Andrew Answers Your Hardest Questions

Conference Fellowship and Calvinist-Provisionist Conversations

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your most challenging questions about God and the Bible. We can answer any question, and I mean any question that you have about God and the Bible. And if you doubt that, well, just go to ApologeticsLive .com, join the show.

To do that, you just click on that little duck icon that's for StreamYard, and join us. Give me your most difficult question. Just remember one thing. If I say, I don't know, that's a perfectly good answer.

So with that, we are going to be, let me bring in the co-host for tonight, none other than Mr. A .M. Brewster. And of course, I put him on right as he's drinking some water.

I actually did that on purpose. I was like, I'm going to go for just the candid.

Yeah, you were playing ninja all week. You were just trying to be all stealthy, but it didn't quite work all the time.

I did it on purpose.

Yes, so now what we're going to do, today will be an open Q &A, so any questions you have, we will take them. But I'm going to bring, there's this guy backstage. I should bring him in.

Already?

Yeah, we're going to bring him in. You know him as Tiny Hands.

Oh, brother!

It looks so much bigger on screen.

It's all about perspective. When I bring him back, it's less intimidating. Yeah, I'm bringing him in early because he's got his own live stream to do in about an hour, where they're going to make some announcements about next year's conference.

So I guess I don't know if we should announce it, because I already know what some of the announcements are. But we should hold off and make those next year. Can't steal their thunder, that would be wrong.

It'd be like introducing somebody as Tiny Hands as they come onto a show.

I agree, 100%. That could be.

Inappropriate.

So, Brayden, we spent the week, both Aaron and I with you, at a conference that you guys did at Open Air Theology. We've been promoting it here, so regulars, you know about it. It was the Open Air Theology conference.

With the topic of why Arminianism. Wait, was that it?

It was why not Arminianism.

Well, I thought Leighton Flowers thought it was why Arminianism. Yes, Leighton Flowers actually was in attendance to the Why Calvinism conference. Actually, I got to give kudos. He was there for most of the time.

He came to dinner with us a couple nights, so that was good. We got some good, fun discussions. I don't think any of us were too mean to him. He actually said he likes hanging out with Calvinist more.

I think we were well behaved. I saw a lot of people walking up and taking a photo with him.

I have to say, I actually had never heard of the gentleman before this conference. In fact, the first time he and I had a chance to talk, I was sitting at dinner together. I was just getting this vibe.

Everyone was having fun. I turned to him and said, okay, just help me get to know you a little bit better. Fill me in here. Finish this sentence. Nobody likes me because. It was this fun thing, but I had never met the guy.

I just have to say, he's a sweet man. I really enjoyed getting to know him. Very friendly, very kind, very loving, very encouraging in his conversations. Disagree with him, though we may. Great guy.

I think the rest of us at the table at that. Aaron thought you knew who he was with that question.

It was a real blessing being able to meet him, though. I celebrate being united in the essentials of Christianity. There are some very strong convictions and reasons why he would not attend my church.

Likewise, I would attend his in that sense. It was a real blessing to be able to fellowship along with him and have some good conversations, not even regarding soteriology. That was one thing I really respected.

I did watch his during. He did not listen to my sermon. I want him to go back and listen to my sermon. When my sermon goes up, I want him to watch mine. I want to watch Sam Waldron's and Jeff Rice's. And he needs to watch yours, too, Andrew.

He missed a little bit of he missed a little bit of the first day as well.

And he may have missed yours because that's when I was showing him my predestination. Sorry, predestination, free will card illustration. That may have been why he missed it. I think I blame myself. It's all your fault.

I blame myself.

No, it was it was really good, though. It was it was a real blessing to be able to hang out with him. And yeah, it was it was cool. Only have good things to say about Leighton, not necessarily about his soteriology.

Yeah, yes. His theology could use a little bit of work. But as I've always said, this Leighton is a really, really nice guy. And it's actually I've said this before. I've said it to him. I've said it privately.

You know, you guys heard me say it this past week is, you know, his debate style actually gives him an air that he wins debates when he doesn't. And what I mean by that is he's he just has such a cool, calm demeanor.

And this is something good. This is an apologetic show where we teach apologetics. Yes, we can even learn from Leighton Flowers how to do apologetics better. Leighton is just such a a nice guy that when you get people that are having a hard time because they're used to maybe arguing with people on the street or something like that and they're trying to get a rise and you don't get a rise out of Leighton.

In fact, the more you try to get a rise, the less of a rise you're going to get. And what that doesn't I've seen him do debates where he debates someone and they're they're getting upset and angry. And he's very calm.

