The 'Read My Book' Debate on BAM

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom

We're going to be talking about the relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom. As has just been mentioned, this has been a centuries-old debate. It is a debate that many people want to have specific answers to.

They want to have clarity on this very important subject. In studio with me today, James White. He's the author of a book called, Potter's Freedom, and George Bryson, the author of a brand new book. In fact, I've got the first copies in my hand.

It's called, The Dark Side of Calvinism. Now, I'm a little bit at a disadvantage, George, in that I have not yet had an opportunity to read your book, but I'm very familiar with your work and glad to have you with us.

James, let's start with you. You write with respect to unconditional election. God elects a specific people unto himself without reference to anything they do. This means the basis of God's choice of the elect is solely within himself, his grace, his mercy, his will.

It is not man's actions, works, or even foreseen faith that decrees or draws God's choice. God's election is unconditional and final. Does that mean, in essence, that there are perhaps, arguably, billions of people that are doomed before the womb?

Well, what it means is that God's grace is free, and that that grace cannot be demanded by anyone, that it has to come from God's freedom. And that means there are individuals who, because they love their sin and continue in their sin, will experience the justice of God, but that he, for his own purposes, and it's not, as I mentioned in that quote, anything in me, the reason that I embrace Christ and a person across the street does not, is not found because I'm smarter, more spiritual, that I'm better in any way that they are.

Instead, just as Paul says in Romans chapter 9, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, so that God's calling and election might stand for certain, one was chosen and one was not.

And so really the issue is God demonstrates his love, mercy, and grace with the elect, and he demonstrates his justice. And that's something that I hope comes up a good bit today, because it's not something we hear much in the evangelical church today, but God makes it a priority to demonstrate his justice, and he does so with Pharaoh, with Pharaoh's army.

I mean, we could go through history and come up with many, many examples where he has justly brought his wrath upon those individuals who loved their sin, reveled in their sin, despite the fact they were surrounded by God's creation, continued to suppress that knowledge, as Paul says in Romans chapter 1, and as such, he demonstrates his justice before in his judgment of them.

Now when you say before the womb, I think it's important to point out that we were in Adam before the womb. This is part and parcel of what's called federal theology, the fact that we fell in Adam. And so when we talk about before the womb, we need to be careful we differentiate between our experience of time and God's eternality.

Yes, before the womb, God obviously, not only for the elect, says that they are already seated in the heavenly places, Ephesians chapter 2, but we experience salvation in time in the same way an individual prior to their birth does God know everything they're going to do?

I would argue that he does, and in fact, hopefully we'll discuss upon what basis he knows what they're going to do. What is the basis of God's exhaustive knowledge of the future? Because everyone involved in this debate believes God has exhaustive knowledge of the future.

How does God know that? And how is that related to his justice? So...

But there will be, then, in your view, billions of people that never have an opportunity to respond to the gospel. They are incapable and able to respond to the gospel. Is that the position? The position is that they.

Do not desire God. They do not have any desire to respond to any message.

Whatsoever. So they could respond, but they just.

Do not deserve it. No, no, no, no. They themselves, because...

What did Jesus say? So the point is, they can't respond.

They cannot respond because of their own sin. He who commits sin is the slave of sin, Jesus himself said. When the people were offended, when Jesus said, if you continue my word, then you're my disciples, you know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

They said, we are free. That concept of freedom is part and parcel of what I believe the Bible is denying. When Jesus says, no one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up the last day.

The Bible emphasizes God's ability and man's inability because of his sin and.

His fallen, corrupt nature. So do you agree with what John Calvin wrote when he said, all are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation, and accordingly, as each has been created for one or another of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.

You agree with that point of view? And now you have people who, like R .C. Sproul, and George, let me direct this to you, would say that it's one thing to say that God elects some for salvation. It is quite another to say that he elects some for reprobation.

In fact, in your book, and I had an opportunity to read this quote, and you'll have to provide the source, evidently what R .C. Sproul would say to what James White has just agreed to on the basis of Calvin's quote, that this is hyper-Calvinism with unorthodox, anti, or even.

Sub-Calvinism perspective in mind. Well, I would... I don't want to speak for James, because he does a great job for himself, but I would say R .C. Sproul really believes exactly what James White believes, and what most mainstream Calvinists believe.

