Questions from a Non-Calvinist (Part 1)

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

Today is the first of a two-part episode of Coffee with a Calvinist where I'm going to be taking questions from a friend who is not a Calvinist.

So I hope you enjoy today's and tomorrow's program.

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

Today I have a special guest on the program, Matthew Henson is joining me and we are going to be talking about the subject of questions about Calvinists from a non-Calvinist.

Matthew is my non-Calvinist friend, he's a person that I have grown to really appreciate in my life, he is a friend, he is my personal weatherman, which I didn't tell him I was going to say that, but he has helped me through several storms now, he's quite the meteorologist and he's also a person who has moderated a few of the debates that I have attended, well we'll say this, he's moderated one debate that I was in and he moderated a debate between Dr.

James White and Michael Brown and two other folks on the subject of homosexuality which was at his church and that was how I met Matthew and he struck me as a very bright, very intellectual young man and I really enjoyed meeting him and I was grateful for the time that we've had conversations and I look forward to our conversation today.

We both have a mutual love for the word, a desire for truth, and as I said, he's not a confessing Calvinist yet, so he is a perfect person to have on the program and to shoot some questions at me in regard to the subject of Calvinism.

So Matthew, how are you doing today? Doing great Keith, thanks for having me on, I'm glad to be here and I'd like to correct you on one thing, I'm your token non-Calvinist friend.

Is that what it is? You're my token friend? Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it was so funny because you messaged me about, what was it, well it was about six months ago now I guess and you said, hey can you have coffee with a Calvinist for real? Uh-huh.

And I always thought that was nice and we went to coffee, we had a nice breakfast and we got a chance to talk about some things that were, that just, and it really helped grow our friendship.

Sure did.

Talked about church and things like that and now I appreciate our banter back and forth online and as is always the case, I don't see you as much in person as I would like, but I am glad for the times that we get to interact and I certainly have been looking forward to today.

For sure.

So Matthew has some questions which, as I said before, challenge some of the Calvinistic beliefs, but I want to say this from the get-go, he's not a person who I have found to be antagonistic or ugly or, you know, this isn't going to be Leighton Flowers and James White today.

This is, yeah, these are, Matthew and I both love the word, we both love one another, and we're both still growing, you know, as I've been a pastor for many years, but I'm still learning and I'm still thankful to be challenged with difficult questions and some of these questions are coming from Matthew's own heart, but some of them are also coming from his students because he is a small group leader at his church and teaches young people at his church.

So he's getting questions from young people, he's getting questions from new believers, he's getting questions from people in his small group, and he has questions of his own.

And before we get to those questions, Matthew, you shared with me a story before we had the program that was sort of a personal experience that sort of sets the stage for what we're going to talk about today.

So can you share that with us? Sure, I'd be happy to, and let me just affirm everything you just said, absolutely.

I have a great love for Keith and his ministry.

He would certainly describe himself as a Calvinist.

I would not describe myself as an anti-Calvinist or maybe a non-Calvinist, but there is no antagonism between me and that position.

And that's something that, and something we talked about earlier is that of those who I spend lots of time discussing theology with, all of them are Calvinists.

All of my closest friends that I go really in-depth on theology are Calvinists.

And so I think I'm everyone's token non-Calvinist friend.

That's funny.

And we don't get many people like you.

That's what makes you so special.

Because a lot of people who are not Calvinistic tend to be almost like hateful.

And I know there's hateful Calvinists.

I'm not painting everybody with a broad brush, but some people just don't want to have the conversation or they can't have it in a reasonable way.

And that's, it's so disappointing.

So I think there's a lot of wide, flat ground around the cross for a whole lot of opinions and beliefs.

And I think that God's big enough to be all right with a wide range of diversity in beliefs.

Now there are some, of course, that we would say are immovable, you can't compromise on, but I do not take the doctrines of Reformed theology to be one of those.

I think that, you know, I think that's not a fault line, belief-wise.

So yeah, so we first met, I don't know, in person at the debate in September of 2018, or was it 19? No, it was 18.

Well, I think so.

Again, it was when Dr.

White was in town.

And Jake Korn, we ought to mention him.

He was now serving in the U.S.

Army in Korea.

So double shout out to him.

Yes, yes, and thankful for his service.

He was the one, I think, who was very instrumental in getting Dr.

White here, and I think he introduced you and I, so we ought to appreciate him.

We do.

So since that debate, and even leading up to it, I pretty much dumped a ton of time into listening to just about every dividing line.

Of course, once you started your podcast, I've been a listener to that.

Reading works of Reformed theology, and I don't just mean blog articles.

I mean, like, some thicker tomes and, you know, that sort of thing.

For about 12 months after that debate, all I did was basically read solely Reformed theology.

I actually didn't look at the other side at all.

I said, let me just, so I'm not getting confused, let me just solely focus on this side of the issue.

And I'm committed to accurately representing whatever I interact with.

I don't think it's helpful for us to get on here and misrepresent each other, and certainly you don't either.