He's very sweet about it. And it it gives the impression that he is winning a debate not based on his content, but on the demeanor, because there's a lot of people that if you don't feel that don't do debates or don't watch debates, it is a thing where people sometimes are watching the demeanor more than listening to the content.

You know, I remember watching a debate on Theonomy and they had two different topics that they were going to cover. And one of the ways I knew I said, regardless of listening to any of the content, I knew the guy that was promoting Theonomy lost.

Is because when they had the first topic of discussion, they moved to the second topic. That guy was still trying to answer the first question. He used his entire opening, still trying to address the first issue.

Right. That's how, you know, a guy knows in his own mind he didn't do well.

Can I get a redo and do over?

Yeah, I it was it was it was a real blessing. I'll be able to hang out with him. One of the messages that I thought was really convicting at the conference was Michael Schultz's message on on the love of God and Calvinism.

Is that because it's Michael Schultz, so it's automatically convicting?

This is factual, like he does an amazing job conveying a message that is needed. And I mean, yeah, I do think a lot of provisionists, I do think a lot of even on my side of the camp, Calvinists in that in that way don't do a very good job at displaying humility and love online.

I took my observation from the conference and I was watching some of the things that were being said. And I was like, man, I think I'm seeing the Christianity culture that was raised up. And I know you guys might not have been in this camp, but was raised up playing Call of Duty, saying your mom jokes with no repercussions.

And now they're Christians and they take that same type of mentality of I can just be obnoxious, loud, arrogant, ignorant, and I can just spout it out and there's no consequences. And what the reality is, as a Christian, there's lots of consequences.

The world's watching how you're behaving. It's not glorifying God. It can be sin oftentimes. And so, like, I, I do think there's several provisionists that fall into that. And so on the other side, Calvinists fall into that, too.

So I just really appreciated the love that was being given towards Leighton and what Leighton was reflecting back towards us. It was it was a blessing in person.

What Provisionism Means and How It Differs from Arminianism

OK, so, Brayden, you use some terms. So, you know, we're always on this program. We're always trying to teach. We don't want to use terms people may not know. You use the term provisionist. So give folks who may not be familiar with that a little bit of a definition and what you mean by that.

Yeah.

So it's a really modern view. I would say it's very similar to Arminianism in several cases. It's different. They would not like me to say that it seems to be semi-Pelagian or essentially what it is, is it's trying to.

I would argue it denies the four points of Calvinism, T, U, L, I. But it holds to perseverance. So a provisionist would say that you can't lose your salvation from my understanding. And so the idea of it is, is that God didn't decree individuals to be in Christ.

God decreed the outcome for those that would have faith in Christ. So God didn't decree. So the analogy that I've heard, and I hope I don't misrepresent, is that when you get on a plane, that plane is predetermined to fly to Texas.

But it's not predetermined who's going to be on that plane when they start selling the tickets. And so that's what I've heard a provisionist say. So whenever you see predestination in the Bible, it's not talking about individuals being in the body of Christ, but it's predestinating the outcome for those that choose to have faith in Christ.

I think that would be a fair assessment of provisionism.

TULIP, Total Depravity, and the Meaning of Prevenient Grace

Okay, and now let me just, because there may be some in the audience, like there were some, I think at that conference, who were not familiar with their different theological systems. You mentioned an acronym, TULIP.

Why don't you just give, you know, what each of those letters stand for?

Yeah, so T, total depravity, meaning that while you're dead in your sins, you can't generate a faith that would be pleasing to God. You have to be made alive by the Spirit, a .k .a. regeneration. You would have unconditional election, meaning that Christ did not elect, or God did not elect you by seeing down the corridors of time and seeing the faith that you'd place in him.

Therefore, he elected you, but that he did it purely based off his forelove, his before him love for you. Limited atonement, that Christ died definitely and assuredly for the elect and the elect alone.

So it would be a, where I would argue an Arminianist would maybe limit, or even a Provisionist would limit the power of the atonement. A Calvinist would limit the scope, typically. And then irresistible grace, meaning that once the light bulb has gone off in your heart and your mind, there's no denying that.

And perseverance of the saints would be that since Christ bought you by his blood, the same blood keeps you throughout and you'll be convicted of sin, continue to seek to be conformed to the image of Christ, and never lose your salvation in that process.

Yeah. So let me get to some of the comments. I don't want to pick up on the Provenient Grace. First off, we prayed for Kathy. She asked for prayer a couple weeks ago. And so she's just saying, hi, thank you all for the prayers.

Hope you'll be able, hope to be able to see the whole show. So she was not doing well last time, if those remember. So Melissa said, I think you guys gave Leighton more fodder for his audience. There is a, there is a, from the Celtic Cup.

