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

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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.
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White is currently traveling, and let's see here.
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Anyway, so here we are once again, following up on the last episode, if I have this right, if I can do it today, the last episode where I will be covering the
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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.
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And let's make sure that is selected, and we can start just space -barring my way through everything here.
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Anyway, oh, hey, you know what? I made a big mistake there and did not hit the record button.
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So we're beginning the record portion of this, at least for the archive, a little bit late, but only about 30 seconds in.
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Again, as I said, 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.
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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
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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.
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And building up to this, there have been some, over the last few days, issues that have popped up.
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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.
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I initially thought that I remembered who he was, and then as he is explaining things that he apparently said to me, now
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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
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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 Omega Ministries, specifically
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James, I don't do the debates, but why we do debates in the first place. First of all, the primary method or the primary purpose of doing the debates is to provide a
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Christian witness in the face of falsehood. So when you look through all of the debates that Dr.
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White has done on Roman Catholicism, with whether Roman Catholic apologists, even Mitchell Pacwa, the
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Roman Catholic priest, and others, those debates were designed to present a gospel of grace over against the gospel of works.
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I know those things don't go together, but that's how they see it. A system of works, a false religion.
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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.
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And I don't know anybody who can honestly take a look at any of James' 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.
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If you deny that, then I don't even know what to say. I don't know the first thing of what to say.
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The debates that he did last Friday in London, he debated...terrible.
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I'm suddenly drawing a blank on the gentleman's name, and I thought he did a really good job.
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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.
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But why we do the debates is also to bring clarity to an issue. Clarity to an issue.
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We have conflicts within the Christian church. We have disputes.
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It's just that simple. Sectarianism and denominationalism stem through those debates, through those issues.
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And so when we bring an issue to you, whether it's debating with a
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Roman Catholic or whether it's debating with an atheist or a Muslim or whether it's debating
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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.
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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.
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For instance, I hate to call him out, but the debate that James did many years ago with brother
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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.
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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
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George Bryson, you debate, and he started naming off all these names of people that James has debated on these issues.
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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.
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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,
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William Lane Craig, was a prime example of somebody that needed to be a part of this to represent his side of things?
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If these men will not step up and do this, what are we to do?
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We at some point are forced to choose from the very best of those who are willing to go into this scenario.
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In this particular debate with Professor Flowers, yeah, okay,
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I know we were kind of wishful thinking, but the event was supposed to be held in Dallas.
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And the folks in Dallas wanted to have a debate, really wanted to have a debate.
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And the hope was to get Dr. David Allen to do the debate.
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And feelers and channels were reached out to, and we got nothing back.
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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.
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And so Professor Flowers' name came up. And the argument that was made was, well, he is a,
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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
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David Allen student, someone who thought or argued along the same lines as Dr.
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Allen. And so that is the path through which Professor Flowers was chosen.
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And of course, if you remember how I started off this series, I started off by reading
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Dr. White's evaluation of the debate, first line, this was a bad debate.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But I encourage you to go to the debate with Pastor Bill Shishko and you watch how that was conducted.
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Watch both sides. The rules and the way 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
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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.
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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.
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You need to think about that. That is our ultimate goal. Now, the question also has come up whether or not
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I, when these people call me up, am fair in the kinds of questions that I ask them.
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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.
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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.
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When Dr. White asks you a question about this or asks you a question about that,
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I'm not asking for their answer, and I'm not asking for their argument. I'm asking for their skill set.
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How will you be able to answer him on an equal playing field level?
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That's the goal. In other words, what do you bring to the table that will help us achieve that excellence in the debate?
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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
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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, 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,
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I don't know Greek, and no, I don't know Hebrew, but you know what? If Dr. White will agree to use the new
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American standard, he should be willing to debate me. That's not how this works.
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That's not how you achieve that excellence where both sides are able to present their position.
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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.
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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,
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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?
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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
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I can to sequester myself, if you will, from the clamor that has resulted of my doing this.
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Professor Flowers has a devoted following, and many of them are very unhappy that I'm doing this, and I understand.
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I understand. But over the weekend, three different questions, actually two questions and a point have snuck into my thinking, if you will.
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One of the questions was, in response to my presentation last week, if the person being crossed, this is cross -examination, doesn't understand the question, they can ask for clarification.
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Professor Flowers wasn't playing games. I never claimed that there was a misunderstanding or didn't understand or need for clarification on Professor Flowers's questions.
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My point was twofold. Number one, his entire cross -examination in that particular portion of this debate was scripted.
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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.
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Again, the point was interaction. So the other side of the coin, the second one is they were not focused upon the debate topic.
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So here again, we have a question or an objection, if you will, that is just another distraction.
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Distract, distract, distract, ask questions about things that were never said. And again, that's a problem.
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It's a big difference. And I want to reiterate, at the point in which
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Professor Flowers cross -examined Dr. White, Dr.
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White had not yet had the benefit of hearing Professor Flowers's presentation, his opening remarks.
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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
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Romans 9. That was the agreed upon task. The next one was, in cross -examination, the questioner has every right to use their time as they wish.
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Professor Flowers picked a line of questioning his privilege. Sure, you bet they do.
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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.
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Had Professor Flowers chosen to ask a series of questions of Dr. White regarding his knowledge of the
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Dallas Cowboys, to take your logic, he picked the line of questioning his privilege.
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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.
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So the text of Romans 9 and going through that. So with that said,
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I'm going to set us up with the next portion here as we start it.
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I'm trying to watch my clock here, and I know I really have to restrain myself if we're going to get through this in two hours.
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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.
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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.
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If your rebuttal goes second, in other words, if they've already done their rebuttal, you can rebut that as well.
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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.
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So you're going to hear, you're going to hear
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Professor Flowers open with the phrase, quote, as reflected in James's opening, even that sentence was scripted.
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He was reading from his notes, even that sentence. And so my guess is that he already had it structured.
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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.
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What he actually says doesn't matter, I'll dovetail into whatever he does have to say. Go back and listen to Dr.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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I mean, I've seen guys just keep doing their opening, but to be so blatant is to actually have the overheads pre -prepared.
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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?
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He did not even engage the debate. So with that, let's go ahead and switch gears here.
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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.
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So let's go ahead and listen to—I'm going to try to restrain myself—the entirety of Professor Flowers' rebuttal.
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As reflected in Dr. White's opening, when most people hear today, especially, the word election, it seems like they automatically think it means
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God's choice to irresistibly save some individuals. I give it to the Calvinists today.
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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.
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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.
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In other words, the way many people understand election today is not the way it was understood throughout
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Old Testament times, the New Testament times, or any time until a former
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Gnostic Manichean philosopher from Africa, who did not know Greek, came along 300 years after the time of Christ to systematize it for us.
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The earliest church fathers, men like Irenaeus or Ignatius, who Ignatius was actually taught by the
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Apostle John himself, and we have some of their writings, they never taught an individualistic
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Calvinistic view of election. In fact, they repudiated this kind of interpretation in much of their writings.
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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.
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Clement is actually referenced in Philippians chapter 4, verse 3. We're told that the Apostle Peter himself likely commissioned
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But the truth is, God has made several choices in bringing about his redemptive plan.
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I'd like to illustrate these three distinct choices of God by looking at the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22.
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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.
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This is where the king, whose son is getting married, he gathers his servants together from his own kingdom to pass out the invitations to the wedding.
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Now this is choice number one. God picks who? He picks individuals from his own nation to do what?
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To carry his message. Now remember, our side, we don't believe God determines everything, but we do believe
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God determines some things, and God has clearly determined for his word to be delivered through Israel.
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His promises do not fail. This choice is what the first century church most likely thought about when they heard the word election.
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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.
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That is choice number one. Now look at choice number two. The king chooses to send his invitations to who?
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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.
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They're flogging them, just like what's happening to Paul in this day, which might provoke someone to ask what question?
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Has God's word failed? If his own people are rejecting the word, it must have failed. That's the question in verse 6.
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But God's plan doesn't stop there. His choices don't stop there. It's not election singular.
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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.
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Many are called, whosoever will may come. God chooses to invite first the Jew and then the
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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.
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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.
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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.
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He's not choosing one brother over the other because one's more moral than the other. There's an unconditional aspect of this.
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But we haven't even got to the choice about salvation, which is choice number three in God's plan of redemption.
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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.
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They were cast out if they didn't have on the right clothing. This choice is clearly conditional.
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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
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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And they will use that, obviously, is being spoken to the messengers being chosen from Israel.
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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.
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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.
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So what does this have to do with Romans 9? Everything. Why? Because Romans 9 covers all three of these divine choices.
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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.
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They are not seeing all the choices involved here. In verse four and five, it's about God's choice of Israel to bring the word to the world.
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That's what they've been entrusted. They've been entrusted with the very words of God. Verse six is about God's choice to send his message first to the
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Israelites who reject it in their hardened condition, as we just talked about, thus causing one to wonder, has
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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.
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Some descendants of Abraham are cursed. They're hated for standing in opposition to the word of God, i .e.
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Edomites. Other descendants of Abraham are used even in their rebellion.
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And despite their rebellion, he shows them mercy, even when they don't deserve to be shown mercy, just like the
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Israelites after the golden calf event, which is also referenced. And still others are persuaded by external means, blinding lights, big fish, whatever
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God has to do to persuade his messengers. Why? Because his promise does not fail. He will accomplish his purpose.
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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.
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They think they know it all. And he's taking this hardened lump of clay and recrafting it and remaking it and remolding it.
