Radio Free Geneva: WLC on Romans 9

Critique of William Lane Craig on Romans 9

You can constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this.

BAH! BAH! GOD SOVERING! GOD SOVERING! BAH! SOVERING! SOVERING! SOVERING!

They just keep repeating it, and they repeat it so much you start to think it's a biblical truth.

Inside the tomb of Lazarus, she says, Lazarus, come out! And Lazarus said, I can't. I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. She didn't mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ.

You take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin. It shows in this kind of sequential format and.

Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things? Um, no.

New Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

A verse like that to him, you know what it would sound like if he were listening to it? It wouldn't make any sense to him. A self-righteous legalistic deceived jerk.

You need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism, Now he's speaking of some kind of Middle Knowledge that God now has to.

I deny and categorically deny Middle Knowledge.

Don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.

He's talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat. There's a reason to have the choice of that meat.

Now, from our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate Calvinist Dave Hunt fans and those who have read and re-read George Bryson's book,.

We are Radio Free Geneva,.

Broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

Angerings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Radio Free Geneva, if you have not heard before, is a special version of the program we do where initially we were responding to some of the worst arguments against Reformed Theology, and then we started taking on some of the best arguments, and now it's just simply anything that has to do with Reformed Theology if we're going to provide a response to it.

We roll them all together, and that way we get to listen to the Radio Free Geneva theme, which a lot of people really, really, really enjoy. So there you go. That's what Radio Free Geneva is about. Today we are brought together as the official theologian for Skillet.

I got my shirt. Josh made that for me and then had a fellow I think named David Smith actually do the printing or something. I am the official theologian for Skillet, and they were just nominated for a couple Grammys or Doves or something for their last album.

So yay, you may have seen John Cooper on with me just a few weeks ago here on the program. Anyways, today on the program we are brought together by William Lane Craig, Leighton Flowers, and J .D. Greer.

Interesting mixture of folks to bring us together for Radio Free Geneva. The first up, of course, is William Lane Craig, and it is interesting to note that Dr. Craig in years past, I don't—I think he really put out an effort to avoid becoming bogged down in the morass of theology.

Theology was just something that he had to deal with outside of the area of his true passion and expertise, and that is philosophy. But I don't know what training he has in the original languages, in exegesis, in any of the things that are necessary to really engage in that particular subject.

But anyways, he, over the past number of years, has been doing stuff on the historical Jesus and the Doctrine of the Atonement, and now has weighed in on Romans chapter 9. And of course, as most people know, Dr. Craig, even though he is not a Roman Catholic, is not exactly on board with the Reformation and certain aspects of the Reformation.

We know, for example, he doesn't mind calling himself a neo-Apollinarian, so he holds to an unorthodox view of the person of Christ, a form of Apollinarianism. So he's not concerned about what people would think about that.

When he debated Shabir Ali, he pretty well threw original sin under the bus, and so he really feels the freedom to chart his own course, shall we say. And that means we have the right to shine a light on the charting of that course as well.

And that's what we're doing here. So, last week sometime, this video surfaced. It's not an overly long video, but it is his explanation of how he deals with Romans chapter 9. Everybody sent it to me as soon as it came out, of course.

And so no one is overly shocked whatsoever that we are doing a program specifically in response to it. So let's take a look at what Dr. Craig had to say. Oh, it's almost nine minutes long. I will be starting and stopping, obviously, as we comment upon it.

But here is Dr. Craig on Romans 9.

What does it actually teach? Now, someone might say, but doesn't Romans 9 teach that human beings are completely inert in the process of salvation?

Immediately, we are reminded of the fact that Dr. Craig's depth of understanding of Reformed theology, or his willingness to actually listen to Reformed theology, have been questioned more than once. To say completely inert, if what that means is, does Romans 9 teach monergism?

Well, then, obviously. But we need to emphasize very strongly that mankind is not inert. Mankind is in rebellion. Mankind is in active rebellion. Mankind is anything but inert in the spiritual realm. He is, well, just look at all the lists that the Apostle Paul provides of all the things that mankind is doing.

