If You Could Ask Leighton Flowers One Question (Part 2 of my interview with LF of Soteriology101)

Why Calvinists and Provisionists Can Talk Past Each Other

Hey guys, welcome to part two of my interview with Leighton Flowers. If you haven't seen the first one, please go back to Conversations with a Calvinist, calvinistpodcast .com and watch the first interview.

I believe you'll get a lot out of it, but we're going to start our second interview with Leighton Flowers right now. Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Boskey and I am a Calvinist and I am welcoming again into the studio, my new friend, Leighton Flowers.

Leighton, thank you for being a part of the conversation today. Hey, it's my honor, Keith. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Absolutely. And any of, any of you who do not know who Leighton Flowers is, that probably means you're not a Calvinist because everybody who's a Calvinist knows who this guy is, he is one of the most outspoken critics of Calvinism.

And he has a website called Soteriology 101, where he critiques those things which Calvinists teach and believe. And a lot of people would probably wonder, well, why would you have him on the program if he doesn't believe like you do?

And one of the things we try to do on this program is talk to people that we don't always agree with, especially people that we may have more common ground with than we assume going into the conversation.

And last hour, we spent over an hour talking with one another, and we did find a lot of common ground on many things and heard a lot of things from Leighton that were encouraging in regard to his willingness to work with Calvinists, have people in his life that are Calvinist friends and things that disagree with him and yet still be able to do so in a brotherly and godly and Christ honoring way.

So I was thankful to get to hear that from him, thankful to get to know him better. And so I'm bringing him back onto the show today. And what we're going to be doing is a little interesting. Recently, I was invited to be at the From Shadows to Substance Conference, where I had my booth set up and I got an opportunity to interview every one of the speakers who was at the conference.

And each one of the speakers, I asked three questions. And one of the questions that I asked was, if you could sit down with Leighton Flowers and ask him one question, what would you ask him? And I have compiled those answers, well actually those questions, because it was their answer to my question, but their questions into a series of questions.

And Leighton is going to spend the next hour or so answering those questions. And I may give him some feedback. I may dig a little deeper, probe a little further, but I'm going to try to let each of the questions stand on its own, at least give him the opportunity to answer them the way a provisionist would.

And I do want to also say this about the gentleman who gave me those questions. I'm very thankful that they were sitting down with me and willing to do that. And I want to say that none of them knew I was going to ask them this.

So please be gracious if you say, well, that guy, I didn't think that was a great question or whatever. These guys were on the spot. They had just been asked this question. So please keep in mind that all of them had just got done preaching a sermon, except for Tim.

He's the only one. He was an audience member who got to be a part of it. But all the rest of them had just got done preaching. Their minds were still probably on their sermons. And now they're doing a 20 minute interview with me.

And so just be gracious. I do think there are some great questions and I do think it's going to lead into some good conversation with Leighton and I, but just sort of just prefacing it all with that, these are wonderful brothers and men that I love and respect, and I'm thankful that they're participating in today's show.

Also, one of the things that I do, Leighton, and I mentioned this to you before the broadcast and we didn't do it on the last show, is something called Craziest Things This Week is when I have a guest on the program and I show them a video that I think is a little weird and they have to respond to it.

Now this one, I did tell Leighton, this one's kind of poking fun at the other side, so he's graciously and he's been very funny, willing to take a little jabs here and there, and me too. And so this is a video that I came across, not this week, but I have come across it many times and I've had many people send it to me.

You may know what it is, but this was a song that was sung in an independent Baptist church, and I'll just let you hear it. We don't have to hear the whole thing, but I'm gonna let you hear the first part of it, and I want you to tell me your initial thoughts as a provisionist.

Our God is so great and He is so gracious that He gives us freedom to make our own choices, and then we become responsible for those choices. This next song gives us God's perspective on the freedom that He gives us.

He went astray. I hold the waters in my mighty hand, spread out the heavens with a single span, make all creation tremble at my voice, but my own sons come to me by control, I own the cattle on a thousand hills, I write the music for the whippoorwill, control the planets with their rods and rails, but give you freedom to use your own will.

All right, I won't make you listen to the whole song. And again, I only bring it up.

I've got a new intro song for my podcast. Man, that's awesome.