And that's the key to healthy debate, and you as a moderator and a person who's studied debate, you know that, and that's what makes our interactions so pleasant, for sure.

I think so, too.

So this story, yeah, these questions kind of grow out of a development from earlier in life.

So when I was back in high school, and I'll keep things fairly generic, because I think that's probably the best choice here.

I had someone very close to me go through a deep tragedy, and it was a loss that was far more than you would normally have in such a short a period of time.

So this person, very strong Christian, very strong believer, was rattled by this experience.

And they went for pastoral counseling, and they, I think they had a couple of different people offer them some counsel on it.

And after a couple of minutes of, you know, letting them cry on the shoulder and everything like that, when it really got down to brass tacks, and how do we grieve through this, it was, the answer was pretty much, well, God's sovereign, and who are you to question him? Okay, but I'm hurt, and I've experienced this loss, and I'm still grieving through it, and I'm a little upset at God, and I don't know how to process through all this.

And the answer was consistently, and this, you know, this was a, I don't want to say hyper-sovereignty.

I mean, God is sovereign, I'm not meaning to malign that doctrine, but I'm just saying the flatness and the coldness that that response was, was extremely harmful to this person.

It was just God's sovereign, and basically, quote Romans 9, at them a bunch of times, who are you to answer back to God? And that's that, wipe our hands, we're done with the problem.

And that did grievous damage to this person's faith.

It's now almost 10 years later, and this person is still very shaky, is still badly, I say badly, not healthily grieving in some ways.

And so that was really the impetus.

They said, I know that's, what they told me was, I know that's doctrinally correct, but it seems incredibly unsatisfying.

And maybe it should be enough that God's in control of everything, and I can just kind of throw my hands up and whatever.

Maybe that should be enough, but it's not.

So their faith, oftentimes tough times strengthen our faith, their faith, no, it did not.

It did serious damage, and now they're not in as good a state as they could be.

Now I want to stress, that is not a good representation of God's character or Reformed theology.

I don't think that that's, I would not look at that and say, see, look at how bad Calvinism is.

Like I said, I want to accurately represent that is not good, but it does represent a danger.

Sure, and the emotional dangers of mishandling doctrine are a lot wider than I think people often understand.

Last year, and I told you this story, last year I spoke at a conference with the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals.

And when I was speaking, I preached on Romans 8, 28, God works all things together for good.

I said, this is an important verse to carry us through tough times.

I said, but it's not what you want to quote when you walk in to a family that's just lost their child to cancer.

It's not what you want to quote when you walk in and you've just faced a person whose wife has just been killed in a car accident.

You don't want to walk in with sort of a Pollyanna view of, you know, or don't worry, be happy kind of view.

We're called to grieve with those who grieve.

We're called to rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve.

So there is a sense, I think, in which if we take the views of Reformed theology to a point that they're not intended to go, we can find ourselves with a God who is unfeeling, with a God who is detached, and we almost become deists more than theists.

We become a God who's in control of everything but doesn't care about anything.

If that's where, I want to say this to the listener, if that's where your Calvinism has taken you, to a God who's in control but doesn't care, then you've missed it.

And so that's my warning for the video based on, yeah, and I think what you're saying is unfortunately not unique to this person that suffered this.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people have been through this, and so we definitely want to be careful how we express the truth and when certain truths are necessary and appropriate.

You know, is it true that God is working all things together for good? Yes.

How do we express that when things are really, really bad? Right.

Yeah, for sure.

And I mean, this was kind of the catalyst, and like you said, I've been doing small groups.

I've taught everything from seventh graders up to high school seniors.

I'm now a small group leader for younger adults, 20s and early 30s, Kinect group.

We have some very new believers that were only baptized a year or two ago.

We have some people who were Christians growing up and left the faith for quite some time but have now come back, and we've got some seasoned believers in there that have just never really, and I say this with utmost respect, have never really gone beyond the sort of coloring sheet and Sunday school type answers to questions.

And so when we're dealing with a book like Hebrews, when we read something in Romans 5, 6, 7, and Paul is building an argument, what do we do with some of those questions? And I take that warning about teaching very seriously.

I don't think it's saying that I have to have all the answers and be right all the time, but I should have a double gravity if I'm going to open a Bible and tell people this is what God's word means.

And so I take very seriously getting these questions right, and there is a legitimate fear and trembling every week when I prepare for that study as I'm holding and reading through the sacred scriptures that God's given us and wanting to get it right.

I'm also pursuing ordination at some point, and I think that if you're going to go through that, you don't have to be theologically perfect and doctrinally, all those kinds of things, but you need to at least have a habit of seeking God's word, bouncing it off of believers who disagree with you, and coming to some sort of subtle conclusion that you can confidently say, let's say it, the Lord.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, you have come today with the questions that you have prepared, and you were gracious enough to at least let me have a pre-glimpse, so for the sake of the listener, I'm not answering completely off the cuff, but I didn't write any prepared response, because I did want to, in a sense, treat this the same way I would if I were in my office, and someone like yourself came into my office and sat down and said, I have questions, so that's sort of the way I'm coming at this, or if I were teaching a class and somebody from the class asked, I didn't want it to just sound canned or me reading out of a commentary or something, though I may at times cite, because I know what you're going to ask, I may at times cite a couple of the confessions to help clarify what historically Christians who affirm the doctrines that I would have taught, but like I said, this is not a canned response, so go ahead with, do you want to just give me all three, you have three, how many do you have? Yeah, yeah, so there were three I sent over, and these are not, again, I'm not coming at these cold.

