Answering Objections to Calvinism with (Chris Date)

Introduction to the Episode and Upcoming Guests

All right, we are live for another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Elias Ayala and today I have a guest with me Chris Date. Who will be helping me answer some objections to Calvinism. We're gonna address the issue of Calvinism and popular objections to it.

Chris Date is a great guy. He knows his stuff and I'm looking forward to Interacting with him a little bit and learning how how one might defend the Reformed faith from common Objections. So before we begin that I just want to make a few announcements.

Nothing set in stone, but I have a couple of upcoming guests. I have Dr. James Anderson from Reformed Theological Seminary hopefully we can solidify the date in March to talk a little bit about transcendental arguments and I will definitely keep people posted on that as well.

And I also have just Secured Sean Cole if anyone's familiar with Sean Cole, he is a Reformed pastor. He's debated the likes of latent flowers, and I believe there was an interaction with him and Braxton Hunter over at Trinity Bible College and So we have a couple of Interesting guests coming up.

Sam Shamoon as well. Who's also known as the Assyrian Cyclopedia where we'll be having him on at a later date to discuss defenses of the Trinity and Responses to Islam. So once those dates are solidified, I'll definitely be sure to post that on my Facebook page revealed apologetics.

But until then if you just want to listen to the episodes that we've done so far. Check out my podcast revealed apologetics on iTunes. And of course you can subscribe to the YouTube page as well. All right.

Chris Date on Conditional Immortality and Rethinking Hell

Well all that out of the way. We have Chris date here now if those of you who know Chris date from other areas of theology. He is a very controversial person especially in regards to his views on Hell, so why don't you?

Share a little bit about what you're doing in that area. We don't have to go into great detail. But why don't you share with folks a little bit about why you're so controversial in these other areas yet?

Very interesting topics to discuss what's going on there?

Yeah, so I'm part of a ministry called rethinking hell. I'm also sort of the leading the spearhead of a movement of Evangelicals who've become convinced that the Bible teaches conditional immortality or annihilation as I'm rather than the traditional view of hell and I suppose what's controversial is well other than the fact that the view is such a minority of the Christian thought on the topic for at least the past 1 ,500 years, but also because I'm not I don't fit what a lot of critics of annihilation as I'm a conditionalism think Is true of people who hold to our view so I'm not.

I'm not liberal. I'm not progressive. I'm not emergent. I'm none of those things. I'm Very conservative. I'm a five-point Calvinist. I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and I think that there's nothing more reformed nothing more Conservative nothing more evangelical that a Christian can do besides accept what the Bible says about hell, which isn't the traditional view.

So Yeah, I mean in a nutshell, that's what I do. And so as part of rethinking hell, we you know, we publish we publish a couple of books. I publish journal articles. We do an annual conference. In fact, we've got another one coming up our seventh in November of this year.

Up in my neck of the woods up here in the Seattle area. And if people want to find out more about that They can go to rethinking hell conference comm and I do a weekly YouTube livestream Mondays at 6 p .m Pacific which people can find at youtube .com slash rethinking hell.

So yeah, those kinds of things. That's that's that's where my work is in that area. All right, and.

Reformed Identity, Backstory, and Calvinism Defined

Again I know there are a lot of especially within the reformed community at least within the popular Echelons of the reformed community there are people are very quick to condemn Others for being associated with others who don't hold to the traditional views.

I am a reformed Christian I I don't hold to your view on hell, but then again Then again, it's not an area that I have. That I have looked into very much and so if we're going to be true reformers and we're going to hold to the principle of sep semper refer Manda we need to be willing to reevaluate some of our traditional beliefs and to See them in light of Scripture and be able to defend those positions Biblically if we find that there are certain views that we've held to for a long time and we're unable to Defend biblically then we should we should consider that as well.

So so just because we don't agree in those areas doesn't mean that there is not any value in anything else. You have to say because you are a bright guy and I do appreciate the spirit with which you engage in Dialogues and debates and things like that and I think there's something there for for everyone to learn.

Thank you. Well, thank you for coming on now. How long have you been a Calvinist? Well, why don't you first of all, why don't you define for us your definition of a Calvinist and then explain? How long you've been a Calvinist and maybe tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Yeah, so when I Hear and use the word Calvinist. I think of somebody who affirms at least Four out of the five so-called points of Calvinism. You know. So those who self-identify as four-point Calvinists would affirm total depravity Unconditional election irresistible grace and perseverance of the Saints the the to it of tulip.