His heart is in a factory of idols. Though made in the image of God, he is incessantly worshiping, but worshiping the created order rather than the creator who is forever blessed. And so, if you're going to use the term man being inert, then what you need to do is to say that man is inert in being able to do anything to position himself for salvation, to contribute to his salvation, to initiate a process of salvation, whatever else it might be.

That requires grace. That requires freedom from slavery to sin. All the associated things that the Bible very plainly presents to us.

That it belongs entirely to God's will who is elect and who is reprobate and left.

Agreed. A very excellent summary. It is completely of God. Completely of God. There is only one autonomous will in the universe, and it's God's. And so, to try to turn man into the autonomous decider of all things is really what you end up with in Molinism, where because of middle knowledge, which has knowledge of what creatures who have not been decreed to be made would do in any given situation, takes away from God the right to create, well, to do what God says he does when he speaks to Moses.

He says, hey, when Moses is saying, let's bring Aaron along. Aaron's a better speaker than I am. I'm sort of slow of tongue. What does God say? I made your tongue. I made your tongue to be the way that it is.

I made you to be the way you are. I made Aaron to be the way that Aaron is. In other words, those things that define those persons is a part of God's decree, but not middle knowledge. Person X will do what person X does in any given situation apart from God's decree to create them.

So, God's freedom is fundamentally denied at that point in that system, and that's just one of the many, many problems that comes up in Molinism.

Unsaved, doesn't Romans 9 teach a strong doctrine of predestination and irresistible grace that excludes any sort of human role in terms of a free response, such as I have suggested?

Yes, of course, we would agree that that is the case. And so, we would expect that Dr. Craig is going to attempt to change the context in which we find Romans 9. Because remember, Romans 9 comes right after Romans 8.

We have spent a great deal of time over the past two years on Romans 8 on this program, especially in response to the provisionist perspective. And Dr. David Allen and others who have attempted to find some mechanism, some way of getting around what Romans chapter 8 actually says.

Not only in its assertion of predestination election, the golden chain, but then the perfection of the work of Christ in behalf of God's elect. No one can bring a charge against God's elect because God's the one who justifies, the Son is the one who intercedes.

It is indeed all of God, and that is the issue. Fundamentally, the issue is between, is it something that God accomplishes perfectly to his own glory? Or is it something that he makes available and tries to accomplish in cooperation with the will of man?

In Molinism, it gets a lot more complicated because you have to have all these possible worlds and all the rest of that kind of stuff that you got to throw in there. But it still remains the same fundamentally at the end.

Is God's dependency upon mankind to allow the system to work up to the point, the maximum point that God allows it to, God wants it to be. How many people get saved, how much evil there is, so on and so forth.

It is all a function of the nature of man, not a function of the nature of God.

Well I'd like to suggest for your consideration a very different reading of Romans 9 than the one that we so often hear. Typically, people think of Romans 9 as God's narrowing down the scope of election to just those few people that he wants to save.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and say that Reformed people are somewhat responsible for this straw man description that Dr. Craig just gave. Because there does, especially if you join Reformed theology with a pessimistic eschatology.

It's easy to emphasize the narrow way, few there are that find it perspective and the smallness of the elect. That unfortunately is always within the context of what we see in our own experiences at a particular point in time.

But the fact is that when you listen to the promises, the promise to Abram is that his seed is going to be like the sand of the sea, as the stars of heaven. That it is a great crowd, a number that no one can number.

That is found in a great deal of Reformed theology, Reformed writing, because it's biblical. Because there's always that tension there. Part of the tension is mankind as a whole goes this direction. The tendency of mankind is to do this.

You have to have God's grace for mankind to go this direction. That's a given almost anywhere. But this idea of a narrowing down of God's grace, that is not a part of Reformed theology. It's just the opposite.

Any meaningful covenant theologian will talk about the wideness in God's mercy. In that the decreed mechanism by which the elector brought into their relationship with their head is through the gospel going to all nations.