I've spent tons of time thinking about them, praying about them, reading on them, and attempting to give a good answer to the people that I teach.

Very often, someone will say, hey, I'm reading this verse, this would seem to either, because they've heard about some things to do with Calvinism, and they'll say, hey, I've heard this verse, it seems like this would support or refute this point in Reformed theology, does it? And oftentimes, what I'll do is simply give both sides of the issue, and I know that sounds kind of wishy-washy-squishy, but I also don't want to spoon-feed my group members' answers.

I want to give them what the Word of God says, and then, in some cases, allow them to make their own call.

So, these are questions that- And just so you know, not to interrupt you, but I do that even sometimes in my sermons.

Just a few weeks ago, I was preaching in Genesis 6, and I said at the beginning, I said, I don't know that I understand this completely, and this is a difficult section, so here are the three major views that are held within Christian circles.

I don't know if you're familiar with the beginning of Genesis 6, it's the question of the sons of God and daughters of men, the Nephilim, all that.

I said, this is a difficult passage.

I almost entitled the sermon, This is Hard.

And so, I do think there are times where you have to allow the people of God to be led by the Spirit of God, and not necessarily tell them that you know everything.

So, yeah, I think there's wisdom in that.

Sure.

So, I'll just read these out, and some of them are direct questions that have been actually asked to me in this format, and some of them I've sort of taken, let's call it disorganized seventh grade rambling and condensed it to something intelligible.

So, the first question is, why would God hold men to account for choices they made when Scripture says they were incapable of choosing otherwise? Do you want me to read the other two, or do you want to just camp out on that one for a minute? Read all three of them, and we'll go back and we'll deal with them one at a time.

Okay.

Second question is, God certainly prevents certain individuals from responding positively to Him.

Examples would be Caiaphas, Pilate, Judas.

In Pilate's case, he literally had God standing in front of him, and still did not choose the right thing.

So, God prevents certain individuals from responding positively to Him in order to accomplish His purposes.

But is this normative? In other words, does God do this for all who will eventually reject Him, or does He do it for specific people to accomplish what He wanted to accomplish in that specific case? That's a really good—I mean, they're all good questions, but that one is very thoughtful, and I look forward to answering that one.

But go ahead to the third one.

Sure.

Number three is sort of related, because it feeds out of that one.

So then, if it is normative, if that is what God does, that God does prevent individuals from responding positively to Him, then it follows, has God actively prevented all those who ultimately reject Him from turning to Him? So those are the three.

Okay.

Well, let's go back up to the first one, because really it sets the stage, and hopefully it will create some categories for us to talk in that will help with the other two.

So ask the first question again, just to make sure I'm— Sure.

Why would God hold men to account for choices that they made when Scripture says that they were incapable of choosing otherwise? When we talk about incapable of choosing otherwise, and I know that's just how the question's worded, but the heart of the question is whether or not we legitimately make choices, or whether all of our choices are determined.

And so I want to take a step back for a moment and talk about the subject of determination, because when we think about determination, whether you're coming from a Calvinistic perspective, or you're coming from an Arminian perspective, or somewhere in between, you know, the traditionalists say they're neither Calvinist nor Arminian, wherever you land, you have to deal with what's typically referred to as perfect foreknowledge, and leaving out the decree of God for a moment, and I know that's a dangerous thing to do, but as a Calvinist, I believe in the eternal decree of God, whereby all things are brought to pass.

But even if you leave out the eternal decree of God, you have to assume, or not assume, you have to believe that God knows everything that will happen for certain, because the Bible is very clear, he couldn't make prophecy if he did not have the ability to be certain that Darius was going to be used of God, that Cyrus was going to be used of God, that these things were going to happen, that 700 years before Jesus would come, we know he's going to be born of a virgin, born in a manger, or born in Bethlehem, rather, these are things that are certain, because God knows for certain, therefore, if God knows for certain that tomorrow, that I'm going to say something stupid, and I'm sure I will, and I'm sure he knows, if God knows for certain, then the question becomes, is it possible that I won't say that thing? And if the answer is, God knows for certain, therefore, it's not possible that I'm not going to say that thing, then that thing is absolutely determined, and from God's perspective, there is no way in which I won't say that thing.

But from my perspective, I am moving through life, making choices, and I'll be the one who ultimately chooses to say that stupid thing.