I'm just going to, let's see. I'm going to mute you, Brayden, just while you're not talking, because there was a hissing noise from your, your mic. So I think it's probably just because it's a condensing mic.

And so it's trying to pick up when you're not speaking. So, yeah, we, if you go, we, the, we all got together for breakfast one morning before the conference at the Celtic Cup. If you go to, yeah, it was live in that area.

Go to the Celtic Cup.

It was, it was that you, you now saw why we had to have a theology throw down type discussion there because it really was.

I don't even drink coffee and I want to just live there.

Brayden and I just went there for coffee last year and just happened. And we both walked upstairs because there was additional seating and we're just like, oh yeah, we got to have, have a discussion here.

It's like the old, old style, you know, meeting room where they'd have theological discussions. But, but in that, if you go to dead man walking YouTube channel, he's got the video up. And yeah, in there, we talk about the fact that we, Leighton is coming to the, to the conference for material because we gave him a lot of it.

I do want to point out in that video, Greg set the cameras up really well, that the most attractive people in the room were forefront on the video. Brayden, I don't even like, were you ever seen in the video?

Like you can hear your voice, but it was so hard to see the way the camera was set up.

It must be because look, Melissa said, oh wait, no, it wasn't that one. It was here. Melissa said. Brayden's mustache rocked at the conference. It makes up for his tiny hands.

Oh, ouch. Melissa encouraged me in the jab. I'll mix in the one.

Well, yeah. But Doreen says Leighton was there to give material to Jason. That's the guy who was debating James White. It didn't work.

Dr.

White destroyed him.

Yeah.

That was, if you watch the debate, that was, yeah.

In all fairness though, in all fairness, Leighton likely did, does, did and does have a lot of material for his podcasts and his shows. But, you know, so did all of our guys. I mean, Keith Foskey, I mean, he had his interview with Leighton not before Leighton could put anything up.

Yeah.

But nowhere near like, so you don't know Leighton.

You go watch.

He like when I get it like hours and hour.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Like, like months and months.

Um, right.

Brady and shaking his head.

Yeah.

Melissa says Leighton loves to misrepresent the Calvinistic view.

I know.

And he always claims he was, he was a Calvinist. Uh, bill says, Andrew, did you get a chance to see the latent flowers rebuttal on James white? Um, I did not. Uh, so I'll have to go check that out. And then this is one brother.

John says provisionist. Um, he said for the record, Andrew, I look up words you guys use all the time. That is one reason I watched this show. So thank you for that. Um, and what I want to do is cover something that I didn't cover in my message.

So my message was on the history of Calvinism and I had a section in.

There.

I think Braden might've been you in our, in our group chat that said you wanted to see this one section where I talked about the Calvinism of Arminius. And I think a lot of the guys were like, what in the world are you going to say there?

And, and I, I got a lot of that from RC Sproul. There was, there was, I mean, and RC Sproul makes a good argument along with some others. I found that basically try to say that Arminius was actually, because I think a lot of people don't realize that John Calvin and Jacob Arminius did not overlap.

Arminius was four years old when John Calvin died. So it really was John Calvin's predecessor or successor.

I mean,.

Which is Theodore Beza who was interacting with Jacob Arminius and Jacob Arminius saw Beza going further than he thought Calvin would and kind of wanted to, in his mind, I think, pull him back. But what ends up happening as, as usual is when someone pulls someone back, they start to go and double down on things and go too far wrong way.

By the way, I am shocked. Hold on. We have a shocking thing for regulars here. Everyone's going to be shocked at this one. There's a comment here and, and let's see what it says. It's not that it says Aaron, the Ninja.

It's that it says Haps Addison. He actually went in and figured out how to put his name. So it doesn't say Facebook user. Congratulations to Haps Addison. I would like to say that I went onto his computer and just did it for him while he was sleeping.

But yeah. So, so I want to deal with though Braden and Son that I didn't get a chance to read in my notes. And it was really, this is the beauty of the conference you guys did because I skipped this section, but Keith Foskey, who was preaching on the Calvinism Luther didn't skip this section.

He actually had something about provenient grace in there, but you know, R .C. Sproul makes it a great argument. I mean, you, you look at the words of Arminius and he's, he uses language to describe total depravity stronger than Luther, Calvin, Augustine, or Augustine, depending how you want to pronounce it.

But I have this in there. I said, so there's a section in here talking about provenient grace and R .C. Sproul says this, the term prevening, prevening grace is, is open to misunderstanding. To prevent in modern usage usually means to, to keep something from happening.