I will say this. I think that those are lovely young people. I think that they're probably very sincere, and I wasn't intending to make... I think they have beautiful voices, so this is not intended to make fun of them, but it's the content of the song.

Provisionists and Arminians are often accused of making an idol of free will. What do you think of the song? Do you think that's fair?

I mean, hokey. Christian music and Christian movies are oftentimes seen as very hokey and embarrassing, and so you always have that kind of that cringe factor with regard to stuff like that, especially if it's old.

That looks like maybe the 70s or 80s or something. And so you've got a lot of that, especially in those days. Christians are getting better at producing material out there that's not so cringeworthy, but yeah, I'm sure we could find that on both the side of the theological aisle.

But at the same time, yeah, that's kind of cringeworthy.

Okay, and again, I just thought it was funny, and I wanted to get your response.

All right. Well, there's those kinds of videos. There was one that's called God's Little Puppet, and it's this woman from the 1980s holding a puppet, and so people were memeing that as the new thing for Calvinism, God's Little Puppet, things like that.

So yeah, both sides have those kinds of fun memes that we can joke with each other about, for sure.

Nice, nice. All right. Well, we're going to go into the video now, and this is, like I said, I think there's five or six questions. I'm going to give you the mic to answer, but there may be a few times where I simply ask you to explain something further.

Oh, please do. Yeah, yeah. Feel free to push back or ask questions. I'm open to that.

Sure. And so each one's name will be on the screen for those who are watching, and if you're listening, you'll just hear their voices. And here we go.

Does he really, or is there the thought that believing in the doctrines of grace is an impediment to evangelism?

All right. So that's the first question. Is believing the doctrines of grace, in your estimation, is that an impediment to evangelism?

Well, for those that are listening who are not familiar with the term doctrines of grace, that's oftentimes used by Calvinists to refer to the tulip systematic or specifically what Calvinism is. Because obviously we have doctrines of grace too, just to be clear on that.

But do I think that Calvinists, or I believe in Calvinism, impedes the proclamation of the gospel? It doesn't unless it does. That's the way I would answer that question. For Keith, I don't think it has.

It didn't impede my being a missionary and sharing the gospel when I held to it. And I've talked about in our last episode how I know many good evangelists who happen to hold to Calvinistic theology, including good apologists that we have come to our programs who are Calvinistic, but also very good apologists.

And so just because one happens to believe in Calvinistic sociology doesn't necessarily mean they are anti-evangelistic or bad at evangelism or that it impedes their evangelistic effort. However, what I would say, if I were to be more polemic on this side of the aisle, that there can be people who use Calvinism as an excuse for not sharing their faith.

There can be people who say, because everything's been predestined or because God has elected certain people for salvation, it really doesn't matter how involved I am and therefore I become less responsible or less active in evangelism.

And I think Keith and John Piper and MacArthur would all speak out against that kind of behavior, that you should actually not carry out your belief to that extreme, but that we should be—I think Calvinists would argue—that we should be the means that God has created us to be to proclaim his truth so that the elect would be saved.

And so I'm actually thankful for what may seem like a logical inconsistency for some Calvinists to be active in sharing their faith and trying to persuade others to believe the truthfulness of it. But I also understand why some people have that question or why some people might think that Calvinism could lead to less evangelistic fervor, and it can if it's taken to see.

I understand. And just to—I want to add a thought that I did a video, and it's been a while back now, and it was—the title of the video is called Calvinism is Not Fatalism, and the reason why I did that video was because I had posted a picture of a 90-year-old man being baptized, and it said—the caption in the picture was that his wife had prayed for him for 60 years, and she finally saw him come to faith at 90.

And I said, what a wonderful testimony to God honoring the prayers of this woman. And somebody came out and said from my side, not from the provisionist side, somebody from my side said her prayers didn't have anything to do with it.

God had predestined him from the foundation of the world, and Keith, you don't need to support that type of thinking that her prayers in any way move the heart of God. And I took to make a video about it.

I said, brother, you've fallen into fatalism, and I would classify myself as a compatibilist. I know you know the difference. Not everybody understands the distinction between those two. You have libertarianism, which is the full freedom of the will, and that's something you and I have never talked about, but I would imagine that would be some way in which you would define your position as more of a libertarian position, and then, of course, the fatalist would say that man's choices make no difference.