What he's trying to accomplish, I think, is impossible. He's trying to say, on one hand, that God can elect people to salvation without electing them to damnation. Calvin himself said that that's the result of being a washy moderator, or a very bad interpreter.

Calvin said you can't have one without the other,.

If you understand unconditional election. Okay, but what I'm trying to get at here real quickly is Sproul claims, I'm reading from your book, page thirty-four, Sproul claims, you say, that only a hyper-Calvinist could say such a thing.

He equates hyper-Calvinism with unorthodox, anti, or even sub-Calvinism. In other words, it's one thing to say that God elects for salvation. However, to add the other part to the equation, that he also elects to reprobation, is, in fact, it seems in context, that's what you're saying Sproul is saying, that is hyper-Calvinism, as opposed to hypo-Calvinism.

What he gives you on one hand, he takes away with the other. The truth is, again, I've been reading Sproul for years, not James White as long, but I cannot tell the difference between the position that Sproul takes.

I think James White is just a little more willing to lay it out on the table. Sproul believes exactly the same thing.

Calvin took an even harder position. But then what's this quote? I don't understand this quote in your book.

He's on one hand trying to deny what he also affirms. That's the problem with Calvinism, is people want to back off from what they have committed themselves to. Once you commit yourself to the doctrine of unconditional election, everything else falls into place.

Now, there is something called hyper-Calvinism. R .C. Sproul is not a hyper-Calvinist, nor is James White. James White is not a hyper-Calvinist. What James White is referring to here is mainstream Calvinism.

It is unfortunate that sometimes when you read some of what some mainstream Calvinists say, it sounds like they're denying what James White says. I hate to sound like I'm defending James White, but James White is a mainstream, what I would call a hypo-Calvinist.

It is what most Calvinists are, including R .C. Sproul, including John Piper. They may disagree on other issues, but on the issue of the doctrine of election and reprobation, they're in exactly the same camp.

Now, you are not an Arminian. A lot of people say, Lorraine Bettner, for example, says there are only two possible choices. You're either a Calvinist or you're an Arminian. You would say that's not correct.

No, it's not correct at all. I know what an Arminian believes. And on all of the distinctives of Arminianism, I disagree with them. I don't disagree with them on all issues. I agree with Calvinists on a lot of issues.

In fact, I could probably find areas, I know I could find areas with James White. I believe in the absolute security of everyone who's been justified in Jesus Christ. So there are areas in which I would agree with James White.

I believe firmly in the doctrine of the Trinity. There are many issues in which Calvinists and non-Calvinists agree, and I agree with Arminians on lots of issues. I sympathize with them on lots of issues, but when it comes to their distinctives, the things that makes an Arminian an Arminian that differentiates between an Arminian and other mainstream evangelicals, I am not.

But, of course, it's easy to paint with a very broad brush and just simply say, if you're not one, you're the other. But most mainstream evangelicals of the Baptist variety, James White is a Reformed Baptist, but of the most mainstream Baptists are neither Calvinist nor Arminian.

They're something very different.

The Dark Side of Calvinism as Theistic Fatalism

Now, your book is called The Dark Side of Calvinism. Define for us what you believe the dark side of Calvinism is. Well, the dark side of Calvinism is.

The side that people don't see right away. It's the side everyone should understand that Calvin himself didn't shy away from. And, by the way, I make this point in the book. I don't think Calvin would be embarrassed or at all offended by a book called The Dark Side of Calvinism.

He called the dark side a dreadful decree. Calvin understood the implications of what he was saying, and he knew it was terrible. He used the word that's at least translated horrible, as well as dreadful, to describe his position.

But it's basically what I call theistic fatalism. Calvinism, as I see it, translates to theistic fatalism. A theist believes in a personal God. A fatalist believes the future is fixed, especially the destiny of individuals.

So if you put the two together, Calvinism is theistic fatalism. I object to Calvinism for a number of reasons, but primarily because it impugns the very character of God. I agree with my Calvinist brothers and sisters when they argue that God is just, and he can do as he pleases, and the worst a man will ever get is justice.

That's the truth. The worst any man will ever get is justice. What I have a problem with is the picture painted by Calvinists, which I don't think is scriptural, and doesn't match the justice we understand as it comes from scripture.

So the God who is just lets us know what he means by justice.