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Why? For redemption. For glory. Some people think my view of judicial hardening, from my side, they even think my view is too
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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.
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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?
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Of course not. His purpose is good. He wants to make the road safe by slowing speeders down.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's not his prescriptive will over here saying one thing and then over here doing something else. We can't trust a
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God who says one thing and then secretly is doing something else. You see, some Calvinists teach that God externally expresses one desire, like,
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I love you. I want you to come and to repent. But secretly, he's preventing them. He's blinding them.
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He's hardening them from birth and they can't repent. And he's judicially blinding them until they're dead.
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They never have a hope. But that's not what's happening in this context. And that's why the objector is not the
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Arminian. Calvinists will say we don't know God's secret will and why he wants to save some and not others.
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I disagree. Scripture tells us plainly who God wants to save. Why doesn't
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God want to save some? Quote, because they did not pursue righteousness by faith, but though as if it were by works.
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Tells us why. Calvinists tell us we can't know why God opposes some people and not others. But Peter says plainly,
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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.
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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.
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But the Calvinist will object by saying, oh, so you think you've earned your salvation by being more humble than someone else?
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As I just referenced, we don't believe God gives grace because humility earns it. He gives grace because he's gracious.
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Asking for forgiveness doesn't earn being forgiven. Look at it this way.
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Do you think the prodigal son earned the reception he got from his father because he decided to return home in his humiliation?
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No, he deserved punishment upon his return, not reward. He got grace, and that was the father's choice.
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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
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Calvinist assumes wrongly that are impossible for men to attain. Why do they assume this?
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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.
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There's never any link in scripture to Lazarus in soteriology. That's something Calvinists read into that text.
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Are we enslaved? Are we sinners enslaved? Yes, but is God's provision of the gospel sufficient?
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Truth will set you free. One could choose to trade that truth in for lies, but that's not God's fault.
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It's not because God has not given him enough. Excuse me, professor. I'm sorry. It is time. And it is time.
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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.
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In the entirety of the 12 minutes, if I grant him the phrase, has
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God's word failed? Other than that phrase, in the entirety of that 12 -minute presentation, he did not quote from Romans 9 once.
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And even when he said, has God's word failed? It was in the middle of another argument from another place in another context.
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He's just simply employing it as a bat in order to make his unique point.
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So in his rebuttal, if we understand that the 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.
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Not a single item from James' opening was addressed. Not one. Not one. Can there be any question left that the text has now been completely abandoned?
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The subject of the debate has been completely abandoned by Professor Flowers.
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And as such, the basic rules of the debate, he's forfeited it.
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He forfeited the debate. Why is this important? And at the end of all this,
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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.
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So in this case, a Christian conflict, the believers, the people of God are edified in real time.
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When you deviate from that, you've agreed to this topic beforehand. You've prepared for this topic.
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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.
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And you've prepared yourself. When you deviate from that and you do what
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Professor Flowers has done here, you ambush your opponent. Dr.
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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.
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Dr. White did not prepare for this presentation. He had no way of knowing that this is where Professor Flowers would go.
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And as such, it's an ambush. So let me go ahead and cue up the next portion.
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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.
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So now the cross -examination is against the rebuttal. And by the way, I made a comment regarding Professor Flowers' first rebuttal time.
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That's after Dr. White's opening remarks, cross -examination.
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I'm sorry. There's many different things going on here. When Professor Flowers began,
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I remarked that he wasted two minutes and 16 seconds on pleasantries. I believe he was doing some serious foot -dragging for a reason.
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He was trying to stretch it out. I remember Tim Staples in 1997 getting into the cross -examination.
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And if you go back and listen to that, it's like, I've got 12 minutes to cross -examine you.
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Let me see if I can ask a 10 -minute long question before you can reply. Go back and watch.
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It's pretty wild. Or listen, actually, that wasn't videotaped. And that's a whole different issue.
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But in this situation here, Dr. White's going to cross -examine
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Professor Flowers. Remember that Professor Flowers has already admitted that he would not use that method elsewhere, the same method that he used here.
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But some guy drove from Arkansas. So, hey, you know, a guy drove from Arkansas, and that demands this.
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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.
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James will then pivot, presenting the almighty God of Scripture who controls... No, I've moved past here.
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Cross -examination. Okay. So, you know what? Let's just go ahead and cue that up.
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And yeah, there we go.
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I've gotten one slide ahead of myself. There it is. So, we're going to have...
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Okay. I'm going to go ahead and switch over to this, and now for Dr. White's cross -examination of Professor Flowers.
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Well, I tried to find out where I was. One, two, three.
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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.
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What if your understanding of what, quote unquote, Calvinists believe about judicial hardening is false?
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Would that not completely undercut everything you've presented this evening? Yes. If it's not a distinction without a difference, no.
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And that's what my contention is, is that Calvinists try to make a distinction between what they think is judicial hardening.
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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. You know,
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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?
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And so, what I think's 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
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Calvinist say that mankind is born able to see, hear, understand, and turn, and so as to be healed.
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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.
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Okay, I can't stand it. I've got to butt in here. First of all, the phrase, catch the phrase, what
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Calvinists think it means. Wait a minute.
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What Calvinists think it means. So, there's a distinction without a difference in your mind.
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And so, Calvinists don't understand what it actually means, because you don't understand it.
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Now, what he just listed off, he just listed off four different points, 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.
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See, I believe that Professor Flowers cannot allow judicial hardening to be applied the way
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Romans 9 applies it, because if it does, as Dr. White just pointed out, his entire case falls apart.
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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.
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Obviously. 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
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Calvinistic scholars with regard to judicial hardening. Professor Flowers, you said that Clement, you quoted from Clement of Rome, yes?
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Yes, sir. By the way, many a Roman Catholic debater, as they sit there with their
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Juergens quote book, has learned the lesson the hard way, don't mess with James White on church history.
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Don't do it. The man is a walking encyclopedia on this issue, and we're about to see that challenged.
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We have a lot of his writings. Did you list them? List them all? Isn't the fact that we have one epistle of Clement to the
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Corinthians, and the rest are pseudo -Clementine? Although we are born neither good nor bad, we...
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I can't answer the question. Run to the quote. Repeat the quote. Repeat the quote. Repeat the quote. Seriously.
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Watch what he does. He's not actually listening. How hard would it have been to say, you know what?
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I misspoke. That's not how I meant to say it. I have a number of quotes from the epistle of Clement, but no.
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He's been called out on his statement, and all he can do is run back to his quotes.
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Let's keep going. One or the other, and having formed habits, we are with difficulty drawn from them.
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Yeah, that's the quote, but you said we have lots of his writings. I've got five more. Do you want me to read them?
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No. Okay. Where are they from, sir? Clement. Okay, so we have one epistle.
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Did he exegete Romans 9 in that epistle? No. We've got quotes that support his view of free will.
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But I'm not arguing Romans 9, James. We're not doing that anymore.
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Why are you bringing this up? I've got lots of quotes about other things that I want to talk about.
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Seriously. Seriously, there comes a level of his whole approach, and he knew he was going into this debate doing this, making this presentation.
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You've got to come at this with your eyes wide open, folks, eyes wide open, and see it for what it is.
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We've got quotes that denounce the concept of individualistic, Calvinistic type of interpretations, along with Irenaeus and others.
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As you interpret them. Well, obviously, yes. Okay, all right. You said that Calvinists— But Dr.
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White, not only as I interpret it, as Lorraine Botner interprets it, Stan Storms interprets it, I could list other Calvinists who admit that Augustine's the first one to clearly teach the
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Calvinistic concept. So you can show me where they've interpreted Clement's epistle to the Corinthians in that. No, what
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I'm saying is that I have quotes from other Calvinists who admit that Augustine is the first one to clearly— Which would be different than the application you're making.
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They wouldn't agree with the application you're making, right? No, no. Of course not. I already know that.
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No. So the application, I'm taking their words and employing their words in this debate in ways in which they would never use them.
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And I know it. That's what he just admitted to. You got to think on that.
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Where is the honest representation if Sam Storms made a statement within the confines of a particular topic, and I pluck out something from his statement and use it in a way
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I want it to be used? Oh, gee, isn't that right back to what he did with Romans 9 in his opening statement?
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Cherry -picking? I'm cherry -picking the author. It's not honest.
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You got to move on. They would probably try to say that, well, Sam Storms, for example, argues in Progressive Revelation that we have learned more since that time, and that we're continually learning.
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At least the podcast— You can hear James's exasperation. —talking. That's what they— Have you read all of Clement, sir?
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I'm sorry? Have you read all of Clement? No, I've not. Okay. Would you be surprised to discover he speaks often of the elect?
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Well, so does the Bible. That doesn't mean it would obviously— He must have understood it in your way. Well, how do you interpret, then, the passage that I just wrote, the one that says everyone has free will?
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How do you interpret that? You can ask me that question when it's your turn to ask questions, sir. Darn. That would work. Before he moves on, again,
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I want to reiterate, the point in cross -examination is the questioner is supposed to not argue.
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We're going to find when the tables are turned, Professor Flowers argues. You're not to make a positive statement of any kind when you're cross -examining your opponent.
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He gets to answer. You have to formulate a question. And there's an art to this. There really is.
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And James is excellent at it. He's done it enough times. So I'll give him that. But the fact of the matter is that when you're being questioned, you're not supposed to ask questions either.
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So it works both ways. Again, it's the point of debate where equal scales happen, keeping both sides on an even playing field.