That gospel going out to the Gentiles and over the past 2 ,000 years going around the world is not something that caught God by surprise. It's not a second plan. It was what God intended from the start.

There is a massive widening numerically in the gospel going out to all people. To describe it as a narrowing is to completely miss, because it is being used in a numerical sense. How else would there be narrowing given that the gospel is going out to Jew and Gentile?

That is Jew and Gentile that together, Jesus says, I have sheep that are not of this fold. I must gather them, make them one flock, one shepherd. What's that all about? That's not narrowing. Yet, John 10 is one of the most predestinarian chapters in all of the text of Scripture.

Yet, you have it in that context. Interesting that it would be expressed the way that it is.

He passes over the broad mass of humanity to selectively save those few that he has picked out.

Again, an erroneous limitation. Immediately, you've got a straw man element here. Again, it's Dr. Craig who's entering into these areas. When Norman Geisler wrote Chosen but Free, I wasn't the only one.

Well, maybe I was. But I know I tried while he was still writing it to encourage him to do more reading and to listen to what Reformed people were saying and to recognize certain aspects of that. I failed to get him to do that.

But that failure wasn't on my part. Dr. Geisler did not believe that he could learn theological truth from anyone younger than himself. That's a given. And so, I was too young for him to take me seriously.

It didn't matter what I had to say or what I had studied or hadn't studied. I consider that a flaw in Dr. Geisler's thinking, not a flaw in my attempting to get him to think. But anyways, same thing with Dr. Craig.

My experience over the years in responding with Dr. Craig is he doesn't seem to have any, well, almost any respect for Reformed people. And so, doesn't seem to read widely in even historically Reformed sources.

From Calvin onward, the Westminster Divines, any of the great Princeton theologians who have addressed so many of these things so brilliantly and so in-depth over the years. And that leads to, I think, this fundamental misdefinition from the start, which will be relevant to how he finally tries to deal with Romans 9.

I want to suggest that Paul's burden in Romans 9 is exactly the opposite. What Paul wants to do here is to broaden the scope of salvation, not to narrow it down to a select few.

Now, I would simply point out that what we need here is a contextually consistent exegesis. What we need to do is to recognize that chapter divisions are not inspired. Therefore, we need to reach back into Romans chapter 8.

We need to see that there is a clear subject shift at the beginning of what we call chapter 9. But it is brought on by the fact that the end of chapter 8 results in this huge exclamation of worship and praise and everything else in regards to what God has done in Christ Jesus.

If God be for us, who can be against us? Who can bring a charge against God's elect? That's the language. And that's why neither famine or nakedness or peril or any powers that have been created or will be created, heaven, earth, under the sea, he compasses the universe to say that because God is accomplishing his purpose in his elect people in Christ Jesus, there's nothing in this created universe that can keep him from accomplishing what it is he desires to accomplish.

And so, that then is the immediate context. You end with the praise at the end of chapter 8 for what God has done. And then in chapter 9, you have a shift to the answering of a specific objection to what has just been given to us in chapter 8.

And that is, if this is true, then why do so few Jews believe the message that you are proclaiming? Why are they the primary people trying to kill Paul? Why are they the ones following him from city to city to gainsay what it is he was saying?

There has to be an explanation for all of this. Why is Paul one of the small remnant that is embracing Jesus as the Messiah? And why is he then bringing this message outside of that narrow confine to the broader context of the Gentiles?

Why is any of this happening? And that's where you get the transitionary statement in Romans chapter 9. They are not all of Israel who are of Israel. Just because you are genetically related to Abraham does not mean that you're his child.

There is something else. And from the beginning, God has exercised his sovereign choice. And that's what he illustrates. He illustrates it with the twins. Before they had been born, before they had ever done good or evil, so that God's purpose and election might stand, it was said to her, the older shall serve the younger.

It was a reversal of the normative relationship. And what was it about? God's purpose and election. That was what Romans 8 was about. That was central to that theme. It's God's purpose and election. That's what you've got in the prologue to the epistle to the Ephesians.

