Hijacking the Scriptures Part V: The Romans 9 Debate - Rightly Dividing the Word?

And welcome to The Dividing Line, my name is Rich Pierce, and I'm once again doing my little one-man show right here as Dr. White is currently traveling, and let's see here. Anyway, so here we are once again, following up on the last episode, if I have this right, I can do it today, the last episode where I will be covering the Romans 9 debate from last year, early May, in Dallas, Texas.

And I'm kind of queuing up a couple of things here real quick to get that ready. And let's make sure that is selected, and we can start just space-barring my way through everything here. Anyway, oh, hey, you know what?

I made a big mistake there and did not hit the record button. So we're beginning the record portion of this, at least for the archive, a little bit late, but only about 30 seconds in. Again, as I said, I will be, this is going to probably be a jumbo, at least a jumbo, maybe a mega, that means almost two hours, maybe two hours of The Dividing Line today.

And my goal is to complete this debate. And if you know how much footage is left to cover, set the audience questions aside, which I'm going to do. I'm not going to cover the audience questions. I think they speak for themselves.

I'm looking at 64 minutes just of time from the debate itself that needs to be played for you. And building up to this, there have been some, over the last few days, issues that have popped up. Dr. White will be addressing one of them primarily on Thursday.

Another one has to do with a gentleman who's turned to Twitter because apparently he talked to me who knows how long ago. I initially thought that I remembered who he was. And then as he is explaining things that he apparently said to me, now I'm not so sure if I remember the man.

I get a lot of phone calls from people who have a novel idea and they've come up with the one way to conquer Calvinism, to defeat it. And I think it's important for me to take a moment today and cover the issue of why we at Alpha and Omega Ministries, specifically James, I don't do the debates, but why we do debates in the first place.

Why We Do Debates to Present the Gospel and Bring Clarity

First of all, the primary method or the primary purpose of doing the debates is to provide a Christian witness in the face of falsehood. So when you look through all of the debates that Dr. White has done on Roman Catholicism with whether Roman Catholic apologists, even Mitchell Pacwa, the Roman Catholic priest and others, those debates were designed to present a gospel of grace over against the gospel of works.

I know those things don't go together, but that's how they see it. A system of works, a false religion. And so we're trying to take the gospel through this mode, through this method, through this vehicle to unbelievers and share the gospel with them.

And I don't know anybody who can honestly take a look at any of James's debates with Roman Catholics or with atheists or any of the other debates that he's done and not believe that the gospel was presented there.

If you deny that, then I don't even know what to say. I don't know the first thing of what to say. The debates that he did last Friday in London, he debated...terrible. I'm suddenly drawing a blank on the gentleman's name, and I thought he did a really good job.

It will come to me in a moment. Had a lot of technical stuff going on, so I've been distracted trying to get my head back into the game. But why we do the debates is also to bring clarity to an issue.

Clarity to an issue. We have conflicts within the Christian church. We have disputes. It's just that simple. Sectarianism and denominationalism stem through those debates, through those issues. And so when we bring an issue to you, whether it's debating with a Roman Catholic or whether it's debating with an atheist or a Muslim or whether it's debating Pastor Bill Shishko, a brother in Christ, over the issue of baptism versus paedo-baptism, our goal is to bring you the most quality presentation from both sides that we possibly can.

And honestly, to be honest with you, one of the major reasons that really drove us to try to go, you know what, we've got to be more discerning with the opponents that we pick and bring to you in these debates and engage with is complaints that I've gotten from the other side.

For instance, I hate to call him out, but the debate that James did many years ago with brother James Barker, I got phone call after phone call. I got one guy who called up. He'd bought the debate on cassette at the time.

It gives you an idea of the antiquity of it. And he wanted his money back because he felt that he had been misled that this man was a worthy opponent for Dr. White to represent his side of the debate.

I've had other people call up and say, you know, you debate guys like James Barker, you debate George Bryson, you debate, and he started naming off all these names of people that James has debated on these issues.

And his phrase was, you're picking low hanging fruit. You're picking the low hanging fruit. You need to do better with your debate opponents. Well, of course, my response to him was, well, how in the world are we supposed to do that when the men that you just listed off, in his mind, William Lane Craig, was a prime example of somebody that needed to be a part of this to represent his side of things.

If these men will not step up and do this, what are we to do? We at some point are forced to choose from the very best of those who are willing to go into this scenario. In this particular debate with Professor Flowers, yeah, okay, I know we were kind of wishful thinking, but the event was supposed to be held in Dallas.

