Misconceptions about Calvinists Part 2: Calvinists Eat Babies

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No, it was Calvinist eat babies now because it was like it was like I think that makes it better That's a new tag group Sarah.

00:06

You're watching a Calvinist eat babies And welcome back to conversations with a Calvinist live edition, this is misconceptions about Calvinism Part two and I am welcomed by or I am welcoming.

00:40

I always said I'm welcomed.

00:41

I am being welcome you You know, it's a mutual thing I am welcoming tonight Two co-hosts as we did last time a couple of weeks ago Jake corn my fellow Calvinist 1689 Affirmer as well as Matthew Henson who remains somewhat ambiguous as to his position But we will continue to call him our not yet Calvinist friend.

01:08

So I'm right with that.

01:09

Good evening gentlemen How are you? Matthew is the already but not yet.

01:14

I like terms Yeah, kind of Schrodinger's Calvinist.

01:20

Yeah, okay.

01:21

All right Okay, you are now this.

01:24

Yes.

01:25

I like that Schrodinger's Calvinist Well that that would imply that you have to open the box at some point to see what's inside Yeah, that's what we're trying to do open the box of your problems with Calvinism yet.

01:37

We have still Figured out what they exactly are.

01:40

So yeah, exactly It's a metaphorical box.

01:44

I will say this as we use it a cage Yeah Out of the box into the cage.

01:51

Got it.

01:51

Okay I've been a cage-free Calvinist for a while, but I get it It is amazing when you hit that gear from cage to stage like it is I mean apparent It is so obvious and the one thing you get is all your time back because you're not arguing with people anymore Yeah, it's a peaceful life it is exactly well, I wanted to mention as we get going tonight several people know this already but some don't that I have been engaging in a new venture this past week One of our church members has begun to take my short videos and use and created a tick-tock page now He's doing this.

02:32

He's doing this as my helper my media manager.

02:35

So shout out to Matt David for doing that for me and We have hit Over 400,000 views we have over I think it was over over 30,000 Comments, I think is where we're at at this point and no no, no, maybe it's 30,000 likes 3,000 comments.

02:57

So we've hit we've hit we're getting some attention over on tick-tock I appreciate the people who are watching maybe some of you are watching here tonight but the reason why I bring that up is because a Lot of people on tick-tock are coming after me about being a Calvinist and some of them have Created some of the misconceptions that we're going to talk about tonight They have brought those up and so I am going to be actually Answering some of those tonight or throwing them out for us to discuss tonight because this is a three-man show So I have one in particular That's in the back of my mind, but it doesn't have to be the place I start because I know that I also have From Jake your groups.

03:36

Tell us again about your groups Yeah, so Matthew and I are both admins for just say you don't understand reform theology and move along Which is a tag group on Facebook.

03:47

It's a great community.

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So we've pulled that audience for some of their misconceptions that they've run into kind of what the group does is as we you know go through different other Threads through Facebook and you see somebody misstating Calvinism or presenting one of these misconceptions instead of getting into a long argument You just throw down the tag group and move along and so we'll screenshot That instance is shared in the group and we learn and laugh and have a good time.

04:16

It's not all Calvinist There's a ton of people in there, you know, Matthew included who are there to learn and have a good time.

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So We we have a lot of great fodder for tonight's discussion Right, I enjoy being a member and admin of that group because the only thing worse than cringe Internet Calvinist or cringe Internet Anti-Calvinist.

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Oh, that's absolutely right I mean, we all know cringe Internet Calvinists, but but the worst part is the cringe Internet anti-Calvinist and so while not even subscribing to that that that the theological system in full I can at least point at people who are making a Utter clown show of representing it and say that's really really bad argumentation, dude Yeah, absolutely.

04:59

Absolutely.

04:59

Well, Jake, I'm gonna save mine for a little later Why don't we start with one of the ones from your group since mine's not a request mine's directly from my brain Or well for my tick-tock page, but but from I want to start with the guys who are interested enough to send us in Some questions.

05:16

Yeah, great start with that.

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So one of the ones I wanted to get into tonight.

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I Think finds its original origin in the latent foul flowers verse over there in soteriology 101 This is a favorite of his and his disciples and it's the idea that John Calvin Got his ideas from st.

05:38

Augustine and st.

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Augustine was a Manichean Gnostic and so you can find Manichean Gnosticism all throughout Calvinism and thus Calvinism can't actually be Christianity you guys heard that one before sure have no so so Who wants to take a stab at it first because I think I'm laughing too much right now to actually deal with it seriously well, I guess I'll start by saying it's a Coming from the side that believes that there are legitimate critiques of Calvinism calling it Manichean Gnosticism Does not assist my case in any way in doing so Here's the thing Just because it's a it's a fallacy by association just because two things share one property does not mean they share all properties Just because You find a Gnostic back in the second or third century, which was the greatest enemy of the church I think up until the Aryans probably Just because you find them saying a thing and then you think it sounds like another thing that you don't like You don't get to connect those two willy-nilly and just say well then this must be that um, you know, it's It would there are there are other world religions That are monotheistic, but we don't throw out the idea of monotheism just because Islam happens to affirm it It's not that that's not a useful or rational way to argue So yeah I have more to say on the specific connections that they try to make but I'll pitch it back to you guys because I just Wanted to lay that out at the start then whether it's Rome or Islam or Judaism or Gnosticism or Aryanism or whatever it is just because two things share one Quality does not mean they share all qualities and it's just kind of something to put out there at the start But in tangentially you mentioned Islam, that's another one that gets brought up a lot is oh, there's five petals of tulips So there and there's also Five pillars of Islam and so those are the same and it's like no no, I'm wearing for the for the listener Not the viewer.

07:48

I'm wearing my five solos of the Reformation shirt.

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So yeah, it's five of those two So what you know, what is that? He's I think you have your power button in your mic backwards because I think What we heard we heard your cough It's there.

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So I didn't hear me now.

08:02

Oh Keith.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, Keith So so sorry, so this was given from one of my good friends Sarah D'Onofrio Who obviously doesn't believe it herself, but it is something we hear a lot.

08:14

I will say this it is also Genetic fallacy so let's even say that that it were true and it is true that St.

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Augustine did have his roots in paganism the idea that after his conversion Those pieces of those philosophy came into his Christianity one that cast aspersions on his own Conversion and two latent flowers Famously right says he used to be a Calvinist and he knows all about Calvinism because he was a Calvinist So then by his own logic then his new frame of thought his provisionism as he calls it Well, it must be heavily influenced by Calvinism because he used to be a Calvinist So even internally to his own argument, that doesn't make any sense.

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Now what I don't really I've never really understood.

09:11

I I just don't see it.

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I don't see the connection.

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Do you guys know how they argue? These things are connected Keith, you know, I don't I will I do want to say something though about the Augustine Connection real quick though, and I think this goes back to the genetic fallacy and some of the other issues you guys have already mentioned Regarding the issue of of saying okay.

09:39

Well Augustine Hold on Keith, please or something.

09:45

Okay.

09:45

My volume is low.

09:47

I was told sorry Hello, can you hear me now still sounds alright just a bit a bit low Okay, I mean we can hear you.

09:58

It's just it's just a quality thing.

09:59

I think I know what's wrong Hold on one second.

10:02

Okay, this is this is live folks.

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We don't we don't try and block it or anything.

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I apologize I Had the wrong mic hooked up I was actually talking through my headphone mic, which is awful So kind of thought so thank you for clarifying that and I think thank you for clarifying that This is the good stuff guys.

10:22

It's the live pod.

10:23

Yeah Absolutely, and we're hey we can hear you.

10:27

I'm finally getting some comments there.

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Okay Hey, if you want to get better y'all donate money so we can afford a producer.

10:32

Okay Yeah, yeah but when we talk about Augustine Augustine's writings and his his His contribution to the church has has You know, he wrote in the fifth and sixth century.

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So you four and five hundred so so you have this man who contributed 1,500 years For the last 1,500 years his contributions have been looked at have been examined and have there's entire monastic orders that were that were named after him the Augustinian order which was the order of the Martin Luther was a part of so so basically what we are to believe is that this man who has made such a contribution to Christian thought that both Catholic and Protestant have held him in great esteem have have considered him to be One of the greatest thinkers in human history not just not just Christian history, but but human history one of the greatest thinkers and contributors to theological thought and and Because Layton flowers came along 1500 years later.

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We're to accept this idea that he is this Manichaean I'm sorry.

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I'm saying it wrong Manichaean Manichaean Gnostic and and that and this somehow slipped by all of the thousands of other men who have written about him this is a level of Incredulity that that boggles the mind.

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This is this is this is an incredulous attack against a against a Foundational thinker in Christian writing.