And then the those of us who are consistent Calvinists would say that we would affirm the L as well the limited atonement which is a bit of a Unfortunate way of phrasing it. We don't think that Christ's Atoning work is limited in any sense of the word.

We think it's particular. We think it's it's scope is restricted to the elect. But anyway, so that's what I Mean when I say I'm a Calvinist that I affirm all five points. I do think though that Calvinists generally or at least many of us I suppose I should say we affirm many or all of those five points because of a First point that we affirm even before we affirm tulip.

Which is the sovereignty of God by which we mean something like meticulous providence of God. So I don't believe that God simply Knows all things that are going to take place in time. I think that he for ordains every single detail that takes place in time and I think it's that for ordination of God that meticulous for ordination of God that makes it even Make sense for us to pray that you know If we're if we're trapped in a ravine after a car crash out in the middle of nowhere.

It makes little sense to pray for God to rescue us if we don't believe that he can orchestrate Events myriad minutiae of events in order to Get you know somebody driving an ambulance or to show up or somebody driving a car to come by and make a phone call to the You know to emergency services the point being meticulous providence means We believe that God actually Can answer our prayers in ways that I don't think people who deny it cannot.

But anyway, so so when I still talk about Calvin is I'm talking about people who affirm those four or five points and preferably even the meticulous providence of God. Now, how did I get to that point?

Um, I Began my Christian walk when I was 20 or 21 years old and having been an atheist and being a part of sort of You know the individualistic Freedom loving West I began my Christian walk as a standard non Calvinist.

And early on in my faith, I became friends with somebody who would become my disciple or my mentor my best friend. He remains my best friend to this day and he challenged me on Calvinism and and at first I fought it tooth and nail it.

It wasn't that it sounded unjust to me or anything. Like I just can't relate to some of the arguments that we're probably going to be discussing today but one thing that really did irk me and and fear infuriate me was this was the notion that God might have chosen to save me but not have chosen to save my wife.

You know my wife and I by this point had been married a few years. I was a Christian. She was not yet because we've been married as atheists and I was like, you know How dare God choose me and not my wife, you know, I was just I was really upset about it, but at some point.

Well, so far so he challenged me from the biblical data and I had no good response but I still fought it until the thought occurred to me that There's nobody I would rather My wife's eternal destiny no one whose hands I would rather my wife's eternal destiny be in than God's.

I would much rather God be the one who ultimately determines whether my wife will be saved rather than her because if it were up To us, I think none of us would choose to be saved and I include my wife in that list in that list.

So when when I was able then to see not only how the biblical data supported this view, but also how much more Confidence it meant I could have in whether or not my wife would be saved and whether that would be appropriate etc you know when I when I realized that I Stopped fighting tooth and nail and I embraced it and I've been a Calvinist ever since in fact I've even published a two views debate book on two parts of Calvinism, you know, the meticulous Providence and unconditional election.

And it's funny incidentally that you mentioned Sam schmoon because he I cite him in my Debate book. Oh, actually, sorry. That's a different debate book. That's a debate book. I've got coming out with Dale Tuggy a Unitarian.

But anyway, I'm rambling now. Hopefully that answers your question in a roundabout sort of way. Well, no, no, that's good.

And I think it's very important for people to understand people's Backstories because people don't just come to beliefs just willy-nilly. I mean you do have you do have people who will affirm a theological position because it is popular.

Or they are associated with a particular denomination that they want to make sure they're in line with. Maybe because of leadership Positions and things like that. I mean, so I think it's very helpful to see What is the background story as to what brings people to the things they believe.

And of course no doubt you have A vast array of biblical support as to why you hold to the positions that you do. We have Tyler Vela asking you a question if you don't mind. He says Eli, how can Chris affirm the man-made theology of a murderer?

Hashtag Sir Vetus? That's just a fun poke at Chris. I hope you don't mind that. And you don't have to answer that either.

No worries there so I'm just gonna say all of us believe something that really terrible people from history or people who've made terrible decisions in history have done. So I'm really no different than anybody else in that regard.

Boom take that Tyler.

All right, well you laid out basically what Calvinism is just by way of Vocabulary and definitions. There are a lot of people who make a big deal out of the equivocation between Calvinism and reform theology and there are some there's a broad stroke of what is included within reform tradition and so when people Equate Calvinism with reform theology you have these other groups within the umbrella of reformed saying hey, wait a minute.

