Review of anti Calvinism Video

This you said statements either true or false. I gave you a statement and you said it doesn't apply. Not too bad. It's not only true that statements would be either true or false. So is it true? That i'm talking to you.

Is it true? That is true statement. I'm talking to you. Is that true? Yes. Okay, is it true that babies exist? Um. Well, I mean how long babies exist. Babies exist. Babies exist. Is that true or is it not the case that it's true?

I would. I mean if you want to go down the you know, if you want to be very strict about it I would be skeptical about. Okay, we're done talking.

Show Introduction and Technical Setup

This is apologetics live to answer your questions your host from striving for eternity ministries.

We are live apologetics live here to answer your most Challenging questions about god and the bible. We can answer any question that you have about god and the bible and if you doubt that We'll just head on over to apologetics live .com.

Any thursday night 8 to 10 eastern time? There's a link to join us and give us your most challenging questions. You can watch at that site as well you can comment if you go over to uh, if you head over to uh YouTube we have comments that we can receive from there.

We are on the wisdom app as well um. And so what we thought we were on the wisdom app, I think it just kicked us off so we'll try that again um. So we're we're on the wisdom app. Let's see Tap to stop recording.

I guess we are just we're not have any questions up, but that's right. So today we're going to be talking about well, we're going to continually bring in drew Vonita, where are you bring yourself in? There we go.

I'll bring you I'm trying to figure this out. So, uh drew we we're going to finish up. Uh, no laying correct. Try again, we'll we'll continue reviewing this video uh that we have um on an anti-calvinism, so uh, and and I I see that uh, kt is asking Is that an israel's israeli scarf?

Yes, it is. Um, that is exactly what it is. And oh, we we got mike is always wanting to smash buttons. I don't know what what's up with that smash the like button.

I mean, we could just press it. We don't have to. Yeah, you don't have to smash it. Don't be so.

Uh. And so so someone else is asking is that thing that thing that thing? Yeah, whatever that thing is the thing from jerusalem the blue and white thing. Yes, the thing called the scarf melissa. The blue and white scarf, uh here i'll i'll.

Take it off a little bit so you can see it. There you go. For those who are watching it says israel. In both english and hebrew, uh, and actually on the other side. It's just the difference of the white versus the blue.

So. Uh, yeah, so I I like it. I figured i'd wear it. Hebrew israelites here to get upset with me. So. So.

You mean you're saying things like you're not a real israelite, yeah.

Um, well, I guess we may not be on wisdom because i'm trying to get on wisdom, but it's it's uh. It's just not letting it that's interesting. So maybe we won't do wisdom tonight. All right, that's done.

Technology. Yeah the technology I tried I tried don't blame me. It's it's wisdom's fault. Let me set that. All right, so. So, uh, we're gonna we're gonna try to continue going through this video that we started because we did it.

We had a listener or Watcher, uh who asked us to to review this video and to give a response. This is a video that um, Uh, it's it's about romans chapter 9. It's titled Just don't think about it with greg boyd.

And so we're gonna. I mean, I think it's a pretty good title because I was thoroughly convinced greg boyd wasn't thinking about it.

Meaning calvinism and romans 9 right? He really wasn't and when you watch the video It's you can tell he has no clue what he's talking about.

Calvinism, Romans 9, and Misrepresenting the View

Yeah, which okay. So here's my debate challenge, right? I would like to debate anybody On the topic of calvinism that actually knows what calvinism is. Dude. Yeah, we'll be waiting all day. Uh, the reality is if you guys go back you can see some of the debates I've done on calvinism and the one most frustrating thing is that the people who debate against calvinism Was half the time they are calvinists.

Yeah, I believe you proved that with r .a. Fuentes. Yes.

That was that was the funniest part of the debate was when I just went through the definitions of calvinism without actually Giving the labels and he was a calvinist and we congratulated him. He got very he's still by the way.

Uh over a year later. He is still uh,. You know bashing my name, uh people in over in the philippines still will tell me. Okay uh. You know, they'll send me video and they send me video and he's speaking in You know the local dialect and i'm like, yeah, well, I can't figure out what he said.