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So that's that's that I think that's I think it's just incredulous So I think I think I can speak just a little more on so Even in dealing with someone like Layton We need to accurately represent what Layton is saying and I don't think you guys aren't doing that But I'm going to attempt to do so here is essentially the argument made so Augustine had two primary controversies in his life that with the Donatists and then with Pelagius and Augustine was inconsistent with himself Between the two and he's a man and he was not an apostle writing scripture so we can say that His arguments that he made against the Donatists And his arguments that he made against Pelagius could contradict one another and that's because he developed theologically over his life and all that But the argumentation against Pelagius came much later in his life And so it was when pressed on the issue of grace total depravity Uh deadness and sin these kind of things that Augustine had to sharpen his views on what he thought was meant by the term Grace the doctrines of grace.

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We would call them now something like that.

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So When you're not pressed on this, you don't have to sharpen it very much but Pelagius essentially kept backing him into the corner and saying well if this then this then this and this and Augustine had to Have an equal and opposite reaction in a sense What Leighton Flowers is saying is that Augustine in many ways went too far in his arguments against Pelagius, which by the way Look askance at anyone who's trying to redeem Pelagius.

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That's just it's just not generally a good place to be.

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Um, but regardless Uh, so so his argument would be that that Augustine went too far in his critique of Pelagius And it was because of his upbringing as a manichaean gnostic and the hallmark of manichaean Gnosticism Was um, or at least the hallmark as it relates to this conversation is determinism is a a a fixed hard uh meticulously planned determinism and so ascribing that to augustine and then saying well therefore Since augustine got his ideas from the manichaean gnostics and they were hard determinists then calvin was inspired by augustine, which is true Um, but then that somehow made its way into calvin and and so modern-day calvinists are actually manichaean Gnostics it it really is six degrees of kevin bacon at this point Yeah, and and it ignores the biblical witness for Any form of determinism and I would argue the biblical witness is deterministic to a great degree so it was as if you know Manny invented that which isn't true and I mean, there's also the bit I hear the bit about gnosticism, you know gnosticism Is very much about having secret knowledge And this secret knowledge is what redeems you and it's very dualistic in nature uh, you know Rejecting the physical world for the spiritual world where the where the true knowledge lives And that's a huge misconception of calvinism because I hear a lot Well, how do you know if you're elect? How do the elect know that they're the elect? Right, which which is a complete misunderstanding? Because how does anybody in any christian soteriology? Know or believe that they are saved.

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I mean, it's the same is the very self same process What I actually know is that christ is just and merciful and he is able to save utterly all of those who he intends to Save I know that now I have Some reason to believe that I am among those to a great degree uh, you know, I you you shall know them by their fruit and uh, you know, but but It isn't my knowledge of I know that I am elect because I have secret knowledge that got me there It's the same as literally anybody who believes that they're saved by christ In fact, in fact more so because i'm not putting my faith in an event where upon You know, I walked down the aisle and shook pastor jim's hand and he signed my name on a bible and that's how I know I'm saved that isn't how I know i'm saved so, you know, we don't claim to have any secret knowledge all we claim is we come across something in the bible saying You know, he predestined us before the laying of the foundation of the earth and we just believe that yeah, and and again when we look at augustine's arguments for His view of determinism as well as calvin's you've already said this but I just want to reiterate it um, it's it's scriptural arguments, um, if you look at the the I believe it's the writings of um, the council of orange where where cal calvin's or augustine's writings were being um Established against the the pelagians um It's very clear that they're drawing from scripture to make their arguments now people can argue that they're misinterpreting they can argue that they're you know, obviously the obviously the Those who would hold to a free will non-deterministic or arminian view would say well, I disagree with how they interpret John 6 right how they interpret romans 9 or how they interpret uh Genesis 50 20 or any of those verses which we would say point to a more deterministic perspective um He's not arguing from You know, he's not saying well, this was this was manny's view You know, this was the this was the you know, this was the view of this gnostic, which obviously he wouldn't but Again, I I think um, I think flowers is is reaching here.

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I think he often overreaches.

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Um, I've read enough of what he writes to see that he's Often just trying to throw As much at the wall as he can hoping something will stick And if that And and if that's unfair i'm not intending to besmirch his character But he just wants he wants something to stick and so throw everything he can I would say he has not yet met an enemy of calvinism with which he would disagree That's probably a different way to say it.

18:34

Um So yeah, and like you said he has he he has basically He has basically sanctified pelagius Yeah tried and yeah, and when you do that, you know, and he would argue And and and and this again, maybe i'm being a little ungracious He argues the same way That the modern arians argue for arias, but we just don't know everything arias taught We just his works were were uh hidden by the church and they were suppressed and so we don't really know who arias was and therefore who are we to say that arias wasn't a Genuine follower of christ because the only thing we know about him is what his opponents wrote about him and therefore Because winners write history We don't really know who the real arias was And that same argument is being used for pelagius is we don't really know enough about the real pelagius All we know is what his enemies wrote and therefore we can't make a we cannot make an educated Conclusion about who? Pelagius was or who arias was because all we have is the writings of their enemies and I understand that argument to a point But at the same time there's a reason why these guys were not uh Allowed within the church to spread their false teachings because they were false teachings.

19:55

I I I I don't want to change the subject real quick, but I do want to mention this on on the tiktok Uh page one of the one of the people were were arguing about that very thing that that you know, um, uh that the early church did not have a consistent hermeneut or they didn't have a consistent theology and everybody was on the map and the the gnostics had their theology and the the the the the what we would call orthodox now were just one group of of people within a A vast array.

20:28

Well, michael kruger has destroyed that in the book Orthodoxy and and destroyed that argument that there was That there were all these competing views that were all considered to be legitimate.

20:40

That's an american idea That is not an early church idea The idea that all these various ideas can be right and everybody just accepts that everybody else is right That's uh, there's a greek word for that.

20:50

It's baloney So I will say about the uh, augustine connection too um, which is germane to what you're talking about with with Augustine and pelagius and and you know, santa claus and arias, right? Is that that john calvin does in fact quote augustine a lot in instance? Most no most calvinists haven't read institutes.

21:14

I highly recommend you do It'll be a bit of a slog but but you really should but what matters is so yes calvin quotes augustine Like every other paragraph, but you have to ask yourself Why is it because he's so in love with augustine or he just thinks that like that's the only person John calvin ever thinks about well, no, he was a very educated man He thought about a lot of people but institutes was written in the context of a europe That is awakening From the reformation and and john calvin's going.

21:45

Hey europe.

21:45

Guess what? We don't have to be catholic anymore We don't necessarily have to be lutheran either here are my thoughts on How some of these ideas have been with us for the last thousand years Not just now since dr.

22:02

Luther, but but hey, look at this guy who's in all of our shared tradition saint augustine very popular mainstream theologian within catholicism Look what he has to say about some of these things that i'm seeing in scripture Now that we're allowed to talk about ideas in scripture that aren't going to get us killed so it's kind of the conversation about augustine is lending credibility to Former or even current catholics to say come on out guys.

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Come on out.

22:32

It's okay Look, look your boy.

22:34

Augustine was kind of into this too And it's okay And by the way, the pope is the antichrist, you know, so like As he's luring them, you know, but so but that's why so what it is is your boy Augustine was good your boy the pope not so much So we got to get we got to get right on whose boys yeah boys And I love I love calvin's attitude.

22:56

He is full of attitude like Not maybe so much as luther, but like he he'll just flat out say and so anyway The anabaptists are stupid and you shouldn't consider any of their ideas so like You know, but that's why augustine comes up so much.

23:10

So it's Again, it's understanding that theology often like we talked about last time with nt.

23:16

Right often happens in conversation And if you're not tracking the whole conversation You will hear something that sounds like an overstatement to the arguments you want to make but Calvin's not talking to me.

23:30

He's talking to a very catholic europe and so Again, that's why that is so Yeah, absolutely All right.

23:40

Well, uh, I think we've uh, we've we've dealt with that fairly well What's a what's another one of our misconceptions matthew? Did you happen to bring any with you this time? Are we going to go all off of uh, jake's list for a while? I think I think we're going to go go with his list.

23:55

Okay.

23:55

Okay So this one comes from our good friend on just say savannah borden.

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Everybody loves savannah uh, and she's heard a version of Calvinist believe all unborn babies go to hell Uh that there's kind of a misconstrued quote out there of calvin or a calvinist saying something similar about their being Unelect babies in hell and there might be millions of them.

24:21

And so uh that just goes to show god's injustice and His or not, you know calva god's uh calva god cruelty and you know How dare he send any babies to hell whatsoever? There is a another tag group called I saw calvi god and I knew this was going to be a fair and balanced argument So yeah, there you go.

24:42

Yeah, I don't even whoever whoever came up with that one.

24:45

You get a shout out Who is creating all these tag groups? I don't even half of them are me I don't even have I don't even have one I need I need one that says you should listen to conversations with a calvinist That's what I want a tag group Well, it has to be something The thing is after i've said it three or more times in a week.

25:05

I say yeah, this needs to be a tag group Yeah, I gotcha Sarah d'onofrio just said in channel.

