9/19/2013 The Dividing Line The Calvinism Dialogue at STS

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September 18, 2013

We had another jumbo show today. Dr. White addressed a recent 'Calvinism Dialogue' at Southwestern Theological Seminary and the comments made from both sides. While he had hoped to fit in more from Bashir Varnia he decided to keep going with reviewing Jerry Walls' presentation on calvinism and concluded it.

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10/4/2013 The Trinity & Tawid Debate - White vs Bux

00:09: Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
00:15: The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
00:24: Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
00:31: This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to call us, you can, but again,
00:36: Dr. White's not going to be taking calls today, so with today's topic, here is
00:41: James White. Yeah, and that's how we start Radio Free Geneva today, too. I know for many of you, that's a complete bummer, but what we're going to put together will be so much better and you'll be so excited when you get done.
00:56: And I know Rich sounded a little tired there. You've been working too hard on this stuff, you know, that's all there is to it, but we're going to try our best to press on.
01:09: And I just received information in the channel, Emir Kaner is doing an apologetic lecture on Islam called, 10
01:16: Things Every Christian Needs to Know About Islam, in Georgia. Well, that's good. This weekend.
01:22: You know, I didn't try to send him a book. I should have sent him a book. Maybe he would not just send it back.
01:28: Anyways, folks, I'm really excited. I am really, really excited. Yesterday morning,
01:33: I was listening to a Calvinism dialogue that just took place in the
01:43: Dallas area between two professors at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now, for those of you not up to speed on these issues,
01:54: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is not overly friendly toward real
02:00: Calvinism. And when I say real Calvinism, I mean historic, Dordian, the
02:09: Calvinism of Edwards and the Calvinism of Spurgeon and the
02:14: Calvinism of especially people like Warfield or Hodge or Machen or Sproul or Piper.
02:25: Real Calvinism, for example, that recognizes that there is a complete and perfect harmony between the salvific decree of God, the freedom of God to define who the elect are, and then to provide redemption perfectly for those people.
02:49: So, in other words, those people who say, well, it's one thing for God to choose the elect, but he has to make the redemptive work for a different group.
03:00: There can't be harmony between the two. There has to be disharmony. And if you don't say there's disharmony, then you're accused of all sorts of things.
03:08: People who hold to a consistent historical Calvinism, not really encouraged there at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
03:19: And so, I was listening, and we are going to put this into the queue after we finish up with Jerry Walls.
03:26: We're going to continue with Jerry Walls in the first hour today, and then we'll move back into our response to Bashir Varnia.
03:35: But we'll put that in the queue, we'll listen to what was said. I won't play all of it, but we will respond to some of the statements that were made.
03:43: There wasn't really anything overly exciting, other than the fact that the
03:49: Calvinist was not even a full Calvinist. I mean, I'm sure he's a wonderful guy, seems like a wonderful, wonderful person, professor of preaching there.
03:57: But when you don't even try to defend limited atonement, and you don't even seem to understand what its role in historic
04:05: Calvinism is, and don't even point to the fact that there's all sorts of biblical evidence on the subject, and how vital it is for proper understanding of the perfection of the atonement, and all the rest of that stuff,
04:16: I'm sorry you're not a Calvinist. You know, you may be less synergistic than the other guy, but you're not a
04:21: Calvinist. You know, that's sort of the way it is. But anyways, we will get to that after we finish responding to Jerry Walls.
04:28: In fact, the interesting thing is, Jerry Walls would say that Dr. McKellar, who was the quote unquote
04:35: Calvinist representative in this dialogue, was not a Calvinist. In fact, we've already listened to the part where Jerry Walls would say that's the case.
04:41: So anyway. But what really excited me was that Dr.
04:47: Malcolm Yarnell, Dr. Malcolm Yarnell is fairly well known for his opposition to Reformed theology there at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
04:56: The people in Dallas are pretty well aware of where Dr. Patterson, and Dr. Allen, and Dr.
05:03: Yarnell are. And most of you will remember that, what, six or seven, five years ago, five years ago.
05:11: Not exactly five years ago, it'll be five years ago this November, as I recall, because I was in England at the time. Dr. Allen stood before, in fact, if we had played our
05:22: Radio Free Geneva theme today, we would have heard Dr. Allen saying, James White is a hyper -Calvinist, remember?
05:31: And I have identified that as a falsehood, and we have discussed the basis upon which
05:39: Dr. Allen tries to put this, and of course, interestingly enough, the very basis he used was work by Phil Johnson, who has also repudiated his misunderstanding of it.
05:48: But he's taking what a student taught him on this, that's the real problem is, is he's taking a definition that basically says, well, you are a hyper -Calvinist if you hold to a view that might lead you to actually living out a hyper -Calvinist perspective.
06:06: So if you do not affirm irrationality in God, if you do not say, well, we're not going to make a distinction, a real meaningful distinction between the prescriptive will of God, where God says, do not murder, and the decree of God, which includes the death of Christ, or it says, you shall not sell someone, your brother, into slavery, but God worked in Genesis chapter 50, if you just skip all that part and try to squish the three -dimensional fullness of the biblical revelation down into a two -dimensional flat pattern, then people will say, well, what you need to affirm is that God wants to save the non -elect in the exact same way he wants to save the elect.
06:55: You cannot allow for the prescriptive will and the secret will of God, you can't allow for there to be the same fullness and richness in God's character that's even found in man.
07:08: He's got to be less than a human being. You can't have redemptive love and over against, you know, you just got to make
07:16: God really small to fit into our paradigm. And there are people out there, they call themselves Calvinists, they're actually Hoopa Calvinists, they're below Calvin's view on these things, and they then will identify as hyper -Calvinists anyone who is consistent on this matter.
07:32: Well, to make a long story short, what I am excited to play for you today is
07:38: Dr. Malcolm Yarnell demonstrating that Dr. David Allen was wrong and continues to be wrong in his identification of me as a hyper -Calvinist.
07:47: Dr. Yarnell accurately, accurately, at this point, identified one of the primary ways you can identify a hyper -Calvinist.
07:56: And everyone who hears what he's going to say is going to go, well, that ain't James White because I've heard him teach against that over and over again, the entirety of his ministry, everything he does, you can go on YouTube and find a thousand pieces of evidence that this ain't
08:09: James White. So here, Malcolm Yarnell demonstrates that his boss, Dr.
08:15: David Allen, is wrong in his identification of yours truly as a hyper -Calvinist.
08:20: So I'm very excited to be able to play this for you. This is, all you gotta do is look up Yarnell McKellar on YouTube, Calvinism Dialogue, the channel's called
08:30: Pastor Talks, there's only two videos in it, it only has 202 views on it, so it's not exactly the most popular thing, it was only posted two days ago.
08:39: If you go to 1 hour and 10 minutes, that's not a lava lamp, that is, what is that?
08:46: It's a, it's a electrical storm lightning thing.
08:52: It's sort of like, if I, we'll have to, it's called a lumen glass, I need to bring my lumen glass in, it's the
08:58: Borg thing, the Borg, I need to bring my green lumen glass in, next time remind me, I'll put it over there and people will freak out when
09:06: I put my blue lumen, green one, I've got a green one, a blue one, an orange one, and a red one. We'll just keep moving those through.
09:14: Anyways, I'm really excited to play this for you. So if you go to the video, it's start at 1 hour and 10, let's see, 1 hour, 9 minutes and 40 seconds, according to my video or my audio version here, 1 hour, 9 minutes, 40 seconds in, and when you do that, you will hear, first,
09:34: I don't believe this is Dr. Arnell speaking, it's Dr. McKellar, and then Dr. Arnell will speak, Dr. Arnell speaks last, listen to what is said.
09:44: Okay. We, we're ready to come back. So I want to encourage you to, to come back to your seat and let's just,
09:50: I'm going to just start answering some of these questions and we're going to move rather rapidly through, through these questions.
09:57: So let's start, first of all, this would clearly be directed at you,
10:04: Dr. McKellar. It says, as a Calvinist, what do you do with Matthew chapter 28, verse 19? You obey it.