So you call this a caste system as opposed to a class system.

And it is a caste system. It's a caste system because from all eternity to all eternity you are either saved or you're damned. From all eternity, God chooses to damn people unconditionally or to save them unconditionally.

Now the Calvinist can say, well, God can condemn you based on your sin, but Calvin himself pointed out, why does a man sin? Why did Adam sin? Calvin made it very clear. Adam sinned because God decreed.

The ultimate reason, the ultimate cause of a man's sin is God's decree. Therefore, sin is not the root of man's problem. It's the fruit of man's problem. Man's real problem, according to Calvinism, is that God decreed that he would be a sinner.

And he is a sinner because God decreed so. In a secondary sense, Calvinists say, God judges you because you're a sinner and you deserve to be judged. But in a primary sense, Calvinists argue that everyone is what, in fact, Calvinism teaches that James White has to believe in Calvinism, as I have to disagree with it, because we're all decreed.

And that you're never going to change. And I can't. Because you can't.

And if I think Calvinism is wrong, it's because ultimately and finally, behind the scenes, God has decreed that I would. Now that sounds absurd to say that, and you won't get a Calvinist to agree with me formally, but in fact there are many, many examples of Calvinists.

Admitting that. James, quickly, is God the author of evil in the Calvinist.

System of things? No, with all due respect, George, the reason Calvinists won't say it is because that's not what they believe. Obviously, for me, this issue needs to be found not in John Calvin, but in the text of Scripture.

And when we address the issue of evil, the Bible tells us very clearly that God is sovereign over all things. The texts that we could present are far beyond even the amount of time that we have in regards to God's absolute sovereignty over all of human affairs, even to the point of naming Cyrus and what Cyrus is going to do in a political sense long before Cyrus is even born.

And the Bible tells us that there are numerous acts in Genesis chapter 50, Isaiah chapter 10, and Acts chapter 4 are passages I'm going to ask George to explain to me during the course of our discussion today.

Because in Genesis chapter 50, you know that Joseph, when his brothers come before him fearing he's now going to destroy them now that their father is dead, when talking about their sinful action, obviously I think we'd all agree that what Joseph's brothers did to him was sinful.

Throwing someone in a pit, convincing your father that he's dead, dipping his clothes in blood, selling him into slavery, these are evil things that his brothers are held accountable for. And yet Joseph's response to them is, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good.

The Hebrew is absolutely parallel. In one action, which was a sinful action, God is active, and he intended to do it because the rest of the verse says, to save many people alive today. God put Joseph in Egypt.

It wasn't just fortuitous. God didn't look down the corridors of time and see what was going to happen. It was God's purpose to put Joseph in Egypt to save many people alive. One sinful action, God's purpose good, their purpose evil.

They are judged properly. God is glorified for what he does. Compatibility is the only way to understand Genesis 50 and the other.

I want to get into this more, but we're coming to a station break. But quickly, then you're saying God is not the author of evil? The.

Reformed Confessions very clearly say that God uses secondary means to accomplish his work in this world, and it's those secondary means that intend for evil to exist out of their heart, and that's why they're judged for.

It. And we're going to explore that further on the other side of the break. Stay tuned, a lively debate with George Bryson, James White. We'll be back in a moment. And again in studio, George Bryson, James White.

George, back to you with the same question I asked earlier. The question that I asked James was, is God, according to Calvinism, the.

Author of evil? Now let me say, according to the creeds or the various statements and affirmations of Calvinism, or at least mainstream Calvinism, the kind of Calvinism that James White subscribes to, no.

According to the explanation, not the affirmation, but what they explain by what they mean, and according to what Calvin himself said, yes, they would never say he's the author of evil, but they would say he's.

The cause of evil. For example... Now explain that for simple people like ourselves that want to understand a distinction that oftentimes at least.

Appears to have no difference. Well, to me, I can't explain the difference because there is no difference. That's part of why I've written the book, is to help people through this linguistic jungle. When all is said and done, what Calvin teaches is that ultimately everything that happens is the result of a decree from God.

Nothing happens that God himself didn't primarily cause. They talk about secondary reasons, but the primary reason people do what they do is because God has decreed they do. Otherwise, man would be acting independent of God.