25:12

She said I saw calvi god and knew this.

25:14

Oh she tagged.

25:15

Yeah Sarah's one of our tag group queens out there.

25:18

She got it right there.

25:19

She's og.

25:20

Thank you.

25:21

Sarah.

25:21

We appreciate your listening Uh, okay.

25:24

So the baby argument who wants to go first? Uh, matthew, uh, you're the uh, You're the token non.

25:30

I mean, you're the uh, not yet calvinist.

25:32

Uh, Calvinist Do you want to say something about this before uh me and sure jake digging Um, yeah, so I there is a there is a quote from from calvin's institutes where he says there are babies a span long in Hell, you know, which is I don't know how long a span is let's say an inch or something like that and and you know That is immediately an emotionally charged.

25:57

Um, Thing to say, um, I think we're all Pro-life we're all on team baby here keith Your wife is about to have one Um, we're all fans of babies and we wish the little tyke the very best number six, baby Number six i'm now gonna be my own brady bunch There you go.

26:13

I'm gonna make my own that's gonna be a picture in my house There's all a sick me surrounded by six kids.

26:18

I just don't have a maid yet to put in the middle Yeah, am I the only old guy for brady bunch no, I get it i'm just gonna reward you for a brady bunch reference Yeah, so I actually actually, um Again, i'm absolutely obsessed with representing people Accurately, and so I actually went and found the quote in institutes and read a couple of pages before and read You know a couple of pages afterwards to see You know what what we're dealing with here and and calvin's Calvin's calvin's insistence on the Justice and the mercy and the sovereignty of god is all throughout institutes You can't you can't parcel that out.

27:01

Um And and say that there was some you know grave imbalance.

27:06

I don't think um, but in this particular thing in this particular Quotation what he's talking about is the absolute justice of god to do Whatever he pleases with humanity and like yeah Amen, if as jake said on the last program someday when I make my own universe I'll get to decide what happens in that universe.

27:24

But till then I live in god's universe and so So if he chose to do so and i've used this with with middle schoolers before It's the last program about Well god was this evil genocidal whatever in the old testament.

27:39

He ordered israel to go wipe these people out and i'm like, okay well Um, if he had just obliterated them with orbital fire, would that have been any? Would he would he have been unjust in doing so, you know to ask to kind of push that question So that's the that's what calvin is saying is he's emphasizing the justice of god in doing so I don't agree Um, I I think that there's a um I think that Certainty on this subject is not something that scripture gives us I don't think it's something that we can put a flag in the ground and say this is definitely the case I think that it is an I think it would be reading romans 5 Total depravity those kinds of things to an excess To then say that before the moment of consciousness um, it is You know that that there can there can be some sort of just condemnation For for a person.

28:32

I don't I don't find good evidence for that equally when And if you've pastored for 15 minutes this comes up When the couple who has suffered a miscarriage or has suffered The loss of a child during childbirth very early in their years and they're looking up at you and again It's emotionally charged but it's pastoral and we've got to deal with it And they're looking at you with the weeping eyes and they're saying is my baby in heaven The easy answer for the pastor is to say absolutely.

29:03

Yes, 100 But I don't think certainty does us well there either Um, I don't think scripture is sufficiently clear to really answer this either way I think calvin was an error in in stating it as clearly as he did And I think the other side would be an error too The one place you get any kind of possible clarity on this is in second samuel Where david refers to a uh to one of his children who's died Um, I don't I don't know if it was in the womb or just like newborn or something like that But he makes the definitive statement he is gone from me now, but I will go and see him someday So we can we can like special plead that and we could say well David is prophetic and god must have told him that or else he wouldn't have known, you know, that kind of thing But he just sort of makes the statement matter of factly i've lost my child, but I will see them again someday so either david David david knows something that's going on here.

30:01

But but I would say that's not the primary purpose of that text That's not what it's intending Conclusion we can perhaps draw from it But but in in my own conclusion, I would say I don't think there's sufficient evidence on either side to say This is definitely what the situation is.

30:18

That's me.

30:19

Oh and just to throw this out there I don't go for a southern baptist age of accountability argument either.

30:24

I just don't find that in scripture.

30:25

So anyway, yeah Primarily we we we need to I think first eradicate that right because that just isn't in scripture That is a safety blanket.

30:34

It feels nice when you're talking about babies doesn't feel nice when you're talking about eight-year-olds, you know what I mean like Then there becomes this desperation like we talked about before with arminian preaching because then you're oh They're seven and a half or whatever.

30:48

You believe that age is I better ramp up my preaching, you know Um So I i'm with you When i'm in that situation with the the couple that's lost the baby I do go to the passage from david and I say listen Here's what I know God is just god is merciful.

31:07

God is grieving with you and i'm here to agree with you and not talk theology So i'm only gonna say David believed that he would see his child And i'm gonna believe that Yep, that's not saying I know that baby's in heaven.

31:21

Yep That's where i'm at right.

31:23

It's saying david believed that I'm going to believe that And if they get to heaven and that baby's not there god's gonna deal with that in his own way I don't think I misled and I don't think I lied and someone thinks I am misleading on that I would just say like You be in that room and then tell me how you handled it because it's the literal literal worst.

31:44

Yep.

31:44

Um But again, here's here's the confidence dancer, right? Right God is just god is merciful god will save everyone whom he intends to save now It is my great hope and this is going to sound i'll probably catch some flack for this from the calvinist It is my great hope That god simply applies all of his mercy to every human soul I hope he does that I hope in the in the last glimmer of an eye that god decides to to show unmerited mercy to every single human soul I don't think he's just in so doing he would be it would be his Complete agency now.

32:22

I don't believe he did But I can hope that But i'm not going to preach that way Right.

32:30

I'm just going to Hope optimistically that god does that but I can also take great hope in knowing that he is ultimately just he is ultimately merciful If he sent all the babies to hell he would still be just he would still be merciful Now he does tell us before they were born He hated esau and he loved jacob Before they were born before they did good or bad.

32:57

He decided Now whether that's his foreknowledge of knowing in advance what kind of person esau would be Some calvinists hate that argument.

33:06

I don't hate that argument because he created esau knew what he was going to be like So he knew in advance that he hated esau So did esau need to walk out the steps of the life that was planned for him to be hated? I don't think so So if every baby that goes to hell if they were all going to be uh grow up to be a hitler or a you saw bin laden or whatever That's that's god's business.

33:31

That's not my business I don't think that that's the way it is.

33:35

I I don't I I tend to take a more optimistic view But what i'm not going to do and here's what matters the most to me I will not sit in judgment over my creator And a lot of these arguments against calvinism When I really do get serious, I I don't usually on the internet But when I do get serious, I do kind of walk people to the line of hey, man Really think about this Value claim you are making of your wisdom over What god hypothetically could do? Yeah, because they'll say yeah, he could send people to hell everyone to help he wanted to he does have that ability But I don't believe he did.

34:12

Okay, so you're saying he has the right to do it But if he chose not to that would make him wrong in your estimation That makes you the judge of the creator of the universe and buddy You might want to be real careful because they're our greatest sin is rebellion against the sovereign god so It's my take on that the way I say that one and i'll let keith jump in right quick but the way I say that one is something I observed yesterday, which is that I am closer in intelligence to my dog than I am to god and my dog Eats dirt and cleans her butt with her tongue.

34:48

So I am closer to that than I am god and and the two distances are not comparable.

34:54

So there you go Well, this this particular subject is somewhat Somewhat hits kind of close to home not just because i'm having a baby But also because early on in my ministry Whenever calvinism became the issue that almost got me removed from the church that I am in One of the accusations that was made was that I believe that babies go to hell and that was spread around within the congregation which was uh ungracious ungraciously and Intended to have me removed there was a local pastor down the street who I will not name But I will say this he preached a sermon against calvinism Around that same time and it was later reviewed by james white james white got his sermon This guy has a huge church.

35:51

It's only a few miles from my own And james white destroyed him but in the sermon he said And calvinists believe babies are going to hell and you could hear the lady in the front go Like she was sucking down her, you know, like clutch the pearls.

36:09

I mean she was very upset by that argument and I remember The man who was most trying to get me removed saying in my office You believe babies or no, he said he didn't say he didn't point at me Knew better than that, but he but he he said calvinists believe Babies are going to hell and I reached over to my Bookshelf, which was right next to my desk and I pulled off the shelf Um the book by john macarthur safe in the arms of jesus.

36:40

I said, okay.

36:40

Here's a man who is a self self-described calvinist And he wrote this book called safe in the arms of jesus So this book proves your argument wrong not all calvinists believe that babies go to hell here is john Macarthur now, I don't agree with everything in this book But it's at least proof that not all calvinists believe that if it's just like saying, you know You know, nobody can ride a bike Well, if you see a little guy going ching ching and he rides by well He just proved your argument wrong.

37:10

And when I held up that book, I proved the argument wrong.

