Most Christians Reject What the Bible Teaches | Ben Shapiro, Leighton Flowers, Allie Beth Stuckey

Hey, hey and welcome. This is the Ben Shapiro show Sunday special with our special guest Allie Stuckey Hey, hey and welcome.

This is the bed. Hello and welcome back to sociology 101 today We're going to listen to an interview that Ben Shapiro had with Allie Stuckey Hey, hey and welcome.

This is the bed Hello and welcome back today, we're going to be taking a look at latent flowers of soteriology 101

Taking a look at Ben Shapiro's interview with Allie Beth stuck In other words, this is not just contained within our little theological diadems of a podcast or the conversations you have with your buddies in a seminary library.

This is something that impacts our world and is impacting generation, the generations that are to come.

And because of that, I think that's why we need to address it. We need to address the different worldviews in a cordial and loving way.

Layton is completely right here. The predestination versus free will debate is about how

God has decided to save sinners, which is deeply related to the gospel, which means it's an important issue to discuss.

We Calvinists are grateful that there are faithful Arminians and we're happy to have cordial and loving discussions about this.

Which I think what Ben is doing here whenever he hears her explain Calvinism, he immediately as a guy good with logic, he immediately sees a square circle.

He sees a married bachelor. He sees a conundrum, as she even calls it. He sees something that simply does not seem logically coherent.

Layton's central premise here is that there is something within Calvinism that's not logically coherent, that's self -contradictory.

Now, if he's right, then we would agree that Calvinism would have a major problem. And as Layton mentioned,

Ali and probably most Calvinists today see a kind of conundrum within Calvinism.

Other Calvinists like myself disagree, but we'll get to that later.

For now, let's just point out that those Calvinists are still Calvinists because they believe the

Bible is extremely clear in teaching God's complete sovereignty over every aspect of salvation.

And they believe there are even bigger, more insurmountable conundrums within the free will view of salvation.

And that's my concern is that I think Calvinism, of course, I don't agree with Calvinist, so I'm biased on this point.

I think Calvinist makes Christianity and the Bible look like it's self -contradictory.

I actually have the same concern as Layton. A lot of Calvinists say there's a conundrum or paradox within what the

Bible teaches about God's sovereignty. But there are other Calvinists who don't see this conundrum within what the

Bible teaches, and we'll get to that in a bit. And I don't think we have to interpret

Romans 9, Ephesians 1, and several other key texts in a Calvinistic way so as to adopt this conundrum, this seeming contradiction, this square circle, this married bachelor.

So, if Layton's goal is to interpret Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 in a way that avoids this conundrum he's talking about, then

I have some good news. There's actually no conundrum we need to get ourselves out of. So, Layton, you don't need to do interpretive gymnastics to get out of interpreting

Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 in a non -Calvinistic way. I think

I heard Matt Walsh say that, you know, faith is like a bridge and you actually have to walk over it.

Well, a Calvinist wouldn't say that. A Calvinist would say that, well, no, Jesus came down, picked you up, cleaned you off, and walked you over to the other side to God.

That's a good enough analogy. Calvinists believe God alone saves sinners. Non -Calvinists believe

God can't save sinners apart from their free will decision to choose Christ. So, how does personal responsibility and free will fit into that view?

Ah, the famous supposed conundrum. How can humans be responsible if God is sovereign?

Let's see what Layton says. Okay, so before she answers that question, is how does personal responsibility and free will fit into that view,

Dr. Jonathan Pritchett of Trinity mentioned something on Facebook underneath the comments because I posted this on our

Facebook page. And he just said if a non -Calvinist like myself had described

Calvinism in the way that Ali just did, we would be accused of being misrepresentative of Calvinism.

Well, I wouldn't have said that. Ali was right enough. And so some

Calvinist would disagree with Ali and say, no, no, no, we do it. We do walk across the bridge, but we do it because of God's effectual work.

We do it because God has changed our nature. It is a real choice, they would say. We make a real choice, but the choice is a result of God's effectual or irresistible grace working on us.

And of course, Ali, if talking to another Calvinist would say, well, that's what I meant. You know, and so you can go back and forth.

Yes, those two descriptions of Calvinism are saying the same thing. And so the reason

I point that out is just because if you're not willing to practice the principle of charity when you're dealing with somebody, especially somebody who opposes your view, then it's difficult to have these kinds of conversations.