10:10: You really do. You go and make disciples of all nations. You go and make the elect aware of their election. I don't know,
10:16: I don't know how people are going to respond to the gospel. If I get a phone call and says, hey, hey, come and preach at Cottonwood Creek Baptist Church this
10:23: Sunday. When I step in here and I step to the pulpit to preach, I don't know the spiritual condition of the people out there.
10:29: Some are saved, some are not saved. Some are, some are going to resist the call of the gospel on this day, but some are going to be drawn by the
10:38: Holy Spirit. So I think as Spurgeon said, we preach the gospel promiscuously. There you go, there you go.
10:43: And I want to back up what Dr. McKellar is saying, which you would think as a non -Calvinist,
10:49: I would agree with that. But, but I think he's right. And I also have to say this, this is a
10:55: Calvinist speaking. A hyper -Calvinist would have a different response than what
11:00: Dr. McKellar had. A hyper -Calvinist would say, let's not trample on the glory of God by presuming to lead, to present the gospel to somebody that's not intended to receive the gospel.
11:14: Well, that's hyper -Calvinism. That's not Calvinism. What Dr. McKellar is talking about is his own response as a
11:21: Calvinist. So according to Dr. Yarnell of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, any honest person who would analyze my teachings, who has ever heard me defending the gospels, ever heard me answering questions about Reformed theology, you know, you've never heard me ever say anything like what
11:42: Dr. Yarnell just defined as hyper -Calvinism. Let me, let me, let me play it again for you so you can hear exactly what he said.
11:50: A hyper -Calvinist would have a different response than what Dr. McKellar had. A hyper -Calvinist would say, let's, let's not trample on the glory of God by presuming to lead, to present the gospel to somebody that's not intended to receive the gospel.
12:07: Well, that's, that's hyper -Calvinism. Now, how many times have I said on this program that we are to preach the gospel, we are to offer
12:18: Christ to every creature under the heavens, that it is every person's responsibility to repent and believe?
12:26: How many times have I said that? If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times on this program. Everybody knows it. Every honest person knows that that has been my position.
12:34: Every honest person knows that I go out and I do evangelism and I stand before audiences, as I will in South Africa next week or the week after next, and I will present the gospel to the
12:44: Muslims and I'm not going to sit down and go, well, I need to see some evidence that you're actually elect before I can... No, I don't do any of those things.
12:50: How many times have I said, we do not know who the elect are, therefore we proclaim the gospel to everyone.
12:56: According to Dr. Yarnell of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, what does that mean? It means I'm a
13:01: Calvinist, I am not a hyper -Calvinist. Thank you very much, Dr. Yarnell. I would like someone to inform your boss,
13:09: Dr. David Allen, of that fact, so that he can take the time to remove that footnote and the erroneous accusations from the book, wherein he has attempted to defend that, because Dr.
13:22: Yarnell is right. Hyper -Calvinism has specific marks, it has specific results, and when you ask, are those results how
13:32: James White does his ministry, the answer to any honest person is no.
13:40: It's no. And so every time that people accuse me of being a hyper -Calvinist, what are they really trying to do?
13:46: They're dishonestly attempting to avoid having to deal with the argumentation that demonstrates that their perspective is indefensible.
13:57: That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to hide behind the accusation, rather than actually dealing with the issue.
14:03: So I appreciate Dr. Yarnell's clarification of this, and I just hope that the result of all of this will be
14:12: Dr. Allen's recognition that he has inappropriately and improperly identified me as a hyper -Calvinist over against his own systematic theology professor's definition of that term.
14:27: And so I very much look forward to hearing a withdrawal of that particular terminology by Dr.
14:36: Allen. Thank you very much, Dr. Yarnell, for doing that. I didn't, of course, ask that he do that, but it was just something that I heard as I was listening, and I went, oh, very interesting.
14:46: Very interesting indeed. Of course, up to that point, I was already rather disappointed that the beautiful, biblical, consistent doctrine of particular redemption, the fact of the perfect harmony between the
15:00: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and bringing about salvation, the fact that the Atonement perfects those for whom it's made, it doesn't just simply make salvation a possibility, all that stuff had already been thrown under the bus, not even defended.
15:13: So nobody in the church that listened to that had any real idea of the real beauty of the fact that from a
15:23: Calvinistic perspective, the Gospel is a triune Gospel, and that the work of the
15:28: Son is in perfect harmony with the work of the Father. It's not that the Son has provided something that will never be utilized by the
15:37: Father. It is not that the Son has died in vain. It is not that the Spirit is trying equally to save everybody through prevenient grace.
15:46: None of that stuff came up, unfortunately. And I would really hope that someday there might be an opportunity there in the
15:54: Dallas area for a full -orbed discussion to take place where all those things are brought out, and the biblical texts are really debated.
16:02: There are so many large churches there, and I think it would be a wonderful, wonderful thing. But again, my thanks to Dr.
16:08: Yarnell for clarifying that, and who knows what will happen in the future on that subject.
16:15: So, continuing on with Radio Free Geneva, moving back to our examination of Dr.
16:22: Jerry Walsh's presentation on Calvinism. As you recall, we have been dealing with his argument, and we really haven't gotten to where Dr.
16:30: Walsh gets revved up. We're going to get there pretty soon. It's not a long presentation, and playing at 1 .2
16:37: speed, it's even shorter than it was originally. But we're getting there.
16:43: We're getting there. So, remember the argument that was given before is that if God can freely, in other words, in a compatibilistic way, cause a person to love
16:57: God, then if love is always wanting the best for somebody, then that means that this results in universalism.
17:04: But Calvinists aren't universalists. No Calvinist could possibly be a universalist. And therefore,
17:10: Calvinism is inherently contradictory, and we pointed out the problem with Dr.
17:16: Walsh's argument and his thesis is he doesn't seem to recognize the different kinds of love on the part of God, and so on and so forth.
17:24: So we went all through that, and pretty much the last time, if I recall correctly, it's been a little while now, we were looking at his discussion regarding John Piper, and John Piper's statement that he would give his life for his sons.
17:42: So evidently, John Piper loves his sons more than God does, and I had responded by, once again, this transferal of God into the human realm, a denial of his transcendence, a fact to recognize that John Piper is a limited human being, he does not know what all of God's purposes and plans are in this world, and would never put himself in the position of judging
18:13: God in that way. All that's just sort of left aside, and that kind of a comment says, well evidently, John Piper loves his sons more than God does.
18:22: That was right toward the end of where we were going, so we're going to pick up where we left off with Dr.
18:28: Wallace's presentation against Calvinism. That seems pretty clear, that's basic core
18:35: Calvinism. But then we've got Packer saying this kind of a thing, insisting God makes a bona fide offer of salvation to all persons.
18:44: Now here's what you've got to simply say, what does he mean by that, when he says a bona fide offer? Is he saying that God says, you're invited, but you can't really come, and I know you can't really come, and I could make you come, but I'm not going to, but I'm offering it to you anyway?
18:58: Now here we get into, again, the definition of bona fide offer.
19:04: You remember last time I was addressing this. And from the
19:09: Arminian perspective, you need to step back and recognize what the presuppositions of the objection are.
19:16: There cannot be a divine decree of God. There can't be. Time has to be a free -flowing thing,
19:24: God has to be just as affected by the currents of time, there cannot really, as a result, as I said, the only consistent
19:32: Arminian is an open theist, who denies classical theism and God's absolute knowledge of future events, because the only rational way to hold to God having exhaustive knowledge of future events is if God has a purpose in them, it's part of his creative decree.
19:46: We've listened to people for so many years end up spinning in wild circles when they try to hold together the clear biblical teaching that there's only one true
19:55: God, he knows all things, he knows all the actions of his creatures, he knows all events in time, that's clear, but then trying to hold that together with some kind of view of autonomy or whatever else you might want to call it, the result is a catastrophe of self -contradiction and fleeing to mystery, which is one of the things that Dr.
20:17: Walls actually accused Calvinists of doing, not himself. And so, here you have this argument being presented once again by Dr.
20:30: Walls, and let's catch that last section again. You're invited, but you can't really come, and I know you can't really come, and I could make you come, but I'm not going to, but I'm offering it to you anyway.
20:39: So see, notice the human level upon which this is placed. As I said last time, any individual who turns to Christ in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect Savior.
