Response to Leighton Flowers 2

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the Word of God and the doctrines of grace.
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The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of truth.
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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along.
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Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.
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And welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
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Today is September 3rd, 2020.
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And if you're following along with our daily Bible reading, today's Bible reading is First Timothy chapter three.
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This is a daily Bible reading, which is available at our church website, sgfcjax.org.
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That's Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.
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And if you are in Jacksonville, Florida, I would encourage you to visit with us.
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If you do not have a home church, we would love to have you.
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Every Lord's Day morning, we have Sunday school at 930 and worship at 1030.
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And on Wednesday night, we have Bible study at 630 p.m.
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We would love to have you come and visit with us.
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Well, today we are continuing on the program, answering a listener question about Leighton Flowers.
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Now, if you don't know who that is, Leighton Flowers runs a website.
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Soteriology 101.
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He is a person who teaches against the subject of Calvinism.
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He is most well known for being opposed to Calvinism, particularly in the Southern Baptist churches and Soteriology 101 is his website.
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And if you would like to go there and look at his website, I wouldn't discourage you from doing so.
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He does have a lot of information there, but I will tell you this, it is going to be opposed to what we teach on this program and that is why I am responding to it.
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Now, I said on the last program, it has not been my desire to respond to Flowers because in my opinion, I think Dr.
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James White has done a great job.
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He's done so on the dividing line.
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He has debated Brother Flowers and they have had this interaction many times.
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And so I don't feel like I need to interject myself, but I am responding because a listener asked me to.
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And I say this on just about every program.
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If you have a question about the Bible or something that you've heard and you'd like for me to address it on the program, I'll do so as long as I feel like it's appropriate and since this is a specifically Calvinistic question, I will address the question.
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Now, on yesterday's program, we addressed part one.
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This is a two-part question because there's actually two questions that were asked.
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The first is, isn't the gospel sufficient enough to enable a response? If you understand Calvinism, you understand that one of the things that we believe, in fact, the foundational thing about man is that because of our sinful nature, we do not have a desire for the things of God and therefore God must give us that desire.
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God must enable a response before we can positively respond to the gospel.
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We call that the doctrine of total depravity or total inability.
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And the question from yesterday was, well, isn't the gospel sufficient enough to enable a response? And if you want to go back and listen to that, then I would encourage you to listen to yesterday's program if you didn't.
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Now the second question is what we're going to deal with today.
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This specifically references a Bible passage and I'd like for you to pull up that Bible passage now.
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If you have your Bibles available, we're going to go to John chapter 12 and we're going to read verses 37 to 40.
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John 12, 37 to 40.
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And this is what it says, speaking of Jesus, though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.
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Lord, who has believed what he heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore, they could not believe for Isaiah said he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them.
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That is John 12, 37 to 40.
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And the questioner said this, why, if total inability is biblical, does John 12, 37 to 40 imply almost inescapably that they have the ability to believe? It is a bit weird for God to blind people for the purpose of preventing belief when they are already unable to believe.
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Now that is how the question was worded.
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I'm just reading it directly as the as the listener put it forward.
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Now I want to begin by making this point.
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The second question of the two assumes the denial of total depravity and makes the first question moot.
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Let me explain what I mean.
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The first question is that isn't the gospel sufficient to enable a response? But if the second question is true, then no enablement is necessary.
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Because if we are already able to respond, then the gospel doesn't have to be powerful enough to enable a response.
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And that's consistent, actually, with the testimony of Flowers and his position, because the position that he holds as a traditionalist says that man's freedom has not been lost, that man is not lost his libertarian freedom due to the fall.
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And he basically says that man's free will is completely intact.
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There's no incapacitation in that free will.
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And you can see this.
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In fact, I'll read it.
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This is the traditionalist statement.
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Traditionalists simply do not accept the presumption that the libertarian freedom of man's will has lost was lost due to the fall.
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As Article 2 of the traditional traditional statement says, we deny that Adam's sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person's free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned.
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So right there, they basically said man's free will has not been incapacitated, has not been rendered in any way unable to believe.
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So the idea that the gospel has to be powerful enough to enable a response is assuming that there needs to be an enablement.
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And since we don't need to be enabled because we're not hindered, not incapacitated in any way, the first question becomes moot by the second question.
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But that's just simply a starting ground to say that if the second question is valid, then the first question is unnecessary.
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But let me make this statement.
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The issue with the second question is the issue of whether or not total inability is true or not.
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If man is not limited in his ability to believe, but has a perfectly intact libertarian freedom and his freedom is not hindered in any way, then the gospel doesn't have to be sufficient to enable a response because a person does not need to have any preceding enablement.