Wayne Grudem wrote a book in which he explains Calvinism and uses a very apt analogy. He says, who killed King Duncan? In the story representing God is Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the author. He's the author.

He wrote the script that decided who dies and who lives, who's responsible for the death. On the surface, from the audience perspective, it may appear that somebody else killed King Duncan, but from within the context of the play, if you really understand how the play works, the writer and the director, he decides who dies, who lives in that play.

In the real world, Calvinism teaches God decides who lives, who dies, and also decides who's raped and who isn't raped, who's murdered, who isn't murdered. We all know that God is sovereign.

How, though, George, in that kind of a system, is man genuinely responsible.

For his sin? The point of my book is that he isn't. Even the softest version of what's called compatibilism or hypo-Calvinism, the kind of Calvinism that most of us are familiar with, really defines freedom away.

Probably the man who does the best job that I can tell of anybody trying to explain the Calvinist view of freedom is John Feinberg. John Feinberg says we have to start by redefining freedom. What he does is define freedom away, so it becomes non-freedom.

It's like saying, I use this illustration, you get two people that are having trouble in their marriage, Sue and John. What you do is you see that Sue can't get along with John, so you move Sue out of the picture, bring Irene in, change her name to Sue.

Now they're happy, everybody's getting along, you solve the marriage. That's, in fact, what they've done. They have said that man isn't free by their explanation, but let's call what isn't freedom, freedom, and thereby making it compatible.

I would like to know, since I brought up Genesis 50 -20, how you would respond to it, George. Could you explain how, within a libertarian system where, I honestly don't know how you believe that God has, do you believe that God has exhausted knowledge of future events?

I do. Okay, but he does so, are you an open theist? Do you believe that he learns what man's going to do?

I'm not into open or processed theology, if that's what you mean.

Well, open theism is different than processed theology. Well, obviously he's not an open theist. Right, well, but I mean, I just debated John Sanders not that long ago, and he calls himself a consistent.

Arminian. Okay, but you know that George Bryson, you debated him before, is not an.

Open theist. But my question is, how does God have knowledge of the future? Does he come to possess that knowledge over time, or does he have that knowledge exhaustively before he creates? And if he does so, how could he, outside of a divine decree, and in light of that, how could God have designed to send Joseph into slavery in Egypt to preserve many people alive in a libertarian system?

I'd like to know how you do that. We don't want to pile.

Question on question. What we want to do is start with a basic understanding. I believe God knows everything because he's omniscient. This is his very nature, to know everything. He knows everything, actually knows everything, potential.

So the question about does God know the future is answered. If God is omniscient, he knows everything, everything that is and could be. Now, secondly, Calvinism argues that Calvinism knows everything because he causes everything.

God knows everything. God knows everything because he causes everything. And I'm saying there's a difference. God certainly causes things to happen, and everything that exists in the primary sense exists because God created it.

But God created Adam, but he didn't create sinful Adam. So God created everything in a primary sense, but in another sense, Adam is responsible for his own sin. God did not make.

Adam a sinner. Okay, now both of you got to help me a little bit, because we have to distill this for our audience in such a way that they don't get caught in the rhetoric here. We're dealing with the idea, if in fact God causes all things to happen, how is it that he is not the author of evil?

Well, he would be, and this is my.

Point, but this is a difference between my view, James White's view, and most mainstream evangelicals would differ with Calvinists on this important point. We believe that everything has a relationship to God, but not everything has the same kind of relationship.

You can relate, everything can be traced back to God in some sense, because he's the uncaused cause of everything. But some things happened after God created the world, and the world rebelled through Adam, the world rebelled through Satan, and it never became outside of God's sovereignty in that process.

But still, now things that happen are not related to God the same way, for example, when God did something good, which is the only kind of things he does, you can't relate something bad to him the same way you can something good.

Calvinism has blurred the distinction between good and evil by simply making God responsible in the same way for good and evil.

Was it a good thing for God to have Joseph sold into slavery? Well, first of all, remember we debated once, and.

I think those kind of questions are misleading. What I would say simply is that God uses everything that happens. Some things that happen he directly causes them to happen. Like this? Some things that happen, God sovereignly oversees.

How he works out all the details, nobody knows exactly, but does God sovereignly control everything in the universe?

Yes. But George, it says to preserve many people alive. It was God's purpose to preserve the children of Israel alive in Egypt. So it was his purpose to send Joseph, and he did so by having him sold into.