20:55: The question is, is God under any obligation to lift and remove the chains of slavery that are placed upon all of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam?
21:11: If you say yes, then what you're saying is God's grace, because that's a gracious action on his part, what you're saying is
21:21: God's grace can and must be demanded for justice to exist.
21:26: And now you're just mixing every category known to man. You are mixing categories of grace and mercy with those of justice, not seeing that grace and mercy triumphs over justice, but because of the incarnation of Christ, there is no injustice.
21:44: There is a fulfillment of God's law because Christ bears the wrath that is due to his people in his body upon the tree.
21:53: So justice is fulfilled, and yet justice is triumphed over by mercy and grace.
21:59: But if you make grace something that can be demanded, then you are left in a real mess in trying to explain the existence of evil and the nature of God and all these other things.
22:12: So again, you have to examine the presupposition of the argument. And the presupposition is, well, if you have a bona fide offer, and this is the argument of the sub -Calvinists, the people who call themselves
22:26: Calvinists, they pretend they actually believe in the divine decree, but they don't really believe in the divine decree. They are sub -Calvinists.
22:33: They certainly don't agree with Calvin on this issue by any stretch of the imagination as far as the issue of the exhaustiveness of the decree and all the things that come along with it.
22:42: But the idea is, for it to be a bona fide offer, then there has to be disunity between the decree and the provision of atonement.
22:54: So Christ provides for something that God knows from his divine decree will never be taken care of, will never be utilized, but unless Christ provides it, then there is no bona fide offer.
23:08: So the idea of the definition of bona fide offer is based upon the hypothetical ability of human beings to act outside of God's decree.
23:18: That's why, again, I keep saying, even if you listen to that thing we were talking about beforehand, the dialogue on Calvinism, the very brief dismissal by both speakers, all three speakers,
23:30: I guess, including the pastor, of limited atonement, demonstrated they just do not see this. They do not even begin to understand the relationship.
23:39: I don't know if this didn't bother to read Owen or just what, but they just don't see the relationship between Christ's high priestly work, his work of atonement, and the relationship of the
23:50: Father and the Son. And so they introduce this disunity, not even recognizing they're doing it, but they're doing it.
23:56: And what Dr. Walls is saying, that there needs to be this unity for it to be a bona fide offer, because there has to be this theoretical possibility.
24:06: God cannot command the fallen sons and daughters of Adam to do something when he has not actually provided for the fulfillment if they do it.
24:20: So God has to exist in a world where there's ifs for him. So again, what's the fundamental objection to the sovereign decree?
24:29: You heard it with Michael Brown, the so -called decree. Just trace it back.
24:35: What's the actual foundational argument? There cannot be a divine decree. God has to be acting in time in the same way human beings do so that he could do something other, and he must be able to fail, because I guess
24:54: God has to be able to try and try and try and try to save. And that's what makes it a bona fide offer, is that God can fail.
25:01: So if you have a perfect God who provides perfect salvation, well then you can't have a bona fide offer. There you go.
25:08: That's what we're facing here. Wink wink. Is that what he means by that, by a bona fide offer?
25:14: I mean, if that's what he meant and he spelled that out explicitly, wouldn't you just think he was joking to call that a bona fide offer?
25:20: So when he says bona fide, don't you take that to mean sincere, honest, that you really could respond to it?
25:27: He insists on this, right? So I'm taking that this is what he means. If this is not what he means, he's just being rhetorically dishonest.
25:35: Okay, so a bona fide offer is one that can actually be accepted by the person to whom it's offered. So Packer's either being dishonest or it's being misleading.
25:43: So I will choose to believe that he's not dishonest, so I will take it that this is what he means. If he's not being dishonest, he's got to mean this by a bona fide offer.
25:50: Otherwise, it's just rhetorically, utterly misleading. So I'm assuming he's honest. This is what he means. Conclusion, all persons can actually accept the offer of salvation and be saved.
26:00: Now, do you notice anything? We have discovered an implicit contradiction here. Having spelled out the premises and the implications, here's what you get.
26:10: Three, not all persons can actually accept the offer of salvation and be saved. Six, all persons can actually accept the offer of salvation and be saved.
26:18: Friends, that is an outright contradiction. As much as saying,
26:24: Bach is a bachelor and Bach is not a bachelor. So there you have his philosophical argument.
26:30: We've already demonstrated that it's based upon numerous redefinitions of terms, ignoring important elements in regards to what we believe about God's love and all the rest of that stuff.
26:41: But again, I've said it. I'll defend it. Arminianism is primarily a philosophical system that then attempts to utilize biblical data.
26:53: I have said it before. I know that they don't like to hear it. But we've all listened to this program.
27:01: How many times, over and over again, we've gotten into discussion. The Calvinist goes to the text.
27:07: The Calvinist brings it. But what about this? But what about that? And it ends up being some kind of, well, we have to have this concept of free will.
27:19: We have to have that concept of autonomy, et cetera, et cetera. And it's a philosophical system, not a biblical system.
27:28: And we're seeing it again. You cannot make both of these true by appeal to mystery, by appeal to antinomy.
27:35: It doesn't make you pious to think you can. It makes you confused. So, there's the contradiction.
27:44: Now, let's go on. We've still got some ground to cover here. I'm really glad you guys stayed. I appreciate it. I'm getting hot up there.
27:52: Is it OK if I take my jacket off? I'm suffocating. Now, I appreciate guys who are passionate.
27:59: I mean, Dr. Wallace says he's starting to like me. And it's not just because I'm bald, though I do shave my head.
28:07: I just would look like a monk if I grew what hair I have left out. And I just don't want to look like Luther with a tonsure.
28:13: But anyway, and I appreciate, I think we probably would have a very interesting debate.
28:18: But I am concerned we would end up like ships passing the night, given our starting points.
28:25: All right. Now, let's go on. Let's go on. Let's go on to what I call ambiguous
28:31: Calvinism. Ambiguous Calvinism. And this takes place when Calvinists trade on both conceptions of freedom.
28:38: And as someone who's been reading Calvinist literature and studying and critiquing it and analyzing it for several years now,
28:44: I will tell you, you will see this all over the place. So once you understand compatibilism and understand it, start reading this stuff, and you will see
28:50: Calvinists saying stuff all the time that they cannot consistently say on their premises.
28:55: So what they often do is slide back and forth between a libertarian view of freedom and a compatibilist view of freedom.
29:02: I really don't think the vast majority of us do that. But hey, I am not here.
29:09: It's not my intention to defend the absolute consistency of every
29:14: Calvinist that Dr. Wallace has ever spoken with. Well, they're talking about God's wonderful grace saving people and is electing them to salvation.
29:20: They're compatibilists. But then when they talk about sinners disobeying God and doing wretched things, suddenly they sound like libertarians.
29:28: All right. So here is another Calvinist theologian, John Calvin, who's almost as good a
29:34: Calvinist as Piper. Not quite. But he's up there. He's up there, right? I know you don't like him as much as Piper.
29:40: Okay. But I'm going to listen to this fascinating passage from Calvin. There's the general call. This is the call of the gospel that goes to everybody.
29:48: Whosoever will may come. There's a general call by which God invites all equally to himself through the outward preaching of the word, even those to whom he holds it out as a savor of death and as the occasion of severe condemnation.
30:03: Now, that's a genuine citation. And it's one of those tough things that Calvin says that I perfectly agree with.
30:15: Perfectly agree with. And I've been consistent here, too. I don't say that to pat myself on the back.
30:22: I just pointed out how many times, and I'll give you a real basic example of where I've been consistent here.
30:30: How many times, if you all go back, those of you who've listened for years and years and years and years, some of the folks in the chat channel, you know,
30:37: Tucson Mom just came in. So Tucson Mom would remember this. And LU would remember this.
30:43: And some of the older folks remember this. Not necessarily old chronologically.
30:49: We've had some people in there for years that started when they were very young. Anyways, when we would go out to the
30:55: Mesa Easter pageant, when we would go out to Salt Lake City, and we would pass out tracks, we would talk about the fact that there were times, for example, when the elders would do everything in their power to try to get tracks out of people's hands.
31:14: And they would want to, you know, I remember this one. I remember what he looked like to this day. Well, probably because we took a picture of him.