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No advantage. That's the point. There is to be no advantage of either side.
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Let's move on. You said that Calvinists confuse the call of Paul with the call to salvation.
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As a former Calvinist, could you provide some examples of this from R .C.
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Sproul, myself, since I'm the one you're debating this evening? Can you show anyone where I have ever made that confusion?
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No. I don't have any quotes available, but I can provide some quotes where I think pointing to Paul and the
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Damascus Road experience and the effectual nature of his calling is used quite often by Calvinists. And I would be glad to provide those on my podcast at a later time or on my blog if you'd like me to put those.
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That's not what I was asking. Very clearly, I have distinguished between Paul's call to be an apostle and the fact that he was set apart from his mother's womb and recognized that the one demands the other.
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But we recognize the difference. You say we're conflating them. Is that your argument? Yes. I believe you think that God is in some ways saving men in the same way that he saves and calls out his apostles because he has a remnant to accomplish his purpose through Israel, and his promise will not fail.
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So, for example, in Jonah's situation, God could have just used irresistible means to make him want to go, but he uses a big fish.
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He could have just irresistibly made Paul want to believe and do what he wanted him to do, but he uses a blinding light.
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And I think we all agree he uses means. But in my perspective, I think that means actually accomplish what the scriptures say that they accomplish.
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In other words, the means are unto faith. But God could have failed. But he could have failed. Paul could have said no, yes? Able, but not willing.
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Dodge. Calvin sees that term all the time. He's able, but he wasn't willing. It wasn't the question. Because he could have. He was able, but not willing.
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Not going to answer. Okay. So if he had, then God would have had to have found someone else other than Paul. Well, I'm not denying
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God's foreknowledge. I'm not denying God's abilities to know what his plans are. Not going to answer the question.
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If God knew, then he couldn't have, right? I'm sorry? If God knew, then he couldn't have. Or God's foreknowledge could have been invalidated, right?
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Well, God foreknows the free choice. He doesn't foreknow his determination. And that's the distinction philosophically that I really don't want to go down that road.
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No, you don't want to go down that road, and neither does Bill Craig, simply because of the fact that if Paul's conversion on the
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Damascus Road was something that is rooted in Paul's own personal free will, the fact of the matter is that this is not structured within the providence of God.
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It is structured within the free will of Paul. So as Paul is coming along, he's blinded.
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And at some point in the next few days, the scales come off, and he goes, what are you talking about?
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I ain't doing this. And he just simply decides he's going to stay on with his rebellion.
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And he uses his free will. That's not how
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Paul is described as being called. It was God's purpose from eternity that the apostle
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Paul would be used in this way. That's what we're arguing.
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That's what we're arguing. It was the God's purpose that Pharaoh be used in a particular way.
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And God determined these things from the foundation of time. Pharaoh could have sat back and go, you know, this situation ain't working out so well.
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Let the people go. After the first round of plagues, but no,
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God wanted to make his power known, not only to Egypt, but to his own people.
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And he hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he could demonstrate his wrath one more time.
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And a smart man would have said, you know what? This just doesn't normally happen around here.
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The Nile doesn't normally turn to blood. The flies and the locusts and all this other stuff doesn't normally happen.
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A smart man would have put two and two together and said, Moses, you take your people and get. And an even smarter man would not have followed after them with his armies.
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And an even smarter man would have looked at the fact that the Red Sea just split in half, and they're walking right down the middle of dry land in the
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Red Sea. Maybe we shouldn't chase them.
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Maybe we don't want to go after that. Maybe we should stop here. It was
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God's predetermined plan that all of these things would come to pass. And that's what
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Romans nine is talking about when it talks about making his power known in Pharaoh.
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And he hardened his heart to use him for that purpose. But no, we don't want to go down that road.
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Let's keep going. I can understand that, yeah. I'll let William Lane Craig take that one. He won't do it either.
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Well, he won't. You said that you can't trust a God who has two wills.
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God said thou shalt not murder, right? Pay attention. Correct. Is that the will of God? Yes. In Acts 4, 27 and 28, was the early church wrong to pray and to confess that what
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Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Jews and the Romans did, God's hand and purpose predestined to occur, which was specifically the murder of the only innocent man who has ever lived?
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Yeah, I wrote a blog article on this. The three main texts that Calvinists often refer to,
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Genesis chapter 50, the selling of the brothers, obviously Israel, being hardened as Pharaoh was hardened is a big one.
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And then again, the crucifixion of Christ. And as I've reminded in my podcast and other places, we do believe
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God determines some things. God does step into human history and very similar to what maybe even compatible ballistic arguments are in how
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God works these things out through judicial hardening, that he brings about his purpose. So he blinds the
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Israelites in order to do what? To ensure the crucifixion. And so yes, God does determine some things, but it's for a redemptive purpose, like the cop hiding himself.
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It's for the redemptive plan. It's not to condemn them because they too could be saved. It's not a condemning from birth to death.
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Was Herod condemned for his actions in the death of Christ? I would assume so.
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Pontius Pilate? I would assume so, yes. Was it eternally God's intention for the cross to take place?
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Well, I think the word intention gets misapplied because when we say intention, you talk about God having the intention of the evil happening, where I talk about God's redemptive intention in the evil happening.
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And so there's a distinction, Michael Brown, and you go around and around about this too, where God is redeeming an evil for good, and he's taking their evil intention and turning it around.
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He's redeeming that evil intention for a good thing. And in his meticulous providence, he's able to do that.
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But in his sovereign abilities, he's able to do that. But that doesn't mean, from my perspective, that we deny human responsibility in the ability to respond and make real choices within time and space.
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Let me try that again. Was it God's intention from eternity that the Son of God become incarnate and die upon Calvary's tree?
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I don't think you answered that question. Well, I was defining the word intention. Yes, dodging the question.
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Was it his will? Was it the choice of the triune God? Use whatever term you wish.
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Did God want something? But did God intend in eternity past for the second person of the
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Trinity to enter into flesh and die upon Calvary's tree? And that's what I was attempting to answer. No, you were straining it.
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Intentions. Proof that God uses determinative, if you want to call them that, means to bring about the redemption of all mankind does not prove that God also uses deterministic means to bring about all the sins that need redeeming.
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It wasn't the question. That's my argument, is that sometimes people look at Calvary and they say, well, God used determinative means to bring about Calvary, so he must have brought about all the sin that was being redeemed at Calvary.
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And that to me is a gross overstatement of what the cross is. The cross is called by Calvinists the worst evil of all time, but the
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Bible never calls it the evil. The Bible calls it redemption. God is giving up his own life. He's stepping in.
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He's self -sacrificial, giving himself, much like Paul expresses at the beginning of this chapter, willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of his brethren.
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That is time. At this time, it's going to... Okay, so that is that section.
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Let me tinker with the shots here a little bit, and we'll flip over to that one.
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And so that particular section, the cross -examination is now complete, and we're going to move on.
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And again, we're almost an hour into the show today, and all we have is
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Professor Flatt. We were 24 minutes into the recording here. I got another 40 to go, so I'm going to have to move along much faster with these sections than I have been.
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So let's go ahead and get queued up for the next section here.
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Let's get him up at the podium, and boom.
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And that's, I think, what I was looking for there. I am, of course, getting ahead of myself.
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Okay, now, with that, and we are about to hear
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James basically surrender the topic.
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Think about what he's about to do as he does it, because the debate topic was
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Romans 9, and we're now this far into it, and it's in the rearview mirror.
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If Professor Flowers succeeded at anything at this point in time, we have an official hijacking of the debate, and Dr.
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White points it out. Here we go. I am, of course, in a quandary at this point.
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The debate was to be on the exegesis of Romans chapter 9 and what soteriological system it presented.
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It is difficult for me to rebut something that was not presented. What we had was a presentation on the subject of total inability and some other related subjects, and then a couple of texts in Romans 9 were then looked at in light of the conclusions that were drawn from other material, and so you do not have two examples of exegesis of Romans 9 to look at, and basically,
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Professor Flowers said, well, it's only 20 minutes. I know. We both had the same amount of time, and unfortunately, if it comes to asking the question, what does
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Romans 9 say? Who walked through the text? Who provided a verse -by -verse following of the argument from the preceding context into the end of Romans chapter 9?
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I think it's rather obvious only one side did that. One side has not offered that this evening, so there's not much to rebut, and in fact, my quandary is on a debate level to now allow the topic to be, in essence, hijacked from Romans 9 to the subject of total inability would be inappropriate for me, and besides that,
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I would have made a completely different presentation, but let me at least look at a few of the statements in regards to Romans 9, and since almost all,
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I would say 98 percent of Professor Flowers' rebuttal had nothing to do with Romans 9.
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It was on parables and all the rest of these things. I would say 99 .9.
01:00:05
That portion of the debate is rather settled, and we'll have to just move on to something that goes on from that point.
01:00:11
I have a serious problem with the phrase the noble cause.
01:00:17
It is something that Professor Flowers has adopted, and he uses it very, very frequently, but he has not given us a solid foundation from the text of Scripture as to what this noble cause is.
01:00:29
Certainly, there is a role that Israel was to play in bringing about the Messiah and in proclaiming
01:00:35
God's truth, but to establish a phrase and then use it as the overarching exegetical key
01:00:44
I think should cause most of us to be a little bit concerned as to what's going on there.
01:00:50
Professor Flowers is simply wrong in not recognizing the difference between judicial hardening and being born as the fallen son and daughter of Adam.
