Clip from The Dividing Line, 12/2/2008

David Allen’s Charge of Hyper-Calvinism Against James White

On uh... peter lumpkin's uh... blog i started response lumpkin i just finally just gave up and said that uh... let's let's not uh... bother that. But uh... david allen has posted a very very lengthy response tom askew.

And of course uh... i'd i'd leave it to tom to respond to the vast majority of because for your time. And but uh... he mentions that this is the john three sixteen conference was billed as a biblical theological evaluation of in response to five point alvinism.

Uh... says the jurors of the baptist are clearly non-calvinist a team to see no conflict of interest here either on my part as the a speaker of the conference or the part of the seminaries that chose to be co-sponsors.

Dot askew continues with this statement. Although i must say that any conference it accuses james what it being a hyper calvinist loses credibility with thinking people in quote first the conference did not make the claim i did.

Well the conference makes no claims obviously uh... but the speakers do. So i'm not sure uh... that talk about uh... uh... parsing words uh... to to no avail. If there's any credibility lost to be mine about the conference a single statement is the only statement doctor askew makes concerning my comments about james white given the evidence i present during the john three sixteen conference and my defense is accusation is very well.

So monday november twenty fourth i find impossible swallow askew statement. You'll have to provide some argumentation evidence. The claim is faulty. Offers none. He doesn't need to. I've repudiated it.

Phil johnson has repudiated it. And it would require you to identify a large portion of historical calvinist as hyper calvinist. Even when they were arguing inside for calvinist it means that you don't know what the term means.

Your you've been misled by tony bern and others who are not balanced. They're just not balanced on this. They have they have a crusade there on and they're far more intent upon attacking uh... calvinism then promoting the freedom of god and salvation.

They don't mind having their stuff used to promote rank arminian ism as i was a go after somebody who believes in particular redemption. You get your sources sir you've you've been misled by your sources.

The Distinction Between God’s Decretive and Prescriptive Will

Now you shouldn't have been because your professor systematic theology uh... but you've been this misled by your sources. You can see is a in fact that will seem to continue to miss the whole point of my bring up james white.

In the first place i commendably quoted ascles affirmation of god's universal saving will in addition to read his own careful calvinist qualifications and point out how white's rejection of this orthodox calvinist position on god's revealed will places in the category behind the hyper calvinist on this point.

Doctor allen you are wrong. W are all and g you are not listening. What did tom askel say. He said that we need to differentiate between the decree of god and the prescriptive will of god. Did he not said.

They did not say that we need to recognize that there is that will of god that is revealed in his law. He reveals that man should not murder. Therefore you can say god desires that men not murder. Yet we know in the sovereign decree of god that the lamb slain for the foundation of the earth was handed over to be murdered.

That is a distinction that is biblical in origination. It is the prescriptive will of god that we do not kidnap and yet god intended through kidnapping for joseph to go into egypt. So we recognize that there is a difference between the two and what tom askel said was god's prescriptive will is that all men can repent and believe on that level you can say god desires the salvation of all men.

But my problem has always been when you go beyond the recognition of the prescriptive will of god and you force into god's heart any rationality in regards to what he desires. That's all i've been trying to say.

And i've said it over and over again. And your tradition keeps you from hearing me. You see there are people who want to say well you have to affirm that god is disappointed that god has willed his own eternal disappointment that he wants to do something that for some reason this other part of him this schizophrenic part of him doesn't allow him to do.

And i can't take that kind of a rational view of god into the arena of apologetics of the world religions. I can not only can't do that i won't do it because the bible never tells me anywhere that that's how i should do.

So all right. There is room for argument disagreement on how to interpret second peter three nine. I don't think that i've seen a meaningful counter exegesis of the text that in any way takes into consideration what we have to say.

And one thing's awful certain nobody the john three sixteen conference even tried to engage in such things. I mean i was to play a part by all that i'll get to next time of steve lemke uh... stumbling through matthew twenty three thirty seven.

Again even though we've written about these things we've explained these things. You are wrong doctor alan w are all and g you have been publicly shown to be wrong. Stop repeating falsehood. Sir what tom askew said and what i'm saying are the same thing.

We recognize that there is a prescriptive will of god where god commands all repent. That's why i can preach the gospel to everyone. But to go beyond that and say well what that also means is that in the does you know i want to uh... ascribe to god unfulfilled desires and eternal unhappiness because he tried to save everybody doesn't.

Isn't that a denial of election the first place. Yes obviously. And so you've been misled sir your sources are bad. The scholarship of its bad. It's inconsistent. It's not exegetically sound. And i would invite you to do what steve lemke said who i think spoke right after david allen who said we need to be careful not to call calvinist hyper calvinist when they're not.

And that i can actually applied for one time in that context. So then notice notice at the end of this statement. And then we'll we'll take our our break uh... Yes of course i i agree with about the decree to vote incidentally the attempt on quoting uh... allen again incidentally the attempts of phil johnson and james white at parsing words new on singer otherwise scurrying the main issue at hand have failed to show my initial statement concerning white to be false in my opinion.

And this is the same man who dares to disagree with tom askew and identifying him as an anti-calvinist he wants to have the right to define his position. But when i directly refute his false accusations and the person he quoted as his foundation say you misunderstood notice what he says in the next sense i am willing to concede johnson's point that his primer does not state what i interpreted at the state uh... so the very first thing is is he now concedes he misunderstood that was the grounds of his accusation.

But then he says he has every right to state that he is the author uh... what he is the author intended by his own words. This does not however remove the fact that given the declarations and links found in the primer i had epistemic grounds for my interpretation that is my interpretation was a reasonable interpretation.

So even though the author says he got it wrong the person is falsely accusing says he's got it wrong we repudiate it. He's gonna stick by his guns. But he's not in it because he says so uh... well you know uh... same gentleman who introduces the idea that there's a moral debt we owe to god that jesus didn't pay.

So your faith has now become a payment of debt to god.