31:22: And he's staying there with his jacket pockets stuffed with our tracks.
31:27: Just with the most smug look on his face. And sometimes we'd find tracks, you know, on the ground.
31:34: They'd been spit upon or stomped upon or whatever. And what would we call them? We call them fallen warriors. The fallen warriors.
31:42: And when I'd get together with people, sometimes, especially the younger folks, would be rather upset.
31:52: You know, we're out there, we work hard to get those tracks out. It takes some effort to smile, folks, and get the lines out right and get the tracks out to people.
32:01: And there's someone stealing them, and they're just throwing them away. And it seems like a waste of effort. I'd look at people,
32:08: I'd say, look, some of our literature goes out for salvation, and some of it goes out for judgment.
32:16: It goes out for judgment. And I looked at that young man when he had his pockets full of stuff, and I said, young man, you're going to be held accountable before a holy
32:26: God because you know and I know you cannot answer what is in that literature.
32:33: Therefore, you are guilty of keeping other people from having an opportunity of seeing the truth.
32:39: And he just looked at me like, the point is, I've been consistent. When you preach the gospel, it's going to have an effect.
32:49: You see, the problem with many people is they think when you preach the gospel, unless it results in someone bowing the knee to Christ, that you've wasted your time, that it was not effective.
33:01: But that's like saying the law was not effective. What did Paul say? Well, I said, thou shalt not covet.
33:07: What did that do to Paul as an unregenerate man? It made him covet. It had its effect. It did what
33:13: God intended it to do. It made sin more sinful. And yes, there are times when
33:22: God brings judgment upon a people by letting them hear the gospel with clarity, but not removing the chains of slavery.
33:35: They have their sin. They continue to love their sin and he uses it to actually increase their judgment before him.
33:43: This happened in Scripture. This happened to the people of Israel. This happened to other nations.
33:49: It's happening in the West right now. That's the reality. That's what happens. That's what happens.
33:55: Now, Dr. Wallace doesn't seem to like that. This is sort of one of his, Ooh, isn't that a terrible thing to say?
34:02: But you know, there's a lot of things in the Bible that if you just simply throw them out there to a lot of people, they go, Oh, I don't like that.
34:10: Yeah. Well, it doesn't mean it's wrong. Are you following this?
34:18: There was this doctrine that used to be prominent in Calvinism. You don't hear much about it anymore, but it used to be very prominent in classic Calvinism called the dreaded false hope.
34:26: And this was the fear that you might not truly be elect. And even though you were converted, you might've fallen away.
34:32: And that might be evidence that you weren't really elect and you dreaded, Oh my God, I thought it was elected. It seemed like it was for a while, but now I'm not so sure.
34:38: And lots of classic Calvinists struggled with this fear that they were not truly elect. And this passage right here is what it was based on.
34:44: So Calvin is trying to make sense of backsliders. What people in Normandian tradition call backsliders. People are converted and then fall away.
34:50: How do you explain them? Here's Calvin's explanation. God holds out to some people that are not truly elect.
34:59: The gospel as a saver of death and as the occasion of severe condemnation.
35:05: So it can condemn them more severely than other people. That's why he does it. The other kind of call is special, which he gains notice for the most part to give, to believe the believer alone.
35:16: Yet sometimes he also causes those whom he illumines only for a time to partake of it. Then he justly forsakes them on account of their ungratefulness and strikes them with even greater blindness.
35:29: So in other words, they went out from us, so it might be demonstrated that they were not of us.
35:35: For if they had been of us, they would have doubtless remained with us. I think that's what 1
35:42: John 2 says. And all of us, Arminian or Calvinist, have to answer the question, how is it possible that there can be people who have sat under the gospel ministry, who have made professions of faith, and then in the midst of such blinding light, have turned back to their old ways.
36:08: Dogs returning to their own vomit, as Peter would put it. Now, you may not like the answer the
36:16: Calvinist gives, but that doesn't mean that it's inconsistent or unbiblical. And I would say that the answer the
36:23: Arminian gives has a real major problem.
36:29: That is, it's just simply not biblical at all. See, the Arminian has to limit
36:36: Christ's ability to save. He has to limit
36:42: Christ's ability to save. He has to make it a cooperative effort. Christ is doing those all. He's trying just as hard to save a person, and he's trying just as hard to keep a person.
36:53: But he can't do it by himself. He's got to have help, right?
37:00: Well, that's what the Arminian says. That's what the Arminian says. And certainly, the only consistent
37:08: Arminian perspective is one that denies the perseverance of the saints, because if you just put so much effort into this idea of free will in choosing salvation, that's what's so funny about so many
37:24: Baptists who are just raw about the subject of perseverance of the saints.
37:34: In fact, in that conversation, in that Calvinism dialogue, it was directly stated, you can't deny perseverance of the saints and really be a good
37:44: Southern Baptist. That's what Baptist faith message says. You got to believe that.
37:51: Well, a lot of people pointed out, that doesn't make a lick of sense. If it was your autonomous decision that enabled the grace of God to save you, then how can it not be your autonomous decision to stop allowing that to happen?
38:08: I mean, if autonomy is definitional of humanity, do we become less human once we get saved?
38:18: I mean, it really raises the question throughout eternity. I mean, if autonomy is definitional of humanity, then why couldn't we be lost even in eternity to come?
38:32: Why couldn't there come a day when evil is found again? I mean, evil was found in Satan, right?
38:40: Just some questions we might want to ask. And so, you may not like the idea that God increases a man's judgment or a woman's judgment by allowing them to have access to the gospel, to even falsely profess the gospel, and then to become apostate.
39:02: You might not like that, but I simply have to ask you a question. Could God have justly brought his wrath to bear upon that person before they ever made that first false claim of faith?
39:20: And everybody else has to go, well, yeah. Oh, so what you're saying is
39:28: God could have destroyed them then. In fact, maybe what you're saying is he should have, right?
39:37: Right? I mean, he should have. I mean, why put the Egyptians through everything the
39:43: Egyptians went through anyways, right? I mean, think of that huge army, that big army of Pharaoh, stuck in the mud as the water comes upon them, and the soldiers are wearing their heavy armor, and they can't swim, and the poor little horsies.
40:05: And for many people, well, if God was going to do that, he should have just struck them dead in their bed before Moses ever showed up, right?
40:15: And what does that show you? It shows you you do not have the same priorities that God has in Romans 9.
40:26: What if willing to make his power known? And that's why
40:31: I've said for years, you can go back and check the records. I always ask others, and I ask myself, where are my priority lists?
40:43: This is a demonstration of God's power, God's holiness, God's justice. It seems to be high on his priority list, not very high on the creature's priority list, especially when we think
40:54: God needs to be put into the dock and answer to us. So it's an important issue.
41:04: I just don't think this is the way to present it. Here's what I want to ask you. How do you make sense of this on compatibles' terms?
41:13: Doesn't it sound like he thinks they could have responded to the gospel? That they could have stayed true to it and should have?
41:19: And that's why God justly punishes them more severely? Because after all, if he wanted to, he could have determined them willingly, gladly, freely to have stayed true to the gospel, but he didn't.
41:32: So see, there again, what's the objection? There can't be a decree. God cannot have a purpose for everything that takes place in time that results to his glory.
41:43: Because my understanding of how all this works means that man has to be autonomous, and he has to have the ability to do something other than what
41:52: God's determination. It doesn't matter if he's following his desires. It doesn't matter if in point of fact, God has to restrain his evil.
41:58: No, no, no, no. That might prove that no matter what they're given and how much light they're given, man loves their sin and so on and so forth, and that therefore
42:07: God is just, and that therefore he glorifies God's grace. Because when he saves people, we're just the same.
42:14: We are no better than anybody else. We were all taken out of that one lump in the sense of, we weren't looked at as being better than someone else.
42:24: It wasn't our foreseen faith or something better about us. No, no, no, God can't do any of that. No, no, no, can't do that.
42:30: Can't do that. That's the fundamental objection. Here it sounds like they could have though, and that's why they get blamed.
42:38: So here's what you'll see in Calvinism. Again, I repeat, ambiguous Calvinism. See the could -should thing? They should have.