And the folks in Dallas wanted to have a debate, really wanted to have a debate. And the hope was to get Dr. David Allen to do the debate. And feelers and channels were reached out to and we got nothing back.

So we did, in fact, attempt to reach out to Dr. David Allen for this particular debate. But at that point in time, the folks in Dallas really had had their hopes up. And so Professor Flowers' name came up.

And the argument that was made was, well, he is a, I don't know if this is accurate or not, maybe it's not fair, but this was the point that was made at the time was that he would be a David Allen student, someone who thought or argued along the same lines as Dr. Allen.

And so that is the path through which Professor Flowers was chosen. And of course, if you remember how I started off this series, I started off by reading Dr. White's evaluation of the debate. First line, this was a bad debate.

And we're going to go through more of it. But in the question of why we do debates and what our end game and our end goal is, is to present the best that both sides have to offer on the particular subject.

So that you have, as James often says, equal scales. It's not a matter of James being here against an opponent who has no ability to argue that case. And then we just simply squash the poor fellow. That's not our goal.

Our goal is that the audience, those who are viewing these debates, these events, whether they are there or watching or listening through recordings, that they be edified through them. And of course, through that, that leads us to the next point.

And again, I lift up the debate with Pastor Bill Shishko on baptism. Go watch that if you have not. If you are a fan of Leighton Flowers and you're just looking at me with daggers in your eyes right now, fine.

But I encourage you to go to the debate with Pastor Bill Shishko and you watch how that was conducted. Watch both sides. The rules and the ways in which I've laid everything out for you as to how debates are supposed to work, you watch and tell me if both sides did not plug into that to a T.

And were you not edified more effectively because they did? Because they recognized that these rules, this structure, causes both sides to rise to the occasion to do the best that they can and give the best presentation that they can.

The point is the body is edified through the process of teaching. Remember Proverbs 18, 17, the one who states his case first seems right until another comes and examines him. You need to think about that.

That is our ultimate goal. Now, the question also has come up whether or not I, when these people call me up, am fair in the kinds of questions that I ask them. My goal is to probe the person. I often, often, often get calls from people who think that they've got a great argument and they also think that they're pretty big stuff.

There is an ego involved in this. When somebody wants to do what they're calling to ask me to do, there is ego involved. And I'm asking them probing questions to try to get them to think about what will happen when you get under cross-examination because that's where the real debate happens.

So when Dr. White asks you a question about this or asks you a question about that, I'm not asking for their answer and I'm not asking for their argument. I'm asking for their skill set. How will you be able to answer him on an equal playing field level?

That's the goal. In other words, what do you bring to the table that will help us achieve that excellence in the debate? That's the goal. And so that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to ask questions.

I'm not sitting there saying, you have to know Hebrew and you have to know Greek and you have to know this much of it or we're not even going to think about it. No, I'm trying to elicit the person's skill set and see what they can respond to me with.

And if the best that they can come up with is, no, I don't know Greek and no, I don't know Hebrew, but you know what? If Dr. White will agree to use only the new American standard, he should be willing to debate me.

That's not how this works. That's not how you achieve that excellence where both sides are able to present their position. If we're arguing with an atheist, you don't expect them to know Greek and you don't expect them to know Hebrew, but you do expect a certain level of caliber out of the person in their argumentation.

As I gave the example last week, the idea that if you're dealing with an atheist who just looks at you and says, well, I think the Bible's garbage. Well, have you ever read the Bible? No. Well, that person's not going to get into a debate in a public forum with us.

Okay. Just not going to happen. So I'm looking for their skill set. Okay. Moving on. I have, since I've taken this task on, done everything I can to sequester myself, if you will, from the clamor that I know has resulted of my doing this.

Professor Flowers has a devoted following, and many of them are very unhappy that I'm doing this. I understand. I understand. But over the weekend, three different questions, actually two questions and a point snuck into my thinking, if you will.

And one of the questions was, in response to my presentation last week, if the person being crossed, this cross-examination, doesn't understand the question, they can ask for clarification. Professor Flowers wasn't playing games.

I never claimed that there was misunderstanding or didn't understand or need for clarification on Professor Flowers' questions. My point was twofold. Number one, his entire cross-examination in that particular portion of this debate was scripted.

He did not even pay attention to the responses that were given him. He just moved on to the next question, next question. And there was a great deal of, in my opinion, randomness to it rather than interaction.

Again, the point was interaction. So the other side of the coin, the second one is they were not focused upon the debate topic. So here again, we have a question or an objection, if you will, that is just another distraction.