And compatibilists try to bring that together and make a balance there. And again, I know you disagree on some of what I'm saying, but ultimately, I do think that there is a danger in becoming fatalistic, and I preach against that all the time.

I think it's very dangerous. So all right, brother, are you ready to go to the next question then? Absolutely.

All right, well, let's bring him up. Yeah, the question I would ask is, does he pray to God to change hearts, and if so, why?

Prayer, Divine Influence, and the Fixed Future

All right, do you pray that God would change hearts?

Yeah, I'm not praying that God would effectually change the heart of his elect, which would be the Calvinistic premise. I believe God woos. He provokes the hearts of men, as Paul talks about in Romans 10 and 11.

Paul prays for the hardened Israelite that he has talked about being cut off in their unbelief, but he still prays for them. And it talks about God holding out his hands to them all day long, longing to gather them like a mother hen gathers the chicks under her wings.

And so, of course, I would pray for them. And of course, I would always push back and say, well, why would you pray if you think everything's destined beforehand, like the statement you just made earlier?

As it seems to me to be more of a problem to be praying on the Calvinistic side than it would be on our side, because we believe prayer does change things, that it's not a fixed future in the sense of the number of elect people being fixed in eternity past.

And therefore, when I'm praying for somebody, I'm praying that God influences not only that person by provoking their wills, but also helps me to speak clearly and to bring opportunity for me to preach and to teach.

So, I have my earthly father, my dad's name is Chuck, and he used to be a part of Southern Baptist World as well. He helped start Sea at the Pole, and he has a lot of influence in Southern Baptist World.

And so I might go to my dad and say, hey, dad, can you help me influence or can you help me get this thing done from these folks over here in Texas Baptist World because you have more influence than I do or because you have better connections with them than I do?

Well, it doesn't mean that I would think my father is effectually controlling their wills or anything. It's saying I'm asking God to do something that I can't do myself or that I need help doing in the same way that I might ask my earthly father to help me with greater influence that he may have or more wisdom that he may have.

And so just because we don't believe God's effectually changing the hearts of the lives of people to cause them to believe through effectual means doesn't mean we wouldn't ask for God's guidance and help and influence in winning the lost.

Okay. Now, you did say something that I want to do a soft pushback because I do have a question on something that you said, and I want to make sure I'm clearly hearing you. Did you say that the number who will be saved is not fixed?

No, it's not fixed by God's eternal decree. In other words, it's decided by the individual free libertarian freedom choice of the person whether as to whether they believe or not. So it's not fixed in eternity passed by a divine decree.

But does God know for certain in his omniscience what that number is? And again, I just want to make sure I understand where you're coming from. Yes.

Yes, we have no problem with God knowing what a libertarian free choice is, but he's not the cause of that choice. And so therefore, it's not fixed based upon his eternal decree. It's known for certain, but it's not necessitated.

And that's where William Lane Craig and other philosophers get into the difference between the modal fallacy of certainty versus necessity. But that's a long, another rabbit trail you can go down with regard to how the problem of omniscience, where you get into Molinism as one possible answer, open theists give another possible answer, the dynamic perspective, as well as the eternal now perspective of C .S. Lewis.

There's all kinds of philosophical ways you deal with omniscience and quote unquote determinism and how that plays itself out, which we have several broadcasts about if you're interested in kind of going down that rabbit trail with me.

Sure. Well, I do one because you did recently do a video that was highly controversial where you said that you believe that we, that the Southern Baptist should not have pushed out the open theists. And again, is that, you weren't saying that yourself are an open theist.

No, no, I've not affirmed Molinism or open theism. What I have in my book, The Potter's Promise is quotes from C .S. Lewis that takes more of an eternal now perspective. I am the I am that God, God knows all things because he is omnipresent.

He is present at all places at all times. So he knows all things because he is the I am not because he's determined all things he's he's not because he's decreed it to come to pass and therefore it's coming to pass as a sovereign decree.

But instead he knows it because he's God. He's he's out in some people talk about outside of time or above time. And there's all kinds of philosophical ways to explain that. And one of the things I've said on my broadcast is I'm not a philosopher by trade.

And therefore, you know, I appeal to the William Lane Craig's of the world with regard to Molinism as a possible solution to that quandary are appealed to the Boethius model of the sixth century, which is more the eternal now perspective.