God's purpose. This is what the early church believed in. It was part of their very language. And so, in light of that, then, Paul gives examples of the fact that God has been sovereign in reserving for himself a certain people who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

He's going to specifically cite that passage in Romans chapter 11. But he goes through the twins, and he goes through Esau, and he goes through the Pharaoh. Even though he destroys the Pharaoh, he uses the Pharaoh to his honor and glory.

And so, there is a specific objection that is being addressed by the apostle that he had faced himself. We need to hear exegesis from the text, not it is plausible, it is possible, maybe this, maybe that.

That's not dealing with the text in an appropriate fashion, so we need something more than that.

He wants to broaden it as wide as possible. You see, the problematic that Paul is dealing with in Romans 9 concerns Jewish persons, who think that because of their Jewish ethnicity, they have a sort of leg up on salvation with God.

Those who were ethnically Jewish found it unthinkable that God would reject his chosen people, Israel, and instead allow these execrable Gentiles to go into the kingdom of God rather than his own people.

How God could prefer over the Jews these Gentile dogs and save them and pass over the Jews was just unthinkable for these Jewish people. There's an element of truth here.

That's the whole point of why the illustrations are given that are given, and that is specifically the reality that God had always exercised divine election, that it was never a matter of simple genetic relationship of what your DNA is.

There was always the freedom of God to bring people to himself on his own basis. You could not demand anything of God. So none of this so far is actually relevant to the real issue. We just need to keep our eye on the ball and see where the shot goes wide, shall we say.

So what Paul wants to emphasize in Romans 9 is God's sovereignty in electing and saving whomever he wants, regardless of their ethnic background. Whether Jew or Gentile, it is God's choice as to who will be saved.

Now that sounds reformed. That sounds very reformed. It isn't, because behind that is the Molinistic running of the future possibilities and stuff like that. But he has to recognize that Romans 9 then takes us into chapter 10 and 11, where the whole Jewish-Gentile situation and the proclamation that it's by faith, no matter who you are, is presented.

So what he's saying is God has the freedom to save Jews and Gentiles. That much is true. But once you get down to, and therefore does he have a specific elect people, that's where the division takes place.

So you notice at the beginning of chapter 9, Paul expresses his anguish concerning those Israelites to whom all the promises of the old covenant belong, that are not believers in Christ. He says in verse 6 that it is not as though God's word had failed.

Rather, he says that not everyone who is descended from Israel belongs to Israel. Not everybody is a real child of Abraham just because they are his physical descendant. Just because you're ethnically Jewish doesn't mean that you have some sort of a favored status with God.

Rather, as Paul illustrates with the story of Jacob and Esau, God has the freedom to choose whom he wills to be saved. Just being descended from Abraham physically is no guarantee. So in verses 6 to 24, Paul says God is free to save whomever he wants, and that no one can call into question God's choice.

No one has the right to talk back to God. No one has the right to say that God has to prefer his own people, Israel, over these Gentiles. If God wants to broaden the scope of salvation to include Gentiles in addition to, and even instead of, his chosen people, the ethnic Jews, then no one can talk back to God.

It is God who has mercy upon whom he has mercy, and has compassion upon whom he has compassion. So here is the key question.

Okay, so up to this point we're sitting there going, well that sounds pretty good! Sounds pretty good! You know, so when does the other shoe drop? Or given how hot it is right now, I guess yesterday we set a new record at Death Valley at 130 degrees.

You know, it really makes you wonder if God isn't saying, you know, scorching fires and, you know, yeah, yeah, hey guys, wake up, California, hello! But anyway, you would, we're just waiting right now for the other shoe to drop, because we know that if you were to take what was just said to its logical conclusion, then God has an elect people that he has chosen from eternity past that is completely unworthy.

There's nothing that they do in and of themselves. They're not choice meats. They aren't able to do what the Bible specifically says mankind outside of grace is not capable of doing. Something's going to have to add.