37:12

Not all calvinists believe that Now at the time I did not want to get into this with him But I will hear and I don't want to monopolize all the time I know you guys are my guests and i'm the but but I do have to say this Um, I I do agree with both of you that um, I don't think that the scripture is abundantly clear in regard to the destination of all infants But what we do have to recognize And this is hard for me.

37:39

I've had my wife has had three miscarriages Uh in in the last two years And so I I have to wrestle with this and she and I have prayed through this many times And we do hope and pray that our three babies are in heaven the three that we lost and um But at the same time there are instances in scripture where Infants are the object of god's wrath and we see this first and foremost in the flood There were infants who died in the flood and that is an expression of god's wrath they were a part of it now now you can't Necessarily say that that means that they were part of the eternal punishment, but they were objects of god's wrath And therefore to say that an infant receiving god's wrath makes god unjust Well, then you just look you have to look at the scriptures and look at this The story of noah and the flood and say god was unjust yeah, and so the argument doesn't hold As I I always go to genesis 18 when jenna went when when abraham was standing with the lord and he was looking at sodom He said will not the judge of all the earth do right? And it was a it was a question without an answer because it didn't need an answer because the answer is yes He will always Do what is right? And so when someone asks me About their child infant, whatever I say the judge of all the universe will do what is right And that's where I have my hope.

39:09

Yep.

39:09

Yeah, one one of the hearts of Misconceptions about a calvinist soteriology Is people believe humans deserve? heaven They we talked about this last time there is a just an inherent gut check belief take all of your Uh academic learning everything you've ever read all of your higher thought out of your brain and someone's gut check reaction is humans deserve heaven And it's just not the biblical witness.

39:44

It just isn't we don't like that.

39:46

It feels icky It hurts us.

39:48

It sounds gross.

39:50

Well, of course it does to your flesh Of course that does that is the curse of adam That is the heart of our sin is that we believe we deserve What are we in the grand scheme of things? Well, what did what did the scripture say? We are clay being made into pots We're not we're sentient beings to us compared to chimpanzees and matthew's dog who I still love um, like There's history there we are we we are sentient beings but compared to god we are not sentient beings We are special compared to everything on earth, but compared to god We are not We are creatures Who bear his image we are pots? And so if he made some pots For wrath and some pots for better use Can we look at him and say well, why have you made me? Like this no No, what is it that rc sprawl says you arrogant speck of dust? You do not deserve it We want to believe that man like we do I do But the scriptural witness does not allow for it And we have to change our worldview to what scripture gives us Mm-hmm, and it's hard.

41:19

It doesn't come natural.

41:20

Absolutely one last quick thing before we move to the next question is Because of all that that happened with me being accused of babies going to hell It became the the running gag among some of our some of our like my worship leader at the time named james That it was keith eats babies and that was the and that almost became like this joke No, it was calvinist eat babies Because it was like it was like I think that makes it better.

41:45

That's a new tag group.

41:46

Sarah You're watching calvinist eat babies calvinist eat babies and and and that be that was like a joke for a while Like like it was like it was like because because I this was why it happened It was because I said it's not like we eat them.

41:56

That's what I said I was like we believe babies are going to hell Well, at least we don't eat them and then it became what calvinist eat babies I guarantee you by the time we're done with this show.

42:04

Someone will have made calvinist eat babies as a tag group I guarantee it.

42:07

It'll be sarah or savannah On it there.

42:10

She is there just said on it.

42:11

Yeah.

42:11

All right already there.

42:13

Yeah.

42:13

Um keith we should do a Man a sheep bite in the shepherd Podcast sometime because man are we have some good stories about that.

42:22

All right, you want to move on to a Maybe a less serious one.

42:25

Sure.

42:26

Let's do it.

42:27

All right.

42:27

So this one I get a lot.

42:28

This one is just trolly and obnoxious Um this one up, but i'm pulling it from ryan matthew klein It's the old standby.

42:37

Well, I was predestined not to be a calvinist Okay, that one oh I hate that one so much I just don't get the point.

42:49

Like what what is Honestly from the non-calvinists in the room, I don't understand what that person's trying to prove Like that that if okay Let's grant for a moment keith.

43:02

Don't you get too excited here? Let's grant for a moment that um calvin's understanding of soteriology is 100 correct We're Yeah He sure doesn't know anything about baptizing.

43:16

So well, okay calvin's calvin's understanding of the doctrines of grace was correct.

43:21

How about that? mostly, okay Conversations for the calvinists.

43:26

No, I mean like it's just shorthand for the believe in the whole bible buddy.

43:31

Oh, there it is okay, well if If that represents correct and accurate thought then and we believe that sanctification is a process Yeah, you know baby christians are really bad at trinitarian theology Yeah, great because They're baby christians and when they you know when a middle schooler and I texted keith about this because it got to me it got me so excited When a middle schooler asks me so jesus and god are like the same person Now, okay so on the one hand I can like Really come down hard and be like there's a difference between being in person and you know They're going the right direction though, but they're asking the question and it's like, okay So we need to we need to define some terms.

44:10

We need to lay out how this works.

44:12

Let's get in there getting warmer right, and so so, uh, you know, that's a that's a The the the knowledge of god increases over our lifetimes if we're faithful christians and we stay in his word And so the knowledge of what god is doing in salvation um Would hopefully get better over our lifetime.

44:33

Hopefully the sanctification would increase over our lifetime and so If the person's trying to do a gotcha there like oh, haha You know just ask them how long have they been saved and was their trinitarian theology 100 correct the moment? That that happened if they can even define the moment or their ecclesiology or whatever it is So this idea of like well, I don't have perfect I don't have a perfect.

44:59

Uh, soteriological system.

45:01

So therefore calvinism wrong like Yeah What I usually just respond with trinity is true.

45:07

Then.

45:07

Why don't I believe it? I don't know man like I usually just respond with well, yeah, and he predestined me to correct you so You know, it's like what you were talking about earlier with uh, st augustine and and the change of his theology over the years, you know, like If you captured my theology from 2015 Like I would be super cringy right now like please do not remind me of the nonsense that I said back then Yeah, we we are learning and growing and that is the point is that scripture is useful for reproof You know, please reprove me but but that one comes up so much and it is I think just an attempt to like Gotcha And there's no such thing as a gotcha You're not gonna got me.

45:52

I mean it hasn't happened yet and I argue this stuff every day Keith, what do you got? I don't know.

45:57

I just It reminds me of the time the guy um One of the guys at my church.

46:03

I was trying to help him come along To understanding the doctrines of grace and he was having issues with the whole Determinism thing and he threw his keys down and said did god determine that I was going to throw my keys down And I said, well, did you learn something from this? And he stopped and looked at me he goes Uh, I said this whole conversation has been predestined I mean, you know ultimately this whole It's it we we think we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna topple Hundreds of years of thought and writing and and and and just Massive amounts of debate and scholarship by saying.

46:46

Oh, I was predestined not to believe or whatever You know, it's just it just I don't mean to be i'm i'm i'm it's late I'm being being kind of a jerk I guess but it just it's it's foolishness.

46:58

Um, I I I guess on the one hand I would grant this if he if he is saying that I I can't not be a non-calvinist because this is the way god predestined me to be then we would have to discuss things like How we understand the will how we understand sanctification how we understand someone's growth and grace and and do we believe that sanctification is a A Monarch monergistic work or synergistic work and is he contributing at all? To his own growth in his knowledge and understanding of the scriptures And I mean, I mean honestly you could take this silly question and turn it into a legitimate, you know Yeah, you could deal with it on a legitimate level.

47:49

The problem is the guy asking the question doesn't want that No, he wants a guy.

47:53

Yeah, he wants it He wants to throw this out there And and if you tried to do that with him if you tried to be real with him and said hey man Well, let's let's talk about that Then that's not what he wants.

48:04

So that's the problem.

48:05

That's you want something something really trippy keith Um, this is going to tie together a lot of fun characters from this story So jake texted me one time.

48:14

I don't know maybe three years ago something like that and he said hey You made it on late in flower show And I was like, I have a lot of questions and I need answers to them right now What are you talking about? So he sends me the link to the podcast soteriology 101 podcast and I was like, oh boy, here we go And sure enough I click on old latent flowers podcast episode number Whatever it was and there's matthews voice reading back to me from layton's podcast and i'm like what? Has happened here.

48:42

We are in a crossover world what he was playing back was when I moderated the debate between uh, james white michael brown on the one side and then the two, um, Homosexual affirming pastors one of the audience questions and I got the Yeah, jake is correct.

48:59

Um Yeah, they they were they were neither episcopos nor were they prosbuteros.

49:04

But anyway, um, so, uh when i'm reading this question from the audience because I was the moderator the question was something along the lines of because it was a debate about homosexuality the the question was something along the lines of um you know if uh If I think I was born homosexual then from a calvinist perspective didn't god make me like this So why should I like what was why should I try and fight it or you know? Why it was why does he still find fault, you know kind of thing.