Distract, distract, distract, ask questions about things that were never said. And again, that's a problem. It's a big difference. And I want to reiterate, at the point in which Professor Flowers cross-examined Dr. White, Dr. White had not yet had the benefit of hearing Professor Flowers' presentation, his opening remarks.

So he couldn't have no way of knowing where he was going to go. The idea was the agreed-upon topic, the agreed-upon task at hand was to exegete Romans chapter 9. That was the agreed-upon task. Okay.

The next one was, in cross-examination, the questioner has every right to use their time as they wish. Professor Flowers picked a line of questioning his privilege. Sure, you bet they do. Within the confines of the agreed-upon topic, had Professor Flowers, and I know this sounds absurd, but it's absurdity to make a point.

Had Professor Flowers chosen to ask a series of questions of Dr. White regarding his knowledge of the Dallas Cowboys, to take your logic, he picked the line of questioning his privilege. It would have been absurd, just as he had already, and we, through hindsight, listening to his opening remarks, had already departed from the topic at hand, the agreed-upon point or the agreed-upon debate.

So the text of Romans 9 and going through that. So with that said, I'm going to set us up with the next portion here as we start it. I'm trying to watch my clock here, and I know I really have to restrain myself.

We're going to get through this in two hours. So, but 18 minutes after the hour here, I need to get moving forward here. So we're going into Professor Flowers is now we're at the rebuttal portion, and this is his first rebuttal, or I guess rebuttal.

Things to keep in mind, the purpose of rebuttal is to respond to your opponent's opening statement. You can bring in new information at this point, but it needs to be directed at your opponent's opening statement and things that they said.

If your rebuttal goes second, in other words, if they've already done their rebuttal, you can rebut that as well. But the point is, it needs to be directed at things that your opponent has already said and point of clarification on things that you've already said.

So you're going to hear Professor Flowers open with the phrase, quote, as reflected in James's opening. Even that sentence was scripted. He was reading from his notes, even that sentence. And so my guess is that he already had it structured.

He had a path that he was going to go down, and he had an idea that I can frame it in a broad sense and dovetail right into whatever he has to say. What he actually says doesn't matter. I'll dovetail into whatever he does have to say.

Go back and listen to Dr. White's open after you listen to this and ask yourself, what is it exactly that is reflected in his open that Professor Flowers is referring to? Because I don't think you can find a timestamp for it.

The purpose of rebuttal, the entire rebuttal is so scripted that he has an overhead presentation. That's right. I don't think I've ever seen that before. I don't think I've ever seen a rebuttal where there's an overhead presentation.

I mean, I've seen guys just keep doing their opening, but to be so blatant is to actually have the overheads pre-prepared. And again, he made the comment about the good people who traveled so far. If he was so concerned about them, why, again, doesn't he abide by the basic rules of debate?

He did not even engage the debate. So with that, let's go ahead and switch gears here. Hope everything works right. I'm going to make sure I click on things here. I think I've figured out a way to keep all the graphics from popping up as I do this, but I'm going to be hitting a lot of space bars as we go along.

So let's go ahead and listen to, I'm going to try to restrain myself, the entirety of Professor Flowers' rebuttal. As reflected in Dr. White's.

Opening, when most people hear today, especially the word election, it seems like they automatically think it means God's choice to irresistibly save some individuals. I give it to the Calvinists today.

I think they've done a really good job convincing this generation that's what biblical election is all about. An individual chosen before creation for effectual salvation. Yet, this individualized interpretation of election, according to even well-respected Calvinistic historians like Lorraine Botner, teach that this wasn't clearly taught until Augustine, who doesn't even teach this view of election until the 5th century.

In other words, the way many people understand election today is not the way it was understood throughout Old Testament times, the New Testament times, or any time until a former Gnostic Manichean philosopher from Africa who did not know Greek came along 300 years after the time of Christ to systematize it for us.

The earliest church fathers, men like Irenaeus or Ignatius, who Ignatius was actually taught by the Apostle John himself, and we have some of their writings, they never taught an individualistic Calvinistic view of election.

In fact, they repudiated this kind of interpretation in much of their writings. For instance, I want us to look at one early church father, the Clement of Rome. We're talking about a letter written to Rome and he was likely in Rome and would have been very familiar with this letter.

Clement is actually referenced in Philippians chapter 4 verse 3. We're told that the Apostle Peter himself likely commissioned Clement and he followed Peter probably sometime as a bishop there in Rome.