And so, I think, and I know that may be making it too simple, but if God knows for certain what is going to happen, is it possible that it will not happen? And is it not, in that sense, absolutely determined? Whether it comes by decree, or whether it comes simply by him knowing for sure, could it possibly be different? And if we all come to the conclusion that if God knows for certain, then it cannot be different, then we all have arrived, essentially, at the same place regarding determination.

What God knows will be, will absolutely be, however it be.

So I think that, first of all, just admitting that God knows for certain helps us to arrive at least at a consensus on determination.

The only people who would say that this is not true are the opentheists, who would say God doesn't know.

And I think that this is honestly the danger of consistent Arminianism, is that consistent.

I've heard Arminians say, well, certainly the number of the elect is not fixed.

And I say, but wait, wait a minute, even from your perspective, how can you say the number of the elect is not fixed, even if the elect is simply based on God looking down the corridors of time and choosing based upon people who will believe? The number is still fixed, at least in the mind of God.

And I'm sure you've heard the analogy of the two signs in heaven.

Have you ever heard that analogy? Perhaps not by that name.

Where the person going into heaven sees a sign that says, whosoever will believe may come.

And when he walks through the gates of heaven and turns around on the back of the same sign, it says, chosen before the foundation of the world.

That's an interesting analogy.

And so from the perspective of going in, it's a perspective of choice.

But from the perspective of God, who knows all things, the perspective is that it's determined because he knows it for certain.

And so I think when we deal with the question of determination, we have to remember, we have to speak from perspective.

From my perspective, my day is not determined.

I could get up and I could have my conversation with Matthew Henson, or I could have called you this morning and blown off the whole thing and went and had pizza for lunch or something.

We can still do that.

So from my perspective, things are not determined.

But from God's perspective, he had no doubt that last week GameStop was going to explode.

And you further say, and he had a purpose in it doing so.

We may not know what it is, but he had a purpose in it doing so.

Yes.

And that's the second part.

Where we get to the subject of decree is if God has determined that something will be versus something will not.

Because God could ensure that I didn't say that stupid thing.

If I wanted to say that stupid thing and God had a purpose for me not saying it, God could hold my tongue, God could change my heart, God could redirect my steps, God could put a different person in my path.

God could make my truck not start to where I couldn't go where I was going to go and say that stupid thing.

Yeah.

So I think that you get into the question of micromanagement, then how much is God interacting? And the Calvinist, I think, when we talk about providence, God is always acting to bring about his will.

God is always acting to provide his perfect purpose to be done in our lives.

And that's what we call the decree.

God has decreed that this will happen.

But we also have to remember, this doesn't mean that I'm not making real choices from a real heart and a real desire.

I want to read.

I mentioned I was going to read the confession.

I have pulled up on my computer.

I have the Westminster Confession.

I have the Savoy Declaration and I have the London Baptist Confession.

And being that I am.

And the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

No, I don't have that.

Not on this program.

No, no.

But being as I lean more towards the Baptist side, I want to read simply this.

It says this is under Chapter 9 of Free Will.

It says, God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced nor by any necessary or necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.

Man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to will to do good.

That which was good and well pleasing to God, but yet was unstable.

And so he might fall from it.

Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to do any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

This is what we call total depravity.

As a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin is not able to do by his own strength, or he's not able to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.

When God converts a sinner and translates him into a state of grace, he freeth him from the natural bondage under sin and by grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.

Yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.

The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.

Now, the reason why I read the whole chapter was because I want to focus on that last point.

We talk about going to heaven.

In heaven, we will not have a desire for sin anymore, but we will be more free than we've ever been.

And so that that sometimes confronts my own understanding of how, how, how can I be more free and yet unable to sin? And I don't know how that's going to work, but that is the promise that when I think Paul gives us a little glimpse of it in Romans seven, you know, where he's back and forth.

I want to do the right thing, but I keep not doing the right thing.

And I know that I've got God's spirit.

And yet, you know, and I think he's got this tension, this pain inside of him wanting to be at that final point.

You see a little more in First Corinthians 15 as well, where he's really wanting to get there, but he's not quite there.

Sure, sure.

So but when we look at the confession, just going back, it mentions essentially that we have the ability to make choices.

And so Calvinists do not deny that men make choices, that those choices are legitimate choices from our perspective.

And the problem that we have is that we choose according to our nature, which is corrupt by sin.

And therefore, we are unable to choose that which is spiritually good for us until such time as God opens our heart to do so or gives us the ability to do so.

So getting back to the question, and again, would you would you word it one more time for me? I just want to make sure we've kind of covered it.

Yeah, why would, and then I've got a bit of a, I guess I'd say my own response to your response, is the question is why would God hold men to account for choices they make when, or they made when Scripture says they were incapable of choosing otherwise? And I'm saying from our perspective, we do have the ability to choose otherwise.

But from God's perspective, it's determined.

But we don't have his perspective.

Therefore, we can say from our perspective that we had the choice to choose otherwise.

But what would be your response to that? So I think that's an extremely consistent and well-articulated position.

I guess that I don't even know if it's worth calling a pushback.

The question I would have building on that would be that these themes of justice and judgment are all throughout Scripture, especially in the prophets and the Psalms.