01:00:59
We do make that distinction. He may not have ever understood as a quote -unquote Calvinist. I'm sorry. I do not believe that Professor Flowers has ever understood the system that he is criticizing.
01:01:09
The number of errors in understanding are so many, I could not get to all of them, and it would be difficult to understand exactly how he could say the things that he did if he's ever had a proper understanding as someone who is a convert from it.
01:01:23
If you just want to say, well, I was enamored with it for a while or something like that, that's fine, but the problem is here is that when we take the arguments to Romans 9, you end up with an overthrow of the fundamental conclusion that is given to us.
01:01:38
What did we see in Romans 9 in verse 23? In order to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called.
01:01:54
We were told that the clay is just Israel. It's just temporarily hardened
01:02:00
Israel. I'm sorry. The vessels of mercy are all the elect of God, including you and I today.
01:02:07
To come to that conclusion undercuts everything that the Apostle Paul has had to say, and the only reason you come to that conclusion is you bring other concepts to bear upon Romans 9 that Paul never brings up at all.
01:02:23
And so one of the questions I asked Professor Flowers was, do you really believe that the methodology that you just used in your opening statement is the methodology that we use to defend the deity of Christ?
01:02:35
And he didn't seem to understand the question I was asking. He said, well, I'd only had a certain amount of time. That's not what I was asking.
01:02:41
I see a fundamental difference in the exegetical methodology that I presented to you in Romans 9 and that Professor Flowers presented, but I could then walk through a number of other passages using the exact same methodology and demonstrate the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the
01:02:59
Trinity, the necessity of the atonement, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the methodology we use to demonstrate the rest of the truths of the
01:03:07
Bible. That is not how we demonstrate. Trust me, I could not take the presentation that Professor Flowers gave us into a mosque in South Africa and pretend to be defending the deity of Christ.
01:03:21
Now, why is that? Or anywhere else for that matter. What did I say from the beginning? The way that you will be able to determine this debate, and you are the judges, is not by whose tie is prettier.
01:03:39
It's not by who's better looking. Okay, that one was easy. It's not by who's taller.
01:03:45
You're Texans. What do you expect? It's by who handles the text consistently with everything else we do when we handle the
01:03:55
Word of God in teaching the rest of God's truth. And that's what the issue here is. Now, there are so many things that have been said regarding Reformed theology.
01:04:08
Shots across the bow and all sorts of things that obviously I had not even made a reference to,
01:04:14
I had not argued for because I was exegeting Romans 9. Professor Flowers wants to talk about a specific type of teaching that he thinks is extremely important, and I understand that.
01:04:28
Some of the problems that I have, though, is the misunderstanding that Professor Flowers has of what we understand.
01:04:36
And here's the—I guess I'll just focus in upon this. I believe, and I proclaim to Roman Catholics, to Mormons, to Jehovah's Witnesses, to Muslims, to atheists, whoever it is
01:04:50
I have the opportunity of presenting the gospel to, I believe that there is one true and almighty God, and I believe
01:04:56
He's the creator of all things. And I believe that He works all things after the counsel of His will, that He has absolute perfect knowledge of all future events because He's the creator of all things.
01:05:07
And I do not believe that He is under the control of anything outside of Himself. I do not believe that God has to back up and go, well,
01:05:14
I wanted to do it this way, but now I'm going to have to do it some other way. He accomplishes His will perfectly.
01:05:20
I do believe that He has a sovereign decree that He is working out. That's what we're told in Ephesians 1, that's what we're told in Psalm 135, 6.
01:05:27
Even the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar knew that God was in control of all things that happen, not just some things that He chooses to be in control of, but even
01:05:36
Nebuchadnezzar knew no man can raise his hand to God and say, why have you done this, or stop
01:05:43
God from accomplishing His purpose. This is the universal testimony of the entirety of Scripture itself.
01:05:51
And that is the background of our understanding of the statement that God has chosen to save a particular people in Christ Jesus, and that the triune
01:06:00
God is glorifying Himself in that way. Now that God knows all things, not because He looked down the corridors of time and learned things, not because He decided to create and then all of a sudden, oh, now
01:06:14
I see what's going to happen, now I see what's going to go on, not because of any of that. He created all things.
01:06:22
He is sovereign over all things. And that is why all things resound the praise of His glorious grace.
01:06:30
Amen. That's the vitally important thing. I honestly believe that Professor Flowers and I fundamentally have a different view when it comes to God's relationship to creation.
01:06:42
And obviously from my perspective, I believe that you start with God, you start with His nature, and then you reason down from what
01:06:50
God is real about Himself to His creatures. And I believe what Professor Flowers does is he starts with man and reasons up from there,
01:06:58
God could not do these things because we have these particular understandings.
01:07:04
And that leads to fundamentally different perspectives. Now, unfortunately, I have no earthly idea what the time is because you're flashing a camera at me.
01:07:14
It is time. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Am I to understand that your iPad died? My iPad just died completely.
01:07:20
May I provide? Okay. So the cross -examination is over, the rebuttal is over. Remember, this was
01:07:26
Dr. White's rebuttal time. This was to be his rebuttal toward what
01:07:33
Professor Flowers had to say in his opening and his rebuttal. And you would, yes, compile what went on in the first cross -examination section into that as well.
01:07:45
These things are supposed to be prepared on the fly, not back at your office.
01:07:51
So real quick summary, Dr. White reminds the debate topic, he cannot rebut it when the agreed upon topic wasn't even presented.
01:08:00
Instead, it was a total inability ambush, hijacking of the debate.
01:08:05
One side engaged the debate, playing on a level playing field. Yes, Dr.
01:08:11
White uses the charge of hijacking. Even here, James then concedes there's no point in fighting this anymore.
01:08:19
I'm going to go ahead and concede this topic and join
01:08:25
Leighton. And so he summarizes what Leighton presented, even though it was off topic.
01:08:30
He is forced now to respond to him on the fly without the benefit of preparation. Notice that James engages
01:08:37
Leighton's actual opening, what he actually had to say. Then he refocuses our attention again.
01:08:44
Still, let me try to focus this on the text and what the text has to say about these things.
01:08:50
OK, with that, there's a couple of things I need to do here techy -wise real quick to set up for the next segment.
01:08:59
And yeah, I want to get that set to there. And I want to get that set to there.
01:09:09
And that's all well and good. And there, that's where I want to be here at 144 .10
01:09:21
if you are tracking the timestamps.
01:09:35
So for the interest of time, we need to move forward. So let's go ahead and start. I want you to notice something about Professor Flowers, though, at this point in time, it's as if Dr.
01:09:45
White flipped a switch in that rebuttal and said, OK, I'll go ahead and meet you here and watch now as Professor Flowers suddenly becomes interactive.
01:09:58
This, I can't explain it, but here we go. Minutes. Dr.
01:10:07
White, you critique a lot of my methods, but you didn't answer the arguments that I was really hoping that you would get to. And presumably, since I covered so little of Romans 9, when actually
01:10:16
I think I went through almost all of the text all the way up to verse 23 at least, it seems to me that you would have at least made the argument against the distinction between judicial hardening and total inability, because that seemed to be a really sticking point for us.
01:10:31
And I was hoping that you would make a presentation to give us a clear distinction between the way Calvinists viewed the nature of man's ability between their judicial hardened nature and a total disabled or total inability.
01:10:44
Well, if we want to move into that area of discussion, that's fine. I do.
01:10:49
OK, good. And he has from the beginning. The Bible teaches very plainly Romans chapter 8, those who are occurring to flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God.
01:10:56
I fundamentally believe that that is consistent with the biblical teaching from the Psalter that we are born as sinners.
01:11:01
We are born as enemies of God. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. We have hearts of stone.
01:11:08
So we're born hardened. We have heart. OK, this is important. When someone's answering, it's not like he's filibustering.
01:11:17
He's going through a list. He's explaining his answer. He's giving his answer. OK, but now the interruptions start.
01:11:25
So pay attention to that. Stone. We're born judicially hardened. You know, if I did this, you would have complained.
01:11:32
But let me just move on from that. I'm just trying to find a distinction. There is a difference, sir, as you should have known as a
01:11:38
Calvinist, between the judicial hardening upon a people, upon a nation, for example, to harden a king so that his nation can be destroyed.
01:11:52
Because certainly, man, Pharaoh could have really saved his life if he had just simply let the people go.
01:11:59
Got out of purpose. He hardens them. There is judicial hardening that is not the same thing as simply being a fallen son or daughter of Adam.
01:12:07
And when you say we have certain capacities, sir, as a Calvinist, you should have known, of course we do.
01:12:13
We have all sorts of capacities, but they are all determined by the fact that we are enemies of God and slaves to sin.
01:12:20
And Jesus Christ taught that unless the Son sets you free, you will never be free.
01:12:26
And so there needs to be a divine action to set us free. A slave does not choose to become free.
01:12:35
Even he may humble himself as much as he wants, but unless the Son sets you free, you will remain in slavery.
01:12:43
And so we do recognize the difference between the two. And it's not a distinction without a difference unless you're simply saying, well, you're saying that everyone has an inability to do what is good before God.
01:12:57
Yes, that's exactly what we are saying, but that's not the same thing as judicial hardening. There are a lot of people who claim to be former
01:13:03
Arminians who still ask questions because, not because they might not know the answer to it, but because they are pushing on a point they know is weak.
01:13:10
And so that's the reason for cross -examination. In a previous debate, you were asked about why God hardened men's hearts and why
01:13:17
Jesus needed to use parables in order to prevent the Pharisees from coming to faith and being healed if total inability is true.