So how are we going to get around this? Well, that's where the other shoe or sandal, as it is in the heat right now, is going to drop.

Who is it, then, according to Romans 9, that God has chosen to elect if it is not those who are ethnically Jewish? The answer is those who have faith in Christ Jesus. Those are the ones that he has chosen to elect and save, and so in verse 30 he writes,.

What shall we say, then, that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith, but that Israel, who pursued the righteousness which is based on law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law.

Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works.

Okay, so a tremendous passage, one that we use all the time in dealing with people who are attempting to insert works righteousness, but Romans 9, 30 through 32 comes after Romans 9, 6 through 24, and then some fulfillment passages thereafter.

So are we really suggesting that the key to the interpretation of what comes before isn't provided until much later in the text? Why is it upside down? It's similar to when Norman Geisler goes to John 6, 40 and inserts his understanding of what that means, and that then has to determine what John 6, 37 means.

Shouldn't 37 come before 40? Doesn't the first part of Romans 9 come before this part of Romans 9? And of course there is an assumption concerning the nature of faith and everything else that is related here.

Romans 9, 30 and 32 is coming after Paul has now completed his demonstration that they are not all Israel who are Israel. And so it's getting ready, it's actually the transitionary section into chapter 10.

But what is being done here is Craig is trying to say, well, yes, God is free to save who he wants, but the condition of that being saved is autonomous faith, which in Mullenism allows for the freedom of the will, does not require regeneration.

So man can be autonomous, and God is still saving who he wants, but the want is really the result of the combination of whatever choice God has made as to what his goal is. Maximum number of people saved in light of minimalization of evil or any combination of possible things.

He doesn't want to really commit himself on that, though you can tell sort of where he's going in his thinking. But that's where God's choice is. God's choice is not personal. Non-reformed understandings of salvation are impersonal.

They involve potentiality, making man savable, creating nameless, faceless groups that mankind fills in by his actions, whether it's just faith and repentance or just faith, maybe no repentance, or longer lists of actions and sacramental systems, whatever it might be.

But it's impersonal. It's creating groups that then are filled by our action. The thing that can't be from a synergistic perspective is that God has chosen a particular people, therefore their resurrection to spiritual life, their being in drop of the Holy Spirit of God, their adoption of forgiveness, everything comes from his hand and his hand only, even though they were very much in opposition to God and to his ways, justly under his condemnation.

They were not choice meets. They were not the righteous. They become the righteous because that's the mechanism he uses to conform them to the image of Christ, but he provides a way to do that. It is not what draws his favor to them.

It is not what makes them who they are. And so this is, instead of walking through the text, some of us can walk through Romans chapter 9 and start at the beginning and go verse by verse and make the argument.

Notice that what has happened here is after recognizing, you know, pretty much through verse 6, 7 and the rest has been skipped. There's been, it's not even touched. And instead, now you're going to jump into another section, read it back into this.

Well, it must've been talking about that because, well, that's what we've got, right?

So, what God has done is that he has decided to save all those who have faith in Christ Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, it doesn't matter. It is those who have faith in Christ Jesus whom God has elected.

So, here's the key issue again, very, very plain. You're going to find this with everybody. In Craig's perspective, man has the capacity, even though this is chapter 9, chapter 8 starts off with Paul saying that those who are according to the flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God.

They cannot submit themselves to the law of God. They do not have that capacity. Believing and repenting is pleasing to God. Romans chapter 8 said they can't do what's pleasing to God, but Craig in any synergistic system simply does not have a consistently biblical anthropology.

They take any type of positive reference and just ignore the straightforward man is not able texts. That's just, that's what you have to do. You cannot maintain a free will perspective without that kind of a maneuver, and that's what you have here.

So, man is able to freely choose himself specifically by, and of course, within Molinism, whether man is going to believe or not is dependent upon the circumstances in which he's placed, which God places him in those circumstances.

But, there are some people that it doesn't matter what circumstance you put them in, they're never going to believe. I guess there are other people, it doesn't matter what circumstance, they'll always believe.