And you have this overwhelming theme that, well, even at the end of Deuteronomy, you have the two groups of priests and they say, if you do this, this, this and this, then you will be blessed and here are the blessings you will get.

And if you do this, this, this and this, you'll be cursed.

It's actually a different group of priests.

You'll be cursed and here are the curses you will have, Israel.

And so it's not that the point there isn't that there's a presumption of agency because you haven't denied that.

The point is that there is a judgment based upon the activities of men and what we choose to do.

And if that is the case, then it seems to me that God's judgment would have to depend upon what God's provision is.

And I've got two provision, meaning what has he enabled us to do? And that's what he will judge us on.

And two sort of supporting bits for that.

One is in Romans two, where Paul sets out this category of Gentiles who are somehow keeping the law.

And he then talks about the Jews and he says, is the law really an advantage to you? Because there's even Gentiles that keep the law.

And he seems to say that the law is not a bad thing, but because of it, you're judged under it.

And so your judgment, because you have the law, will be harsher because you have the oracles of God.

Whereas these Gentiles were keeping the law and they didn't even have it.

So there seems to be a dual standard of judgment there.

And another one, and this may be a misreading of the parable, I'm happy to be corrected by you or anybody if it is.

When you have something like the parable of the talents, you have Jesus saying there was a man, he had five talents.

You know, the master went away.

He when the master came back, the man said, look, I've got five talents here.

I've made five more.

And he says, well done, good and faithful servant.

Enter into the joy of your master.

Then he goes to the guy he gave two talents to.

And in one gospel telling, it's the exact same phrasing.

It's well done.

Sorry, the man who was given to produces two more.

So both men double their talents based upon what they were given.

And God, well, yeah, the master in the parable praises the second servant and says the exact same wording.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Enter into the joy of your master.

Curiously, it's just sort of a side note.

I think there's one gospel account of that where he does not say well done, good and faithful servant.

He just says something like, yeah, you did all right.

You know, so that's maybe that maybe that messes up my point.

But then the final one who was given one talent and does nothing with it.

He condemns him harshly and says, you know, throw him out of the kingdom.

He's not he is a wicked and lazy and slothful servant and all that.

But the the the important point for me is that no matter what God gives you, that is what God will hold you to account for.

And I don't necessarily see it certainly with talents, not as they're used in that parable, but as our giftings, our abilities and all that.

I don't see a split between that and soteriology.

It seems to me that God will hold men to account for the light that they've been shown.

I mean, Romans one tells us that everyone has at least some revelation of God, general revelation, and God will hold them to account for that.

But then there's also special revelation and God will hold them to a different account for that.

So circling all the way back, why would God hold men to account for choices they made when scripture says they were incapable of choosing otherwise? From my perspective, I don't know that he necessarily could do that justly.

And that would be my pushback, I guess.

OK, well, I kind of feel like we're on almost into two different subjects and maybe I went into a different category when I talked about determination, because what you're referring to typically is what I have in the past referred to as the amount of light is given ultimately refers to the amount of judgment.

And therefore, the more you know, the more you're responsible for.

You've already mentioned Romans one, so I don't have to necessarily articulate it.

But I do for the listener who doesn't know, the Bible says that all men know that God exists by nature, that he has revealed himself to the point in nature that his invisible attributes and his eternal power are clearly perceived and therefore they are unapologetus, they are without defense.

No man can stand before God and say, I didn't know you were there and I didn't know I was responsible to you.

Yep, correct.

So in that regard, I don't think, and I've said this before, I don't think that the the native tribesman who is in the, you know, who's never heard of the Bible, I don't think he's condemned because he doesn't believe in Jesus.

I think he's condemned because he's a sinner.

And that's a key point that, because some people get upset with me when I say he's not believed because he doesn't, he doesn't, he's not condemned because he doesn't believe in Jesus.

He's just not saved because salvation is only through Christ.

But his condemnation is because he knows himself to be a sinner.

And we know that from Romans 2, the very passage you cited, because it says that he had the law of God written in his heart.

Now, I don't personally believe that that means he knew everything about the law.

I don't think he understood sacrificing and things like that.

I believe there's a transcendental law of God, which includes things like murder, theft, lying, these things which are fairly standard among all men, that these are bad.

And I think that all men who violate these know in their heart that they are condemned.

And apart from the light of the gospel, they cannot be saved.

Now, some people believe that there is another way of salvation for people who've never heard the gospel.

I don't believe that.

I don't think you do.

But there are some who try to articulate, well, there's another way of salvation.

Obviously, I would not affirm that.

I would reject that as well.

And just to your random islander, tribesman person situation.

There are too many instances that missionaries have brought back and told us that this tribe had never been visited.

And yet, you know, 10 men all at once woke up with the same dream and said that they had seen they had seen Jesus and or they had seen a man, you know, and they're describing this man and what he had done and what he had said in the dream and and how they were going to start living differently as a result.

So God absolutely can reach in and do those kinds of things.