I just hear rapper rap. Rapper, I think is what he calls me, you know. So. Uh, so yeah, so let's let's um, let me bring up a video and uh. And we could we could maybe discuss a a video and Let's see. Hey, let's pull this one up and see what what?

Let's see what this one is. Huh? You know, like if they don't want to leave they have it all packed up things if it's everything. All right, okay tell her we just got an accident a several car accident.

Yep, that was my friday night. Right there. Big truck that you saw that I was stopped in traffic. Uh car in front of me stopped in traffic car behind me. I think they said they stopped in traffic. You know who didn't stop in traffic the car behind you a really really big commercial truck.

Oh.

That was what four cars so a truck hit a car behind you that hit you that hit the hit to go.

Yeah, so the car in front of me, uh had minimal damage. They drove off car behind me. They now car in front of me was from new jersey. One hour away from going to where they were headed to to do a wine tasting car behind me.

Well, their airbags went off their back window was shattered. They were from virginia one hour away from their location where they were going to do a tandem bike ride uh for the weekend. Yeah, they were now looking at getting towed.

All the way back to virginia. Yeah, that's going to be an expensive tow because they had triple a that only covers 25 miles. If you have the premier if you have the the the if you pay for the extra triple a I think you can do 125 um, so.

Yeah, that was that was uh, not so fun. Everyone was okay, right? We all walked away. I'm i'm probably the the people behind me were were cut and bruised um I think as if you if you heard in that video you can hear i'm talking to my my bride we're headed up to try to um Take care packing my daughter up for moving and we're just discussing when we can get some stuff done and then you hear me gasp because.

Though you can't hear the crash uh, I heard the crash I looked in my rearview mirror and I tensed up and and that's I guess the thing you should not do. I tensed up. And when as I tensed up uh that. You know my whole my back my neck were just all out of whack so Still still not a hundred percent there.

Um, but you know been doing uh Doing some stuff icing it and whatnot to try to recover. So. So, yeah, so sitting in a chair for two hours tonight I will. This is painful. I'm just saying but I do it for you guys um.

So I hope you appreciate it. And just think last time chris and I went over this video got through the first eight minutes. And it lasted two hours. Yeah. Just what we have to look forward to.

So so john is asking but did you share the gospel with the vehicle behind you? John you should know better than to ask that question that way I shared the gospel with the people in front of me and behind me and the truck driver and.

Yeah, and the officer so yes the officer had that's why I carry my police police lives matter tracks because a police officer will always take that. Because they don't know what it is. I just asked have you gotten your police lives matter card and they go no.

Okay. Here you go. And then I thank them for their service. All right, so Let's let's let us pick up where kind of where you guys left off this video. Um Is is one where You guys had started we're going to try to.

I I do want to be able to play this kind of in its entirety folks. Because I don't want to be accused of misrepresenting. Or you know things like this I did as you guys know my pattern I did contact the youtube channel told them that we would be doing this.

So if they want to come in, they're more than welcome um. And so if you guys want to come in ask any questions go to apologetics live .com and From there, you'd be able to join us in the discussion. So That's how you join any week that we're unless we're doing a formal timed debate that that usually takes up the full two hours, so All right All right, well let us start again with pick up where we left off with this or roughly where we left off.

So here we go.

Commitment to a belief by your willingness to act on it when acting counts. So if you really believe something you'll act on it when acting counts. So if I say to the folks in this house, you know, or if i'm in the theater and I say hey guys I think the building's going to blow up here in two minutes.

Well, if I make a beeline for the doorway, that's one indication that I really believe that. If I don't make a beeline for the doorway That's one indication that I don't really believe that because i'm not going to act when acting counts.

So so here's the question is How do you act on calvinism? Yeah, exactly. Every choice I make I have to act as though it was up to me to make that choice so I can only Illustrate my belief that it's up to me to believe with every choice I make i'm Acting on the assumption that it's up to me to believe this and and to choose this.

So calvinism is a belief. There's no way to act such that you illustrate your belief that it's not up to you to determine this. There's no way to illustrate that it's up to god to determine this and so okay.

Defining Calvinism and Total Depravity

So let's deal with that just that little bit there drew and i'm going to speed up the video. I hope it won't be too bad for folks. It yeah, if people if people say hey, it's too fast. Let me know. Uh, but this way we can maybe get through more of it so.