So it would be good to know what a first century person of the first church, an early church father, thought on this subject. Well, we don't have to guess. We have a lot of his writings. I picked a short quote just for time's sake.

He wrote this, it is therefore in the power of everyone since man has been made possessed of free will whether he shall hear us to life or hear the demons to destruction. You see, very few students in my experience are even aware of how the church understood the nature of man or the doctrine of election for the first 400 years of the church's existence.

In our modern culture, it tends to oversimplify things if you haven't noticed. Many of us talk about election as if it's only one choice that God's made. The choice of one individual or a group of individuals before the foundation of the earth to be effectually saved.

But the truth is, God has made several choices in bringing about his redemptive plan. I'd like to illustrate these three distinct choices of God by looking at the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22.

This is the parable that Jesus concludes with the often quoted statement, many are called but few are chosen, and most of you are very familiar with it. This is where the king whose son is getting married, he gathers his together from his own kingdom to pass out the invitations to the wedding.

Now this is choice number one. God picks who? He picks individuals from his own nation to do what? To carry his message. Now remember, our side, we don't believe God determines everything, but we do believe God determines some things.

And God has clearly determined for his word to be delivered through Israel. His promises do not fail. This choice is what the first century church most likely thought about when they heard the word election.

That's why they nicknamed the Jewish people the elect of God. Why? Because they were entrusted with the very oracles of God as Romans chapter 3 teaches us. That is choice number one. Now look at choice number two.

The king chooses to send his invitations to who? First he sends them to his own people, and we know how that turns out. What happens? They torture and kill many of their servants, the prophets, the apostles.

They're flogging them, just like what's happening to Paul in this day, which might provoke someone to ask what question? Has God's word failed? If his own people are rejecting the word, it must have failed.

That's the question in verse six. But God's plan doesn't stop there. His choices don't stop there. It's not election singular. The king chooses to send the message to those outside his kingdom, to the highways, to the byways, to the good and bad alike, the scripture says, to whosoever will come, because the king is free to show mercy to whoever he wants to show mercy.

Many are called whosoever will may come. God chooses to invite first the Jew and then the Gentile. They can't come to the banquet unless they've been invited. You can't come to a party unless you have an invitation.

So what does he do? He sends the invitation in order to enable all to come. That's choice number one, and that's choice number two, both of which, yes, have unconditional aspects to them. He doesn't choose one servant over the other servant to be the messenger because one's more moral than the other one, just like the two brothers.

He's not choosing one brother over the other because one's more moral than the other. There's an unconditional aspect of this. But we haven't even got to the choice about salvation, which is choice number three in God's plan of redemption.

Look what he says. Only those clothed in the right wedding garments were chosen by the king to enter into the wedding banquet, to be able to stay for the banquet. They were cast out if they didn't have on the right clothing.

This choice is clearly conditional. One must be clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ by faith, not in their own righteousness, not in their own works, not in their own nationalities, as the Jews of that day assumed was theirs.

You see, here is God's choice of the individuals who will be allowed entrance into his kingdom. Many are invited, but few are chosen to enter in. And they are chosen based upon whether they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ through what?

Through faith. See, it's my contention that Calvinists, though well intending, and I do mean that, they have confounded these three very distinct divine choices by treating them as if they are all one in the same choice.

And that's why you often hear Calvinists, for example, compare our individual salvation to the calling of Paul, or they will quote passages like John 15, 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you. And they will use that, obviously, is being spoken to the messengers being chosen from Israel.

And they will use that as a proof text for God. This is how God saves and chooses those who are going to hear that message. You see, Calvinists point to God's choice of his servants to bring the word as proof for their doctrine about God's choice of those who believe that word.

So what does this have to do with Romans 9? Everything. Why? Because Romans 9 covers all three of these divine choices, and Calvinists are just seeing one choice while they're reading it. That's why they have the Calvinistic lenses on, and they can only see divine election as defined by the choice of an individual for salvation before the world began.

They're not seeing all the choices involved here. In verse 4 and 5, it's about God's choice of Israel to bring the word to the world. That's what they've been entrusted. They've been entrusted with the very words of God.

Verse 6 is about God's choice to send his message first to the Israelites who reject it in their hardened condition, as we just talked about, thus causing one to wonder, has God's word failed? The very people entrusted with the word of God are rejecting it.

And then much of the rest of this chapter and the following two chapters, really, are about God's choice to save whoever pursues righteousness as if it were by faith rather than works, regardless of what nation they're from.