I would never want to I would never want to chase the sovereignty of God out of this conversation.

But I think that that just because a specific missionary does not come with the written word of God, which I hold in the highest of regards and begin proclaiming it, I think God is still big enough to save those people without that happening if he wants to.

OK, we have a we have a missionary visiting our church this Sunday, actually.

Any listener who's interested wants to join us, it's not our case, shameless plug.

Yeah.

And when he went, he has brought the gospel to the Dao tribe of Indonesia, which had never seen a white man before he came.

And yet when he came, he was welcomed because one of the elders in the tribe had had a dream that there would be this this different looking person, this white person who would come and share a message with them that would change their life.

And so they had they were ready to receive this strange looking person who brought this important message.

So, yeah, I mean, and that his name is Scott Phillips.

His story is amazing and the things that God has done through him.

So, yes, obviously, and I know we sort of took a tangent there, but that's OK.

But getting back to the to the question of determination.

So when you talk about the talents and you talk about the passages that you cited, I'm trying to connect in my mind how that would affect determination and a person not being able to do otherwise.

So kind of clarify it for me, if you would.

Yeah.

So so.

In the parable, Christ seems to be saying that those who are given or rather men are held to account for what they are given.

And so the circumstances that God places us in are the circumstances that God will judge us upon seems to be the the the moral there.

I would agree with that as far as it stands so far.

Yeah.

So it seems to me that and you can you can say that you wouldn't believe this would be a good conclusion that the person who these are three people who have received varying amounts of light and so varying amounts of provision that that because it says in the parable they were given the talents.

They didn't just go conjure them.

They didn't faith them up in their hearts.

They didn't go whatever.

And so this is God giving and God holds men to account for the specific gift that he has given them, OK, even to the one he gives very, very little.

So in this case, this would be in the if you continue the parable, this would be a Romans one type of person who did not have special revelation, who only had general revelation and still did nothing with it.

Then judgment is pronounced upon that person.

OK, yeah.

And so if God is going to give and this is the I guess this is the heart of the matter and you can pick the language apart here and I'm happy, happy to have you do it.

If God is going to give someone a heart that that in a set of circumstances in which it is impossible for them to repent.

Then why would God hold them to account for that, in my mind, that would be like that parable.

He gives zero talents to a guy.

He comes back and says, why don't you have 10 and then he beats him up for it.

That seems inconsistent.

OK, all right.

Well, that's a very good question.

And now I'm understanding the connection.

So I appreciate you clarifying that for me.

Not as clear as it was in my head, but isn't that always the case? No, and I think this is going to lead us into the second question because the second question deals with the question of.

You want me to read it out? Yeah, read that second question again, because.

Yeah, second question says God certainly prevents certain individuals from responding positively to him.

Example, Caiaphas, Pilate and Judas, though there are certainly others, in order to accomplish his purposes.

But is this normative, meaning, is this the case for all men? OK, so and the reason why I'm connecting those two is because the issue that we're dealing with now is if a man can't come, why is he responsible for not coming? Basically, yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Yeah.

And so this is where the distinction between Arminianism, Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism becomes very important.

And I actually wish I could bring in a, I have a slide that I made years ago and I still use it to this day when I'm teaching because Tom Askell actually helped me understand this.

And I took what he taught and I put it into a infographic.

And basically what it shows is in Arminianism, it says man is responsible.

Therefore, he must be able.

Hyper-Calvinism says man is not able, therefore he must not be responsible.

But Biblical, and I would say Calvinistic, but Biblical, the middle ground is that man is responsible but not able.

And that sounds like God is being unjust, but it is not unjust because we are unable because of the actions of our federal head, who is Adam.

Adam's sin has put us in a state of inability.

So this is why Romans 5 says, even though men from Adam to Moses sinned, they didn't sin the same way Adam did because they didn't have a law to break.

But they sinned after the likeness of their father.

Essentially, they sinned in Adam because their death, this is why, and I know this goes kind of sideways, but this is why babies die.

Babies don't die because they're sinners.

Babies die because they're in Adam, because we are the recipients of the actions of our federal head.

I'm actually teaching through R.C.

Sproul's book, Everyone's a Theologian, and he has a wonderful explanation of federal headship.

He said that when we think of federal headship, we get upset because we didn't vote for Adam.

We vote for our federal heads in our United States government.

We vote for a president.

We vote for whoever, and if Joe Biden decides to go to war and the Congress affirms it, we're going to war because our representative, we are at war.

Whether or not we chose to go or not, we have a federal head that decides that for us, and somebody says, well, I didn't vote for Adam.

Yes, but God appointed a perfect representative, someone who would truly represent all of us so that none of us could say that if we were in Adam's position, we would have done different.

Now, one thing, very good description of federal headship.

One question I would have for you, are we accountable for Joe Biden's sin then? I think we will suffer the consequences if Joe Biden goes to war.

If Joe Biden sends a nuclear bomb to Russia or wherever and Russia responds, then we will reap the consequences of his decision.