Just just looking at that. The argument he's making here is you can't act on calvinism. So what that makes it false?

Well part part of the problem is and we just chris and I discussed this last time was his view of calvinism is uh. That because god has we'll say predestined salvation. Therefore god has also predestined everything else that you do, right?

So the shirt that I wore. Was god predestining me to wear this shirt, correct? And he's he's he's not accounting for that. When when we're speaking in terms of calvinism. When we when we talk about god's predestination in election that is unto salvation, right?

So the shirt that I wear Has no effect on my salvation, but my salvation is something I cannot choose for myself in my natural state. God must change my heart and then he must draw me to himself and. And then what happens is what christ says in john 6 on john 6.

I will come to the father. It's definitive all whom the father gives me so there's a giving. They will come to me. And those who come to me, I will never cast out. But now that I will never lose them either.

Yeah, and this is why I said I would love to debate someone that actually understands calvinism now greg boyd here. He claims he used to be a calvinist and and this is like late in flowers. Well, I used to be a calvinist therefore i'm an expert on something but everybody points out that you misrepresent the position.

Doesn't that concern you? I mean it should if if if. Like not a single calvinist is saying that you define calvinism correctly. That should concern you now. There what they're always doing is a branch of calvin and greg boyd's view of calvinism is called determinism.

Some people would refer to it as hyper calvinism and there are some who believe that. I remember my my bride's uh Sunday school teacher. He ended up um. You know like he got into calvinism, but he got into a hyper calvinism.

I asked him. I said his name was andrew as well said andrew if I just. You know pull back and cold cock you just punch you right across the jaw. Did I do that or did god do that? And his answer was god did that god made you do that.

I said so I have no responsibility in that he said no. And I basically said okay then i'm done like i'm not gonna have any conversation with you because that's just a ridiculous position to be holding because The scripture is clear that we have responsibility.

And this is what These guys have to do to make their argument is to build a straw man argument. Because they can't. They can't win the debate being honest with the topic now. The reality is if you are going to do debate.

You should know the opposition's argument well enough that you can debate that side of the argument. Okay and so that's something that We whenever if you're ever going to get into a discussion with someone a debate with someone know the argument you're debating.

So what you want to do is hear someone out know what they believe that's folks. We do that like every week on this show when we have someone come in. What do I do? I sit there and start asking them what they believe right?

Right and and because I want to make sure I might take for example last week. We had a guy that comes in he says he wants to defend he'll defend Benny hint on everything everything benny hin does is right and then we start talking about the prosperity gospel.

I disagree with that. Well, wait a minute right then all of a sudden we had a problem because You know, it suddenly becomes about what he's believing. We can't really. You know, he's he's now walking away from you're defending Benny hin on everything.

Well when.

When he brought up every single text that he brought up what happened? All we did was go actually to those texts and say well, this is what this text says. And this is what it means in the context. And then he goes.

Okay, I see that. Yeah, he goes. Uh, okay. Let me read a little before. Let me read a little after. Oh, yeah, it's not what I thought. Okay. Yeah, we could have told you that. Um, you know. And and this is what ends up happening.

And and I you know, you have people that um. That will attack a system, but they don't take the time to try to understand What it is they're going after right. And and that's the thing. And I should you know, you mentioned james.

I should read james sent me a message. After we did the show last week. So let me let me. Um, he said, uh, sorry, my phone died. Thanks for having me. Uh, I will study more in context now and I command your your double vision to leave your eyes in jesus's name.

So. So so there you go. He's he's gonna read it in context, but still miss the main part of what we discussed. Oh, okay, so let's pick this up again. But just to be known can you can we demonstrate? And live out Calvinism.

Yes, we can. You know how we do it. We read the bible.

I mean we seek holiness. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean When we look at that, can you be holy on your own? No, you can't. But god can work through you. So There you go. So let's keep hearing what greg has to say.

At best I think calvinism is a pragmatically meaningless belief. You can't act on it. It's all it's all theoretical exactly. Yeah. There's no way it can make a difference in your behavior. Okay I was going to.

Make difference in our behavior. Well I think it can you know Drew when when I share the gospel. By the way folks drew drew is in his kitchen. Locations. And that may explain why he's not drinking his fresca.