49:31

Um, and uh you know the The two pastors on my right side pastors on my right side, but farley on your left Yeah had uh Non-compelling answers shall we say? Michael brown punted he's like i'm not a calvinist.

49:49

So i'm not going to try and answer it And so and so dr.

49:51

White took the question And he only had 60 seconds and you know, you do what you can Um, but he basically said I think the calvinist boogeyman got in the way of the question We're all born with a sinful nature and we need a savior next question You know that that was kind of what he said on it.

50:06

So yeah I was predestined not to believe calvinism.

50:10

I don't think that's a sin issue But this question took it to a sin issue and and kept the same sort of bones of the question This is this is a helpful place to point out that that hyper calvinists exist Right, and so this is a place where the hyper calvinist would say Well, it is in sin to continually reject the doctrines of grace now Now I think it's in sin to like read ephesians one and just say well, I don't believe that he said that I don't think It's sin to say I don't think that's how he meant it Now I do think that there is going to come a time where the holy spirit is going to say come on But like come on, you you know better and so then to reject the holy spirit you you are in sin um But you know as I always say there's not a right or wrong There's two dishes on the side of the road and the hyper calvinists they're out there And and they would say that rejecting the doctrines of grace Is is a a self-ethic issue and and I don't think he's there.

51:08

I know certainly i'm not there Um, I do think it's I did last sunday.

51:13

I preached a sermon on primary secondary and tertiary issues Because I felt like we had just done a new members class and i'm in between series right now And I and I when I put calvinism in the secondary category People some of the people were shocked.

51:27

I said I said i'm a calvinist.

51:28

I'm a dyed in the wool Name of my show all this is calvinism I said, but I do not believe that someone has to believe the same thing.

51:36

I do about predestination to be saved Yeah, I think that I think there can be some and matthew and I've talked about that before it's it's yeah Yeah, I don't I put it in the category.

51:48

I would say a second a secondary ring of of important issue, but like I think for the normal everyday believer who who doesn't You know, no greek and hebrew, I don't know if you ever need to get there That's not that's not important to me.

52:04

Now the trinity I think you can be innocently Ignorant of the trinity in an okay space, but you can't ever reject the trinity.

52:15

You know what I mean? Um, you can reject This soteriology soteriological framework And be okay, but I will say I don't know anybody on the other side who's a serious scholar of languages Who gets there? I just don't I just don't um, I I don't find their arguments to be compelling.

52:34

How about that? um, I rarely see Scholarly arguments against soteriology and and I think historically we have the vast majority of like Serious scholars on our side.

52:48

I'm talking language scholars and you know biblical scholars um now does that mean Knowledge saves you no, of course not but it becomes an issue of of maturity and understanding the scripture And we have this very americanized democratized sense of the bible that the bible should be equally accessible every word in every clause to every human being And it simply isn't um, there's a lot of very difficult stuff in the bible there not only in its breadth, but in its depth and its complexity and People will study it their whole lives and never master every word of scripture um, and so I think it's just a matter of do you have enough healthy respect? Right to know what what scripture is capable of beyond your understanding of it.

53:39

Does that make sense? Yeah, I so let me just put a bow on it.

53:43

So when the amateur says I I know for a fact that calvinism can't be true I don't take that seriously When the amateur says i'm not sure if that's true.

53:54

I take that completely seriously because those are two very different things I want to just and I don't I don't think you're fully making this case I'm just going to poke back at you just a tiny bit when you said that eventually there comes a point with someone where you ask them like You you perhaps insinuate to them that they're sitting in judgment over their creator that there does come a point where you might say that That has been the lever pulled on me very quickly when I say I believe this holding up my bible I believe what this says I don't agree with how you're interpreting this And my disagreement with the interpretation becomes me judging the creator.

54:37

I'm like, no, no, no, no, listen, listen High view of god high view of scripture like we're on that we're on that train And I jake I don't think you're doing this but what i'm saying is others have The hyper calvinist perhaps that I have interacted with who may not have gone by that name have given me a response that is well if you don't agree with this it must be because You're sitting in judgment over your creator and romans 9 says this so you just need to basically take a seat It's like no there's space for christian Brothers to do what the three of us are doing right now and to talk this stuff through and that's a good thing It's not me sitting in judgment over my creator because I have a difference No in opinion.

55:19

I only use that after they've kind of pulled a nuclear Lever of yeah, I thought well calvin calvigod is evil.

55:27

Yeah, you know, um again, it's the the argumentation is Would god be just in? damning everyone Yes, so you would say he's wrong If he damns anyone by his own choosing That that is the logical then you've made a judgment call in that second step.

55:53

Yeah, he has done something wrong Yep, and that's basically the only time I pull that lever.

55:58

Okay.

55:59

Yeah, I wasn't Cage stage would argue immaturely.

56:03

Okay I'm not we're not here This isn't a podcast about defending cage stages.

56:08

We could do that We definitely I think keith and I could happily do that and address that there are great works out there for Helping calvinists, you know get their humility back and that's just not what we're doing here.

56:21

Yeah, correct I would also say that um, I I tend to um, and people may be surprised to hear this I tend to In general look upon my opponents on the other side of this argument with with in the eye with a lot of Sympathy in this sense.

56:45

I don't mean like I feel bad for what I mean is I sympathize with the idea That I think many of them are trying to protect god from being accused of being despotic, uh, uh, uh Being unloving being unbenevolent And I do think that's the issue that the armenian You know because people always say well the reason why there are many is because they love their free will Yeah, they do oftentimes they do but that's not the only reason I think sometimes they're really genuinely They feel like god is being attacked In calvinism, and and so they're they're coming to the defense So so yeah, I think I think you're right.

57:25

Uh, matthew.

57:25

I don't I don't think it's fair to always say You're sitting in judgment against god.

57:30

I think I think I is this am I being clear? Yeah, you are you are yeah, yeah, I I I try to be as I try to be as Gracious toward Them as as I want them to be towards me I think that they're in error as how they see god God working, but I don't I don't think that they're doing so Necessarily selfishly or maliciously.

57:53

I think I think they often want to protect god I just don't think god needs protecting but that's that's but but I but if that's their motive I want to recognize that okay, you're you're you're trying to protect god from being Misrecognized Misunderstood and and I get that and so so yeah, I think I think that's where the cage stagers they automatically Oh, well, the only reason why people are they just you know, I remember the guy who told me one time I was at a ligonier pastors conference in 2008 Or 2007 or somewhere around then and I was sitting with a guy and he said, um, He said man, I just don't understand how somebody could miss it.

58:32

I don't understand how they could not be calvinist, man I don't understand how anybody could not believe the doctrines of grace.

58:36

I was like, oh really? How long have you been a calvinist six months? He'd been a calvinist for six months six months Yeah, I was like dude.

58:45

Yeah, you know I have Man, I got uh It just it just showed me we people get so Arrogant and don't even realize it.

58:55

Yeah, I I I Definitely sympathize as well My pre-calvinist state I had a lot of these similar arguments And what really hit me was i'm arguing from philosophy.

59:08

I'm not arguing from scripture I have a philosophy about what a loving god could and should and must look like I'm, not good.

59:16

I don't want to really necessarily get into this misconception, but the idea that god Values the love of a free agent over the love of a puppet to me that made perfect sense That sounds good.

59:28

I got a guy arguing that right now on just say Um, unfortunately, one of the other people is is diving into that one and I I He said, you know, well, we know god, you know loves, you know, he he wants the love of a free person I remember exactly how he worried.

59:43

You'll have to forgive me guy, right? And I asked him like From where do you derive that definition of love? Where do you get that? Where's that from? Because it isn't from scripture And I argued from philosophy a lot and it took me a while to To and so usually when I argue this stuff with people, I just usually say I hear what you're saying.

01:00:06

That sounds really great Scripture, however does not allow us that possibility Because these things Become not just about sola scriptura, but are we tota scriptura? Are we synthesizing the whole of scripture together because scripture interprets scripture? We have to interpret hard scripture in light of the more understandable scripture We build these precepts one upon another but we have to synthesize them all together The same way we do when joshua says, you know is told choose this day whom you will serve Well, we don't take choose and run with it.

01:00:38

We put that in light of the the grander scheme And so we have a philosophy we want to believe about god but is it checked by the soul and total scripture argument Um, if not, then just say you don't believe the bible's authoritative My other tech group just say you don't believe the bible is authoritative and move along.

01:00:58

So this okay this brings us to another one that um Keith you touched on a little bit last week and i'll probably let you run with this one Um, I can but you you had some good thoughts on it.

01:01:08

It's the idea that the system of calvinism makes god the author of sin Now this is a place where calvinists actually differ a little bit so I want to know where you fall on that I think that it's uh first and foremost important that We recognize that calvinism is is not just a It's not just five points that you know t-u-l-i-p But there are creeds and confessions that have been written That seek to qualify what we are saying And we have the westminster confession of faith, which is the foundation for the presbyterians.