Some descendants of Abraham are cursed. They're hated for standing in opposition to the word of God, i .e. Edomites. Other descendants of Abraham are used even in their rebellion, and despite their rebellion, he shows them mercy even when they don't deserve to be shown mercy, just like the Israelites after the golden calf event, which is also referenced.

And still others are persuaded by external means, blinding lights, big fish, whatever God has to do to persuade his messengers. Why? Because his promise does not fail. He will accomplish his purpose. And they are all, every single one I've mentioned, are descendants of who?

Abraham. And God is fully just to do whatever he wishes to fulfill his promise and bring his word through this hardened lump of clay that's hell-bound already because they're self-righteous and they think they're the authority, they think they know it all, and he's taking this hardened lump of clay and recrafting it and remaking it and remolding it.

Why? For redemption, for glory. Some people think my view of judicial hardening, from my side, they even think my view is too Calvinistic. I got two or three tweets from my last blog on this, and they think that I go too far even in my view of judicial hardening.

But look at it this way. When a patrol officer sets up a speed trap and he hides his presence from speeders so that they will continue to speed, is he causing them to speed? Of course not. His purpose is good.

He wants to make the road safe by slowing speeders down, and he hides himself, and this is the best way to catch speeders in order to teach them this lesson. He doesn't have two contradictory wills, one that wants people to speed and then another one that doesn't want them to speed.

He only has one pure righteous will, if he's a good police officer, obviously, and that is to make the road safe by slowing speeders down. And this is the plan that he has chosen that is best to accomplish that one singular redemptive purpose.

So also, God's the same way. He has one single will. It's a redemptive plan, and it never contradicts what he expresses out loud. It's not his prescriptive will over here saying one thing and then over here doing something else.

We can't trust a God who says one thing and then secretly is doing something else. You see, some Calvinists teach that God externally expresses one desire, like, I love you, I want you to come and to repent, but secretly he's preventing them, he's blinding them, he's hardening them from birth, and they can't repent, and he's judicially blinding them until they're dead.

They never have a hope, but that's not what's happening in this context, and that's why the objector is not the Arminian. Calvinists will say we don't know God's secret will and why he wants to save some and not others.

I disagree. Scripture tells us plainly who God wants to save. Why doesn't God want to save some? Quote, because they did not pursue righteousness by faith, but though as if it were by works. Tells us why.

Calvinists tell us we can't know why God opposes some people and not others, but Peter says plainly God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.

There is no secret about those who God desires to save, and there is no debate over whether or not he alone does the saving, but the Calvinist will object by saying, oh, so you think you've earned your salvation by being more humble than someone else.

As I just referenced, we don't believe God gives grace because humility earns it. He gives grace because he's gracious. Asking for forgiveness doesn't earn being forgiven. Look at it this way. Do you think the prodigal son earned the reception he got from his father because he decided to return home in his humiliation?

No, he deserved punishment upon his return, not reward. He got grace, and that was the father's choice. The father alone made that choice. Romans 9 is Paul's teaching on salvation pursued by faith versus salvation pursued by works, both of which the Calvinist assumes wrongly that are impossible for men to attain.

Why do they assume this? Because, again, they believe men are born judicially hardened, dead, enslaved, enemies. And I agree that mankind is born in a sense dead, but dead like the prodigal son, not dead like Lazarus.

There's never any link in Scripture to Lazarus in soteriology. That's something Calvinists read into that text. Are we enslaved? Are we sinners enslaved? Yes, but is God's provision of the gospel sufficient?

Truth will set you free. One could choose to trade that truth in for lies, but that's not God's fault. It's not because God has not given them.

Enough. Excuse me, professor. I'm sorry. It is time. And it is time. And I'll go ahead and cue the next section up here in a moment here. I want to point one glaring thing out to you here. In the entirety of the 12 minutes, if I grant him the phrase, has God's word failed?

Other than that phrase, in the entirety of that 12-minute presentation, he did not quote from Romans 9 once. And even when he said, has God's word failed? It was in the middle of another argument from another place in another context.

He's just simply employing it as a bat in order to make his unique point. So in his rebuttal, if we understand that the rebuttal is supposed to be directed at what your opponent has said, as well as reinforcing your primary argument, which yeah, you could say he did that.

But ultimately, when it comes right down to it, he merely used his rebuttal to continue his opening remarks. Not a single item from James's opening was addressed. Not one. Not one. Can there be any question left that the text has now been completely abandoned?