He's drinking just water there, you know. So i'm out of fresca I had I had to grab sprite. Oh. You know, I don't know if you know. But I see sometimes in chat. When you open a second can of fresca people are watching that I know.

It's like he got his second glass. How many how many frescas will he have tonight? It's like it's like a bet. It's kind of like when I went to I used to go to this all you can eat restaurant for lunch every day and they would never clear out my plates and I never understood why until I found out that.

The guys in the back placed bets on how many plates of food I would eat in one hour. So every day I would go in and every day they replaced bets. But uh you know. To say we can't live by calvinism it has no it's no no practical way of it's like well wait as we examine it.

When we When I go and I I share the gospel with someone. If I was to say what he believes if i'm going to say well, I have to. I have to be. Um. You know completely Living it out. Well living it out would look like this.

If I believe what greg believes. Then I would sit there and keep trying to convince someone into the kingdom over and over and over and over again. And as a calvinist I can sit and share the gospel and say god In your hands.

Yep. And I can leave it to him. That's that's how you live it out. Greg. You live it out by Trusting god to do what god does. Hmm.

It's kind of actually Easy to do. Yeah, and and when we understand that I didn't save myself, right? That in in my own flesh, I would never desire to come to god. When we understand that it was god who changed me.

And then we and he grants us repentance he grants us faith. When we understand all of those aspects are from god. When we come to him and we are count now counted as his child. There is a way we are to live and we see it throughout the epistles, right?

We see just look I mean in the book of roman. Hello. We see high god theology. And then we see because of this theology now, this is how you are to live. This is how you are to walk in this how you walk how you live will demonstrate That you have been born of god.

There you go now we should get um.

You know, jason cave says Amen seeking holiness and striving to become more like our savior. That's how we live it out. Now, by the way, um, Was was lost but now i'm found says john mcarthur is upset.

You're not drinking fresca.

I'm upset i'm not drinking. Yeah, okay.

I gotta settle for sprite if you want to. If you guys want to bless drew I I seriously get order like a case of fresca and ship it to his house you know. Actually better yet. Ship it to him via fedex.

So he has to deliver it to his own house, you know. Uh, okay. John john says this which is which brings up a good thing. John says i'm still trying to understand calvinism. That is one reason why I watch this show also drew.

Postmill, um. He loves tacking that on he loves.

But it's a good thing. John has brings up a good point. We should have started with we're saying that that greg is misrepresenting calvinism. Let's give a a definition of calvinism now. What i'm going to do is I want to give kind of the the the five view of the five points of calvinism pre-john owen.

Because why pre-john owen. Because there's a lot of people that debate over limited atonement. And a lot of that is from john owen's work death of death so I want to give a definition that All calvinists would be able to hold to.

Okay, so we look at the five points. By the way, the five points of calvinism are five responses To the five points of arminianism. Now, no one knows what the five points of arminianism is, you know, why?

Because we're heretics. Yeah, because it wasn't good theology and it didn't stand the test of time.

Right, but every single one of those After the synod of dort was kicked out of the church because they were deemed to be heretics. Interesting. I didn't know that. Neat. Well, well because the old the they.

When you take it to its logical conclusion You arrive at universalism and open theism which greg boyd does yeah.

So and and here's the reason I think i'm not surprised by it, I guess because. When you get it anybody that gets into a hobby horse theology topic. Especially why I mean no one wakes up and says I think I want to be a heretic when I get older.

No. They they get into something that they think is either new or Maybe nuanced they find a way of explaining it. Maybe it's helpful for them to understand other things. But they get on the hobby horse and then They start taking that making it everywhere.

And when you start doing that rather and you start reading that into context into the context of a passage. What ends up happening is people like that start to get into trouble. They get into trouble because what's happening is that they're starting to see one doctrine Above all others and they start seeing that doctrine where it isn't.

And they start trying to argue for that doctrine where it shouldn't be argued and in that case They start going too far down a rabbit hole. That happens very often. Okay, so I see that you uh, you highlighted something there from melissa.

You you must want to talk about that. I thought I thought you would enjoy this.

Um, we'll go ahead put it up. Oh, okay.