Maybe I'm pushing the analogy too far, but you would say at judgment time, God would not say that, yeah, his decision to fire a nuke at Russia.

That's on you, Keith, regardless of how you voted.

Again, I think it breaks down the analogy a little bit.

Adam was functioning as our representative, and when he sinned, he brought us all into a state of sin, whereby we are now, according to how I understand the scripture, and this is the Calvinist interpretation, of course, could be challenged, but we are now in a state of unwillingness.

This is where I think, this is where I had the issue, I was late in Flowers discusses the subject of, if you can't do it, then you're not responsible, and I say, but wait a minute, it's not so much a can't, it's a won't.

We do not want to come because our sin nature, the desires of our heart, like the Bible says, the leopard can't change his spots, the Ethiopian can't change his skin, neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.

We desire that which is opposed to God, and therefore, we're responsible because it's our desires, but the only way to overcome that would be God changing our heart.

It is also a can't, though.

I mean, earlier in the chapter of Romans 8, those who, according to the flesh, cannot do what's pleasing to God, and that's not a could but won't, that's a lack of physical capability, and I think you also, I haven't studied the language on it, but I'm pretty sure you probably have a similar construction in like John 6.

Well, yeah, and I make this argument in John 6.

John 6 doesn't say no one may come to me, it says no one can come to me.

There is an inability, but as R.C.

Sproul has clearly articulated in his teaching on Romans 6, that it is not a physical inability or even an intellectual inability, it's a moral inability.

Right.

The moral desire of the heart is that we can't want to.

Yeah, I understand that.

It's like the child who puts his hand over his eyes and says, I can't see, I can't see, or he puts his fingers in his ears and says, I can't hear.

It's a willful unwillingness.

But perhaps to attack the analogy a little bit, I don't want to do that.

That's what we're doing.

Yeah, the child who covers their ears and says, I can't hear you is incapable of hearing, but they could be capable in that analogy, they could be capable of hearing by simply dropping their hands.

Sure.

But you're saying that something deeper, the heart level is ensuring that those hands stay pinned against the ears.

That's right.

That's right.

In the same way that I can't will myself to change the color of my skin, I can't will myself to change the nature of my heart.

So let's segue right into some of the examples there.

And let me grant something and then let me ask something.

I certainly grant that, I mean, probably the most famous example in all of scripture is Pharaoh himself, who, if he had been smart, would have relented earlier when the plagues kept raining down.

I mean, just on a tactical decision, strategic decision, like it's a couple hundred slaves or whatever, you know, thousands.

When the river turns to blood, you've lost.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, what I find fascinating, and not to go too far into this, but is that his court magicians were able to hang for a little bit, and then God completely ruined them.

As a former magician, I don't know if you know that, but I was a professional magician when I was a young man.

And as a former magician, I'm somewhat impressed by those guys.

On maybe just a professional level, I'm like, way to go, guys.

You hung in there.

You hung with God for two rounds.

But I do think that they were, some people think they had demonic powers.

I don't know if they had demonic powers or just really, really good, you know, ability to trick people.

But I do, as a former magician, I've often thought about that passage from a much different perspective than other people.

So, obviously, Pharaoh, if he was smart, would have relented.

But scripture says not implicitly, not suggest, but actively says, no, God got a grip on his heart and hardened it.

And the reason was because he wanted to destroy the superpower that was Egypt.

And he wanted to glorify himself by knocking that empire over.

And then, so obviously, that is a thing.

Pilate stood in front of God himself.

And God himself told Pilate, you would have no ability to rule if God hadn't given it to you.

And Pilate straight up asks him, what is truth? And so he has God face to face.

This is a Moses and burning bush kind of situation.

He can have full access to all of it.

And he just doesn't.

Because if he did, you know, there's a story about Pilate's wife even coming to him and saying, don't you hurt that man.

I've had a dream or something like that.

And yet Pilate hands him over to be crucified.

And it's obvious to me why, because if he didn't, then Christ wouldn't have accomplished what he came on earth to do.

And that would be catastrophic for us.

And then, of course, Judas fits into that story as well.

So the admission I'll make, it's not really an admission, it's just saying what scripture says, is that these men were, the language is hard, nudged, pushed, directed in some way influenced by God to make what we would say was a sinful choice in the execution of an innocent man in Pilate's case.

But God had a purpose in it.

So then the question is, at the end, is this normative? Meaning every time that everyone does something sinful, is God sitting there just, and I'm making a bit of a caricature of it, is God sitting there poking them and saying, do a bad thing, do a bad thing, do it because I've got a purpose, but do a bad thing.

Keith, say the stupid thing, because I have a purpose in it.

And, you know, how would you respond to that kind of question? Because again, I know it's a bit of a silly way of phrasing it, but it's what I got.

No, no, I think it's a very, it's a legitimate question, and certainly it's a heartfelt question.

I want to categorize again, I know if it is, as R.C.

said, if it's a woman's right to choose, or no, it's a woman's right to change her mind, it's the theologian's right to make categories.

There you go, that's right.

