choice, and Conditional Salvation

All right. Yeah. Thank you. Dr. White for that. I got to. I gave a very good I guess defense. For the prerogatives of God in that he was not stating anything. That's distinctively Calvinistic. Although he did make distinctively Calvinistic applications of it the scriptures He gave certainly are not distinctively Calvinistic because the scriptures he gave tell us that the counsel of the Lord stands forever.

Whatever the Lord pleases he does he says nevertheless the Lord's counsel that will stand. God says I work and who will reverse it. I make peace and calamity. My counsel shall stand I shall do all my pleasure, etc.

All of these things are True in whether whether Calvinism is true or not Calvinism and let's just say Arminianism. They do not differ from one another in deciding whether God has prerogatives or not whether God can do whatever he wants or not.

Whether God does what he wants or not Calvinism Arminianism both agree about that. That's the doctrine of the sovereignty of God's that God has the right To do whatever he wants and he ends up doing whatever he most wants to do.

The question is what is his counsel? What is his purpose? What is it that he wants to do and there's where the Calvinist and the Arminian disagree with one another? The Calvinist believes that what God wants to do is to show his glory.

By saving a remnant of humanity and by damning the rest and showing his glory in in his grace and in his judgment. The Arminian thinks that God wants to show his glory in Offering salvation to all people and he desires all men to be saved but he does not desire to force that upon people because salvation is itself a relationship with God and Relationships are not of much worth if they are forced.

If a person is forced to be in relation with someone they don't want to be in relationship with or did not previously want to Be and they were made to that's not the same thing as a relationship. It's not the kind of relationship God's looking for with his people.

So says at least the Arminian you see the Arminian and the Calvinist both agree that God has the right to do and does do. Whatever he prefers to do whatever conforms with his purpose in his plan. It's just that the Arminian believes that part of God's purpose and plan is to leave some of the decisions about a man's individual destiny to that man to make and The question of whether he'll have a relationship with God or not.

God plans and purposes to leave that up to man. Why do I believe that. Well, I believe that because the Bible indicates that God desires all men to be saved. So if not, all men are saved and God wants it to happen.

There must be more than one will in the universe and there must be things happen that aren't what God would prefer. Now even of course Calvinists say that God has two wills and there's a sense in which that's true.

The difference is that The Calvinist believes that God wills to glorify himself in the damnation of many people. The Arminian believes that God wants to glorify himself in the salvation of as many as will receive him.

The main difference between the Calvinist Arminian in this respect is. Is one not again of whether God has prerogatives whether God's sovereign whether God has these privileges or not or the power? Arminians agree with all those things the difference is whether God loves everybody or not and in that respect the Calvinist emphasizes God's Privileges and his prerogatives and the Arminian Emphasizes God's love and both Calvinist Arminians.

I have found Do want to glorify God? Although James White and some other Calvinists have indicated that Arminians believe what they do because they practically worship human free will. I have never met an Arminian who worshipped or was particularly obsessed with human free will.

But all Arminians believe there is such a thing as free will. But what the Calvinist and the Arminian both are interested in is the same thing. Namely that God be glorified and that he be represented as he really is.

The difference is the Calvinist thinks that God is most glorified by emphasizing his his divine rule. By emphasizing his divine prerogatives and privileges. Well Arminians believe in all that too. But Calvinists don't believe that God loves all people in a saving way.

Some Calvinists say that God loves all people in one way or another. But not all the same way. And some Calvinists say there are some people God just doesn't love. He loved Jacob and hated Esau he just didn't love Esau.

The Arminian believes that God loves everybody and that God desires all to be saved and therefore the Arminian emphasis on God's character is a focus on his love and the Arminian does that without denying any sense God's sovereignty again.

To the Calvinist the word sovereignty means that the person who is sovereign Meticulously controls every detail, but that's not what the word sovereignty means. A king is a sovereign he may or may not Meticulously control everything that's in his power to control, but he's sovereign because he has the right to do what he wants to do.

The Calvinist I think does not grant God all the rights. Dr.. White frames this debate as one of God's freedom. In fact his book the Potter's freedom makes his whole case for Calvinism. Arguing that only Calvinism makes God truly free.