I'm happy to practice charity. I'm looking forward to hearing and responding to what you have to say.

And I understand what Ali is trying to explain. What she's trying to explain is the concept of irresistible grace, that God changes the heart of a person to make them want to come.

And if he's chosen you, then he will change your heart. If he hasn't chosen you, then he will pass by and let you go your own way.

That's a fair enough explanation. The phrase pass by and let you go your own way is a little fuzzy, but that's not really relevant right now.

And here's how she answers. Well, the same thing with Jesus said a tree will be known by its fruit. And I mean, the

Bible is filled with directives. The New Testament is filled with directives. The epistles by Paul are filled with directives, things that we are supposed to do.

So are you choosing to do that? Or is that just something that you were already going to do and you're basically kind of just living it out? Okay, so you see, he's still trying to push on the point because she didn't really answer the question.

She just points out that there are a lot of directives in Scripture. Yes, Leighton is right. Ali hasn't yet answered

Ben's question, which is how humans can be responsible if God is completely in control.

So far, Ali has just pointed out that the Bible is clear in saying that humans are responsible for the things they do.

But he's still going back to, okay, but is that something you're actually responsible for? Are you able to respond to those directives?

Are you a that's what responsible means to most people. Okay, let's stop here and talk about some important things.

This is where we start to part ways with Leighton. Leighton says that to most people responsible means are you able to respond to God's directives?

But even if that's what it means to most people, that's not the only valid definition of responsible.

A definition of responsible in the Oxford English Dictionary is morally accountable for one's behavior.

According to this definition, responsibility technically has nothing to do with free will.

It has to do with being accountable for your behavior or what you do. According to Calvinism, humans are morally responsible because they have wills that make real decisions with real consequences.

Just because human wills aren't free from God's sovereign control, and just because humanity's sin nature makes people unable to choose good, doesn't take away their moral responsibility because people aren't being forced to choose sin.

They are willingly and happily choosing sin over God. Whether or not our wills are free to choose good technically has nothing to do with moral responsibility.

If we choose evil, we are responsible for that choice. There's technically nothing unfair or illogical about that.

I think that theologian and philosopher Gordon Clark explains well the rationality of the

Calvinist position. He writes, Perhaps the matter can be made clearer by stating in other words precisely what the question is.

The question is, is the will free? The question is not, is there a will?

Calvinism most assuredly holds that Judas acted voluntarily. He chose to betray

Christ. He did so willingly. No question is raised as to whether or not he had a will.

What the Calvinist asked is whether that will was free. Are there factors or powers that determine a person's choice?

Or is the choice causeless? Could Judas have chosen otherwise? Not could he have done otherwise had he chosen, but could he have chosen in opposition to God's foreordination?

Acts 4 .28 indicates that he could not. The Arminians frequently talk as if the will and free will were synonyms.

Then when Calvinism denies free will, they charge that men are reduced to puppets. Puppets, of course, are inanimate dolls mechanically controlled by strings.

If the opponents had only read the Puritans, if they only had known what Calvinism is, they could have spared themselves the onus of making this blunder.

Let's keep going. If God's just predetermined how you will live based upon some irresistible working within you, then how do you hold somebody accountable who's not given the necessary grace or the necessary revelation or the ability, morally speaking, to reply positively to those directives that are in Scripture?

As we just covered, God holds sinners accountable because they willingly and happily choose sin.

It's not just that they can't choose good, they also don't want to choose good. It's not that they want to choose good, but something is preventing them from choosing good.

People who sin are morally responsible for their sin. There's simply nothing irrational or contradictory about that.

And before she goes there, let's go to the namesake of the Calvinistic worldview, John Calvin himself, and remember what he said about this.

He's confessing ignorance as to how God could ordain everything, could bring about everything, without being implicated as the fault or the author or approver of transgressions.

In other words, I don't know how God's character is not maligned in this system. Calvinism is named after John Calvin, but that doesn't mean

Calvin didn't make any mistakes. How can God be sovereign over sin but not be guilty of sin?

Well, Clark has a logical and biblical answer to this question too. He writes,

This is a question concerning God's holiness. Now, it should be evident that God no more commits sin than he is writing these words.