Or, you know, we've even interviewed and talked to those who hold to more dynamic perspective, though I disagree with their philosophical conclusions. A lot of what they say sounds a lot like what guys on the determinist side say, as well as the those in the Molinist perspective.

I think it's a philosophical answer to an issue the Bible doesn't specifically address. And therefore, I wouldn't cast them out of the kingdom any more than I would cast them out of my church. Gotcha.

Gotcha. Okay.

I'm afraid I would go way too far if we began. And again, that wasn't my intention was to start going too far down that road.

I'm perfectly happy, yeah, pushing however you want to. I'm used to it.

That may be something that we could do another time. And not really, because you were just honest and said, you know, you're not a philosopher. You're leaning on William Lane Craig and men like that. And I appreciate you saying that.

And I guess one of the areas that I would maybe ask would be, is anything determined by God? If you say that man has libertarian. And so you would not deny that the cross of Christ was determined by God and that the events that prophesied by Isaiah and all those things were going to happen?

Absolutely, yeah. And that's sometimes a misnomer that some people think that because we reject determinism, that we reject the concept and idea that God determines anything, or that we think that free will is some kind of a superpower that thwarts the purposes and plans of God or something extreme like that.

And that's just not the case. We have a very high view of providence, as did, you know, if you read Jacobus Arminius and his writings, he had a very high view of God's providence and the way in which God works, his sovereign working within the world.

And so some people, I think, have a misconception of what we actually teach and believe with regard to God's providence and how he works in our world.

Fair enough. Awesome. Thank you. All right, well, we're going to move on to the third question. This is Mr. John Crawford, who just got finished preaching the story of the Ark. We were looking at how Old Testament types point to Christ.

So he's going to ask you a question from Genesis chapter 6. Hold on, where's the video?

There we go. In all honesty, I would just ask him, I got Genesis 6 on the mind. What does he do with the intent of man's heart being only evil continually? And how does that relate with the doctrine of total gravity?

That would be the question that comes to mind.

All right, so he's asking you a specific text now, and I'm sure this is a text that comes up a lot with you. So what about the text where it says that the intent of man's heart was only evil continually?

Well, yeah, it's talking about Genesis 6, verse 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. So the Lord was sorry, or he was grieved, that he had made mankind on the earth.

And he was grieved in his heart. And then the Lord said, I will wipe out all of mankind who I've created from the face of the land, and mankind as animals as well, crawling things, the birds of the sky.

And then he goes on to talk about Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. So there's at least one exception, if not Noah and his family, as far as the intent of wickedness of all mankind.

It seems to me that this is about the nature of this generation of humans, that they were wicked and they'd become this way. Not that they were born by decree to be this way, but that they had become this way.

Now, you could say that the reason Noah was righteous was because God elected him before he was born and somehow effectually caused him to be a believer. And he and his family. But then that brings up the issue as to why God just wouldn't do that with more people versus being grieved in his heart and wiping them off the face of the earth.

Why not just elect more of them, maybe pick 10 of the people of that day and do the same thing to them as you did to Noah? So it seems like the natural reading of the text is that this generation of people had gone astray.

And despite his patience towards them, despite that he sends Noah to preach to them for over 100 years, calling them to repentance. In other words, they're freely going against the things of God. They're not doing so by decree or they're not doing so because of the nature they were born with that they couldn't have helped it.

They had every opportunity to believe and to repent and come to God just as Noah and his family did. And so that I would put the blame squarely upon them and their own libertarian free choice to rebel against the things of God versus saying they were decreed to do that or they were born that way and they really couldn't help it.

It was just their natural desire from birth. I would put the blame back on them for their behavior, not on the decree or upon their innate nature from birth.

Okay, so do you not believe then that man has any limitations in his nature because of the sin of Adam? Do you not believe that we have any inherent sin nature?

No, I'm fine talking about our limitations and our corruption. We're in enmity with God, hostility, all those kinds of things. But all those things are things that grow over the course of time if someone continues to rebel against the things of God, that they can become defiled in their thinking and eventually given over if their minds and their hearts become darkened.

They're not born that way from birth. They can become that way with their choice to rebel, which is why the Bible warns that when you hear the voice of God, do not harden your hearts. Because if you do harden your hearts, your conscience can become seared and you can become more and more callous to the point where you're given over to that rebellion.