Melissa says fresca is john macarthur's tears drew. It's the holy water of pre-mill truth.

Uh, yes. All right. So one melissa good one and I see the other one you highlighted from jody and we'll get to that because. Um, let's first define calvinism and then then answer hers. So total depravity.

Total depravity is not that you can you before salvation are as wicked as you possibly could be. The idea of total in total depravity is not talking about the the extent of your sinfulness. But the totality of the human being in other words.

Nobody debates whether your your mind was affected by the fall. It was it's it's enslaved to sin people realize that. Uh your emotions same thing. It's the issue of your will. Is your will? Enslaved to sin.

From birth. I mean is that was that the effect of the curse in genesis 3? Yes. Now in an arminian view in greg boyd's view the answer would be no. So the issue there is that The the calvinists would say that our total being Is affected by the curse of sin.

We're in the arminian position would say no. Uh, our will is completely free. So when we speak of a free will I speak of a will not a free will we have a will that's enslaved to sin. A free will means it has no no influence right and It does have an influence of sin.

And so We don't have a free will we have a will. Big difference there. They would argue it's a free will in other words. We can in and of ourselves freely choose god Without him doing any work.

That's the distinction when we talk about total depravity, you know, I think one of the one of the greatest lines about autonomous free will Is from james white's book the opening of james white's books the potter's freedom where he says does autonomous free will exist.

Yes, god's free will.

Yeah, and and god has a free will. Because he doesn't have anything influencing him outside of himself, right? And so We do not adam and eve did. I would. I could. I think I could argue that I could. I think I can argue that we now as believers have one because we now have the holy spirit indwelling us so.

But it's still not completely free because well we still have. You know, we're still influenced by sin and the holy spirit works within us. So the issue of total depravity is the issue of Was our will affected by the curse?

Unconditional Election and Limited Atonement

Okay. Okay. Now going on to the next one in the in the acronym of tulip Irresistible grace. Wait, nope unconditional election. Sorry. Got that wrong unconditional election um, so what this is is dealing with the question of Was our election?

Caused by something we did or something that god knew now. What this comes down to is the way that the arminian would argue is that god elected us before the foundation of the world Ephesians 1 because of the fact that god Looked down the tunnels of time saw what we would do and he Knew that we would choose him and for that reason He elected us.

Lots of problems with that a lot of problems there because the the purpose of ephesians 1 that text Is to say you had nothing to do with your salvation. That's the very reason he says he elected us before the foundation of the world.

It the whole purpose of it is to say you had nothing to do with it. So the danger of it is you're actually taking scripture and giving me a complete reverse Of what it actually says all for the purpose of saving Your theological system.

This is what I was saying earlier when you go onto some hobby horse that you have. We have a free will and we're going to prove it's a free will and now you have a scripture that says the very Opposite of that.

What do you do? Well, you find a a life-saving way to preserve the system. So you say oh, well God did elect you before the foundational world because he knew what you would choose. Now when you say he looked down the tunnels of time.

You now took god and made him a a non-eternal being he's now bound by time. And when you say he had to look through time to know what decisions you would make he's no longer omniscient now You start seeing some problems Here with this view because all of a sudden god's not omniscient.

He's not eternal. Guess what? He's not god.

And he's not all powerful either because if he knew you wouldn't choose him and you'd go to hell. That there was nothing he could do about it. Yeah.

Yeah, and so it's all for the the to save the autonomy of human will and The I think the reason is is because well people like to praise themselves. We see that all the time and I think that it becomes something where it's like look what I did.

Um. So that's but you hear that all the time with that, right? I chose god.

Yeah, when people are talking about this, but experientially you did. Right. Sure. And that's the difference. There's a difference between what we theologically did versus what we sorry. What we experientially did and what we what theologically happened.

Theologically god chose me experientially. I chose god. There's a comment here by d she says we choose according to our nature. And this is absolutely true. So In my fallen nature apart from christ. I cannot choose god.

Because as paul tells us we don't want god. We don't seek god. But once once god has changed by nature. Then I can choose god because my nature now desires the things of god. So we do choose according to our nature, which is why we need a new nature.