01:13:24
For example, Mark 4, the disciples asked Jesus why he spoke to them in parables. And he answered, to you it has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those on the outside, they get everything in parables so that while seeing they may not perceive, but while hearing they may not hear, otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.
01:13:39
Your answer was, in part, he was preventing a false conversion. But what in this text, specifically from this text, when it says they might turn and be forgiven, what in that text leads you to believe he's speaking of a false conversion instead of preventing an actual conversion?
01:13:53
I got to point out another cherry -picking of a debate. You're going to find out that this was the debate with Steve Gregg, which, if I recall, was much longer than this debate.
01:14:04
It went on for a number of sessions on the dividing line, which I would encourage you to go back and listen to.
01:14:11
But he cherry -picks a phrase, fills it with all kinds of things that Dr. White would not say, just like he did with Sam Storms, just like he did with other quotes, and just like he did with Romans 9.
01:14:25
So here we have a situation where now you haven't had a chance to prepare for this topic.
01:14:30
I've got you on this topic, and now I'm going to sandbag you with your own words. Here we go.
01:14:37
What debate was this? It was Steve Gregg. Oh, I see. So that was just part of my response.
01:14:43
That wasn't the whole response. Well, the gist of it was that you were preventing a— Well, the gist of it.
01:14:49
The gist that you heard was that. You're welcome to— Obviously— The gist that was cherry -picked. Again, obviously, the assumption that I'm making is based upon the text of Scripture I just gave to you, which
01:15:02
I've not heard any responses to thus far, and that is that we are dead in sin, and that Romans chapter 8 says those who are according to flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God, and that faith and repentance is pleasing to God.
01:15:13
These are hypothetical situations that Jesus is presenting to us in regards to why it is that He is graciously giving the truth of the kingdom of God to His disciples, but not to those who are listening, who have all the background in the
01:15:28
Bible, they're familiar with the teachings of Scripture, and yet it is not—and you actually, amazingly enough, agree with this—it is not
01:15:38
God's intention to have these large crowds truly coming to understand the truth, because I don't necessarily agree with you about why.
01:15:49
I think it has to do with the Messiah issue. It's the same reason why Jesus said to the people who confessed to Him as Messiah, what does
01:15:56
He say to them? Don't tell anyone. Why? Because the result is they have a false understanding of what the
01:16:02
Messiah is. And so— Actually, the text says that they might turn and be forgiven, so that's not a false—
01:16:07
Well, if someone turns, they will be forgiven. It was not God's intention to do that with them. He's presenting argument.
01:16:13
For them, He is, yes. Right, and who's them? Israel. Again, you're taking a general idea that this is all of Israel.
01:16:23
It could be specific individuals. I mean, there was a time when these individuals ended up hearing— He was entrusting some to Himself.
01:16:31
He had His apostles who He was drawing to Himself, and He was teaching them, but He was keeping the other ones at a distance. Only to them they were entrusted with these teachings.
01:16:38
He was blinding the rest purposefully for redemption. Well, when you say entrusted these teachings, I'm not sure what you mean by that, because you tend to attach that to some kind of apostolic calling or something along those lines.
01:16:51
I don't think He's making a differentiation along those lines at this point. Paul, as he begins the chapter, he wishes he could take the place of his fellow countrymen, which to me sounds a lot like what
01:16:59
Jesus did when He went to the cross. But if Calvinism is true—five -point Calvinism, anyway—then
01:17:05
Jesus didn't really want to take the place of the hardened Jews, and Paul did. Likewise, Paul quotes from Moses in Exodus narrative where he too stands as one willing to sacrifice himself for the unfaithful
01:17:14
Israelites. How is it that Paul and Moses, who are mere men, express more mercy and self -sacrificial love towards people than Jesus, who's inspiring them to write these words?
01:17:24
It's a tremendous misunderstanding of not only Calvinism, but the text itself. And once again, you simply are in error to think that Paul is in any way expressing anything here other than—see, you're assuming what you should know we do not assume.
01:17:40
We do not know the identity of the elect, sir. We do not know the identity of the elect.
01:17:47
And so we cannot operate upon the foundation of knowing who the elect are and who the elect are not, and therefore, we as followers of Jesus Christ have passion to speak
01:17:59
His truth to all people, as did the Apostle Paul. To come to the idea, as you snuck it into your pre -prepared question there, but it was a false assertion, that Jesus didn't want to substitute himself for the hardened
01:18:17
Jews. So, in other words, the false assumption you're inserting there is that for Jesus to be truly loving, grace has to be given to everyone equally, and that's what denies the fundamental teaching of Scripture in regards to grace.
01:18:34
So, just because Jesus enters—just because Jesus goes to the cross in the place of the ones that His Father has chosen and that the
01:18:43
Spirit is going to regenerate so that there's perfect harmony in the work of the Trinity, in the redemption of a particular people, is not a foundation for you to then sneak that in and say, oh, but grace has to be given to everyone.
01:18:56
For grace to be grace, it must be free. It cannot be demanded, and the assumption of your question was that grace can be demanded.
01:19:03
That's where the problem lies. In tonight's discussion and in previous discussions over Romans 9, with other opponents
01:19:10
I've noticed this because I've been listening to all of those, I've noticed that you don't attempt to even challenge or refute the
01:19:16
Old Testament text or the interpretations, but instead you regularly appeal to what you call the apostolic interpretation of Paul in Romans 9 alone, and by that you seem to suggest that it doesn't matter what the
01:19:27
Old Testament context or meaning was, but the only thing that really matters is how the apostle interprets it in his day.
01:19:32
So my question's twofold. One, how is that not begging the question to assume without strong evidence that the apostle is actually interpreting the
01:19:40
Old Testament text differently than the original context demands, and two, don't you think it weakens
01:19:46
Paul's case to suggest that he has to use eisegesis of the Old Testament in order to prop up his new soteriological views?
01:19:52
Okay, I got to stop this right here. You got to think about the question that was just asked and the way in which the case was framed.
01:20:01
Leighton Flowers just called the apostle Paul's understanding of the book of Malachi, Malachi 1 -2, and following, into question.
01:20:12
He just flat out accused the apostle Paul of eisegesis. Now, before Dr.
01:20:19
White puts his answer out there, I've already stated, go back to Malachi, read it for yourself.
01:20:27
Professor Flowers is the one eisegeting it. Professor Flowers and all the Arminians who like to refer to it misunderstand what it's saying.
01:20:34
I've already got that into evidence in the previous episodes I've done here. I've clarified that text.
01:20:40
So he's wrong, and he's so confident in his assertion that he's willing to accuse someone, an inspired apostle, carried along by the
01:20:53
Holy Spirit, writing scripture of eisegesis.
01:21:02
Let's listen to Dr. White's answer. The statement began right at the beginning when you said,
01:21:08
I don't try to refute the Old Testament text. You're exactly right. I happen to think the apostle Paul was plenty good at interpreting the
01:21:14
Old Testament, and I will follow after his footsteps. I do believe that we as Christians must follow the apostolic interpretation of these texts, and so far,
01:21:22
Professor Flowers, you have not even attempted to refute the eisegesis I've provided of the apostolic interpretation of these texts.
01:21:31
You've presented some other perspective, but you have not dealt with the apostolic interpretation that was provided whereby you can walk through Romans 9, and you can allow each step to build upon the other, and you can walk all the way through.
01:21:45
I didn't have to jump to Romans 11. I didn't have to jump out of Romans 9. I could walk all the way through.
01:21:51
You did not do that. Well, speaking of that, you have to switch your hermeneutic from the individualized approach in Romans 9, and it has to change to a corporate approach by the time you get to 11.
01:22:00
Otherwise, you have those who are grafted in, back in, and those who are stumbling, haven't stumbled beyond recovery, verse 11.
01:22:08
Those who have been cut off might be grafted back in, it says, if they leave their unbelief, and the reason they were cut off in the first place was because of unbelief, not because of something they did before they were ever born, so how do you explain your transition?
01:22:19
I reject. Everyone heard me clearly state, and maybe you just didn't hear it, everyone heard me clearly state that the presence of individual election does not in any way, shape, or form deny that there are not corporate aspects.
01:22:32
And Paul does, after chapter 10, shift to a discussion of specific, he says...
01:22:38
So the individuals who stumbled... The individuals who stumbled... Is there a possibility you could let him say it? ...weren't able to recover? All right, that is time.
01:22:44
And time is up. All right, very good. Okay, so let's go ahead and put a bookmark in that.
01:22:50
In summary, again, well, Dr. White's saying he's reading from pre -prepared questions.
01:22:57
Maybe that is the case, but I did find in this particular exchange, Professor Flowers is a good bit more interactive, and I think it stems from, and I'm guessing at this, but I think it stems from the fact that he's now got
01:23:10
Dr. White pulled away from the actual agreed upon topic, Romans chapter 9, into where he actually prepared for the debate.
01:23:20
He wants to go after judicial hardening once again, I explained this issue last week.
01:23:25
Dr. White explains it again right here. He interrupts him as he tries to answer. And still, does
01:23:32
Professor Flowers get it? No, no, he doesn't. And I don't think it's because he truly doesn't understand it.
01:23:38
I don't believe that he can allow himself to let it be what it is, because it undermines his case.
01:23:46
It undermines the entire Romans 9 presentation of Pharaoh. I do love the, let me quote you with the gist of it, argument.