So you disagree with Voti and me, I guess, who has said that because I have six kids that they are indeed a viper in a diaper. Do you not necessarily hold to that view?

No, I think they're image bearers of God created in his image and created to be ones who have a relationship with God and that he has created them to have the right relationship with him and that he has good in mind for them and a desire to have a relationship with them and that if they choose to go the wrong way and become vipers in diapers, so to speak, if they choose to reject once they reach an age of accountability, if they choose to go that direction, then they will deserve what they get because of their unwillingness to receive the truth so as to be saved.

And so, yeah, I mean, I understand the tongue in cheek kind of overstatement, sometimes hyperbole of how sinful we are, but I think sometimes that's in reaction to a very secularized humanistic approach to the Christianity that's talking about we're all basically good and everybody's just, you know, everybody's a good people and we're all good people.

And sometimes Christianity has a tendency to pendulum swing so far away from that, that we adopt what I call this kind of this worm theology that we it's almost like this competition to how bad we can make mankind in, you know, talk about how bad, horrible mankind are as an opposition to the humanist of our secular society.

I get that. I was there too for a long time, but I think we can overstate our case to the point where we devalue human life and we devalue what God has really created us to be and what he's created us for.

And we also, I think, remove in some instances the blameworthiness of the sinner by saying that they're this way from birth basically is saying that they didn't have real choice in the matter. They just became this way because they innately were born like this.

And I think that removes the blameworthiness of the sinner instead of by saying, hey, you have responsibility for where you are. You're not this because you were born this way. You're this because you made bad choices and you could have done otherwise.

You could have repented earlier. You could have turned from your evil direction in your evil ways. But the fact that you didn't is your fault. I don't put that onto God. I don't think that that's because of a lack of God's revelation or lack of his grace or lack of Jesus's atonement for you.

I'm not giving you any of those excuses. If you're in that predicament, you made your bed. You need to lie in it because of your own choices to reject the free offer of the gospel.

Sure, but you would also agree that like when Isaiah saw the Lord and saw him in his holiness, he identified himself as being so far removed from God's holiness that he, the most righteous man in all of Israel, pronounced a word of judgment upon himself and declared himself to be a man of unclean lips who lived among a people of unclean lips.

He saw himself the most, I would have to say, probably the most righteous, practically speaking, man in all of Israel, recognized even his sin nature as being so far removed from the holiness of God. Is that just something that he chose or is that not something that's inherent in his makeup when the scripture says that we are by nature children of wrath?

Well, again, I don't have any problem with the concept of being by nature children of wrath. My point of contention with Calvinists is saying that they can't recognize that fact and confess it, humbly confess it in light of the law and the gospel, which is what the T of TULIP ultimately says.

So I have no problem with talking about men having a hostility towards God, being an enmity with God, but that's why he sends a message of reconciliation. He sends it to enemies so as to call them to reconciliation and it's our responsibility as enemies to humbly confess our enmity, humbly confess our hostility.

Just like a married couple, even in the secular world, can be hostile towards each other, but one of them eventually humble themselves, confess their wrongdoing and they are reconciled in the same way.

We can be hostile to the things of God. We can have enmity in our heart towards him, but we're responsible to humble ourselves, confess that fact and trust in him, which I believe anyone can and should do.

And it seems to me the Calvinist says you're born unable to do that unless you were picked before you were born and somehow effectually caused to do that. And I think that removes human blameworthiness because it ultimately gives them a good excuse to say, I was born unable to be reconciled even when God called me to reconciliation because my enmity was such that I couldn't even confess it.

I couldn't humble myself and confess it because he didn't regenerate me. He didn't send Jesus to die for me. And I don't think the Bible ever teaches those categories. Okay.

All right. Fair enough. I'm going to go on to the next question now. We're going to go, because I do want to try to get through all of these. And I know how I am and how you are. We'll get talking and we won't.

I'm a long-winded sucker, so I could go forever if you don't cut me off.

I am a Baptist preacher for sure. So let me bring it back up here and let's see. I want to have you. Okay, there we go. All right. So this is Michael Schultz, wonderful. All these guys are wonderful preachers.

This guy had a wonderful message and he's going to ask you one that we sort of answered on the last program because it has to do with evangelism, but I'll let you answer it here too.