No. Arminians believe that God's free to do whatever he wants to do. But Arminians just believe that God doesn't do all the things Calvinists say he does. It's not a question of what can God do or is God free to do everything.

The question is what has God actually said that? He does and the Arminian believes that God gives people the opportunity to believe and repent or not as They choose and then he judges accordingly. Because their choices.

That is a difference. Certainly. But the point is that God's love is the focus of the Arminians position and they think that God is more glorified by Emphasizing God's love. I think most men would agree.

It's more of a flattery for a wife to say to her husband or to someone else about her husband my husband really loves me. In fact he loves the children in fact. He loves the neighbors. He's a very loving man.

That's more glorifying to the husband than for her to tell people he controls everything. There's nothing wrong with God controlling everything. But the question is what kind of a person is he? Those who are not Calvinist believe that God is more interested in us knowing what kind of a person he is then what kind of a being he is and that's why I'm not as concerned about openness theology as some people are.

Because openness people are not certain whether God knows all future things or not because they're not sure whether the Bible says he does. Calvinists and others Arminians believe that God does know all things and that he has said so but that's just a matter of How much God knows?

I don't know that God is as concerned that we know how much he knows as how much he loves. That's just a difference in perspective. The Calvinist thinks that defending God's prerogatives is how you glorify?

The Arminian says God has all the prerogatives. But we need to defend the fact that he's a loving God and he's not a God who has chosen. To simply damn people who never had any opportunity to do other anything other than be damned.

So that's the main difference. I would think we need to emphasize here. Dr. Wright did not in that presentation exegete any passages of course. I'm not claiming that I have either neither of us have exegeted any passages.

He just listed passages and he did so with giving the impression that this list proves the Calvinist point. What I'm saying is anyone can list passages until we look at what they actually say and don't say we won't know.

Whether they support the Calvinist point or not. He gave this story of Joseph's brothers selling him into captivity and pointed out that Joseph said in Genesis 15 verse. I think it was verse 20. He said to his brothers you intended it for evil.

God meant it for good. Okay, God didn't mean for Joseph to go to Egypt and that was for good. Now the question is did God put it in the brothers hearts to do evil or was that already there? You see that's not answered in that question.

We can say for sure God did intend that Joseph go into slavery. He even intended once the brothers had decided to do this to let them do it. God can let sinners do what he they want to do if he wants to that doesn't mean that he Put it in their hearts or that he ordained that they would sin.

Joseph's brothers hated him before God ever intervened in that situation. I think they're probably lots since they would like to kill him. But God never let them. But God intended for Joseph to go to Egypt so he could save his people ultimately.

Therefore God did not interfere when the brothers made this particular plot. We have a similar situation with Jesus being delivered to the hands of the Jews. God intended for him to be delivered over to their hands to Peter tells us in the book of Acts.

But there were many times they wanted to take him and kill him earlier than that then God didn't let him. God allowed them to do what they wanted to do at one point because it fit his plans for that to be done.

But he didn't put it in their hearts. He didn't make them have these ideas. These were the ideas they had and God used them. God simply exploited them and said, okay. It's my intention that Joseph go into Egypt.

It's my intention that Jesus be crucified and here are some willing dupes. Who are planning to do something that'll bring that about so I won't interfere and I think that that's how God does ordain history.

But I don't think that he does necessarily Ordain everything that happened. The Bible doesn't tell us that the scriptures that dr White quoted don't tell us that there's a meticulous providence only that there's in general God does what he proposes to do.

So the next question is what does God propose to do? Does he propose to Save some people and damn others without them having any kind of freedom to make any choice about that. Well, he might but we'd have to find out if the Bible says that or not.

Because if the Bible does not say that he does that he's still free. He's free whether he does that or not. He's free to do what he wants. The one thing that I think Calvinists don't do is give God the freedom to create a world Where there's such a thing as free will on the part of the creatures.

What if God really wanted to do that. Will the Calvinist allow him to do that or does that that's just not one of the options God is allowed to have. The Arminian thinks that God is truly free to do whatever he wants to do.

He could be an Arminian type of ruler or he could be a Calvinist type of ruler. But our belief is that what the scripture reveals is that he rules. Man, not with this kind of iron hand that makes people just submit to everything He says because they can't do other I believe he gives them choices and then he dishes out Desserts for their choices, which is of course the way most Kings rule.