Limited Atonement and First John 2:2

Yeah. So the the one that most people have the problem with a limited atonement okay, so limited atonement is Really simple most christians believe in limited atonement to some extent. Okay, the only ones that don't believe in a limited atonement are universalists that believe everyone's going to heaven.

If you believe that anybody is in hell today. You believe the atonement is limited. Now the only question is how limited. And what limits it? Okay, that becomes the question now. So We would argue that the atonement is limited.

Well to those who believe. Okay, we could agree with that. But going back to the previous ones, why do they believe because god didn't work in them? So Where there becomes the biggest sticking point is if you read john owen's work death of death he talks about the limited atonement in the aspect that God died Only for the elect and this is what you're going to commonly hear when it comes to calvinism today.

Most people speak about that that god died only for the elect now and and When you drew you and chris were on you guys had this discussion. I think you even brought up, uh, first john 2 2. I have a different take than you guys have on that right?

But so so i'll address that in a moment. But the thing is is that Who did christ die for. Well, I would say that John first john 2 2. Let me just bring that up and read that For us so it says. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins.

And not ours only but also for the whole world. Okay. So the issue here is when. Well people say world well that must mean every individual. Well that not necessarily because They you could use the term world as referring to different groups of people.

It says whole world. Okay, but still that could just mean all all the nations. That is a possible reading so arguing That this is saying that christ died for every believer by the using the term whole world.

I don't think is a good argument because People can rightly point out that whole world can not refer to every individual but all the nations. Easy argument. The the challenge for me is who's the not us?

Let me read this again for he himself is the propitiation for our sins. And not Ours only. Well now we got to figure out who's the ours because he's saying that he died for our sin and The not us so whoever's the us and the not us.

So the question is who's the us. Now a lot of people will try to argue. This is he's speaking about jewish people. And so this is the jewish gentile distinction. Well, I think that's a hard sell to make out of first john because well first john at the time of first john's writing.

The jewish gentile distinction isn't an issue anymore. Second there's nowhere in this book where he's making the issue of the jewish gentile distinction. He is making an issue of Gnosticism people who were in the church for saying they're christians, but living a lifestyle that that rejects that.

Okay, so could this be the gnostics. Well, if you just back up one verse. Kind of like we said we do here. We just read the context my little children. Well now all you gotta do is figure out who he's speaking of as my little children.

He says my little children i'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous and now he gives us caveat to explain jesus.

And he himself is a propitiation for our sins and not our sins only but also for those of the whole world. So what i'm going to argue is the us. Is believers and the not us Would be unbelievers now right off the bat.

People are going to say but wait, you're saying that jesus jesus died for someone that goes to hell. I'm going to argue that jesus's death was sufficient for and this is how the puritans would argue uh, many of them prior to john owen, but john owen wouldn't argue this way maybe but that.

What you have is that christ's death was sufficient for all efficient for few. This is what the how the atonement is limited it is not applied to everybody. Christ's death was sufficient for every single human being but.

It wasn't applied to everybody. Yeah, that's the that's the same view david platt holds. Yeah. Yeah.

A broken clock can be right twice a day. Okay. So just because david platt holds to argument in one area um and and non-biblical ones and others. Um, but but that's a good attempt of poisoning the well fallacy.

So I appreciate that uh no, but but the thing is We got to deal with what I got to deal with what I think the text says. And then I got to look at how the system fits the text not the text fit the system.

That's the thing. And so can I can I personally say christ died for all people? Yeah. In the mind of human beings I can say that. In the mind of god, well, he knew exactly who he was going to die for.

So paul or sorry john is writing to believers. And He's explaining something that from a human level we can understand. We could say I believe that christ died for all people because we don't know who he died for in the mind of god he knew exactly who he's going to die for and who who is applied to and this is the thing that We get stuck on where some people say well We're going to be in.

It's either got to be one or the other that's not the case. It could be both. And so What you have is you have people who reject christ? And they're going to spend eternity in a lake of fire because of their sin.

Not because of their rejection by the way false dichotomy saying that because. It's because of their sin. That they go and to be held to hell to be punished. It's not about their it's not because their rejection so.

The atonement is limited if you believe anyone's in hell.

Andrew i'm gonna go into the back. I've got to go check on my wife's okay dad real quick. Yep.