01:01:54

We have the 1689 london baptist confession of faith We have the one that we use in our church, which is the first london confession and all of these stress the fact that while god is the the author of Life he is the the uh one who decrees all things that um, this does not make him the Uh, this does not make him responsible for sin and and and the westminster specifically Says that it does not make him the author of sin And how that works out is explained differently by different calvinists I do think the concept of secondary causation has to be Allowed to uh allowed to speak and and I I remember a good a good illustration of this is um if if god had if there was a if there was a punch bowl filled with water in a in a room and The punch bowl filled with water.

01:02:56

It was decreed by god that that water would be Uh that the punch bowl would be emptied.

01:03:01

Well god could by his divine decree uh make it so that the the water simply dried up like the water in the in the flood or the water in the uh, The red sea when it when it split it was dry land, right? but he could also decree that a room full of Uh football players who just finished practice were were we're going to be coming into that room and Because they had just finished practice they would be thirsty and by nature They would want to drink that water and and that water would get drunk and be in the and the punch bowl would be empty So god's decree would be played out through the action of secondary causation And so when we address the subject of sin we we have to address man as as the bible describes man as being the Responsible party in regard to sin whether it be adam or whether it be jake and matthew and keith We are all responsible for our sin Uh while at the same time god has decreed all things and there is some tension there and it is difficult at times to come to a a A full understanding of exactly how that that works from an eternal perspective But I will never be able to lay one of my sins at the feet of god and say god this is your fault And so that's that's the simplest answer Uh, yeah, and and jeffrey biscoff who's listening just talked about proximate versus ultimate causation and yeah, this is uh, that's a um, Good use of of terms there.

01:04:37

He is he is your friend jake.

01:04:39

He is jeff is my battle buddy Yeah, he is a fellow chaplain and uh, and has been on the show.

01:04:45

Yeah, so thank you jeff for uh, For for speaking into the program so that so again that that that you know, it's not it's not simple.

01:04:52

It's certainly not easy um, but we can say this when When When god spoke or when joseph spoke to his brothers, he used the same verb He said what you what you meant for evil god meant for good And therefore god was active and and what happened? But at the same time the motivation was different And the motivation from god was a good motivation where the motivation from them was evil Uh got what you meant for evil god meant for good and therefore, uh, you know, we can consider that as well Matthew want to take a whack at it? Sure.

01:05:29

Um So I've seen this argument Handled far less charitably than keith just did which I I do appreciate that.

01:05:39

Um Because it's this one happens to be a favorite of atheists too.

01:05:45

I don't know why but they really like this one Um checkmate armenians.

01:05:49

You don't want their side.

01:05:51

Yeah Yeah, so there's that guilt by association thing i've actually heard and keith gave a I think an An excellent response there.

01:05:58

I've heard the calvinist response to this and i'm not putting this on you guys I'm putting this on the other dorks that did this Uh, well, that's that's an argument atheists make so i'm not even going to bother with it.

01:06:07

Okay? Yeah, well then how would you answer the atheists? Like I mean i'm glad you believe i'm a christian but then let's pretend i'm not let's Let's iron sharp and iron a minute here and and that's you know, but anyway Yeah, and let me just jump right back in real quick sure the the the the term that we are addressing is theodicy which is the the justification of god's Goodness in regard to the fact of the existence of evil.

01:06:31

Was that where you were going? Matthew is actually hang on.

01:06:34

Um, Let's see if god real why bad thing happen.

01:06:38

Yeah.

01:06:39

Yeah But it's it's still comes it comes down to you The the and again, I don't mean to take from you matthew, but I have to show this sure we have to understand that even in The arminian perspective if you believe that god is sovereign and the arminian would say he does you're still believing that god in some form or fashion has allowed this to happen whether it's the rape of a child or the kidnapping of a person or the brutal Death of someone all of these things god either has has by divine decree determined will happen or has by His allowance passed over and allowed these things to happen either way You could lay the atheist could lay this at god's feet and say he could have done different, but he didn't therefore god's responsible Yeah, yeah My favorite and this is theodicy is is definitely an important one But one of the guys at our church the worship leader kyle deason he and I have a a meme exchange going on and text messages sometimes and um I I said sarcastically to him, but kyle if god real why bad thing happen and he said bad thing What do you mean bad thing? How are we defining bad thing? What is bad if there is no god, you know, and that was kind of where he would take anyway back to the the point on calvinism, um Yeah, you know I listened.

01:07:57

Uh I I heard it was like john macarthur explains this issue in 90 seconds and he's not the pope of calvinism I get that, you know keith said you have some things that you would disagree with him on But it was this little sermon clip and he laid it out exactly that well if god decrees all things and men sin And then god holds us accountable for sin.

01:08:14

Then how does that work? He goes.

01:08:16

I have no idea No clue can't explain that one to you.

01:08:20

I'm just gonna preach this and then he goes back back to his sermon and it was like Okay, well, um, that's perhaps unsatisfying but but and we touched on this last program I will tell you this The the cow or the let's just say the christian who responds well, you know compatibilism solves this problem Okay How How does it solve this problem? Well compatibilism holds that god decrees all things but also that man is responsible Okay.

01:08:49

Yeah, you've restated the problem and you've just said compatibilism solves it How and and listen I here's where i'm going to throw a uh, qualifier perhaps The explanation is simply not satisfying to me And that is not the standard by which we judge arguments i'm willing to say that you guys might And keith's explanation there i'm willing to say that might be accurate and and airtight and all and I just don't find it satisfying That that doesn't make it wrong just because I don't particularly like it or find it convincing even if you both Hold me in high regard as a friend and as a fellow christian.

01:09:29

Um, we'll see.

01:09:31

Yeah, we'll see.

01:09:32

Uh, so so my own my own view on that is just that um There is real judgment that occurs And god definitely seems to hold people to account for the amount of light that they have Um judgment is certainly harsher when you have more light We talked about this in romans 2 the jews that had the law were judged under the law Whereas the gentiles that didn't you know, there's a that and and then the new testament, uh loves to say, you know Those who accept a role of leadership teacher whatever are judged more harshly So certainly god has a higher standard of judgment based upon the amount of light given um but um the the the judgment for sin that comes Uh does assume an agency and not a free will I can be autonomous and I can counteract god and god's got to do some Molinus dr.

01:10:26

Strange calculations to get out in front of me.

01:10:28

I'm not saying that but but you know the meme, um, but um But there does seem to be and keith called it attention and I don't fully understand it I've not yet heard a calvinist been able to explain it So it's not like well, no calvinist has ever tried and I you know, i'm wanting to be gracious here I've never heard a satisfactory answer for that where The because the the next obvious question is okay Well, if I you know go and commit a sin then you would say that was decreed before the foundations of the world Yes, okay, then I say well could I have done differently? No You could not have With your Your fallen enslaved to sin will um And I say well, how do I get out of that? Well, you would say only by the the resurrecting power of grace and the action of god's holy spirit upon your heart And i'd say so he would hold me accountable for the thing that I couldn't do.

01:11:17

That's how the argument normally flows I think it gets a little Dicey going, you know pushing it that far, but i'll just say i'm sympathetic to to that.

01:11:25

Um skepticism Yeah So I I think this is the place that I see the weakest argument from calvinists for sure.

01:11:32

I think one It's emotionally charged and so they're afraid of it They're they they know that the calvinist knows that they are on the precipice of arguing that god is an evil tyrant And so they're very careful with this and so they go.

01:11:46

No, no, no.

01:11:47

No, he's he is not he can't be it's impossible Um, I I want to I want to find where we fall within some poles of scripture And so this is where I I get unpopular with calvinists Um john mccain of calvinists a little bit.

01:12:02

Yeah, john one three All things were made through him and without him was not anything made That was made all things So even if you had a libertarian free will which allowed you to choose and and you know Bring evil upon the world That will was made by christ and for his glory And so even that free will would be subject to his glory Does that make god? Capable or culpable for your sin? Well, of course not in the same way And and so calvinists will fall to arguing philosophy very quickly.

01:12:46

They'll make arguments like You know when you light the match And you hold it up to the wall you only see The shadow of the stick but not the flame, right? He god created space for there to be sin, but not the sin itself.

01:12:59

No, he created all things To glorify christ to the praise of his glorious grace And what if god? Desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction What if that's romans 9 What if he did that Does that make him responsible? Well, listen when jesus finishes the sermon on the mount The first thing jesus does is he steps off the sermon on the mount And what does he do? He touches a leper Right, and we know by the law that if he touches a leper he becomes unclean Well, did jesus immediately go rush and and do his cleansing ritual well, no because you cannot make the source of ritual purity unclean You can't make your soap dirty in a in a bad home hometown analogy right God being the creator of all things created wills That are capable of evil He created satan knowing what satan would do So he is the author of satan he is the author of all of your bad choices He made you a vessel of wrath.

01:14:20

Not you probably.