You know, so we have to categorize, and this is where I took issues again with Dr.

Flowers and what he has said, is he refuses to distinguish between total depravity, which is man's unwillingness to come, his natural inability, which is a moral unwillingness.

His addictions to deadness, you would say.

Yeah, his deadness and sin.

He refuses to distinguish between that and what we would call judicial hardening.

And judicial hardening would be where God has, in one sense, removed whatever grace there is in an unbeliever, which would make him not antagonistic toward the Gospel in that sense, or toward whatever the situation is, and this is where we see the term hardened.

God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and I have described this in several of my lectures.

When God hardens a heart, it is not the introduction of fresh evil, because the Bible tells us that the heart of man is wicked from his youth.

The Bible tells us that the heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? And so God does not have to introduce fresh evil, but God, I do believe, is actively suppressing our evil desires, and therefore, to harden the heart is to, in that sense, to release, as it says in Romans 1, give them over to a depraved mind.

They already have the depraved mind, but giving them over to it is not an active introduction, but rather a removal of something.

And the way that I describe it in my class is, I say, if you take a ball of mud that's full of moisture, and you put it out in the sun, the sun is going to draw the moisture out of that ball, and eventually it's going to become a hard rock, because the absence of something, not the introduction of something.

And so if I could say back to you, essentially, let's pretend a week before Jesus' crucifixion, you know, Palm Sunday, there was a bad person in Jerusalem who committed some sort of crime, and Pilate was the one who had to decide what was going to happen to this person.

And let's say he ruled justly, and the only metric we have for justice is God's justice.

So let's say that this man either committed the crime or didn't commit the crime, but Pilate, who is a fallen man, who does not have God's Holy Spirit, we don't think, was yet somehow able to render a verdict that was consistent with God's justice.

From your perspective, that would be sort of a Romans 1, a common grace kind of thing that God granted because he had a purpose in whatever that trial was.

But then, when Jesus is standing in front of him in order to accomplish what he wants to do, God removes his hand from, removes the provision of that common grace from Pilate for that purpose.

Is that accurate? I think so.

Trying to think if there's anywhere in that I would disagree.

I think what you said would be correct.

Some people don't like the term common grace.

There's a big issue.

No, I do.

I like common grace.

Some people don't like the term common grace.

But I think the basis of the point is that we are not as bad as we could be.

And even Pilate loved his mama.

Even Hitler petted his dog.

We're not as bad as we could be.

And the only reason why we're not is the grace of God.

In fact, there's a fairly common colloquialism that we all express at times, but by the grace of God, there go I.

And when do we say that? When we see somebody who's in a terrible situation, usually of their own making, right? When we see somebody who's a drug addict, we say, but by the grace of God, there go I.

We see somebody who's destroyed their life with adultery or sexual addiction or something else.

We say, but by the grace of God, I could be that man.

But God's grace has kept me from that.

And therefore, when we look at the passage in Romans, again, Romans 9, that famous, you know, Calvinists love it.

But where it says, whom he wills, he hardens.

It also says, whom he wills, he mercies.

And God mercies all men in one regard.

This is why instead of saying common grace, you could say common mercy.

God is not destroying all of us immediately because he's having mercy on us.

And part of the mercy that he gives us is the ability to live generally upright lives.

You know, the average person gets up, goes to work, does what he's supposed to do.

Yeah, even the atheist holds doors for people.

You know, and this is an act of common grace.

But at the end of the day, common grace fails to have the ability to save because common grace does not make us pleasing to God in the sense of it does not grant us faith.

Common grace does not provide us faith.

But it does provide us with what we would say is the ability to live a life that is not wholly corrupt.

And, you know, I think about the people before Noah's day.

The Bible says the only intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

God, that is the most chilling verse, I think, in the first, I don't know, maybe 12 chapters of Genesis.

I just, I honestly like, I like shrivel up a little away from my Bible when I read that because I'm thinking, what must that have been like? Yeah.

Well, here's, and I'm preaching through it right now.

Here's a thought that I've, I've had, and I'll admit it's not unique to me.

I think I read it in a commentary, but it struck me.

It said every intention and thought of the heart of the men before Noah's day were only evil continually.

And yet we are all going to be judged for the intense, intense and thoughts of our hearts, according to Jesus.

So what about our hearts? And so that, that, that just struck me as like, yeah, it's not just what I do, but it's my thoughts.

It's my desires that I'm going to be judged for.

And I know we've kind of departed a little bit, but.

No, it's okay.

But getting back to the question of, I do see a difference between God actively hardening a heart and a person who is behaving according to their nature and a person who's, you know, Moses and Pharaoh, the distinction was God hardened Pharaoh and he will harden whom he chooses.

And he is, he is God.

So he has the right to do that.

He can do with the clay what he chooses.

And we might think that's unfair, but we can't say it's inaccurate.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

Remember, this is a two-part episode, which will continue tomorrow.

So please be sure to tune in and hear how we continue this conversation, answering questions from a non-Calvinist.

Thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Boskey and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you.

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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

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May God be with you.