42:45: Doesn't mean they could. What's the only reason? You know, he who endures the end shall be saved.
42:53: Love that verse. Love that verse. That is a grace verse. You go, what, what are you talking about?
43:00: That's a grace verse. Yeah. The only reason now, coming up on five decades down the road,
43:12: I continue to hold to Christ is because of his grace.
43:18: I've only persevered because saving faith perseveres. I can't say it's because I'm better than anybody else.
43:28: I can't look at somebody else who's going through difficult trials and tribulations and they're struggling and go, I'm better than that person.
43:34: I'm stronger. I can't do that. Can't do that. Because I recognize that if God takes the chains of sin off, he didn't have to do that.
43:47: He doesn't have to take out that heart of stone. He doesn't have to cause his wind to blow across that valley of dry bones, but he does.
43:56: Trading on both conceptions of freedom, often not even being aware of it, sounding at sometimes like good compatibilists, and then when they want to blame sinners and critique things like this, they suddenly sound like libertarians.
44:07: All right. Now, here's another kind of inconsistent Calvinism. It's what
44:13: I call misleading Calvinism. Now, I really like Arthur Pink, the guy that I quoted at the beginning.
44:20: He's forthright. He just faces the music. You know, he bites the bullet. You know that phrase?
44:27: He bites it. God doesn't love everybody. But here's the problem.
44:34: Not many Calvinists are this forthright. And in fact, let me say this to all my Calvinist friends who are listening to this.
44:41: This is how Calvinism maintains credibility. By continuing to use the rhetoric of universal love in a way that their theology does not support.
44:51: So in other words, if you recognize that human beings are capable of different levels and kinds of love with different objects and things like that, you can't have a
45:02: God big enough to be like a human being. You need to have a little God whose love is monolithic.
45:09: And therefore, if he redemptively loves one person, he redemptively loves everybody equally. It's got to be like a dog's love.
45:15: You know, a dog either loves you or hates you. You know, not much in the middle. I'm not even gonna bring cats into this because that would just really mess up everything.
45:23: But that's what you got to do. And I go, wait a minute, where did man get the ability?
45:30: I love my wife in a way differently than I love anybody else's wife. Where did I get that ability if my God doesn't have that ability?
45:36: That's what we're being told now. We're being told the only way you can be credible is you play games with the word love.
45:42: No, we just allow the Bible to define the fact that God's love has many different kinds of manifestations and there is a redemptive love.
45:52: Look, God treated Israel differently than he treated the
45:58: Egyptians. Right? Why? If you're gonna sit there and say, well, you know, he just loved
46:05: Pharaoh just as much as he loved Moses in the same way, I'm going to laugh at you and everyone else will too.
46:12: You have to. Because that's absurd. And you know it's absurd. So don't, don't make an argument when your side in reality is fundamentally denying the biblical witness to the multifaceted character of God's love, grace, and kindness.
46:31: If Calvinists were forthright in embracing the implications of their theology, if they bit the bullet and did not engage in misleading rhetoric,
46:43: Calvinism would lose credibility in two years. Two years. It stays afloat by Calvinists talking about God's love in a way that their theology does not underwrite.
46:55: Here's a great example. D .A. Carson, Calvinist New Testament scholar,
47:00: Trinity Divinity School. Now, of course, Carson wrote a book on the difficult doctrine of the love of God.
47:06: Remember when Peter Lemkins tried to edit my video and misrepresent what I was saying, I pointed out that even
47:12: Carson had written a book on that very subject. Carson's got a very good book on it.
47:17: I would recommend your reading of it. But again, it doesn't fit into this unidimensional, flattened -out, love -has -to -be -this -or -it's -not -love type of philosophy.
47:30: I won't call it a theology, because he ain't deriving that from the Bible anymore. That says this. When I've preached or lectured in Reformed circles, that's
47:37: Calvinist circles, I've often been asked the question, do you feel free to tell unbelievers that God loves them?
47:42: Man, you might think that's a crazy thing. Do you feel free to tell unbelievers God loves them, for crying out loud?
47:48: Isn't that the gospel? That God loves people, all of them? That he died for the world?
47:54: Is that the gospel? Then why wasn't Jesus preaching it when he first came? Hmm, that's odd.
48:02: I guess Jesus just had a deficient knowledge of the gospel? What was his first message? Repent and believe, wasn't it?
48:09: Yeah, repent and believe. Aren't the promises given to those who are loved by God and therefore love
48:17: God? Or is it our loving God that makes us to be loved by God? I can't figure those things out. Isn't that the gospel?
48:25: Calvinists wonder, can I really say this to people, honestly? Why do they wonder that? Because God hasn't elected everybody.
48:33: So how can you really say to unconverted people, God loves all of you,
48:38: Christ died for you, he wants a relationship with you, his heart longs to be reunited with you.
48:46: So now you see why it is important, why theology matters. Because one of the primary arguments
48:54: Armenians use is, well, this is how we do evangelism. These are the buzzwords we use.
49:00: They're not biblical, but we've used them so often that all we've got to do is just repeat them and say, the
49:06: Calvinist can't say it in the same way we do, therefore this is an argument against Calvinism. And I just go, and exactly where did the apostles preach this way?
49:18: And people look at you like, well, why should we worry about that? Well, because we want to preach like the apostles did, because they understood the gospel.
49:30: Can you say this with honesty? He says he's often asked. Now notice, from what
49:35: I've already said, you don't have to read his book, it is obvious that I have no hesitation in answering this question from young reformed preachers affirmatively.
49:41: Of course I tell the unconverted that God loves them. Now look, how do you get this of course
49:50: I tell the unconverted God loves them? Well, let me explain it to you. Let me explain it to you. He distinguishes three different senses
49:57: God might love the unconverted. First of all, God's providential love over all that he has made.
50:04: Yeah, Armenians don't like this. Armenians really, really disrespect God's love for his creation and the mercy that he is extending to people.
50:15: They just, again, it's all got to be equal redemptive love or it's no love at all.
50:25: Just because he gave great things to the Egyptians when they died under the waters, the
50:32: Red Sea, he just loved them as much as he did the Israelites. There's no difference. And I just go, what?
50:40: Really? Really? Honestly? This simply means this.
50:46: God blesses people throughout the world by giving them air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink.
50:55: The rain falls on the just and the unjust. God makes no discrimination. He doesn't say, all right, drop the rain on the pious people's gardens, center over here, no rain for his garden.
51:05: Doesn't work that way. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. So one way God loves, shows love for people is his providential love.
51:12: Secondly, is God's salvific stance toward his fallen world. Now what does that mean? That means
51:18: God takes a stance of inviting people to the gospel. Remember this general call, whosoever will may come.
51:27: So the Calvinists will get up in front of people and say, whosoever will may come. God invites you all to accept the gospel.
51:35: Notice and remember. And we are inconsistent? What would make us inconsistent if we knew the identity of the elect?
51:45: Anyone who wills may come. Who's going to will? It doesn't address the question.
51:52: Unless God gave us knowledge of who the elect were, what else could we say?
51:59: The command is to preach repentance to every creature under heaven. So that's what we do. And we can say anyone who turns from repentance and faith to Jesus Christ will find to be a perfect savior.
52:11: What is inconsistent about that? It's just refusing to allow us to define our own terms and our terms happen to be defined biblically.
52:20: That causes the problem. If you're not elect, you can't possibly respond. You can't possibly want to come.
52:25: But the Calvinists can still say whoever wants to, come on up. If you want to come. If you're not elect, you're not going to want to come.
52:30: You can't want to come. But you can still say whosoever will. So God takes a stance of inviting everybody. Then he distinguishes third.
52:37: And by the way, for Carson, there would be more to it than that. The salvific stance would mean that the gospel has had a tremendously positive impact.
52:47: The non -elect have experienced tremendous grace and happiness in this world because of the presence of Christians amongst them.
52:56: They have. There's no question about that. There has been a restraint of evil. God restrains evil so that his people might live in peace, his people might worship him.
53:05: That's a blessing upon a people. Keep those other elements in mind as well. Thirdly, God's particular effect is selecting love towards his elect.
53:13: Now here's the point I want to make. And I don't want to sound harsh here, but at the same time,
53:20: I want to be an honest critic. How can you say this with a straight face?