01:23:56
The gist of what you had to say was this, that, and the other thing. And as you cherry pick that.
01:24:02
But again, we listen to the answer. And again, the point of order, the questioner is supposed to ask questions, not argue a case during that period of time.
01:24:12
So we're now going to hear Dr. White give 10 minutes of closing remarks.
01:24:19
Remember, during the closing, so there's switched order. And now
01:24:24
Dr. White will close. Then Professor Flowers will close with the last word. Remember, no new information is to be introduced as the opponent has no opportunity to respond.
01:24:36
That's the standard. That's why they do these things, to keep it fair. So that one side doesn't have an opportunity against the other.
01:24:47
And I submit to you when we get to Professor Flowers closing, you know, if they're scoring this, if a debate judge is sitting there scoring this, they take points away when they do things like violate these rules.
01:25:02
They can. So, you know, there's a purpose behind this, but you've got to keep these things in mind.
01:25:09
Level playing field, equal scales. This is to be the summation of your case in contrast to what your opponent actually presented.
01:25:18
You got to think about that and what has already gone under the bridge.
01:25:29
Let's go ahead and watch. Here we go. Oh, I need to cue this up real quick.
01:25:35
Let's see here. We need to get to 155 .05. You watch me do this, and I'm there, and we're going to go full screen now.
01:25:53
Once again, I want to thank everyone for coming out this evening. My intention was very clearly to have two thorough, robust interpretations of the text of Romans 9 presented to you so that you could compare them with one another and make a decision based upon the consistency of the handling of the
01:26:15
Word of God. I do not believe that's what we have gotten. I don't know how you would make that comparison, and that is disappointing to me, but it is not surprising to me.
01:26:26
It is not surprising to me because just as in so many other texts of Scripture, whether it's
01:26:32
John chapter 6 or John chapter 10 or chapter 17, the only way to get around the complete freedom of God in salvation is to impose some kind of external stricture upon the context of what is being said, and fundamentally, why would this happen?
01:26:52
Well, what you're listening to this evening is the difference between starting with a theocentric view of the
01:27:00
Scripture that what the gospel is about is about God. It's not about us.
01:27:06
Oh, yes, we are central to the story. God in His grace and mercy has certainly provided for us a tremendous future in Christ, in the presence of the
01:27:16
Father. That's a tremendous thing, but the gospel is about what the triune God has done to glorify
01:27:23
Himself, and if you begin with God's unchanging nature, if you begin with Him as creator, if you begin in recognizing the importance of the perfection of His knowledge, that God does not have to learn things, that God is not up in heaven responding to man as He forces him to do things, but that God is the sovereign king of all the ages, and that in fact, the reality of time, the meaningfulness of time is established by God's decree and demonstrated by the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
01:28:00
Once you see that, then you see the glory of what God is doing. You see the glory of the harmony of the
01:28:08
Father, Son, and Spirit in the salvation of God's people, and you see the intimate personal character of that salvation.
01:28:17
Professor Flowers said that his view of election is much more personal than mine. I can't even begin to understand this because what
01:28:24
I'm saying and what I believe the Bible clearly teaches is that before eternity itself,
01:28:30
God set His love upon His elect people, and He chose them not because they were better than someone else, not because they were greater than someone else, but He chose them in full knowledge of what they would be.
01:28:44
There wasn't any question about this. I'm not sure how Professor Flowers can even begin to explain how
01:28:51
God could know that we were going to exist if in reality, He doesn't have a sovereign decree and creatures have this contra -causal freedom, and they might have chosen not to do something that would have resulted in you.
01:29:06
It really is difficult for me to see how He can escape open theism and all the traps of open theism at this point because He's not willing to affirm the things that need to be affirmed in regards to the foundation for God's knowledge.
01:29:19
And this is very difficult for me because I debate open theists. I don't know how
01:29:25
Professor Flowers could do that. I don't know how he would be able to withstand their argumentation because he will not affirm those things that provide the necessary foundation.
01:29:36
But the problem is affirming those things then becomes the foundation of recognizing God's freedom and salvation and the necessity of the intimately personal nature of the decree of election.
01:29:48
That's why Paul can say in Ephesians chapter 1, he can talk about salvation and the direct object of all those things
01:29:55
God does, including the selection, the choosing, is personal. It's us.
01:30:02
That's what's amazing. God knew your heart. God knew your sin.
01:30:08
And despite that, still chose to save you.
01:30:15
Not because you're better than anyone else. You want something that absolutely cuts the ground out from underneath all boasting?
01:30:22
God knew and yet He still chose you. God knew from eternity past.
01:30:28
But the only way He could do that is if you would truly come into existence, that His decree would actually be accomplished.
01:30:36
And so I begin with that central affirmation of who God is. I do not begin with philosophical constructs concerning contra -causal relationships and the capacity of man to be able to do something other than this or the other thing.
01:30:51
I believe very clearly that the Bible does teach the compatible nature of God's sovereign decree and man's responsibility.
01:31:01
And I've heard nothing from Professor Flowers that causes me to think other than that.
01:31:06
But that's not what this debate was about tonight. We could go to Genesis 50, we could go to Isaiah 10, we can go to Acts chapter 4.
01:31:14
I think the texts are very, very clear and very, very plain. But yes, both of us come to the text with a particular background.
01:31:24
We come with a particular understanding. Which one allows you to walk from Romans chapter 8?
01:31:31
To walk from that clear statement, those whom He foreknew. That's a verb. It's not had foreknowledge of.
01:31:37
Those whom He foreknew all the way down through glorified, who can walk through that consistently?
01:31:48
Those that He predestined. He calls them. What kind of a calling is that?
01:31:55
We recognize there is the universal call of the gospel. We are involved with that.
01:32:01
When I stand at a mosque, I'm not sitting there looking at the audience trying to figure out who the elect are. I don't know.
01:32:07
I get to call all of them. And I can say to anyone, to anyone who will repent and believe in Jesus Christ, you will find
01:32:15
Him to be a perfect Savior. And I can say that to anyone. Because I don't know who the elect are, and God does not hold me accountable for knowing.
01:32:28
This calling, this calling results in justification. So this is the effectual calling.
01:32:34
This is the calling that specifically results in being justified.
01:32:39
Is that not what individual salvation is, or is this a group that is being justified?
01:32:45
Do we now have some kind of group justification? Is that what we got in the previous portions of Romans?
01:32:52
Certainly not. Certainly not. And so who can start there, follow the chain through?
01:32:58
Who can then look at verses 31 and following, where plainly you have the very view of atonement that Professor Flowers just very strongly disagreed with.
01:33:08
But you have Jesus interceding for a specific people, and their salvation is certain, because He intercedes for them.
01:33:15
And He fails not once in His intercession, because His sacrifice is perfect in behalf of those for whom
01:33:21
He made it. Who can then walk from that into chapter 9, look at the question, and say, they are not all of Israel, who are of Israel, and not have to go, oh, that's something about the privilege of being used in the noble cause.
01:33:37
Where did the noble cause all of a sudden come from? Thin air. Where was the noble cause in the golden chain?
01:33:43
Where was the noble cause in the courtroom? No, it's come from outside, and that's exactly what eisegesis is.
01:33:51
It is reading into the text something that is not there, and when people do it, it's because they have a commitment to something other than allowing the text to speak for itself.
01:34:02
Now, that can come from tradition, that can come from all sorts of different sources, but as believers, when we see it, we should be the first ones to point to it and say, that would seem to indicate that you are allowing tradition to override the reading of the text.
01:34:22
Now, unfortunately, rather than really focusing in upon each of the phrases and talking about what it means, maybe the difference between prepared beforehand for dishonor and honor and doing the things that would be most useful in Romans 9, we ended up going everywhere but there, and I was concerned that that might happen.
01:34:44
But don't let that dissuade you this evening from doing what you need to do.
01:34:49
I've got 90 seconds. Let me try to encourage you to do something. Before you go to bed tonight, review
01:34:56
Romans chapters 8 and 9, and try to set aside any of the traditions you might have, any of the feelings you might have from the debate.
01:35:08
Well, I liked one side, I didn't like the other side, or anything like that. Set that aside.
01:35:14
Maybe a Calvinist stepped on your toe out in the lobby, and try to set all that stuff aside as well. And just allow the
01:35:22
Word of God to be the Word of God, and ask yourself this one question.
01:35:30
Is this text saying something that I in my humanity would find to be offensive, and therefore
01:35:39
I'm looking for a reason to read it in some other way? Because the fact of the matter is, folks, outside of the sovereign work of God's Spirit in our hearts, every one of us rebels against hearing,
01:35:53
I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy. I will harden who I will harden. Only when
01:35:59
God's Spirit reveals that God is God, and we are not to us, will we embrace that message with true joy and happiness.
01:36:09
Thank you for being here this evening. God bless. And there we have Dr. White's closing remarks.
01:36:16
Quick summary of it. He made an open theism point that is, again, based on the cross -examination when he was talking to Professor Flowers about God's intention in the cross.
01:36:27
The fundamental starting point of Dr. White's position is
01:36:33
God's sovereignty, God's right over his creation, the potter and the clay. Again, back to the text.
01:36:38
Once again, he reminded the audience of the purpose of the debate and that that had been abandoned.
01:36:48
He talks about group justification from, again, the cross -examination. And he reminds us of the debate that was missed.
01:36:59
The value of having two opposing points of view come to this text of Scripture and walk through it as they would have seen it, had they just walked through it, wrestled with it.