Slavery in Egypt. Well, let me answer that with a question. Let me ask you this question, and this will put it into perspective to show the difference. When a child is raped, is God responsible,.

And did he decree that rape? If he didn't, then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose. What I'm trying to point out by going... So what is your answer there? Because I want to understand the answer to that question.

I'm trying to go to scripture to.

Answer it. Yes, but what is the answer to the question that he just asked. So.

That we can understand what the answer is? I mentioned to him yes, because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless, and though God knew it was going to happen, he created without a purpose. That means God brought the evil into existence, knew it was going to exist, but for no purpose, no redemption, nothing positive, nothing good.

So he did decree it, and if he decreed it, then there's a meaning to it. It has meaning, it has purpose. Got it. Suffering, all suffering has purpose. Everything in this world has purpose. There is no basis for despair.

But if we believe that God created knowing all this was going to happen, but with no decree, he just created, and all this evil's out there, and there's no purpose, then every rape, every situation like that, is nothing but purposeless evil, and God is responsible for the creation of despair.

And that is not... For years I've been trying to figure out.

Why it is that in order for rape to exist, or unless God caused it to happen, there can't be any purpose in it. God can use evil, and he does, but to blame God, which is what a decree does, to blame God for the rape of a child is a horrible attack on the very character and the love of God.

How about to blame God for the destruction of the heart of a father thinking that his son has been killed for many years, the weeping that he underwent? Genesis 50 -20 has not been answered yet. Acts chapter 4 tells us that the early church believed that Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Romans and the Jews in the crucifixion of the sinless Son of God, which I believe we would all agree is the greatest evil that man has ever committed, that that took place on the basis of the sovereign decree of God, Acts chapter 4 verses 27 -28.

If you could tell me both what you believe Acts 4 27 -28 means, and...

Let me ask you if you think that rape is a sin.

I believe that... Let's... Can we use a biblical example, Acts 4 27 -28? Rape is a biblical issue. Is rape a sin? Just as the crucifixion was a sin, yes.

Okay, so does God decree, and therefore is God the cause of sin?

Again, as you well know, having read all of these things, let me just read this into everyone's hearing so they can see it. The early church said, For truly in this city they were gathered against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

And so here is an example where men committed evil, and they did so at the predestining purpose of God. God is glorified. His intention is positive and good. The intention of Herod, the intention of the Jews, God...

These were not innocent people, and God's standing behind them with a big gun, pushing them down the road going, Be evil, be evil. In fact, how many times did God restrain them? So they're making a choice in the process, in your view.

They're not only making a choice. So they have the ability to choose.

Within the realm of their nature, since they are fallen. Remember, God restrains men from committing evil.

Why are men fallen? That's the question. Do you believe that?

The question is, why are men fallen? Could I ask, could I finish a point here? Do you believe that God can keep someone from sinning?

I would like to ask you the question, is God the cause of that sin? That's the.

Issue. I've already pointed out in Genesis chapter 50 that God's decree is based upon His good intention. Can God keep a person from sinning? Will He violate libertarian free will to keep a person from sinning, yes or no?

It's not a yes or no question. The issue here is, and I think we really need to focus in on this, for the average person listening, they want to know, is God morally responsible for the moral evils of our world?

When something really, really bad happens, such as the molestation of a child or the murder of a mother, they want to know who's responsible for this. And I think the Bible makes it clear that God can't be touched with that.

God is righteous and holy. He's beyond that. He's merciful and He's gracious and He's loving. Calvinism has reduced good and evil to really the same thing. It's just simply saying God has decreed all of these things and they try to make flowery distinctions between them.

But the point is, they make God responsible and therefore God to blame for what the Bible says He's not to blame.

Compatibilistic Freedom and Divine Hardening

Again, we're talking to James White and George Bryson. James White is the author of The Potter's Freedom, George Bryson, The Dark Side of Calvinism. And before we go to a number of other questions that I want to ask James White and George Bryson, let's establish what we're doing here in terms of the previous discussion in the previous section.

Define for us, James, the difference from your perspective—and I'll give you the same opportunity to do this in a moment, George Bryson—the difference between compatibilistic freedom to which you hold and libertarian freedom to which George Bryson holds from your perspective.