This is not how Arminius used the term. The word prevent derives from the Latin vino, which is simply means to come with the prefix pre means before. Therefore, prevening grace does not keep salvation from happening, but necessarily comes before salvation.

So this is the, the reason I read that is because the way this term is used that Brandon's used, I think, and Brandon, I'll be curious to see what you think about this.

You did it again. Brayden.

I keep doing that.

I've been doing that like ever since I met Brayden,.

I got your back, man.

I should just call him Mr. Patterson and be safe. I should just call him tiny hands and I won't get,.

I've been called a lot of mean things before. As long as you're looking at me when you say it, which is hard on online, I'll try to respond,.

But you're good.

So when we think about like, why does a guy like Layton flowers create a new term, pervenient grace. Right now, there's some history there,.

Right?

Because Arminius used it. You used two terms,.

Right?

You used Arminianism and semi Pelagianism. And I, in my message talked about the fact that there's Calvinists and kind of anti-Calvinists. They're not really Arminian. They're not completely semi Pelagian.

And for folks that don't know,.

I mean, you had to go,.

Go and listen to the message when it comes out that I did it. Cause I go through what Pelagianism is, but Pelagian was a heretic who don't denied original sin, things like that. Augusta had confronted him.

So destroyed Pelagian's arguments that people that didn't want to hold to what Augustan believed created, what was be called semi Pelagians kind of half and half. They were in the middle of both. And so what we end up seeing is that most people don't want to say they're semi Pelagian even today, because when we look at what Augustan Luther,.

Calvin,.

John Owens did, they're really, we see the effectiveness of their work in the fact that people don't want to hold to the terms Pelagian,.

Arminian,.

Semi Pelagian. They don't want to.

So,.

So this is why I think guys like Leighton and others are trying to come up with a new term. And we talked about that at dinner one night where he said,.

Well,.

You being Southern Baptist, they used to be called the traditionalist,.

But that,.

That didn't really make sense so much for explaining it. So he started using the term provenient grace.

Original Sin, Total Depravity, and the Will

Yeah. I think,.

I think that Pelagianism has been demonstrated to be an heresy wrong for a long time.

Right.

And,.

And so I have heard, and I hope I don't misquote Leighton by any means. So if I do, I repent on the front side.

If you do,.

You're going to get a whole hour episode.

That's fine.

The,.

So I've, I've heard him. I've heard that he denies original sin in the common definitions of what original sin is.

Leighton does.

Yeah.

Because he,.

He wouldn't say that man is, has died in such a way with Adam, that it keeps him from being able to choose God, that we're still in this neutral state to be able to be prone to go to God.

Or not to God.

Yeah.

And that's,.

That's really addressing total depravity,.

Right?

And this is what total depravity, how you know if someone has a proper definition that both that are, it's not just our intellect and emotions that were affected by the curse, but it's also the volition,.

The will.

And he would deny that the will is affected by the curse,.

Right?

Which most Calvinists would take that, that doctrine of original sin and say that you see, this is the tulip is the natural outcome of, or the total depravity in that sense is the natural outcome of what original sin is that we've all died in Adam.

And you can only be made alive in Christ, meaning that unless you were made a born again, like what Jesus says to Nicodemus, you cannot come to Christ. You're still dead without them there. So that, that wouldn't just be intellect, but that would also be with the, the will as well.

Yeah.

But I,.

Yeah,.

I,.

There's, I do think,.

And I,.

I,.

I do appreciate what one of our sisters on here was saying earlier. I do think, I do think often Layton does misrepresent the Calvinist. I think, I think several times.

Isn't that something you do on both sides though?

You can absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean,.

It's like,.

If we,.

If we understood a person's position to the same degree and conviction that they did, we would hold to the same conviction,.

You know,.

That they do.

I'm not,.

You know, I like, for example, I think all of us could explain evolution is theory, but we're not going to do it nearly as well as somebody who actually believes in evolution. So I just throw that out there.

I don't know that Layton is deliberately trying to misrepresent it's possible. But I do think it's just, it is just a necessary thing.

I mean,.

I think Brayden, you did a great job trying to sum up the provisionists and kind of the definition that you did. I think you did a good job. No doubt though, Layton or some other provisionists may have found issue with it and could have potentially claimed that we were misrepresenting it by saying it that.

Way.

For example, you did make the statement that, that the Arminianist thinks that God kind of looks down the, the annals of time and sees who will choose him. And then God chooses them as well. Layton made an interesting observation to me, as I was having a conversation with him, he said that generally Arminianists don't actually say that it's, it's what Calvinists say they say that.

So this is what, this is what he's saying. And I don't know.

I mean,.