So here we go. If I'm standing in the doorway with a person that I'm trying to evangelize to, and they tell me that they want to become a Christian right now, how do you do that? How do you proceed? Do we say a sinner's prayer?

Do we read some passages and do the Romans road? Do I hand them an invitation to my church? What's the next step?

The person says, I want to become a Christian. What do you do right then and there? Yeah, I think of the Philippian jailer. What must I do to be saved? Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You and your household will be saved.

So yeah, we did cover that in the last episode. We talked about different tools of personal evangelism. I would probably take them to Romans 6, 23 and go through the one verse of evangelism. Talk about the rages of their sin is death.

Talk about what you have to be saved from before you talk about the free gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What does it mean to confess Christ as Lord of your life, to follow him?

And so yeah, and instead of the sinner's prayer, I might call it the publican prayer out of Luke 18, who cries out, God have mercy on me, a sinner. And so I would focus upon first the belief in Christ for salvation, and then call them to confession of sins.

I think much of what I would do would be very similar to what you as a Southern Baptist preacher would do, or probably what Michael would do as well. Yeah.

Oh, and to be clear, our church isn't part of the SBC. So I went to a seminary that was a Southern, I went to Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary, which is a Southern Baptist seminary. I feel like I am part of the family, even though I'm not in a Southern Baptist church.

But I do have a quick question as a follow-up, because we didn't talk about this in the last program, and I don't want to, again, don't want to get into a rabbit trail too far. But because I don't know the answer, I want to ask very simply, do you hold to and teach penal substitutionary atonement?

You know, it's funny, I was actually talking to Dan Wallace about that on the back porch of the Airbnb where we were staying for this evangelism conference. And we were talking about William Lane Craig's work on penal substitutionary atonement, and appreciating his work.

I listened to his series about that, and I agree with his findings with regard to those issues. Which, by the way, it's not, for me, it's not Chris's Victor versus penal substitutionary atonement. I think what Dr. Craig argues, I would agree with, is that there are aspects of truth within all of the different theories.

And so it's not an either-or concept. I think there are true aspects of every one of those views. I think sometimes people go off track when they try to say it has to be just this view, and they kind of throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, and get rid of all the other views.

Because they have something unfavorable, they feel about how it, you know, what conclusions might be drawn from it. I don't know if that answers your question, but.

Sure. No, I, well, did you see the Monster God debate with Brian Zahn? I did not, no. Okay, Brian Zahn debated Michael Brown. Obviously two men that are in way different camps than me. But they were debating the subject of penal substitution, and Brian said he believed that if you believe in penal substitution, that makes God a monster, because God is willing to punish an innocent party to forgive your sins, and therefore God should just be willing to forgive you without having to extract any punishment from Christ.

And Christ did not go to the cross to receive the punishment that we deserve, but instead Christ went to the cross as a example of love and loving his enemies who were willing to kill him. And that, again, I hope I'm presenting Brian's position right.

I wouldn't want to misrepresent him. As I said in the last program, I try to be fair, and I do think that's his position, is that Christ's cross work was not one that was satisfying God's wrath, but rather that it was demonstrating God's love.

And that's the, you know, his distinction.

I wouldn't say either or. I'd say, you know, a little bit of both and.

Sure, sure. I don't, yeah, I don't deny that it was demonstrating God's love, for sure. But I thought Michael Brown really took him to task on the Hebrew, going back to the Old Testament, showing penal substitution in the priesthood and how the animals were used as, you know, substitutes for the people and all those things.

I mean, just in a personal opinion, if anybody's interested in that subject, I would point you to that debate, and I would say where I would disagree with Michael Brown on a thousand things on that, I think he nailed it to the wall.

I'd have to listen to that, and I'd have to hear Brian out. I mean, I don't want to speak out of turn because I didn't study up on that particular point to know, you know, what their particular views are or why they hold to them.

I'd need to study it further.

Whether the Father Draws All People

Absolutely, absolutely, and that's fair. All right, let's move on to our video, and this is Haps Addison. He is from California. He asked this question really quick, so I'm going to try to clip it and make sure I get it right.

I'm just asking one thing.

Is the only way to Christ is if the Father draws him to Him? Just yes or no. Okay. That's all I want to know. Does the Father have to draw us?