You know, that's that's not fair. You know, you could be reformed and not a Calvinist. Would you equate reform theology with Calvinism or do you make certain distinctions that it includes a broader tradition there?

I think historically I've thought that all people who identify as reformed are in fact Calvinists. But I think I'm learning that that's not the case and I just don't know enough about The other streams within reformed theology to be able to speak in an informed way to those to those distinctions.

But yeah, I think we've. I think I've become convinced that you can't just simply equate the two reformed Calvinists are a subset evidently of people who hold the reform theology and I suppose it's even possible that there might be Calvinists who don't Affirm reform theology, although I don't know who that would be.

Calvinism, Objections, and the Question of Human Freedom

Okay, very good. All right. Well, so then let's just jump into the bulk of what I wanted to talk about. I mean I've entitled this this interview this kind of video answering objections to Calvinists. Calvinism.

Sorry and So really this is geared towards the average Calvinist I'm gonna be careful. I don't want to say reformed guy, you know. This is geared towards them. And I know there are a lot of texts upon Calvinism where many Calvinists are just at a loss.

They're not sure how to respond to Many of these objections and so I want to go through some popular objections. More specifically but in your opinion. At least in the popular level. What do you think is the most common objection you hear to Calvinism?

And then how might you kind of provide a response there?

Yeah, I think that the most common objections that I hear to Calvinism Is the notion that in our view human beings are somehow like puppets or robots or something like that that. That we somehow we don't have any any meaningful freedom or moral responsibility.

If God for ordains all that takes place in time or even if he just predestines who's going to believe. And how you would respond to that? I mean So there are a couple of things here that I think are worth noting.

First of all when when non Calvinist compare Human human beings to puppets or to robots in our view. They're using it. They're they're first of all using analogies that that flatten out The the reality of things and here's what I mean by that in our view God isn't on the same plane as us.

He's not in the same stream of time. He's not just one in a long call chain of causes and effects. He transcends us, you know the relationship I've often compared God and creation to is the relationship between an author and his and his novel, you know the entire story Inside an author's novel is right there in the hands of the author.

It's not like the author is in the timeline of the story and the author has Written the story and the author is not in some sort of cause and effect type chain. Causing the the characters in the story to do with it what they do.

He's he's for ordaining if you will that the characters in the story do exactly what they do. But if you were to ask that character, why did you do this or that? They're gonna tell you well because I Wanted to you know that that was what I wanted to do or that was the decision I thought was the best given all the all the factors involved that they wouldn't they wouldn't say I just I felt this inexplicable Pull, you know that caused me to do this or that, you know.

That's not that's not the relationship between God and creation. So, um, so I think the problem with the analogies is that it takes this this reality in which God is transcendent and human beings are imminent and These objections flatten that relationship and make God just another actor in time.

Once you get rid of this really facile objection or the view that in our view people are just like puppets and robots whose movements are being Caused by this chain of cause and effect in which God is a player once you move past that I think much of the objection vanishes especially if you consider that human beings unlike robots and puppets also have Consciousness and will and you know, you may not we wouldn't say it's a libertarian will.

But we would say that they're fundamentally different from puppets and robots in important ways. So, yeah, that would be the the most common objection I've heard is how can we how can you say? We're anything more than puppets or robots and the way that I just answered it.

That is how I would say it.

Now now when people hear Calvinism, they usually have this knee-jerk reaction and this question is then produced Oh, aren't you those guys who deny that we have free will? All right, so so let's clarify this.

When someone asks you as a Calvinist, do you believe in free will. How do you answer that?

I say yes, but I believe in a particular kind of free will or Formulation of free will you know that what most people I think when they use the phrase free will they mean even if they don't Haven't heard of this terminology.

They mean libertarian free will meaning they At any point in history when they chose X or Y They metaphysically could have chosen the alternative. In other words there was Nothing in time right then and there and nothing ultimate not not God not anything that determined it perfectly and you know Unreservedly.

Anyway, nothing that determines that you they would choose this or that thing. They genuinely could have chosen this or that thing and it's just a matter of which they choose but The form of free will that I believe in and that I suspect you believe in as well as what we'd call compatible Compatibilistic free will which is the notion that humans have a kind of freedom.