I told him I knew a guy who was Arminianist and he, he gave me that illustration and to which Layton replied a lot of times I do.

That though,.

Because they've heard it from Calvinists. So I really don't know who's right on this particular one.

But I'm,.

I'm willing to hear what he has to say.

And again,.

I'm not throwing you under the bus.

I'm just,.

I'm just putting it out there that I think we all need to recognize it as super hard to Arminianist position that we disagree with.

A thousand percent. And the reason I, the reason I,.

So that,.

That definition of looking down the corridors of times that that's the one that a Molinist would use. And so most what I have seen in, In these provisionist camps is anyone that's typically talking about provisionism holds to some form of Molinism that God saw all possibilities.

And he chose this possibility based off of seeing all possibilities. And so that, that that's the, I know exactly what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying, because we don't want to misrepresent.

And I'm sure like I, when I was listening to Layton on his, his live video, he said that, that he noticed that as we are talking about our different eschatological positions or different ecclesiology, anything along those lines, he said that we ended up putting Calvinism into it, which I would argue that Calvinism is more of the, the branch doctrine for me that like my, my core doctrine is here.

And then Calvinism is a result of core doctrine where he was thinking my core doctrine is Calvinism. And then my eschatological positions and so on are, are the branches that are flowing from that.

And I,.

I would disagree heavily with that. Yeah.

I would say you could go, go look at our discussion on the Celtic cup where much of it was really on dispensationalism and Calvinism didn't come up, you know, even though we were having lots of disagreement, really what was coming up was our ways of interpreting scripture,.

Right?

That's what was discovered. So you mentioned Molinism for folks that don't know that term. Molinism is a philosophical argument really against Calvinism. I've done a debate on this show many years ago with the guy that actually works for Layton, but he was a Molinist.

The,.

The view basically is that God in his middle knowledge and his ability to, to know all things can know all of the actions we would take and ones we don't take. And in his mind, he could see all of these different worlds that could have been based on our free will.

That's their whole thing is they got to, they're trying to preserve our free will and argue against what they would say is a view of determinism. And I said this in my talk that this is the big problem is everyone characterizes Calvinism as determinism.

There's a big difference there. The majority of Calvinists do not deny that we have a volition. It's just that, that the volition was decreed by God.

So,.

You know, they, they,.

They hear that and they go cause no,.

No.

So that's back to what Aaron said about the misrepresentation. And so the thing that I find interesting Molinism though,.

Brayden is what,.

When the debate that I had with it,.

I asked,.

Can we in,.

In the,.

In the world that God has now that he realized, okay, so he's always worlds that could have been, can we do anything outside of the, our free will choice?

I mean,.

Once he,.

God chooses, can we do anything else? And the answer is no. I said, so God determined it,.

Right.

They don't even realize they back into the very thing they're trying to defend again.

Yeah.

There's, there's several and there's several logical outcomes, theological as well,.

That,.

That are issue with it. Romans eight, 29, those who might, I four new or beforehand loved. I predestined those that I predestined. I called those. I called, I justified those. I justified, I glorified.

If,.

If God before creation saw all possibilities where he saw all people coming to know him in one, one of some of the different types of possibilities, well, then are all predestined. Are all called. Are all justified.

Are all.

No,.

We,.

We have very clear examples in the text where that doesn't happen. And so by trying to hold on to man's free will in such a way, we have compromised some several texts in the Bible and we are lessening the decree of God.

And they haven't answered the question of the, the question of the odyssey, which is I I'm thankful being on this program because usually I'm just throwing out terms that people know exactly what they are.

But the odyssey is the issue with sin or evil in the presence of a Holy God in the world, how those things play out.

But like,.

So like, and even on like, that's where like, I really appreciate like I'm a 1689 guy. Of course I got my 1689 shirt on right now. And so I would say I'm a determinist. I wouldn't say I'm a fatalist. I'm a determinist in light of what God's decree is described in that 1689 and, and of God's providence, which teaches that man is, has free will.

There's a chapter in it that says that we have free will. And so even in the end of the paragraph of chapter three, it says that this is a doctrine is a high mystery. That's supposed to be handled with special prudence and care to give glory to God and to not misrepresent him.

And so the Calvinist would never say that we have the ability to say to God, why did you make me like this? We can never hold God culpable for the sin we commit because we're, we're accountable for it.

I was the one that did it. I was the one that chose it. I was the one that, that rolled around in it. I'm the one that's culpable for it. But ultimately the Molinist is not getting away from this issue either.

God still predestined these things to come to pass. And the Molinist, you see what I'm saying? They just don't have that answer to it.

No,.

They don't.

And, and,.

And I just want to specify,.