01:14:21

I don't know I haven't checked to see if there's a yellow stripe on your back.

01:14:24

That's right.

01:14:25

Right get him version He created the vessels of wrath and prepared them for their destruction So he didn't just create vessels of wrath and and make them neutral actors And he was going to wrath them just because no he wrathed them for the evil that they had done So, I don't know why calvinists or anyone runs away from this.

01:14:48

I don't know why again, we are all creations that exist in the drama of Proclaiming christ as supreme amongst all things that exist That's why we exist So is he responsible for your evil? No, is there a just punishment for your evil that god is is Do no Right.

01:15:11

He is not responsible nothing on his tab.

01:15:14

It doesn't matter that he made it So the phrase author of sin, here's what i'm getting at It's not in the bible.

01:15:20

That's not a biblical category of distinction No, we make a big deal of it.

01:15:25

It's all on the internet all the time.

01:15:26

God is the author of sin What does that mean? What is that that is not a category that is a category of judgment that we have rendered to to to make value claims on or against or for god But there's one biblical category that matters here The sovereign creator of all things all things were made through him and there's nothing that was made that was made without him nothing So even if he created every evil act through his own agency By giving you an evil will Is he responsible? Is he evil? I say no He is not evil.

01:16:06

He is not responsible In the sense that he has a debt to pay Because he is creator god.

01:16:13

He made that vessel of wrath repaired that vessel of wrath for destruction The person arguing against that says well, yes, that makes him responsible Well, what does that person then become? the judge the judge passing out payment Keith you posted a diagram.

01:16:29

I think it was on facebook like a week ago or something of like over here it had I think I remember what it was In the middle was calvinist and on the right was hyper calvinist.

01:16:39

It was his god responsible and Sorry, I don't remember what it was.

01:16:45

It was contrasting What it was it was contrasting arminianism and hyper calvinism.

01:16:50

Both of them have the same problem The arminian says that um Because man is responsible He must be able To do to do what is pleasing to god to do whatever is pleasing god And the and the opposite is the hyper calvinist who says because man is not able he must not be responsible in the sense that that's why they don't go out and evangelize and all those things because God's gonna do what he's gonna do man's not responsible and that's the you know I've been told that directly from hyper calvinist.

01:17:27

I'm not i'm not i'm not I can honestly say I don't feel like i'm being Uncharitable had a guy I was I was handing out gospel tracts and a guy came and told me you don't need to be doing This god's gonna save who he's gonna save You believe that because you're a calvinist.

01:17:41

You shouldn't be out here and I said, are you are you mocking me? He says no i'm a calvinist and that's what I believe and he was a hyper calvinist So he he he said if that if god wanted to save that person he pointed at a little girl He said if god wants to save that person he's going to do it with or without you You don't need to be out here doing this.

01:17:57

So I mean that was his attitude man is Unable therefore he is not responsible.

01:18:03

So the argument is That the calvinist does take the perspective That man is fully responsible And yet is not Fully able That god must give him the grace to be able to respond And that is why we say salvation is sola gratia that it is all of grace And it is only of grace because he cannot do anything outside of grace And I do want to respond a little bit just for a second to what jake said.

01:18:33

I I don't necessarily disagree with what you said I I think I may I may certainly nuance a few things a little different take my nt right approach and You know, uh Nuance things to death.

01:18:45

But um, but I do I do want to put a shout out to dr.

01:18:48

John frame Dr.

01:18:50

John frame wrote a book on apologetics, which I use to teach apologetics at our academy and in that he deals with the issue of Of of this very thing that we're discussing But he dealt he deals with it from the argument of the atheist, which is what matthew brought up You know if the atheist says, you know, you know, if god if evil how god or whatever However, you said it's god real why bad thing happened.

01:19:12

Yeah, and and he and and I think he does a masterful job of that so if anybody wanted to dig a little Bit further into this subject and actually read some scholarship on it Not not saying that anything that we've said is not worthwhile.

01:19:26

I'm just saying if you want to go further Into scholarship on this.

01:19:30

I think dr.

01:19:30

Frame would be a good place to go and uh, jeffrey just posted Yeah, it's apologetics to the glory of god by john frame Um, and and I just remember that part of the book I thought was exceptionally well done because he addresses it from the issue of You know, how how do we address? The fact that there is evil in the world, you know And and and the question of and and I don't want to get into this with with with you right now But but I will throw this out Jake because this is this is one issue the question of is evil a created thing or is it a is it a is it? a absence of something Because we would say right god is righteous and therefore evil is unrighteous or and so he deals with the question of evil as a as a as a um, As a negation not something that was created Um, and and he doesn't take that approach He actually takes a different approach than that, but he does deal with that in the book And that was the position of dr.

01:20:24

R.

01:20:24

C.

01:20:25

Sproul when he was asked does god create evil? He said no because evil is not a created thing It's a negation of god's righteousness and therefore it's not not something that is created now You made a distinction because you said god created the thought or the the the will the will Which is a little different you're you're you're not saying god created evil You're saying god created the will that's going to do the evil.

01:20:46

So you're so you're nuancing it there Yeah, it it's it's a term of it's a it's more of a concept of rebellion, right? He chose a rebellious will so god says do this by his decree Right and not not his uh eternal decree, right? But but his his decree of of law and the rebellious will says then i'll do that Yeah, he created the will that does the opposite god's law was plain from the beginning.

01:21:11

There was law Right not torah, right, but there was law from the beginning and immediately the rebellious will chose The other right so that's the thing that I think god did create For a purpose to receive wrath so that god could display his power and receive all the glory that he deserves To the praise of his glorious grace, but I will say this i'll put a bow on this Because I know we don't want to go on it forever um We don't have to accept everybody's Uncomfortability with with where? We're at So i'm going to say this that might get it a little bit with matthew Some things are allowed to be mysterious to our tiny primate brains Yep It's a mystery can be a cop-out sure sometimes but like when you nuance this to the end of it I think we're still gonna find some mystery And people go well, that's a cop-out i'm gonna say well I mean, it's not I mean You can dig and dig and dig and we're gonna find that there.

01:22:10

This is a cause cosmic mystery That we were given just our role Yeah, there's a grand drama that is happening in the cosmos And we're given a script with only Our role.

01:22:24

Yeah, we only have our acts.

01:22:25

I don't have all the other acts And and at a certain point we would do the same thing with the trinity We would have to say at a certain point.

01:22:32

There's a non there's going to be attention and non.

01:22:35

Yes an incomprehensible I I I love saying that that an infinite being can have three persons a finite being can only have one person But if somebody says well, how is that the case? I say I don't I don't know scripture allows me no other alternative Yeah, and and me who loves god and loves god's law.

01:22:53

I love that answer.

01:22:54

I love it But the rebellious flesh hates that answer And so it's okay that they hate that answer Not for them Yeah, right guys.

01:23:04

I I am we're getting right at the 90 minute mark here And I know you probably have a few other questions jake.

01:23:11

Um, so i'm going to ask that we do this uh, because I know you got stuff to do in the morning with your with your army stuff and uh, I don't mean to sound you're you're you're serving of our nation.

01:23:22

Very important.

01:23:23

I have uh, I have some things to do as well tomorrow.

01:23:26

So I And I have one question from my tiktok page that I want to address but Is there do you have like a few more that we could run through quickly and I got a quick one? I got yeah, I got one more quick one.

01:23:38

I wanted to say that last one author of sin.

01:23:40

That's from casey fenton Uh, this last one's super quick it'll be easy for us to deal with this is from steven james, uh calvinism is worship of calvin Nah Yeah, okay.

01:23:54

Hang on.

01:23:55

I will speak authoritatively on this.

01:23:56

Do you guys worship calvin now? Okay, moving along most calvinists have never even read calvin, right? It's just it's just a framework.

01:24:04

It's just a framework It's a framework.

01:24:06

It's a shorthand for understanding How the how we see soteriology aligned in the bible And and and frankly, I don't love it I don't love the term calvinism because it has this baggage but it's kind of too late for me to undo it I don't know how to undo a whole society's worth of You know using the shorthand so I I know literally zero people that worship calvin Well, my response is maybe a little less charitable because I would say Um, you don't say this to lutherans.

01:24:36

You don't say this to wesleyans You only say it to us and it's because you think you've got a gotcha and you don't Yeah, you don't walk around saying to lutherans.

01:24:45

You worship luther.

01:24:46

No, you don't You don't you don't say that ever And you don't say it to wesleyans You only say it to us because you think there's something inherently bad about calvin's character And we should be ashamed to go and use his name for anything and shame on you And yeah shame on you for not knowing enough history to know that that's a bad argument.

01:25:04

Yeah Yeah, that's that's the last one I had Okay.

01:25:07

All right.

01:25:08

Well, uh I have this one and this is specifically for tiktok.

01:25:12

This has come up There's there's a couple of people who have uh, and I appreciate comments Like I said, i've got a lot of comments I appreciate them but some of them are negative and I even posted something on facebook about negative because I woke up to like I saw that a Bunch of negative comments.