53:27: Because we have a significantly deeper theology than you seem to understand. I mean, if he got up and explained what he meant when he says, of course,
53:37: I tell the unconverted, God loves them. So he says, look, for all I know, you may be damned to hell for all eternity. I don't know whether you're elect or not.
53:45: No one knows that. I can't know that. For all I know, you might not be elect. But listen, I know this. God sends rain on your garden and whosoever will may come.
53:56: If you want to come, you may. Now, if you're not elect, you can't come. You won't want to come. Understand. But it's still true that if you want to come, you can.
54:04: So evidently, this kind of Picayune presentation at this point means that we now have the right to go into all the details of what the
54:15: Armenian is saying, which is something along the lines of God is trying to save you.
54:22: He's been trying to save you all along, but he can't. He can't do it. He's been trying.
54:29: He wants so much. He stays up at night. The entire Trinity is all a jumble because of their desire to save you.
54:44: And they want to save you so much, but they can't without your help.
54:50: And don't you feel guilty? Look at all that God has done for you. Look at what Jesus did for you. And you're making him sad.
54:58: And so you need to do something nice for Jesus because he's done so much nice for you.
55:06: Now, he can't save you by himself. And he's going to need your help for you to stay saved.
55:12: But he will do his best. He will do his best and you do your best.
55:18: And that way you get to heaven. So is that how this is to be done?
55:27: You put the worst case spin upon things and say, well, there you go.
55:33: Now, make a choice. Now, I ask you, does
55:40: God love people in any meaningful sense? If he only loves them in this sense, but not this?
55:46: Here's an analogy I use. So it has to be redemptive love. Must be. Has to be.
55:53: Listen to this analogy. Suppose there were scientists who needed some really fit, healthy subjects to do some really painful experiments on that would eventually kill the subjects.
56:08: So for 30 years, he gives them the best of treatment. Gives them the best of food. First -rate exercise facilities.
56:16: Most expensive kind of bed so they can get good sleep every night. Every want they could have. They even drive a
56:21: Jaguar. Gives them all Jaguars, let's say. Mercedes Benz for the 30 years. Once they're old enough to drive. Okay, and then at the end of the 30 years, he subjects them to these painful experiments that kills them.
56:34: Could you say he loved these people? Now, I'm sorry, but that's supposed to be an analogy?
56:45: Really? We're talking about the wrath of God abiding upon people who love their sin.
56:57: And for his purposes, he extends patience and grace so that he doesn't bring to bear his wrath upon these individuals.
57:09: And that's like a scientist fattening up his subjects before he kills them in an experiment?
57:16: Really? So much for that my wrath and power might be made known and my justice and so on and so forth.
57:24: So much for making the attributes of God known. It doesn't even figure in this kind of analogy.
57:30: I'm sorry, but my Arminian friends are not good with analogies. Not good with analogies at all.
57:37: Just remember Geisler's Three Boys in the Swimming Pond as yet another example of failure when it comes to Arminian analogies.
57:47: I mean, really? Okay, no analogy is perfect. Damnation is far worse than this scientist.
57:55: So if God has chosen to damn people for all eternity, not to give them saving grace, the only thing that can give them lasting happiness.
58:01: What does a man profit if he gains the whole world? What if God gives you every material blessing for 70, 80, 90 years and then sends you to hell unconditionally?
58:10: Is that love? There's my point. If he spelled out what he meant by that, could anybody take it seriously?
58:20: Could anybody take it seriously? If it was forthright and spelled out what he meant when he says, of course,
58:27: I tell the unconverted God loves them. So this is what I would just say to Calvinists. Be honest for God's sake, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word.
58:35: Be honest in what you mean by the love of God. I think the vast majority of us are.
58:44: It's not our fault that so many Arminians have been mistaught on a sub -biblical level so that they don't recognize that the
58:53: Bible itself teaches that God, who made us capable of loving in different ways and on different levels, himself has the same capacity to which he has given us, and he is able to do so in a much higher and a more perfect and holy way.
59:07: It's not our fault that people have been misled on this subject and therefore misinterpret what we're saying, which
59:13: I think is what we're being accused with here. Don't trade on the notion of love that you know everybody's going to understand.
59:21: They're going to understand it differently than what you mean by it. Don't trade on that. That's not straight. Be straightforward. If you don't think
59:27: God has elected everybody for salvation, don't try to pretend that God loves them in any deep sense of the word that you're not really willing to endorse.
59:35: In any deep sense of the word. In other words, unless it's redemptive love, it's not love, period.
59:41: That's the assumption. That's the assumption. So God does not have the capacity to do what man does.
59:49: There you go. You have an Arminian God who cannot do what man can do. I don't know how we got that ability.
59:55: Must be an evolutionary thing, but there you go. The deepest issue is not freedom.
01:00:18: We're about to get to the deepest issue. Remember I said you can't understand the deepest issue if you don't understand the freedom issue.
01:00:25: Now recall again that huge implication. If we suppose some form of compatibilism, then
01:00:33: God could have created men and women who freely and in a sense compatible with determinism did only what was morally right.
01:00:39: But God has chosen not to do that. Indeed, Calvinists often say, God can't do this because he wouldn't be fully glorified if he didn't damn people.
01:00:50: Now, can't do this? What Calvinist says is that there's some type of extrinsic binding authority upon God.
01:01:03: Now, if we're saying logically that the choices are God saves everyone,
01:01:09: God saves no one, or God saves someone, well, that's a logical issue.
01:01:16: And I think everybody can understand that. Those are the only three possibilities. Either God saves no one, which would include the possibility of not even creating.
01:01:26: God saves everyone, universalism. Or God saves someone, that is where God has a choice in the matter.
01:01:33: Uh, that's not because there's some external authority that tells
01:01:38: God what he's going to do. And once God has created, he's revealed himself, he's revealed his laws, revealed his purposes, then you can, within that context, say, well,
01:01:52: God says that he is going to make his power known. God says he's going to make his mercy and grace known.
01:01:59: God is about revealing his attributes and his activities and his dealings with mankind, and so there are certain things you can derive from that.
01:02:09: But the idea that God's under some compulsion doesn't make a lick of sense.
01:02:17: Okay? So as far as freedom is concerned, God can save everybody with their freedom intact, but God would not be fully glorified.
01:02:25: So God gets more glory out of determining people to blaspheme, to commit horrendous sins, and then punishing them forever than he would get out of determining them freely to accept the gospel, to praise him, and to worship him forever.
01:02:43: Now, catch that? I mean, talk about a loaded presentation. Notice, determining them.
01:02:50: Man is all of a sudden nothing but an automaton, and he's the innocent automaton, and he's been determined to do this, and there's nothing about him loving this, and there's nothing about God's restraint upon his evil.
01:03:03: No, no, no, no, no, none of that. Poor man! There's God behind him with a gun going, Be evil, glorify me!
01:03:13: That's what you got. Really? Seriously? I mean, this last section here, as I'm looking at my screen, has all the color in it, because this is where I had all the,
01:03:27: Wow, I can't believe he said this stuff, marked. And we're in that now. This is where it gets a little bad, where I think the emotions kicked in, and I just realized
01:03:40: I've gone over time. You know what? We're so close. I'm just gonna need to try to finish this off today. I really need to. It'd be silly to try to come back to this and put it together.
01:03:48: I'll just go through the marked stuff, and might not do the last two minutes of the presentation or something, but no one could say that I've not given him an opportunity to find his own material.
01:03:57: I've played everything up to this point. Where am I at? 54 minutes, 50 seconds in right now. But that is not even a semi -fair presentation.
01:04:08: But once you get to the end, you make your conclusions, you know, he feels that he's substantiated it. We just have the right to say, not really.
01:04:15: He wouldn't be fully glorified as the Calvinist sees it. If all of his attributes, if all he's saying is that God's attributes would not be demonstrated and glorified via universalism, then
01:04:32: I would agree. Universalism would not glorify God. Because God's law and God's wrath and God's power would not be demonstrated.
01:04:46: Okay. But this idea of a bunch of innocent people being forced to do bad things just to glorify
01:04:52: God, that's an absurd misrepresentation. If you don't include the fact that God restrains evil and that these people are doing exactly what they want to do, then you're not accurately discussing the issue.