Although the betrayal of Christ was foreordained from eternity as a means of effecting the atonement, it was

Judas, not God, who betrayed Christ. The secondary causes in history are not eliminated by divine causality, but rather they are made certain.

And the acts of these secondary causes, whether they be righteous acts or sinful acts, are to be immediately referred to the agents.

And it is these agents who are responsible. And there are quotes from Piper and MacArthur and Sproul, who virtually all said the same thing.

This is the conundrum. This is the atenomy, as J .I. Packer points out, says it is.

It is a paradox, MacArthur calls it. I have tremendous respect for all those men Leighton just listed, but let's stop and consider for a moment.

Could it be possible that those men are right about many aspects of Calvinism, but wrong that this issue is a paradox or conundrum?

Clark is also a respected theologian, and his answers to Leighton's question seems perfectly rational and biblical.

Also, we should note that even though the Bible clearly teaches God's sovereignty and human responsibility, it nowhere presents these two teachings as a paradox or conundrum.

So, if Calvinists are treating something within Calvinism as a paradox or conundrum, that's certainly not coming from the

Bible. There is a balance that I think a lot of people get confused on when you hear

Calvinist and you hear preordained. You think, oh, well, you don't believe in any free will at all. And that's not true.

Now, I will say there is what kind of seems like a conundrum or a conflict between personal responsibility and absolute sovereignty of God.

So, we believe that God is absolutely sovereign over everything. There is no point whatsoever where he sits back and he just lets things happen or says, oh, whoops, like I didn't see that coming.

We believe in the absolute sovereignty of God over everything. And yet, the Bible is very clear that people have personal responsibility and that the

Christians believe if you don't accept Christ, which accept is kind of a word that we don't really use in Calvinism, but that there is punishment.

There's eternal punishment for that. There's eternal separation from God. And so, you are held to the consequences of your sin, to the consequences of the life that you live.

And yet, God is sovereign over all of that. What I like about what Allie is saying is that she recognized that scripture clearly teaches both these things, that God is absolutely sovereign and that humans are responsible for the choices they make.

But as we've already explained, there technically really isn't any conundrum here. There's simply no rational problem with affirming both of these things.

How does a non -elect person have any more control over his natural condition than a person has over the color of their skin?

The reason we reject racism so vehemently is because of the fact that you're judging somebody for a factor that's beyond their control versus judging them for the content of their character.

Why is the content of their character more important? Because we actually believe they're responsible for the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

This is rather interesting. Layton compares Calvinism to racism, saying that Calvinism involves judging people based on factors they can't control, rather than the content of their character.

But Layton, you're missing a fundamental factor here. A person's skin color doesn't have anything to do with the content of their character.

But with Calvinism, people's depraved, sinful natures have everything to do with the content of their character.

They may not have control over the content of their character, but the content of their character is still willingly evil.

They're not trying to choose good, and that's why they can be righteously judged by God. So in his sovereignty, he can choose to grant a level of control or autonomy to his creatures as he chooses.

Sure, God could choose to do that, but that's just not what the Bible teaches. Again, if your concern is to get out of the conundrum you see in Calvinism, the good news is that there really is no conundrum to get out of.

Don't just take within the echo chamber of the Calvinistic world and just think that that's the only two options, because there's so much more out there that is available to you.

I accept that there are more than two options. I just still think the Calvinist option is what the

Bible clearly teaches, and that there are big problems with all the other options. How do you square that circle?

You square that circle with Romans 9 that asks that very question. Ben asks

Allie, How do you square that circle? And Allie answers with Romans 9, which is perfectly legitimate.

In Romans 9, Paul says that God is the potter and we are the clay, which means

God has the right to create humans for whatever purpose he wants. And as we've talked about throughout this video, there's simply nothing inherently contradictory about God being completely in control and God judging humans for the sin they commit, even if they don't have the natural ability to choose good.

Leighton is now going to argue against Allie's interpretation of Romans 9, saying we don't have to interpret it that way.

But since this video isn't about debating Romans 9, let's just end with this. One reason

Leighton feels he needs to interpret Romans 9 in a non -Calvinistic way is to get out of the squaring of the circle that he and Ben refer to.

But if, as we've seen, there really is no square circle to begin with, maybe we don't need to work so hard to twist