It's a kind of freedom with which we are imbued by God. But it's a freedom that is at the same time compatible with divine sovereignty with with divine providence and this. But but even that's really not where we get the word compatibilism from the word comes from the compatibility we think there is between that divine sovereignty that I just mentioned that meticulous for ordination of God and human responsibility.

So then the question becomes well, how could? How could those two things be compatible? How could somebody be truly morally responsible if God has foreordained that a person will do X or Y and There's simply no metaphysical Chance that the person could have done the other.

And and that's where I think the the emphasis is on this is this is what we as creatures want to do you know that the the common objection to this kind of free will is that Your people are being coerced or forced or something like that to do this or that thing.

But any I suspect that if on the final day if you and if we're right if you ask anybody Why they rejected Christ why they killed this person why they cheated on their spouse or whatever. They're gonna tell you well That's what I wanted to do or that was what I felt was the right thing to do given these know this or that circumstance.

So I think that all it takes for a human to be free in the sense that Enables them to be hold held morally responsible is they need to want to do what they do. Or they need to come to the conclusion that it's the the best of all possible things that they could do and that doesn't.

That is perfectly compatible with the idea that God foreordained it in the same way that Going back to my analogy of the author in a story if the author writes that some Protagonist and or some antagonist in his novel is going to murder somebody.

Yes, the murderer does it? In a sense because the author has written it but the author isn't Coercing the character or causing the character to do this or that as some sort of chain event of cause and event like I said so So I guess I think we have free will but I think it's creaturely free will it's it's the only the only one who has The kind of free will that I think most people have in mind when they talk about the word is God.

So, yeah, so now, okay, so people do what they desire to do. So I guess the pushback would be well. Why does one person desire to do what they do and another person desire to do what they want to do. Doesn't God on?

Calvinism. Create the desire so to speak the desire. The reason why the desire what they want to desire is because of God ultimately.

Ultimate cause of it. Sure, right.

So, how would you respond to someone who suggests that with you know? And in that suggestion there's the indication that God is somehow at fault as to why you desire to do what you do and act Upon those desires if that makes sense.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I just don't see the objection. And what I mean is I don't see any teeth in it, you know, um, we could say well gosh God's just God's causing that that desire and So he's at fault or or or the person still can't be excused or can be excused it because God is the one who's ultimately Causing those desires, but I don't think that's true.

You know, even when somebody you know when somebody gets drunk, let's say and The end while inebriated they do something terrible like run somebody over that person isn't only morally responsible for the choice to have gotten drunk.

They're also responsible for the choice. They made when their decision-making had been hindered by having gotten themselves drunk. So I don't I don't and that's obviously an imperfect analogy. But my point is is that we're not I don't think that our ultimate the ultimate source of our desires has to be our own personal free You know libertarian free will in order for us to be held morally responsible.

I think that you know in it going back to my analogy if if an antagonist if a serial killer in a book is Tried, you know in a trial. Nobody's gonna say Oh, well that that person should get off the hook because the author just made that made him do it, right?

That's why I keep referring to this this relationship this transcendent relationship between God and creation because I think that it nullifies a lot of these objections and as far as Does it does it?

Does it put the blame on God in some sort of sense that would make us question? God's goodness or or God's culpability and and here I would say that Number one we have biblical evidence that this is in fact The way things work, you know in in the book of Genesis, for example when Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers He tells them you what you did for evil or the the evil you meant for me God did it for good God meant it for good, you know.

And in the the same exact verb meant or intended or for ordained in fact everywhere the throughout the Old Testament that this word Translated evil or calamity or whatever is used in conjunction with this verb meaning to attend or to mean or whatever.

The verb means something like Design devise that kind of thing and here we have a one example among many I would argue where God Where it is both the human beings who intend evil and God who intends that evil both the human beings who devise that evil and God who does it?

So number one we have to wrestle and reckon with the fact that God does in fact for ordain evil desires in this way but secondly, I would say that Often what determines whether An act is righteous or not is the motives behind the right that the act and I think the one that I just offered from the book of Genesis is a good example both the both the humans and God are designing devising intending whatever this this evil calamity to be full.

Joseph, but what is the difference? Well, the text says That the difference is that God's intentions behind it were good. And I think that if we were to say that if a human being were to cause Somebody's desires to be this or that There's going to be sinful selfish intentions wrapped up in that but if it's God who's doing it I think that the motives may indeed be pure and and don't in any way make God culpable.