01:37:16
And the fact that one side abandoned that task immediately, ran away from that task,
01:37:23
I think speaks volumes. So discussion of the text, the audience was the loser here.
01:37:29
They really were. And he admonishes folks, go home, read the text, set aside all your feelings, sit down with the text and read it for yourself and see what it has to say.
01:37:43
Let it speak. So with that, we're going to go ahead and move forward to Professor Flowers' closing remarks.
01:37:53
And let me get over there. It's 20539. I'm a little bit past that. And there we are.
01:38:01
So let's, for the sake of time, we've got, he's got 10 minutes here himself, which should put us right about 12 minutes before the top of the hour.
01:38:09
So let's go ahead and get that out of the way and dig in. As many of you know,
01:38:18
I have a lot of respect for many Calvinists. If you listen to my podcasts, you've heard me speak kindly of John Piper and his influence in my formative years in my ministry.
01:38:27
I believe men like Piper and MacArthur, Spruill, and including Dr. White and others have brought into the mainstream biblical doctrines that rarely get the attention they deserve.
01:38:36
The glory of God, the sovereignty of God, the doctrine of salvation. Are there more important topics than these, really?
01:38:42
And I'm genuinely grateful to these Calvinistic brothers for calling the church to a higher view and understanding of God and his glory.
01:38:49
I remember back in the day, John Piper opened his conference on Calvinism with a quote from A .W. Tozer about the idolatry of believing something lesser about God than he truly is.
01:38:59
The quote went like this, it is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the 20th century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the most high
01:39:08
God. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them. Piper was introducing the doctrine of Calvinism by calling the church to hold to a higher view of God.
01:39:18
But ironically, the man he's quoting from, Tozer, has an even higher view of God than I believe
01:39:23
Piper holds to. Let me explain why I say that. Today in the SBC, Calvinism is most certainly resurging.
01:39:30
Why? I believe it's because Calvinism offers an alternative to our church's shallow, seeker sensitive, namby -pamby, easy believism, chicken soup for the soul, pop psychology that's trying to be passed off as real church.
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And in a culture like that, a young, restless theology guy like myself at the age of 19, we latch onto preachers like Piper and Dr.
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White who are passionate and serious and deep and they don't beat around the bush to avoid the difficult text of scripture.
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I admire men like that. Calvinism holds, yes, to a higher view of God than the
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Joel Osteens of our world. So I admire my Calvinistic brethren for doing a great job calling people away from that kind of worldview.
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But now I am under the firm conviction that there is an even higher view of God than what is offered by mainstream
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Calvinism's soteriology today. In stalwarts of the faith, men like A .W. Tozer taught a sound, theologically robust, deep doctrine of God's glory and his salvation.
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Tozer wrote, for example, God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice.
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The eternal decree decided not which choice man should make, but that he should be free to make it. And if in that absolute freedom
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God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay his hand or say, why dost thou?
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Man's will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon his creatures.
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He would be afraid to do so. Notice what Tozer is saying. He is arguing that a
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God less than sovereign would not be able to handle a world with true, free, moral creatures.
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A God less than sovereign would need to determine everything because he would be too afraid to allow for autonomous free will.
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Tozer was calling our namby -pamby, seeker -sensitive generation to a view of God's glory that is far higher than the deterministic worldview of Piper's Calvinism.
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Many Calvinists think of all non -Calvinists as being theologically ignorant, doctrinally inept.
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I remember one Calvinist telling me, Leighton, your view of God is just too low. I'm sorry, I just respectfully disagree.
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If you're walking through a park and you happen upon a man playing both sides of the chess board all by himself, and you walk up to him, he says, why are you playing both sides?
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He says, the only way I can figure out how to ensure my victory. And you come along, another man who is beating one person after another, chess masters coming from all over the world to take on this man playing chess, and he beats them 10 steps ahead, 20 steps ahead.
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Which one are you going to go home bragging about? You see, the idea of a creator who has to play both sides of the chess board by determining not only his own actions but the actions of his enemies in order to ensure his victory seems to me to be a very low view of our creator.
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But that's exactly the point Tozer is making in this quote. There is a higher, more robust, deeper, sounder, biblical soteriology than what is being offered by mainstream
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Calvinism today. But it has been buried by a culture attracted to simple, bumper sticker,
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Twitter -friendly, bite -sized systematics with easy -to -explain points attached to memorable acrostics. Ultimately, we must allow the scripture to guide us to right understanding of doctrine.
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And I know Calvinists genuinely, I know they do, they genuinely feel they're defending the teaching of scripture, and I know they are well -intending.
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But in my opinion, I think they have put on the Calvinistic lenses and the worldview before fully vetting the scholarly, robust, theological teachings of men like Tozer, the stalwarts of the faith in the
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Southern Baptist Convention, and others. I've heard some who think not only my view of God is too low, but my view of man is just too high.
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But again, I respectfully disagree. After all, you tell me, which view of man is lower? The man who hates
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God because he's born hated by God salvifically? Or the man who hates a God who genuinely loves and provides everything he needs for his salvation?
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The only thing more devastating than a lost soul is a lost soul that was born with no one looking for her.
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Born unloved by her maker. Born rejected. Born hated victim of God's eternal decree.
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People born reprobates decreed for hell in the Calvinistic system are to be pitied, not judged.
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I feel sorry for the reprobate in the system. I can't think of a better excuse in the world for unbelief than I was born unable to willingly do otherwise.
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God never granted me faith. We cannot give mankind that excuse.
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Others feel our view is just not logically consistent. You just appeal too much to mystery. Don't be fooled.
01:44:00
Both sides appeal to mystery. John MacArthur was asked, if God literally determines all things, then how can he blame us for sinning?
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His answer was, quote, I don't know the answer to that, and I don't know of anyone who knows the answer to that. John Calvin admits ignorance on this question.
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John Piper admits ignorance on this question. The question is, which mystery does the Bible afford?
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And which mystery is really worthy of being defended? Austin Fisher, the author of The Young Restless and No Longer Reformed, he recently wrote these words.
01:44:28
He said, it seems the primary concern for Calvinists is making sure humans can't boast in salvation, whereas the primary concern for freewill theism is a recognizably good
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God. The mystery I hold to is due to the tension created by the clear biblical teachings of God's goodness.
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His holiness, his eyes are too pure to look on evil, Habakkuk 113 says, much less deterministically bring it to pass or to tempt anyone to evil,
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James 113. His trustworthiness is at stake here. I can believe his expressed or his prescriptive expressions and his desires without wondering if he secretly really wants exactly the opposite of what he's telling me outwardly.
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I can trust him, his righteousness, which is reflected best in the nature of Christ himself, one who was loving his enemies, not hating them from birth.
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You see, I'm concerned that some systematic doctrines drive people away from getting to know our God because it overemphasizes a characteristic that is not clearly seen or emphasized by Christ himself.
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Christ taught us to love our enemies, to be self -sacrificial, to be to put others first.
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It's those qualities that make Christ himself so abundantly glorious.
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Dr. White says this debate is about being man centered or God centered. And to some degree, I agree with him.
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And I admit that my doctrine is, in some ways, it's man centered. I'll admit it.
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The man I've centered my doctrine on is Christ. The God -man named Jesus is the best reflection of God, of God in which we center our understanding of who he is.
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After all, he is the Word, capital W, which is not failed according to Romans 9, verse 6.
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A Christ -centered theology highlights God's mercy and his self -sacrificial love for his enemies, not his meticulous control over his enemies in order to suck as much self -glorification out of them as possible.
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Listen, God is not most glorified at the expense of his creation. He is most glorified at the expense of himself for the sake of his creation, which is proven at Calvary.
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God is glorified most in the cross, the resurrection, and the gospel proclamation sent to every man, woman, boy, and girl.
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I can say without qualification, your God loves you. He demonstrates that self -sacrificial love for you by sending his
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Son to die in your place. Repent, therefore, and live. He holds at his hands of mercy to each and every one in the sound of my voice, and I know that without a doubt.
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The Word of God very clearly teaches that if anyone whosoever calls on the name of the
01:47:19
Lord will be saved. He says, for this commandment I have given to you, it's not too difficult for you.
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It's not out of your reach, but the Word is very near you and in your mouth and in your heart that you may observe it.
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That's an explicit teaching of the ability of man, the responsibility. You may observe it. That is the word of faith, which we are preaching that if you confess with your mouth,
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Jesus is Lord, if you believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
01:47:48
Dr. White spent a lot of time critiquing my method, yet I went back through my opening statement and I touched on verses 1 through 19 for sure.
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My illustration with the clay was verses 20 through 23. I touched on Hosea and the quote from Hosea about him loving despite them turning to other gods, and I definitely touched on 30 through 32.
01:48:07
I started with that, and yet I don't remember Dr. White's touching on 30 through 32, and so I reject the concept that I didn't go through these passages.
01:48:16
I know he might not have liked the way I did it, but instead of critiquing my argument, he spent most of his time, it seems to me, critiquing my methodology.
01:48:24
Thank you for being here tonight. I sincerely appreciate those, especially who drove so far to be here, and appreciate your attention.
01:48:31
All right. Okay, and that finishes up the primary portion of the debate.
01:48:36
The remaining portion is the audience questions. Again, I think those are self -explanatory as the audience questions are interacting with each of the debaters, and you will hear what the audience heard and how they responded to it within their questions and how they're asked.
01:48:52
In summary of Professor Flowers' closing, again, remember no new information is to be introduced.