The subject of the debate has been completely abandoned by Professor Flowers. And as such, the basic rules of the debate, he's forfeited it. He forfeited the debate. Why is this important? And at the end of all this, I'm going to get into this a little bit more.

When two parties come together to do something like this, as I explained before, the idea is that you want to have equal scales and equal abilities so that both sides present the best argument possible, so that the audience is edified.

So in this case, a Christian conflict, the believers, the people of God are edified in real time. When you deviate from that, you've agreed to this topic beforehand, you've prepared for this topic, you've done the necessary work, you've rolled up your sleeves, and you've gone through a great deal of preparation for this event, and you've prepared yourself.

When you deviate from that, and you do what Professor Flowers has done here, you ambush your opponent. Dr. White will later on call this a hijacking, and he's right. But in this particular case, this is a simple ambush of the topic that was agreed to.

Dr. White did not prepare for this presentation. He had no way of knowing that this is where Professor Flowers would go. And as such, it's an ambush. So let me go ahead and queue up the next portion. And in the next section here, we're going to go through Dr. White's cross-examination of Professor Flowers of what we just heard.

So now the cross-examination is against the rebuttal. And by the way, I made a comment regarding Professor Flowers' first rebuttal time after Dr. White's opening remarks, cross-examination. I'm sorry.

There's so many different things going on here. When Professor Flowers began, I remarked that he wasted two minutes and 16 seconds on pleasantries. I believe he was doing some serious foot-dragging for a reason.

He was trying to stretch it out. I remember Tim Staples in 1997 getting into the cross-examination. And if you go back and listen to that, it's like, I've got 12 minutes to cross-examine you. Let me see if I can ask a 10-minute long question before you can reply.

Go back and watch. It's pretty wild. Or listen, actually, that wasn't videotaped. And that's a whole different issue. But in this situation here, Dr. White's going to cross-examine Professor Flowers.

Remember that Professor Flowers has already admitted that he would not use that method elsewhere, the same method that he used here. But some guy drove from Arkansas. So hey, a guy drove from Arkansas and that demands this.

What this is, I don't know. No, rightly dividing the word of truth was the standard, and that's what the man deserved, if you're going to put it that way. James will then pivot, presenting the almighty God of Scripture who controls...

No, I've moved past here. Cross-examination. Okay. So you know what? Let's just go ahead and cue that up. And yeah, there we go. I've gotten one slide ahead of myself. There it is. So we're going to have...

Okay. I'm going to go ahead and switch over to this. And now for Dr. White's cross-examination of Professor Flowers while I try to find out where I was.

One, two, three. All right. There we go. All right. There we go. Professor Flowers, I need to go back to where we finished in the last examination. What if your understanding of what, quote unquote, Calvinists believe about judicial hardening is false?

Would that not completely undercut everything you've presented.

This evening? Yes. If it's not a distinction without a difference, no. And that's what my contention is, is that Calvinists try to make a distinction between what they think is judicial hardening. For example, they say things like, well, they're not as evil as they could be.

They're not as bad as they could be. God restrains them. And I've never understood that concept because if God determines all things that come to pass, what's he restraining except his own determinations?

And so what I think is happening is the Calvinist is making an assertion that, yes, there's a difference between judicial hardening and total inability, but there's a distinction without a difference because I have not heard any Calvinist say that mankind is born able to see, hear, understand, and turn, and so as to be healed.

Instead, they say the condition of a man is unable to be able to see, hear, understand, unless they're given a new heart.

And new eyes. So you... Okay. I can't stand it. I've got to butt in here. First of all, catch the phrase, what Calvinists think it means. Wait a minute. What Calvinists think it means. So there's a distinction without a difference in your mind.

And so Calvinists don't understand what it actually means because you don't understand it. Now, what he just listed off, he just listed off four different points, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And if you listen and pay attention, he just listed off the definition of total depravity, but he put it under the guise of judicial hardening.

See, I believe that Professor Flowers cannot allow judicial hardening to be applied the way Romans 9 applies it because if it does, as Dr. White just pointed out, his entire case falls apart. The entire case falls apart.

Let's continue on.

You now do recognize that we do specifically recognize the difference between being born dead in sin and the specific act of God of judicial hardening, which obviously has something to do with God as judge bringing a particular hardening for a particular purpose.

You just.

Simply don't understand it. And I look forward during your presentation to make it clear to the audience what that distinction is between someone who is judicially hardened by God, their ability to respond to God's revelation as opposed to the natural-born man, because I have yet to find any distinction worth a difference from any Calvinistic scholars with regard to.