I think the fundamental.

Difference is I do believe in libertarian freedom. I just believe only God is the one who has it, that we have a creaturely freedom that is based upon our being held accountable by God for acting upon the intentions of our heart.

God has often said, well, unless we have libertarian freedom, unless we are autonomous creatures, there can be no responsibility. The reason I keep bringing these passages up is because they illustrate that God held Joseph's brothers accountable.

He held the king of Assyria accountable. He holds all these people accountable for acting on the intentions of their heart, even when he has restrained them from doing greater evil than they would have done otherwise.

And I hope we can get into whether God has the right to do that, to restrain people from committing sin, because the Bible says he does. And so a compatibilist believes that it is compatible between the sovereign decree of God, Ephesians 1 .11, he works all things out of the council's will, Psalm 135 .6, it's all through the Bible.

Even Nebuchadnezzar knew that God works all things through this world in Daniel 4. That decree of God is compatible with holding men accountable for acting upon the intentions of their heart. We seem to act in debates as if we as creatures have access to the details of God's eternal decree.

We do not. I do not know who the elect are, so I preach the gospel to all creatures. I do not know what the future is going to bring, and so I look to God's law. It gives me guidelines for how I'm to live, and when things come up, I try to respond to them based upon godly principles.

Now when you preach the gospel.

To all creatures, as you just said, can you as a Calvinist say to someone that you're witnessing to, God so loved you that he sent Jesus into the world to die for your sins? Or are you not permitted to say that?

You can say that in general, but not specific, because you don't know whether Christ died for their sins. They may have been elect before the foundations of the world for reprobation. The apostles never preached.

That way, so I don't either. The apostles never said to any individual person, Christ died for you. They said Christ died for sinners.

Right. So you will not say Christ died for you.

I will say Christ died for sinners, and that anyone who believes in him... John 3, that's not really a proper paraphrase, because what he says in John 3... I'm not trying to paraphrase anything. I know, but I mean, but you when you're saying, for God so loved the world, and then he explains what he did, and that what he did has particularity, and he says he gave his son for the purpose that those who believe might have eternal life.

It is only those who believe. It is only the individuals who believe who have eternal life, and so I preach like the apostles did. They said repentance is a command that goes out to all people. I present it to all people, because I can't look into someone's heart or mind and know whether they are or are not of the elect.

If I thought that that was a requirement, that I wouldn't go to most of the places I go to. I mean, why in the world bother going to Salt Lake City and standing outside the General Conference of the Mormon Church?

And it should be noted that both of you guys.

Have spent your life witnessing to people in many difficult situations. So you love people. You want them to hear the gospel. Now, George, you would, in fact, answer that question differently when you're over planting churches in Russia.

For example, you will go to a Russian on the street in Moscow or in St. Petersburg or wherever it happens to be, and you'll say, God so loved you. Absolutely, and.

Back to the issue of freedom. Let's get to that in a second. I want to underscore this. I believe that God loves everyone and each one, and he loves everyone to such a degree that God sent Christ to die for that one in particular.

I believe in particular redemption, but it was redemption in particular for each person. Everyone, everyone can come to Christ. When I preach to somebody, I am not just speaking to them out of ignorance.

Calvinism says you can offer salvation to somebody because you don't know that they're reprobate. If you don't know they're reprobate, just preach to them in ignorance. Maybe they're elect. Maybe they're not.

I really do believe as C .S. Lewis says, God really does love those creatures. When I offer salvation to somebody in the name of Christ as his ambassador, as his representative, I really believe they can repent.

I believe God enables people to repent, enables people to believe. He doesn't make them believe. He doesn't make them repent, but he enables them to do so. He doesn't force them to do so, but he allows them to do so.

Calvinism has two castes, as we talked about earlier, and it doesn't make that possible. The one caste, from all eternity to all eternity, has been condemned. The other, from all eternity to all.

Eternity, has been saved. Just to spell that out before we get to the question of libertarian freedom and compatibilism, you're saying that in the Calvinist system, and this is not a debate, this is just the way it is, in the Calvinist system, before the foundations of the world, there are perhaps billions of people who are doomed before the womb.

They have no opportunity whatsoever to respond to the gospel, yet they are genuinely responsible for their sin in that moment. Yes, and I would say.