And then you've got the people in the middle, and God places them depending on whether he wants to get them saved or not. So, it would almost seem at that point that he would have to put everyone who could possibly be saved into the context that they could be saved, but maybe there's just not enough worlds to do that.

I don't know. That kind of speculative stuff to try to turn man into the deciding factor and wherever this middle knowledge came from, it creates real havoc.

Therefore, given God's sovereign choice, ethnically Jewish people cannot...

Sovereign choice to save in a particular fashion, not sovereign choice of individuals. Big, big difference.

If God has preferred to save certain Gentiles over certain Jewish persons. This is all based upon the principle of faith that Paul explains back in Romans 3 and 4.

Okay, so there's part of the idea. There we go. Rich is not with us right now. He's what? Oh, he's talking to our internet provider, which doesn't allow us to do live internet broadcasting these days.

Just simply by not giving us a reliable signal, which is why we're having to record this. But hear what he's saying. When he says God has chosen, what God has chosen is not individuals. God has chosen to save those who believe, whether Jew or Gentile.

So there is a category out there. And you put yourself in it. It's important to hear what he was saying before. It sounded reformed because it was based on what was being said in Romans chapter 9. But it's not, because you're redefining the terms.

And you have an external category, an external framework that you're putting all this in to try to maintain the autonomy of man.

With respect to Abraham himself. So in Romans 3 verses 21 and following, Paul writes,. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood to be received by faith.

Beautiful text, irrelevant to Romans 9, in context. I mean, if you have to cut the text of Romans up into little parts like puzzle pieces and move them around. That should say something to you. Why is it that you can pick up commentaries by reformed men and start with Romans 1 and work your way all the way through following the argument as it builds upon itself as Paul takes a side issue here, a side thing there, but he's always going the same direction.

How come Romans makes sense going straight through it, but then other people have to go, well, what you really need to do is we need to skip over Romans 9, 7 and following that specifically says it wasn't because of what people did.

It wasn't because whether they did something good or bad. It wasn't because of their righteousness or their good deeds. It was completely God's freedom and it was personal in their experience. It wasn't just categories.

And God is the potter and skip over the fact that there is the, that the objection, the very objection Paul responds to, well, who resists as well? Who are you? Oh man, how can you pretend? I'll just be honest here.

How can you pretend to put a video out in Romans chapter nine and never even mentioned that? Never even talk about it. Never even say, well, what is this objection really saying? Why, why would Paul think that someone would object to his perspective in this way?

Instead, you're spending all your time going back to talking about justification. Romans chapter three, that wasn't Paul's. That wasn't the way Paul went through everything. Everything here is absolutely true, but it does not explain what Paul is doing in Romans chapter nine, because the objection is you go through chapter three, you go through chapter four, you're justified by faith, by grace.

It's not by works of the law. It's not by circumcision. There's, there's only, there can be only one body. That's Romans five. He goes through something I, at least when he debated Shabir Ali, didn't seem to believe.

Romans chapter five is discussion of the federal headship of Adam, our fall in Adam, the corruption of our nature, all the rest of those things. He, he goes through the, the experience of the believer in Romans six and seven in regards to sin and the mastery of sin and we've died to sin and therefore we've been released from its slavery into chapter eight and the freedom of the sons of God.

But the beginning of chapter eight, the discussion very clearly and importantly of our inability outside of Christ to be able to do any of these things, we have to be in the spirit, not in the flesh, et cetera, et cetera.

Then you've got the explanation. This all builds up to that. God has done all of this. He is behind all of this. It is a part of what he has predestined from eternity past and that's what makes it certain and sure.

And then having said all of that, chapter nine, okay, then why are you in the minority of the old covenant people? Why do most Jews reject what it is you're saying? And Paul then demonstrates that God has always had an elect people.

He has always exercised his freedom, even within the very founding family of the tribes of Israel. He was free to choose. Jacob, I've loved Esau, I've hated. It's right there. How can you deal with Romans nine?