01:49:00
The opponent has no opportunity to respond. Professor Flowers goes through a short review of why he was drawn to Calvinism in the first place.
01:49:10
John Piper, A .W. Tozer quote that he gives, he sees a high view of God or saw a high view of God being presented over against the
01:49:18
Southern Baptist and Calvinism, what he calls versus the
01:49:26
Namby -Pamby thinking of our day. And I think within the Southern Baptist Convention, he's seeing a pull towards Calvinism over against the
01:49:36
Namby -Pamby thinking that's also going on. He appeals, says that some have said he has too low a view of God, but that he has a high view of God.
01:49:47
He employs a quote from A .W. Tozer, says that the
01:49:55
Calvinistic God is actually less than sovereign, gives a chessboard analogy, accusing
01:50:03
Calvinists of having a creator who plays both sides of the board. He attacks the weakness of our evangelism within Calvinism.
01:50:15
He does some pleading against reprobation. People appeal to this or that.
01:50:21
He refers to, he gives quotes from John MacArthur, John Calvin, and Piper. Given what we've already seen and how short the quotes were,
01:50:30
I seriously wonder, and I did not chase them down enough of the chasing stuff down, of whether or not he cherry -picked those.
01:50:39
He says there is a higher view of God than Calvinism. He quotes from Austin Fisher, which did go on for a bit, so I suspect that he probably quoted
01:50:47
Austin Fisher in context, although I can't guarantee that based on his performance so far.
01:50:53
He gives a criticism against systematics. Then, after all of this, he refers to Dr.
01:51:01
White and things that Dr. White says in regard to Dr. White bringing out the man -centered versus God -centered thinking.
01:51:10
He says that his is man -centered, centered on the man,
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Jesus. And frankly, it's a false claim because if you go back to the interaction regarding God's intentionality of the cross, he had to bob and weave on this.
01:51:39
So again, trying to make the contrast there and ignoring things that Jesus taught on, like in John 6, that's
01:51:47
Jesus teaching there. Anyway, moving on, when in fact the opposite as all of our hope is in Christ for a
01:51:56
Calvinist, including repentance. Remember, no man is able, so Jesus is the one who brings him.
01:52:05
He's drawn by the Father, John 6, 44. Then he makes this statement of depicting
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God, the Calvinistic view of God as the kind of a God who is busy sucking self -glorification out of his people.
01:52:24
Yeah, he said that. Seriously? Okay. He then goes on pointing out that he says
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God is most glorified in the cross. That's where I actually wanted to apply the God's intentionality point there.
01:52:39
So the fact that you cannot identify God's will, God's desire, God's intentionality, whatever you want to call that in his purpose from the foundation of eternity for the cross to occur, you can't actually employ that and you dodged it.
01:52:56
Okay. He then goes into this pleading mode that Southern Baptists are so famous for, where they start getting that cry in their voice.
01:53:05
Okay. And now we have the Jesus died for you argument. Jesus died for you!
01:53:12
But that's universalism. Every bit of what he said there was universalism. Why do
01:53:18
I need to repent, Professor Flowers? Jesus died for me. If Jesus died for me, the natural outcome, the spiritual outcome, the supernatural outcome of that is eternity.
01:53:30
So if Jesus died for everybody, everybody's going to heaven. And you can't, just like with James pointing out about the open theist, you can't argue with universalists there either because that's their argument.
01:53:42
Okay. So pleading, pleading, pleading. He then goes back to Dr. White critiquing his method.
01:53:48
And then he wants to give a defense of his method and interesting recollection of the flow of thought that he gave.
01:53:56
I touched on this and I touched on that. I touched on something. This is not exegesis,
01:54:02
Professor Flowers, and you know it. His illustration of the clay he brings up. That's not exegesis.
01:54:08
I touched on Hosea. No, you ran away from the text. I touched on verses 30 and 32 through 32.
01:54:16
No, you actually started at the end of the chapter, leaping over what came before. James spent most of his time, he says, critiquing methodology.
01:54:26
No, the charge was you didn't walk through it. And if you think he spent that much time on it, it's simply repeating the fact that you didn't walk through it.
01:54:35
It's a statement of fact. You didn't. In summary,
01:54:41
I would be surprised if anyone were to enter into a debate with Leighton Flowers after viewing this debate.
01:54:47
Seriously, if they did, they should expect the topic to be ambushed without apology.
01:54:53
Flowers admitted this during the debate and referred to his podcast as to where he actually did his work.
01:55:01
To have key points of disagreement dismissed out of hand, like judicial hardening and total depravity, is disingenuous.
01:55:10
And not honest. The fact is, Professor Flowers phoned this debate in and he admitted it.
01:55:19
He knew what his task was to exegete Romans chapter 9, and he chose to instead perform that task on his podcast.
01:55:27
He stated that as a fact. That is indisputable, where he could not be cross -examined.
01:55:36
See, that's the key. I'll take all this time I want on my podcast to go through this.
01:55:42
He admitted that he would not use this method elsewhere. I think that was huge.
01:55:51
And he appealed to the guy who drove a long way to justify himself for having done so.
01:55:58
To use an old Southern phrase, son, that dog don't hunt. Not by a long shot.
01:56:05
If one of his students had been given the task to give a presentation in the classroom on a particular given topic.
01:56:15
But instead, when the time came to do that, he chose his own topic.
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He decided to do something else. And when the professor asks him, hey, what about what you were assigned to do?
01:56:30
He says, well, go listen to my podcast. I really don't think
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Professor Flowers, well, he might have let him get away with it. I don't think he would.
01:56:42
I really don't. Certainly no teacher worth his salt would do that.
01:56:49
He phoned in the debate, sir. You abandon your ground. The process is if both sides agree on topic
01:56:58
X, then negotiate the parameters of how this is to happen, how this is to take place.
01:57:07
They both then go back to their places of office and study the text.
01:57:14
They prepare for it. They study whatever it is the subject. They rehearse their presentations.
01:57:21
They anticipate criticisms. Preparation is key to have a high level of debate.
01:57:31
But if both sides agree on topic X and negotiate those parameters, and then one side arbitrarily changes his topic from X to Y, same alphabet.
01:57:44
What's the big deal? He knows the other side will not see it coming.
01:57:52
Any rehearsing is for not. Any anticipation of what the other side might have to say is for not.
01:58:00
Any preparation that you may have made is pointless, leading to a confusing event with two men talking past each other.
01:58:09
And that is exactly what happened here. Professor Flowers also, folks, you go back, use the old trick.
01:58:18
I'm going to take as much stuff and dump it on my opponent, knowing full well there's no possible way that he will have the time to address every single item that I dump on him.
01:58:32
So not only did he ambush him, he buried him in misleading information.
01:58:42
So this brings us full circle. This is why James called this a bad debate.
01:58:50
It was a bad debate, but there's a lot we can learn from it. And that's why I decided to take this on as an effort of doing my own dividing line series.
01:59:01
Now to Mr. Flowers. I don't know where you learned to do this, sir. I really don't.
01:59:08
But you need to unlearn it. No one who names the name of Christ should treat his word the way you did here.
01:59:17
Never under any circumstances. I don't care what the topic is. I don't even know how
01:59:22
I would begin to do what you did here. I don't even have the slightest idea of how
01:59:29
I would begin or where I would go or even that it would occur to me. You see, I'm a plain spoken man.
01:59:35
I don't have the education you have, sir. I'm a layman. But I don't play word games.
01:59:41
I am straightforward in my dealings. Had I been faced with a task that I could not achieve, and I think at some point you realized that's what you had on your hands,
01:59:51
I would have gone back to that person, hat in hand, and sought to renegotiate the terms of the debate.
02:00:01
And if I couldn't do that, I would have had to have withdrawn from the debate simply telling the man
02:00:06
I'm not up for it. What Mr.
02:00:13
Flowers did here would never have occurred to me. And that's just that. I hope you've been edified by what
02:00:20
I've done here. I hope you've learned from what I've done here. I know that there are those from Professor Flowers' camp who will think me very unfair, harsh.
02:00:37
But as I said, I'm a plain spoken man. I call it the way I see it. And I believe the truth demands that we face what occurred here and why.
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And that we at Alpha and Omega Ministries learn from this as we move forward.
02:00:52
We still seek to have the best that the other side has to offer in the way of ability, talent, skill set, so that that comes to the table in the debate and both sides are represented on their best levels and the best cases are made.
02:01:14
And to be honest, on this particular subject, I still have yet to actually see that happen from the other side.
02:01:21
And it seems to me that the ones who are the best on the other side are avoiding it at all costs.
02:01:34
We've seen that happen with Roman Catholicism. The great debate series took place and we got a lot of good guys stepping up to represent the
02:01:43
Roman Catholic side. And eventually they learned we should not be doing this and they stopped.
02:01:49
And the quality of the people available to us went down, down, down, down, down, and eventually disappeared.
02:01:59
Maybe, maybe this will cause someone like a William Lane Craig, or if you're an
02:02:08
Arminian and you have somebody in mind, maybe this will cause them to step up and give a defense.
02:02:18
I'm not holding my breath. So as we close out here, and I got to bring that music down here.
02:02:32
Anyway, I appreciate you being with me on The Dividing Line. I've enjoyed doing this. Dr. White will be back on Thursday with what seems to be a boatload of issues that have popped up while he's gone.
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That seems to happen a lot. And I'm certainly glad to have him back, or will be certainly glad to have him back.
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Pray for him as he's still traveling. And again, I sure appreciate you being with me.