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This is where the issue lies with Flowers.
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He rejects the idea that man must be enabled by grace to believe.
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In this sense, he's not an Arminian and he's not a Calvinist because the Arminians, as I said yesterday, the Arminians believe that you have to be enabled to believe.
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They believe in prevenient grace, that is, all men receive the grace that gives them the ability to believe.
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And then it's up to them.
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Calvinists believe that grace, the ability to believe is irresistible grace and it's given only to the elect.
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But both of them believe that man is unable outside of grace to believe.
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And this again, this is the one place that Arminians and Calvinists at least agree to a point that we both believe that that apart from grace, whether it be prevenient grace or irresistible grace, effectual calling, however you want to define it, that man cannot believe.
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But Dr.
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Flowers does not seem to believe in the necessity of any prevenient grace.
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And since he does not, then he would place himself on the side of what we would identify as the Pelagian side in affirming a natural ability of man apart from the grace to believe.
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And he would deny that.
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And he is on his website.
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He says Pelagius is ultimately a Calvinistic boogeyman.
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But really, we have to be able to categorize.
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We have to be able to say, OK, where are you coming from? And this is the position that it seems to be coming from.
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The belief in the necessity of grace is either there or it isn't.
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And if you believe man is naturally able apart from grace to come, then you place yourself up on, well, on the other side of what I would say has always been biblical Christian testimony and truth.
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But let's go on.
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Total depravity says that man must receive grace to enable him to believe.
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Calvinists say that grace is specifically given to the elect and therefore it is effectual.
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Arminians say that grace is universally given to all, therefore must be cooperated with by the will.
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But that will would be unable to cooperate apart from the prevenient enabling grace.
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Again, this is important.
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He denies both of these.
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Calvinists believe that total depravity, total inability is a natural consequence of the fall.
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Man does not desire the things of God naturally.
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But we do not equate this with the active hardening of the heart that God does.
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And this is where we're going to get to the question for today, because the real issue of this second question is how do we discern total depravity from judicial hardening? We believe that all men are in the state of total depravity, which means unwilling to believe.
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All men are unable to desire to believe because their hearts are opposed to the things of God.
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They do not naturally want to do the things of God.
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But we would say that's different than judicial hardening.
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And judicial hardening is where we see in the scripture where the Bible sometimes says, well, God hardened Pharaoh's heart or God hardened or blinded the eyes or closed ears like we saw in John 12, that there is a making someone unable to see here or any of those things.
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And the question and I understand the heart of the question, if man is already unable to believe, then what, if anything, does it mean that God's going to harden them? They're already, in a sense, hardened.
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They're already opposed.
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What good is it? What what is happening? And why is it necessary for God to harden someone if total depravity already means they cannot believe? So this is where we need to understand the distinction between total depravity and judicial hardening, the act of God hardening the heart.
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Total depravity is not something which God is actively doing in the life of the individual, but rather it is a natural byproduct of our fallenness and Adam.
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We cannot please God because we cannot want to please God.
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Our nature is corrupted by sin.
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We are slaves to sin.
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There's nothing keeping us from coming except that it is opposed to our nature.
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We do not want to.
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Indeed, we cannot even desire to because it's opposed to our nature.
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We are surrendering to our will rather than to God's will.
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This is the natural estate of man.
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This is why Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul, one of my favorite theologians, when he identifies total depravity, he calls it moral inability.
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We cannot because we will not.
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We would need a fundamental change in our nature if we were to choose to please God.
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Now you say, well, how does that differ from judicial hardening? Judicial hardening is a step beyond that because it cauterizes and intensifies the already bad situation.
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This is where we have to discuss the difference between being functionally unable and substantively unable to do something.
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For instance, if I and I want to I want to give credit where credit is due on this this Dr.
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G.E.
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Carlin is a person who is a Bible teacher, and he gave a very good job of explaining this.
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And it was I thought it was helpful.
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And I'm going to give a similar explanation to him, but I'm give credit to his explanation because I thought this was a good one.
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And I do want to mention that I actually reached out to Dr.
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Carlin to see if he wanted to join me for today's program.
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Unfortunately, was not able to connect with him.
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But if he ever comes upon this program and hears it, here's his name mentioned.
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I want to say thank you, brother.
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And also want to mention that if you ever do want to come on the program and discuss this, love to have you on in a future program.
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But be that as it may, I want to just use that.
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I want to use an example similar to the one that he used.
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He said, if I cover my eyes, I'm functionally blind.
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Because I'm covering my eyes.
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I can't see if I take my hands and I put them over my eyes.
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But if I have my eyes removed, I am substantively blind.
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And the difference is a difference of the will.
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In the first instance, I don't want to see.