So going back to my analogy of the author and a story. I'm I'm a big believer that a big reason why God for ordains evil is So that we can emulate Aspects of God's character that we simply could not emulate if it hadn't been for the reality of evil and sin.

If it hadn't been for the reality of evil and sin, nobody could show mercy. Nobody could show grace or forgiveness. You know If there weren't suffering and evil in the world then there would be no opportunity to be like God in these ways to act like God in these ways and and so I think that God has told a profound story In which there is evil and sin and fall and redemption and forgiveness and grace.

He's telling he's told this story and Just like any compelling story. There's there's fall and there's redemption and God has written a story in that way so that we as creatures can Can act out certain characteristics of God that we wouldn't have been able to had we not had sin and evil in the world.

So you would say that God sinlessly preordains all the evil that occurs. That's right along with Pre-ordaining sinlessly everything that occurs. That's right exactly and so and so that there and and the fact that God has Pre-ordained all things is what gives the things that are actually pre-ordained Meaning and purpose such that there is no gratuitous event good or bad.

They're just not you know, there's always a purpose and a reasoning behind why these things occur. Mm-hmm.

Okay, in fact, I write about just that in my debate book. I open this. I open my opening statement in that debate book with the story of my wife's and my miscarriage. You know what what got us through that our miscarriage our most recent one.

Anyway, we had one before we were believers too. But what got us through it Was our trust that there was meaning and there was purpose in what in this terrible calamity that was befalling us. Which we couldn't have done if we didn't believe in Calvinism and meticulous providence and as it turns out we got a peek at what that purpose eventually proved to be because Several years later my wife my wife and I tell the story in the book my wife was in Scotland on a trip and she was on a train with her friend and they met this other couple there and they got to know them and they They found out over the course of their time for several days with this other couple that they had just lost their miscarried their first pregnancy.

The day before they left for this trip to Scotland and their trip was they were sad. They were depressed obviously grieving and yet my wife was able to minister to this other woman and her husband. Because she had lost children.

She had lost she had miscarried we both had miscarried and and so she was able to bring. She was able to help this other person to Experience some level of enjoyment of this trip with her husband that they've been planned despite the fact they just lost their child.

So I would say that yeah, exactly. The only way we can see meaning and purpose in in evil Is if we affirm this view of God and I think it's a much better view than if we just say God. Even though he could have stopped this or that gratuitous evil he lets it happen anyway for what Arminians will typically say is this grander purpose of Giving human beings libertarian free agency, right?

They'll say that the greater good. That God that motivates God to allow gratuitous evil to happen is libertarian freedom. But I think few of us are going to find that very consoling in the midst of pain and suffering and grieving.

On the other hand if we believe that that pain and that grieving and that suffering is Inherently purposeful because God has foreordained it. That's a much more.

Comforting and consoling view. All right. All right, and I and I what I enjoy about that answer and I suppose critics of Reform Theology or Calvinism Would probably have problems with and I'm thinking someone like Layton Flowers great guy.

But I mean he is never shy to share his his dislike for Calvinism as a system. Although admittedly he does like Calvinists. There is a very strong pastoral aspect to all of this on the one hand we can talk very abstractly and very philosophical and theologically About these issues, but when you boil down to kind of the real life, you know rubber hits the road situation.

These things have profound indications for us at a personal level. And I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind and that's why I appreciate you giving the backstory. Because you've connected your theology with kind of the dirt of life.

You know, and I think that's a very helpful thing to to keep in mind. All right. Now before I get to my next question Is it would you be okay with answering some questions in the comments here? Okay. All right.

Atonement, Salvation, and the Timing of Redemption

So let's start up at the top here so Tyler Mentioned here. He says a tough question a good tough question I think posed against our view. Tyler's a Calvinist as well. Is that if Christ accomplished atonement on the cross does that mean we are saved from the cross or saved at conversion?

So I think it's this issue of when are we saved. Are we saved when Christ died on the cross or are we saved when? We believe.

Yeah, well, I mean I take at face value the biblical texts that say that we are saved by grace through faith. We are not. Salvation isn't experienced subjectively at the very least until we experience saving faith and by the way that's part of the reason not the only reason but it's part of the reason why I'm not one of these Calvinists who think that Infants and the un-evangelized and things like that are saved.