01:05:08: If he didn't damn some people, he's got to. He needs evil to be fully God. Catch that?
01:05:14: That's absurd. That is where Dr. Walls jumped right off the cliff.
01:05:19: I'm sorry, Jerry, but get a grip. He needs evil to be God. He was
01:05:25: God before he created. He was
01:05:30: God fully in eternity. Didn't need evil. It's ridiculous.
01:05:37: Give me this, he needs evil to be God. The amazing thing is he uses man's evil, most of which he restrains.
01:05:47: He uses man's evil to glorify himself. And he does so by extending grace and the salvation of undeserving sinners who would prefer in and of themselves to go on in their rebellion.
01:06:09: But what does the Arminian say? Dr. Walls, your God created this mess.
01:06:15: Are you telling me he had no purpose? I mean, I don't think you're an open theist.
01:06:22: You'd be more consistent if you were. But if you're not an open theist and you knew your God knew all this was going to happen and he didn't have a single purpose in all of it.
01:06:31: All this evil he knew was going to happen. He brought into existence for no reason at all.
01:06:36: You're going to tell me that's better? Better than God using evil redemptively to demonstrate his attributes and his grace and his mercy and his love?
01:06:52: He brought it all into existence but had no purpose for it. I wish it hadn't happened. But well, you know, I guess he didn't get into any of that.
01:07:00: He didn't explain, well, now I'm consistent here because I have this view. You get that?
01:07:11: He would not be fully glorified. His nature would not be wholly manifest unless he punished sin forever.
01:07:20: He needs eternal evil to be fully God. All right, so here's the difference.
01:07:28: Here's the big divide. The real difference, the fundamental issue that divides
01:07:35: Calvinism and Wesleyan -Arminians is this. It's the character of God.
01:07:42: Yeah, I would agree. I will never worship a God that would bring evil into existence for no purpose.
01:07:52: Can't worship a God that brings purposeless evil into existence. That's true. Ain't going that way.
01:08:01: I would agree that the character of God, very, very important. If God does not have a purpose, the existence of evil in this world, then there really is much reason to worship him, is there?
01:08:11: For the sake of being concise, I will put it this way. Quote my own book. All right, now here's what's interesting.
01:08:20: If you read Calvinists, they're all about power. They're all about power.
01:08:30: That's not worry about all that stuff in the Psalms about the power of God. Those Calvinists, they're just all about power.
01:08:38: What you're going to get here is, those Calvinists are into power, and we're into love. Placing the attributes of God in competition and contradiction to one another.
01:08:52: They love to extol God's power, and God's power is amazing. It's what's wonderful. It should be extolled.
01:08:58: But you often get that that's the most important thing about God. He's powerful, and he's so powerful he can do whatever he wants, even if it utterly violates our deepest moral intuitions.
01:09:10: Our deepest moral intuitions. Well, Dr. Walls, my deepest moral intuition is that a
01:09:15: God who creates evil without a purpose is evil. That's mine. How about yours?
01:09:23: Because that's what being God is all about. I mean, that's what Godness is all about, is supreme power to do anything.
01:09:30: I believe God can do anything he wants to do, but I think there's some things God can't want to do. I don't think
01:09:35: God is capable of wanting to damn people unconditionally. Well, me too.
01:09:41: And no Calvinist believes that he does. Whoever said that did. If you say that's what
01:09:47: Calvinists believe, then you have no clue. No clue. This is the reverse misunderstanding of equal ultimacy, which we have refuted
01:09:59: I don't know how many times before, but there it is again. Because I think he's necessarily loving and good, and that's utterly incompatible with his necessarily good nature.
01:10:09: He can do anything he wants, yeah, but there's some things he can't want. He can't lie. He can't want to lie.
01:10:16: There's some things he just can't want to do, okay? But at any rate, when you read Calvinists, they're all about, who are you to question
01:10:23: God? God can do... No, I'm not going to question God. I'm not about questioning God. No, I'll happily question your understanding of God, okay, but I'm not equating your understanding of God with God, okay?
01:10:34: So if you think of the issue only in terms of power, the question is framed in terms of what God could do.
01:10:40: But if we think it in terms of God's character, the focus shifts to what God would do.
01:10:47: And it's clear to us that if God determined all things, including our choices, he would not determine the sort of evil and atrocities that we've witnessed in history.
01:10:56: So there you go. Now we finally get to it. At the end of it, even though I've been bringing it up over and over again, now we hear the real objection.
01:11:05: It's to the decree of God. There cannot be a decree. If there was a decree of God, it would not have included evil.
01:11:12: Now, I don't know how he gets around the fact that God created with the knowledge of future events, but once you get rid of the decree, then all you have are future evil events that God brings into existence for no purpose, no reason.
01:11:27: There you go. Don't get it. Nor would many, perhaps even most of the human race, ultimately be separated from the love of God and lost forever.
01:11:36: Indeed, if God determined everything, none would be lost. Now, so the only
01:11:43: God he will accept, this is all, this is all. If human beings get to judge
01:11:49: God, God can only be what we judge him to be. And if God determined all things, then he'd have to be a universalist.
01:11:55: And since those Calvinists are not universalist, then that's bad. Continue. A couple more quotes.
01:12:04: Interestingly, remember that article that I quoted a while ago when Piper says if God doesn't want to save his sons, he's still
01:12:10: God? Because he's God and I'm but a man. The title of the article is very telling.
01:12:17: Interestingly, the title of the article in which Piper insists on adoring a God who might consign his son to hell is...
01:12:25: Are his sons sinners? So we're being told that it's better for God to try and fail.
01:12:37: Because I guess from Dr. Walsh's perspective, he's trying to save Piper's sons. He's doing everything he can, but he just can't do it without their help.
01:12:48: He can't do it without their assistance, right? And this is supposed to be the alternative.
01:12:56: We weren't offered that. The other side wasn't held to the same standard of scrutiny. Rarely happens that that works out that way.
01:13:05: How does a sovereign God love? We believe Piper has the question backward.
01:13:11: Given the full revelation of God in Scripture, the question we should be asking is, how would a
01:13:17: God of perfect love express his sovereignty? So, we have a definition, a unidimensional, flattened out, unbiblical, and unsubstantiateable definition of love now being force -packed upon God as the controlling attribute of God's nature.
01:13:44: And now his kingship, his sovereignty, his relationship to his creation, is to be determined by that humanly -derived, sub -biblical, unidimensional definition of love.
01:14:02: That's going to lead to some pretty bad conclusions, if I might suggest.
01:14:09: Not how would a sovereign God love. How would a God of perfect love express his sovereignty?
01:14:17: That, I think, is the right question. That's the way we should be thinking. Now, here, and again, one more quotation from this, and then
01:14:26: I'm going to conclude with a quote from Dennis Kinloch. When love is subordinated to will, then the fatherhood of God, which is emphasized in the
01:14:34: Trinity, takes a backseat to the image of God as king or ruler.
01:14:40: Why? When love is subordinated to will. In other words, when
01:14:45: God can use his will to determine the objects of his love and the kinds of love that he gives, so in other words, for God's love to be real love,
01:14:54: God's love has to be irrational. It has to be peanut butter love. It has to be,
01:14:59: I just love everybody equally. Can't be like us human beings.
01:15:05: No, our love, I mean, think about this for a second. What's the greatest commandment? You shall love the
01:15:11: Lord your God with our heart, soul, mind, strength. How can you command something that's not a part of the will?
01:15:19: I mean, it just falls apart in so many different ways right here at the end that it's pretty amazing.
01:15:28: But then you somehow bring in some concept of fatherhood in the
01:15:37: Trinity and try to, folks, this is the danger of Arminianism.
01:15:44: It's man -centered. It starts with man and tries to reason up to God. That is the fundamental difference.
01:15:49: It really is. I've said it a million times before, now you're hearing it. So Calvinists' favorite imagery of God is all about God as a sovereign, as a king, but here's what's interesting.
01:16:01: Yeah, yeah, we never talk about the fatherhood of God. No, that's never crossed our minds. Something much more fundamental to who
01:16:08: God is than his kingship, than his power, than his lordship. Kingship and lordship, as we're going to see in a moment, are terms that apply to God post -creation.