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Therefore, I cover my eyes.
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And the second, I lack the tools to see.
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And here's the point.
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God has the right to take a man's eyes, especially when he's not using them to begin with, if a man is covering his eyes, he doesn't want to see.
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And God says, OK, I'm going to take your eyes because you're covering your eyes.
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Then that is an act of God's choice.
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And he has the freedom to do that.
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But it is different in the difference of functional blindness versus substantive blindness.
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He's functionally blind because he's covering his eyes.
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He's substantively blind if he loses his eyes in the same way.
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You could say total depravity, a man's unwillingness to come to God because it's opposed to his nature versus a person who is hardened and therefore his heart is completely calloused.
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And in the picture of hardening the heart, I've often pictured it like this.
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If you imagine a piece of clay that has moisture in it and is soft and is able to be moved and turned, the less moisture, the harder it gets.
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And I think of that's the way God's hardening.
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The unbeliever still has a has an aspect of what we would call common grace.
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And the hardening of the heart, I believe, is a removal of the grace of God on the heart of an individual where he goes from not only not believing the gospel, but being opposed to it, hating it.
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Think about the people Jesus is talking to.
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They not only didn't believe his message, but they hated his message.
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They had no desire at all.
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They wanted to see him.
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And they were, I'm sure, among those who would have cried out, crucify him.
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All right.
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So I want to go back again to Dr.
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Carlin's example, because I think it's a good one.
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And because he gave this example, and this sort of was really, I thought, was really a genius thought.
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He said, now, let me explain to you again the difference of willing inability and and so functional versus substantive or willing inability and the functional or substantive inability.
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He said, imagine a person gave you a knife and they said, I want you to take this knife and I want you to stab someone, stab that person over there, stab them to death.
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And you said.
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I can't do that.
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When you say you can't, you're referring to moral inability.
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You can't do it because it's against your nature.
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It's against your desires to kill someone.
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It's not in you.
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It's not it's not who you are.
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You're not a murderer.
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Therefore, when you say I can't do that, you're saying I can't because I can't want to do that.
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I can't will to do that.
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I can't make myself do that because I don't want to do it.
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That is functional inability.
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Now, if you had a knife in your hand and I took it away from you, that becomes substantive inability.
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Now you can't do the action of stabbing.
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Now you can't do it.
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So before you wouldn't do it.
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Now you can't do it.
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Now, again, the difference is subtle, I understand, but it is an important distinction.
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The situation is intensified.
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When it goes from moral inability or total depravity to judicial hardening, you go from the the I won't I can't because I don't want to to the I won't I can't because I have been the tools have been removed.
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Any time I've ever taught on this subject, taught about the hardening of the heart, I have people ask the question, well, why in the world would God harden a heart? This is an act of God's judicial justice on an individual.
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And one thing we have to remember is God does not produce fresh evil in anyone's heart.
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All of us have the seed of Adam within us.
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We all have the sinful heart of Adam within us.
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And therefore, when I see someone do something evil, one of the things I have to recognize is the same seed of evil in that person is in me.
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And what keeps me from doing that evil thing is the grace of God.
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There's an old phrase most of us are very familiar with there, but by the grace of God, there go I and if not for the grace of God, I would be just as bad as that person.
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And that's what we have to realize.
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And there are people who are unbelievers, but they're nice people.
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They're kind people.
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They're gentle people.
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They're people you want to do business with, people you want to have friendships with.
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But they are unbelievers.
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They have their still have their hands over their eyes.
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They're plugging their ears.
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They are unwilling to believe.
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And in that regard, we would say they are totally depraved because they are unwilling to hear God's word and believe it.
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But then there are those whom God has hardened, like Pharaoh, whose hearts are hardened.
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And in that we can say there is a distinction between total depravity and judicial hardening.
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And we see this distinction in scripture because Jesus says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.
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No one can come unless it be granted to him by the father.
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That tells us grace pre a preceding act of grace is necessary before we will come.
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And so total inability, total depravity is true.
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And when someone denies it by saying, well, look here, what about judicial hardening? Say they're not the same thing.
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They they have a similar effect.
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But one is a we would say is is a step beyond an intensification of the other.
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All people are dead in trespasses and sins until by grace God makes them alive.
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By grace are you saved through faith.
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Well, thank you for listening to today's program.
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I appreciate you giving me your time and attention.
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And I hope that this has been an encouragement to you.
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Again, thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.
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Thank you for joining in for today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.
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Keep in mind, we have a new lesson available every weekday morning at 630 a.m.
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If you enjoyed this lesson, please take a moment to respond by hitting the like button, leaving a comment and subscribing to the channel.
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On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for listening.
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May God bless you.