01:25:25

I was like as it does put some things in perspective when you know So many people are saying things and uh, some of them's really harsh But one of the dudes out there, uh, and I thought what i'm going to try to do Is i'm going to try to give this answer in one minute Because that's that's how long the videos are and i'm going to clip this and then i'm going to let you guys uh If you don't mind me going first because I because I do want to give my one minute answer And then you set it up and you can give me an a Or an f or anything in between if you want to grade me on how I answer this because the argument is that God Is not a respecter of persons and therefore Calvinism is wrong because calvinism says that god chooses People and therefore it has to be wrong because god is not a respecter of persons And here is my response in one minute God chooses people all through the bible He says in amos chapter 3 verse 2 Speaking of the nation of israel you have I known of all the nations of the earth the word no there doesn't just mean he Knows them but refers to his active engaging and loving them.

01:26:39

He calls them the apple of his eye He chose david.

01:26:43

He chose many other people through the scripture So if your interpretation of god is not the respecter of persons means that god doesn't choose anyone Then you can't rightly interpret romans 9 where god says jacob.

01:26:53

I've loved and esau I've hated you just can't do that god not being a respecter of persons reveals Reveals how he chooses god does not choose Based upon something within us if god chose based upon something within us He then would be a respecter of persons, but because he chooses by the foreordained counsel of his own will We can trust that his choice is not based upon who I am, but who he is and that's my answer 56 seconds, by the way I've gotten pretty good at keeping it within a minute.

01:27:23

I mean you that's that's essentially right is is God obviously chooses people He does not choose it because of the things that the people do or what they're made up of or whatever I mean the the romans 9 piece right though They were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad In order that god's purpose of election might continue not because of the works but because of him God who calls because of the called one and people say well, why did he choose the elect? I gotta know why to the praise of his glorious grace That's the answer.

01:27:59

That's why not because who we are People say oh this will come up a lot Oh you elect you just just feel so special and you just want to feel special because you're elect No, it's quite the opposite I feel like a piece of garbage because I should not have been chosen and yet my savior died even for one such as me um I mean, there's just there's I got nothing For that argument that he he does choose a remnant throughout the bible You see that phrase used all the time.

01:28:24

He chooses a remnant Now you look at no and it says he was righteous Well, what does that mean? Does that mean he was he was just before god eternally? Well, no that that doesn't mean that we don't have a lot of sense of what that means I tend to think it just meant he kept an understanding of who yahweh had presented himself to be Compared to those around him And the hebrew word there it says he was he found grace in the eyes of god.

01:28:51

I mean grace But yeah, but right but but it is because of him who did the calling That's all we know.

01:28:57

We don't have more and so that should cause you to go God, I don't deserve this correct Correct, you don't be grateful forever.

01:29:06

That's awesome.

01:29:07

That's the best place you can be is grateful forever.

01:29:10

I don't even know how someone could Like land that argument on us to be honest with you.

01:29:15

I guess I don't do tick tock I guess I don't quite understand the claim god is not a respecter of person Like he goes through your pockets on the subway or something like I don't quite know Well, they're they're they're arguing from romans chapter 2 and other passages where it says god is god is not a respecter of persons And in romans chapter 2 it's referring to the fact that god has chosen from among the jews and the gentiles God is not chosen just from among the jews.

01:29:40

God is not a respecter of persons Meaning god doesn't choose just because based upon nationality.

01:29:45

That's the argument from isn't play favorites based off of I like matthew.

01:29:49

So i'm gonna pick matthew.

01:29:51

Well, okay if it was a national argument That's like the entirety of the argument of romans.

01:29:56

Is it not like yeah I can do what I want and I don't have to use israel Um, I did for a time and I will still save many from them But I don't have to so and even if romans 9 the jacob esau stuff, you know people and I used to argue Well, he's talking about he chose this nation over that nation Yeah, nations are made up of individuals so he still elected a big chunk of individuals over a big chunk of individuals like His election still occurred and it was not based off of righteousness works personality smell cuisine It wasn't based off of anything human whatsoever Yeah, I always think of god not being respecter of persons is a good description of like his choice of david Yeah, when samuel saw david's brothers.

01:30:40

Oh, that must be the one that must be the one No, it was the young one.

01:30:42

It was it was oh Yeah, who did who did the people choose the tall powerful guy from the tribe that just won the last big battle? Yeah.

01:30:51

Oh, well that Well, what's the story of jesus? Coming as a baby in a cradle in the dirt I mean like isaiah 53 tells us that he didn't have anything about him that we would esteem him or there He wasn't Revlon hair flowing blonde jesus model or something like that.

01:31:11

I mean, how dare you? Yeah.

01:31:13

Yeah, that's too much Jesus was probably not white.

01:31:17

Okay.

01:31:17

I don't care fine.

01:31:18

Great.

01:31:18

He was middle eastern jew.

01:31:19

Great.

01:31:20

Wonderful Yeah, we should do a misconceptions of christianity from progressives at some point.

01:31:24

That'd be fun so we can deal with the world Jesus isn't white Yeah Yeah, I don't care.

01:31:30

He's also yahweh god.

01:31:31

So like let's deal with that.

01:31:33

No, but anyway like the whole point of of the maybe not the whole point an incredibly important theme of the Incarnation was that the work that god was going to do the promise of yahweh returning to his people Was done in a way they didn't expect it was always done in a manner that they were not looking out for the military Conquering roman butt kicking king is not what they got And many of them could never get around that and then in john 3 you've got a teacher of the law Nicodemus coming to jesus says, you know, we know you must be something special and jesus just straight up perplexes this dude like the whole story of the new testament paul You know a pharisee christian hunting mass murderer dude Is all about god using the ones that we didn't expect him to use.

01:32:26

I don't Have you read a bible sir I think this just comes down to I don't know the context of the tiktok dude But I mean it just comes down to a misconception of calvinism when we say the elect.

01:32:38

We don't mean A group of people with superpowers that are set apart because of our greatness And and then we get a badge that we think we're special It just literally means when they bring up john 316 they say well whosoever Yeah, we believe that too We just have the answer as to in the final analysis who the whosoever is going to be When we get to heaven We're going to look around the calvus is going to go.

01:33:04

Yeah, all these people were the ones that god said we're going to be here Well, the army is going to go.

01:33:09

Wow.

01:33:09

Look at all these surprises god must have had.

01:33:11

I mean I mean, that's that's not charitable, but we we just have the complete answer for Who are the ones that are going to believe every time I give a sermon because I preach I don't have to like like wonder Who who's it going to be today? It's going to be whomever god determines Sarah d'onofrio said we don't have superpowers.

01:33:31

It's a good question Well, you and I have superpowers sarah.

01:33:35

We we are tag group aficionados and modmins of modmins of multiple groups Well, I did I did I did message her and say I I I demand to be an admin of calvinist eat babies I create that was kind of your idea.

01:33:49

I mean that was your genesis my idea So i'm not an admin anywhere else except for on conversation with the calvinist But I want to be an admin there You need to get your t-shirt making business back and make those shirts because I would wear calvinist eat babies Yeah, you already hear first folks from two calvinists.

01:34:02

It's true Oh, um Guys, I want to thank y'all for for doing this and we're going to do it again Uh, it probably won't be until after the baby comes we were at the doctor again this morning We're still we're very close.

01:34:16

My wife is uh ready to go He's he's head down and ready to roll so he could come like Anytime stand up buckle up shuffle to the door kid That's right.

01:34:26

We're looking forward to that.

01:34:28

So be a few weeks probably but um, but we're going to uh We're gonna we're gonna do this again And I like the idea of maybe looking at misconceptions about christianity We can do that or we can continue on the calvinist if you are a person who is interested and you're listening I see a bunch of folks out there kristen.

01:34:46

Sarah hugo Uh robert guys, thank you so much Oh and also I want to mention robert, uh, since his name just came up i'm going to be on his program sunday night again Provided the baby doesn't come talking about the subject of family integrated church.

01:35:00

Our church is family integrated.

01:35:01

He wants to talk about that.

01:35:02

So uh robert, please post in uh, the Comments about about that so people will know it's 8 30 on sunday evening provided no, baby So gentlemen, thank you both again and look forward to the next time jake Uh, matthew anyone any final words, please come join us at just say you don't understand reform theology move along I would love to hit three thousand this week.

01:35:28

There you go All right Well again, uh, and please go to conversations with the calvinist and follow that group as well I post videos there almost every day I'm doing short videos now that are going out to tick tock in places like that where i'm either dealing with funny issues or dealing With theological issues, but i'm also trying to build up our youtube page If you don't mind go to youtube.com slash conversations with calvinist Like and subscribe if you would on that and send me an email If you have a question you'd like me to address on a future podcast calvinist podcast At gmail.com.

01:36:02

Thank you for listening to conversations with a calvinist.