01:16:20: Before God created anybody, he wasn't ruling over anybody. But before he created anybody, he was loving somebody.
01:16:30: Because within the Trinity, there was love from all eternity among the
01:16:36: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's the most fundamental thing about God. So you see what he's doing here, is he's trying to say, well, the most fundamental thing about God is love.
01:16:49: And so take a human concept of love, flatten it out, impress it upon God, and we can get rid of all those biblical passages that teach that God is about demonstrating his attributes, his power, his holiness, his justice, his love.
01:17:08: We can make it all about man now. It's all about man. Fundamental difference.
01:17:15: Fundamental difference. One of them's biblical, one is grossly not. All right. In a nutshell, our case against Calvinism is that it doesn't do justice to the character of the
01:17:24: God revealed in Scripture. It does not accurately portray the Holy One who is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, the
01:17:34: God for whom love is not merely an option or a sovereign choice, but who is such that his eternal nature is love.
01:17:44: Now, interestingly. So in other words, this overarching concept of love is necessary.
01:17:52: It's a necessity. God is subject to it. And having denied to God the ability to have different kinds of love, wow,
01:17:59: God's in deep trouble. He's stuck in the same situation as the guy who is not fully personal, is not mature, and therefore lacks a part of his personality.
01:18:14: So he comes home and finds a man attacking his wife, and he's been taught to love everybody.
01:18:19: And so he doesn't know what to do. I love her. I love him. I love everybody equally. So I don't know what to do.
01:18:28: No, you blow the bad guy away. That's the good thing to do. You protect your wife for crying out loud because you love your wife in a way you do not love him.
01:18:37: Now, if I can do that, you're telling me God doesn't have that capacity to love the good more than the evil?
01:18:47: Seems like a very truncated God all of a sudden, doesn't it? That's what happens when you place
01:18:52: God's attributes and his nature in contradiction to one another, rather than allowing them to work together.
01:18:59: And seeing the expression of his love in the extension of undeserved grace to those who deserve his wrath and mercy.
01:19:08: That's what was so wrong about Geisler's thing. It wasn't the farmer staying on the side of the swimming pool, swimming hole, throwing a lifeline to one of the three boys.
01:19:20: That's why I said the entire analogy was wrong. It was the sovereign king who comes home to his castle and finds that rebels have taken it over.
01:19:31: They're burning it down. They're destroying everything in it. And the sovereign king extends mercy and grace by the sending of his son into that castle to save some of those rebel sinners.
01:19:46: He doesn't have to save any of them. They all do everything they can to kill the son. They do all they can to resist.
01:19:54: But God, in his power and his powerful grace, subdues the rebellion of so many of those rebels as the sand of the sea changes their hearts and turns them into obedient, loving subjects by freeing them from their bondage to sin.
01:20:22: But others, he leaves to their just judgment. All of his attributes are demonstrated.
01:20:30: That's a little bit better analogy than anything that's been offered. Again, as the
01:20:36: Calvinist sees it, God can choose to love or not to love some people. I totally disagree.
01:20:46: Totally disagree. I believe there's some... So there you go.
01:20:51: He totally disagrees. God has to love everyone in the exact same way.
01:20:58: God is incapable of doing what he has made his creatures do. Incapable.
01:21:05: There you go. It was just stated. You can understand it some other way, but it was just stated.
01:21:12: I believe there's some things God can't do. One of those is to fail to love. One of those is to fail to be perfectly loving.
01:21:18: He can't fail to be perfectly loving any more than he can lie. Look, you don't have to have children.
01:21:27: But if you do, you take it on obligation to love them if you're a good person. God's freedom was in the freedom to create or not.
01:21:34: He didn't have to create. But once having created as a necessarily good and... Now, you catch that?
01:21:40: Listen to what... God's freedom was in the choice to create.
01:21:45: Nowhere... Once he creates, he's stuck. He's stuck in the system. Listen to that again.
01:21:50: But if you do, you take it on obligation to love them if you're a good person. God's freedom was in the freedom to create or not.
01:21:58: He didn't have to create. But once having created as a necessarily good and loving being, he cannot but love what he's created.
01:22:07: Love is not an option with God. It's not like God freely... Well, might love you, might not.
01:22:13: It's not a question of whether, you know, God chooses to do it. See, there's...
01:22:19: It's a fundamental objection. God has to try to save everyone equally or he can't try to save anyone at all.
01:22:30: Even using the terminology of try to save in the first place. I detest that terminology. And it's disgusting terminology.
01:22:36: And it's not the issue of what the Bible is talking about. But the fundamental objection is always the same.
01:22:44: They can try to make it sound fancier. But there's...
01:22:51: It doesn't work. What they cannot accept is a God who is free in the giving of his grace.
01:22:59: Grace has to be demanded. And I say to you, a grace that is demanded is not grace at all.
01:23:04: It's who he is. It's what he is in his eternal essential nature. He cannot fail to love.
01:23:10: And guess what? This isn't a weakness. It is a strength.
01:23:16: He cannot fail to love. Let's listen to all of it. What he's saying is he cannot fail to love redemptively.
01:23:23: Therefore, there can't be election. Because if God's loving redemptively results in redemption itself, then you have to be a universalist.
01:23:32: And I think, even though he's written in defense of some kind of wishy -washy
01:23:40: Protestant concept of purgatory, I think he does recognize that universalism is not true.
01:23:50: And therefore, God's loving someone redemptively cannot, in and of itself, result in redemption taking place.
01:24:04: You see? That's what happens when you embrace the fundamental assumptions of the system.
01:24:17: You know what? I got this little granddaughter named Madeline.
01:24:22: Adorable little girl. I don't believe I'm capable of strangling her.
01:24:28: I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm right about that. I don't believe I can strangle her. But guess what? That isn't a weakness.
01:24:36: And I have a beautiful little granddaughter named Clementine. And no, I could never strangle her either.
01:24:41: But trying to project that kind of thing onto God is absurd from a biblical perspective.
01:24:50: I mean, think about what that means. This is why Arminians end up throwing the
01:24:57: Old Testament out the window. God couldn't have struck the firstborn dead.
01:25:05: All those innocent, I mean, they were little babies. God couldn't have done... And the sons of Aaron.
01:25:11: It just must be a myth. And Uzzah, no, he'd never do that. Not my God. Philosophy and man versus biblical revelation.
01:25:23: It's being illustrated right in front of us. It's not a weakness that I couldn't strangle my granddaughter.
01:25:31: It's not a weakness to be incapable of doing anything but love.
01:25:36: It's a strength. It's the greatest strength. It's the greatest power of all. It's what God is in His eternal nature.
01:25:42: And I close with this. Dennis Kinlaw, great
01:25:48: West End Old Testament scholar. And this is the point I made earlier. And he's one of the people that taught me this point.
01:25:57: That God is Lord over His creation is clear. But a prior figure used in Scripture demonstrates the character of God's kingship.
01:26:05: What is His kingship? How would a loving God express His sovereignty? That's the question, you see.
01:26:11: Okay? A prior figure is used to demonstrate the character of God's kingship, the character of His sovereignty, the character of His lordship.
01:26:18: Before God was king, He was Father. All right, I think he just sort of got out of order on his slides there and had already made this point and was now reading that.
01:26:26: And this is 1 .02 .14 out of 1 .03
01:26:32: .54. So I did not play 1 minute and 40 seconds because we are pretty much out of time on the program today.
01:26:40: But we hopefully did fairly respond to the entirety of the presentation.
01:26:47: It got a little rough there toward the end because once you start making the application, that's really where the rubber meets the road.
01:26:54: But what we will do next time on Radio Free Geneva, as I said, we do want to listen to the
01:27:00: Calvinism dialogue. And basically, the real problem with the Calvinism dialogue was it really wasn't about the real issues of Calvinism.
01:27:09: And that's the problem, and that's what we need to get into. So thanks for listening to The Dividing Line today,
01:27:16: Radio Free Geneva without the Radio Free Geneva theme. But we're working on getting it back.
01:27:21: Don't worry. Someday you will once again get to hear Ergin Kanner screaming about standing on his hands.