I think that salvation comes through by grace through faith. And so, you know, and so I've told people I know this is gonna sound really Hard-hearted or cold-hearted, but I don't expect to see my miscarried children in eternity because they didn't express saving faith.

But but anyway putting that aside. So that's the number one I take at face value the texts that say we're saved by grace through faith not saved by grace. By atonement and then we believe in it and so then the question becomes well then what is the relationship between the atonement and the Salvation and I think number one we can say that the atonement is what?

The atonement is the grounds by which we are saved by grace through faith. It's it's in other words It's it's because Christ has taken our place and suffered what we deserve or suffered. What was coming to us as a result of our sin and and because of that we can therefore be declared innocent He having borne the punishment or the fate that we suffer that we deserved In our place.

And number two I think we can say that it's the fact that Christ died for the elect that guarantees that God will bring about the conversion of that elect and so it's by virtue of what Christ did on the cross for me that That the Holy Spirit then regenerated of me Admittedly many thousand, you know a couple thousand years after the atonement was done.

But nevertheless it was on the basis of that atonement that I was converted By the Holy Spirit and it's the basis upon which having been converted. I am subsequently saved so I think it's just the difference between you know what it is that the what it is what is grounded by the work of Christ on the cross and when.

That which it grounds is applied if that.

Sure now you you did say something that was very quick and very perhaps shocking for people and we won't we won't concentrate on it. Because that's not the goal here, but just to give a heads up. You did mention your particular belief in regards to infants.

And that is a topic that is debated with. Right. I do not hold to that view, but I would Clarify that is your perspective and you I'm sure would be willing to defend that and that's a different discussion and debate for another day so I just wanted to throw that out there for people who might have like well, it was that what.

Yeah, wait a second. You know, I just wanted to throw that caveat. All right. We have another question here. Let me see if I can pop this up here. There we go. Does God choose us arbitrarily now I guess he's speaking in regards to election the idea of Predestination and election God chooses from before the foundation of the world.

Does God choose us arbitrarily. Like pulling names out of a hat. Yeah.

Well, the answer is no and and despite the fact that the answer to that question is no people like Layton flowers constantly throw this Word this objection around that somehow our view makes God arbitrary.

I love Layton and I don't mean any insult by it, but he's been refuted on this. You know before and yet I think he keeps pulling it out. So and here's and and this is the reason why Layton feels justified throwing around the word opera arbitrary it's because he thinks that one legitimate common use of the word arbitrary by people is No evident reason.

But simply if you don't know what the reason for a choice might have happened to be, you know. If if you see somebody make a choice and you just don't know what the reason could possibly be that means it was arbitrary.

And of course, we would say that in many cases. We don't know for what reason or in all cases We don't know for what reason God has chosen This or that elect person over this or that non elect person.

And and so Layton feels they're justified therefore and saying that yes in our view God's choice to save the elect is arbitrary. But I don't think that's a legitimate definition of the word arbitrary.

Arbitrary doesn't just mean that there's no Discernible reason. It means that there's no reason right? It's just It's drawing names out of a hat or flipping a coin or just eeny meeny miny moe. But we don't believe that that's how God works.

God God's reason for choosing this or that elect person isn't Based on something about or something some quality of. That this or that person and or what it is that they'll do that's what we believe that God's choice to save a person has absolutely nothing to do with who that person is what that person's character is.

What that person has done or might do or will do or anything like that? God's the basis upon which God makes his choice of whom to save is Entirely in himself and in his own will and his own purposes in his own desires and We often if not always cannot discern what that is, but that doesn't make it arbitrary.

Now there's one other thing that I'll just say and this is something I've been meaning to Develop into something like a paper. Hopefully one day but there's there's another reason why arbitrary isn't a good word to describe this choosing and that's because Arbitrary is typically a word that we use to describe when we just pick from Pick a certain subset of a pre-existent number of things.

So you've got a bunch of you know Objects on a table. They're already there in front of you. You put some of them push some of them left and some of them to the right and your choice. Which one's going to go on which side is arbitrary?

But I don't think that we would say as Calvinists that God takes a he creates humanity and then Having created humanity. He then Chooses some subset of humanity to be his elect. No, that's definitely not the view that we see in for example Romans 9 to 11 where the analogy is more like God.

God's very creation of the elect is The act of creating them for a purpose. And so now so let's let's go back to my attempted in an analogy and Layton always we Calvinists often give Layton Flack for using analogies.